March 1999 Volume 80 Number 3 "serving the protectors"
Console Games
By Phil White

RUSHDOWN

Rushdown takes the extreme sports of snowboarding, kayaking and mountain biking and wraps them all up into one game. It begins in Africa and travels to four other continents as you progress through the game.

Unlike any other extreme sports game, Rushdown is a race against the clock. Each level gets harder as you hurl yourself off mountains, ride down steep slopes and faceplant in the snow.

There are four different crafts to utilise in each sport with varying strengths and weaknesses. For example, when kayaking there’s a streamlined speed demon which will get you down the rapids really fast but handles like the QE2, so it would be wise to select the right craft for the right course. There are also four different riders to choose from with different skill levels.

There are a few different modes to play in, including single player (basic), tournament (hard) and multi-player mode (two-player split screen).

The environments in Rushdown are excellently textured and impressive to look at, especially the water effects in kayaking. The gameplay’s quite reasonable, particularly on the mountain biking and kayaking tracks with its fast-paced action. The snowboarding action is a little less appealing when comparing it to the likes of the coolboarder series.

Rushdown will appeal to the sports game enthusiast looking for that adrenaline rush, but die-hard sports fans might find the gameplay a little short-lived.

COLONY WARS: VENGEANCE

When the original Colony Wars was released on PlayStation a little over a year ago, it set a new standard in 3D space-combat action games.

Colony Wars: Vengeance is set 100 years on and this time your flying for the Colonial Navy, looking for vengeance against the League. You play the part of Mertens, an idealistic young fighter pilot who believes in the cause of the new navy. You must embark on one of 53 missions which are separated into 19 acts with six different endings.

As your character progresses through the game his piloting and fighting skills are enhanced commensurate with the ever-changing storyline. This will keep you guessing and immerse you in the whole game scenario.

The object of the game is to complete a series of missions. As well as the simple search-and-destroy missions, there are some mining missions and some covert and espionage missions, which rely more on stealth than merely wandering in and laser burning.

The gameplay in CWV in terms of objectives and style of play is much the same as the original. However, there has been some major tweaking to the general production and controls of the game: they are much more responsive and allow more precise flying. Generally, they’re more fun.

The graphics are fantastic, with excellently rendered crafts and space environments that are loaded with nebula, asteroid belts, comets, black and white holes and mine fields. The sound effects have been improved to add that emotional impact to the game. Dolby surround sound is used to capture the bold sound of explosions, roaring engines and weapon firing.

When it comes to space-combat games on PlayStation nothing comes close to Colony Wars: Vengeance. There is enough excitement in this game to keep you playing for ages.