Spyro: Year of the Dragon
Sony PlayStation £29.99 Insomniac/Sony ****
Can't think what to give friends for Christmas? Problem solved. Insomniac's third and last Spyro game will appeal to players of all ages and sexes, and all skill levels. The only essentials are a PlayStation and a sense of humour.
And YOTD is not just a cute platform game, it's a compendium of great mini-games, ranging from a superb skateboard park - and a dragon pulling stunts is well worth seeing - to a pastiche of Quake. (Not so strange: Insomniac's first game was a shooter called Disruptor.)
It doesn't get five stars because the basic game is the same as it was in the first two Spyro titles. You play a small purple fire-breathing dragon, and you run, fly and swim around well-drawn 3D cartoon worlds collecting jewels and bashing bad guys.
Your task is to save about 150 eggs, each of which gives birth to a small Pokémon-type animated creature, which promptly disappears.
But you're not stuck with being Spyro forever. In one level in each world you play a different character such as Sheila (a kangaroo), Sergeant Byrd (a flying penguin), Bently (a yeti), and Agent 9 (a space monkey).
Although YOTD does not have the rich inventiveness of the Sonic and Super Mario series, the different characters and the wide range of mini-games provide a lot of variety.
Insomniac has also done a good job of making YOTD accessible to all-comers.
The opening level is instantly playable, and there are characters standing around to tell you which buttons to push if you get stuck.
The game also features an "auto challenge tuning" (ACT) system that is said to adjust the difficulty level to the player's expertise. The company says it means the game can provide a challenge for hardcore gamers without becoming unplayable by the rest of us. However, as a solo player, you can't tell whether ACT is doing anything or not.
The gameplay is great, the graphics are superb, the voice acting better than average, and the background tunes don't seem to get too annoying, which all adds up to an outstanding game.
The first Spyro title has now shifted about 4 million copies world wide, and YOTD deserves to do even better. (JS)
Tom & Jerry in House Trap
Sony PlayStation £19.99 Ubisoft ***
In the red corner: you know them, you love them, they are arguably the perfect videogame material - the ultra-violent cartoon cat and mouse, Tom and Jerry. In the blue corner: the depressing, time-honoured videogames dictum that All Merchandising Licences Are Dire.
So who wins? Boringly, neither. Things sure could have been worse: for a start, the delinquent duo have not been spuriously transplanted into a new milieu (although Tom & Jerry Racer and Kat & Mouse Kombat are doubtless in the pipeline). No, in House Trap, Tom and Jerry are firmly where they belong - in their house, using household implements to beat seven bells out of each other.
What's more, the game does a decent job of capturing the essence of the 40s toon (we do not, ah, mention the 60s remake). The visuals, the sound effects, even the chirpy music are within forgiving distance of the real deal.
Even better, the game itself is fun, frenetic and, blow me, mildly original. Playing on a split screen, you take the part of Jerry against the computer's Tom (in two-player mode, a friend takes Tom). The object is simple: use everything at your disposal (lawnmower, drawing pins, ironing board) to set traps for your opponent. If the traps fail, you can always pick up the nearest domestic item (bowling ball, goldfish bowl) and beat him over the head.
So much for the cheese. Now for the trap: sorely limited gameplay. The action stretches over just 15 rooms, most of which offer similarly superficial slapstick (face flattened by frying pan, face flattened by shovel, yada yada). The single-player campaign becomes repetitive long before the end, and even EastEnders fans will tire of the two-player option eventually. (A four-player option with Spike and the cute little duck on the other hand...)
All in all, House Trap is a good laugh, which, with just a little more inventiveness and variety, could have been a great one. Still, it's only £20. (AB)
Timesplitters
Sony PlayStation 2 £39.99 Eidos ***
The PlayStation 2, then. A new dawn of interactive entertainment, or just an overpriced DVD player?
Despite the machine's undoubted potential, the PS2's launch games haven't exactly set the world alight. Hasty franchise makeovers and cliched racing games do not a revolution make.
Perhaps the most interesting of the nascent titles is Timesplitters, a first-person shooter produced by some of the team responsible for the seminal Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.
But unlike the Bond classic, Timesplitters is a straightforward arcade blaster that dispatches any notion of storyline with a quick blast from its blunderbuss.
The plot, such as it is, merely sets the scene for some furious strafing, as you battle across some fast, if rather barren, landscapes. But, while the computer opponents display a devious amount of artificial intelligence (AI), Timesplitters is best played against humans, especially when showing signs of IS (inebriated stupidity).
Indeed, the multiplayer game, in all its guises - from deathmatch to capture the flag - is where the lack of plotline makes sense. Kill or be killed, move or die, Timesplitters is gaming in its most (im)pure form.
As you would expect from the developer's history, there are lots of extra bits to discover as you play through the game, with immense satisfaction gained from finding a new character or weapon.
So, plot or not, there is plenty to do. Of course, you could criticise the game for not taking itself too seriously, but that would be churlish. Timesplitters is cracking post-pub entertainment that is more likely to trouble your neighbours than your brain cells. (GH)
