Spurred on to greater efforts
Championship Manager 3 Season 00/01
PC £19.99 Sports Interactive/ Eidos Interactive *****
It was a great season in the Premiership with Tottenham Hotspur winning the 2000-01 title on goal difference from Liverpool, ahead of Chelsea and Southampton. But not so good for Bradford City, Manchester City and Charlton, who were relegated. It was even worse for England, who were thrashed by Finland, Greece and even Albania, and look like finishing bottom of Group 9.
The main problem is that Spurs's manager, my son James, can't take the England job. He has to go to school.
The Collyer brothers, creators of the long-running Championship Manager series, may be upset, too. They keep making CM more realistic (ie harder) and it may now be impossible to win the Champions League with Wycombe Wanderers. Even with Spurs you can't afford the players you want, and the ones you can afford won't sign. However, it is still possible to win the title first time out with skill and a couple of judicious buys (Misto, Solano), though I have yet to prove I can do it with Arsenal.
Suffice it to say that the new version of CM3, launched tomorrow, is an essential buy for the updated and re-rated squads and managers, and new rules. Also, managers can now respond to media stories, and the transfer system has been improved. Otherwise it plays almost exactly as before.
The new season's version also extends its geographical reach with 10 new leagues, including Australia, Greece, Poland and Turkey. The game now includes about 50,000 players in 26 leagues, though you can also play with random, fictional squads if you fancy the challenge. Since half the fun is beating Manchester United, Barcelona or Juventus on their own turf, however, not many people will bother.
Apple Macintosh users will not have long to wait before they can join in too. The Mac version of CM 00/01 will be published by Feral on November 10. (JS)
This Blairs no resemblance to the film
Blair Witch Vol 1: Rustin Parr
PC CD-rom £19.99 Terminal Reality/ Take 2 Interactive ***
The witching hour is truly upon us. Not only is The Blair Witch Project coming out on video, but Blair Witch 2 is preparing to darken our cinema screens, and as an eerie coup de grace the first of (at least) three Blair Witch games is about to hit the shelves.
Mind you, the connection between this game and the doomed documentary-making trio is a shaky one. You see, Rustin Parr is not just the first Blair Witch game; it also marks the second adventure for Spookhouse, a team of government-sanctioned paranormal investigators who made their debut in 1999's Nocturne.
The tie-in? The Nocturners are investigating the crime that kicked off the Burkitsville witch-hunt - the murder of six children by local hermit Rustin Parr. Spookhouse suspects something more sinister than a case of cabin fever, and dispatches boringly gorgeous agent Doc Holliday to investigate.
What follows is only tenuously in keeping with the Blair story. Zombies? Vampires? Spectral proximity sensors? But it is every bit as scary. Atmospheric environments, superbly effective lighting and a slick graphics engine add up to a visual fright on a par with a headlong dive into Noel Gallagher's eyebrows.
Fortunately, our foxy doc has a of knapsack full of knick-knacks to help her complete her quest: pistol, rifle, energy weapon, compass, sensors, flashlight and night goggles.
Gameplaywise, Blair Witch is unashamed in its cannibalisation of dead third-person adventures. The programmers have clearly spent plenty of time playing Resident Evil, and there's an even stronger odour of those pioneering point-and-click horror titles, Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight. Unsurprisingly, BW:RP suffers from similar drawbacks: linearity, low replayability, self-determining cameras and cramped little spaces that mean the bad guys are on top of you the second you enter a new area.
But if there are flaws in the design, there are none in the execution. It looks simply sumptuous, and is positively suppurating with detail: Holliday's jacket sways as she walks, leaves on the forest floor stir in her wake, and stakes that have been used to dispatch undead drip ghoulish splotches of blood. If only it weren't so damned hard to play with mummy holding your hand. (AB)
Star guest at the plumber's ball
Mario Party 2
N64 £44.99 Nintendo ***
While ostensibly a plumber, Mario has turned his hand to many things in the past 18 years or so. From kart racer to tennis and golf pro, Mario has had a varied career, with his latest release continuing that trend.
Mario Party 2 is a strictly multiplayer affair that uses a board-game setting as an excuse for a multitude of mini-games.
There are 64 of these ranging from simple button bashers to rhythmic workouts, and depending on where you land you could be jostling for coins with up to three other players. The only things each game has in common are lashings of Japanese imagination and a tendency to cause arguments among your human opponents. Despite veering towards the juvenile end of twee, Mario Party has a charm all of its own. Most notably in its colourful visuals that help add to the often anarchic proceedings.
Like most Nintendo games, the childish graphics mask a tough challenge, with some tidy skills needed to prevail. Of course, as with every party, there's a hangover close by.
In Mario's case the basic game structure means that even the shortest possible permutation takes at least 30 minutes, with a full turn of 50 rounds taking hours.
Also any loners would be best advised to seek alternative entertainment - the sober computerised competition means Mario Party 2 is simply not worth playing on your own. But while we wait for Mario to return to what he does best - rescue princesses, consume red mushrooms, that kind of thing - this will do nicely. (GH)
