T_Prime

I have a great fondness for rhythm games and 1980's Time Life infomercials, so Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s was really a no-brainer for me. The fun-as-ever gameplay is identical to Guitar Hero II and there’s nothing new in terms of game modes, and yes it was expensive when it came out, but GH: 80s is still a blast.

First of all, if you're not one for Guitar Hero in any of its forms, this game is not going to change your mind. Guitar Hero as a series has always been about playing music with a guitar-shaped peripheral controller, and GH: 80s is just more of that with a fluorescent filter poured over everything. The visuals in this game pretty much equal a re-skinned Guitar Hero II: there are lots of hot pinks, bright yellows and sky blues in place of reds, darker yellows and dark blues in the menus, and all the selectable characters have a distinct 80s flavor to their clothing, from Judy Nails' big hair and Axel Steel's bling to Johnny Napalm's skater outfit and The Grim Ripper's red-and-blue 3-D glasses. These things are really for people who are already fans, so again, do not make Encore your first foray into the music-genre field.

GH: 80s is essentially a disc-based expansion for Guitar Hero II: more songs, different outfits, changed backgrounds and that's it, nothing else new. In fact, because this isn't a completely new game, quite a few things have been removed. For one, there are only six characters to choose from: Johnny Napalm, Judy Nails, Izzy Sparks, Pandora, Axel Steel, and The Grim Ripper. They've also removed the RedOctane Club and Stonehenge stages from Guitar Hero II as well as changing the anachronistic Vans Warped Tour to the "Rock For Safety Tour." But GH: 80s keeps all of the good stuff from GH II as well: easy hammer-ons and pull-offs, practice mode, more multiplayer modes and detailed post-song breakdown.

However, to many people all of that is moot, because the music selection is pretty much top-notch. It operates the same way as GHII in that there are 30 songs split into 6 groups of 5 songs each once they are all unlocked, and again considering that it’s safe to assume that most people who pick up this game will have little-to-no guitar playing experience the designers tried to make a lot of the music recognizable, while also keeping with the Harmonix tradition of having lesser-known and more obscure songs that still rock anyway. Ask any group of people to try to squeeze an entire decade of music into only 30 songs (no bonus songs this time, unfortunately) and there's a good chance pop/rock songs like A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)," Asia's "Heat of the Moment" and The Vapors' "Turning Japanese" would end up in it, only to be plopped right next to heavier stuff like Accept's "Balls to the Wall," Dio's "Holy Diver" and Judas Priest's "Electric Eye." But Harmonix went even deeper into obscurity this time, scraping up songs like "Only a Lad" by Oingo Boingo (who?) and "Because It's Midnite" by Limozeen, a fictional hair metal parody band from the Internet flash series Homestar Runner.

The thing to understand about the music selection is that is belongs squarely in the 1980s. There were '80s songs in GH 1 and 2 (and then subsequently in 3 and Aerosmith), but those songs were much more timeless, whereas songs like "The Warrior," as incredibly fun as it is to play, could never be gotten away with on contemporary music charts. There is simply no pleasing a wide audience when a game tries to represent such a rich musical era into a setlist that can initially be burned through in a few hours, so Harmonix instead decided to choose music that would work with the "guitar" part of Guitar Hero regardless of a given song's popularity. And for additionally snooty music aficionados, there are a total of five master tracks; while I am of the school of thought that covers are no big deal and a player can have fun with a song regardless of it being "real," playing the authentic version of "I Ran (So Far Away)" does make it seem that much more satisfying. As for the rest of the music, it is mostly superb cover musicians with a few oddities here and there: "18 and Life" and "No One Like You" sound spot-on, "(Band Your Head) Metal Health" strangely omits a guitar solo and, scarily enough, "I Wanna Rock" is not a cover, but a re-recording from the real Twisted Sister and it sounds awful.

If you practice your finger-tapping well into the night and watch late-night infomercials with LimeWire open so you can "relive the memories," Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s is probably the game for you. And not to beat a dead horse, but GH: 80s is for music game fans only. Don't bother if you're not already into them.

It’s kind of a stretch to call 24: The Game a “game” because that is not the reason that anyone has played it. As a piece of the 24 universe it is meant to fill in some gaps and tie up some loose threads between seasons 2 and 3 of the show, and to that end it does a respectable job. Several threads from the end of Day 2 that were either hardly addressed or not explained at all in Day 3 have lots of light shed on them. However, as a video game for the Sony PlayStation 2 game console it’s really a paint-by-numbers game that gets too ambitious for its own good and consequently falls on its face.

The TV show of 24 is rife with material from which to create a game; it has action, interesting characters (both good and bad), numerous and insane plot twists and the ever-growing suspense that comes with its ticking clock. You can play as several characters from the show including Jack, Chase, Tony and Kim (along with many other non-playable characters from the series) who look pretty amazing. Every actor from the series has lent their likeness (and most voices as well) to this game to make it feel totally authentic and in that regard it does not fail. Furthermore, actual writers from the show penned the game’s story, so that early-seasons feel is pretty much cemented. And no, this game doesn’t take 24 hours to complete; it’s more along the lines of 10 hours.

There are three primary modes of play; third-person action (shooting hordes of enemies and stealthily sneaking around), mini-game puzzle solving (hacking into computers and electronic door locks) and driving missions. We’ll start with the third-person action because it does take up the bulk of the game, but it also has its own bulk of ups and downs.

The basic controls are the left stick to move, L1 to target an enemy and R1 to fire your gun. There’s also a “cover” system in 24: The Game and it works pretty well in small fights; simply press X behind something large enough to hide behind such as a stack of crates or a wall to have Jack put his back to the wall. Pressing L1 while in cover will have him peer out to see if any enemies are around and target them if any are, at which point you may open fire at will. It’s once we get past these “basic” controls that problems start cropping up. For starters, if there are two or more enemies that Jack can aim at, the camera will almost always auto-aim at the wrong one whether it be the one farthest away, the one not shooting at you or the unarmed one you shouldn’t shoot at all. Pressing left or right on the left thumbstick will change targets but you have to press hard or it won’t always work.

The fun that third-person shooting offers is all the weapons you can choose from; pistols, shotguns, automatic weapons, better automatic weapons and a good old punch in the face if you need to. You can take weapons and ammo from any of the dead henchmen you come across by pressing Square while standing over them. 24: The Game even has an option to auto-equip the best weapon in your arsenal, so if you find yourself running low on 9mm ammo for your pistol and you search a body only for more enemies to come running at you, you may find yourself suddenly firing your new Soviet rifle at them. The thing is you will have dead henchmen left and right to pick ammo from because the enemy AI is incredibly stupid; they either don’t shoot back or have a cover pattern that makes them easily hittable. If you stand far enough away you can simply take cover and mow down a dozen enemies before any of them can get a good shot off at you. This only appears to be a problem from a pure gameplay stance, but as a 24 fan I can excuse it because in its own strange way the game is actually keeping with the way the show unfolds; Jack against an army of ten terrorists with automatic weapons, and all he needs is his 9mm, 15-shot pistol to take out nine of them and then kill the tenth with his bare hands and maybe a nearby chain. However, while everything is peachy from far away, once you get in close you will wonder if you’re playing a finished game. If you’re confronting more than one enemy up close the L1 aiming system will be shot to hell with the camera spastically jumping around everywhere except at the guy who’s filling you with of bullets or repeatedly punching you in the head, and by the time you either manage to look at the enemy or run away your life will almost be completely depleted. This incredible annoyance will cause you to twitch with anger, so if you can, avoid any close combat and invert the controls if you have to.

Speaking of needing patience, there are some rather lengthy driving missions, and unfortunately they are the least fun part of the game because every vehicle you can control in this game handles absolutely atrociously. It feels like you’re driving on ice with bald tires and you’re actually controlling a piece of wood. Every mission involves either you chasing a villain or you getting chased and rammed by several enemy vehicles, and if the controls weren’t so bad these missions would actually be fun; suddenly reversing, swerving about and even losing your pursuers by forcing them to crash into oncoming traffic is some level of fun, but the fact of the matter is that you will almost always need to play a driving mission at least twice to actually pass it, and some of the ones later in the game require even more patience. Luckily every mission, if lengthy enough, has auto-save checkpoints that will keep you from having to start all over if you fail a mission, and you will when driving.

Puzzle solving comes in both stand-alone missions and as requirements in the middle of third-person missions. The most fun “puzzle” is interrogating a suspect who refuses to give up necessary information. Jack or Tony will have the suspect restrained and you must utilize their powers of persuasion to extract what you need within a time limit, usually about four and a half minutes. Using Triangle for aggressive, Square for neutral and X for calm you must get the suspect’s heart rate within the “cooperation line” several times to progress. Every time a question is answered a green bar will fill up on the side of the screen, but if the suspect gets too calm or too panicked you will have to press Triangle or X numerous times to get the heart rate back in range, and once you get close to the end the sweet spot will move around, making it difficult to hit. The gameplay is fun and it’s funny to hear the suspect get more and more panicked, but if anything is off in this mini-game it’s the audio. Jack may go from yelling death threats to being calmly threatening to simply trying to soothe the suspect’s nerves all in a span of twenty seconds, and while this does fit with the objective of the game it just kills a lot of the tension (at least, until you look at the ticking clock in the corner again).

The other puzzle-based missions are fairly straightforward and simple. You have to rearrange red letters in a certain order until they turn green to crack electric locks, which comes up quite a bit and can’t help but feel too easy. Another one has you use the four face buttons to trace the correct path to two cubes (nodes) to unlock a door, (if you just sit at the beginning and take a few seconds to plan your path there’s really no challenge involved here), and there’s a hacking puzzle in which you have to partition a hard drive by ever-more-quickly matching the face buttons with the corresponding colored sections. One last one reminds me of the lock picking from Splinter Cell: you have to locate the sites of 10 bombs in a given area and you must rotate and swivel the left thumbstick precisely to find them and then stick with that exact spot for a few seconds to let it lock on, much like finding the sweet spot and jiggling in that area to pick locks as Sam Fisher.

And it’s that comparison to Splinter Cell that brings me full circle to what really plagues this game overall, which is that it just tries too damn hard to be too many different things and can’t pull any of it off successfully. It has third-person action like Resident Evil 4, driving and stealing cars like GTA, stealth like Splinter Cell and puzzles like something from a Touch Generations DS game. And how do you mesh all of these genres and modes of gameplay into one coherent game? I don’t know, because this game isn’t it. And furthermore, there are some large gaps of time and logic that the game makes no effort to explain. On the show there can be two or three concurrent storylines in one episode, yet in the game you almost have the exact opposite, one storyline that takes three hours. Also, on the show you often see the bad guys’ point of view and get some sort of understanding of what they’re doing, but in the game other than when the good guys are around you really don’t hear anything about their true objectives or true motives. This can be forgiven because this is a game, but even so that left me feeling down.

For the true 24 nut, all missions have “objectives” that help you unlock bonus content at the end of each mission. Character profiles and actor interviews make up the bulk of the unlockables that you can get if you achieve a grade of 90% or above in any of the 58 separate missions. The grades you get depend on several factors the game tracks and displays at the end of the missions. You can get bonus points for speed, accuracy, number of head shots, number of civilians rescued and more, while you get points subtracted for civilians harmed, vehicle damage, inaccuracy or taking too much time. The grading system is meant to encourage replaying the game, and for the action-focused missions such as storming buildings and rescuing people it works, but you have to be either incredibly hardcore or a masochist to want to do some of these driving missions again just to unlock a model of “Madsen’s Bodyguard #3.”

In the end, 24: The Game feels like an opportunity that wasn’t fully cashed in on. It packs much of what is great about the TV show into a game but also leaves you inexcusably hanging and scratching your head at many points. I recently acquired all five available seasons of the show on DVD, and after watching through the first two seasons I played this game, and it would take a fellow 24 fan that would do the same thing to really tolerate and maybe even enjoy 24: The Game. Otherwise, you’re better off renting it or just staying away.

When I first saw the videos and buzz about Guitar Hero in late 2005, I was intrigued. A year later I asked for a PlayStation 2 for Christmas and Guitar Hero was the first thing I thought of. However, its sequel Guitar Hero II had just come out and so I asked for that instead. When I opened my presents that morning and popped GHII into my new system, I could not have been more satisfied, because Guitar Hero II is a totally awesome game and a blast to play.

To be frank, this game rocks. Rhythm games have never been anything special to me before, but Guitar Hero II's custom-shaped controller makes all the difference in the world. If you’ve never seen the controller, it’s shaped just like a real electric guitar but smaller in size. The neck has five colored fret buttons; green, red, yellow, blue and orange. To actually play notes, you hold down the corresponding color fret button and “strum” on the click-flipper that fills in for the strings. For those of you who would like to get more immersed in the guitar-playing fantasy, there is even a whammy bar that can warble longer notes (and increase you Star Power meter, but more on that later). It takes some getting used to, but after a little practice you'll be hitting the fret buttons like it was second nature.

There's no real "story," but what passes for one is that you (you choose one of eight avatars and can customize their appearance with unlockable outfits and guitars) are an up-and-coming guitarist making your way up the ladder on the national underground music circuit. That's where the game really stops caring because that's where you should stop caring. However, to immerse you in the fantasy of playing in a band the game does a very good job of creating atmosphere. The venues play the biggest part in this; as you descend down the list of songs you unlock bigger and bigger places to play in with corresponding cheering crowds. From a school gym to a local bar, a concert hall, the Vans Warped Tour and even Stonehenge, the venue gets huger and more immersive the further you progress, but that’s just the beginning.

Guitar Hero II is about the music and there's plenty of it. There are up to 40 songs in Career mode (only 28 in Easy, Medium and up get all 40) with another 24 unlockable songs you can buy with in-game money. You can get a score of 3 to 5 stars in a song, and depending on how well you play a song you're given money which you can then spend on new songs, new characters, new guitars and other things. How well you play a song is graded on things like longest note streak and average score multiplier throughout the song, but also heavily on your final score. For a multiplier, hit ten notes in a row to have notes double in value from 50 to 100 (x2), then another ten for 100 to 150 (x3), and finally another ten for 150 to 200 (x4). But remember, you have to actually finish the song! You can't just play terribly and get away with it, for you will be punished (with the crowd booing and your amp giving you horrible feedback, for example). This is where Star Power comes in.

Star Power is earned by playing enough star-shaped notes throughout the song to fill up a blue bar on the right of the screen above your odometer-like “Rock Meter”. Depending on how well you are playing your Rock Meter will be in Red, Yellow or Green. When you're in the Green, you're hitting most notes and the crowd loves you, but mess up enough to get down to Yellow and then Red and the crowd may become hostile. Once your Star Power meter is full enough you can tilt the guitar to point up (or press Select if you're fast enough) and all notes will glow blue, doubling your score multiplier (up to x8, or 400 points per note) and (important for a hard song) the crowd will start loving you if you hit enough notes, which is important because the crowd’s love dictates whether or not you will even pass the song.

I noted earlier that your whammy bar helps you with Star Power, so let’s delve into that. There are two types of notes, short and long. Short notes are most common; you just press the fret and strum quickly to play these ones. But for long notes you have to press the fret, click the strum and continue holding the fret button(s) until the note is over (not the strum, just the fret). If a long note is star-shaped, you can hold the fret(s) down and then start flicking your whammy bar to boost up your Star Power faster than if you were just doing it normally. Not only does this help with playing, but as was stated earlier it also helps immerse you in the fantasy and dream that you’re actually playing guitar in concert and the crowd actually loves you. The line blurs and it’s incredibly satisfying.

But the heart of this game is the awesome soundtrack. There are 40 songs split into 8 groups of 5 songs each once they are all unlocked, and considering that it’s safe to assume that most people who pick up this game will have little-to-no guitar playing experience the designers made a lot of the music recognizable. I wasn’t as familiar with the songs in the initial setlists as I was with the original Guitar Hero’s songs, but there were numerous recognizable tunes mixed with long-forgotten tracks such as Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me,” The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” and Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil.” While I wasn’t as familiar with the initial songs, the progression through Career Mode and unlocking the rest of the setlists came with some very cool surprises. And of course, once again these songs are sung by cover artists from RedOctane and Harmonix, and once again it’s up to you to decide whether or not the singers and musicians are competent. No one else in the world sounds exactly like the singers in question, but the cover bands come as close as possible to sounding like Ozzy Osbourne, Axl Rose, Dave Grohl, the Wilson sisters, Zack de la Rocha and others. Heck, the producers were even lucky enough to get Primus and Jane’s Addiction to let them use the master tracks of “John the Fisherman” and “Stop!” But there are always a few bumps. Whoever stood in for Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows does an honorable job but just can’t sing in the same harsh, guttural way, while the singer who impersonates Glen Danzig seems to be trying to cover up a European accent. But don’t worry, because these are things you’ll only notice after playing a few times. And as I said with the original Guitar Hero, the less in-depth knowledge you have about music, the more fun you’ll probably have because you’ll just hear the music and have fun with it without hearing all the things “wrong” with it.

But this is Guitar Hero II, not Guitar Hero I: The Expansion and so there are a number of new and different things that make it better than the original while keeping the same core gameplay intact. For starters, there is more incentive to keep getting better if you’re not that good. Easy mode only allows you to unlock the first seven setlists and only the first four songs in each. If you can manage to work your way up to Medium, after you play the final listed song in a set the camera will pan out, and crowd will go wild and call you back for an encore. The encore song is generally the most difficult song in the set but is also the most fun because of the energy the on-screen audience has. (When you hit the stage again and the curtain re-opens they are so frenzied that your Rock Meter will start in the green instead of the yellow.) You’ll also probably be exhausted if you managed to just play your way through the first four songs only for this one to come along, but that nervous energy makes it even more fun. And of course, more songs are always better and you can’t argue against playing songs like Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son,” Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Rush’s “YYZ” and Lynard Skynard’s “Free Bird.”

In Guitar Hero II, hammer-ons and pull-offs are easier. If you don’t know what those are, a hammer-on is pressing multiple ascending fret buttons and playing successful notes with just one click of the strum bar. A pull-off is the opposite; you hold all the fret buttons you need and let go of them in descending order to play notes with just one strum. These two techniques are how people seem to be able to play notes faster than humanly possible and they’re pretty much required once you start playing Hard and Expert difficulties. In Guitar Hero the window to pull these off was incredibly small. They were difficult to hit just in the original game’s Tutorial mode. In GHII the window for hammer-ons and pull-offs is increased sufficiently that you’ll hit them without even realizing it, and just having to strum once while playing a relentless passage during a fast and/or tricky song can be a lifesaver.

Another new addition is Practice Mode. In addition to the Quick-Play mode from the first game you can now choose to play just a section of a song you’ve been having trouble with instead of playing the entire song just to get to the problem part. This is especially great because Guitar Hero II is a good deal harder than the original once you reach the higher songs and higher difficulties. I swear, a number of these songs probably would be easier on a real guitar, especially now that the all-new three-button chord is introduced in Hard mode. But challenging difficulty aside, the biggest addition to GHII is the expanded multiplayer modes.

The biggest change here is that each player can select his or her own difficulty, so if you’re pretty good on Hard but your friend is still terrified of the blue button he can play on Easy while you stick to Hard. Guitar Hero I’s multiplayer returns here as “Face-Off,” in which players trade notes back and forth. There is also Cooperative mode in which players share a score, Star Power meter and note streak and in which one player takes lead guitar while the other takes bass guitar or rhythm and you both play a fuller song than in the single-player mode. And once you finish the game you unlock Pro Face-Off, in which both players each play the same notes at the same time and the question of who is better at a given song can finally be answered amongst yourselves. Get some people together and you will have nothing but a blast with this mode.

Overall, Guitar Hero II is an astounding accomplishment and even manages to top its predecessor. To be able to make a rhythm/music game that almost anyone can play with relative ease and enjoy is nothing if not remarkable. It’s also one of the only games I can think of that is as much fun to watch being played as it is to actually play. This game comes wholeheartedly recommended. Buy it, rent it, borrow it or just monopolize the demo station at Best Buy because Guitar Hero II is one of the most fun games to come along in a long, long time.

When I first saw Guitar Hero on the PS2 in late '05, I was intrigued. When at last the time came for me to own a PlayStation 2 Guitar Hero was the first thing I thought of. When I finally found it and popped it into my system, I could not have been more satisfied, because Guitar Hero is an awesome game and a blast to play.

To be frank, this game rocks. I've played other rhythm games before (long ago), but GH's custom-shaped controller makes all the difference in the world. If you’ve never seen the controller, it’s shaped just like a real electric guitar but smaller in size. The neck has five colored fret buttons; green, red, yellow, blue and orange. To actually play notes, you hold down the corresponding color fret button and “strum” on the click-flipper that fills in for the strings. For those of you who would like to get more immersed in the guitar-playing fantasy, there is even a whammy bar that can warble longer notes (and increase you Star Power meter, but more on that later). It takes some getting used to, but after a little practice you'll be hitting the fret buttons like it was second nature.

There's no real "story," but what passes for one is that you (the character you select at the beginning and can change whenever) are an up-and-coming guitarist making your way up the ladder on the local music circuit. That's where the game really stops caring because that's where you should stop caring.

Guitar Hero is about the music and there's plenty of it. There are up to 30 songs in Career mode (only 25 in Easy, Medium and up get all 30) with another 17 unlockable songs you can buy with in-game money. You can get a score of 3 to 5 stars in a song, and depending on how well you play a song you're given money which you can then spend on new songs, new characters, new guitars and other things. How well you play a song is graded on things like longest note streak and average score multiplier throughout the song, but also heavily on your final score. For a multiplier, hit ten notes in a row to have notes double in value from 50 to 100 (x2), then another ten for 100 to 150 (x3), and finally another ten for 150 to 200 (x4). But remember, you have to actually finish the song! You can't just play terribly and get away with it, for you will be punished (with the crowd booing and your amp giving you horrible feedback, for example). This is where Star Power comes in.

Star Power is earned by playing enough star-shaped notes throughout the song to fill up a blue bar on the right of the screen above your odometer-like “Rock Meter”. Depending on how well you are playing your Rock Meter will be in Red, Yellow or Green. When you're in the Green, you're hitting most notes and the crowd loves you, but mess up enough to get down to Yellow and then Red and the crowd may become hostile. Once your Star Power meter is full enough you can tilt the guitar to point up (or press Select if you're fast enough) and all notes will glow blue, doubling your score multiplier (up to x8, or 400 points per note) and (important for a hard song) the crowd will start loving you if you hit enough notes, which is important because the crowd’s love dictates whether or not you will even pass the song.

Now I noted earlier that your whammy bar helps you with Star Power, so let’s delve into that. There are two types of notes, short and long. Short notes are most common; you just press the fret and strum quickly to play these ones. But for long notes you have to press the fret, click the strum and continue holding the fret button(s) until the note is over (not the strum, just the fret). If a long note is star-shaped, you can hold the fret(s) down and then start flicking your whammy bar to boost up your Star Power faster than if you were just doing it normally. Not only does this help with playing, but as was stated earlier it also helps immerse you in the fantasy and dream that you’re actually playing guitar and the crowd actually loves you. The line blurs but it’s incredibly satisfying.

But the heart of this game is the awesome soundtrack. There are 30 songs split into 6 groups of 5 songs each, and considering that it’s safe to assume that most people who pick up this game will have little-to-no guitar playing experience the designers made a lot of the music recognizable. The first two set lists are filled with songs that, if you've ever picked up a broom and "jammed" to a song you were listening to, odds are a couple of those times you were listening to one of these songs. “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “More Than a Feeling,” “Smoke on the Water” and “Iron Man” are all staples of the hockey-stick playing air guitarist and they’re incredible to play. However, you aren’t actually listening to Joan Jett, Boston or Deep Purple, but rather RedOctane and Harmonix cover bands. For the most part they do a very good job. They play the music extremely well and even make a couple of changes here and there, just by adding a few notes to keep you on your feet. The changes they make are mostly to prevent fade-outs because too many of those are just no fun. The singers are also mostly competent. Symphony of Destruction obviously isn’t sung by Dave Mustaine but is well-sung nonetheless, while the cover of Iron Man is nearly spot-on with the real Ozzy Osbourne. Some songs sound better than their originals while others just sound horrible, but that’s just to my ears. It’s all a matter of perspective.

The mixture of music is one that looks strange on paper, but actually works pretty well in-game. You start by playing classic rock songs from Black Sabbath, Boston and Queen and throw in some harder stuff like Judas Priest and Blue Öyster Cult, but then all of a sudden you’re playing much more recent stuff like Franz Ferdinand, Sum 41 and The Donnas. It seems to be that the less you actually know about music the more fun you’ll have, because the oddity of playing “Take Me Out” right after “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and  “Fat Lip” after “Ziggy Stardust” is non-existent if you don’t know any different (or don’t care). While their eras might be completely off, they meld together very well because they’re all fun to play and all sound as if, in some alternate universe, they would go side by side.

While single player will give you enough to last for months, multiplayer adds even more replayability to Guitar Hero. If you have a friend with another guitar controller the multiplayer modes open up and you can play against each other in a cooperative face-off. The multiplayer mode has a meter in the middle of the screen that actually keeps track of who is “winning,” which is odd because each player plays different notes at different paces. Sometimes one player will play a lengthy solo while the other just stands there waiting. But don’t let the odd placement of “winning” and “losing” in this mode take away the fun you can have with it.

Overall, Guitar Hero is an astounding accomplishment. To be able to make a rhythm/music game that almost anyone can play with relative ease and enjoy is nothing if not remarkable. This game comes wholeheartedly recommended. Buy it, rent it, borrow it or just monopolize the demo station at Best Buy because Guitar Hero is one of the most fun games to come along in a long, long time.

God of War II is an incredible example of improving on the first game while not drastically altering gameplay in any major way. The main gameplay elements of visceral combat and challenging-but-not-difficult puzzle solving are just as present as before, but the fact that they feel so much better than the first game make God of War II a game for the ages.

GoW II picks up from the end of the first game: you are Kratos, the ashen-white, bloodthirsty Spartan warrior who has recently deposed Olympian god Ares to become the God of War. The main story involves Kratos' tactics becoming so brutal that the Olympian gods send him back to earth as a mortal again, trick him into giving up his godly powers and almost send him into Hades. Showing up to save Kratos is the titan Gaia, who then informs Kratos that he must seek out the destiny-controlling Sisters of Fate, a feat no mortal has ever come close to accomplishing. If you played the first God of War, the premise should seem similar in that Kratos must journey further and achieve something more difficult than anyone before him, while along the way encountering many characters and creatures from Greek mythology. And how do you manage to do this? By destroying, maiming and tearing apart everything that moves!

The combat remains almost identical to that of the first game. You press X and Triangle to use Kratos' chain-blades and other weapons, but when enemies swarm upon you constantly you can mash buttons for only so long before you have to start learning how to avoid attack patterns and use numerous combos. But for all the things that remain the same, much has changed in God of War II. One addition to GoW II is the presence of sub-weapons, either a giant hammer or large spear, that Kratos can use instead of his Blades of Athena, but much like the previous game you'll pretty much only need the blades and nothing else. There are also new spells this time around, with long-range attack Typhon's Bane (renamed from Zeus' Fury) and enemy-freezing Head of Euryale (renamed from Medusa's Gaze) being joined by Cronos' Rage, a multi-targeting electric attack that will likely be your most-used magic attack, and Atlas Quake, a wide-area ground-pounding attack. The Rage of the Gods also returns as Rage of the Titans and works the same by pressing L3 + R3, except that you can manually stop using it before your meter drains.

Kratos can also use a hookshot-type item to swing from certain areas using the R1 button as well as being able to fly (glide, actually) later in the game. The button-mashing-in-correct-sequence quicktime events return, and ripping out a cyclops' eye or a medusa's head feels just that much more satisfying after hitting a four-button, two-stick combo. There is one place they're even more welcome: opening doors. In God of War, you had to mash R1 to open a door, but in GoW II you have to press R1 and then mash O repeatedly, which is much easier on the hands but can still get extremely annoying when there is an army of skeletons trying to kill you as the spiked roof not-so-slowly collapses upon your head. The other little changes that were made were for the better: you can press X to have Kratos move up ladders now in addition to walls, you can jump down walls as well as up, blocking an enemy's attack with L1 can send the attack back at said enemy if timed right (which comes in extremely handy in later boss battles), and in certain areas you can even stop time for a few seconds, with your time left being shown as a yellow bar below your green health meter and blue magic meter, replacing the red "orb count" meter. You still collect a ludicrous amount of red orbs to upgrade your weapons and spells, though; I got so many from enemies and chests that all spells and but one weapon were at max level by the final battle.

One completely new element in GoW II are the two flight sections early in the game in which Kratos pilots a Pegasus in his journey to the Isle of Fates. Neither lasts too long, but long enough for you to have to fight airborne enemies, dodge fire in slow motion and jump onto an enemy gryphon and quicktime-event particular annoying enemies, all while careening through the darkened sky, and also while avoiding stalactites and beams in the cavern level.

For a PS2 game, God of War II looks absolutely insane. Sony's Santa Monica studio completely tapped the well dry with this game: the varying environments from the snowy mountains and titanic caves to decrepit swamps and sweltering volcanoes are mouth-gapingly gorgeous, and the game isn't afraid to zoom in on the architecture, enemies and characters because they can stand up to very close scrutiny and still look remarkable. Even that there are no load screens save for two or three is amazing because even the hallways Kratos has to run down to disguise them look amazing. The art direction and amount of polish in GoW II is second to none.

Overall, GoW II delivers on all levels. It contains all the things people play games for: gruesomely satisfying combat, simple yet ingenious puzzles, an engaging story and the desire to keep going because everything is just so good. And the best part is that there's so much of it: depending on how much exploring and fighting your do, the game could last from nine to twelve hours the first time through, and there are numerous unlockables and extra modes after the game's completion. There's even a bonus DVD that chronicles the making of the game, and contains many things from interviews and behind-the-scenes meetings to looks at lost levels and voice recording sessions, just to name a few. Whether or not you played the first game, or whether or not you even own a Playstation 2, you absolutely owe it to yourself to play God of War II because it truly is a quintessential video game and should not be missed.

I was weaned on games in the 16-bit era, and the few games I played will always stick in my head and have a place in my heart. I was a SNES fan but I always liked a few games on the Sega Genesis, especially the Sonic the Hedgehog games, and I'd always make good on the few chances I got to play any of them. About a decade later, after many shifts in the video game landscape, Sega packed numerous Sonic games together and the resulting Sonic Mega Collection is a both a fantastic piece of nostalgia and a collection of some games that still hold up rather well today.

Playing all of these old Sega Genesis games does not feel as strange on the GameCube controller as one might think. You can use either the stick or the D-pad to move Sonic directionally. He can still move left and right, and down still makes him spin. The A-button, B-button and X-button are mapped as the Genesis’ A-B-C respectively and all used for jumping in the majority of the games. The most important part is that is doesn’t feel wrong. I remember the Genesis controller feeling awfully large for it’s time, but the Cube controller is around the same size and feels comfortable to play with. If you’re a former Sega purist and feel wrong and icky about playing Sonic on a Nintendo system, the controls should make you feel right at home.

There are 7 games available at the start. They are Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Spinball, and Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. The only reason I bought this game was because it has Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on it; that was all I wanted or cared about. Sonic 2 was the Sonic game that made me fall in love with Sonic. All these years later it is still fun to play. The basic premise of the first Sonic games was to run from one end of the stage to the other while collecting rings, bouncing on enemies and avoiding spikes that pop out of the ground for no reason, and all while going faster than you can even keep your eye on. Sonic the Hedgehog 1 is almost as good as Sonic 2. The game is just as fun, the music is just as catchy and the speed is just as eye-rippling, but the absence of the spin-dash is often quite glaring. I know that's not the game's fault, but after so much Sonic 2 one does get used to it and so when I try to spin-dash up a wall and Sonic just curls up and jumps, after a while it gets annoying.

The rest of the games are a mixed bag. Sonic 3 plays much like 1 and 2, but there are a number of oddities that make it my least favourite of the original trilogy. Sonic 3 was the first stop in Sonic’s eventual downfall, because Sega took out some of the elements of speed and replaced it with puzzles that just don’t fit, maybe to make Sonic more like other games at the time rather than continuing to forge their own path. The new character Knuckles was cool at the time, but again, it signaled the beginning of the over-emphasis on all of Sonic’s friends and shifted focus away from Sonic and speed, the two things that made the first two games so memorable. Sonic & Knuckles, the direct sequel to Sonic 3, has the same problems, but that isn’t to say they are both bad games. No, rather they just don’t shine as brightly next to their two predecessors.

And then you have the weird additions that may or may not have been included just to fill a quota. Sonic 3D Blast, as experimental, ahead of its time and oddly-controlling as it may be, is probably the best of the remaining games. It felt strange to play on the Genesis, but on the GameCube controller with a control stick it feels much better. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was Puyo Puyo until it had the Sonic moniker slapped on it to make it more marketable, but it is a fun puzzle game that shouldn’t be overlooked. Sonic Spinball is another situation of Sonic being put in a game he doesn’t really belong in, but it’s no slouch and a decent pinball game. These games are there and they’re fun to play so play them.

In addition to the seven games available from the start, there are five unlockable games: Flicky, Ristar, Blue Sphere, Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Flicky is a 1984 arcade game in which you rescue tiny birds, and it seems to be aimed at 3-year-olds. Blue Sphere is the Sonic bonus mini-game that requires you to touch all the blue spheres on a grid without touching any red ones. Ristar is a fun late-life-cycle Genesis platformer that I had never played until unlocking it. Ristar is a humanoid star with extendable arms that help him on his journey to save the solar system from the grasp of the evil Kaiser Greedy. It’s pretty fun.

And Sega would have been nuts to include Sonic & Knuckles and not its most awesome feature: to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 and 3. To play “Sonic 3 & Knuckles” back in the day wasn’t a big deal because Sonic & Knuckles essentially does that already, but “Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2” was absolutely mind-blowing at the time and still is. The idea that you could patch Knuckles into an existing game and have it work was too much for my little pre-teen mind to handle. Playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2 is almost as much fun as regular Sonic 2. There are a few gameplay differences, such as Knuckles’ ability to glide and clutch walls remaining intact and the fact that your ring count remains intact if you enter and return from a special stage.

The extras are hardly worth a mention, but they’re still there. In addition to the unlockable games, there are several other things on the disc that fall under “I didn’t want them but I’ll look anyway.” There are manuals for all included games, official character art, dozens of comic book covers and several trailers and video clips. Nothing too mind-blowing; the manuals are the most interesting of this bunch.

All the games run perfectly, which is something that shouldn’t have been too difficult on the GameCube hardware but is still commendable. Save for the fact that you can press the Z-button to return to the game-select menu, you will actually think you are playing the Sega Genesis when you look at all the games in the collection. If you’re having trouble keeping up with Sonic that isn’t the system’s fault; Sonic was so fast the Genesis almost couldn’t handle him. Also, the replayability in this collection is a no-brainer; in a collection of twelve games you are bound to find a few you like and can bounce between.

Overall, Sonic Mega Collection is a very competent compilation. It puts twelve games of varying quality onto one disc, which is a bargain no one can argue against. It gives younger gamers a chance to see Sonic’s beginnings, and older gamers a chance to replay the games from their childhood memories and to (arguably) see Sonic at his peak. Do yourself a favor: go out there and find the Sonic Mega Collection, because you will not regret it if you do.

It's hard to believe that Pokémon has been around for as long as it has. Memories of everyone I know caught up with Red and Blue, talking about their collections, tricking each other into trading for bad creatures and singing the Pokérap are just a few choice bits. It was slightly embarrassing (we were all 13 to 15 then), but we didn't care. I even went as far as buying the 2.B.A. Master CD and the special Pokémon Yellow Game Boy Color. We eventually grew out of it, though; I don't think a single one of us ever owned Gold or Silver, although I still played through both. And now, seven years later, for reasons that escape me, I decided to dive back into the world I once knew with Pokémon Emerald, and I have not been disappointed.

Leaving Indigo and Johto behind, Emerald takes place in the disconnected Hoenn region and naturally has dozens of new fuzzy Pokémon to behold, some familiar to my eyes, some totally foreign, but all welcome sights. Red and Blue were large enough with 150 Pokémon, and then Gold and Silver added another hundred, and from what I've read, Ruby and Sapphire brought the total to 386. While they aren't all in one game, you can rest assured that such a large number guarantee that you'll never be bored with this game. Just like Yellow and Crystal were before it, Pokémon Emerald is a "director's cut" of sorts. From what I've seen of Ruby and Sapphire, Emerald touches them up slightly with things like a new typeface for the text, some different Pokémon animations, and other things of the sort. Then again, everything in this game looks great to my sore eyes. Anything would after so many years away.

Of course, at its core, Emerald is still about catchin' 'em all. Your character (you can choose between Brendan and May, I took May) just moved to the area, and the local Pokémon doc Professor Birch takes a liking to you, as does his grandchild, the character you didn't select who ends up becoming your rival, who for the first time isn't a jerk. Right away, this game felt very familiar, from the choosing of a grass, fire or water type at the beginning, to having to get through a forest early, to fighting a gym leader with rock-type Pokémon. However, despite its simplicity, it still feels just as bloody rewarding when you finally best a trainer or gym leader who gets to you, whether it's because you can't figure out a Pokémon's weakness, the Pokémon puts yours to sleep and it refuses to wake up, or the opposing trainer uses a Hyper Potion on his or her Pokémon when it has only one hit point left; the taste of victory was so close, and then BAM! All these years later, and it's still exhilarating.

As it has been in the past, there's enough story to keep you going. Even though it gets weak in a few places, it suffices in keeping you going. Whether it's because you strive to be better than you father (who's one of the more annoying gym leaders), because you have to stop opposing gangs Aqua and Magma from destroying the world (by either flooding it or turning it all to land, both so Pokémon can live more freely), or because you have to show those higher up that the small-town person can always make it in the big leagues, there's always a way to connect with that little character sprite on the GBA screen.

I won't deny it, I missed Pokémon. It stunned me when I bought this game that the show was still on TV, that the card game was still being made, and that the games were still selling well. The last things I remember before leaving my own personal Pokéworld were Ash leaving Charizard with the other Charizards, the ridiculously fun Karaokemon songs (which I ended up tracking down to play to this game), and the sad fact that YTV shuffled its schedule so I couldn't really watch it anymore, which essentially phased Pokémon out of my life altogether. Those were great "late childhood" memories, and they all started with the remarkably simple and enjoyable Game Boy games. You would strive to be better than every one, to raise the strongest Pokémon, to catch 'em all. All these years later, Pokémon Emerald proves that the formula I fell in love with years ago still works, and it's still enjoyable.

When opportunity knocks, one has to be a fool not to answer it. Despite the fact that the GC version was just fine, when I finally purchased an Xbox I felt I needed to exchange it for the Xbox version. And while from most points of view the two versions are identical, it's a number of little things that make the Xbox version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory the better game.

The first Splinter Cell was more or less intact from Xbox to Cube, with only a few parts changed, such as a room being omitted or a path being changed. This had no real impact on how great I found the game to be. Pandora Tomorrow, which I also exchanged for its Xbox counterpart, was altered significantly, with the online multiplayer being taken out, the graphics not nearly as great as they should be and lagging here or there. However, all in all, even with different controls, it played the same way, and was also very enjoyable. Chaos Theory was likewise developed with the Xbox and PC in mind, and it shows. The gameplay is the same, and while I did harp that people have to be insane to really enjoy looking at polished backgrounds to favour one version above the others, I've been forced to eat my words.

The gameplay is essentially the same as before, which is nothing bad. Your objective as Sam Fisher is to sneak into enemy territory and accomplish your mission without being seen if the mission calls for it. It took a while for me to notice, but this game does indeed look better on Xbox. Backgrounds are sharper, the lighting is much better, and guards actually talk and get frightened looks in their eyes (as opposed to the frozen talking masks they were in the GC version). However, while better looks are indeed nice, they don't make a game. The controls have been left more-or-less untouched from the first two, with a few exceptions. For example, you have to hold down the White button and scroll through your arsenal to select your weapon, rather than just pressing a button on the D-pad. It's really nothing to concern yourself with, though.

Chaos Theory feels very complete in comparison to the first two. In Splinter Cell, the characters were introduced, and Sam accomplished Third Echelon's maiden mission without fail. Pandora Tomorrow felt too similar, much like an expansion pack rather than an all-new game. It still had its moments, though, including new voice actors for Lambert and Grimsdottir, plus the CIA man D.P. Brunton. In Chaos Theory, Lambert and Grimsdottir's original (and better) voice actors are back, and Brunton has been replaced by the much less-annoying William Redding. Before every mission, Lambert, Grimsdottir, Redding, and whoever else involved in that mission will brief you on what's going down. You even get to choose your arsenal based on your preferred approach: "Stealth" if you plan to sneak around more, "Assault" if you intend to get your hands dirty. There is also "Redding's Recommendation," which is essentially a combination of the two with a couple of unnecessary items omitted.

Level design is also much more complete. Whereas the first one was mainly indoors, and the second one was largely outdoors, Chaos Theory blends the two very well. For example, the first mission is on an island with a lighthouse. You start the level on a beach, and then creep your way through underground tunnels before reaching the guerrilla hideout, which is a series of large and small buildings. You'll never stay in or out too long, even the mission is mainly in one of the two, such as when you must rob a bank. You begin that stage in the bank's courtyard, sneak around the building and then eventually sneak inside, only to be able to return outside later on.

There are the numerous new moves that Sam has that makes Chaos Theory feel much more fluid than either of the first two. Now equipped with a dagger, Sam can slice an enemy's throat open as he passes by, and can also stab them in the back if holding onto them, both by using the R-button. The L-button makes Sam us non-lethal force, such as punching a guy or choking him into unconsciousness. There is also the move Sam can pull off while hanging from a ledge. If an enemy sentry walks by, you can press the A-button to have Sam reach up, grab the enemy and pull him off the cliff, or building, whatever the case may be.

Something that really makes the Xbox version of CT superior to the Cube version is the load times. When booting the game, the sequence is almost identical, but a lot shorter: Xbox load screen, Ubisoft logo, Dolby logo, CT title screen for 20 seconds, opening movie (which doesn't seem to let me skip until about a minute into it), load profile (no time), load mission (no time), load progress (10 seconds), load level (10 seconds), load exact location (5 seconds). The biggest relief is during the missions, which are seamless from beginning to end, unlike the "levels" in the GC version. For example, on GC when you play the bank level, you start in the courtyard, then once inside, you must load three different wings, which each can take half a minute to load. On Xbox, there's no loading time whatsoever, and that helps the game feel much more immersive.

Another interesting thing about CT is also how the missions aren't totally isolated from each other. There are "primary" and "secondary" objectives. The primary ones must be accomplished before extraction is possible, but the secondary ones aren't entirely vital. If you fail to accomplish a secondary objective, you will have to accomplish it in a future mission. There are also "opportunity" and "bonus" objectives, which are the ones you can choose to do should you get the chance and ones you do without even knowing it or being asked. However, only primary objectives are listed in your OPSAT.

One new feature I absolutely love is the OCP, a special attachment on your pistol that allows you to disrupt almost anything with an electric current, such as certain lights, certain cameras, and other things like computer monitors and electric windows. Instead of having to shoot one of those out and risk having a sentry hear you, you can merely disable the light or camera and sneak past, plus the OCP causes the malfunctioning item to emit enough noise to disguise your passing if an enemy is indeed nearby. Sound is also more important in this game, because now there is actually a small gauge for it to let you know how loud Sam is. The small square on the bar represents the allowed level of noise, and anything above the square increases the risk of you being heard. Another new feature is the EEV, which is a visor mode that allows you to view and find objects that you can interact with, such as a computer, light or microphone. You can access and hack objects from a distance with the EEV, and can toggle all your different visors as well.

Even though I don't play online, I can easily enjoy the two-player co-op mode. Having two players cooperating can be fun, but as it really turns out, if your partner doesn't screw up, you will; some of these levels can be very unforgiving. There are only a few co-op levels, but they are fun just the same, and it's interesting to see the kind of objectives that would require two agents instead of just one.

Is Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory a good game? Yes. Better visuals, easier controls and much shorter loading times give the Xbox version the edge over the GC version. If you have any interest in action games, there shouldn't be too much reason why you haven't tried this game already. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is the Splinter Cell game we've all been waiting for. Find this game, pop it into your system and get ready to have fun.

The politics of gaming is something that many of us in the online community have to deal with on a daily basis. There are those who will always favour one system, or one company, or one game above all others, and this becomes all too apparent in some people when reading something they've written. Of course, it's possible to justify, such as when two or three systems get the same game and comparisons will be made, usually placing one version above the others for reasons only the hardcore or insane really care above. For the rest of us, any version of a game will do, as long as it is intact and it is still fun. The Nintendo GameCube version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is just such a game.

The first Splinter Cell was more or less intact from Xbox to Cube, with only a few parts changed, such as a room being omitted or a path being changed. This had no real impact on how great I found the game to be. Pandora Tomorrow was altered significantly, with the online multiplayer being taken out, the graphics not as great as they should be and some lagging here or there. However, all in all, even with different controls, it played the same way, and was also very enjoyable. Chaos Theory was really developed with the Xbox and PC in mind, so there will be differences in appearance. However, you'd really have to love being able to look at a slightly better background for all of twenty seconds to really favour one of the Microsoft versions, not to mention that the GC version is on two discs, which allows for more room for such things as the cutscenes, which don't suffer at all.

The gameplay is essentially the same as before, which is nothing bad. Your objective as Sam Fisher is to sneak into enemy territory and accomplish your mission without being seen if the mission calls for it. One thing you'll notice right away is that, while looking good, the graphics aren't as great as they should be on the GameCube. After experiencing such games as Metroid Prime, The Wind Waker, Resident Evil and most recently Resident Evil 4, I've come to know the limits of what the Cube can pump out, and this is not it. Some levels can be so dark night vision almost becomes necessary. Brightness adjustment on your television set can offset this, and all in all it's not so bad. The controls have been mapped to the Cube controller in a way that seems awkward, but work extremely well after adjusting to them. I actually feel as if I'm playing an older game while I play Chaos Theory, because to do many things, you must hold down the Z-button and press another button with it, and doing this reminds me of doing numerous combos in older 16-bit games. Sometimes it can be annoying, however. For example, changing guns is Z + C-Left, and whistling to attract guards is Z + C-Up. I can assure you, you will mix these up more than once, much to your chagrin.

Chaos Theory feels very complete in comparison to the first two. In Splinter Cell, the characters were introduced, and Sam accomplished Third Echelon's maiden mission without fail. Pandora Tomorrow felt too similar, much like an expansion pack rather than an all-new game. It still had its moments, though, including new voice actors for Lambert and Grimsdottir, plus the CIA man D.P. Brunton. In Chaos Theory, Lambert's original VA is back, and Brunton has been replaced by the much less-annoying William Redding. Before every mission, Lambert, Grimsdottir, Redding, and whoever else involved in that mission will brief you on what's going down. You even get to choose your arsenal based on your preferred approach: "Stealth" if you plan to sneak around more, "Assault" if you intend to get your hands dirty. There is also "Redding's Recommendation," which is essentially a combination of the two with a couple of unnecessary items omitted.

Level design is also much more complete. Whereas the first one was mainly indoors, and the second one was largely outdoors, Chaos Theory blends the two very well. For example, the first mission is on an island with a lighthouse. You start the level on a beach, and then creep your way through underground tunnels before reaching the guerrilla hideout, which is a series of large and small buildings. You'll never stay in or out too long, even the mission is mainly in one of the two, such as when you must rob a bank. You begin that stage in the bank's courtyard, sneak around the building and then eventually sneak inside, only to be able to return outside later on.

There are the numerous new moves that Sam has that makes Chaos Theory feel much more fluid than either of the first two. Now equipped with a dagger, Sam can slice an enemy's throat open as he passes by, and can also stab them in the back if holding onto them, both by using the R-button. The L-button makes Sam us non-lethal force, such as punching a guy or choking him into unconsciousness. There is also the move Sam can pull off while hanging from a ledge. If an enemy sentry walks by, you can press the A-button to have Sam reach up, grab the enemy and pull him off the cliff, or building, whatever the case may be.

Something that drives me insane is the lengthy load times the Cube version of CT has. Here's the sequence of events when putting this game on: Cube load screen, Ubisoft logo, Dolby logo, CT title screen for 30 seconds, choose language, load profile (15 seconds), load mission (20 seconds), load progress (20 seconds), load level (30 seconds), load exact location (15 seconds). And then, during a mission, you'll have to load certain areas one after the other. (For example, when you play the bank level, you start in the courtyard, then once inside, you must load three different wings, which each can take half a minute to load.) While I do love the fact that I can save absolutely anywhere, as opposed to annoyingly-placed checkpoints, the loading this game requires makes me second-guess that compromise. Whether these load times are present in any other version is unknown to me.

Something interesting about CT is also how the missions aren't totally isolated from each other. There are "primary" and "secondary" objectives. The primary ones must be accomplished before extraction is possible, but the secondary ones aren't entirely vital. If you fail to accomplish a secondary objective, you will have to accomplish it in a future mission. There are also "opportunity objectives," which are the ones you can choose to do should you get the chance.

The GameCube version has two exclusive features: Sam's water-grab move, and GBA connectivity (of course). The water-grab is like the ledge-grab, except Sam can wait in deep enough water and then grab and drown an enemy, rather than throwing him to his death. However, the GBA connection is disappointing this time around. In the first two, connecting your GBA would give you a radar of the surrounding area and locations of yourself, enemies and non-enemies, sort of like Metal Gear Solid. However, in Chaos Theory, there is a map provided in-game, and it even provides you with red squares to tell you which rooms your objectives are in. The GBA merely shows you this map on its own screen, instead of the handy MGS-like radar from previous installments. However, you can view all of your objectives on the GBA as well.

One new feature I absolutely love is the OCP, a special attachment on your pistol that allows you to disrupt almost anything with an electric current, such as certain lights, certain cameras, and other things like computer monitors and electric windows. Instead of having to shoot one of those out and risk having a sentry hear you, you can merely disable the light or camera and sneak past, plus the OCP causes the malfunctioning item to emit enough noise to disguise your passing if an enemy is indeed nearby. Sound is also more important in this game, because now there is actually a small gauge for it to let you know how loud Sam is. The small square on the bar represents the allowed level of noise, and anything above the square increases the risk of you being heard.

Another new feature is the EEV, which is a visor mode that allows you to view and find objects that you can interact with, such as a computer, light or microphone. You can access and hack objects from a distance with the EEV, and can toggle all your different visors as well.

Even though the online component is missing, the two-player co-op mode is available on this version. Having two players cooperating can be fun, but once again, the controls are mapped in such a way that it will take you a while to get used to them, and even then you may not enjoy them. There are only a few co-op levels, but they are fun just the same, and it's interesting to see the kind of objectives that would require two agents instead of just one.

Is Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory a good game? Yes. There are those out there who would say that this game is absolute trash because it doesn't look as good as it should. That may be true, but the real question is, is it worth playing of you own a Nintendo GameCube? That's a resounding yes. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is the Splinter Cell game we've all been waiting for. If you can do with some patience, pop this game in and get ready to have fun.