Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne
PC, £19.99 Blizzard ****
Warcraft 3 was released last year, pleasantly surprising those who did not believe that developer Blizzard could repeat the phenomenal success of Warcraft 1 & 2, Diablo or Starcraft.
As it turned out, it was a triumph of good storytelling and careful playtesting - paving the way for an inevitable sequel and, in the meantime, this mission pack.
The Frozen Throne weaves its way through four campaigns using each of the available races and heroes. The story is well constructed and told.
Don't expect any dramatic surprises in gameplay, though. This is still basic real-time strategy fare: build villages, mine resources and overpower the enemy by any means possible. W3's big innovation was hero units with special magical powers and, naturally, they return in force, making for massive pyrotechnic battles over 26 well-designed levels.
As with most mission packs, however, the faults of the original have not been addressed. The problem with hero units is that most of their powers have to be triggered manually, and doing this in the heat of battle with dozens of units rushing back and forth is nearly impossible. Your basic soldiers, meanwhile, remain poor tacticians. Despite this, the Frozen Throne is a quality add-on to a great game.
Mike Anderiesz
Gothic II
PC, £29.99 Atari/Piranha Bytes, ****
Gothic II might sound like the type of game for young women in black spidery dresses with eyes like two crows crashed into a snow bank but, in fact, it is a good old role playing game in the finest tradition. Although it wasn't one of the big hitters, with rather ropey graphics, the original Gothic created a keen fan base because the storyline and gameplay were very strong.
The Gothic II storyline picks up from a few weeks after the finish of the last game, when your character was certain to meet its end under a pile of rubble. But, thankfully, your mentor, Xardas, rescued you from certain death, only for you to wake up and find the world still in turmoil. You have to sort it out.
The engine has been polished since the original game and the world is five times as big. That is one of the big plus points about Gothic II - like Morrowind and Arx Fatalis, it takes place in a huge world, full of rich scenery and detail.
The developers have taken the risky decision of voicing a great deal of the dialogue, rather than bombarding players with reams of text. These are hit and miss, with some voices sounding spot-on and others sound ing as convincingly medieval as Ali G. If you can cope with that, then you will find that there are great adventures to be had in Gothic II.
Rhianna Pratchett
Le Tour de France: Centenary Edition
Konami, £29.99 PlayStation 2,**
Perfect Ace: Pro Tournament Tennis
Oxygen, £29.99 PlayStation 2 *
Both Le Tour de France: Centenary Edition and Perfect Ace offer little incentive to stay indoors. The former is the more interesting and is based on the famous cycle race.
Your challenge is to spend time training your rider before races. There is an interesting balance of button bashing and strategy needed to guide your cyclist around the courses, with pacing and placement more important than brute force. Featuring a wealth of stats and detailed info on racing routes, Le Tour will certainly interest bike geeks.
Sadly, gamers will be less enthralled. Strategy aside, the controls are unforgiving, especially when going around corners. Your opponents, too, are mindless automatons, following the same preset routes. Cycling on a videogame just isn't fun.
However, tennis can be. From Pong to Virtua Tennis 2, the simplicity of the sport has made it well suited to gaming. Unfortunately, Perfect Ace serves anything but. The lack of official tournaments and the below-par graphics could be excused if the game itself was any good, but this is tennis made ridiculously easy.
Reaching and returning the ball involves little skill and there is hardly any scope for improving technique and trying new shots. Sure, the unchallenging gameplay is fine for a few minutes, but if you want to play a decent game of tennis, leave well alone.
Like Tour de France, Perfect Ace is a mediocre summer sports game. Roll on the footy season.
