PC Game Reviews

FIFA 06 Soccer
Publisher: EA Sports
Platform: PC, X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Already available
It's that time of year again when console- and PC-owning soccer fans put their social life on hold and instead sit transfixed in front of monitors and TV screens as their favorite soccer team battles it out for top honors on the world stage.

As the only officially licensed soccer game, FIFA 06 contains over 21 leagues, 10,000 world-class players and is based on the latest seasons statistics. Along with allowing gamers to take their team to stadiums like Old Trafford, the San Siro and Camp Nou, FIFA 06 also includes several new venues like Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, Mexico City's Azteca Stadium and Istanbul's infamous Ataturk Stadium.

While enhancements made to previous season's games in regard game play didn't really make the game any more difficult, FIFA 06 sees some truly remarkable changes. The ability to play short corner kicks makes a welcome return, players can, at the touch of a button mark the opposition's strikers, throw-ins are easier to control, players can select a specific style of play to suit their team at any time during the match and an overhauled control system means that players can now take more accurate free kicks.

These alterations not only make it the sharpest PC/console soccer game currently on the market but also ensures that FIFA 06 is more challenging then ever before. This is especially true when it come to the much improved "career mode." The 15-season mode enables players to control everything from club budgets, to managing coaching staff and, of course, deciding on tactical formations and squad line-ups. And along with selling and purchasing players gamers can now loan out underused team members to other clubs.

All in all FIFA 06 is a remarkable game and any true soccer fan will find hours, weeks if not months, of enjoyment in it. And, of course, it's probably the only place this reviewer is ever going to see Ipswich Town beat Chelsea in a

Champions League final.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: PC, X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Already available
When Ubisoft released Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 earlier this year the game was hailed by both critics and gamers alike as one of the most engrossing World War II based first-person shooters ever released.

Instead aimlessly wandering through the hedgerows of northern France and rooting out German troops and the odd Tiger tank or two as a fictional character, Brothers was based on the real-life exploits of a company of the 101st Airborne Division, which parachuted into France on the eve of D-Day.

This time around players take on the roll of another real "Screaming Eagle," Sargent Joe "Red" Hartsock, who must take his squad from Normandy to Paris and beyond. Each mission is based on actual events and with the town of Carentan safely in Allied hands it's up to Hartsock to lead a bunch of guys deep into the French hinterland.

Graphically game is superb. The uniforms, equipment, tanks and artillery pieces are all designed to look like the real thing and the environments, be they urban or rural, look so lifelike that they make each mission as absorbing as the last.

While game engine is the same as before the AI has been vastly improved. Run up against some nasty Nazis and instead of simply digging in to fight it out, the Wehrmacht troops will either retreat to another position or attempt to outflank you.

LA Rush
Publisher: Midway
Platform: X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Later this month
If you're already fed up with the recent hit driving simulator Burnout: Revenge and are after something a little more wholesome, but equally inane, then Midway's LA Rush is a pretty good place to begin.

Story rather than just being a chronological series of "win the race" games with differing objectives and aims, Rush has been designed along the same lines as the hugely popular Need For Speed series. Designers have reportedly recreated over 350km of Los Angles roads and seamlessly added a smorgasbord of highly convincing background detail.

The aim of the game is straight forward enough: get into illegal road races, avoid the law and become a champion. Along the way gamers get to earn cash bonuses, find hidden goodies, and of course, outrun police prowlers.

Unlike for Speed: Hot Pursuit, where the law actually made an all out effort to nab you, Rush's AI is rather lacking in intelligence. The cops don't drive too well and outpacing them is easy. There are no roadblocks, no tyre traps and no helicopter support. While getting into a high speed chases with the LAPD should be one of the game's biggest selling points it is here rather a let- down.

Gamers forced to concentrate on the road racing. There's nothing wrong with hurtling along LA's roads at a great rate of speed in a shiny sports car but it does become rather boring after you've won your third or fourth race and haven't even damaged you car.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
Publisher: EA Sports
Platform: PC, X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Already available
Long as the most realistic console/PC golf game on the market, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series has successfully managed to outlast the competition thanks to the keen eye for detail exhibited by EA's superb design team. Courses look so real that you can almost smell the freshly mowed fairways and immaculately kept greens.

While Tiger Woods standalone games are absorbing, most gamers will no doubt be spending most of their time in the career mode, or "rivals mode" as it is now referred to. Here gamers get to create a golfer with the aid of the top-notch "create-a-player" tool. The system is so good that gamers can either create a pretty good likeness of themselves or a totally outlandish character.

The "PGA tour mode" enables gamers to join the PGA Tour and take on a whole string of today's players and tee off on a dozen well-known courses. In the "career mode" gamers embark on a quest through time from the sports' early days to the present day. Players can use gear from the early 1900s and can even dress in frilly shirts and garish check socks. And like pervious games in the Tiger series, gamers get to try their luck against the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

Sure, it's amusing for a short period of time, but as any golfer knows its not what you look like that counts, but how well you play. And this is where the game comes a wee bit unstuck.

Tiger 2006 still suffers from several annoying flaws that first came to light with last year's Tiger 2005. The most telling of these is the relative ease in which gamers can master everything from tee shots to long putts. Hitting a straight drive is slightly more complicated thanks to the "shape stick" -- which enables players to manipulate ball flight and spin -- but it is too easy to master.