Science Reviews

Great game! A+++++++++! Lovin' it! Buy the first chance you get!

Not quite as good as X-Wing or TIE Fighter, but nevertheless, an excellent all-around game. If you liked the first Rebel Assault this one is much better.

This kit is very good for anybody who likes to build. Although there are only 7 pieces of tracing paper to go with it, you can always buy more at an office supply store. It's the best thing ever! Jordan

The game does not follow the movie whatsoever in any way. Sure powerbattles doesnt but it wasnt meant to. Dont buy the game horiblle graphics and you cant jump or do anything.{you can but, you call that a jump?} The last level is way to difficult to beat. i played for a total of 2 months on that level. im not kidding. i am however an okay gamer. i beat power battles in a month and a half.

"The Phantom Menace" is by no means a horrible game, but it could have been a lot better. The graphics are a bit clunky, but the sound is outstanding. Control in some respects is good, but most of the time, especially when jumping, it can get a bit frustrating. This is to say nothing of the odd 3/4 above view that only makes control that much more difficult.

Other than that, I had fun with the game. Playing the Jedi characters and going around hacking away at droids did have its moments. Big Star Wars fans will get some enjoyment out of this game, moreso if they're video game nuts as well. Casual gamers, or Star Wars fans who don't play many video games, will grow frustrated with this game and wonder why they spent the money.

Pick it up on the clearance rack like I did.

I bought PlayStation for this game, and wasn't in any way disappointed. I liked the movie--unlike some people--and thought the game would be good. I found this to be true, but only with a couple problems:

Pros: You get to play as 4 characters: Obi Wan, Qui Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala and Captain Panaka. Also, the game has great music and good special effects between levels. The levels are fun enough, but don't be turned away. There are only ten, but most are very long, especially the one where you wander around Mos Espa. From start to finish, and knowing what to do, it takes you about 30 minutes. The Duel of the Fates music video is also included, and is not a cheat, so you don't have to unlock it. I watched it quite often before the film was released on video.

Cons: While playing as Qui Gon and Obi Wan, it does take some getting used to with the lightsaber. And mostly, there are are limited moves with it. Also, when battling Darth Maul, it is almost impossible to defeat him without the invincibility cheat on. He is just too fast and you cannot repel his attacks without getting frustrated. Another thing I didn't enjoy was the graphics. They are not terrible, but are noticable enough that you wish they were better. Third, as Queen Amidala, you start with a stun gun which does nothing other than fry a few droids before you're killed yourself. It took me several tries to advance on the levels with her.

So basically, those are the pros and cons of the game. You may find your own throughout, but right now, those are the only main ones I can think of at this moment. The voice acting is pretty good in the game--Jar Jar sounds realistic enough, and so does Qui Gon. Obi Wan sounds okay, and Queen Amidala is just plain bad. I actually found it quite funny because it sounds nothing like Natalie Portman, the actress who played her in the film version.

My final opinion is that if you have the PlayStation and you enjoy Star Wars, pick it up. It'll keep you occupied for longer than most people think, and it does have some replay value, too. If you've got N64, you most definitely should have Rogue Squadron. Although they are based in two different times and differ greatly in plot, 'Rogue' is the better of the two.

This a game with a lot of potential, but so riddled with flaws that in the end, it isn't all that much fun.

A game like this is all about atmosphere (glossing over the fact that there's no air in space). The player is (or should be) free to explore a bewilderingly vast and beautiful universe - sailing gracefully through the endless reaches of space, cooing at the majestic scenery, and marvelling at the strangeness of the alien races. This, at least, is how I remember the original X - a very slow-paced game, but one that rewarded the player's patience, as its mysterious plot unfolded.

However, any sense of atmosphere or strangeness one might get out of "X2: The Threat" is scuppered by the shoddiness of the the things the NPC's say. In short, they sound like a bunch of annoying, sarcastic Americans from the year 2004. Their ignorance about their own universe is astounding. For instance, if one of them hires you to carry something from A to B, then when you're en route, they'll make some sarcastic remark about how they expected you to go much faster than this (even if you're actually as fast as a ship of your type can possibly be). Also, there are some puzzling continuity errors. For instance, if you're ferrying a passenger from one place to another, and you don't get them there in time, then (of course) you get an ear-bashing about how stupid and incompetent you are, but then the angry passenger mysteriously disappears (rather than asking you to drop them off somewhere else, or whatever). Even "Frontier: Elite 2" was better in this respect. Sarcastic, disappearing NPC's can do a hell of a lot to destroy your suspension of disbelief - reminding you that here you are, in the early 21st century, wasting your time on a silly computer game.

Now I want to talk about how the economy of the game is messed up. Trading forms the backbone of games like this, especially early on, when you're not that rich. In theory, the player is supposed to be able to work out profitable trade routes for each type of resource, buying them at the factories where they're produced, and then selling to other factories who need those resources as inputs. However, for some reason nearly all of the factories are nearly always out of production, waiting for some of their inputs to arrive (and hence have very little to sell). I think the underlying cause of this 'gridlock' can be traced back to there never enough 'Delexian wheat' - it looks as if the designers simply misjudged the number of these wheat farms necessary at the outset to balance the economy. Also the system by which the various space stations determine their buying and selling prices is disappointingly simplistic: For each of the game's resources, there's a function of the form P(Q) = b - aQ, where P is the price, Q is the quantity present in the station and b and a are a couple of constants that depend *only* on what kind of resource it is (irrespective of whether it's an input or an output for that particular factory, or how abundant the resource usually is in that sector etc.) Ultimately, the economics of the 'X' universe gives the impression of being rushed, flawed and brainless, which detracts very much from the enjoyment of the game.

The physics model is indeed very very simple (just like X-wing, Wing Commander, or even Elite for that matter), but this needn't necessarily ruin the game. However, I have to say the combat isn't very exhiliating. Whereas in X-wing, we had lots of little, fragile fighters whizzing around, firing fast-moving laser beams at each other, combat in "X2" usually consists of a couple of relatively big, ponderous ships, dancing slowly at very close range, which can quite easily hit each other (even with their ridiculously slow-moving lasers), but whose shields are often excessively strong compared to the weapons fired at them.

This just leaves the adventure side of the game. I haven't yet got very far into it this aspect of X2, but I suspect it's where most of the enjoyment is going to lie. There are some nice long cut scenes (marred by wooden acting and robotic animation, but I still like them), that gradually explain the story to you, at quite some length.

It's a beautiful-looking game, but ultimately rather shallow and annoying.

I only write a review if something is really good or really bad, happily in this case it's really good. I know its hard, if you don't have the rest of your life to play this game to build up the economic empire you'll need to complete the story or at least the credits you'll need to stay alive. I'd suggest you download the pre-made savegame that starts you out with 989,999,999 credits, once you get a chance to see how good and how much fun this game can be you'll be impressed. It's not only 21th century elite but it's the first space game I've played that I liked more then privateer and for all those who played Tachyon: The Fringe, you'll enjoy flying your huge capships around.

Not only can you own fleets but your ships can own ships and your bases too, all this going at one time. After you get a large empire you'll find that you don't notice the long waits for the next gate. Also some alien ships go alot faster, you have at least 5 races worth to choose from and you can capture pirate ships aswell.

But you'll need some real hardware or a clean running system, the 1.3 patch runs ok on my P4 1.3ghz but if I were you I'd get a faster system for this one, it's worth it.

Only bad things I can say really is that the cool stuff costs too much (as in life), the weapons are hard to come by even when you have the cool ships and the character animations are a bit stiff.

All in all I am very happy with this game and there are fan mods for it aswell. Haven't tested any yet however.

Very involving! I love space games and I'm glad this one is out. It was hard and frustrating in the 1st day, but its more amazing every day now.

I think it is more for the enjoyers of games like Flight Simulator, and the oldies Elite (MSX) and Starflight (Genesis). It is a space RPG, not an action game. You fly around, buy items, mine asteroids, trade, get to fight here and then, and enjoy the graphics and the relaxing feeling you're in space. But I say again that it is hard and complicated at the beginning, but when it's mastered it gets very simple to control. I have a joystick but I don't use it at all. Not even the mouse. So, give it a time, and don't worry about the very slow graphics. You'll adjust the settings as you go and it'll get fast.

Let me give it some marks: From F to A+, a big A+ to the variety of products, ships, stations, and resources to trade with. A+ to the graphics, A to the planets and D for never reaching them. B- to the cockpit with all those blinking lights and F for not being able to hide it. X2 never crashed or interfered with Windows (A+ for that), but a D to the silent turbine. I think I'd get more imersed if there were a turbine sound like in MS Flight Simulator. What I also liked a lot was the very smart autopilot, and the option to press ESC to dock in and out of the station, still being able to do it on manual. Two big A+ for that, but a D to the "teleport" that takes us to the other side of the door. D also to the loading on the jump gates. That always gives me a moment to remember I have class tomorrow.

In sumary: would I return it if I could? Never! Am I addicted to it? A little. Do I get home ancious to play it? All the time. My other favorites (from best on): Empire Earth, Freespace 2 and 1, MS Flight Simulator, Starfox.

Ok, by reading the reviews of the people here, I can see someone has figured this game out. I bought it not realizing it had missions where you had to do certian thing at certain times. I thought this was going to more of a graphics rich version of Dune 2000 or Tiberian Sun...was I dissapointed.

It takes forever just to get to play a mission. The mission starts loading up and someone starts talking, I guess giving a little story to the mission you are about to play. But, I can see that it's all loaded up within a few seconds, but the person just keeps talking. I can't get it to skip past that so I can go ahead a play. This is very frustrating. In a nutshell, I stopped trying to figure it out and went on to buy another game to play. Get something else, this sucks.

The first time I played this game, it seemed pretty cool, but the longer I played the more I realized that the interface was no good, there is no way to control all of your guys at once, you have to go to their positions to give orders, basically if they are under attack, they're dead by the time you get there.
Another thing is that the skirmish mode stinks, there are only 5 maps and you can't choose what race you want to be for each map. Plus, on some maps, the AI is completely stupid, and on some it is just the opposite. This game is just plain boring, it gets on your nerves a lot. If you like strategy, stay away from this game, get Red Alert 2 instead.

Anyone who states that this game has been ruined is doing crack. I'm even buying a second copy for my friend so I can play against a human instead of AI.

Reasons it's better than BZ1:

- Better AI. The units seem smarter and they get out of your way most of the time. There is less bumping around.

- You don't get killed if you walk into a tank.

- The unit grouping is SO much easier than before. In fact, I've never seen it successfully work in BZ1.

- Sniping is harder to do and you can't snipe everything. Pretty much just the hovercraft. Not tanks or slow-moving stuff.

- Resources are more plentiful so you can worry more about fighting and defending.

- You can cue up guys so you don't have to go back to your factories every time you want to make another guy.

- You can have WAY more units than before. I think it used to be 10 mobile guys and 10 turrets. This time you can have a total of 100 guys!!

- Graphics are way better, although you need a powerful PC and video card to utilize it.

- Repair trucks so you can repair guys and re-ammo guys out in the field. They also are pretty smart about automatically fixing guys. No need for the armory method.

- You can configure your factories to make vehicles with more powerful weaponry built-in so you don't have the hassle of the manually doing it with armory... which sukked.

- The map mode is way useful. See your guys from above and tell them where to go and what to attack. You also get it early in the game.

- 1 type of service pod instead of 2. It replenishes health AND ammo at the same time.

- Play a melee against the computer!!! BZ1 couldn't even DO that!

- 2 very destinctively different races. The ones in BZ1 were pretty close to being the same.

I'm sure there is more, but I'm running out of space. Get this game and play it with your friends. It's very different from a normal RTS, but that's what I like about it.

The problem with Star Trek games is that they try to be too much like Star Trek. Sound confusing? It is. To break the mold, Star Trek producers are going to have to lean on other designs because the way they make their games now just isn't getting it done. I mean, how can one series of games, with all the countless titles, all be so mind-numbingly below average games?

The problem with Starfleet Command is ambition. The game boasts true 3-D combat. This isn't true in the slightest. If you want 3-D space combat, go buy Homeworld. Starfleet command is on two axi, the X and Y. No mention whatsoever of the Z axis. Everything is played on a flat plane. Now, I'm no expert of space travel, but this just isn't accurate, nor does it make for an enjoyable experience.

Don't expect to use your torpedoes with this game either. They miss almost every time you launch them. And it isn't because of anything you're doing wrong: they just miss. The game is also very hard to figure out in its ship setup stage. If you want to load certain shuttles on your ship, you actually have to tell the game to NOT load them to get them to be there. It is backwards thinking, and I cannot believe that they shipped the game with errors in the interface like this.

Overall, it isn't terribly bad, but is not very good either. It is better than 2 stars but not quite at 3 stars either. I'd rate it 50%. It has some nice features, such as being able to command a starship and be in charge of every feature of that ship, but you soon find that, with the absense of hotkeys for most parts of the ship, this game turns into a micromanagement simulation when you don't have time to micromanage because you're being shot at. The AI is generally dumb in the game when they are isolated, but some missions can be near impossible, and combine that with the fact that your "wingmen" do not do anything helpful, it can be very frustrating when trying to destroy over 30 Orion Pirate ships in one certain Federation mission. That's just it: some missions are impossible to beat, and the strategy guide does not help in the slightest.

To make a long story short, I played this game for about 10 days, then uninstalled it on my hard drive and sold it in an online auction. The game just does not deliver what it should for what a starship combat simulation should.

The game of shear strategy is totally awesome. It is intense and may be as obsessive a game as Diablo 2. With the variety of characters available for play, boredom is not an option.

Though the graphics are fantastic and real to life, don't get too obsessed in any one mission, or game play, as some unfixed bug in the program will undoubtedly crash and/or lock up your system.

I have downloaded the update patch available from the online SFC2 site, but the program lock-up remains.

That in my opinion is the major pitfall of playing this game at all...the game has potential, but I wouldn't recommend it until the bugs are fixed.

After all, what fun is a game if you have to reboot your system just about the time things start to get interesting?

Did you ever want to buy a Star Trek game that offered excellent tutorial functions, a realistic on-screen display and 3D rendering gameplay that allowed you sit in captain's chair? Well, it's here so you better click Buy Now! because this is the game you've been waiting for. Play one of 5 races: Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, Lyran, or Hydran. All races have their own unique ships and game play which looks pretty close to what you see on the box...which is very unusual for any pc games. The opening movies are the best I've seen compared to games of its time and the bugs that are in this game are minimal. (Having a decent video card is a must - 4 mb video ram is minimal but I say at least 16 mb). This game will run on an old Pentium computer that has a good video card. It allows you to adjust options and tweak it a bit to fit your machine. It has a number of options, ships, crew selection, missions, and so forth that you choose from. I have been playing this game for a year and it is most fun I have had with any real time strategy game. This game gets my highest regard so it is highly recommended - you will not be disappointed!!!

A few people don't like the game because its difficult to beat. But if you go to any of the popular game websites, you can get free codes which alow you to win ever race, select every hover board, and every stage.

The graphics are great and you get to do a lot of outrageous moves.

A title such as Trickstyle has great potential but suffers for designers with little vision! When playiing this game you WILL get the feeling that it needs more. You will go away feeling short changed. The graphics are cool but the control is not. this game is basically flat with little replay value, the tracks are TOO SHORT and there is no real element in the game that makes it a worthy purchase.

PLAY BEFORE YOU BUY!!!!!!!!

Trickstyle has some very nice features, like fluid character movement, variety of characters to choose from, and relatively fun gameplay, but it unfortunately lacks depth as a game. While the racing tracks are certainly challenging, there are too few of them, and little is offered in terms of replayability.

The racing portions have an unnervingly unbalanced learning curve as well. I personally found the initial tracks to be very hard at first, but once I got the hang of the first couple, the rest tended to simply be an issue of seeing the track a couple times and then winning. The final track in the game put a crimp in this style, as it's suspended in the air, so falling off the edge is easy, and actually making it far enough along to see the later bits is a challenge in and of itself.

For me, the only aspects of replayability in this game involved simply going around the practice arena doing tricks. Trickstyle suffers from what seems to be a difficulty in deciding whether it's a racing game or a boarding tricks game. While it initially seems geared towards the racing, the tricks aspect is fairly developed, and the racing portions just don't offer much past the initial challenge of actually winning the race. At the same time, there's little in the way of actual tricks competition in the game, making it almost a proof of concept of the tricks engine than anything approaching a releasable game.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun game, and finding your own challenges to do within the practice arena can be interesting for a while (trying to get maximum amount of points in a single jump, jumping over the high crossbeams of the hub of the arena), but while both aspects of the game show promise, the combination of two underdeveloped games really leaves the user unsatisfied in the end.

My 8th Grade Middle School Science Classes used this Rock Tumbler Machine and achieved great success and , I hope, knowledge. For the unit on rocks and minerals we did a science experiment with 1/2 of a rock sample for the Variable in a tumbler and 1/2 for a Control not in the tumbler. Students ran the entire lab for the month. The final results were great both as a science lab and an enjoyable activity. The use of the diatomaceous earth becomes another lesson. I recommend that you keep some of the same types of rock out of the tumbler just to compare after the tumbling is done even if you are not doing it as a lab in a classroom.
There is a lot of noise connected with this piece of equipment. I could leave it in a storage room. Also I recommend that you tape it onto a board or on the table as the vibrations may cause it to move. Make sure that the seal is tight so no water leaks out. This is noticed at the very beginning if it should occur and can be easily fixed.
Some students went ahead and ordered their own Rock Tumbler. I warned the parents about the noise!!!

My 8 yr. old daughter bought this item herself and loves it! She understood from the beginning that it would take a long time since it was doing nature's job of "thousands of years" in just one month. In a world of toys that offer instant gratification for our youth, this one teaches them that nature just doesn't work that way! Yes, it's noisy (we put ours under a styrofoam cooler & put a rock on top & that helped A LOT), yes, it's takes time, and yes, it is a bit messy, but look what you get in the end. Through all three steps, your child (and probably you too) learn the process and see how nature can turn a seemingly ugly rock into a beautiful gem. If you don't like noise, waiting or a little mess, this isn't for you. If you do like cause and effect, you will love this product. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day!!
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We bought this for our 8-year-old son as a project. We knew ahead of time that it would take at least 3 weeks. (It should state this on the box though.) Rocks are hard! Nature can take thousands of years to do what this does in weeks! However, it is quite noisy and can leak a little. Put it in a garage or follow the suggestion of the other reviewer about a cooler. Vaseline does stop the leaks. Your patience with this will definitely pay off! The rocks were beautiful! There were quite a few big ones, plenty of medium size and lots of small ones. My son, the budding scientist that he is, was absolutely thrilled! I was so impressed and fasinated by each rock! I could not wait to do another batch! A great long-term project that teaches not only about nature, but about how rewarding a little patience can be. I highly recommend this to all people, (adults as well) who are interested in rocks and crystals.