Leisure Lines - Screenplay - News

How do you discover what's hot in PC entertainment for Christmas. before it gets to the shops? Visit the European Computer Trade Show (ECTS).

Traditionally the realm of the games industry, this year's biggest-ever show saw Intel plugging Pentium II as the home entertainment platform par excellence.

Sixty percent of leisure software titles are sold in November and December so it's usual for the big publishers to release three or more titles each.

And most will need a hefty PC to run them: P166, 16-32Mb RAM and a 3D accelerator is a typical spec for '98.

Electronic Arts boasts sims, God-games and RPGs, but Galapagos defies a pigeon-hole. The star of the game is Mendel, a character with non-stationary entropic reduction-mapping technology, which means he learns and adapts.

You have to guide Mendel through his life, solving puzzles and overcoming dangers.

Fujitsu has ploughed its Artificial Intelligence research budget into Fin Fin, the PC equivalent of Tamagotchi. Half-bird, half-dolphin and wholly dependent, Fin Fin will make the biggest dent in your productivity this side of a macro virus.

It's hard to choose from Ocean's 20-plus new titles, but for racing buffs, Motor Mash, a cartoon racer in the style of Micro Machines, will be the one to beat for style and grace.

Psygnosis' sci-fi shooter, G-Police, will appeal to Blade Runner fans who have 3Dfx installed. Psygnosis always plays at the high-spec end: Profiteer, due for release next spring, needs a P200MMX, 32Mb RAM, 4Gb SCSI drive and 3D accelerator.

Bored with Hitchhiker books, Douglas Adams has plunged into the interactive world with Starship Titanic, from Zablac, a visually stunning adventure which embodies his surreal humour and indefatigable logic.

This is the year of the sequel, and iD junkies will be pleased to see Hexen II (reviewed on p330) and Quake II. Let's hope they've turned the brightness up a bit on Quake! Tomb Raider II, with more of the digitally perfect if unfeasibly proportioned Lara Croft, is due soon.

And so is Riven, the sequel to Myst.

Gadget power

Three pieces of hardware stood out at ECTS: force-feedback joysticks from CH and Microsoft, and PC Dash, Saitek's novel controller. Action games are getting so complex that it's difficult to remember which command you assigned to which key. Dash uses barcoded paper overlays to assign commands (fire, jump, strafe, change weapons etc) to its configurable keys. All top games publishers are building in support for Dash and it will sell at under #50 - but not much under.

The two force-feedback sticks still cost over #120, but the number of publishers supporting them continues to grow.

PCW Contacts

Activision 01895 456700 www.activision.com

Eidos 0181 780 2222 www.eidos.com

Electronic Arts 01753 549442 www.ea.com

Fin Fin www.fujitsu-interactive.com/finfin.html

Ocean 0161 832 6633 www.ocean.co.uk

Psygnosis 0151 282 3000 www.psygnosis.com

Saitek 01454 855050 www.saitek.com

Zablac 01626 332233 www.starshiptitanic.com.