Fins ain't what they used to be
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Sega Dreamcast £39.99 Appaloosa/Sega
According to Douglas Adams, the dolphins sensibly abandoned Earth just before it was due to be demolished, pausing only to thank us for all the fish.
But in this game's introduction, splendidly narrated by Tom Baker, dolphins and humans are fighting together against a race of belligerent aliens called the Foe, and it's up to a young dolphin called Ecco to save the world.
This really is a beautiful-looking game. Ecco himself splashes, swims, turns and rolls in gorgeously smooth animations, and his watery 3D environments range from crystalline coral bays to Egyptian-techno-themed subaquatic buildings in Atlantis and breathtaking, shimmering tunnels of water looping in mid-air above a lush green atoll. There is even a 2D level, providing a nostalgic throwback to Ecco's heyday on Sega's MegaDrive.
The first half an hour with the game is spent pleasurably learning Ecco's simple controls, and happily speeding around and somersaulting out of the sea. But the game quickly becomes very difficult, and its deliberate trickiness is exacerbated by two serious design flaws.
First, while it is "realistic" to use a short draw distance underwater, so that you cannot see very far into the murky depths, this means that every new level requires lots of aimless swimming around until you have learned its topography by heart (there is no map). Second, the 3D camera fails to give you enough information to avoid the sharks that swim up behind Ecco, causing him to emit an extremely annoying yelp every time.
What is more, the puzzles are abstruse, there are too many Tomb Raider-style sections requiring you to drown for lack of air several times before finding the correct way through, and some serious glitches mean Ecco gets stuck in seabed polygons. Visually delicious though Ecco the Dolphin is, as a game, it just won't float. (SP)
Fun with giant killer robots
Metal Fatigue
Zono/Psygnosis/ Take 2 Interactive
£34.99 PC CD-rom
It would not be entirely fair to call Metal Fatigue a slavish copy of Command & Conquer. No, Metal Fatigue is more like the result of a man wearing earmuffs overhearing a drunken conversation about Command & Conquer in a particularly noisy pub.
The similarities are there for all to see. It's a real-time strategy game with an isometric view which involves base building, resource management, and churning out increasingly powerful military units. There's fog of war, waypoint movement, patrolling, CGI and cinematic cut sequences... even the hotkeys for grouping units and bookmarking camera views are virtually identical.
The differences become more apparent the longer you play. First, instead of two warring factions, there are three; and instead of managing the action in one field of play, you have to keep track of three battle zones simultaneously (surface, upper atmosphere, underground). The view is rather more flexible, too; you can rotate, change the angle of inclination, and to a limited extent zoom in and out.
Metal Fatigue's trump card, though, is its armoury. While the basic units are the same -tanks, gun turrets, fighters, bombers, slow but devastating artillery - the key forces here are giant killer robots with customisable body parts (Combots). Thus, you can equip your tin Titans with missile legs and jetpack torso, or go for the howitzer torso and the blade fist arm.
Watching these behemoths stomp around the landscape is really quite a gas. Forget C&C's mammoth tank - a couple of Combots can take out an entire base by themselves (assuming the enemy doesn't have any, that is). And they look pretty nifty doing it, too.
The Combots have only one drawback: they can't go underground. So while you're rampaging over the surface level and making it your own, Mr Computer is busy fortifying himself down below, where only puny tanks can go. Add to this the fact that the enemy AI can set up a new base at the drop of a hat, and seems able to churn out tanks faster than Carol Vorderman can count, and the total victory that is necessary to complete most missions suddenly looks a long way off.
One of the complaints about the earlier Command & Conquer games was that too many of the missions ended up being a mindless slog. That's as may be, but I bet no C&C player had to destroy more than 1,000 enemy troops to complete a single mission early in the game.
Even if the snort of gunfire and the crunch of exploding hardware are music to your ears, they'll sound like Barry Manilow by the time you're done with this. (AB)
The genteel side of gaming
Open Tennis 2000
Cryo Interactive £ 34.99 PC CD-rom
In among all the Euro 2000 coverage you could be forgiven for forgetting that Wimbledon is almost upon us.
This annual two-week flirtation with tennis is undoubtedly the optimum time to release a racket sim and Open Tennis 2000 is the first on court. The French developer Cryo is better known for point 'n' click adventures but Open Tennis 2000 is a surprisingly playable sports title.
This is mainly down to the intuitive control method that allows you to whip the ball around while the PC takes care of most of your player movement. The emphasis on placing shots means the game is incredibly easy to pick up though longevity doubts persist with even the hardest skill levels conquered quite quickly. You do get more characters when you win but it looks like multiplayer is the main reason you'll be playing after Wimbledon fortnight.
Unfortunately you won't be able to recreate any games from the tournament as Agassi and co are absent. However, you get 64 fictional characters to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, with the British players typically inconsistent. They also look the part with crisp animation that shows the players stroking the ball and racing to the net in a very convincing manner.
The use of French umpires for all the games, including Wimbledon and the US Open, does partially spoil the otherwise authentic atmosphere, but on the whole the game captures the genteel mood perfectly.
Bar Henman triumphing at Wimbledon, Open Tennis 2000 is set to be the biggest surprise of the tournament. (GH)
