Magical Tetris Challenge Sony PlayStation £34.99
Tetris, the classic puzzle game of falling blocks of different shapes and sizes, gets the Disney twist here, with Mickey Mouse and friends joining in. The Disney characters show up now and then but seem to have no bearing on the gameplay. The Tetris game area takes up about 25 per cent of the screen and in truth the Gameboy version would be just as enjoyable. It does have a few strange shapes not seen in other versions, and it might be a good introduction to a "thinking" game for younger gamers. That's about the extent of its appeal.
Um Jammer Lammy, Sony PlayStation, £34.99
After Parappa the Rappa thought us how to rap, Jammer Lammy wants to teach us how to play guitar. Master Chop Chop Onion runs proceedings again, and gives guidance on when and where to strum. It all starts out easily enough - you hit the X button when indicated, then the Y button, and so forth. But before long your fingers are dancing around the gamepad like you are going to go into some sort of seizure. Trying to keep your guitar in tune with the rest of the music becomes almost impossible.
Like Parappa The Rappa, this unusual game can be good fun.
Tomorrow Never Dies, Sony PlayStation, £34.99
At last 007 makes his appearance on the PlayStation. The N64 title Goldeneye is still regarded as one of the best on any console, so expectations were high for Bond's PlayStation debut.
And the verdict? Well, the missions are varied and follow the plot of the film very closely. There are all sorts of gadgets to use too. But with only 10 missions and no multiplayer option it can be completed relatively quickly. Tomorrow Never Dies is very entertaining and enjoyable to play, but won't become a classic like Goldeneye.
The planned release this week of QUAKE III is likely to break records for first-week sales of a PC game, but it will not go unchallenged over Christmas. Unreal Tournament has the potential to compete with Quake's title as king of the first-person shooters. Both games see the player take on other "bots" in single-player mode, and other people in multiplayer mode over a network.
Meanwhile, the Linux version of Quake III should be available before the New Year. It is expected to release in a limited edition tin box and will come with SuSE Linux 6.3.
Bullfrog has released a Quake III plug-in player model of Horny. Horny (the devil) is the main character in Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper 2 game. This is likely to be just the first of many characters to be "converted" for use in Quake III. The 2.9MB file can be downloaded from http:// dk2.eaeurope.com/uk/dk2/content/downloads/Q3A/index.html but will only work with the retail version of the game.