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CAPCOM Capcom vs SNK 2 EO: Xbox Live X-Box Games
In Capcom vs SNK 2 EO Capcom resurrects old enemies for yet another battle. Capcom's Street Fighter characters, familiar to all but the newest or most sheltered video-game players and fighter fans, have starred in more games than should be possible. The game offers a remarkable assortment of fighters, fighting styles, and variety of play. Forty characters--each with their own special powers, attacks, timing issues, personalities and sound bites--get magnified three-fold by three separate "-isms" that alter their powers and three "grooves" that mix them up yet again. There's a lot to learn and it ensures that playing a foe of equal skill is never dull because you can never be sure what character he's going to pick and how that character will fight. The graphics are generally decent, though some of these fighters look like they haven't been spiffed up for today's console systems. The older Street Fighter guys look just plain bad next to newly added characters from the SNK stable. But the animation is smooth, the backgrounds have been significantly redone and feature new, often startling animations and the special effects are just plain awesome. The audio is pretty much the same old themes that Capcom has been using for the better part of a decade now. It's all good, because those sound effects are part of the reason fans keep buying the same game over and over again. The Xbox version is playable over Xbox Live (sold separately), which is a big advantage--everyone knows that these games, born of arcade coin-ops, are meant to be played competitively. The ability to start up a relatively lag free game at a moment's notice and trade trash talk with other gamers around the world is just priceless and a welcome addition to the series. If you are, or have ever been, a Street Fighter 2-D fight fan, then Capcom vs SNK 2 EO over Xbox Live is a joy not to be missed. --Andrew S. Bub
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CAPCOM Rogue Ops (Xbox) X-Box Games
Right now, stealth is the only genre to be in if you want to be the fashionable video game about town, but Rogue Ops isn't just some lazy Metal Gear Solid wannabe; it's got more than enough ideas of its own to ensure you get excited about it. Admittedly the idea of making the lead character an attractive death-dealing minx isn't one of them, but ex-Green Beret Nikki Connors isn't just about looks. Apart from excellent graphics, the real selling point with Rogue Ops is the vast number of different ways there are to solve every puzzle you come across in the game. Even just sneaking past a guard allows you to simply open fire on him, go for a stealth kill, creep away unseen or even pickpocket him for a security card first. In the preview we saw a more complex puzzle involved getting past a couple of remote sentry guns and a laser grid on the floor that would set them off. Again you can go for an all out violent attack, or you can attempt something subtler like finding something to block up the lasers or a way to climb onto the roof and take out the guns that way. The game world has been designed to be as interactive as possible--you should be able to experience it yourself soon enough. --David Jenkins This preview is based on an incomplete version of the game; features or problems mentioned above may not appear in the finished game.
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