Featuring a story line developed by the creator of "Chrono Trigger" and "Xenogears" Chrono Cross has been christened the "Best RPG Creation" by its development team.Format: PSX Genre: RPG (VG)/ Rating: T - Teen UPC: 662248900087 Manufacturer No: 9780

Cooking Mama makes you into a budding chef seeking out new recipes. Prepare foods then combine raw ingredients together as you cook them on the stove. Follow real recipes or experiment with your own combinations to create a culinary masterpiece with your stylus. Let's get cooking, mama! Earn bronze, silver and gold medals based on the quality of your cooking Practice mode lets you finetune your cooking skills without being judged Share recipes with up to 4 other people or transfer a saved game to a friend via the DS wireless link

Crackdown pushes the action-driving hybrid genre into the next generation with the first ever truly 3-D playground. Gamers will enforce justice by any means necessary in Pacific City, a crime-ridden urban center built to encourage the exploration of the full width, depth and height of the city. Coupled with highly innovative co-op gameplay — a genre first — and an interactive world where nearly anything can be used as a weapon, gamers will be able to create a volatile cocktail of judicial oppression as they clean up the streets. More than 100 licensed tracks, spanning a wide range of styles and genres — with 5.1 sound

In the tradition of great 3-D action jumping games, Crash Bandicootis probably the PlayStation equivalent of the groundbreaking Nintendo 64 title Super Mario 64. Now repackaged as one of PlayStation's Greatest Hits, this top-selling game takes you away on a tropical island adventure that is filled with precarious enemies and challenging levels. Our spiky-haired hero Crash needs no weapons to survive the harsh jungle. Instead, he jumps, jogs, and spins his way through numerous lush and downright fun environments.

With 26 levels spanned across three tropical islands, Crash Bandicootis sure to amuse old gamers as well as new. Crash must rescue his girlfriend, Tawna, from the evil clutches of Dr. Cortex. Along the way, he can gather fruit for extra lives, smash boxes for random prizes, and gather tokens that can be used for bonus rounds. Numerous big bosses block your path, which also includes more than a few risky jumps that require split-second timing. Crash Bandicoot's impressive graphics and strong gameplay have already won over many hard-core and casual gamers. While this PlayStation classic has already spawned two successful sequels, the original version remains a worthy purchase—particularly at the sub-$20 price. —Kasty Thomas

Pros:

• Sub-$20 price

• Hidden bonus levels

Cons:

• None

Crash Bandicoot, the poster marsupial for PlayStation, is back. In this third installment of the popular action-game series, Dr. N. Trophy has built a time machine to collect the gems and crystals dropped by Dr. Neo Cortex. Joining this dastardly group is Dr. Cortex's boss Uka Uka, a freaky floating mask that is out to crush Crash. It is up to Crash and his sister, Coco, to conquer this threatening threesome and grab the goodies.

Warpedoffers 25 levels of challenging solo action. If you have a dual shock controller, this game takes full advantage of its vibration feature, which is especially fun when a dinosaur is chasing Crash. The music is appropriate to the action and the controls are easy to use. But it's the graphics that make this a stand-alone title. A team of artists worked on this game to design seamless movement that is more like an interactive cartoon than a game.

Novice gamers will enjoy this title for its ease of movement and challenging gameplay. Hardcore gamers will appreciate its hidden secrets and shortcuts. And how can you go wrong with Arabian cities, underwater worlds, medieval times, menacing frogs, pirate-head cannonballs, and creepy scorpions? Crash Bandicoot Warpedis a goofy game with enough fun features to satisfy both diehard and beginning gamers. —Kasty Thomas

Pros:

• Superior graphics

• Dual-shock capabilities fully utilized

• Hours of gaming

Cons:

• None!

If you think it's hard to flag down a cab in a big city, try driving one in Sega's zany straight-from-the-arcade port of Crazy Taxi. If you're one of the teeming fans who eagerly played Crazy Taxiin the arcade at a buck a pop, then this game is a must-buy, if only from a purely economic standpoint. Even those who don't know the difference between Crazy Taxiand the long-running TV series Taxiwill immediately recognize the appeal of this game. In fact, this game is so impressive and addictive that it should easily convince a whole new wave of buyers to purchase a Sega Dreamcast.

What's so hot about Crazy Taxi? For starters, the graphics sport the most impressive re-creation of a living city ever seen in a video game. The level of detail is astounding and never ceases to surprise the player as block after unique block speeds by. The city is a distilled version of San Francisco with some landmarks and neighborhoods left intact. Making it seem all the more real are apparent product placements of real-world retail locations such as KFC, Tower Records, and Pizza Hut. And just about everything you see on the screen is interactive: boxes, phone booths, and mailboxes topple when bumped or smashed, pedestrians leap and tumble out of your path, and the myriad of traffic attempts to avoid your erratic high-speed antics. While some driving games brag about a lack of boundaries, this one delivers—players drive on the ocean floor, off the second floor of a parking garage, through parks, and down stairs. A helpful hovering arrow points drivers in the correct direction, but you can truly drive wherever you want at any time, making for tons of replay value.

While the game is a direct port from the arcade game of the same name, there's plenty more depth in the home version. In addition to the city that appears in the coin-op version, the Dreamcast version also includes an entirely new city. Crazy Taxiincludes a trunk-load of mini-games that help to teach drivers how to perform the special speed boosts and maneuvers in the game.

Though this game would be plenty exciting without any sounds at all, it has an adrenaline-pumping soundtrack supplied by punk crossover bands the Offspring and Bad Religion, as well as some good, if sometimes monotonous, dialogue between the driver and the passengers. —Jeff Young

Pros:

• Wonderful, realistic graphics

• Easy to get into, and full of many long hours of addictive play

• Even more to offer than the fantastic arcade game upon which this is based

Cons:

• On very few occasions players will encounter some graphic slowdown

Cabbies, fire up your flashy rides, you're going to the Glitter Oasis. The glitzy strip is loaded with high rollers with money to burn and no time to waste, and you know what that means - cha-ching! In Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller for the Xbox video game system from Microsoft, you'll rocket your fares through and around the popular sites of America's Playground with hair-raising shortcuts and maniacal maneuvers to score the big tips. There are 4 new crazy drivers who attack the roads day and night with the no-fear attitudes you've come to expect from this wild ride series. Be prepared for hilarious interactions with quirky customers, such as groups of bunnies, can-can dancers, boxers, skateboarders and more. You can even take a spin through the revamped city streets of the Crazy Taxi West Coast course and the Small Apple course from Crazy Taxi 2, where you'll find new shortcuts and maneuvers.

Mixing a wide variety of genres, Dark Cloudgives fans of role-playing games between 30 and 50 hours of quality gameplay. Gamers control Toan and his motley crew as they attempt to reconstruct the world and vanquish the dark genie. In addition to hours of dungeon trekking, the game also contains elements found in simulation, puzzle, fishing, and rhythm games.

The combat system is nearly identical to the one used in Legend of Zelda games for the N64. Players choose a target to lock on, and then whale away. Between rounds of slaying monsters, players will have to strategically rebuild cities to advance. Successful fishing trips will lead to valuable weapon upgrades. Some battles test your rhythm, requiring you to match button commands, similar to such games as Um Jammer Lammyand PaRappa the Rapper. Weapon management is a vital part of the game—weapons can break if not cared for properly, but you can also transform them into powerful objects of destruction by shrewdly managing upgrades.

The multifaceted game contains an excellent tutorial to help you learn its many aspects. While it has its imperfections, Dark Cloudis the best PlayStation2 RPG to date. It's perfect for the angling adventurer that likes to dabble in urban planning. —Raymond M. Padilla

Pros:

• Successfully mixes a wide variety of genres

• A deep and compelling weapon management system

• Great character design

Cons:

• Subpar graphics

• Some unoriginal and outright goofy opponents

• Dungeon trolling can get tedious

Respect The Ride Not Gravity! 10-Time World Champion Dave Mirra is back in this sequel to the original hit game. Win enough respect from the other pro riders to get invited to Camps and embark on a ProQuest to be the top rider around even better than the Miracle Boy himself. You can create your own dream BMX Park with a state-of-the-art Park Editor and 8 massive, fully interactive levels and the innovative Trick System with new grind, stall, manual and wall ride trick modifiers for pulling off up to 1500 tricks. GAME SPECIFICATIONS: 2 Players Alternating Memory Card

Deus Excombines so many of the elements found in other action-adventure titles that it's almost like getting several games for the price of one. You slip into the trench coat of J.C. Denton, an operative with the top-secret UNATCO antiterrorist organization. Denton's body and mind have been augmented with nanotech implants that help him fight, think, and sneak his way through a completely interactive world filled with intrigue, conspiracies, and encounters with other characters. The plot is ripped straight out of a bad X-Filesepisode, but the decent cutscenes and complex mission environments kept us coming back for more.

Deus Ex's real achievement is that players are free to complete missions as they see fit. As the game progresses you can upgrade your character with a variety of bioenhancements that dramatically impact gameplay. Focus on your combat skills and you'll be the Terminator by the end of the game. Upgrade your computer know-how and you'll be the equivalent of Data from Star Trek: TNG, busting into computer and security networks with ease. We were expecting a game that let us role-play a little, opting for a brute-force approach or one that required a little more stealth, but we had no idea the designers would do such a fine job of pulling it off. The experiences of both methods are unusual enough that we found ourselves revisiting levels to try different tactics.

The individual components of Deus Ex—like the targeting system, inventory controls, and enemy viewing radiuses—are a little clunky when viewed individually, but they converge into an overall game that is much greater than the sum of its parts. It's easy to compare the game to titles that obviously influenced it (Thief, System Shock, and Rainbow Siximmediately come to mind), but Deus Exreally stands on its own as a unique title that should appeal equally to action games, adventure lovers, and role-playing fanatics. —T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Several ways to complete each mission, and all are equally fun

• Game world is highly interactive, and exploration is rewarded

• Ability to tailor a character to match your gameplay style is a huge plus

Cons:

• Most of the voice acting is bad

• Enemies aren't very smart

Racing can be downright dirty! DiRT blends death-defying offroad action, precision control, and the tricked out intensity of street racing into one visually stunning motorsports masterpiece. Choose from a wealth of officially licensed cars and real-world locations, then go careening through gravel, dirt and mud, doing whatever it takes to bring the trophy home.

Everything that made the original Diablogreat—nonstop action, wicked monsters, dark Gothic atmosphere, and fantastic magic items—has returned. But new enhancements such as the class skill system and cheater-proof multiplayer competition make Diablo 2even better than the original.

The millions of gamers who fought their way through the horror of Tristram's catacombs in the original Diablorealized that all was not well after their hero destroyed the demon's physical body. Diablo 2opens with a vivid animated vision of that mad, doomed hero, who unwittingly spreads chaos as he moves toward a fate of Diablo's choosing. With the original character classes gone, players choose from a new cadre of champions: the Barbarian (can wield two two-handed swords at once, one in each hand), the Necromancer (raises the dead to fight his battles), the Amazon (master of bow and spear), Paladin (holy crusader), and Sorceress (wielder of elemental magic). These warriors follow a diabolical plot through four acts, and each act is roughly as big as the original Diablo.

Diablo 2looks and behaves very much like Diablo. Players are assigned quests by nonplayer characters and adventure through dark catacombs and crypts. Hordes of vile monsters assail the hero, who survives by force of arms, powerful spells, and through the use of varied and exotic magic items. Randomly generated dungeons guarantee fresh adventure each time a new game is started. But unlike the original game, characters must fight their way through the above-ground wilderness before entering a dungeon. Fortunately, some of the frustrations of adventuring have been lessened in Diablo 2, thanks to the new ability to run and the clever implementation of "waypoints" that let your character quickly travel to and from the safety of town.

Along with the new character classes comes a new character skill system. As in the original game, players improve their character's ability scores as they kill monsters and gain experience. But unlike the original game, players get to add specific skills, spells, and powers each time they advance. For example, after gaining a level you could choose between taking a skill that improves your attack speed or a skill that allows you to scatter your foes with a mighty shout. With this customized advancement system it is unlikely that two high-level characters, even characters of the same class, will be alike. Instead of progressing along a set path, you can choose skills and powers that complement your own particular playing style. Interestingly, this new customizable class system closely parallels the changes made in the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Other enhancements include a method for creating and customizing magic items, 3-D accelerated spell effects, anticheat multiplayer code, and a place to safely store excess money and equipment. But even without these tweaks, even without the sophisticated story line and all the cool new features, Diablo 2is just a great game. The sound, music, and graphics combine to create a tantalizingly eerie setting. Players will willingly let their game-playing hours slip well past reasonable bedtimes, suffering bleary-eyed classes and meetings in exchange for "just one more" magic item, dungeon level, or character skill.

Diablo is back. Say hello to the game that will once again dominate gamers' computers, and say good-bye to your free time. —Michael Fehlauer.

Pros:

• Diabolical, engrossing story line told through brilliant cutscenes

• All five of the new classes are distinct and fun

• Fantastic music and sound effects

• Random dungeons allow unlimited replayability

• Millions of magic items, including rare items and sets of unique magical equipment

Cons:

• Addictive gameplay may cause loss of sleep, significant other, job

• Virtually no improvement in graphics