By James Casey
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 28, 1998

Rapping and goaling

Arizona Daily Wildcat PaRappa The Rapper

"PaRappa The Rapper" is one of the newer games for the Sony PlayStation system and is pretty damn unique. The aim of the game is to get a rapping dog through a variety of stages by battling other MCs until he finally becomes a master of bad hip-hop. The game itself is a great big music video/karaoke film with low-budget beats, bad lyrics (due to poor Japanese translation) and kiddie graphics which resemble paper cut outs - think South Park with love.

What makes the game so successful then? It's really just a combination of the flat-out fun factor and the fact that PaRappa is seemingly aimed at stoners. (Stoners? What's that you say?) The game is teeming with apparently drug-friendly icons such as a karate chopping onion, a walking flower, a singing chicken, a Rasta frog and a moose-looking cop. The problems only arise when you get stuck on a level and have to keep repeating the irritating song/level time after time just to get to another equally sad song. The game works like karaoke with a little PaRappa cursor that hops over the words indicating certain buttons to press. If you screw up you start to lose the flow and eventually fail the level, therefore having to go over it again.

All in all, the dog-like hip-hop hero PaRappa is somewhat sickly-sweet and is too nice for a rapper. The game would be better with expletives - you know, like real rap. Rent it for a week but don't buy it.

Also recently out, "Fifa: Road To World Cup 98" is a great game, with some of the most incredible detail ever seen in a football video game. (Incidentally, football uses the feet, and a round ball-you all watch American football which should be called "Throwball" or "Catchball.") The game includes league teams from across the globe. English, Scottish, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian and American teams are included, as are 172 international teams from 6 zones.

Arizona Daily Wildcat Fifa: Road To World Cup 98

This "Fifa" picks up where the somewhat dismal 97 version left off. The animation is lifelike and the commentary has over 40,000 words used in the play-by-plays. The effect is like that of a real game, with background sounds like the real thing. The World Cup is included and you can bring any team into the world limelight - that is, if you're good enough.

The only real problem with the game is that at times it's a little too easy to score; one match I played had a final score of 16-0 and on average you have scores of at least 5 over the other team. The goalkeepers are not up to par in the computer's land, letting even the most ridiculous of shots fall behind the line. This is definitely a game that should be on your list of purchases, though, as it is possibly one of the finest sports games ever.