engine.jpg (16393 bytes)

TRUE CONFESSIONS 1 - November 2000

Hello viewers! You’ve gotta love that Dreamcast, haven’t you? Dirt cheap, four joypad ports, Net access and online gaming out of the box, and ooh, those games. The DC’s current lineup is full of stunning-looking and truly innovative titles, with the likes of Jet Set Radio, Shen Mue, Seaman, Metropolis Street Racer, Space Channel 5 and Power Stone 2 all breaking genuine new ground in gameplay and adding to a roster already full of impressive titles like Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Ferrari F355, Quake 3, Soul Calibur and Ecco The Dolphin.

And that Xbox, too – blimey, what a list of developers. It’s not out for a year and already firms are abandoning other consoles to develop exclusively for the Microsoft wondermachine. That’s if they’re not planning to work with the awesome-looking Gamecube, of course.

[Voices off.]

Yes, yes, I’m getting to it.

In case you were wondering, chums, the point that all this showy misdirection is skirting coquettishly around is this: It’s quite possible that you’re looking at this here first issue of Engine and thinking "You know, all these launch games are very *nice* and everything, but it’s really just the same old stuff I was getting completely bored of on the old Playstation, only nicer-looking. What’s the point of that?" And well done if you’re thinking that thought, because you’re dead right. The overwhelming, competition-crushing success of the PS1 has made publishers and developers almost fatally complacent and lazy, to the extent that the PS2’s launch software line-up is perhaps the least inventive and least exciting in living console memory.

But here comes the science bit – this time round, Sony *aren’t* going to get everything their own way. The Dreamcast, a flop to date, is mounting a pretty impressive last stand, as you’ll know if you’ve seen the games mentioned in the first paragraph. The games industry is already going crazy with love for the Xbox, and nobody needs to be told about Nintendo’s track record in software. Which leaves Sony and all the publishers who’ve invested millions and millions of pounds in PS2 development just a few short months in which to pull their fingers out and start really blowing us all away with astonishing, revolutionary new games, whole new *types* of games that’ll make the Emotion Engine live up to all its hype. The truth of the matter is, they simply can’t afford not to. So if you’re a bit underwhelmed right now (and frankly you should be), hold onto your breath for a moment. It’s about to get interesting.

revstu.jpg (6685 bytes)

"Reverend Stuart Campbell's religion is videogames - he owns more than 35,000 of them. He's a freelance journalist, ex-game developer with Sensible Software and industry analyst who's written for every games magazine worth a damn and a few more besides. Sinners beware."