Back Seat Driver: BMW 320Ci

The new BMW 3 series has somehow become very attractive. So this week we Back Seat Driver scabbed a ride in one of them to work.

Some features which definately suit the passenger of this car are the nice wide leather seats. Definately a plus when you've got a big ass and need somewhere to plonk it. Other features include a digital TV reciever, good for catching up with your favourite shows when you need to. However, the 'safety' feature doesn't actually let you watch the TV while the car is moving. Apparently it could distract the driver. What rubbish. Its meant to be a luxury car.

The coupe doesn't really suit a true back seat driver however. As its only a two door car, theres that awkward seat shifting that has to happen before anyone can actually sit in the back. The back seats also seem to have a sense of inferiorness to them as well. They're smaller, seem to cover less space, and don't even have headrests (not that I can remember anyway). Its all about that European sense of superiority and for those romantic drives for two.

Handling seems ok. Its responsive and makes parking a breeze. It also has enough power to manuver in inner city environments, allowing you to weave in and out of traffic. Nice if the driver is one of those people who like getting there on time.

For all those passengers out there, if you're taking a ride in this car, just make sure you shotgun the front seat.

Call of Duty 2

On the heels of one of 2003's games of the year is its sequel. In short, it delivers a stunning visual and gameplay upgrade to the original game and its expansion pack. The original provided an immersive, action packed, and suspense filled environment. Call of Duty 2 takes that same formula, revamps the visuals, and just keeps giving you more. So if you loved the first one, this is definately for you.

The game puts you in the shoes of a soldier from each of the major allied countries in world war 2. It starts off with the Russians, fighting off the invading Germans outside Moscow. It leads onto the eventual battle of Stalingrad, arguably the turn of the tide in on the Russian front. Other campaigns include the North African campagin, where you play a British soldier of the 7th armoured fighting back Rommel's troops. Theres even a bit where you play as a tank commander. It ends with another American campaign starting with D-day (thankfully not another Omaha beach landing).

Weapons haven't changed much since the last game. With a game based on history, I guess you can't really do much. One notable addition however, are smoke grenades. You can use these to create a smoke screen to block those pesky machine guns from being able to aim at you with any degree of accuracy. Problem is that the enemy can also use them. It gets a little tense when you're advancing through a cloud of smoke and you can't see the fat German soldier until he's right in front and just about to hit you with the butt of his rifle.

Visuals are one of the game's highlights. On a high end PC, you'll get the whole works. Smoke actually looks like smoke, explosions light up the screen predictably, bullets make the dirt fly up. Its visually spectacular. Enemies will also attempt to crawl away when injured and pull out their luger to take those last few shots before they die. If you happen to shoot the top of their helmet, it'll fly off and they'll look around in amazement before regaining their composure and getting back into the fight (if you don't happen to take them out before that happens). When you're wounded or if a grenade goes off next to you, you'll get the rather dazed and dizzy sense when the screen goes blurry and you get knocked to the ground.

The heavy breathing you'll hear when wounded also gives you the sense you're struggling to keep going. Sound in the game plays a significant role in putting you in the fight. From the sound of weapons going off to the musical score which accompanies some of the game, it all seems very appropriate. Artillery bombardments will take over most of the sound when they come in, causing your squadmates to shout to you over the noise. The thud of a grenade landing next to you can sometimes be the only warning that you'll get before it blows you away. Squadmates will also shout messages regarding enemy positions and ask for covering fire when they are reloading. If you're lucky, they'll even let you know if theres an incoming grenade.

The AI is actually pretty good in the game. Soldiers will take cover behind boxes and walls. They'll peek out and take a few shots before taking cover again to reload. When advancing, one will cover while the other soldiers will move up. They'll even move to pick up the grenade you've just thrown at them to throw it back at you. Not a very good thing if you're somehow stuck in a corner. The enemy also seem to catch you while your in the open, which means laying down covering fire or using a smoke grenade is usually quite useful. Your squad actually does useful things as well. While they might not be as accurate as the enemy (otherwise it'd be a pushover), they can actually shoot and kill the enemy if need be. There were numerous times where I'd run out of ammo and somehow a German soldier stood out from behind a tree or wall aiming his rifle at me when shots would come from behind to take him out.

The game does a good job in making you feel part of something bigger. You're almost never alone, and fallen comrades will usually be replaced by unlimited repawns. Enemies will sometimes seem to have unlimited respawns as well. Thats only until you advance on the position, but it gives the impression that theres hundreds of soldiers holed up in bunkers or defending a position. You'll also see aircraft dogfights, even doing bombing runs on your position while tanks support your advance. Theres also a sequence in which you call a naval barrage on a bunch of Nazi merchant ships.

Overall, a brilliant sequel. If you liked the first game, then this is definately something for you to get. However, if you've had enough of the WW2 themed shooters, this is only more of that, so it may not be worth the effort.

Out for Xbox and PC.

Rating: 8/10

First Person Shooters: Part 2

Sorry for the delay people, I've been doing some err.. research (read: playing waayyyyy too much Battlefield 2)

Quake 2

Quake 2 started a whole new trend in graphics. It was one of the first games which required gamers to have a dedicated 3d graphics processor in their computer. This was way back when Nvidia were still competing with 3dfx. 3dfx even had 3d cards which required their own power supplies. Oh, those were the days.

Anyway, Quake 2 was another Id software venture into first person shooters, and just as successful. Personally I didn't think it was as fun as the first Quake, but I guess thats a subjective opinion.

Red Faction

Now this was a funny game. The selling point of this game was about the game environment. Basically what you could do is blow up any part of the level. This includes walls, ceilings, and holes in the floor. The problem was two fold, the graphics engine sucked, and blowing up every part of a level just didn't cut it. What you could do is just blow your way all the way to the end of the level without encourtering anyone. However, it was fun to play, for a little while anyway.

Red Faction never really took off. They even made a sequel for it, which nobody has really heard much about. I don't know why they bothered.

Quake 3

Another release of Quake was inevitable. Quake 3 was geared towards the multiplayer platform, and did not even offer any single player modes except against bots. It was good fun while it lasted. I don't really have much to say about it because I was still playing Quake 1 and 2.

Half-Life

This was a game that turned heads. The single player game was loads of fun, building a storyline out of a theoretical nuclear physicist named Gordon Freeman. The innovative gameplay and graphics engine provided tons of fun to those of us who played it. In addition, its modding capabilities were on par with previous first person shooters, and allowed popular such as counter-strike and Day of Defeat to be created, which ensured the continued success of the game.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

The light cast by the overhead lamp is bright. Too bright. I'm not gonna be able to get through the corridor without the sentry seeing or hearing me.

Drawing my silenced Mk23, I shoot out the light, instantly plunging the corridor into darkness. However this spooks the sentry who comes around to check out what happened. Perfect. I flick on my NVGs and see him walking towards me, clear as day. Such a pity for him, I think as I line his head up in my sights. Phut...Thud. The corridor is cleared.

The Splinter Cell series follows in the same footsteps as games like Thief and Metal Gear Solid where stealth, not firepower, is the best way to achieve your mission objectives. You're cast in the role of Sam Fisher, an operative working for the National Security Agency's covert arm, Third Echelon. Third Echelon takes on tasks where absolute discretion and secrecy are necessary and maintain plausible deniability: If you're caught, we never knew you. You're a Splinter Cell: a one man field operative backed up by a remote team and armed with the latest in electronics and weaponery. Your purpose is to infiltrate and acquire intelligence with little to no disruption or detection. Using lethal force is only a last resort.

Sam Fisher is cool. So cool that he has an incredibly dry sense of humour and is the toughest man around. Voiced by Michael Madsen, he has the dry, gravelly voice that displays his experience and ability. He can move like a ghost, creeping just a few centimetres behind a bad guy without them even smelling him. His ultra cool headpiece contains both thermal and night vision goggles and he carries an experimental SC-120k silenced bullpup rifle with an attached grenade launcher that can launch all sorts of nifty gadgets and non-lethal items. Pity he doesn't have X-Ray vision.

SC:PT's gameplay is what makes this game a winner. You are made to think of your environment and how you might use it or take it into account to achieve your objective. For example, the faster you move, the more noise you make. Different surfaces will make different sounds and so your movement has to be suitable. Steel floors clang but carpeted areas make less noise.

The action takes place from a third-person perspective, with the player independently controlling the camera position. When your firearm is drawn, the camera zooms in to look over the shoulder of Fisher, kind of like a 1.5 person view. Being able to rotate the camera is an extremely useful tool, meaning that you have a much larger peripheral vision.

Darkness is your best friend. You have a useful light meter on the side to tell you how visible you are, and believe me, you'll be watching this more intently than a computer geek staring at the cover of an Inside Sport magazine. It't pretty amusing when a baddie comes towards you and stands right infront of you but can't see you because it's dark. They must be wearing sunglasses because you have a radio on your back that has a bright green backlit LCD display.

AI is above average. If you make a sound or they see your shadow or movement, they'll come over and investigate. When they don't find anything, they'll go back to their regular patrol routes. If you keep getting detected, they'll raise the alert level, don protective gear and call for reinforcements. However, when it comes to actual combat, they're pretty dumb. They'll run right up to you and stand in front of you while firing. And they follow one after the other, exactly like sheep and lemmings.

Level design is generally pretty good but the mission structures are totally linear so there's no ability to wander off where you're not supposed to go. The locations all look nice, but most take place at night or in low light so that you can't actually take in much of the scenery.

The Xbox controller is suited quite well to the game, utilising every single button. The analogue sticks are extremely useful with movement and camera position controlled via these inputs. The difference between walking and running is determined by the pressure exerted on the stick, so creeping along in the dark takes an extremely delicate touch which adds to the overall atmosphere of the game.

Much has been said about the graphics of the Splinter Cell series. Viewing it myself, I'd have to agree. The dynamic lighting effects through real-time shadows and the physics model also seems realistic enough. Textures are smooth and believeable but things are sometimes hard to see since you're often using the black and white NVGs.

There are some great set plays in the game, from having to escort a CIA double agent through the enemy camp then finding out that the bad guys know she is CIA and having to defend her. Many of the missions will be trial and error and may take multiple efforts to pass.

Overall, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is an extremely slick game. The dynamic lighting effects and physics are beautiful to behold. Gameplay is excellent and very challenging at it should take 12 hours or so to complete on normal difficulty, which is actually quite hard. Altogether, a highly polished game that is heaps of fun.

9/10

First Person Shooters - Part 1

Welcome to part one of our trip back in time to the first person shooter world. While we try to always bring you reviews of the latest and the greatest stuff, in the spirit of writing something for the average Joe, heres some stuff you can get cheap and probably free.

Wolfenstein 3D - Who's Stoppin

Ah yes, the beginning of it all. Wolfenstein 3D was in a league of its own. It was the basis from which all other first person shooters are derived. Most of the main principles are there. Pick up a gun, shoot the enemy, find the exit to the next level. It was based on the storyline of trying to find and kill Hitler by going through a bunch of mazes guarded by swastickas and men in blue who shouted "Hoostoppin'" when they saw you blazing away with their flashy machine guns.

The problem with it was that even though it was called Wolfenstein 3D, it was actually only in 2 dimensions. Length and width. Nothing actually went up and down. However, since all it had to compete with at the time was "The Incredible Machine", "Scorched Earth", "The Simpsons" and "Solitaire", it did really well.

Doom 1 and 2 - RaRRrrrRrR

Who could forget the old school Doom series of games? ID software seem to have invented the FPS genre of games, and they've been continuing with the trend of leading the pack for many years up until recently. They never really tried with any storyline in their games. The Doom franchise always seems to have the player running around wildly shooting legions of demonic imps who've managed to escape from Hell and into this universe. Ultimately, the unnamed and faceless character goes through the portal to hell and takes out the big boss dude.

Weapons were a central feature of Doom 2. Weapons ranged from the standard gaunleted fist to the BFG. The BFG (da Big Fuckin' Gun), a classic weapon for widespread destruction. Clearly a neccecity when travelling to hell. Make sure you take one with you when you die, you'll need it. My personal favourite was the double barreled shotgun (a.k.a the elephant gun). Blowing away imps from close range was very satisfying for some reason.

Duke Nukem' 3D - Time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, but I'm all out of gum

Now heres a game that broke boundaries. For the first time in a commercial FPS, you could walk into a nudie bar and flash some cash for boobs. The sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem 1 and 2, the third version joined the FPS community with a bang. This time, the game was actually 3D. You could jump up and down, and even use a jetpack to get to those hard to reach places. I can't really remember the storyline, but somehow you ended up on a moon or space station against the big boss. The character also had some attitude. Those of us with 486s spent lots of time hacking up our config.sys and autoexec.bat files to try and get enough conventional memory to run the damn thing.

Duke Nukem along with Doom 2 were the first games to offer multiplayer support. Whether you wanted to use a superfast 28.8k modem to connect, or even unplug that mouse and connect up that serial port to a friend's computer (we were all l33t k3yb04rd3s then), you could play either co-op or head to head deathmatch.

Quake 1 - urgghhhhh

Quake changed the first person shooter genre forever. It managed to take advantage of the phenomenal growth of the internet to provide a multiplayer experience with options.

The singleplayer experience was quite ordinary. All you did what try and get to the end of the level without dying. In fact, it didn't even bother trying to make a storyline. All you did was go through a level and kill everything until you got to the end. However, Quake redefined how first person shooters physics engines were to be. Hits from weapons forced people away, rockets blasted players up into the air. In fact, this feature was exploited to allow 'rocket jumps', where players could shoot a rocket at their own feet and launch themselves into the air to reach otherwise unreachable places. Rocket jumping also led to things such as rocket jumping maps where players could hone these skills in a multitude of environments.

Multiplayer Quake, however, brought a whole new world to gaming. This was when the Internet was becoming mainstream. Even before that, several Bulltein Board Services offered gaming services to users. While the community was limited, it was a good place to start.

One of the best things about Quake was that it allowed modifications to the original game. In the beginning, there was only multiplayer deathmatch. This quickly became rather boring, and developers started to make use of the abiltiy to 'mod' the game. Mods such as 'Requiem' added things such as grappling hooks and different weapons. Others added team based components such as the first 'Capture the Flag' mod, or even spiced up some of the deathmatch with'Rocket Arena'. One of the most popular mods was Team Fortress, which in many ways has set the standard for many of the team based multiplayer FPS.

Tribes - Paint that target!

Starseige Tribes was like a combination of Quake Team Fortress and Duke Nukem' put together. Two teams battling it out in a capture the flag scenario with jetpacks, different weapons, and even some flying vehichles on some maps. Players could customise their suits and weapons as long as their team had the resources to purchase them. In addition, players could also take out things such as the other team's energy generators and they could be repaired by a ray gun akin to a fuzzy laser wrench.

What was really cool was that one of the weapons was a mortar. However it required someone else on the team to actually use a laser to shoot the target accurately, otherwise the mortar could go anywhere. This didn't really work very well since the player with the laser didn't actually get any benefits. Oh well.

Tribes didn't last long, and its successor didn't really make it onto the radar, but it was ultimately a very good game. It just didn't reach critical mass. After a while, the publishers and developers just decided to release it freeware!

Thats it for today, look out for part 2 of the flashbacks!

Coming up in this Month's MS-CG

* Markie test drives the new Ferrari F430 and decides he's going to sell his house and family to buy one.

* Ali goes back in time and reviews some of the best First-Person-Shooters of all time and decides which FPS character he would ultimately want to be.

* Paulo compares the Alfa 147 GTA against the new Golf GTI.

* Markie and Paulo discuss the most exciting The Ashes ever and chat about the lead up to the AFL finals.

Ford Mondeo Vs Mazda 6

Firstly, you'd be thinking what on earth happened here. Well, the executives at MS-CG decided that we reviewers are having too much fun testing expensive, exotic sports cars and that it was our responsibility to review cars the average, everyday John Smith would drive. What a kick in the nuts!

The positive though is that I was sent up to New Zealand to carry out my findings with two of the most common everyday cars you would encounter. I was to thoroughly test these two cars through the lands of Middle Earth over thousands of kilometres, analysing every detail, every kudos and every flaw of the cars and decide which one should be handed the olive reef of victory. So lets start with the Mondeo.

The Mondeo's exterior styling is nothing that would make you look twice. Actually, it wouldn't even make you look once. Despite the obvious European styling efforts, the Mondeo still isn't a car you would use as your 'Draw 4' card to impress the girl on your first date. Actually, to be honest, this whole ‘European styling’ is sorta like this new fashion trend where you see someone’s ass crack when ever you walk in a populated, metropolitan area. You see a lot of it and most of the time, you’d wish you didn’t see it at all because some fat, wobbly pork chop thinks she looks sexy if she has half her larded ass hanging out of her pants. I think non-European brands should just stick with their own styling. Anyway, back to the car, the Mondeo looks exactly like the car you used to draw when you were in Grade 1, just a podium shaped box with wheels. Ummmm….that's all I have to say about the appearance of the car because there's just nothing else to say. It just looks like...a car.

So not so flash on the outside, but maybe the Ford can redeem itself on the interior. Well, not exactly. The Ford is equipped with modern interior designing with big fat buttons everywhere replacing traditional knobs for climate control, fancy hidden cup holders, and a digital display that tells you the temperature outside. Yee Hee! What's disturbing however is how much black Ford have used in the interior. Everything is black. The dash is black, the controls a black, the radio is black, the steering wheel is black, the gear knob is black, the seats are black, the seat belts are black, the door handles are black. It is so black inside, it makes Darth Vader look like one of Donald Trump’s ties. And then comes the quality of the interior fittings and oh dear! It's just not impressive at all. Everything inside is made out of cheap plastics and vinyl, it just makes you regret you didn't catch the bus. The last time I saw plastics like this I shoved it in an ATM.

Finally, it's the pure stupidity that makes you wonder what the hell Ford were thinking. For example, the positioning of the brake pedal is placed about three inches higher than the accelerator. So rather than just pivoting your right foot from the accelerator to the brake on your heel, you have to lift your entire foot away from the accelerator, bring it back towards you and then press the brake. So what? You might say, but I can assure you that this design is seriously flawed in the need of sudden braking.

Not looking so good for the Ford then. So far not exactly the car for the individual that's concerned about styling and quality. Well that's ok because remember that this review is targeted at average Joe that just wants a car that gets them from A to B, so he won’t care about the flimsily interior and the dreary styling. So this leads on to the final criteria. How it drives. In contrast to the Porsche 911 we tested earlier, starting up the Ford Mondeo makes you want to go straight back to bed. To give you an almost accurate illustration of the acoustics of starting the Mondeo 1.8, simply recall what it sounds like to start up your family lawn mower and you've just about heard a Ford Mondeo start. And you'd be correct on concluding that an engine that sounds like a John Deere mower will be as weak as it sounds. The version we tested was the base 1.8 litre LX, with 92 KW and 170 Nm of torque, which is quite adequate for town driving, however on the sort of driving I was performing in NZ with overtaking and very long straights, I found that the Mondeo lacked the grunt needed to comfortably overtake dawdling hippies in their graffiti camper vans and big, alcoholic truckies in their huge semi trailers. The only positive element of the Mondeo I can mention is the handling, which is quite good. The Mondeo was grippy and gave me confidence during the windy coastal drives.

The Mazda 6 on the other hand was fantastic in nearly every part. It just looks so much better than the Mondeo with its silky lines and sporty features. It’s a car you’d be proud to drive around, show it to your friends and kindly offer them a lift so you can show off the stunning interior design and quality and then bathe in the abundance of jealousy that will pour out of them. Unlike the Mondeo, the Mazda 6 use different shades to colour the interior. It’s a much more comfortable place to be in compared to the Ford. This is also aided by the contemporary silver decked out dash and control unit, which, although was confusing to use, was much better to look at.

Driving the Mazda 6 is very pleasurable, an all round achievement. The 2.3 litre sounds great with such a meaty, quarter pounder, double whopper engine note. To complement this fabulous engine, the Mazda 6 comes standard with a tiptronic gearbox which actually works. The box changes cogs when you decide and doesn’t resist anything that may strain the engine. This was very handy dandy when overtaking along long New Zealand straights.

I’m not going to bore you explaining how good the Mazda 6 drives because quite frankly it’s just that good. The only downside to the Mazda is the 2.3 litre engine gets a little thirsty but then I’d be happy to concede there because the engine performance makes up for it

Well, you can probably already predict my verdict at this point. Buy the Mazda.

Ford Mondeo

Styling: *
Interior: *
Engine: *
Handling: ***
Overall: **

Mazda 6

Styling: ****
Interior: *****
Engine: ****
Handling:****
Overall: ****

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Controversy over this game in Australia has delayed this review. I extend our apologies to our loyal readers, I assure you that our legal team is on the case. When the game got its classification revoked, and even an old granny sued the company, we exersised caution, but since the granny wasn't even suing for the right reason, and she probably doesn't even know the different between a computer and a gaming console, we've decided to publish this review anyway. The public deserves to know.

The latest and some may argue, the greatest addition to the GTA franchise delivers all that you'd expect. The game contains all the perks and things that made GTA 3 and its successor, GTA: Vice City great games. In addition to this, San Andreas adds a number of new perks to help improve the variety in the game. This ranges from building your muscle at the local gym, picking out your new wardrobe at the local clothing store and eating (and maybe getting a little overweight) at your local food joint. Its nice to get a set of clothes that help you fit in with 'da boys in da hood. In addition to these, there are also bouncing competitions where you can have it out with the local car modders DDR style. If you're daring enough, you can even go on night raids into houses and steal belongings for some extra cash.

This time you play the role of CJ, who has come back to the small city of Los Santos from GTA 3's Vice City. The death of yo momma at the hands of some mysterious foe drags you back to the place of your childhood, and you start by linking up with da rest of da boys in da hood. You discover that da hood just aint what it used to be, and get to work rebuilding it dodging bullets, crooked cops and rival gangs. I'll try not to spoil much of the plot, but you end up making your way to places which resemble Las Vegas and San Fransisco, rolling past huge casinos and taking the trams and driving the hills of the imitation cities. You'll even go through relatively long trips to get to different places. Outside the imitation Las Vegas, you'll have to go through the deserts of what I imagine Texas would look like. Hopefully you don't run into George Bush along the way. Wait... I hope you do run into him.

Gameplay is similar to previous titles in the series. Notable improvements come in things such as the ability to swim and the ability to aim with a relatively good degree of accuracy. Some missions even let do a driveby into enemy territory while your homies in the back of the car fire their Mac-10s out the window. These are just some of the things they've come up with, but you can see from the outset that its going to be great fun to play. The need to have some food on occasion and exersise don't seem too inconviniencing, and help to break up the monotony of doing the game's missions, even if they are extremely varied themselves.

One of the best aspects of the game is the sound. Rockstar has put a lot of effort in this, hiring voice actors to play the roles of characters in the game. One of these you could probably pick right off the bat: Samuel L. Jackson, the actor from such movies as "Basic" and "Shaft" takes the role of Officer Tenpenny, one of the crooked cops you'll meet early in the game. Characters take the comical names and stereotypical appearances of their roles, but this only adds to the laughs and enjoyment you'll get out of the game.

Go get it.

9/10