Since it was first released eight years ago, EA Sports' FIFA series has become the most true-to-life PC/console soccer game on the market. Others have tried to emulate, but none have come close to capturing the passion of a top-flight soccer match. As the only soccer game to hold an official FIFA license, it has long been the game of choice for hardcore armchair footy fans with a yen to control real teams.
Released last month, FIFA Soccer 2005 boasts a faultless gameplay experience, is graphically stunning, offers gamers fluid on-field realism and looks and feels better than ever. Ball-by-ball commentary is once again from UK soccer commentator John Motson and ex-Scotland international Ally McCoist. Designers have kept the practical off-the-ball function and free-kick system from last year's game.
Convincing ball physics, which enable gamers to play a more a realistic passing style of soccer and a built-in, first-touch control system -- which means players can now determine reactions to long balls, free kicks, corner kicks and throw-ins before the ball is at their feet -- are two great new additions to this already tried-and-tested package and both work really well.
The game's most engaging feature is the new 15-season career mode that allows players to manage any of the 350-featured teams in both league and cup competitions. It's a lengthy and time consuming process, but this is where most true soccer buffs will no doubt spend most of their time when playing FIFA Soccer 2005.
Players begin with pre-season training sessions and build squad strengths by dabbling in a realistic and up-to-date transfer market before setting out to conquer their respective leagues. Do well and after a few seasons gamers may receive a job offer from teams such as Arsenal, Manchester United or Real Madrid. Do badly, needless to say, and players will find themselves out of a job.
While serious first-person shooter gamers await the sequel to Half Life, which is due out later this month, X-Box owners can draw some comfort from the release of the follow-up to that other massively popular and influential shooter, Halo 2.
Released globally last Tuesday, Microsoft's Halo 2 is a superb sequel with excellent presentation and possibly the most complete on-line multiplayer X-Box component to date. The game's sole failing is the single player campaign mode's sketchy storyline, but this is easily compensated for by the quality and amount of in-game action.
Gamers once again take on the role of Master Chief as he attempts to save the earth from the evil Covenant. There's plenty of new territory to cover as well as many new and diverse mechanical threats to lay waste to, such as the behemoth arachnid-like battle tanks, flying banshees and one-man attack hover-bikes called Ghosts.
Of course, players also get to drive a wide array of futuristic vehicles, as well as destroy them and here too Halo 2 again comes up trumps. If it's blinding first-person shooter action players crave, then the explosive action of Halo 2 is currently the only place to look.
Those unfamiliar with the original Halo will find out quickly that there's something quite gratifying about laying waste to the enemy troops from a heavy machine gun in the turret of a Warthog 4x4 or from the cannon of a Scorpion battle tank.
Three Kingdoms X (三國志X) is the latest in the series of strategy games based on the turbulent post-Han dynasty period known as the Three Kingdoms (220 AD to 265 AD) during which time the country was torn apart and warlords and despots reigned supreme.
A mish-mash of historical fact and mythical fiction, Koei's previous Three Kingdoms games have proven hugely popular with both fans of real-time strategy and tactical wargamers alike and the latest version should prove no exception to this rule. Along with a host of new characters, designers have added plenty of fresh and enchanting locales to keep gamers happy and as is the norm with Koei games the graphics are stunning and a joy to look at.
Picking up nicely where the last instalment left off, Three Kingdoms X (
Players have to establish political infrastructures, manage and tend basic resources such as water and crops and, of course, turn the army into the strongest and toughest one in China. The final outcome is decided when only one fiefdom remains and China is once again united.
Unifying China is no easy task and the game's complex and lengthy learning curve will take those unfamiliar with the previous games quite some time to master. It is worth sticking with it, however, as it's incredibly gratifying to conquer China.
Soccer fans may have had to wait a couple of months before catching up with this year's FIFA action, but the timing couldn't have been better for basketball buffs. As with the beginning of the new NBA season two weeks ago comes EA Sports' most recent addition to its long line of basketball franchise games, NBA Live 2005.
The crux of the basic on-court techniques and game interfaces are much the same as last season's edition, but EA Sports has tweaked a number of the game's more popular features and added a few nifty new touch controls that enhance gameplay and allow players to pull-off some dizzying moves.
There's a new All-Star weekend, which gives gamers the opportunity to play four events from the real-life NBA All-Star weekend including the rookies versus sophomores game, a real All-Star game, a three-point shootout and a slam-dunk contest. The popular "Dynasty Mode," which gives basketball fans a chance to manage their own team, has been slightly changed and is now more realistic and user friendly.
The biggest change to the game and one that basketball fans will no doubt be cheering for the loudest is the special invitational championship, which takes place a week before the PC/console NBA gaming draft. Here gamers invite players for a workout with their team, where they can play one-on-one games against any of their own players and see first-hand how well they perform before making contractual agreements.
-- Gavin Phipps
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
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Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s