• Tag Archives Gamecube

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly (August 2002)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Electronic Gaming Monthly – August 2002

    Electronic Gaming Monthly was perhaps the most popular and certain one of the longest lasting video game magazines in the U.S. The first issue came out in the late 1980s and it continued publication into the 2000s. The August 2002 issue includes:

    Features

    • Miyamoto’s Angels – Referring to Nintendo’s popular franchises Metroid, Mario and Zelda. This article previews the new games coming soon in those franchises to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance including Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube), Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (GBA), Metroid Prime (GameCube), Metroid Fusion (Game Boy Advance), Legend of Zelda (GameCube), and Zelda GBA.
    • The First GameCube and Xbox RPGs – Morrowind for the Xbox (but honestly, your better off playing it on a PC) and Lost Kingdoms for the GameCube are a couple of the first major RPGs for those platforms.
    • Grand Theft Auto Copycats – A look at some games that are, shall we say, influenced significantly by Grand Theft Auto, including The Getaway and True Crime: Streets of L.A., both for the PS2.

    Departments

    • Editorial – Looking at trends in video games, both good (adult themes in games) and bad (poor licensed games…but this has almost always been a trend).
    • Letters – Letters from readers about Tony Hawk 4, cel shading, Star Wars games, the Final Fantasy movie, and much more.
    • Press Start – The top news this month includes highlights from E3, and update on the PlayStation 2’s success, Microsoft pushes online gaming with the Xbox and new games like Unreal Championship, Nintendo pushing new games in major franchises but lacks online presence (Phantasy Star Online is the only online game at the time). For the GBA, more games are being released that make use of the GB/GBA link. Get extras in Animal Crossing and Phantasy Star Online.
    • Gossip – Quartermann speculates on rumors including Sonic retiring from Adventure games; Rare to start developing games for multiple systems; Doom III for the Xbox; and more.
    • Previews – A look at tons of upcoming games. For the PlayStation 2: Shinobi, The Two Towers, The Getaway, True Crime, WWE Smackdown!, Dark Cloud 2, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, Zone of the Enders 2, Contra Shattered Soldier, The Sims, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Mega Man X7, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, James Bond 007 Nightfire, Silent Hill 3, Suikoden III, Wild Arms 3, Breath of Fire, Tenchu 3, Red Faction II, DDRMax Dance Dance Revolution, ATV Offroad Fury 2, War of the Monsters, RTX: Red Rock, DAve Mira BMX XXX, and NCAA Football 2003. For the GameCube: Resident Evil 0, Mario Party 4, Project BG&E, Wario World, Haven, F-Zero, Capcom Vs. SNK, Dungeons & Dragons Heroes, 1080 White Storm, and Aquaman. For the Xbox: Metal Gear Solid 2, Dead to Rights, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Blinx, Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, The Fellowship of the Ring, Duality, WWE Raw 2, Project Ego, Tao Feng, and Hitman 2. For the Game Boy Advance: Kirby, Contra Advance, Golden Sun The Lost Age, and R-Type III.
    • Review Crew
      • PlayStation 2
        • Aggressive Inline – Like Tony Hawk games but with inline skates.
        • Britney’s Dance Beat – A pretty terrible music based game.
        • Dropship: United Peace Force – A combat vehicle sim in which you not only pilot aircraft but drive ground vehicles as well.
        • Endgame – A light gun game that you probably don’t want.
        • Freekstyle – Kind of like SSX but with dirt bikes in instead of snowboards.
        • Legion: The Legend of Excalibur – A Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance like action/RPG that unfortunately does not live up to that comparison.
        • Fire Blade – A 3D combat helicopter arcade game.
        • The Mark of Kri – A 3D action adventure game that earns EGM’s ‘Game of the Month’.
        • MLB Slugfest 20-03 – A baseball game on steroids.
        • MX SuperFly Featuring Ricky Carmichael – A motocross sim with unrealistic physics…but fun to play.
        • Shifters – A not so great action/RPG.
        • Stuntman – A fun game that pits you as stunt car driver. Can be frustrating completing multipart stunts…
        • Sky Gunner – A fun 3D shooter but with some slowdown.
        • Stitch Experiment 626 – A 3D adventure featuring Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. Could have been a better game with better camera tracking.
        • The Way of the Samurai – A 3D fighting/adventure game.
      • Xbox
        • Test Drive – A continuation of the Test Drive series that I started playing on the Commodore 64. This one is comparable to Burnout.
        • Crazy Taxi 3 – A great sequel in a great series.
        • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind – An excellent RPG from the PC world. The Xbox version is excellent…it’s just that the PC version is better.
        • Totaled! – A demolition derby simulator that even has a career mode.
      • GameCube
        • Bomberman Generation – There have been a great many Bomberman games over the Years. This is one of the better ones.
        • Lost Kingdoms – A new and somewhat unique RPG for the GameCube.
        • WWE Wrestlemania X8 – Fans of WWE and wrestling in general should enjoy this one.
      • Game Boy Advance
        • Guilty Gear X: Advance Addition – A decent portable 2D fighter.
    • Tricks – Infinite grenades in Resident Evil, play as Laura Croft in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, several secrets for Jedi Starfighter, increase the size of your stolen-car collection in GTA3, Bonesaw in Spider-Man, strategies and clues for Eternal Darkness, unlock hidden wrestlers and arenas in Wrestlemania X8, plus tons of codes, GameShark codes, and questions answered by the Game Doctor.
    • The Final Word – A look at some of the under the radar games at E3 including Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Robotech: Battlecry, and Super Monkey Ball 2.

    …and more!


    📂This entry was posted in Retro Games 📎and tagged

  • Mega Man X: Command Mission

    Posted on by Azrael Comment


    https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/634585453768605696



    Mega Man has its origins on the NES as an action platform game so it already had a very long history when Mega Man X: Command Mission was released for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube in 2004. However, Command Mission was really more of a spin-off that deviated significantly from other games in the series. Instead of being a platform game it was more of a turn-based RPG.

    While the method of play is different, the locations and enemies will be familiar to those that have played other games in the Mega Man X series. This game was developed by those that had previously worked on Mega Man X7 and the Breath of Fire series. I guess the question is did we really need an RPG version of Mega Man? I love RPGs but I’m not overly fond of turning action games into RPGs. There’s not really enough depth of story here and game play is relatively short and quite linear. Critics liked the battle system but were not crazy about the rest of it.

    Mega Man X: Command Mission was released only for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. Why you might think these releases would be virtually identical, that was not the case. The GameCube version allowed you to connect your Game Boy Advance to enable a radar function that allowed you to find secret items. The GBA screen displayed a radar that showed the immediate area around the player and any hidden items that might be there. The GameCube version also ups the difficulty a little by having more frequent enemy encounters and steeper experience penalties for retries when it comes to defeating enemies. The PlayStation 2 version on the other hand included an unlockable demo of Mega Man X8. These differences aren’t really deal breakers or makers and reviews were virtually identical.

    If you want to give this one a try then you’ll have to track down an original for one system or the other or give it a try via emulation. The various Mega Man collections tend to skip over the spin-offs like this one and stick to the main series so there haven’t been any re-releases that I am aware of. The differences come down to personal preference so pick the one for your favorite system.


    📂This entry was posted in GameCube PS2 Retro Games 📎and tagged

  • SSX 3 (Electronic Arts)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    gofg_61

    Source: Girls of Gaming – Volume 1

    SSX 3 is a 3rd person snowboard racing game that was released by EA in 2003 for various systems, including the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. As the name would suggest, this is the 3rd game in the series though the second game was called SSX Tricky. As far as this type of game goes, this was one of the best. It received very high ratings and sold well.

    I’m not much of a fan of sports game in general but this one plays more like a racing game. I happen to like racing games. If you like racing games then you may like this game regardless of your feelings about snowboarding or sports games in general. However, a significant component of the game is performing tricks both during races and as part of separate freestyle events.

    This is an excellent example of the genre so if you have any interest at all this one is worth giving a shot. The good news is that there is even a recent release of this game in the form of an enhanced Xbox One port that was released in 2018. Otherwise, an original copy for the Xbox, PS2 or GameCube shouldn’t be too hard to track down either.

    The image at the top is from Girls of Gaming and features Elise, one of the characters from the game. Screen shots are from the GameCube version of the game.


    📂This entry was posted in Retro Games 📎and tagged