A few hits and misses this month. I got my hands on quite a few titles in the last thirty days, but not many really made an impression. One new piece of hardware certainly made it's mark. Let's get to it.
The good news this month was the Shark Multimedia Leopard 56K Pocket USB modem. The first thing it has going for it is USB connectivity. I plugged one end of the supplied cable into my computer and the other into the modem; Windows 98 recognized it and installed everything needed from the supplied CD-ROM. I plugged the phone line into it and dialed my ISP: consecutive connections at 44K. With my USR Sportster my connection speed varies between 31.2K to 50.6K, depending on the cycles of the moon or something else I don't understand. The second thing the Leopard has going for it is size: the unit is ridiculously small! It's dimensions are somewhere between a deck of cards and a pager. It's case is translucent blue a la iMac. Overall an excellent product, and at a suggested price of $70 U.S. it's a steal. Go to www.sharkmm.com and see for yourself. As long as you have Windows 98 and a free USB port, this modem will go with any PC or laptop.
Half-Life has received a ton of press over the last few months, and with good reason. It's easily the best first person shooter I've ever played in single player mode; better than Quake II, Sin and Jedi Knight. What makes it better? Other than the amazing graphics, sound and gameplay, I'd have to say it's the story that drew me in. This game let's you interact with others: talk, help each other out, use them for bait. A demo has jut been posted, so check out www.sierrastudios.com and grab a copy. You'll be sorry if you miss out on this title.
A few misses this month: Contender for the Playstation and Settlers III for the PC. When I saw Contender, a boxing title promising far too much, I was excited. But once I got into the game and found the fighting to be stiff and mechanical, I knew it wasn't for me. Settlers III had great promise: a real time strategy game where you concentrated on the details of an economy. The baker needs water and flour to make bread; to get flour you need to grow wheat and have it ground into flour. A tool smith needs iron and coal, requiring a smelter to turn the raw minerals into ingots. At first I loved the way you had to work through every step; but after three hours on level two developing my infrastructure I didn't care what happened to my village! The game is excellent in terms of management in a real time strategy, but the pace is far too slow. There's a demo at www.settler3.com if you care to try your own hand.
by Scott VanderPloeg
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