their new systems. Games with graphically violent scenes will also carry warning labels. AGE NO BARRIER TO CARTOON Ahhh, to reminisce . . .cartoons that really delivered adventure, 2D animations that were highly rememberable. And, the delightful aspect of being a cartoon character is that you really don't age! Such is the case with Jonny Quest, who is return to TV with an unusual triple debut. Called The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, the adventure cartoon is returning on Turner Network Television, TBS Superstation and Cartoon Network. There will be 21 telecasts of the series each week. TNT's showings will be at 8 am weekdays and 6:30 pm on Saturday.s TBS has the show scheduled for 4:35 pm weekdays, and Cartoon Network will show Jonny Quest on weekdays at 8 pm and 12 am. The aim of Turner's companywide initiative is to revitalize classic characters. FILM FESTIVAL ATTRIBUTES The Venice Film Festival has honored Dustin Hoffman with a Golden Lion prize for life achievement. Hoffman also screened his new film, American Buffalo, at the festival. He called his movie critic-proof and it is based on playwright David Mamet's play of the same name. Hoffman plays a petty criminal named Teach in the film. Also shown at the festival was a movie produced by a group of actors who had no work. Filmed in 21 days, with a budget of around $250,000, the film is called Swingers and was warmly received by critics. John Favreau wrote the screenplay as well as plays a leading role in the film, which is based upon his life as a struggling actor and comedian in Los Angeles. Favreau's friends were cast as themselves. The film has been picked up by Miramax and will also be shown at the Toronto Film Festival. Vince Vaughn, the other lead actor in Swingers, has just won a role in Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2." ETERNAL STRUGGLE CONTINUES The MOST successful interactive trading card game company to ever exist is Wizards of the Coast. Millions throughout the world play Magic: The Gathering and Vampire, to name just two of that company's release. Now, Wizards of the Coast has announced that, in October, they will release The Sabbat. This is the very first stand-alone expansion for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and reignites the ancient war against the Camarilla. This set will enable players to create Sabbat decks to challenge Camarilla, or to use the decks to enhance their existing Vampire decks. Two new vampire clans, the Lasombra and Tzimisce, will be introduced with this expansion set. Plus, there are new rules for voting and for combat between Camarillaand Sabbat vampires. For those unfamiliar with this card game, the Sabbat is a sect of vampires, quite malicious, who reject the ancient laws of the undead waging a war of blood against their enemies, the Kindred of the Camarilla. The Sabbat revel in the fact they are creatures of the night. They also hold great contempt for humanity, as they believe mortals to be nothing more than cattle. The Camarilla rule with a genteel facade. The Sabbat rule with an iron fist. The expansion set will come packaged in a 28-card booster format, each with a rules addition booklet. There are a total of 400 cards in the set, which features illustrations by John Bolton, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Dringenberg and Rick Berry, and others. To date, more than 2 billion Magic: The Gathering cards have been sold worldwide. The company has also announced that they are now launching the Chinese translation of Magic: The Gathering. This new version is releasing immediately into the Taiwan and Hong Kong markets and will be available in traditional Chinese characters. This launch comes rather quickly after the sold-out release of the Japanese translation earlier this summer in Japan. This is the eighth translation of the card game which was originally released in 1993, selling out its initial 10 million cards in six weeks. Other translations include French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. A HALF-BAKED NAME? We have all been inundated, of late, by the pressings and meanderings and IPOs of Yahoo! This Internet catalog is certainly one of the most popular sites anywhere on the WWW and appears to be continually in a growth mode. However, seems as though there's a particular baker who is none-too-pleased with Yahoo!'s CEO, Tim Koogle, and the name of the cybercatalog company. Miss King's Kitchens has asked a federal judge to make Yahoo! Inc., stop using that name. Seems as though the bakery registered Yahoo as a trademark in 1989, and the catalog company initiated that name in 1995. The bakery filed a suit in April against Yahoo!, but that has not gone to trial as of yet. The bakery's name is applied to their YA-HOO! cakes. Normally, trademark laws indicate that the same word may be used by non-competing products and services. In this case, the company logos are somewhat similar, but the Internet company feels the case has no merit. VR Golf '97 Preview by Brad Jones, Demanding Duffer I recently teed off on a preview version of the new VR Golf from VR Sports, a division of Interplay Productions--it was simply fantastic. As soon as the game started, I was struck by the depth of the game and the graphic textures. Before starting the game, I felt I should preview the first hole, by walking the course and through use of the game's fly-by features. During the fly-by, a familiar voice started describing the hole and how best to play it. It was none other than Pat O'Brien of CBS Sports and, suddenly, I thought I was actually participating in a golf tournament on Sunday afternoon TV. I then walked the hole, actually moving down as the hill sloped, plus I could go in any direction I wished. Now ready to tee off, an arch appeared on screen to trace my "ideal" shot. I couldn't quite see where my shot landed. That turned out to be no problem--with just a press of a button, I seamlessly switched to three different camera angles and located my shot's resting place. A great feature of this game is the absence of menus. This lets you spend less time setting up for a shot and more time smacking Titleists. I got onto the green in two, and my second shot was so good, I used all of the ten playback options to relive the glory. (And, yes, if you happen to sink a hole in one, you can save the playback to prove it to all of your friends later.) But I blew my great drive with a three-putt. The letdown I felt was expressed with E-Motion, a feature which utilizes real-life reactions of the golfer on-screen, be it great joy or agonizing pain. The next seventeen holes were total enjoyment--and my final score was definitely NOT like real life (thank goodness). Based on my experience with a pre-release version of this title, VR Golf is definitely an A+ offering--I highly recommend this title to anyone who enjoys the absolute best in sports sims. (Brad Jones) Normality PC RadicalGrungePopper I approached this interactive graphic adventure game with some trepidation! In spite of some of the coolest 3D graphics and animation, a better-than-average voice-over for the lead character of Kent, this title appears to be designed specifically for Gen-X'ers. Kent even seems to physically resemble someone cast-out from Seattle's music scene. WRONG! This game is extremely enjoyable, with some terrific puzzles that will require a great deal of thought on your part to solve. Toss in a unique storyline, some of the best cut scene animation ever produced, delightful characters, and you have a game that will offer you hours of adventuring pleasure. Some of the language and situations are not suitable for children, so a family adventure Normality is not. Beyond that proviso, however, I can only recommend adventure gamers gives this offering a try. (Mudgeon)