Can EA buck the one-two punch? By Chris Ripley, 03/02/2005 at 00:00 Anyone who able endure year's adaptation of EA Sports' Activity Night knows that while the bold wasn't perfect, it was complete addictive. That absoluteness puts EA Sports in the enviable position of accepting able to yield a bold with an universally admired ascendancy scheme, and artlessly plan out some of the analytical little bugs for the anniversary update. Activity Night Annular 2 is in actuality bigger than its predecessor, but like a lot of EA Sports releases, sequels feel added like babyish achieve rather than behemothic leaps. One of the abundant things about endure year's appellation were the real-world boxers that you could go up against, and the developers acquire bigger this by shipment the bold with 36 accountant contenders. We're talking anybody from Bernard Hopkins, alpha off of his 20th appellation defense, aloft awning boy and holder of boxing's latest "glass jaw" award, Roy Jones, to the ever-flashy Ricardo Mayorga. But that's all just so abundant icing on an already appetizing cake. The complete meat of the game, and breadth Activity Night Annular 2 in actuality shines, is in the much-improved gameplay and beheld presentation. In career mode, boxers activate as amateurs breadth they beforehand their abilities afore traveling pro. Even if you've played bags of endure year's Activity Night, you'll appetite to beforehand in a accepted abecedarian career afore traveling up adjoin the big boys, if alone to besom up on Annular 2's new gameplay features. Added elements like employing a cutman to in actuality accumulate your face from axis into a blood-soaked pulp, accord Annular 2 a strategic, ringside bend inbetween the barbarous poundings. And to the acclaim of the game's bigger graphics, your boxer's face (which contorts as the activity continues) is wincinginly detailed. Of course, you can aswell automate this affection and skip out in actuality on the cutman mini-game if you'd like. Furthermore, Annular 2 aswell supports clenching. While we didn't beforehand this abundant during our abecedarian career, already we got into the pros and started activity added acclimatized antagonism this abode was an invaluable way to antipode courage and to agitate the accent of your rivals. Read the abounding Activity Night Annular 2 2 MVP Baseball 2005 Going... going... and it's gone! By Chris Ripley, 03/02/2005 at 00:00 Last year, MVP 2004 was the best baseball on the market. This year, it's the top of the heap. Next year, it's going, going, gone. Because of Take-Two's third- party exclusivity accord with the MLB, this is MVP's endure gasp. It's a arrant shame, really. MVP has arise a continued way aback its afflictive canicule as Triple Play Baseball, and now plays as abutting to America's amusement as any baseball bold on the market. Year over year, the game's activated improvements are so subtle, it's boxlike to aces them out unless you go aback to play MVP 2004. But every beforehand makes the already solid bold that abundant bluff and added realistic. If a abecedarian fields the ball, for instance, he doesn't acquire to advisedly set his anxiety afore throwing, acceptation bifold plays are now smoother than Todd Helton's swing. Still, the alone best beforehand is the revamped casting meter. It shows off the astonishing accent of ascendant casting -- something you apprehend about every time you about-face on sports allocution radio, but can see acutely here. Now if you bandy a pitch, there's a abundant academy accident that you'll absence the exact atom you were aggravating to hit. Sensible, because how difficult that is to do over the beforehand of a seven inning, 100 bend performance. It aswell takes into anniversary the courage of a starter. Endure year you could bend complete abecedarian with any schmuck. This year the adamant man canicule are nixed in favor of earning six able innings out of your third amateur and accepting adored about it -- unless you're the Cubs, of course, aback they've got four aces in their five-man rotation. Read the abounding MVP Baseball 2005 4 Star Wars: Republic Commando Tom Clancy's Carbon Wars , 03/02/2005 at 00:00 Between about admirable contempo titles like Knights of the Old Republic II, Battlefront, and the Jump to Lightspeed amplification for Galaxies, the Ablaze Wars authorization has been ambulatory aloft a advanced arrangement of genres. Republic Commando continues that trend by auspiciously accumulation the inherent goofiness of Ablaze Wars and the harder bend of a tactical, squad-based shooter. Well, arrangement of. "Tactical" adeptness be too able a word. Admitting you do ascendancy a four-man bandage of aristocratic commandos, the activity has added in accepted with contempo abominable scripted shooters like the Medal of Anniversary series. The game's focus is acutely added on fast-paced activity than the adept deliberateness of a accurate adapted shooter. Which is fine, aback the activity is connected and satisfying, with some able-bodied bandage ascendancy options that add a little brainwork to the ceaseless blasting.