Cube

If it has a new soundtrack, I'm in. If not, I'll wait for mods to replace the soundtrack.

Split Fiction Release Date: 6th March 2025 Developer: Hazelight Studios Publisher: EA Originals Platform Played: Xbox Series S Platforms Available: PC, Xbox Series, PS5, Switch 2 Split Fiction is the latest two player co-op from Hazelight Studios. The developers started this journey with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons – which was a co-op game designed to be played by a single person controlling both characters with a single controller, and somehow managed to get emotion out of how you control the game. A Way Out started the full on co-op, a game that can only be played with two players. This one also started the trend of their games being played entirely in split screen, even if you play it online. It Takes Two was where their big success was, winning multiple Game of the Year awards and selling extremely well, even with its generous nature of letting player 2 join a friend online without owning the game. It was made up of lots of varied segments which changed up the gameplay and had each player working together by performing different tasks. Split Fiction doesn’t deviate from this formula, but it does refine it a lot, alongside doing a load of new things within the formula. The game stars Mio and Zoe, two aspiring writers who hope to get their work published. They turn up at Rader Publishing and find out that the deal isn’t quite what they expected, as it involves being connected to a mysterious machine. Mio refuses to participate, but ends up getting pushed into Zoe’s bubble and joining her simulation, which starts causing glitches. In order to escape, as well as to save their ideas from being stolen, they must work together to find more glitches by completing their stories. Mio works with sci fi, while Zoe works with more traditional fantasy. The main chapters alternate between these genres, each one telling a story which relates to their lives in some way, you discover their past through these stories. Both characters are likeable with plenty of depth with engaging stories, both their real world tale and their fictional stories that you play though. The main movement mechanics are kept the same throughout the entire game (other than a few specific sequences), the girls both have a double jump and a dash that can also be performed mid air. They also have a grapple to latch onto specific targets. The platforming feels very precise and a ton of fun, and allows for some enthralling chase sequences. The rest of the mechanics differ throughout the game, and are often different for each character. Ok the first main sci-fi chapter, you play as cyber ninjas. Mio has a gravity sword which allows her to use special tiles to shift her gravity to walk on the walls and ceiling. Zoe, on the other hand, has a gravity whip that lets her manipulate and move objects. Meanwhile, the first fantasy chapter gives both players two transformations each. At one part of the game I was even excited because I got to be “Banjo-Kazooie” Quite often, you’ll have to manipulate the world to allow for each other to progress. Split Fiction does err a bit on the easy side, option more for the odd brain teaser or tricker short platforming segment. Chase sequences are nice in that a player will respawn next to the other if they die (although you go back to a checkpoint if you both die) and when in bosses (and other combat scenarios), there’s a short quick time event to respawn to add a bit of tension to it, although bosses are also kind in that they often have checkpoints part way through them. Throughout the main levels you’ll also find portals that lead to side stories. These are short segments based on unfinished ideas of the main character. They’re completely optional, but I have no idea why anyone would willingly skip them (although there is one that is easy to miss, although there’s a handy chapter select to find it after finishing the game). These are filled with magical moments, with some surprising dark turns, beautiful journeys, some playgrounds for a nice change of place or even a bit of competition, such as a level that plays like an SSX game. This all culminates in a final chapter which is just too good to go into detail about, it does amazing things with the dual genre idea as well as with the split screen. This final chapter does things which are so impressive that this is the first game of the Series/PS5 generation which feels like it truly takes advantage of the technology and doesn’t just seem like a slightly nicer looking PS4 game. It also looks stunning without needing to use demanding graphics processes, which means that the only compromise the game makes for the Series S is that it runs in 1080p. It’s truly wonderful how astonishing and advanced the game looks and feels. If I had to give a flaw for the game, it’s that I wanted more. I wish that each chapter and side story was its own complete game. Not that Split Fiction is a short game, each chapter is a few hours long and the side stories are a great distraction, but some of the ideas seem too good to just be used for a single section. It still helps the game feel incredibly fresh the entire time, though, and it’s easily become one of my all-time favourite games. If you can get someone to enjoy the journey alongside you (either locally or online, I immensely recommend it. I’m certainly looking forward to playing the game with the roles swapped around. 10/10

Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure Have a good time at Universal Studios with Woody Woodpecker. JP release: 7th December 2001 NA release: 18th December 2001 EU release: 3rd May 2002 Developer: Nai’a Digital Works Publisher: Kemco NGC Magazine Score: 24% Mods Used: Widescreen Hack Often said to be the worst game on GameCube. I’ll have to see how it compares when I’ve made it further into my GameCube games, but it’s certainly the first terrible game on the GameCube. You’re a boy visiting Universal Studios, with free reign of the park. Well, sort of. Navigating Universal Studios is apparently utter hell. This game features pre-render backgrounds and fixed camera angles, with no care taken on how they flow with each other, as the orientation changes on every single screen. Sometimes even finding your character is a challenge, as they’ll be far in the distance, obscured by other park visitors. ET Adventure Most likely you’ll bump into ET Adventure for your first minigame. This is a terrible Excitebike-style game where you slowly cycle to the right and go over jumps. Actually landing is pretty much impossible, so you’ll fall over constantly – thankfully, the game is so easy that you’ll have no problems beating it while falling over every few seconds. With this out of the way, the next time you go to an attraction, there will be a queue, and you’ll be unable to answer. You can buy hats to access events, using points you earn from completing attractions, meeting mascots and picking up rubbish. To be fair to the game, the amount of hassle from this set-up is nowhere near as bad as I’ve heard other people say it is. From the ET minigame, a quiz and some interactions, I had enough points for three hats and was given an e-pass that lets me access another for a single attempt, so I didn’t spend that much time needing to collect points. That said, trying to navigate the park to find the other events, as well as the immensely tiny hidden Universal Studios letters, makes even that an unpleasant experience. With that said, here’s my rundown on the other events. Back to the Future: The Ride This is the only minigame that’s properly based on the ride itself. You need to chase Biff as he races through the first three locations from the ride: Hill Valley, an ice level and a lava world. You have a surprisingly strict time limit so you can’t afford to hit the walls. There’s not much to the game, but it’s probably the best one in the package. Jurassic Park An on-rails shooter. Kill as many dinosaurs as possible, including the ones that aren’t a danger to you. You can hold A to lock-on multiple times and there’s a needlessly robust points system. The problem is that the minigame is both boring and goes on for far too long. If it wasn’t for the music, you’d barely tell that this was related to Jurassic Park, as it looks and feels like a knock-off. Waterworld Pick a seat and watch a 5 second CGI clip of a prop plane landing into water. If they wanted to discourage people from seeing the actual attraction, they managed to do a great job at that. Jaws The shark from Jaws (which this minigame incorrectly calls Jaws) is attacking the Orca. It’s full of barrels, so many that you’ll think they’ll need a bigger boat. On the top right are two different displays showing where the shark will head over from, so just go there and throw a barrel at him. Immensely simple and easy. The Wild Wild Wild West This is loosely based on a stunt show at the park, not related to the fun Wild Wild West film from Warner Bros. The original show features fun stunts, fights and explosions. Here you shoot cans and targets. Focus on the cardboard cut-out and the bonus targets and you’ll win with zero effort. Backdraft Everyone knows and loves Backdraft, right? the film [googles] where Kurt Russel becomes a firefighter to impress his brother. Apparently it got a Direct-to-DVD sequel in 2019. This is probably the closest to an actual minigame, as you explore a burning warehouse (with bad camera angles), putting out fires and rescuing people to run into. This one also goes on for far too long. And that’s Universal Studios. A game where you get to explore a theme park and play minigames based on the rides is definitely a good idea, but this is just a terrible attempt at doing so, partly from how horrible navigating the park is to how soulless all the games feel. The music from the films seems like the only elements actually used, with zero meaningful interaction with the characters (other than the annoying and deplorable Woody Woodpecker). It’s amazing how this doesn’t just fail as a game, but also as an advertisement, as it makes Universal Studios look like a bad place to visit. The game doesn’t even make it clear that it’s based on the Japan park, not the main one in Orlando. Worst Remake or remaster? This idea would be interesting if it were done well, it could even be an interactive website. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure on Nintendo GameCube, but you can experience Nintendo at Universal Studios.

I didn't actually notice that DK wasn't a launch title because it seems too absurd for it to not be a launch title.

SSX Tricky Resist gravity. NA release: 27th November 2001 JP release: 27th December 2001 EU release: 12th July 2002 Developer: EA Canada Publisher: EA Sports BIG (NA/EU), EA Square (JP) NGC Magazine Score: 87% Mods Used: None When it comes to basing your game’s identity on a single song, it has to be a good one. Thankfully, “It’s Tricky” by Run-DMC is up to the task and the song shines through at just the right moments, successfully making it feel special when you hear it instead of getting annoyed by its repetition. The SSX games are snowboarding racing games that focus on tricks and my only prior experience is SSX Blur. I didn’t even realise this wasn’t the first game until the commentator kindly pointed out how many tracks were brought back from the previous game (albeit with changes). While the snowboarding games on the Nintendo 64 featured tricks, including Nintendo’s own 1080° Snowboarding, they didn’t usually gel with the racing itself, often being more of a liability than anything else. The SSX games have two ways to help the two aspects fit together. The first is leniency. You can land at some odd angles without much issue and falling over still has you tumbling downhill and getting up at a decent pace. The second is tying it into a boost system. However, if you hang onto your boost and continue tricking, you’ll fill up the bar and “It’s Tricky” will start playing. During this, you have infinite boosts and can prolong it by performing uber tricks – and pulling off six will give you infinite boosts for the entire race. Another neat feature is how the other racers develop as you play. Attacking or not attacking other racers during races (which nets you boost) will impact future races – rivalries and friendships will form, adjusting how aggressive they are towards you. The tracks themselves all manage to both feel and look unique, and are a good length with a ton of fun segments. SSX Tricky is a game chocked full of the style and attitude of this era of sports games, which makes it a ton of fun to go back to as I kind of miss all this today. It’s still hugely enjoyable to play and the art style still holds up quite well. Great Remake or remaster? An SSX collection would be great. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play SSX Tricky. -- The GameCube really did have a great start to it, with plenty of great games and nothing particularly terrible.

XGIII: Extreme-G Racing Beyond Speed. Beyond Combat. Beyond All Racing. NA release: 27th November 2001 JP release: 15th March December 2002 EU release: 3rd May 2002 Developer: Acclaim Publisher: Acclaim NGC Magazine Score: 85% Mods Used: Widescreen Code Alongside Rogue Leader, Extreme-G 3 was the other game I got with my GameCube on launch day. An immensely stunning futuristic racer that also manages to be a little soulless at times. The Nintendo 64 had lots of great futuristic racers, and Extreme G, F-Zero, Wipeout and Episode 1: Racer all managed to feel completely distinct at the same time. Instead of improving upon what worked well for previous games, XGIII instead borrows from others. The biggest change in XGIII is how the shields and boosting work. Boosting uses up your shield, and strips at the edge of the track will recharge your shield if you go over them. Exactly like F-Zero. The weapons also work differently, no longer items you pick up on the track that bring down pods that hover over the bike, but upgrades you buy in your shop that subtly pop out of your fancy looking motorbike. The style of Extreme-G is just gone, not just by copying F-Zero, but the design of the world and vehicles as well. What XGIII does have in spades, though, is spectacle. The tracks look amazing, weaving through wonderful and unique looking parts of the world. The woosh sound when you go through the rings that hold the track up is a wonderful sound and when you reach a certain speed, you’ll break the sound barrier with a bang followed by silence. It’s wonderful the first few times you hear it, although at the fastest speed, it starts to get a bit annoying. With these things going for it, it’s a shame it didn’t have a bit more personality to go alongside it. Fun Remake or remaster? An Extreme-G collection would be nice. Combining mechanics and tracks form different games would be great. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play XGIII: Extreme-G Racing.

So if you added a bit to a S2E game to push down the button, it would boot it up as the Switch 1 version (not that there would ever be a reason to do so)? Also, there are some fantastic games in the launch line up (Split Fiction is probably the best game of the PS5 generation), but many are games already out elsewhere.

So after multiple contradictory and confusing statements from Nintendo, Marvelous Games are the ones to finally explain the Switch 2 Edition cartridges with Rune Factory. The S2E of Rune Factory will come on a red 64GB cartridge. However, it will work on both the original Switch and the Switch 2. The upgrade patch is on the cartridge and will load if plugged into a Switch 2, or it will just load the original version when plugged into a Switch. All in all, a really good way to do it, which makes the bizarre communication from Nintendo even more confusing.

Super Smash Bros. Melee Nintendo’s all-stars are ready to do battle! Let the melee begin! JP release: 21st November 2001 NA release: 3rd December 2001 EU release: 24th May 2002 Developer: HAL Laboratory Publisher: Nintendo NGC Magazine Score: 95% Mods Used: Widescreen Code While the N64 Super Smash Bros was a wonderful novelty, Nintendo realised what potential the game had and decided to go all out with Smash Bros Melee, bringing more characters into the fold and adding in a load of extras to make it a love letter to Nintendo’s history. Melee solidified Super Smash Bros as an important franchise for Nintendo, with each game getting bigger and bigger. Singleplayer has gained a few new features, including Adventure mode, where you play through a mixture of different kinds of stages. Some are platforming levels created specially for this mode, while others are fights on regular stages. The platforming levels do feel a bit odd using the control style of Smash Bros, but they’re still immensely enjoyable and set the stage for more to follow in the next game. There’s also the more traditional fighting mode, event fights and some minigames, like Home Run Contest, which are initially simple but are made quite deep due to the mechanics of the game. There’s plenty to do here when friends aren’t over. There’s also a ton of options for multiplayer as well, there are stock or points based matches, add special features like making the game slower or faster, making all the characters invisible and you can adjust how frequently items appear and turn specific items on or off. All this means you can come up with your own ideas for matches. A personal favourite of mine was setting items to high, Pokéballs only and everyone had to be a Pokémon character. It’s pure chaos and an absolute blast. Melee also introduced a compulsive form of collectible: the trophies. Some are earned by completing specific tasks in the game, while others spawn as items during other game modes. I would always dart towards one whenever I saw one. Once collected, you can view it as a 3D model and read a little bit about the character, offering some background on characters that many had never heard of, including some characters who had never left Japan. What made the trophies extra special in Melee was the amount of trophies that were new depictions of characters. There are a few Custom Robo trophies that bring the art style of the N64 games into more detail, we also got our first 3D version of Pit from Kid Icarus, whose description interestingly ends with “Will pit ever fight again?” and just a ton to discover. It gave weight and meaning to the collectables, which made them so compulsive. Melee just had a ton of lovely touches all around. The music is wonderful (you can’t go wrong with the DK Rap) and the game scores you at the end of matches in many different ways, with some amusing ones thrown in for being cheap or comedic. Even the menus get some love as you can use the C-stick to tilt them around, just because. It’s a wonderful package. Fave Remake or remaster? A “complete edition” Smash Bros game with the gameplay styles of each previous one would be wonderful. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Super Smash Bros. Melee.

DK Jr's grandson, perhaps? Cranky (original DK) -> DK Jr -> DK -> DK's inbred son?

With playing them on the open world, I meant the option for your and your friends to go to any location and just turn on battle mode, use anywhere as the arena (perhaps set a distance limit or something to keep people contained). Also, with the power up things for costumes, it would be nice if there was a trophy viewer for those foods, they look cute, I like them more than the costumes they unlock.

After Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom, I don't really expect the sort button to help all that much.

Some thoughts The way costumes fill the already busy character screen (instead of selecting a character and changing costume), I'm not sure I'd even want to look for extra costumes. The challenges seem a bit underwhelming, and it implies you get nothing for them, I wonder if there will even be a progress trigger. Is this actual battle mode with elimination returning for the first time since Mario Kart 64? It's a bit disappointing that you cant play it on the open world. The stunts seem quite cool, would have been another thing that would be great to play in the Open World. It seems like there's no regular grand prix option. Rewind seems like it will never be viable compared to just carrying on, unless there are some obscene shortcuts. Nice touch for practicing, I guess Many of the tracks still seem to look a bit dull, and don't look that fun to race on due to the width of the tracks. Seems like something to rent or borrow for a week before moving on.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 Welcome to my world NA release: 18th November 2001 EU release: 3rd May 2002 JP release: 27th June 2003 Developer: Neversoft Publisher: Activision (NA/EU), Success (JP) NGC Magazine Score: 87% Mods Used: Widescreen Code After going through N64 games and its versions of Tony Hawk games lacking a bit in presentation, it’s nice to finally play a full version of the game. The full, good quality songs really add so much to the game, and the soundtrack for Pro Skater 3 is no exception. When I was younger, I played a lot of Pro Skater 4, and a lot of the muscle memory from that still applies to Pro Skater 3, and it still feels great. The create-a-skater is very solid this time round, and you can upgrade your stats by finding tokens in levels. There’s some more interesting objectives as well that encourage you to explore each level, some of which are larger than previous games, but not too large, all of it filled with interesting sections and ways to transfer tricks from one section to the others. It’s the kind of game where you’ll have fun pulling off tricks and linking combos even when you’re doing the non-trick challenges. There are also even more interactive elements, and you can even trigger an earthquake in one level. There’s also a few more fun special characters this time, such as Wolverine and Darth Maul alongside some silly ones like the Neversoft eyeball in a Frankenstein body (who starts with one point in every stat), a demoness and Kelly Slater on a surfboard, so there’s a lot of fun to be had. I’m still not overly fond of the time limit, but it’s still an incredibly solid skateboard game with an addictive nature. Great Remake or remaster? A remake is currently in the works. Official Ways to get the game There’s no official way to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3.

It's also one of a few bonus games I'll be covering as part of this, due to how big it was as part of the early GameCube showcases. Until I researched this, I had no idea that the game ended up getting released, I thought it was cancelled at some point.