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'Tomb Raider: Anniversary,' 'Mario Party 8' |
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Written by Justin Hoeger, McClatchy-Tribune
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Friday, 22 June 2007 |
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TOMB RAIDER: ANNIVERSARY
3 stars
Lara Croft's first adventure appeared nearly 11 years ago. The series has had its ups and downs, but it wisely revisits its roots with "Tomb Raider: Anniversary," which takes the plot and locations of "Tomb Raider" and rebuilds them into a good-looking, modernized version of the game.
For those unfamiliar with the series, "Tomb Raider" stars Lara Croft, an English countess who traipses around the world digging up old relics - she's more or less a female Indiana Jones with money.
This game appears to be built on the foundation that made last year's "Tomb Raider: Legend" such a solid entry. Lara has most of her tricks from that game, which played a lot like the "Prince of Persia" remakes of the last few years, with gunplay in place of melee combat.
Lara can climb and jump and shimmy all over the place, whip out a grappling hook and bounce around like an acrobat to get where she's going. Exploration and puzzle-solving are the focus, with occasional bursts of combat against animals or rival tomb raiders.
PUBLISHER: Eidos
SYSTEM: Sony PlayStation 2, also for Sony PlayStation Portable, PC
PRICE: $29.99
AGE RATING: Teen
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MARIO PARTY 8
2 ½ stars
Each year brings a new "Mario Party" game, each pretty much the same as the last. They're great for groups, but solo games against the computer aren't so fun.
The main game is played like a board game for up to four people. In each turn, players roll a die and move forward on the game board, landing on blue spaces that grant coins, red ones that take them away or a variety of special spaces with their own effects. At the end of the turn, everyone's dropped into a mini-game that grants coins to the winner.
The goal is to gather more stars than the other players or team. On some boards, coins buy stars; other boards award them in other ways. Coins can also buy candy, which players can use at the beginning of their turns to give themselves an advantage, like extra dice rolls.
The new set of mini-games takes advantage of the Wii Remote, and that works pretty well. But the game does little else to distinguish itself from previous entries.
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
SYSTEM: Nintendo Wii
PRICE: $49.99
AGE RATING: Everyone
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PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION
4 stars
Developed by the original game's creator, the "Pac-Man Championship Edition" update is a perfectly natural evolution of the initial pellet-chomping concept - it feels more like "Pac-Man" than "Pac-Man" does anymore.
There are multiple game modes (Championship Mode, two Challenge Modes, three Extra Modes), but all follow the same pattern. As in the original, Pac-Man navigates a maze lined with normal pellets and Power Pellets, which let him turn the tables on the four ghosts constantly pursuing him.
The goal is to score as many points as possible before running out of time or lives. The maze is divided into two halves. Clear one side and a piece of fruit appears on the other; grab that piece of fruit and the cleared side is reconfigured and filled with dots.
Power Pellets don't reappear with every piece of fruit grabbed, so it's important to use them wisely. Eating a long chain of ghosts without dying increases the points they grant, and eating a long chain of dots likewise increases their point value. The longer a player survives, the more the game's speed increases.
PUBLISHER: Namco Bandai
SYSTEM: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade download)
PRICE: $10 (800 Microsoft Points)
AGE RATING: Everyone | Only registered users can write comments.
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