KingPin: Life Of Crime, PC CD-Rom, £34.99
It is full of bad language, features lots of violence and will liven up the debate over video game violence. King- Pin: Life of Crime (www.urbangangsta.com) isn't coy about its content either and the packaging clearly warns potential customers that it is suitable for 18s and over.
Cynical readers may wonder whether the warnings are to protect younger players or to get more attention for the game. Either way, there's no mistaking it for Super Mario or anything like it. This game is to Mario what Reservoir Dogs is to The Wizard of Oz.
KingPin offers a choice, before installation, of gameplay with the blood and bad language, or without. The choice is directly relevant to the player because - as in Quake, Half-Life and Unreal - the player in Kingpin views the action from the character's perspective.
The player is a gang leader who has to hire henchman to do battle, converse with other gang-leaders, and choose either to love them or . . . well, kill them. It's often necessary to put away the lead pipe (or crow bar, Tommy gun, flamethrower, or grenade launcher) in the interest of getting on the right side of potential partners.
The graphics are extremely well done and the game provides a different slant on this genre. The violence is certainly explicit, but the underlying game is clever enough to show that it is about more than fighting.
Recommended: Pentium II 300/128MB/3d Card/Win 9x
FA Premier League Stars, Sony PlayStation, £39.99
Premier League Stars is the latest in a long line of football sims from Electronic Arts. There is an almost insatiable demand for these games and this one at least offers die-hard supporters something to do while waiting for the release of FIFA 2000.
It has all the grounds, the kits and the players from the FA Premier League. Squads are relatively up-to-date, apart from late transfers. (Hasselbaink, for example, is still in the Leeds squad.) The commentary by Andy Gray, Richard Keyes and Martin Tyler often lags behind the gameplay and gets overexcited about things such as elementary saves by the goalkeeper.
The "stars" part of the title is because the game is all about allocating stars to players. Depending on how well a team, it is given stars to distribute to players. This is an incentive to keep going for the full 90 minutes, even if you are winning 3-0. The better you play, the better you will play in the next game.
This isn't the best footie game around, but it is entertaining nonetheless.
Half-Life is one of the best games of recent years, and the Team For- tress addition has made it even more popular. In the upcoming mission pack Opposing Force Sierra Studios will include three levels submitted by members of the public. Anyone who has been tinkering with level design and wants to enter one for consideration should go to www.won.net for details. Winners will get $1,000 and be credited in the game. The deadline for entries is next Monday.
Videogames, no matter how adrenalin-inducing, are not the best way to get in shape. However Skyfitness (www.skyfitness.com) is launching one that may help. SkyCycle aims to take the boredom out of the gym and to put some real action into playing videogames. The machine is not unlike many gym machines, but offers users a display with various interactive environments to put their fitness to the test. The machines can be networked, enabling several users to race against each other, even over the Internet in a virtual world. But it isn't limited to cyber-cycling. It has built-in "joystick" features allowing players to gain altitude or put the brakes on. It also has triggers for shooting in games designed for it such as Jump Gate. (This spaceflight sim is one of three games that come pre-loaded on the machine.) If the idea takes off, videogames will get a healthier image.
Solitaire, Minesweeper and FreeCell, the games which come with the Windows 95 operating system, are played by millions of people throughout the world who don't consider themselves avid videogame players. Most just like to play a few quick games when they have 10 minutes to spare. Those who have an extra few minutes to spare and have got a bit bored with the original games, should download the shockwave plugin from www.shockwave.com. After installing this they can play a host of "quickie" games including golf, pool, bowling, jigsaws, poker, slots and old classics such as Missile Command.