Dcubed Posted May 27 Posted May 27 2 hours ago, Cube said: Just the GameCube port. Also, looking them up just now... They did the Switch port of Breath of the Wild? Yeah, I saw that some time ago. They’ve worked with Nintendo for a long time, so that didn’t surprise me one bit. I just assume that they’re responsible for like 99% of all Japanese developed multiplatform ports.
Cube Posted Wednesday at 08:41 AM Author Posted Wednesday at 08:41 AM Burnout Race at breakneck speeds through packed city streets in this high adrenaline car racing game. NA release: 30th April 2002 EU release: 3rd May 2002 JP release: N/A Developer: Criterion Publisher: Acclaim NGC Magazine Score: 86% Mods Used: None Burnout is my favourite racing franchise, and it all started with this game, which was quite likely my most played GameCube game as a kid. And while it may feel a bit more pedestrian now, due to many games having similar mechanics, it was also something quite unique when it came out. Burnout doesn’t just encourage you to drive dangerously, it’s required to do well at the game. Burnout takes place in busy streets, with some tracks based on the USA and others based on Europe. There are only six distinct tracks in total, however, as the flow of traffic is so important, the reverse tracks really do feel quite different. There are also two epically long tracks that combine the three of each region together, making them feel like a connected area. While the tracks themselves are nothing special, they look really nice for the time and have set traffic patterns that ramp up with each lap. In order to win, you need to use your boost, however, your boost metre can only be filled by driving dangerously, by almost hitting other cards, drifting and driving on the wrong side of the road. You can only use your boost when fully charged, and if you let go before the bar is fully depleted, you have to charge it up again. However, deplete the boost bar in a single go and you’ll automatically recharge half of your boost. If you do enough dangerous driving within this time, you’ll be able to continue boosting with an entire full bar. This means that taking risks at high speed is incredibly rewarding, as long as you don’t crash. The time it takes between crashing and respawning could have easily been a massive flaw with the game, however the crashes themselves are satisfying, with all the card crumpling and distorting, and a tally of how much damage is caused is shown to you (which would become its own mode in later games). You can even save replays of your biggest crashes at the end of a race to watch in more detail. Going back to the original Burnout after later ones, it definitely feels more muted (the sound effects particularly aren’t as strong), but the deformation is still great. While Burnout definitely improved in later games, the original is still a great game, with extremely satisfying racing and the traffic junctions greatly enhancing the tracks. You can even unlock a bus for a bit of extra challenge. There are loads of nice additional touches, such as your car indicating before turns and the AI racers making mistakes and crashing, which was really nice to see. Burnout was also my introduction to the now standard way of controlling racing games: using the left and right analogue shoulder buttons for acceleration and braking. It doesn’t seem like much now, but it was a big change to using A and B. Fave Quote Just as you’d hope, it all works wonderfully. This system pushes players to take more risks on the road, as the more near-misses and insane cornering manoeuvres you pull off, the faster you’re able to go. The thrilling experience of successfully weaving your way through a packed tunnel before skidding through a crossroads and into first place is thrilling to say the least, and it’s perhaps for this reason more than any other that we enjoyed Burnout so much. Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #67 Remake or remaster? A remastered collection is very much needed. I’d love one that lets you mix and match the modes, features and gameplay styles of the first three games. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Burnout. 2 3
Dcubed Posted Wednesday at 09:48 AM Posted Wednesday at 09:48 AM (edited) Hell yeah! Burnout is the real shit! I'm still bitter that 3 and Revenge never came to Gamecube... What a tragedy. An even bigger tragedy is how EA killed the series as a whole... and the engine that powered both it and the grand majority of the entire 6th generation of consoles, the mighty RenderWare. Burnout was the first in-house game that utilised the engine, and was Criterion's first ever commercial video-game project; they were previously a division of Canon (yes, the camera manufacturer), and RenderWare started out as a suite of CAD software. It was only in the late 90s that RenderWare started being retooled into a video game engine; directly in response to Argonaut's B-Render engine. And while Criteron did put out a demo game (CyberStreet) for developers to base their games off of, Burnout was the first in-house commercial game to use the first finished release version of the engine that we know today as RenderWare. And what an engine it was! It powered no less than 300 games! Including literally the biggest series of the entire generation, none other than Grand Theft Auto 3/VC/SA. RenderWare was highly versatile, very well documented and very performant. Even Japanese developers made heavy use of the engine; as seen in games like Sonic Heroes and Persona 3/4. Unlike modern middleware engines such as Unity and Unreal, which offer complete all-in-one solutions, Renderware was more of a malleable set of tools that could form the basis of any given game engine. But it was fast, and its malleable nature meant that it could be used for any type of game. When developers saw what Criterion were pulling off with Burnout? It quickly became the industry standard thereafter. If Gears of War was the game that sold Unreal Engine 3 in the PS360 era? Burnout was that same game for RenderWare on the GCN/PS2/Xbox. But Burnout happened to be more than just a fantastic tech demo, it also happened to be a BANGING arcade racing game! An utterly simple and brilliant concept (drive dangerously to win!), executed perfectly! The concept literally sells itself! It would of course go on to produce bigger and better sequels, but Burnout is one of the single most important games of the entire generation, because it sold the engine that powered it by proving its worth to developers around the world. Without Burnout, there is no GTA 3. An engine so powerful that EA bought out the studio and their tools, in order to kill it off. Edited Wednesday at 10:04 AM by Dcubed 4 1
nekunando Posted Wednesday at 03:34 PM Posted Wednesday at 03:34 PM Burnout was great on the GameCube 😀 It felt pretty fresh at the time and everything was even better with Point of Impact! I would definitely have been interested in picking up Burnout 3: Takedown if it came to GameCube but sadly it wasn't to be and, as such, I haven't ever really played it. I do own it now on PS2 but actually only recently took a notion to play it. Unfortunately, the image was so blurry that it was practically impossible to play 😕 I never had much interest in the series beyond that as, like with everything, they seemed to take it further and further away from what made it great. I picked up Burnout Paradise on sale for Switch a few years ago and, while I ended up beating it, I wasn't much of a fan of it at all. I never liked the open nature of it and feel like the racing, course design and variety of environments all suffer because of it. Hopefully Mario Kart World will be OK in this regard but it certainly seems like it'll be more than OK! 1 1
Cube Posted Wednesday at 05:13 PM Author Posted Wednesday at 05:13 PM If Mario Kart World can be half as good as Burnout Paradise, it will be a phenomenal game. That said, the main features I loved about Paradise back then (the online) are why I'll probably not touch MK World. 1
nekunando Posted Wednesday at 05:20 PM Posted Wednesday at 05:20 PM 6 minutes ago, Cube said: If Mario Kart World can be half as good as Burnout Paradise, it will be a phenomenal game. That said, the main features I loved about Paradise back then (the online) are why I'll probably not touch MK World. If Mario Kart World is only half as good as Burnout Paradise, I'll never play another game again 😂
Cube Posted Thursday at 08:31 AM Author Posted Thursday at 08:31 AM ZooCube Go Ape! NA release: 5th May 2002 EU release: 30th August 2002 JP release: 25th October 2002 Developer: PuzzleKings Publisher: Acclaim NGC Magazine Score: 50% Mods Used: Widescreen Hack With ZooCube first coming out on the 5th May in North America, it makes it the first GameCube game to not be released before the GameCube’s very late European launch. The GameCube already had a sizable library by the time it came out in Europe, but it also meant that some of them skipped Europe and others were delayed further (ZooCube itself took a few more months to reach Europe) so that not every game was competing for a spot at launch. On another note, ZooCube is alphabetically the last GameCube game. Now that the interesting stuff is out of the way, on to the game itself. ZooCube is an immensely bland puzzle game. You rotate a cube while blocks representing animals fall down. Match two and they’ll score points. And that’s the game. For how simple it is, having to use two sticks to rotate the cube in different ways is far too fiddly and, while the game introduces more animals and faster speeds, it never gets interesting. Other than rotating animals, you can reorder your stacks with the L and R buttons, and “lock in” a falling piece with the A button. So the whole game is just turning to the right side, pressing A and repeating. There’s no strategy or combo systems, it’s just look at the next bit and connect the shape. The game itself looks rather drab. The lifeless backgrounds are also unnecessarily busy and detract from the puzzle itself. They’re also strangely pre-rendered when they look like they could have been easily handled in real-time by the GameCube. It feels like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube that you’re holding in front of a TV. Very bland and unappealing. Poor Quote Puzzle games should be instinctive and essentially straightforward – with Zoocube you’re having to content with a ludicrous premise, not-very-well-drawn animal parts, and the tiny central cube. And, worst of all, it doesn’t invite you to keep on playing. Quite the opposite, in fact. After a short time, you tire of that fiddly challenge. Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #71 Remake or remaster? Not much reason to do much with it. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get ZooCube. (For an interesting statistic, we've just reach the European launch and I've covered 8% of the entire library). 1 3
Dcubed Posted Thursday at 10:39 AM Posted Thursday at 10:39 AM (edited) 2 hours ago, Cube said: (For an interesting statistic, we've just reach the European launch and I've covered 8% of the entire library). That's nuts! Just goes to show how incredibly late they were. They had absolutely zero chance of success in Europe. The console war was already over before the damn thing even launched here. The likes of MGS2 and GTA 3 had already been released for around 6 months by the time the GCN launched over here. It was completely DOA, and 90% of the reason why was because it came out far too late. Edited Thursday at 11:24 AM by Dcubed 2 1
Cube Posted Friday at 08:31 AM Author Posted Friday at 08:31 AM Legends of Wrestling The Mania is about to begin all over again. NA release: 28th May 2002 EU release: 7th June 2002 JP release: N/A Developer: Acclaim Salt Lake City Publisher: Acclaim NGC Magazine Score: 47% Mods Used: Widescreen Hack As someone who grew up in the 90s, wrestling was a big thing. When I think of Legends of Wrestling, there are a few that come into mind. However, this game focuses on wrestlers from before that and, as a result, I only know one of them, who is unremarkable other than his funny moustache. My fiancée was a bigger wrestling fan than me, and knew a couple of others. As the cast isn’t interesting to me, it’s up to the gameplay, which feels like a big mess. Simple things like hitting and grapples are inconsistent, and others require quick time events that are positioned by your health bar. The fighting is never fluid, but remains slow and clunky at all times. The create-a-wrestler has a decent amount of options, yet there’s only a single face. Every aspect feels like a step back from the N64 games. The only unique feature is that you can be the referee, but all that does is let you join in on the fighting without being able to win or lose. Poor Quote It’s bizarre. Totally unbelievable, even. On the big television screen, American wrestling is a gourmet feast of over-the-top moves, pizzas and corny showmanship. In Legends of Wrestling, the same activity is transformed into a dull an banal slug-fest featuring pant-wearing geriatrics. Disappointing when you consider the GameCube would be the ideal setting for some top notch rassin’ action. Philip Mylar, NGC Magazine #69 Remake or remaster? There are better wrestling games. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Legends of Wrestling. 3
Hero-of-Time Posted Friday at 08:49 AM Posted Friday at 08:49 AM I remember picking this up and thinking it was fine for what it was but it was a massive let down coming from the N64 generation that had top tier wrestling games. Even the WWE games on the Gamecube were pretty poor in comparison to the N64 days and by this time the Smackdown! series on PlayStation was where the action was. 1 1
Cube Posted Saturday at 08:27 AM Author Posted Saturday at 08:27 AM Bomberman Generation Bomberman must retrieve the stolen Bomb Elements from the Bandits! NA release: 5th June 2002 JP release: 27th June 2002 EU release: 6th December 2002 Developer: Game Arts Publisher: Hudson Soft (JP), Majesco (NA), Vivendi (EU) NGC Magazine Score: 70% Mods Used: Widescreen Code Continuing the trend of Bomberman games having no consistency, Bomberman Generation (which sounds strange without an “s” at the end – NGC Magazine and other publications accidentally added the s) sports a rather lovely cel-shaded visual style that works rather well for the franchise. Unfortunately, this is also another poor single-player game, bringing back one thing I hated about Bomberman 64: circular bombs. It’s much harder to judge the blast radius of these and don’t get close to the range of the classic plus shaped bombs. These bombs make it annoying to hit enemies, which tend to just wander about in random patterns, rarely actually reacting to Bomberman – to the point that you may as well just walk past most of them. The various bomb types are also not often used for puzzles. There are a few interesting features, like powers being upgraded by strange creatures you find. I also felt like the camera was far too close. Thankfully, the multiplayer mode is nothing like the singleplayer, other than the cel-shaded look. It’s classic Bomberman, and it’s still a ton of fun. Each stage has its own features – such as warps, conveyer belts and one frantic stage which features no blocks and everyone starts with fully powered bombs. It’s a ton of fun, even with CPU players. It’s a shame they didn’t focus more on this gameplay for the main game, as it could have enhanced it a lot. While it’s admirable that they keep trying new things for Bomberman, I think that it would be much better if they used classic Bomberman as a template and thought up new ways of integrating that into single-player. Fun Quote If you have to play alone, then at least Bomberman Generations offers computer-controlled opponents of various skill levels, as well as a selection of game variations – none of which work quite as intuitively as the plain old original mode. There’s a one-player adventure mode too, involving puzzles that don’t bear much resemblance to the pure-and-simple mechanics of the battle game. Martin Kitts, NGC Magazine #76 Remake or remaster? A Bomberman collection would be good. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Bomberman Generation. 3
BowserBasher Posted Saturday at 08:52 AM Posted Saturday at 08:52 AM Bomberman will always be multiplayer to me. The single player games just never hit the highs of getting four people together in a small arena, bombs that blast in two directions, can be kicked or thrown, blasts getting bigger as the match went on till someone had a bomb that covered the width of the arena. 1 1
Ashley Posted Saturday at 10:51 PM Posted Saturday at 10:51 PM Although it has got me thinking; have they ever tried a Zelda-esque single player puzzle kind of thing? That franchise has a lot of small puzzles using bombs, I imagine you can make something out of that.
Cube Posted yesterday at 07:34 AM Author Posted yesterday at 07:34 AM WWE WrestleMania X8 The Showcase of the Immortals. NA release: 9th June 2002 JP release: 6th September 2002 EU release: 27th September 2002 Developer: Yuke’s Publisher: THQ (NA, EU), Yuke’s (JP) NGC Magazine Score: 70% Mods Used: None One thing that is very evident is that Wrestlemania X8 was made during the time that the WWF were in conflict with the wildlife charity, as the box art sports the new “World Wrestling Entertainment” name and logo, but the game itself features the old WWF logo. Yuke’s also previously made some Japan-only wrestling games on the N64, which were notable for how alive they made their games feel. Unfortunately, these factors are no longer around for this game. The ring doesn’t bounce and the character animations are rather stiff. Despite that, the game itself flows at a nice place with a lot of emphasis placed on tactics. While this is a far cry from how No Mercy felt, it’s not bad, and certainly better than Legends of Wrestling. There are a lot of wrestlers, moves and modes in the game, so there’s plenty to keep wrestling fans busy, there’s just a strange, nagging feeling about going backwards from where the N64 was at. Even the create-a-wrestler (which at least has multiple faces) seems very toned back, with very few costume options. Fine Quote That said, out-of-date superstars, basic controls and a lack of unlockable extras means grappling cynics will be put off by this game, which fails to emulate the impressive WWF No Mercy, widely considered to be the best wrestling game ever, on any format. But grapple fans the world over will have their multiplayer blood-lust satisfied, and this’ll have you battling your mates for bragging rights for some time to come. Just bring it, as someone said. Lee Hall, NGC Magazine #72 Remake or remaster? There are better wrestling games. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get WWE Wrestlemania X8. 3
Cube Posted 14 hours ago Author Posted 14 hours ago Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem Is it real…or only in your head? NA release: 24th June 2002 JP release: 25th October 2002 EU release: 1st November 2002 Developer: Silicon Knights Publisher: Nintendo NGC Magazine Score: 89% Mods Used: None In the mid-90s, Nintendo wanted to start trying to appeal to more mature audiences. After seeing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain at an E3 event, Nintendo were impressed with Silicon Knights and thought that they would be a good match, and hired them to create a horror title for the N64. Silicon Knights accepted and put their other PlayStation title on hold, a game called Too Human. Development on their new horror game, Eternal Darkness, took a long time and eventually spilled over to the GameCube. On the surface, Eternal Darkness does share similarities with Resident Evil: the camera angles are very specific, and there’s a big focus on using, mixing and checking items to progress. Dig deeper and they’re actually very different games, even within its similarities, including the camera. As the backgrounds aren’t pre-rendered, the camera angle doesn’t switch in the middle of the room, instead angling itself and moving slightly to keep the character in focus. This method means that you can have these “spooky” angles without sacrificing movement, as it has full analogue control and I never had an issue with not moving in the direction I wanted. The story is heavily inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, with cosmic entities manipulating humans over centuries to achieve their goals. You start off as Alex Roivas (played by Commander Shepard, aka Jennifer Hale) inheriting her grandfather’s mansion after his mysterious death. There, she discovers a book bound in flesh – Tome of Eternal Darkness. As she finds chapters of the book throughout the mansion, you play through the story as many characters across many time periods. The combat itself is also interesting, you can swing or shoot wildly, but using the lock-on is more important. When locked on, you can target the head, torso or arms and chop them off. It is a little bit clunky and slow, but it’s always fun to mess with zombies by chopping off their arms so they can’t attack. Enemies don’t just cause damage to your health, but also a character’s sanity. This can be regained by performing a finishing move on a downed enemy, but if it gets low, the game starts to play tricks on both the character and you. The way Eternal Darkness messes with your head is still a very unique part of the game. As your character gets more insane, the effects get stronger. It starts off with subtle stuff like tilting the camera or playing sound effects, and a few things that seem like glitches or bugs before resetting, or error messages and all round manner of other things. Even knowing about them, it can still trip you up and will even mess you up in the menus – the most famous is how the game pretends to delete all your save data. The feeling of being unnerved escapes the game itself. I enjoy the system so much that, once I got a healing spell, I tried to keep my sanity quite low while topping up my health between fights. On a personal note, when I got this game when I was younger (it was probably my first graphic game), the disc arrived scratched and the game would freeze, although I didn’t realise that this was an issue with the disc to begin with. Eternal Darkness also has a fun magick system. Throughout the game, you’ll find runes that you can combine to create spells. You’ll need an alignment rune (representing one of the four ancients), a doing rune and a target room, as well as a power rune for more powerful version of those spells. This means that you can experiment to discover spells much earlier than when you’ll find the scroll giving you the recipe. There are only a total of 15 spells, though, and a little bit more experimentation with it would have been very much welcome. Although the fourth alignment rune (which is the only one you can miss) does mix up some of the other spells. The sanity effects, magick and overall story tie things together, but each individual chapter also works on its own, offering different stories and tones. While most are simple, and often with a grizzly fate, they’re all interesting on their own, and with the game going though different eras of technology, it keeps things interesting throughout the game. It’s even lovely returning to previous areas to see what has changed over time, with them feeling like completely new levels. To encourage you to play the game again, you have to complete the game three times to see the final epilogue. At the start of the game, you choose an artifact to be the “villain” ancient for the game. A few cutscenes are different, and the majority of enemies you meet are a different alignment. The types of enemies are the same, but they have different looks and abilities, which help make the playthroughs different – plus the epilogue actually fits the game being played multiple times, instead of arbitrarily being locked for no story reason. Eternal Darkness is a wonderful game that not only engages you with its intriguing story and characters, but also interesting gameplay effects and how it breaks the fourth wall to mess with you. With the developer later messing up big time due to stealing code, and Nintendo not wanting to do much with the game, it’s sadly something that was never revisited, with the only time it resurfaced was Alex Roivas appearing as a sticker in Smash Bros Ultimate. A grim fate that the game does not deserve. Fave Quote Indeed, one of the finest aspects of the game is that it feels perfectly hones and balanced. Those who get frustrated by having to leave objects in storage crates or conserve ammo in Resident Evil will be pleased to hear that there are no such restrictions here. Each character can carry everything they find and they’ll possess a slashing weapon, so if you do run out of ammo there’s an alternative way to fend off the monsters. Even the sanity meter can be topped up by using a spell, so you never feel frustrated. Tue, there are some imaginative puzzles in the game, but none of them will have you scratching your head for long. Although some might complain that the game is a little too easy, that’s rather missing the point. Eternal Darkness is about clever plotting, building up tension, and delivering a well-constructed yarn. And if you’re into those sorts of things then you’ll definitely get your money’s worth. Mark Walbak, NGC Magazine #74 Remake or remaster? A remaster would be wonderful. The textures are still quite good, although some decent bump mapping could make it look great. Other than that, it just needs a checkpoint system in case people forget to save, and perhaps a few new sanity effects. It could potentially use stuff from the Switch’s OS. I’d still love to see Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Redemption some day, but that would never happen. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. 4
BowserBasher Posted 13 hours ago Posted 13 hours ago I got this as a birthday present back in the day but never got around to playing it. Kinda feel like I missed out on not knowing about the sanity effects and seeing them first hand. I have ways to play it now so do want to give it a go. 1 1
Ashley Posted 13 hours ago Posted 13 hours ago 59 minutes ago, Cube said: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem Is it real…or only in your head? NA release: 24th June 2002 JP release: 25th October 2002 EU release: 1st November 2002 Pretty sure it's real. 1 1
Dcubed Posted 12 hours ago Posted 12 hours ago Who the hell releases a horror game in JUNE!? At least this is one EU delay I can’t be mad about; at least we got it close to spooky season! 1
Glen-i Posted 7 hours ago Posted 7 hours ago (edited) 6 hours ago, Cube said: It could potentially use stuff from the Switch’s OS. These days, Nintendo don't allow developers to utilise the actual Switch OS in their games to mess with players. It's why ports like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club had to change certain fourth wall things. Edited 7 hours ago by Glen-i 1
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