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- 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)
-