Let the Games Begin

Video Games have made more comebacks than the Terminator. They soared in 1980 and came crashing down like a dud Scud three years later because of a glut of boring choices. Now they're back, in a multibillion-dollar-a-year way, and the new generation of titles is anything but kid stuff. In fact, the 16-bit game systems (more powerful than the original eight-bit versions), as well as many computer games, bring you as close to arcade action as possible without the need for a bucketful of quarters. Thanks to expanded computing power, game programmers can now choose more colors, design amazingly intricate obstacles, add increased levels of difficulty and create screen images that look almost three-dimensional. The sound quality is better, too. Voices, crashes and crowd roars are much more realistically rendered.

Currently, there are three 16-bit video-game systems available for hookup to TV sets: Super Nintendo (SNES), Sega Genesis and NEC TurboGrafx. Also available is SNK's Neo-Geo. This 24-bit system has the most overwhelming graphics, but at $600 (compared with less than $200 for the competition), it's also the most expensive. Neo-Geo game titles are priced higher as well, at about $180 versus $30 to $70.

In terms of computer games, prices range from $50 to $95 for CD-ROM entries. For the best experience, get at least a 386 central-processing unit equipped with one megabyte of RAM, VGA graphics, a mouse (or joystick) and a sound board (such as the Sound Blaster included in Winning Gear on page 140).

In general, video games today tend to be faster-paced and more engaging. You start playing Joe Montana II and, three hours later, you're still tossing touchdown passes. They're also less intimidating. You don't have to be a computer whiz to play video games. Just pop the cartridge into the console and you're off. Controllers are easier to master, too. With computers, you either buy an optional joystick, use the keyboard (and move at a snail's pace) or maneuver the mouse—a challenge in itself. On the other hand, the large memory capacity of computers allows for incredibly complex, lifelike games. Flight simulators, for example, are remarkably realistic—you actually feel like you're in the cockpit of a Stealth bomber. And while computer games tend to slow down the system, you have the option of installing them and then deleting them after you've finished playing.

Still, selecting a system is the easy part. The tricky part is sorting through all the games. Since the packaging is often much more exciting than the games themselves, the following guide to video-PC action should help you separate the men from the toys.

Sports

Of the dozens of games introduced every month, sports titles are by far the biggest sellers. Among the best is Sega's Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football for Genesis. Although it's graphically similar to other 16-bit football titles, Montana II stands helmets above the competition thanks to an announcer who reviews all the action. When the quarterback drops back to pass, for example, the digitized voice describes the play you've called and the outcome (completion, interception and so on). The game lets you choose teams, weather, turf and strategy, as well as the length of each quarter. It even shows close-ups during instant replays. John Madden Football for SNES and John Madden Football '92 for Genesis (both from Electronic Arts) also offer great action. And Accolade's Mike Ditka Power Football for Genesis and Mike Ditka Ultimate Football for IBM compatibles have terrific sound tracks filled with crunching tackles.

In a league all its own is 2020 Super Baseball. Available for Neo-Geo, it's a futuristic game played by men, women and robots. The characters are huge (like armor-clad Jose Cansecos). Realistic crowd noises add to the fun. There's no competition here—the rest of the baseball games are strictly little league.

Hockey fans can gear up for the Stanley Cup with NHL Hockey from Electronic Arts for Genesis. This one-or two-player game offers a choice of 21 NHL teams and two All-Star squads. Scouting reports and instant replays are available, and sound effects include body checks, pucks sliding over the ice and players smashing into the boards.

Two new golf games, Electronic Arts' PGA Tour Golf and Nintendo's Waialae Country Club Golf, both for SNES, are worth a couple of rounds. Up to four can play PGA and two can tee up in Waialae. While birds chirp in the backgrounds of both, players choose clubs and hack away. PGA Tour Golf has a choice of four courses and lets you compete against any of 60 PGA Tour pros, including Fuzzy Zoeller and Paul Azinger. Pressing the controller determines the power of the stroke in both games. There are different lies and a chance to look at a 3-D grid of the green to determine the best way to putt. Sink a birdie and the crowd cheers; miss and groans fill the air. An older version for Genesis is just as much fun. A new game from Tradewest for SNES, Jack Nicklaus Golf, is also a smart pick.

For the PCs, there are two standout programs—Links: The Challenge of Golf from Access and Accolade's Jack Nicklaus' Golf & Course Design: Signature Edition. Both are realistic (thanks to additional computer memory) and use digitized photos for the players and backgrounds. The Nicklaus game even allows weekend duffers to design their own courses and to match their play against the Bear himself.

Instead of tennis elbow, tennis finger may be the new ache of the Nineties. Top games here include Nintendo's Super Tennis for SNES and Davis Cup Tennis for TurboGrafx. Super Tennis has wonderful sound effects and offers a choice of three surfaces, tournament-level play and a chance to team up with the computer against a pair of rivals or with another human against the machine. Davis Cup has an imaginative horizontal split screen showing the perspectives of opposing players.

Neo-Geo's Soccer Brawl is a kick—literally. One or two players compete in a futuristic, magnetically enclosed stadium where wall shots are possible and there are no penalties for fouls. Not only does anything go, but players on the seven-man teams can also save for killer power shots.

Surprisingly, basketball has not reached the tech levels of other sports titles. The best game is Bulls vs. Lakers and the NBA Playoffs (Electronic Arts for Genesis). And, yes, Magic Johnson is on the roster. A computer game due out this summer from Electronic Arts, tentatively titled Michael Jordan Flight, is likely to score big with B-ball fanatics. Using digitized footage of the Bulls superstar, this game goes a technological step further with its use of full-motion video animation.

Lastly, boxing games have been temporarily down for the count, but Sega is set to revive the category with its new game, Evander Holyfield Real Deal Boxing, coming this summer for Genesis. In the meantime, try to find Nintendo's eight-bit title, Mike Tyson's Punch Out. It's likely to become a collector's edition.

Action/Fighting

Sega's Streets of Rage for Genesis and Capcom's Final Fight for SNES are martial-arts mayhem at its best. Both are similar in structure. There's a choice of fighters and difficulty levels; there's a boss who controls a drug-infested city and who has to be beaten along with his henchmen. In Streets of Rage, one of the good-guy fighters, Blaze Fielding, likes to lambada while chopping her way through a number of particularly cruel baddies, including leather-clad dominatrices with whips. The sound track, created by the well-known Japanese composer Yuzo Koshiro, is the best on the market. Final Fight, a one-player kick-'em-up, weaves the hero through streets that look suspiciously like New York City. Surviving the walk requires a four-foot length of pipe; knives and swords help, too. Other knockout choices include Capcom's Street Fighter II for SNES, a faithful adaptation of the arcade hit of the same name, and Fatal Fury and Burning Fight, two hard-hitting and -kicking Neo-Geo titles.

Horizontal Shooters

With this type of game, the action moves from left to right on the screen—that is, a plane or rocket ship has to maneuver around hundreds of obstacles coming from the right of the (continued on page 138)Let the games begin(continued from page 120) screen before making it to the finish line. Each stage ends with a boss that has to be destroyed in order to advance. The two top-ranked horizontal shooters are Capcom's UN Squadron for SNES and Gaiares, designed for Genesis by Renovation Products. With the end of the Cold War, the Russians are no longer the bad guys—now it's drug dealers. The goal of the UN Squadron is to wipe them out using a variety of pilots, aircraft and Desert Storm-type weaponry. With Gaiares, a rocket ship flies through bizarre galaxies while encountering monsters and meteors. The similarly themed Super R-Type, developed by IREM America for SNES, is a fun alternative.

Some horizontal-action games are difficult to categorize. One is Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis. The game is filled with gorgeous primary-colored backgrounds and extremely tough rotating obstacles. It features multiple levels and, to get through them faster, Sonic tries to uncover bonuses that increase his speed to the point where he is literally a flash across the screen. It's great fun.

Vertical Shooters

Unlike horizontal shooters—in which waves of bad guys attack from the right—vertical shooters have the enemy challenging from the top. Blazing Lazers for TurboGrafx is the perfect example. One look at this game with its multicolored, wildly shaped killer laser beams and it's easy to understand the popularity of 16-bit systems. Neo-Geo gets an honorable mention for Alpha Mission II, a game similar to Blazing Lazers. Sega's Twin Cobra for Genesis also rates high.

Flight Simulators

This is where computer games soar above their video counterparts. Lots of memory is required for lifelike action, and home computers have it to spare. Flight simulators put players in the cockpits of a variety of aircraft—from Apache helicopters to Stealth fighters. The top guns in this category include Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (Origin), Falcon 3.0 (Spectrum HoloByte), Gunship 2000 and F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 (both from MicroProse). All require some practice to get the feel of the stick and avoid enemy fire. Plus, the game manuals resemble briefing books from the Pentagon. But when you're in sync, the game-play payoff is worth the effort.

Role Playing/Fantasy Adventure

Fantasy adventure video games are similar to board games such as Dungeons, which is heavy on strategy and light on action. The goal usually involves saving a princess, finding the Holy Grail, etc. Instead of kicking or blasting your way to the finish line, clues and hints have to be read and digested before making decisions on the course of action. The games have become so complex that hint books are available to help gamers solve the mysteries.

Since more memory allows designers to increase the complexity of games, computers have the edge here, too. Our PC picks include Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (New World Computing), Ultima VII: The Black Gate (Origin), Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (Lucasfilm Games) and Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (Strategic Simulations). All these new adventures feature lush screens, quality sound tracks and enough complexity to satisfy members of Mensa.

Mac enthusiasts have two superior role-playing stars, Virtual Valerie and Spaceship Warlock, both from Reactor. Both are on CD-ROM discs and require a special drive. Valerie is billed as "interactive erotica" but, while she's cute, the game definitely isn't X-rated. Warlock has outstanding MTV-style graphics.

When it comes to 16-bit systems, Sega's Phantasy Star series for Genesis is the hands-down winner. Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom is the latest version. In it, there are seven worlds to travel, the characters live for three generations and numerous beasts must be conquered. Other popular role-playing games include Might and Magic for Genesis and Final Fantasy II for SNES (both from Electronic Arts).

There are a few popular role-playing games that take place in the present and deal with modern problems rather than with ancient riddles. Again, computer games shine here. Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work (Sierra) is one of the best. Larry must audition three attractive women for a job as hostess of America's Sexiest Home Videos. While he's doing his job, Patti goes undercover to expose bad guys in the entertainment business. Accolade's Les Manley: Lost in L.A. is a noir-style detective tale featuring a digitized version of a Playboy model.

Puzzles

Puzzle games require quick wits and fingers. Shapes (usually rectangular) enter the screen and have to be aligned by color or by geometric shapes. With Spectrum HoloByte's new ten-level Super Tetris for IBM compatibles, you have to move the falling shapes into complete rows of a specific color, rotating the pieces as they fall. Sega's Columns for Genesis is a variation of this same theme. Marble Madness, another Genesis game from Electronic Arts, is equally challenging. With Marble Madness, a single ball has to be maneuvered across a terrain that resembles a city skyline. One slip and it's over the side.

Pinball

There are two great pinball titles currently available, Alien Crush and Devil's Crush, both for TurboGrafx. Two buttons on the controller act as flippers and another puts the ball in play. With both games, a ball careens around the screen, bouncing off creatures that look like rejects from Alien. Scores can run into the millions once the feel of the flippers is mastered.

Racing

Racing action has become so fast and lifelike that vertigo can hit the unwary beginner. SNES's F-Zero features futuristic hovercraft that take gravity-defying curves at terrific speeds. Naturally, the object is to beat other racers or the clock. There's a choice of cars with different engines and eight courses, and the sound effects and crash sequences are sizzling. Road Rash from Electronic Arts for Genesis is another winner. This motorcycle race has the tagline "No speed limit? No rules? No problem!" You get your choice of bikes and drivers. Since there are no rules, you can even knock opponents off their bikes with a club. Another of Electronic Arts' Genesis titles, Out Run, features a driver who takes a blonde and a Ferrari F-40 out for a high-speed cruise. Our kind of fun.

Grown-Up Games

Although gorgeous models Passionate Patti, Virtual Valerie and other attractive women have made their way into video games, the adult action is mostly G-rated. Enter the computer games Strip Poker II (Art Work, Inc.) and Strip Blackjack II (I.O. Research). With both games, you play cards against a woman on the screen. If you lose, you have to get undressed—one article of clothing at a time. If she loses, she does the same. Image quality is fair at best and the results are far from erotic. But then, how exciting can it be to get naked with a computer?

Hand-Held Games

The black-and-white Game Boy from Nintendo fueled the hand-held video-game market, and it's rumored that a color version will be introduced later this year. In the meantime, there are already hot-selling hand-held color systems from Sega (Game Gear), Atari (Lynx) and TurboGrafx (TurboExpress). The last is the most expensive ($299, compared with $79 for Game Boy, $129 for Game Gear and $99 for Lynx), but it uses the same cartridges as the TurboGrafx-16 home system. Game Gear and Lynx use exclusive cartridges that are priced from $20 to $50.

Our recommendations: Tradewest's new Jack Nicklaus Golf for Game Boy is challenging, as is Sega's Joe Montana Football and Leaderboard Golf (Game Gear) and War Birds (Lynx).

CD Games

Since the complexity of a game is dependent on the amount of memory in the system, it's no surprise that videogame technology is moving toward CD-ROM. NEC was the first company to offer an optional compact-disc attachment for its TurboGrafx console. One of its newest releases, It Came from the Desert, hints of great things to come. Instead of using computer-generated graphics, this campy Fifties-style giant-bugs-run-amok game incorporates moving digital video and digital sound. TurboGrafx is so confident of this technology that it will begin selling a self-contained combination cartridge/CD unit sometime this fall for about $150.

To keep in step, many consumer electronics giants have been furiously working on their own disc-based game systems. The new Philips CD-I (compact disc–interactive) players ($800) are out now, with full-motion video capability promised in late 1992. Sega will be introducing a CD option for the Genesis system this year priced at about $450. Nintendo has been working on a similar project with Philips, and Sony is planning to introduce a disc-based game system called Play Station.

What this means is that video games are here to stay. They'll get better, more complex and more exciting as technology continues to improve. Enjoy the ride.