As if modern life were not harrowing enough, Medal of Honor 2 for the PS2 has hit the streets and boy shit howdy it is a hot little number.

You are cannon fodder. No, wait. You are a guy that stupidly enlisted in the US Army just in time to participate in the largest seaborne invasion of all time - Normandy. You donžt need a name, because you have a gun and a helmet and dogtags and a girl back home in Wichita Falls, Kansas that says things like "Swell" and "Sugar." The opening scene of MOH2 is just like that movie Saving Pvt. Ryan only it is now you who is crapping your britches as Nazi (not German. We like Germans. We don't like Nazis) 88mm shells coming screaming in to explode in great lung-busting geysers of sand and bloodied chunks of your barrack buddies. You are given several missions to accomplish, all which involve busting some caps in some Fascist arses in occupied France. Sounds cliched, I know. But this game just shimmers with realism and attention to detail.

Unlike most other first person shooter games which I haven't bought because I'm damn stingy and Okie Dirt Poor to boot, your enemies are smart and do more than just die. Their helmet flies off and they tumble bonelessly to the cold ground into a crumpled lifeless heap. But there is no blood because that would give kids nightmares. They duck around objects, crawl, shoot behind their backs, eat sauerkraut while dancing a polka. You throw a grenade, they will kick or toss it back to you. The soldiers will shout at you and each other in German, which will be easy for you to understand if youžve seen Die Hard and/or can speak Yiddish. Just in case, when they whine at you "nicht shiessen", it means: "donžt shoot, I'm a big Nazi creampuff!"

It feels like there are others humans with you there but don't be misled. There is just you, and a box of warm silicon chips. The background music is richly dramatic, just the way it would be if you were actually there. There are low menacing growls of dread, dramatic stings, swooping climaxes, even triumphant swells.


But the best part, at least for me, are the guns. You can have whatever gat your little heart desires, from little dicked Colt .45s to lovely sniper rifles with scopes. Maybe you can drive tanks, fly planes and even bandage up the horrible pumping wound on your buddies' thigh incurred when an SS Trooper blasted him at point blank range with a panzerschrek? Who knows? But it's still pretty fun.

This is a great game to buy that one guy you know who is always talking about guns and explosions. You know, the one that never gets laid.

(David 1X is a staffwriter/reviewer/anythinger for No-Fi "Magazine" and has been killing nazis ever since he stormed through Castle Wolfenstien! Really! It happened! No, wait...)

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FATAL FRAME
Published by Temco for the Playstation II

Game Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

I love horror video games...especially games in the "survival horror" video games genre,...but NO game has truely spooked me out until I finally got to play FATAL FRAME for the Playstation II. If enough people find out about this game, this could easily be a sleeper hit this year.

I'm not kidding when I say this game spooked me. In the game, set in 1986 (for some reason), you play a young japanese girl named Miku in search of her older brother who disappeared in an old mansion / castle while he himself was searching for his mentor and his assistants who also were missing after visiting the place. The game starts of in black and white with you reliving the events that took place as her brother makes his way into the old mansion. The effect is very cool with a grainy film feel to the whole thing. I think this game would be as fun to watch as it is to play (much like Grand Theft Auto III...in fact this is the first game to finally make me stop playing that game). Once your character is taken by the spirits of the house, you begin from the same spot you began before, but as Miku and in color this time. You must retrace his steps as well as go much much much further into the house in order to solve the mystery of where he went as well as the others and the house itself.


While this can be classified as a survival horror game, it takes the genre into a whole different direction. Instead of fighting with guns, you are armed with an old camera that for some reason is able to trap the souls of spirits in the shots you take. This makes the game a cross between Resident Evil and Pokemon Snap, but SO much scarier...and it's harder to get scarier than Jigglypuff so you KNOW this is one damn scary game! The ghosts range from a spooky shadow or weirdly lit face in a dark corner of the room to eerie waking apparitions that you'll miss if you don't get used to your camera controls, to full on poltergeists that'll keep sucking away your life until you snap them enough times to sap away their "soul-force" (I don't know what it's called, but that seems to make sense). I've been playing this alone late at night in our dimly lit living room and it seriously has given me shivers on the back of my neck and the hair on my arms while playing.


The atmosphere of the game is a lot like a cross between Blair Witch Project and the first Evil Dead. The ghosts don't look like bloody zombies, rather they just look like really creepy ghosts which I am VERY glad to see as so many games rely on the typical brain-eating corses to do all the grunt work in these games. Instead this game doesn't throw ghost after ghost at you...it takes it's time and that's how it's able to pull off all the scares since you rarely know when somethings gonna be around the corner. It also pulls off a few nice "false scares" which don't detract from the game like they do in movies.


I can't ask for any more in the graphics and design of the game. Both are great and it stays spooky whether you are in a well lit room or in an almost pitch black hallway with only a few feet ahead of you lit by your flashlight. The camera angles are very movie-like. The sound, dialogue, and sound effects don't leave much to ask for either. There is barely any load time and if you've played Resident Evil and had to wait for all those doors to open and close, you know what I mean. The layered sutle sounds are very effective to keep the mood going and it doesn't lay the music on you at all times. I was really impressed when I was listening to an audio cassete I found while in the game and while the person on the tape was talking, you can hear a VERY quiet whispering towards the end of the tape beneath the person's voice. It game me a serious case of chills that I had to drink a glass of milk to get over.

So if you like really spooky movies and you like horror-themed games, take a bus to your local game shop and get this game. Its different and it's goooOOoood! I can'r recommend it any more... Seriously, I can't. If I do the ghosties might get me and if they do..... oh, no..... I.....

(Chris Beyond has almost every game system and likes to end his reviews in a very dramatic manner.)

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