Sierra Attractions has produced a very welcome update to Sierra's successful puzzle franchise, The Incredible Machine, this time around called Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions. In the early 90s, The Incredible Machine won awards for its ingenious concept, slick implementation, and addictive puzzle-solving gameplay. Predictably enough, a handful of (mostly superb) sequels followed. These included an eventual Windows version that was playable, but its interface suffered from overlapping windows that seemed to require constant adjustment.

Welcome to Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions.

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It seems like a long time indeed since we've been treated to a fresh version of this must-have puzzlers' delight. Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions comes with a smoother Windows interface that keeps everything fun and friendly. And the game designers took another step forward in puzzle gaming: Hints! Unless you click on the "hide hints" button, little pointing hands will indicate specific spots within many of the puzzles where you may find a few words of assistance. Really, nobody wants to get stuck.

An Incredible Machine puzzle starts like this. Some machine parts, appliances, and/or creatures are fixed in place on-screen. You can press the large oval "Start" button to set things in motion and see how the parts interact, but inevitably some functionality is missing. A short description of your goal is shown to the left and read aloud, usually something silly like "Put all five cats between the pipes" or "Put the pinball in the aquarium." (The latter "pinball in the aquarium" puzzle involves mice, cheese, and alligators, naturally. This would make Rube Goldberg proud.)

Kitty looks hungry, let's get this thing working!

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At the bottom of the screen you're provided enough parts to complete the on-screen contraption and satisfy the goal. Success is a matter of placing parts in the right place and adjusting their attributes. Some examples of these attributes include: A wall can be lengthened, shortened, and made vertical or horizontal. A laser can be aimed up, down, left, or right. A "programmable ball" can have its elasticity, mass, friction, and density adjusted. A little guy named "Mel Schlemming" can be programmed to walk, run, or stand still.

You'll need to understand how the various parts act and interact in order to build working solutions. You're eased into this knowledge through a serious of fifty (!) introductory puzzles. Each part in your bin also comes with its own help file, just one click away as soon as you place that part anywhere on the contraption part of the screen. Before you know it, you'll find it quite natural to attach a laundry basket with a rope to a lever that releases the blind, which was hiding some bananas from the baboon. When the baboon sees the bananas, he starts walking along the treadmill, and the treadmill's drive belt powers a conveyor belt which propels a bowling ball...Well, it is certainly more fun to connect and watch than it is to read about.

As if online hints and parts info weren't enough to keep you going, Contraptions also allows you to skip a tough puzzle...temporarily. Puzzles come in groups: 50 "Tutorial Contraptions," followed by 41 "Easy Contraptions," etc. Although you can skip ahead within a group, you must solve every puzzle within a group to advance to the next bunch. Fair enough.

The official Contraptions web site, http://www.incrediblemachine.net, is offered as a button on the main menu. Once your system is Internet-connected, you'll see Sierra's intent to make additional contraptions available for downloading. At the time of this writing, there are only four such add-on puzzles, so don't expect a vast repository.

On the other hand, Contraptions is infinitely expandable with the inclusion of a puzzle editor. You can place parts, "freeze" some in their places, make others available, test your layouts, and set goals. These puzzles can be saved to disk and shared with any friends who might also have a copy of Contraptions. The Contraptions Web site "downloads" section includes a few pointers to fan sites that contain some homegrown puzzles. I'd fully expect that additional fan/puzzle sites could be found with some Web searching.

The Contraptions puzzle editor interface works much like the game.

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If all that talk about the Internet made you wonder about multi-player options, there is a two-player Contraptions mode that is fairly clever, but alas, not network-enabled. With a friend in the same room, you can take turns placing a single part on any of 50 special multi-player contraptions. Whoever places the final/winning piece in a position that makes the machine work is declared the winner of that puzzle. Give it a try; the way this plays out is surprisingly devious.

The Incredible Machine is a classic game that was overdue for this update. I could imagine a few features they could add for the next version, but it's hard to criticize what's here right now. This is a bountiful puzzle game, a well-executed revision to a classic computer game design. It worked well for me and grabbed my attention (to the detriment of some other pending reviews). It is kid- and family-friendly, and I'd recommend that you pop it onto your Christmas list if it interests you. Grade: A.

Contraptions should run on your own incredible machine if it meets or exceeds the following system requirements: Pentium 90 (Pentium 166 preferred), 32 MB RAM (64 MB preferred), 50 MB hard drive space, 4x CD-ROM drive, 800x600 16-bit graphics, and Windows 95, 98, or 2000. Got a Macintosh in the house? The Mac version is also on the same CD (system requirements on bottom panel of the box).

Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions
[street: $24]
Sierra Attractions
ESRB rating: Everyone ("E")

Midtown Madness 2 is the latest racing and driving game from Microsoft. Clearly, it's a follow-up to Midtown Madness, a tremendously fun one-city game that was clearly begging for an add-on pack. Midtown Madness 2 is a stand-alone game, but it could just as well have been packaged as an add-on. It does not feature any great improvements over the original, but it includes a greater choice of vehicles and two cities in which to drive recklessly: London and San Francisco.

In Midtown Madness 2, you choose a vehicle to drive, from a pool that includes all cars in the original game, as well as newcomers like the London double-decker bus, an Audi TT, and even a fire truck. Then you get to choose one of six race types, from pursuing timed checkpoints to freely cavorting about town. And of course, you can always race against other drivers. Unfortunately, any race still takes quite a while to load, so, as with many computing endeavors, it pays to have a Hearts or Solitaire window standing by.

The actual racing is (optionally) 3D accelerated, shown from behind the wheel in first-person perspective, as you'd expect. In fact, it looks very much like driving the streets of Chicago in Midtown Madness. The graphics engine seemed slightly more demanding on barely adequate hardware than in the first game, though I couldn't easily see why. Given a modern 3D video card and a speedy machine, you should have a blast. Expect to tune down the graphics features if your PC sits at the bare minimum (see below).

The racing is entirely arcadish-just dodge cars, attempt stunts, swerve around corners, and attempt some crazy stunts while you're at it. There are enough physics in play to ground your driving in realism, but this is zany, aggressive, fantasy driving-not a "serious" driving sim. As with the Motocross Madness games, many of the vehicles seem lighter than they should be, and that's surely tweaked for the fun of it: Speed up for that ramp! Catch some air!

Some of the race options in Midtown Madness 2.

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The downtown areas of San Francisco and London are modeled well enough to be recognizable in layout, though neither city's appearance will astound you. London has the added feature of being able to duck down into the Underground (subway) tunnels and back up, which is a neat gimmick at first, and then becomes another factor to consider when working out your own paths to win the races. London also manages to provide variety just by its drive-on-the-left-side nature. The hills of San Francisco provide that setting with some visual excitement and vehicular bounce.

An obvious tweak to the original game engine is that trees are no longer such difficult barriers. They snap and nearly explode in your path, another design choice in the interest of fun. Other objects like signs and parking meters are equally breakable, while buildings remain as solidly indestructible as before. Pedestrians still scream and dive for cover. Correct me if I'm wrong, but now it seems easier to bump other cars aside, like collisions have been made a bit "softer." In general, the game is easier than its predecessor.

Speaking of easy, Microsoft's "Zone" Web site is as usual used to provide matchmaking for multi-player Internet games, and it works like a champ. The interface is easy, and the service is free. Enjoy. Multi-player games in Midtown Madness 2 seem perhaps a bit smoother than in the original, so if you're 'net-connected then by all means give it a try.

"Darn. Nabbed. Good thing I don't really drive this way."

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For a full sequel, I wish Midtown Madness 2 had more visceral improvements, especially in its 3D graphics engine. Game sequels usually up the ante. This would have made a fantastic add-on pack. As it stands, I'm having a great time racing through traffic, careening along sidewalks, and scrapping madly for every shortcut. It's a huge kick, and maybe we're even working off some latent driving aggressions with this, who knows. I hope there will be a Midtown Madness 3, and I can imagine ways in which it could knock our socks off, but this game is here now and it's easily worth owning. Compared to Midtown Madness, it is "more of the same." So what! Grade: A-.

Midtown Madness 2 should keep up with the traffic on your PC if it meets the following minimum requirements: Multimedia PC with a Pentium II 266 MHz processor, or a Pentium II 233 MHz with 8 MB video hardware acceleration; Windows Me, 95, 98, or 2000; 32 MB of RAM, or 64 MB for Windows 2000; 250 MB hard disk space (400 MB recommended); 4X CD-ROM drive; Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device; DirectX 7.0a API; and a super VGA monitor supporting 800x600 resolution. Optional device support, and additional hardware requirements for multi-player play, are also listed on the bottom of the box.

Midtown Madness 2
[street: $38]
Microsoft/Angel Studios
ESRB rating: Everyone ("E")

Lighter Blue: Mini-Reviews

A Brief Look at Microsoft Baseball 2001
by Chris Seip

With the 2001 edition of their Baseball program, Microsoft is attempting to bridge the gap between statistics-based sports franchise management simulations and simple arcade baseball. Not just bridge the gap, but Microsoft is attempting to marry those two opposed endpoints. "Marry" may not be what has been accomplished, since the stats and arcade sides of Microsoft Baseball 2001 sometimes appear to be just dating.

Keeping a pitch inside the strike zone, in Microsoft Baseball 2001.

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Real teams and real players are modeled in this game, thanks to loads of measurements from the 1999 baseball season. There's even a plethora of real-world ballparks in which you can stage the games, which look pretty good except for the unfortunately flattened crowds. The AI in Microsoft Baseball hits a grounder instead of a home run, and real baseball mavens will doubtless be dismayed by some highly questionable decisions made by AI managers, as well as the flubs and errors during play.

The MS Baseball 2001 simulation includes a financial layer.

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Would-be managers who stick to the meatier statistical mode will have a clean interface through which to navigate. But for an all-around baseball heavy hitter that connects this with a first-class graphical arcade game with realistic AI at the helm, Baseball 2001 only manages to point the way. There are bound to be some fascinating improvements in the near future for the Microsoft Baseball line of games. Grade: B-.

Microsoft Baseball 2001
[street: $30]
Microsoft
ESRB rating: Everyone ("E")