| DC
Crazy Taxi 2 |
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New York City hosts anywhere from 500,000 to 750,000 motorists
every day. Inbound and outbound vehicle varieties run the
gauntlet from gas guzzling SUVs conveying suburbanites to the
Hard Rock Cafe or multi-axle big rigs headed for the Fulton
Fish Market. Then of course, there is the ubiquitous taxi cab,
that yellow harbinger of doom with the potential to disrupt
traffic patterns, snarl already congested streets, and
generally raise the blood pressures of an angst-ridden
ridership.
At the outset of Crazy Taxi 2, you choose a
persona from four new cabbies: Cinnamon, Hot-D, Iceman, and
Slash. The hacks from the original Crazy Taxi may be unlocked
(Axel, Gena, Gus, and B.D. Joe) later in the game. Upon hopping into your ride, push the gas pedal and
locate potential fares and take them to their destinations. A
floating arrow guides your way around the city for the fast
track to make some crazy money. Take longer than usual and the
nagging from the backseat begins. A new wrinkle to the
gameplay allows multiple passengers with different
destinations to be seated in back as you burn rubber to keep
everyone happy and moving. A road attack called "Crazy
Hop" launches your cab over other cars, obstructions, and
even buildings if your trajectory is mighty enough. The
addictive mini-games make a return with even more road mayhem
to engage in. A host of
pristine New York institutions and landmarks dot the Crazy
Taxi 2 map including the Hard Rock Cafe on 57th, FAO Schwarz
on 58th, the NYSE downtown, etc. A majestic looking Burger
King restaurant also makes an appearance. The Japanese and USA
game covers are shown to the right. Like the original Crazy
Taxi, the Japanese cover wins for design sensibilities, once
again.
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Crazy
Taxi 2 JPN $53 / US $39
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| DC
Exodus Guilty Neo |
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Hiroyuki Kanno's designs and artwork are embellished upon in
the Dreamcast remake of Exodus Guilty, originally mastered on
the Playstation. The artwork gets cleaned up and the animation
flows a little more fluidly. A good amount of new artwork and
animation also goes into the game to make this release worthy
of it's "complete edition" designation.
Spanning a time period from 1200 BC to 13800 AD,
marking past, present, and future scenarios, the game takes
players on an interactive adventure where decisions in the
past affect future scenarios. Each time era comes with a theme
and problem, ranging
from handling world threats to an archaeological endeavor to
find the 11th commandment of Moses.
A variety of puzzles block progress, but they're fairly
shallow and simple to solve.
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Exodus
Guilty Neo $60
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| PS
The Gun Shooting 2 |
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Back in December of 1999, the first Gun Shooting made it's way
to market and enjoyed middling success. Those were the days
when Playstation games came fast and furious and the pipeline
was bursting with new offerings. Fast forward to 2001 and it's
apparently time for another go. Think of D3 Publisher's new
Simple-1500 game as a shoe-string budget version of Namco's
Point Blank series of gun shooting games. Games such as
Gunbarl, Gunbarina, and Oh! Bakyuun are more...shall we say,
refined but D3 has the right idea and execution if not the
gloss and sheen. Thirty simple shooting exercises are arrayed
against the player and one must aim, cock, and shoot various
little objects, colorful creatures, or other munchkin-like
oddities which scamper onscreen.
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The Gun Shooting 2 $23
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| Dorimaga
Vol. 2 |
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This year's E3 show
makes it's way to the pages of Dorimaga's second issue. X-Box,
Gamecube, and many of Sega's offerings at the show are
featured in the seven page spread. X-Box Jet Set Radio Future
looks hot but the other X-offerings are looking a little
dodgy. The current events section of the mag mentions the
upcoming Sonic 2 Birthday Pack, which is only available for
sale on June 23 and 24. The lines should be mega outside of
shops on that weekend. Weekly rankings give Exodus Guilty Neo
a 6.33, PSO v2.0 goes gold with 9.33, and Crazy Taxi 2 chugs
along with an 8.66. A new Naomi 2 coin-op on display dubbed
Beach Spikers pits lithe women volleyball players against each
other in 3-D. A feature on Dreamcast Super Robot Wars Alpha
looks stellar and fans of the franchise will be pleased with
the conversion. Finally, for this summary, Capcom vs SNK 2
Millionaire Fighting 2001 gets a preview and is listed at 45%
for the Dreamcast. Haohmaru looks a little...well, his hair
has mutated into a major bouffant and we're not sure how we
feel about that...
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| Sakura
Trading Cards |
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Captor
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E-mail
NCS
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