Midnight Club 2
PlayStation 2, £39.99 Rockstar/Take Two, ****
As the name of the developers suggests, Rockstar produces games for grown-ups. The masterful Grand Theft Auto series is a case in point, although it's best to forget the dire State of Emergency. Thankfully, Midnight Club 2 takes its influences from the former to produce a driving game that adds some welcome variety to the hackneyed genre. Rather than straightforward racing, Midnight Club 2 lets you drive around town looking for opponents. Find one, flash your headlights and a challenge is accepted.
What follows is a gripping race through urban environments as you battle for bragging rights. The cars handle totally unrealistically, perfect for this kind of game. Speeding off jumps, racing on two wheels and nitro bursts are more important than perfecting the racing line. That's not to say driving skills aren't necessary. Your opponents are devious, often using short cuts and aggressive tactics. But, crucially, they are fallible, often getting caught in traffic. This AI mix makes for exciting races with enough incentive to keep coming back.
Start winning and you can begin upgrading your mean machine. But rather than the dour realism of the Gran Turismo series, the upgrades here include Two Wheel Driving and Slip Stream Turbo. Progress further in the game and new, sexier, cars become available, as well as motorbikes. Sadly, the graphics are merely average, while the speed and confusing city layouts mean squinting at the map takes up too much time. But with its cracking multiplayer and refreshing slant, Midnight Club 2 is another Rockstar game worth worshipping.
Greg Howson
Pokemon Sapphire
Game Boy Advance, £29.99 Nintendo, ****
The Pokemon phenomenon has received plenty of brickbats for causing playground ructions and interfering with schoolwork, but it rumbles on regardless. Pokemon Sapphire is the second version of Pokemon specifically designed for the Game Boy Advance (after Pokemon Ruby), and, as was the case for its predecessors, it is such a beguiling playable game that one feels compelled to sing its praises.
New features - typically for any Pokemon iteration - are few, although the ability to perform two-on-two battles further enhances the game's considerable tactical depth, and the chance to turn wild berries into revivifying Poke Blocks lessens your reliance on purchasing healing potions. With Pokemon Sapphire, Nintendo has concentrated on the storyline (which is cute, but never syrupy) to such an extent that it rivals the Zelda games for depth.
As ever, you wander around a surprisingly extensive and varied world, bottling up wild Pokemon in Poke Balls, fighting other Pokemon Trainers, building up your Pokemon, acquiring badges and performing all manner of missions for a variety of characters. One aspect of Pokemon games that is rarely mentioned is that they try to be educational - wander around a shipyard, for example, and you are told all sorts of basic facts about shipbuilding. The environments are as rich as the real world, too - cities, for example, have markets, museums and the like.
The game's sheer addictiveness has been well documented, however, and we would defy even the most hardened cynic to resist its deceptively simple gameplay. Pokemon remains unassailable in pure gaming terms.
Steve Boxer
Rise of Nations
PC, £29.99 Big Huge Games/Microsoft, *****
After Age of Mythology, Age of Empires and Impossible Creatures, Microsoft clearly has a thing for realtime strategy. Nevertheless, at first glance, Rise of Nations looks like a step backwards. To say the graphics are dated understates just how small and fiddly they are - an early impression that takes time to dispel.
For a while, it seems the developers are compensating for ropey visuals by throwing in enough micromanagement to make your head spin. Rise is a game you have to learn before you can truly start enjoying it. However, after a couple of hours everything clicks into place and it becomes a bottomless pit of gameplay.
Rise is the natural successor to Sid Meier's seminal Civilization, a classic concept in urgent need of updating. Making the action real time, rather than turn-based, works well enough, although the strict time limit on most missions feels artificial, and poor path-finding will see your troops charging off to certain death if you don't watch them constantly.
However, warfare is only one aspect of the game. For example, the Conquer the World campaign allows you to choose which of 18 nations you wish to control for the next 2,000+ years while you plot world domination. Your reward could be resources, access to trade routes or even resource cards - which can be played before each battle to increase various aspects of your performance. Consequently, each game is a different tactical experience, giving it considerable replay value.
If you like strategy games, this is a fusion of all the best innovations so far. Just be grateful that looks aren't everything.
Mike Anderiesz
