Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is a game developed by Torus Games. This company is known for games such as Shrek: Smash and crash racing(PSP,PS2, NGC, NDS,GBA), Planet of the Apes(GBC, GBA) and various handheld games based on movies and series. The game was published in europe by SCI and in north america by Xicat Interactive. SCI is known for series such as the Conflict and Carmadeddon series, aside from those series it has also released other games such as Total Overdose and The Italian Job. Xicat Interactive is known for games such as Gothic, Coaster Works and Ballistics. Carmageddon: TDR 2000 was released in 2000 and was the sequel to Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now.

In Carmageddon: TDR 2000 there isn't much of a storyline, the intro explains that the rich have build tightly secured police cities which are sealed off from the rest of the world, in which they have gathered people in beginning of the New Millenium. The rich took everyone except for the poor and filthy in the city(as perceived by the rich), after that they nuke the former cities, killing millions. But the people outside Paradise(the places ruled by the cops and the rich) weren't defeated yet and were growing in numbers each day, even though they were no longer classed as humans due to mutations. In this rubble you'll attempt to make it into Paradise, something that no-one was able to do before. Throughout the game you'll visit various cities that still inhabit people and your task is to get out of those cities seeing as they're tightly sealed of as well, to keep the murderers and pillagers out. Throughout the missions you complete you'll realise that the cops still meddle with the cities outside of Paradise, because they smuggle and sell various goods and also offer services to local gangs that have filled the absence of the government.

Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is a racing game in which you have three ways of winning, either by taking out the opponents, winning the race or killing all pedestrians. All across the map are powerups that can both help but disadvantage you as well. There are two basic icons for powerups, I'll define them by color since that's the easiest. Red will grant you weapons and turbo's, yellow changes something in the environment, which can be positive but negative as well. Green gives you money(or credits), with which you can buy other cars or upgrade your motor in the shop, which makes the game a lot easier. In some levels you'll be able to pick up nuclear bombs, even when there isn't a mission that requires you to blow something up. There are also powerups that appear as red triangles, but the powerups you get from them are selected at random, as far as I can tell. As you progress through the game you'll unlock more cars(which still need to be bought, using credits) and tracks, most tracks give the player six missions, usually they involve blowing things up,a standard race or collecting things, the last one always requires the player to escape the town. The only exception to this format is the track called The Bridge, which is the level before the last level, this level requires the player to cross a bridge whilst evading mines and opponents. Pretty much everything thing you do within a race or a mission grants you money, from killing pedestrians to blowing up opponents. The opponents also have AI in this game, which means that they assign tasks to themselves, such as finding money, killing pedestrians, killing you and driving through check-points. So if you happen to get an opponent aggravated, it's quite possible that he's going to have a fight to death with you. There are also non-opponent enemies in the game, such as gang-vehicles and cops, who will often attack you on sight. Gang members that walk around on foot will also harass any racing cars that come by, by throwing Molotov cocktails and trashing cars using iron bars.

The graphics of this game are great compared to other games released in 2000. Other games released in the year 2000 tend to be quite blocky and grayish, whilst in Carmageddon: TDR 2000 this is kept to a minimum. It's not realistic in anyway but the most objects and terrains are quite detailed. The special effects like blood and explosions are nice as well, if you hit a pedestrian full on whilst driving extremely fast, you see the blood and intestines flying everywhere, and of course his limbs. Every city has it's own feeling to it, some feel more post-apocalyptic, others more deserted an so on.

The sound in Carmageddon: TDR 2000 is pretty good as well, although most sound effects sound like they've been taken from movies, for example the explosion sound very standard, just like most other sound effects. The tracks in this game are great, the upbeat rock-songs really fit the game like a glove. Sadly, there are only a few songs or the other songs in the game simply aren't memorable, but the few that are there are really fun to listen to.

So, to conclude this review, this game is great and you should really play it, when you have the chance. Beware though, most newer operating systems have trouble running this video game, but if you're still running XP you'll be fine. The game's definitely worth checking out, even after all these years, the fun it provides is timeless.

This RTS was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and published by HD Publishing and Sierra Entertainment and released in 2006.

In JTF you follow a JTF battalion and it's commander, Mayor Matthew O'Connell where you fight in five different countries: Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Colombia.
There the JTF fight for control and stability. The missions in JTF are based on actual combat situations.

The game includes officially licensed vehicles and weapons systems from major defense contractors, like Boeing, General Dynamics e.d.
So think of Apachee and the M1 Abrams tank.

The game focusses heavily on making tactical decisions.
To purchase new troops and equipement, you get money at the start of a mission or during a mission after completing an objective.
But not everything can be brought in by helicopter (that's the way how light equipement and troops are brought in). In order for you to get access to the heavier gear, like tanks, you have to capture an airstrip.

The graphics in the game are pretty nice. The maps are well developed with a lot of diversity. Effects like explosions and the weather are detailed, so are the vehicles, troops and environment.
Now the gameplay is something else. There were some moments that made no sense at all. Moments where my tanks were destroyed by men with grenades (not RPG's) or where my men got gunned down by a small squad when they had superior numbers.
The rest is pretty basic, so you won't encounter any weird controls.

Conclusion: Joint Task Force is a good game with a nice map design and detailed graphics. It has it's weird moments but that won't ruin the game.

Death Rally is a top-down perspective racing video game developed by Remedy (Remedy also created the Max Payne series), published by Apogee (Duke Nukem, which explains why there is a character named Duke Nukem in this game) and distributed by GT Interactive (Doom, Driver and more). It was released on September 6, 1996 on DOS and Windows.

This is one of those games that doesn't have a story, but only has pure action. Your goal is to reach the first spot out of 20 drivers. When you've completed that goal you may try the final race against the Adversary. When you start this game you'll be asked if you want to use weapons, and I suggest that you use them, because it makes the game a lot funnier. When you begin the game all drivers have more points than you, and Duke Nukem/Sam Speed is 100 points ahead of you. You can choose an avatar, when you choose Duke Nukem, Sam Speed will be the fastest driver, when you choose Sam Speed, Duke Nukem is, but when you choose another avatar they both are there, but Duke Nukem will have the fastest and strongest car, so choosing his avatar is the best thing to do. There are a couple of cars in the game, you'll start with a Vagabond (a Volkswagen Beetle in real life) and for purchasing other cars you'll need money by winning races and completing sub objectives. There are a couple sub objectives that can appear before you start a race. Sometimes you need to pick up some drugs and also win the race to get some extra cash and sometimes you have to kill one particular racer. However, when you fail these objectives you'll lose the amount of money that you were offered when you succeeded, so you'll have to be sure that the objective is possible. The better your car is, the more bonus money you'll gain if you complete one of the sub objectives. You can also win extra cash by eliminating the three other racers or winning the race without getting damaged.

You can also use the money to purchase some upgrades for your car. For example, the Vagabond has one engine upgrade (which makes it faster), two tire upgrades (which increases the handling of the car) and one armor upgrade (you take less damage from mines and machine gun fire). You'll also need to repair your car after each race, because if you don't do that the damage from the previous race still is there and most likely you'll be eliminated, and thus you've no income that race. You have three types of races in which you can subscribe (Note: there are only four starting tickets for each race and there are 20 racers, so not everybody is able to race) : Easy, medium and hard. The harder a race is, the faster are your rivals, but you'll also win more price money. Before you pick a race you're also able to install some one time only upgrades on your car. You can install mines, spikes on your front, rocket fuel and you can sabotage the best ranked racer so that his/her car is already damaged before the race starts. It can happen that you've ran out of money and that your car is 100% damaged. When this happens you can take a loan. You have three races to pay back the loan with a large amount of interest.

While you're racing you're also able to pick up some extra items that are laying on the ground, like extra ammunition for your machine gun, extra power for your turbo, drugs (which you don't want to pick up) mines (from you or other racers, ether way, you don't want to drive over these things, they can cause a lot of damage, depending on your armor level) and cash, the harder the race is, the more cash you'll gain with one pickup.

Considering this game is from 1996, it has amazing graphics, the environment is in 3D! However, your car is not, so let's call this game 2.5D. Level design is okay. When you're racing you realize that your opponents are much stronger than you, because when you hit them you mostly end up against a wall.

I really think this game is great, and it is just awesome. Man, this is one of those games that you can play hours and hours without stopping. The races are short, so after each race you think: Let's do another one, and before you know it it's dark outside. And this story gets even greater: This game was updated for modern operating systems and re-released as freeware by Remedy in 2009.

NetStorm: Islands At War is a real-time strategy PC game, developed by Titanic Entertainment and published by Activision in 1997. Titanic Entertainment went bust after releasing this game. Although a single-player campaign and tutorial missions are included, Netstorm is primarily designed for online play, allowing for games of up to eight players. However, in May 2002 the official servers were closed, because less and less players were playing the game online. Shortly after the servers were closed, fans of the game set up unofficial servers to keep Netstorm alive.

There isn't really a storyline in this game, you just play three campaigns (that is, if you're able to complete all the levels in the first campaign, after you've done that you unlock mission 1 in the second campaign and so on). The gameplay of this game is relatively simple but quite innovative for its time, as few moving units are used, in contrast to other real-time strategy games, such as Command & Conquer. The battle area consists of a number of islands, each one controlled by an individual player. You're able to build bridges to extend the battlefield, since you can build structures in mid air if they connect with a bridge, and that bridge must connect with your main island. You're also able to build a new bridge that starts from the placed structure. Each player has a priest. You must defend your own priest and capture the enemy's priest and sacrifice him in an Altar.

The most important structure in the game is the Temple. When you lose this building your priest will be immobilized and the enemy is able to build structures on your island, since you don't own it anymore. When the priest is immobilized he can be picked up by a transport unit, such as a Golem, Crystal Crab, Balloon etc. If your able to kill the transporter before he puts your priest into the Altar, he's able to move again.

The currency in this game are so called storm crystals, which you can collect from storm geysers. Some are located on your main island, but most of them you have to connect with your island using bridges. These storm geysers only have a limited amount of storm crystals available, so you have to connect as many as possible to your main island. There is also another way to gather resources, and that is destroying the enemy's buildings. You'll gain 50% of that building's worth in storm crystals after you've destroyed one.

There are several classes of units, including offensive units, defensive units and transport units. Only transport units can actually move and they are mainly used to collect the storm crystals from the storm geysers that appear randomly around the map. Both the offensive and defensive units are static, once placed they cannot be moved. Each offensive unit has an area or line of fire in which it can attack and destroy enemy units. Defensive units serve to provide cover to other offensive units while they make their attack. All units need energy before they can be placed. Energy structures also have an area which they support with energy. Energy structures themselves also need energy from another energy structure to be placed. Ironically, if one of the energy units in the chain is destroyed, all the others keep operating, so you can still build units within their range.

The key to victory in this game is fast bridge building, at least in the single player it is. Quickly cut of the enemy's supply routes to storm geysers is essential. However, there is a way to destroy the bridges, and that is to build an unit of your own next to it, and then salvage that unit so that the bridge collapses. However, the AI doesn't use this method so fast bridge building around his island is the key to victory, especially when you only have one enemy. If you have more than one enemy, the best thing you can do is to quickly build a bridge to the current storm geyser they're using. If you do that you can place an unit to kill their transports, and eventually immobilize their priest, since the priest can also gather storm crystals, and he will drop by to gather crystals after all the transports have been killed.

The graphics of the game are okay, but they get the job done. The game is quite old, so don't expect to much. It can make some people not really try the game. This area is one of the weaker areas of the game. That doesn't hurt the gameplay much though, if you can ignore the graphics, there is a good game behind it.

The sound in Netstorm is pretty decent. Originally, the game doesn't have a soundtrack, but a couple of fans did make an unofficial soundtrack. The original sound is decent and doesn't seem to repeat too often. Each resource gatherer will make some sound when you click on them, and those sounds are well done. The battle sounds are good as well. Nothing special really, but appropriate for the game.

In conclusion: Although the game is quite old, I've really enjoyed playing this game again. And I'm sure you could too, if you're able to look past the graphics. Netstorm's single player really is challenging at times, even when using that bridge trick. The game also still has a community that organizes tournaments among their members.

Netstorm is considered abandonware by some, and can be downloaded here.