I.G.I 2:Covert Strike

Review:
Sometimes a mediocre game can seem worse than an outright dud. When you're playing an obviously terrible game, you can usually put it safely aside and move on to something better. But mediocre games like Innerloop Studios' IGI 2: Covert Strike trick you into thinking that there might be something great just around the corner, only to repeatedly disappoint you. The previous game, Project IGI, was an above-average shooter when it was released in 2000, despite some serious shortcomings. But things have changed since then--more-sophisticated and more-stylish action games such as Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, No One Lives Forever 2, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell have raised the bar for action games. Yet Innerloop has slid under it with IGI 2, which is a shooter that might have seemed exciting if it had been released in 2000, but is mostly forgettable now.
IGI 2 does have seem to have some basic mechanics to encourage interesting stealth-based gameplay, but in practice, the stealth elements are often tedious, frustrating, or implemented too obviously. All too often, you'll get the feeling that IGI 2's designers were following some sort some kind of action-game design handbook. You'll find levels where you'll obviously be required to sneak up behind a guard and incapacitate him, or levels in which you're clearly supposed to crouch behind a pile of crates to avoid being spotted by a security camera. In fact, IGI 2 may make you feel like you're jumping through hoops instead of pulling off dramatically daring feats, so you may be tempted to forget stealth and just start shooting things up.

Minimum System Requirements:
* OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
* Processor: Pentium 3 @ 700 MHz
* Memory: 128 MB
* Hard Drive: 1.9 GB Free
* Video Memory: 32 MB
* Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
* DirectX: 8.1
* Keyboard & Mouse
* CD/DVD Rom Drive

Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
* Processor: Pentium 4 @ 1.4 GHz
* Memory: 512 MB
* Hard Drive: 1.9 GB Free
* Video Memory: 64 MB
* Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
* DirectX: 8.1
* Keyboard & Mouse
* CD/DVD Rom Drive

GTA Sanandreas

Review:

By now, you probably know how this works. The new Grand Theft Auto game comes out in October, but only on the PlayStation 2. Xbox and PC owners have to wait a half a year or so for their versions of the game, and each always has the potential to be better than the original release. That's saying something, because we're already talking about one of the best games of 2004 and the best game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Once again, the wait is over, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is now available on the PC and Xbox. While both versions have aspects that are better than the outstanding PS2 game, visual weirdness on the Xbox and a handful of technical issues on the PC prevent either version from being the clear-cut best of the bunch.

For those of you already familiar with the game, let's quickly discuss the differences between all three versions. The Xbox one has 480p support, but when enabled, the aliasing is out of control. Portions of the environment look so unbelievably jaggy that you'll wonder if your eyesight is failing you. At times it looks like you're playing a 3D game without putting on the glasses. But if you can get past that (it isn't quite as noticeable in standard resolution), the game generally looks great. Loading times on the Xbox don't seem to be much faster than the PlayStation 2 release, and for some weird reason, a loading message occasionally appears onscreen, even in situations where the load times are supposed to be hidden, like when changing your hairstyle. Control in the Xbox version is sharp, and just like the GTA Double Pack, your vehicle gas and brake controls have been moved to the triggers and made analog. This works well, but the flight controls, which have also been remapped to fit on the Xbox controller, are a little weird.

The PC version comes on DVD only and is packaged with a fully bound book that serves as the manual. It's definitely some of the coolest PC game packaging around. This version also has the potential to be the best-looking version of the game by a long shot. Support for higher resolutions makes the textures and characters look sharper and much better than either of the console versions. There's a draw distance slider that, when turned all the way up, almost totally eliminates the draw-in and fogging that's become synonymous with the series. Your Grove Street home looks much more like a run-down South Central neighborhood when you can see more of its surroundings. But all this graphical quality is offset by some serious problems with the sound. Testing on three different machines that exceed the recommended system specs got us three results. On one machine, we didn't experience any audio glitches. On another, the audio simply cut out a lot, leaving you to drive around with only music to keep you company. It's tough to play when you can't hear your mission descriptions. On the third machine, loading up a save game caused a loud grating noise--which sounded like the bike-riding audio mixed with a helicopter--to scream out from the middle of the Grove. We had to hop in a car and drive away from the area to make the noises stop. Also, the cutscenes occasionally desynched from the audio, making the lip movement appear to be way off.

Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000/XP
Processor: Pentium 3 @ 1 GHz
Memory: 256 MB
Hard Drive: 3.6 GB Free
Video Memory: 64 MB (GeForce 3)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

Recommended System Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000/XP
Processor: Pentium 4 Processor or Athlon Equivalent
Memory: 384 MB
Hard Drive: 3.6 GB Free
Video Memory: 128 MB (GeForce 4)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

Tribes 3: Vengeance

Review:
The Tribes series has had legions of fans since the first Earthsiege title was released over ten years ago. (To stave off hundreds of irate emails from longtime fans, we are aware that some trace the series goes all the way back to the Stellar 7 games but, for us, Tribes starts with Earthsiege.) With the unfortunate dissolution of Dynamix three years ago, gamers were understandably worried about the future of the franchise. Thankfully, Vivendi decided to place their hopes for the future of the Tribes universe in the reliable hands of the folks at Irrational Games.
As the developers of Freedom Force and System Shock 2, it may seem that the choice was somewhat, well, irrational. But that's only until you consider that Vivendi wanted a really good single player experience out of this newest game. Given that the setting and mechanics were already firmly in place, Irrational was the perfect choice to craft a compelling plot for a single player version.
The game takes place hundreds of years before the original Tribes when the Tribal War was first heating up. Players will already be familiar with the Blood Eagles and Phoenix when they appear here and will come to appreciate the ideology and aesthetic of the Imperial faction as well. Though I won't spoil any of the plot points here, I will say that the story has you playing as several different characters on different sides of the conflict. You'll get to experience two idealistic royal princesses, a pair of grizzled Tribals, and a cold, mysterious assassin of uncertain allegiance.

Minimum Requirements:
Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP operating system
ATI® Radeon™ or equivalent DirectX® 9.0c-compliant 32 MB 3D video card with hardware T&L and pixel shader support
1.0 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD® Athlon™ processor or equivalent
256 MB RAM
915MB of uncompressed hard disk space for game files
DirectX® 9.0c (included), DirectX®-compatible sound card and speakers or headphones, Microsoft® compatible mouse and keyboard.

Recommended:
Windows® XP
ATI® Radeon™ 9600 or equivalent DirectX® 9.0c-compliant 128 MB 3D video card with hardware T&L and pixel shader support
2.5 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD® Athlon™ or faster processor
512 MB RAM or more
24X or faster CD-ROM driveCrack: