-UNREAL- here is one hell of a good review........

It offers a better single-player experience than Quake or Quake II and is powered by one helluva serious 3D engine. Unreal is hands-down the most unique-looking shooter to come along in an extremely long time�if not ever. The environments are vast, varied, lush, and breathtaking. The textures are much larger and more detailed, colorful, and varied than those in Quake II, resulting in a much more interesting exploratory experience as you delve through the variety of levels�from dark, dank caves to huge outdoor settings with kaleidoscopes of bright colors.

The special effects this engine can produce are truly amazing. Water cascades and ripples; lights blend, pulsate, and shimmer realistically. And the reflective surfaces of some of the floors are jaw-dropping. Sure, it�s more of a �see what we can do� feature rather than one crucial to Unreal�s level design, but it looks pretty. There�s also per-pixel fogging in software and 3D acceleration that really lends itself to the atmosphere pervading most of the game. You�ll encounter this in the first level as you explore some foggy air-ducts, a game opening that really sets the mood.

The 3D sound effects are also amazing, particularly if you have an A3D-licensed card. The sounds of monsters� footsteps, engine hums, water dripping, waterfalls, bird cries, and gunshots change dramatically according to your position relative to them. On some of the more cavernous levels, you�ll find that sounds echo convincingly. The electronic music, however, pretty much sucks�I recommend you turn it off or throw in your own CD.

Why am I spouting off about Unreal�s technical merits before getting into its gameplay? Because Unreal�s technology is its most noteworthy element. When you get to the gameplay, Unreal is essentially of the same old find-your-way-to-the-next-level variety�it�s just a much more beautiful journey.

You�re cast as a prisoner aboard a prison transport ship that crashes on a mysterious planet. You awaken amid the ship�s rubble bruised, battered, and confused. Your first task is to find some medical attention, then find a way out of the ship, and eventually find a way off the planet.

It seems other ships have crashed on this planet as well, and a race of aliens known as the Skaarj have taken it upon themselves to reign supreme. Together with a host of alien baddies, the Skaarj are up to something�which includes the subjugation of the planet�s native residents, the Nali.

As you progress, you�ll spend most of your time roaming through spaceships and Nali gothic temples and villages. During your journeys, you�ll discover more information about the Skaarj and what they�re doing, the planet you�re on, and the Nali, via your handy-dandy Universal Translator (never leave home without one).

You�ll also find various weapons�10 in all�with which to combat the Skaarj and their minions. Each weapon has a secondary-fire feature that�s usually more powerful than the primary firing method but takes more time or ammo. For example, the primary-fire trigger on the 8-Ball Launcher fires standard rockets�up to six at a time depending on how long you hold the trigger. Its secondary-fire option launches grenades. Your standard weapon is the Dispersion pistol, and there are five power-ups that make it substantially more deadly.

The weapons are fairly well balanced and interesting in single-play, but Unreal�s baddies are even better. Where Quake II tries to overwhelm you with numbers, Unreal tries to overwhelm you with quality�there are fewer baddies, but they�re more detailed and tougher to kill. There�s been much hype around Steven Polge coding the AI (he created the Quake Reaper Bot), and the team claimed that fighting them would be like fighting human players. Well, not quite. But the Skaarj (and variants) do duck, strafe, roll, dodge, flank, and fire better than any enemy AI seen before in a shooter. They also patrol levels rather than staying put in the same spot. The Skaarj and their variants are by far the most interesting. The rest don�t pose much of a challenge�not even the massive Titan, who is awe-inspiring but not that difficult to defeat.

Unreal doesn�t redefine the genre, but it does have a look and atmosphere all its own, resulting in a compelling single-player experience. And it definitely has its great moments, like the tense one in Dark Arena when four doors slightly obscured by fog start opening. Emerging from behind one is a gargantuan Titan, slamming the ground to send you flying and hurling massive boulders at you. A few levels later, the Skaarj drop down from the Terran ship�s ceiling vents in numbers, intensifying that �me alone vs. the aliens� feeling. Other moments are equally impressive but more subtle: emerging from a claustrophobic hallway into an expansive, gorgeous Nali world with birds flying overhead and rabbits hopping around; the mooing of the Nali cows; the transporter portals on the Skaarj mothership.

Better story exposition and development (the ending was incredibly clich� and the game�s final confrontation lame), more scripted events, and more unique things to do would have elevated the game into truly unreal status. So would more attention to multiplay. Games run smoothly on a LAN, but not over the Internet. Few servers were up at the time of this writing, and playing on them is a lagfest of shameful proportions. Hopefully this�ll be improved in coming months via patches. It must, or Unreal will remain an also-ran in terms of multiplay.

The weapons are also serious underachievers in multiplay�it seems to take forever to kill your target. In addition to standard deathmatch multiplayer support, you get teamplay, King of the Hill, and co-op play, and there�s the option to play with and against bots�and they�re pretty challenging. If it weren�t for these customizable bots (which can be included in deathmatches), Unreal would be a complete bust in the multiplayer department.

Another boon�the game includes an unsupported beta version of the Unreal Level Editor (a full, retail version will be sold separately). This is by far the easiest 3D-level design tool I�ve encountered. No doubt it�ll spawn a healthy online community�provided Epic can iron out its bugs.

Unreal�s biggest hurdle by far is its meaty system requirements�this game had my P200 MMX machine with 64MB of RAM and a Canopus 6MB Voodoo accelerator gasping for breath like no other shooter before did. Dropping to 512-by-380 res (the max for a 4MB Voodoo card) and low-detail textures helped, but it still didn�t play completely smoothly.

If your PC has the muscle, you�ll get a lot of enjoyment out of Unreal. It isn�t the Second Coming, but it�s pretty damn good.

Never has a game's opening captured me so completely, and fortunately it isn't an isolated incident. Half-Life is full of those Great Gaming Moments, scenes and scenarios that, when first experienced, make you leap back from the screen, or scream, or sweat, or laugh. The Moments make Half-Life eminently replayable-not only am I ready to start the game over again from the beginning, but I found myself replaying certain scenarios dozens of times to try different approaches, watch the interactions to see what I'd missed or how they'd change, or just soak in the game's masterful scripting.

There is so much that's good and right about Half-Life, it's difficult to know where to begin. The entire game reeks of polish and professionalism-it feels like it really wasn't released til it was ready. The interface is a work of art. The plot is first-rate and unfolds at a magnificent pace. The vast, gorgeous levels are linear enough that you won't get lost, yet they still offer plenty of side areas to explore. The models and animations are beautiful. Your interactions with the environment and the people in it are believable.

And that's crucial because it helps create an unprecedented level of immersion. Rather than be pulled out of the game's world to get an update on your universal translator or what have you, others in that world give you information and instructions. You overhear things. You witness some incredible and horrifying atrocities. You, as Gordon Freeman, are asked to think, to solve, and, of course, to slay.

You won't have an easy time of it. Half-Life is challenging at its hardest level, yet it doesn't accomplish that by just throwing an inordinate amount of enemies at you. The monster AI is passable, and the marine AI is excellent-those squads behave more realistically and with more efficiency than those in Rainbow Six and Delta Force.

Even multiplay works well out of the box. I'm sure there will be patches to optimize it, but I had very playable games on my 56K modem, and I loved playing. You always have a chance to wax someone even when you have just your pistol-a couple head shots, and he's down. The multiplay levels are also well designed, and I loved the way they'd get more and more scarred by blood splotches, bullet holes, and explosions' charring effects.

If there's one failing, it's the disappointing space levels. While there are many minor "jump here, jump there" puzzles, they never felt so gratuitous as in those levels-I felt like I was playing Half-Life when a game of Mario 64 broke out.

But really, that's a minor criticism made just because I felt I had to temper my gushing somewhat. The game's superb ending more than makes up for a couple levels of hopping around, and overall, Half-Life is an incredibly original masterpiece in a sea of FPS clones.

Bo and Luke Duke go nineties in EA's Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, as fine a sequel as has ever come barreling down the pike. NFS II occupied dozens of evenings in our offices, and when we learned that NFS III would feature police pursuits, we were ecstatic.

The basics of gameplay are the same. You have your choice from thirteen souped-up supercars like the McLaren F1 and a Ford Mustang GT. There are eight road courses modeled from real-world stretches of road, in varying environments such as cities, mountain passes, and forests. The cars have individually tailored characteristics, the most prominently different ones being top speed, acceleration, durability, and handling, and the different environments present different hazards.

It's pretty much meat-and-potatoes arcade racing, which is just the way we like it. NFS III is the ultimate LAN racing game. Outmaneuvering opponents through tight turns is second in pleasure only to angling them off the road with well-timed bumps. Opposing cars flip and roll with blissful abandon, and in NFS III they actually explode sometimes, as well, which takes the unfortunate explodee even longer to recover from.

Night driving adds a nerve-wracking twist to the proceedings, as you switch to high beams just to try and find the road in the forest darkness. Weather effects really send the game into overdrive, particularly when accelerated via 3Dfx; the rain effects are the best I've yet seen in a 3D engine, with water on the blacktop being sprayed up in a mist behind the tires and splattering your windshiled just the way real cars do to you on the freeway. Your tires don't like weather, either, and the hydroplaning and fishtailing feels eerily true (not that I've hydroplaned or fishtailed much, whistle whistle) and with force-feedback support, there's a lot of sweating to do.

But the big MacGuffin, the real reason for sequel hoopla, is the addition of police pursuit. This option introduces tricked-out police cars that will be trying to shut down the joyride. Depending on the difficulty level (there are three), your headaches may include just a single patrol car, multiple cars coordinating speed traps, or even tire spikes stretched out on one lane of the road (this is flat-out rad; nothing beats the thrill of being chased by several smokeys and spotting those tire spikes up ahead, then swerving from the spikes and regaining control of your car). If you do get run down and pulled over, the ticketing process sidelines you for a while-usually long enough to make the race unwinnable as your opponents blow by you.

If you want, you can even take the wheel of the police pursuers and go about shutting down the fun. The most engaging multiplayer configuration for NFS III is to get about six guys into the race and then have everyone rotate turns as a police car. While he tries to shut down the race, everyone else goes for broke.

NFS III is a ridiculous amount of fun, particularly over LAN where the lag is nullified. The game plays over modem, but is noticeably slower-and in a racing game, any moment's slowdown is a momentum killer. Get some friends to bring their systems over, spawn a big game, and you can have fun all night. Even if you don't have a Daisy Duke cheering you on.

SUMMARY:

Almost endlessly fun arcade racing, with thrilling physics and awesome visuals.