DEATH BY DEGREES, Namco
Fans of the Tekken fighting game series will recognize our leading lady right off the bat -- Nina Williams, the sexy blonde assassin with all of the cool moves. Namco's latest puts this minimally attired heroine in her own action adventure, infiltrating a group of weapons smugglers and taking out any bad guys who cross her path. That kind of setup should suffice to make this a quality game. But something -- make that, almost everything -- went miserably wrong when Namco tried to turn the concept into a working title.
Its sole innovative element is its 360-degree combat system, which lets you execute an attack simply by flicking the right analog stick in the appropriate direction. To execute combo moves, hold down certain controller buttons at the same time. It's not always the most comfortable of control schemes, but it is something new and it gets the job done. The fighting itself gets hectic, with relentless attacks by up to seven enemies at once.
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But the adventure part of the game -- from puzzle solving to inspecting items you've found -- is all stuff you've seen in other survival horror games, such as any Resident Evil title. Beyond the derivative setup, the mini-games Nina must engage in don't show more than grade-school effort. The programmers could not even get this heroine to move correctly; Nina looks positively geriatric when climbing ladders or jumping across areas. The in-game perspective keeps losing track of Nina's position when fighting, causing her to get killed repeatedly.
This game, like its heroine, is pleasant to look at. But so is the artwork on the box it comes in, which by itself is probably worth more than the game inside.
-- Tom Ham
PlayStation 2, $50
SHADOW OF ROME, Capcom
The creator of the modern-day fantasy and horror games Devil May Cry and Resident Evil goes back to ancient Rome in this game, which challenges you to unravel the murder of Julius Caesar. This third-person action title introduces two playable characters -- Agrippa, a muscle-bound centurion, and Octavianus, his secretive, intelligent friend -- who set out to prove that Agrippa's father, Uesnius, is innocent of killing Caesar.
The bulk of the game puts players in the sandals of Agrippa, who can become a great gladiator in sequences set in huge coliseums where he fights to the death against dozens of enemies with swords, shields and his bare hands. (He also battles tigers and competes in deadly chariot races, for good measure.) The game earns its Mature rating with scenes of Agrippa slicing heads and arms off of opponents, flooding the dirt floor with blood. (You can, however, turn the gore off.)
