Nightmare Creatures Is a Dream to Play; Lost World Struggles to Find an Edge

Maybe I’m just getting old, but few games these days inspire me to keep playing until the end--a task that demands time and energy that so easily could go toward things the wife considers “important.”

So imagine my delight--and the wife’s discontent--to find myself under the spell of two games at the same time. The first, not surprisingly, is Riven, Red Orb and Cyan’s beautiful and haunting sequel to Myst on PC and Macintosh. The other, though, is an unexpected little thriller called Nightmare Creatures from Kalisto and Activision.

Nightmare Creatures for Sony PlayStation unfolds in the London of the 1850s as the mysterious Dr. Adam Crowley rediscovers the diabolical research of the ancient Brotherhood of Hecate. The research focused on reanimating dead tissue for scientific reasons, but quickly turned into a mad plot to turn London into a city of mindless monsters.

That may sound familiar and derivative, but it’s pretty good as video game plots go. And as video games go, Nightmare Creatures excels. A roving third-person camera captures action a la Tomb Raider. Environments move swiftly as players control either the buffed man of God, Father Ignatius Blackward, or the buffed biologist and fencer, Nadia F.

Designers did a great job of capturing the prim creepiness of old London with clever uses of darkness and light. It’s impossible to know what wickedness lies around the next corner. And there is plenty of wickedness. Nightmare Creatures serves up enough zombies, werewolves and harpies to keep even the nimblest players on the defensive.

Little of Nightmare Creatures is completely fresh, but designers used the best elements of classics like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil to deliver a game that’s engaging and exciting. Its jump-and-slash action is the perfect complement to an evening of Riven--a great way to clear the mind of the Fifth Age’s lingering complexity before bedtime.

*

Like the movie it’s named after, The Lost World: Jurassic Park for Sega Saturn seems as if it were cobbled together by a focus group. In its bland quest to please, it ends up disappointing.

Players assume the roles of both dinosaurs and their human prey as they wander through some great-looking levels filled with smoothly animated characters. That attention to graphic details makes the game great to look at. But, sadly, it’s not that much fun to play.

This is a pretty simple game at its heart and nothing I saw made Lost World stand out as anything other than a dressed-up side-scroller. It might work for fans of the genre, or those who really dig dinosaurs, but others might be best to leave it alone.

*

More than a year after its introduction, the Nintendo 64 finally boasts a sizable library--with a few titles in each genre. One of the nicest racers so far is Top Gear Rally from Kemco and Midway.

Top Gear Rally is as straightforward as it gets: Drive fast through some winding courses and move on to ever tougher tracks, weather conditions and competitors. The screen slides smoothly into view and the track never slows down. Environments are richly detailed and change with the weather.

Players outfit their cars with transmissions, suspensions and tires to maximize speed and control over a range of tracks. It’s fast and sweet and it gets the checkered flag.

*

Staff writer Aaron Curtiss reviews video games every other Thursday. To comment, write to The Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Or send e-mail to Aaron.Curtiss@latimes.com.