Games

In a league of its own

��Star Wars� has qualities others can�t match

By Shaun Conlin

Did You Know : Director George Lucas first wanted Luke Skywalker to be a woman, then a dwarf

GAME: Star Wars Battlefront
GAME TYPE: Team-based strategy
PUBLISHER: LucasArts
GAME HARDWARE: Xbox
GAME RATING: Teen
REVIEWER�S OPINION: 4.5 out of 5

More than just another team-based warfare game, Star Wars Battlefront is a fantastic war-and-glory experience. After all, Battlefront has a real-live fake history behind it; a long-time-ago, far-far-away galactic mythology of global proportions.

Playable as a single-player game but best played with (up to) 16 others online via Xbox Live, along with hordes of artificially intelligent troops, you first choose your allegiance, be it with the Rebel Alliance, the Galactic Empire, the Republic�s Clone Army or the Battle Droids. Then you assume the role of one of 20 Star Wars characters, each with unique skills and preferred weaponry, and jump into various combat scenarios, each loosely based on battle sequences from the Star Wars movies.

UNFRIENDLY FIRE

On occasions, you can call on your team�s best butt-kicker to help you out and play alongside Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Mace Windu or Count Dooku. And if you tire of the intensity of running, gunning and dodging gunfire, characters can commandeer a vehicle such as a speeder bike, Republic Gunship and many more.

This also means that you, too, can re-write Star Wars history in the same way that director George Lucas has. Battlefront players can happily gun down hordes of Ewoks and every single relative of Jar Jar Binks.

Though Star Wars Battlefront is more or less derivative of Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 and the like, its high production values and an unmatched wealth of subject matter to draw upon put Battlefront in a league of its own. � Cox News Service

Room to rent

Silent Hill returns, this time set in a bachelor pad

By Shaun Conlin

GAME: Silent Hill 4: The Room
GAME TYPE: First-person action
PUBLISHER: Konami
GAME HARDWARE: PlayStation 2/Xbox
GAME RATING: Mature
REVIEWER�S OPINION: 4 out of 5

If you�re ready to be creeped out of your mind one more time, Silent Hill 4: The Room takes the sick/twisted survival/horror series away from the nightmare town of Silent Hill and to a place even more unpleasant. A bachelor�s apartment.

You play through the eyes of a guy named Henry, who slowly discovers his bad dreams are actually set in a really bad reality. Bad like horrific and twisted, not bad like lost-my-job, can�t-pay-the-rent.

As it turns out, Henry�s apartment is a gateway to a multitude of fear-filled worlds of freaky creatures and spirits, each with its own particular flavour of insanity.

How everything got this way is the mystery, with all-new places to explore. There�s a new emphasis on combat and inventory management, but with the game carries the hallmark of gloriously rendered nasties and a fearful atmosphere that make Silent Hill the benchmark of survival/horror gaming in the first place. � Cox News Service

Hints and Tips

Here�s a great reason to replay Silent Hill 4: The Room: Once you finish the game, save it, reload it, then go to the forest world and look for a cut tree. There you�ll find a very handy chainsaw. Yeehaw!

Vocabulary

mythology (n): the ancient stories of a particular culture, society, etc.
horde (n): a large crowd of people
allegiance (n): a person�s continued support for a political party, religion, ruler, etc.
dodge (v): to move quickly and suddenly to one side in order to avoid somebody/something
commandeer (v): to take control of a building, a vehicle, etc. for military purposes
derivative (adj): copied from something else; not having new or original ideas
wealth (n): in this use, a large amount of something
gateway (n): a place through which you can go to reach another larger place
multitude (n): an extremely large number of things or people