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Japanese schoolgirls driving the toy rev... Score on the field; rock the hous... Video game for next millennium ... Here's what you should ask Santa fo... New web site drives quick deals on wheel... Prune your backyard doodlings into shap... Bank from home and stay aliv... Mini notes break into the top of the mob... Rand's recovery cuts prices... |
Score on the field; rock the houseGamesmeister JULIAN VON PLATO gets behind his joystick to try out two of the hottest new titlesFIFA 99
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Recommended Pentium 166 MMX, 32 MB RAM, 6x CD-ROM, 3-D fx card, Windows 95/98 PRICE: R279 WHAT'S HOT: European Super League WHAT'S NOT: Nothing GAMEPLAY: Superb GRAPHICS: Awesome SOUND: Real INSTALLATION: Easy OUR RATING: 10/10 THE game FIFA 99 brings the world of football onto your PC like never before. The emphasis is focused on more than 250 European teams to deliver the passion and excellence of club soccer from around the world. This is without a doubt the best football game so far. They just get better and better. The new hit for the summer is The Rockefeller Skank by Fat Boy Slim, which is the official theme song for FIFA 99. Quickstart Mode gets beginners and experts alike onto the pitch and into the action with two clicks. Players now have different heights, increased shading and new uniforms. There are 19 new stadiums from around the world, including Anfield. New chest trapping allows players more control over air balls than ever before, allowing them to shield the ball from defenders' attacks. There is more realistic wing play and more responsive tackling. New real-time lighting effects give players an unprecedented level of re al ism. Another interesting aspect of the game's artificial intelligence has to be the wind factor. When you are playing in a serious blizzard, the game takes into account the direction and the strength of the wind and if you play a long pass upfield, the ball will be held up in the air if you kick into the wind. A league with the best teams in Europe consists of the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United, AC Milan, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal, Paris St Germain, and 13 other European club teams to choose from. Graphics have been greatly improved, bringing the game to life with player head-tracking, in-stadium lighting, night games and improved player animations. Control of the players has also been made a lot more user-friendly. Semi-automatic goalies with advanced AI give the player better control over a team's defence. All the usual commentators are there and they seem to be getting a lot better. New recruits include Mark Lawrenson and Chris Waddle. FIFA 99 gets full marks from me.
Mixman Studio SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Recommended Pentium 166 MMX, 32 MB RAM, 6x CD-ROM, Windows 95/98 PRICE: R499 WHAT'S HOT: Coolest music around WHAT'S NOT: Nothing GAMEPLAY: Anyone can mix on this GRAPHICS: Awesome SOUND: CD quality INSTALLATION: Easy OUR RATING: 9/10 IMAGINE you had 16 turntables loaded with earth-shaking beats, musical phrases and sound effects, and could control them all from your computer keyboard. Now imagine that the computer took care of synchronising the beats, so that no matter how rhythmically impaired you were, you could still rock the house with style and confidence. There you have Mixman Studio - described as "all you need to produce, perform and record your own music, an action, music game". Ease of use makes this one of the most sophisticated yet simple music tools around. The brilliance of Mixman Studio is that it works without conceding sound quality or control. Mixman provides pop-down menus which help you to organise thousands of the most awesome foot stompin' beats. All the loops and beats provided are royalty-free, so if you want to create your own album using Mixman, go right ahead. You can sync all the elements, tweaking the pitch, volume and panning in each of the 16 digital tracks real time. You get to choose your sounds from the Mixman Soundisc library or you can create your own .wav files to use in the mix. Use delay, time stretch and tempo controls before you record your own CD quality tracks for tapes, movie soundtracks, web pages or road trips. Features include easy track loading with pop-down menus; auto-matching, allowing anyone to effortlessly combine any two sounds regardless of tempo; patented synchronisation technologies; CD quality (16-bit, 44Khz); Import .wav files; ready-to-use song templates and step-by-step tutorials. There is an extensive library of musical elements from styles like hip-hop, techno, jungle, acid jazz, Indian, ethnic and metal. New age export music as a .wav file is compatible with popular applications like Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, MGI Videowave, Progressive RealAudio, CoolEdit, Cakewalk and more.
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