Madgrad's Weekly Column

First things first. I just got the latest PC Gamer, and boy have I had a blast with the demos. First, I installed Mechwarrior 3, and I was very surprised. For those of you who don't know, the Mechwarrior series is now being developed by Microprose, not Activision, so a whole new programming team is working on the game. Needless to say, I had my concerns about the change of hands. Well, I shouldn't have been concerned at all. The demo lets you jump right in to an "Instant Action" mode where the goal is to take out as many enemy mechs as you can before they can your @ss. You can chose from 3 different Mechs, which are new classes too. I outfitted mine with a weapons config that I loved in Mechwarrior 2: Two sets of Long Range Missles, and 10 Machine guns. Since I wanted to see what this baby could do, I did kinda cheat, and gave myself unlimited ammo. Well, when the game itself started my jaw dropped. Everything is presented in an incredible amount of detail. The mechs themselves push a ton of polygons, almost reaching a level akin to photrealism. My one complaint still centers around the environment itself. The problem is: Where the f*** is the grass?!? I men, the developers took the time to make true rolling hill terrain, moving water, sky, clouds, lightning, a housing development, trees, yet they couldn't include GRASS?!? I'm sorry, I was doing a valiant job of suspending disbelief until I noticed that there was no grass. Environmentally, M3 faces some tough competiton from Heavy Gear 2. Other than the lack of grass, the visuals were stunning. So, the game starts, my mech powers up, and I see blips on my radar. All of a sudden, before I can even do a torso twist, I'm being hit with beautiful lasers, and missles. That pissed me off. I linked my LRM launchers, fired, and was promptly blinded by the glare of the boosters on my missles. Yes, having 30 missles launch at once right in front of you is a bit blinding. The poor SOB that I hit never had a chance. and blew up. I then proceeded to link my MG and hunt another mech. Between me and the Mech was a housing development on the water. So, I decided to try and blow up the houses to get a clear shot. First, I didn't expect the noise to be so loud. Who would have though that 10 guns at once would be deafening? Once I got over the noise, I realized that the bullets basically shreded the building in front of me. I proceeded to spray the entire development, and was rewarded by a huge smoke cloud rolling up, and fire as far as the eye could see. The other mech was now in front of me, so I just held the trigger down and laughed. As the bullets hit, little sparks flew off his armor, and in no time, he exploded. But, the explosion was cool because it started internally, and blew out. The way the Mech crumpled down reminded me of the AT-Ats blowing up on Hoth. In the hours that followed, I tested all 3 mechs, with all of the weapons loaded out. All in all, I would say that M3 is almost a shoe in for Mech game of the year. Between the graphics, exception al control, enemy AI, and the shear joy of going around in giant mechs and blowing the crap out of everything, I was impressed.

I was not impressed by Kingpin. This game sucked @ss. Why? Well, everyone knows I love violent videogames. But this went too far. And I'm not just saying this in response to Columbine, I genuinely think that this game sucks toast. First, something in the engine went horribly wrong. Kingpin runs on the Quake 2 engine. Now, I have a horse of a PC, and I run Q2 at 800*600 with no problems at all. None. This game ran horribly at 640*480. Poor frame rate, choppy animation, LAG, it was all bad. And these weren't Unreal quality graphics folks. The damn game was so dark that I had to crank gamma adjustment up to max just to barely see where the hell I was going. Somehow, the frame rate came back to normal, and I started playing. My god! This game is just wrong. In order to buy any weapons, you have to have money. You take money off of the corpses of people, men AND women that you beat to death with a pipe as they run away or beg for mercy. If you talk to them, every word in MF this, or MF that. It sounded like the intro to "Scarface". Even when you get a gun, the game in no fun. The developers raved about how accurate the skins are: ie, shot someone in the head, a hole is seen in the head, nail a leg and they limp. They lied. I shot a guy in the head with a shotgun twice, and the holes appeared on his shirt. And no matter how many leg shots I made, no one ever limped. Quite simply, this is an inferior game that will attempt to sell based on the subject matter and it's violent hok. If you have any dignity, avoid this game. No because it is violent, but because the violence is unjustifed, and the game itself sucks.

That being said, I would like to make a comment to President Clinton. Recently he challenged movie makers to put less violence in movies. Okey, fair enough. Here is my challenge to you Mr President: Stop cheating on your wife and getting hummers from obese ugly chicks, and I'll stop watching violent movies. That's my promise.

And this is to Kambei: What the f*** where you thinking? Saying that Shining Force beat Vandal Hearts and FF Tactis? Okay, I'll give you VH. But nothin has touched FF Tactics. And then you said that FF7 was no where near as good as SF 1, 2, or 3? HELLO? Am I the only one who disagrees? The final insult was when you said that the DC could be the ultimate RPG system, even without Square? Lemme guess: You've preordered a DC and are trying to cost justify your decision? You can tell us, we won't laugh.

And BTW, "The Mummy" was great.