LucasArts decided to take a fantasy-oriented route with Gladius, which pits you against gladiators in arenas from Rome to Hades, but the liberties they\'ve taken should only disappoint those Classics majors and Roman Empire buffs. The rest of us might enjoy hurling fireballs at our foes. In an RPG-style strategy type game. Sounds fun.

And rounding out the big console wrestling push is Raw 2. After a disappointing debut on the Xbox, this series has a lot of making up to do. Fortunately, the folks at THQ and Anchor are up to the task. Lots of improvements await. Click here.

Is this gorgeous enough for you? The series that brought computer graphics into the mainstream consciousness is coming to a console near you. Myst III: Exile maintains the on-rails, point and click, interface of its predecessors, but features a 360 degree camera and the most photorealistic landscapes we\'ve seen so far, not to mention a meaty narrative. Click here for more.

Three years ago, Rick Fehrenbacher and Al Wildey bought GamesFirst! Although founded in 1995, GF! had been left to languish after the previous editor, a friend of Rick and Al's named Zap Reicken, decided he could no longer maintain the site. At the time of the Rick and Al's takeover, dubbed GamesFirst! 2.0, the site averaged 300 visitors per day. I came on board as the site's first console game reviewer. As Rick described so eloquently in his editorial last year, the consoles section and GF! grew together. A few games trickled in from Activision and a handfull of other games publishers for console systems, and those kept me busy for the remainder of the year.

While there were many points of interest at E3 this year, the most consistently really crowded booth was Nintendo's, where gamers flocked, nay swarmed, to see the GameCube. For those skeptics out there who think the general mediocrity of the N64 experience has soured gamers, witness the intense interest shown for the new system. Let's face it, the N64 has suffered from a general lack of titles, and some companies have released really terrible games for it, further causing pain to gamers who have been forced to pursue the "any port in a storm" strategy (Big Mountain 2000 comes to mind, er, flashes painfully across my memory). However, there have been some very good titles, and it's no mistake that the best titles on the system have been made by Nintendo and it's 2nd party developer, Rare. Nintendo is, in many ways, the Disney of the gaming world “ they have created and continue to create incredibly popular and lasting characters, who appear in all sorts of games and have firmly lodged themselves in the hearts of mainstream USA (as well as mainstream everywhere else).

RPG is a game in which character development and character interaction take precedence over other factors and where each player's experience of the story is determined by individual choice rather than designer fiat . . . Of greatest importance, this definition eliminates adventure games, which share with the RPG an emphasis on story and character. What adventure games lack - and this is a critical point - is the capability for players to grow and develop their characters, and to affect, if not the outcome of the story, than the way in which the story unfolds. Without both character development and genuine choices placed within a player's control, a game cannot be called a role-playing game, as I choose to define the genre (Remodeling 1).

The modern world of videogames is like most other creative pursuits in that it is now coming of age and realizing its full potential. During the course of this realization, many different phases and styles have, and will, emerge. Turning points and plateaus are inevitable, as are special titles that represent "timeless" examples of the artform. Just as a classic Mercedes Gullwing will always stand out from the crowd of other cars, certain games will represent a highpoint in gaming that will maintain a certain "Wow" factor in the decades of gaming to come. Further, just because drastically better 3D modeling, and other innovations, are coming doesn't necessarily mean that the games will make a deeper, or even as deep of an, impression on the audience than its well-crafted ancestor did.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences held their third annual Interactive Achievement Awards last Thursday, May 11, 2000 in LA. In the midst of E3, the IAAs have gained some notoriety, and with good reason. It was an all-star event, featuring Martin Short as emcee, and with celebrity guest presenters like Ahmet Zappa, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, and Harry Shearer. Of course, some of the winners were luminaries in their own right like Bruce Shelley, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Will Wright. In all, it was a great evening, and some of the greatest games from the last year were given their proper recognition. Of course, there were some disappointments (Knockout Kings over Tony Hawk's Pro Skater?!?). We've summed it all up below for your viewing pleasure.