This review originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 1999.

We reviewed the PC version, but it was also released on PlayStation. Click here to download the original demo!

Taylor’s review

When I first saw the box for KKnD 2 Krossfire, I thought “Wow, this game doesn’t look that bad!”

Little did I know how wrong I was. Installation was probably the best part of this game — smooth and quick with no restart afterward.

Even the opening movie was informative and actually looked good, but this is the only part of the game that has good graphics. The rest of the game did not impress me at all.

The graphics, in my opinion, were no better than Command & Conquer, which is 3 or 4 years old. Why they didn’t try to the improve graphics is beyond me. With such games as Command & Conquer 2: Tiberium Sun coming out soon, you would think that they would want to get an one up on the competition.

KKnD2 Krossfire ran exceptionally well on my system, probably because of such of its low quality graphics etc. Levels took only a moment to load while the movies would only take a few seconds.

The Sound for KKnD2 Krossfire was nothing special. When you click on an unit, it makes the same sound every time you click on the unit. Not to mention that it makes the same sound for every unit for your race. Now, I don’t mean to complain, but hearing the same marine saying the same thing over and over and over again gets on my nerves and I found myself often turning down the sound because of this.

The gameplay is quite boring. There are almost too many units in this game. You cant even figure out what you are making as a unit sometimes. It’s such a stupid design for making a unit. You click on “Constructibles” then a submenu pops up and you choose a base (small, medium, huge) then pick parts. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what these parts do however. Then there is the control factor of these units. To select a unit you left click on it. To move a unit you left click where you want it to go. This is okay, except if you have a lot of units together, and you try to move a unit away from enemy fire, but accidentally click on another unit, the unit is toast.

Despite the genre, this game requires absolutely no strategy to play. It’s just get money, build units, die, build even more units, more, more, more. You get the idea. There is no balance in the units. It’ll take a million archers to take out one sentry gun. The only way to win is to mass-produce units from the very start.

There are only one or two units that can attack air units, so air dominance is key in this game. It kinda makes the game unfair because if you have air and the other person is still researching things to make anti air, they will never win.

To sum it up, if you really want to play a game that bores you, and needs no thinking at all, this is for YOU! If not? go play StarCraft, a much better game. 2 out of 5 stars

Stormy’s 1998 analysis/preview

I guess this must be a pretty popular game cause it comes in several languages, they are English, German, French, Spanish & Mandarin. (I think that is the first time I’ve seen a game available in Mandarin!)

There are two CD’s, one containing the installation and Survivor missions, the other containing the Series 9 and Evolved missions. When you start the game with disk one in, you must pick a Survivor mission. If you pick either one of the other two, the game will bounce back to the desktop, and that’s that. The only way to play the other two missions is to start with disk 2 in the drive, BEFORE you choose the mission. There will be no “please insert disk 2″ prompt, which of course surprised the heck out of me, I thought the CD was broke.

The folks that wrote the instruction manual are aware that a lot of people don’t like to read manuals, so they wrote it humorous. Unless you already know how to play, you ought to get a kick out of learning how to play this game.

The game has 51 missions, and your objective is to gather resources to build your own buildings and fighting units while looking for the enemy so you can crush everything he’s got, in some of the missions, and in some of the missions your only objective is to kill. You can kinda tell right away, either you have the stuff to gather resources, (oil rigs, tankers, buildings, etc) or you don’t. If you don’t have all the extra stuff, then you gotta figure out how to kill the enemy with what you got, cause you can’t build any more. However, there are surprises lying around, there is buried 21st century goodies, and during a mission where I found myself with just one fighter, (he was a nasty one, but not invincible) suddenly I found a repair bay out in the middle of nowhere (thank god!) You can play this game alone or 2 people over Modem and Serial connections, or up to eight players on TCP/IP, or IPX.

Ye Olde System Requirements

• Pentium 133 or faster
• 16MB RAM
• 4X CD
• 2MB DirectX compatible video card
• DirectX compatible digital sound card

Official website

This article originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 1999.

The Intellivision collection was relaunched on the last generation of consoles — Xbox, PS2, GC — in 2004 to mixed reviews. You have to give Keith Robinson, who runs and basically is wholly responsible for the survival of Intellivision, for keeping these games alive! See the bottom for a few old, old Intellivision commercials.

By: Tom Carroll

This is going to be a very “to the point” review. If you have ever hankered to return to the old days of video games, the days where you didn’t worry too much about a story line or character depth or polygon count or frame rate, buy Intellivision Lives. It’ll get you there faster than the twister delivered Dorothy to Oz.

This game consists of 50 of the best Intellivision games made, and they are true to the originals down to the square pixels and goofy “period” music. There are action games, sports games, kid’s games, and space games and even 21 games that were never released. How can you beat that?!

An added bonus is the extra material that comes on the CD. This is historical material, pictures, video and text-based biographies. Much of this was put together by Keith Robinson, original Mattel Electronics staffer, survivor and now a co-founder of Intellivision Productions, Inc.

Robinson originally joined Mattel Electronics in 1981 after a brief stint in TV and film special effects. After working on TRON Solar Sailer, a game based on a movie that was based within a video game, Robinson became manager of applications where he supervised the programming and graphic design of numerous Intellivision games.

Because Mattel was adamant about its programmers remaining in the shadows, the group was collectively called the “Blue Sky Rangers” in a TV Guide article about Intellivision. The name stuck.

For Intellivision Lives!, Robinson collected a bunch of the wacky videos and interviews that employees participated in during the studio’s heyday.

That’s the good part of the story. When Mattel pulled the plug on Intellivision, Robinson presided over several waves of layoffs. Because of Mattel’s attempt to avoid a media circus atmosphere, Robinson poured gasoline on the situation by handing out pink slips in a clown suit. Mattel Electronics closed its doors in 1984.

Although Intellivision lived on briefly in another incarnation, INTV Corporation, Intellivision was essentially dead.

But now, through the efforts of Robinson and others, the games and the times can live again. Intellivision Lives is a thoroughly entertaining buy and is well worth the cost to anyone who wants a good historical time capsule to keep on the shelf and play whenever the current crop of losers and clones fails to entertain.

Ups

The games look exactly like the originals!
Tons of fun games to play through
A chance to explore an age that will never be seen again

Downs

The games look exactly like the originals!
A list of games isn’t part of the documentation.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Intellivision Productions, Inc.
Developer: Intellivision Productions, Inc.
Platform: PC CD-ROM, PlayStation
Genre: Action/Game collection
Players: 1
Launch Date: April 30, 1999

Playability: 4 out of 5 stars
User friendly: 5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
Ratings were determined in 1999

This article originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 1998.

Konami’s Metal Gear Solid is the most intense stealth game for any system. Not only has it completely revolutionized stealth/action games, but it has raised the expectations of all games. In other words, this could be the best Playstation game ever!

As one of the first full length stealth games, Metal Gear Solid provides an exciting adventure through a nuclear warhead disposal site in Alaska. Along the way you sneak around with your character, Solid Snake, fighting only when necessary. This may sound boring, but your heart races throughout the entire game. Your ultimate goal is to destroy a top-secret weapon named Metal Gear. But before you can do that, you must fight a series of bosses — maybe even some family members.

Metal Gear is a nice change up from the typical 3rd person shooter games. The view in Metal Gear is normally an overview, however, pressing “triangle” makes you see in the first person.

Throughout the game, you encounter different kinds of fighting and torture. Two examples are a fight with a sniper rifle and resisting death on a torture machine!

When you are hooked-up to the torture machine, the enemy tells you press “O” repeatedly to regain your strength. Konami should have found a more tasteful way to relay a message to the player.

For an early PlayStation game, Metal Gear Solid has outstanding graphics and sound quality. Some of the movies are so realistic its like you’re watching television! I strongly recommend buying this game. You’ll begin to love the complicated twists-and-turns of the intricate plot as well as the intense and invigorating game play.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Konami
Developer: KCEJ (Konami Japan)
Platform: PlayStation
Genre: Action/Adventure
Players: 1
Launch Date: September 30, 1998

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
User friendly: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
Ratings were determined in 1998