Playstation Offers Lots Of Game Action

If you’ve been dreaming of a video game machine that can produce computer graphics as smooth as the best animated cartoons and serve full-screen video clips that look as sharp as your cable TV reception, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Sony Playstation, newest of the 32-bit game systems, is clearly the best of the breed at jamming complex action onto a CD-ROM disc and onto your television screen. The Playstation proved significantly better than 3DO in direct comparisons of games programmed for both platforms and marginally superior to the Sega Saturn. (Game developers suggest Saturn can do as well as Playstation, but it takes more programming work to pull it off.) All three systems are now selling for $300 with a controller; game software is extra.

Not surprisingly, the first games out for the Playstation are first-person perspective adventures that send you zooming into the great unknown. Not only do such action titles show off the speed of Sony’s custom microprocessor - capable of crunching 500 million bits per second, versus 250 mbs for Saturn - action titles also give immediate gratification, being relatively easy for the early acquirers to get up and running without reading those pesky operating instructions.

ESPN Extreme Games

Sony Computer Entertainment

$59/Playstation

****

This is my favorite of the premiere Playstation offerings. You climb aboard a skateboard, in-line skates or a mountain bike, to race through the streets of San Francisco or the jungles of South America, around Lake Tahoe or Rome. Naturally, there are plenty of obstacles to avoid (from city buses to chickens crossing a country road), ramps to take that send you sailing over barrels and boulders, and bad-guy opponents (some humans and some deceptively innocent-looking penguins) that want nothing more than to smack you into a wall.

The pace can be superfast, if you dare, the scenery rushing by has pretty good definition, and the stereo sound is striking - distinctly different in ambience when zooming through tunnels and halls. The only thing missing is the wind whipping through your hair. Knee pads not required.

Off World Interceptor Extreme

Crystal Dynamics

$59/Playstation

***

This ultimate buggy romp over hill and dale runs faster and looks sharper on Playstation than on Crystal Dynamics’ version for 3DO. That goes double for the filmed introduction that lays out your mission, with a couple of shadowy comic clowns at the bottom of the screen cutting up the actors, a la Mystery Science Theater 3000. The 3DO video footage sometimes has a choppy mosaic look, made worse by unsynchronized sound, and the image doesn’t even fill the whole screen!

Playstation’s view is picture-perfect, screen top to bottom. Take the big hills and blast away at enemy vehicles and outposts. Try not to get nauseous or lose any body parts from the jostling.

Rack up big points, and you can purchase slicker vehicles and weapons to become virtually invincible. Sorry, Dramamine is not included.

Total Eclipse Turbo

Crystal Dynamics

$59/Playstation

**-1/2 stars

Your mission, flyboy, is to swoop and soar through tight mountain ranges, tunnels and buildings, shooting down missile sites and enemy planes. Why? To defeat the dreaded alien Drak-sai before it eats all earthlings for dinner!

Experienced gamers have seen a million flight adventures like this one, but it’s still a satisfying pursuit. I’m not crazy, though, about handling Playstation’s rad-looking but petite joystick on this game. While the handgrips are a good idea, the controller employs four small, distinct direction buttons (as opposed to the integrated rocker switches of other systems). This means you’ve got to bounce rather than shift your thumb around to steer a course. Mine got pretty sore after extended play sessions.

Some compensation: Large, arcade-style joysticks for Playstation are on the way from STD and probably other brands.

Battle Arena Toshinden

Sony Computer Entertainment

$59/Playstation

***-1/2 stars

Keep your Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. At the moment, this is the best martial arts combat game out there, on any platform.

For one thing, Toshinden is not your typical brute force slugfest. Opponents employ clubs, swords and knives to do strategic battle, along with the typical kung-fu moves and some magical mind-warping stuff. And what really shows off the system’s power is the three-dimensional, 360-degree tournament-style graphics, which swoop you in, out and around the action.

You can choose from four different views at any time - from in-your-face to bird’s-eye view - as you take on eight different opponents. My faves are a petite female fighter and a wizened old master, who come on softly but wield very big sticks.