The Italian Job
Platform: Xbox
Get in. Get out. Get even. Charlie Croker and his gang are left for
dead in Venice after being double-crossed during one of the biggest
gold heists ever.
In this high-octane arcade racer, based on the recent re-make of
the original heist movie, you take on the role of Charlie and his
gang members, and must wreak vengeance on the man who betrayed you
and reclaim the gold.
The Italian Job has all the ingredients for a fun caper as
you set about creating the largest traffic jam in Los Angeles history
and attempting a frantic getaway in your souped-up Mini Coopers.
Featured are four gameplay modes:
- Story mode, based on the movie’s gripping plot (15 missions).
- Death-defying stunt driving (seven courses).
- Intense circuit racing (10 tracks).
- Multiplayer madness (two-player).
You can tear through the streets of LA driving 10 vehicles, ranging
from the slick new Mini Coopers and muscle cars to an armoured truck
and cable van.
The game’s environments are based on movie locations, including a
subway station, storm drain, dam, golf course and more.
Car handling – complete with easy powerslides – is exhilarating,
and the graphics are realistic.
Tron 2.0
Platform: PC
Tron 2.0 is the
present-day sequel to the 1982 cult film classic that was a landmark
of computerized graphic ingenuity.
It is a story-driven, first-person action, 3D shooter that features
more than 30 levels of game play.
Twenty years ago, as viewers of the 1982 film will recall, computer
genius Kevin Flynn waged combat against the Master Control Program
(MCP), an artificial intelligence which was threatening to take over
an unsuspecting world.
Flynn was specially digitized into a parallel universe inside the
computer, where the MCP pitted programs against each other in gladiatorial
combat on the arena known as the Game Grid.
With the help of a security program known as Tron, Flynn ultimately
defeated the MCP and returned to the real world.
The game Tron 2.0 is set 20 years later when a sinister organization,
Future Control Industries (fCon), is threatening to hijack Tron technology
for its own nefarious purposes.
By digitizing specially trained hackers – codenamed DataWraiths –
fCon plans to infiltrate the world’s computer networks from the inside.
When Tron’s original creator, Alan Bradley, mysteriously disappears,
his son Jet enters the world inside the computer in search of answers.
He wages lightning-fast combat against digital opponents using guns,
rods, grenades, missiles, and the iconic Tron disc.
Up to 16 people can play Tron 2.0 in expansive team-based multi-player
levels.
Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight
Platform: PC
On December 17, 1903,
Orville and Wilbur Wright made history with the first ever powered
flight.
This year, Microsoft Flight Simulator commemorates this milestone
with the release of its Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight.
A comprehensive history of civilian flight is represented in this
game, from the original Wright brothers’ primitive invention, to Charles
Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart’s pioneering flights, and on to the Boeing
747-400.
There are 24 plane types for you to fly – each aircraft magnificently
reproduced with high-resolution surface textures that reflect light
and shadow, and authentic engine sounds appropriate for each aircraft
type.
A real boon for novices who want to try their hand at flying is Flight
Simulator 2004’s Learning Center. For once, the online help is
actually better than the printed manual.
Other innovative features include:
- Worldwide scenery with accurate 3D terrain.
- An incredible 24,000 airports worldwide to which you can fly (increased
from 22,000 in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002).
- Interactive 3D “virtual cockpits”, with all instruments rendered
in 3D.
- The Garmin global positioning system (GPS), with colour moving
maps and airport/facility information.
- Realistic interaction with air-traffic controllers.
- Synchronization, via the Internet, of the actual weather conditions
prevailing in the part of the world through which you are flying
on your simulator.
Finding Nemo
Platforms: Xbox, PS2, GameCube
Fans of the animated
classic Finding Nemo will delight in this game which features
all the original characters and several movie-inspired sequences.
The game starts off with your playing Nemo, the clownfish who gets
fish-napped and deposited in a Sydney dentist’s aquarium.
Throughout the game, you can toggle between different environments
– Nemo in his tank, and his anxious father Marlin and the perpetually
absent-minded Dora out in the open ocean off the Great Barrier Reef.
The underlying theme to the game, of course, is to reunite father
and son.
But there is a lot of fun along the way as you complete various adventures,
races and challenges.
There are classic lines from the original film, but also some newly
scripted ones. And many of the minor characters get a look-in too.
Out in the open ocean are some spectacular underwater sequences,
with the plant life on the sea floor undulating realistically with
the movement of the waves and currents.
Finding Nemo is aimed at younger, casual players – probably
under-12s – and the controls are quite straightforward.
