Paper Mario

Nintendo £49.99 N64 ****
Yes, it may be saccharine sweet, with visuals that a seven-year-old would dismiss as too gaudy, but Paper Mario is a deep and satisfying role-playing game (RPG).

Starring the portly plumber - oddly enough, home repairs is one of the few activities Mario hasn't had a game based around - the adventure sees Mario, once again, trying to rescue the careless Princess Peach.

And, as usual, the evil, yet oddly camp Bowser is the bad guy. Unlike most RPGs, usually set in dark fantasy or sci-fi settings, Paper Mario has a charming graphical look. Every character is a 2D-cutout image that flips rather than turns around, and being superimposed on to a quasi-3D environment gives the game a unique style. The main part of the game is the turn-based combat section that will be familiar to RPG veterans.

Each combatant takes their turn, either fighting or using an item. What starts off relatively simply, gets increasingly tactical, with players needing to choose carefully their action. Victory accrues points for Mario, which pushes him up a level and allows usage of more skills.

Button-pushing and timed responses help alleviate the necessarily repetitive fight ing. Throughout the game, Mario meets other characters that join his team and aid in the quest. Each has specific abilities, making it important to choose the right one at the right time (only one can join you in battle).

Enchanting visuals and atmosphere aside, Paper Mario is a fairly linear and standard experience. But it is all done with such charisma that both younger and older RPG fans will find themselves drawn in. The last N64 game is one of the best. (GH)

Time Crisis 2
PlayStation 2 £40 Namco/Sony ****
If you like playing Time Crisis 2 in the video arcades, you should enjoy the Play Station 2 version even more. The small-screen graphics are even better than the original, the action rolls forward at a tremendous pace, and the console levels match the arcade game pretty well. There are a few extras thrown in, too, including more cut scenes and three mini-games.

TC2 does not really have a story. What you get is a string of linked levels, each of which can be completed in a few minutes by ducking and shooting at the screen with your trusty plastic light gun. The enemy battalions are only cannon fodder, except for the bosses, who can take some time to kill.

So this is essentially a shooting game with no plot and no human interest, which you can learn in 10 minutes and finish during a playtime break. But what a blast! This is, after all, an arcade game, and the real tension comes from going for high scores against the clock.

There is a new, improved GunCon 2 gun for the PS2 version of the game, though you can play it perfectly well with the old G-Con 45. Still, it could be handy to have two guns.

There is a two-player mode that can be played on a split screen or using two consoles, while single players can try the double-gun mode, and blaze away with both hands.

The main thing against TC2 is that, because of the subject matter, you are supposed to be 15+ to play it. In theory, this should deprive the game of a prime section of its potential audience, but how many of them will pay any attention to that? (JS)

Atlantis III
PC £34.99 Cryo ***
There are few genres older than the adventure, and none in deeper danger of extinction. Even platform games can still be chart-toppers on some platforms, whereas with the exception of the Monkey Island saga, it is hard to recall even one adventure worth mentioning over the past five years. None the less, smaller publishers still seem committed to these towering monoliths, with both Myst 3 and now Atlantis III appearing within weeks of each other.

The Atlantis games, like everything from French developer Cryo, is gorgeous to look at - with majestic, panoramic graphics and a nice line in lip-syncing when the characters talk. The game concerns the continuing search for Atlantis, this time focusing on one Lara-esque heroine and the lone warrior who decides to help her across several continents and time zones.

In terms of gameplay, it is an equally familiar story, with action controlled by the mouse, and a supposedly user-friendly interface that changes functionality accord ing to the context. So when faced with a character, dialogue options will be highlighted, whereas elsewhere directions or inventory screens will be displayed. What none of these games has managed to overcome, however, is the sheer monotony of playing them.

The first problem (finding the entrance to a cave), for example, took me 20 minutes to solve as each click led me to another pointless location, some only containing two possible directions (onwards and back in the direction you came from), which raises the question of why they were there in the first place.

Likewise, the age-old problem of having to carry one object halfway round the map, just to click it on another "hot-spot" continues to date these games in the dark ages of computer entertainment. With realtime 3D engines that can handle these functions while maintaining a hectic pace, why would anyone want to bother with the ponderous stop/start gameplay that adventures now represent?

If you are patient, the game has puzzles galore and high production values. But time has moved on, and nobody buys a £1,500 computer for a glorified slide-show with occasional interaction. Unfortunately, Atlantis III seems to be lost in the same mists of time as its mythical subject. (MA)