130 public written reviews
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Largo Winch is a Belgian comic book character. He becomes the head of a large multinational business when his adoptive father is murdered. As he discovers more about the business, he ends up on many James Bond-style adventures as he gets in trouble around the globe. The video game adaptation follows suit, with Largo Winch being informed about genetically modified grain being created and stolen from one of his labs,…
The cinematic opening to a video game needs to excite the player, but it also needs to inform the players of what to expect. Make it too exciting and people may be disappointed about the actual game. The opening of Rayman Arena depicts an interesting concept: it’s an on-foot race that can turn into an all-out battle at any point, before you need to start racing again. Seems like a neat concept. Get into the main…
The Need for Speed franchise is colossal, with a lot of different entries, some with virtually no similarities other than racing. For the most part, though, Need for Speed games are racing games where cops try to interrupt and stop the race, and the Hot Pursuit games are a pure and simple form of that. There’s no background, story, or anything like that: it’s just about the racing. And the racing is really good.…
A lot of Ice Hockey video games are altered to make it more playable. One very common change is the size of the rink itself, often made smaller in games to push players into making more tackles. As a result, the rinks in NHL 2003 seem massive compared to the other Ice Hockey games I’ve played. Playing this, I can understand why some games make them smaller – even at the fastest speed, NHL 2003 still feels slow.…
From the makers of Monster Truck Madness 2 (which was ported to the N64 by another developer as the dreadful Monster Truck Madness 64) comes another off-road racing game, this time with various 4×4 cars from popular manufacturers (although Range Rover is notably absent). One thing that 4×4 Evo 2 does have going for itself is a massive amount of tracks, each of being a large map that you can fully explore. But not a…
One thing I want to say right out of the bat is that I think Star Fox Adventures is a great game. I know I’m going to be highly critical of it in this review because it really could have been something truly special. The game started out as a new IP called Dinosaur Planet and was very far into development before it was changed into a Star Fox game, with one of the main characters removed and another now taking a…
Scream Arena is set after the end of Monsters, Inc. Scream energy is out and now it’s all about laugh energy (so the name of the game becomes a lie in the opening cutscene). While filming a commercial, someone throws a ball at Sully and apparently that’s the funniest thing ever. So instead of trying to make kids laugh, the monsters just throw balls at each other. I’ve seen this described as a dodgeball game, but…
I’ve not had a great deal of experience with Crash Bandicoot. I played a bit of it in Uncharted 4 and I’ve messed around in the Stormy Ascent level of the N. Sane Trilogy. The Wrath of Cortex carries on from the original games, but as the deal with Sony and Naughty Dog was over, it was time for a new developer and for the franchise to go multiplatform. My first bafflement was the lack of any introduction to the…
On paper, NHL Hitz 03 seems like a massive upgrade to the previous year’s version. It has more teams, a singleplayer mode where you have to complete tasks within matches, a bunch of minigames and all sorts of other features. Despite this, I didn’t enjoy this one at all. The over the top nature of the game seems to have been dialled back, with shots not feeling as powerful and the game feeling much slower (even on…
I suspect that some people didn’t look too closely to the back of the box of Worms Blast and bought it on the idea that it was a typical Worms game – the name and box art don’t exactly scream “puzzle game”, after all. Yet this is like Bust-A-Move, except you use weapons from worms to shoot targets. Well, that’s oversimplifying it, but I really wish it was that simple. When you launch the main puzzle mode, you start…
From the NGC review and how most licensed tie-in games were at the game, I really wasn’t expecting much from Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights, presuming it was going to just be a run-of-the mill 3D platformer with little care or attention put to it. However, Heavy Iron clearly put a lot of effort into this and I had a genuinely good time with it. It starts out with an inventor going missing and the gang…
Phantasy Star Online is a difficult game to look back on. It was a big deal at the time, being an online RPG for home consoles, providing a way for non-PC gamers to socialise with others online for the first time in a video game. With online gaming being a new thing for consoles, and requiring additional purchases of modems, Phantasy Star Online came with online and offline modes, so you can still play the whole…
When you make “wacky characters” a big part of a game, they really need to have some charm to them. The cast of Freekstyle is a group of people that anyone would immediately dislike the moment they talk. Thankfully, the game makes up for that by its stunt-based racing gameplay, which takes what EA did in SSX and adds it to supercross motorbikes. Freekstyle is suitably speedy, easy to control and makes it easy to…
With an interface very similar to Red Card, this is Midway’s attempt to make a sillier version of baseball. The core mechanics aren’t as solid as Red Card, though, as aiming the bat is much more difficult without a cursor – luckily, hitting is much more lenient as this tends to go for higher than usual scores, and full of some fancy over the top effects – well, as over the top as you can get while still keeping it…
I’m gonna fake it to the left, and move to the right, ‘Cause Pokey’s too slow, and Blinky’s out of sight…wait, that’s the song, which is unfortunately not present in this board game-style video game. In fact, there’s not actually a lot of Pac-Man in this game, as it’s more of a random assortment of Namco stuff. You have Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man, two Tekken characters, someone from SoulCalibur and the mascot from Ridge…
In 2002, Acclaim were struggling to keep afloat. This had an impact on the games they were developing themselves – with them rushing games and pushing them out of the door. Turok Evolution was one such victim of this, being shoved out while very clearly incomplete and filled with bugs, glitches and other issues. This led to it getting middling reviews and killed off the franchise until Disney’s short-lived reboot.…
Tennis games are usually fast, frantic and fun. It’s a simple sport that should be simple enough to get right. Yet here comes WTA Tour Tennis to show us how dull a tennis game could be if done poorly. It’s slow, dull and monotonous. In terms of gameplay, it’s completely and utterly outmatched by Monkey Tennis from Super Monkey Ball 2. Everything is just really slow in WTA Tour, from the movement of players to the…
Super Monkey Ball is back, and bigger and better than before. Amusement Vision chose to not mess with the formula, sticking to the same gameplay and bringing us even more minigames. The biggest change in the way you play the game is the story mode. Here, you play through 10 levels at a time, having as many attempts as each level without worrying about lives. If you don’t like this change, then you can still play…
As Madden was starting to cater to more casual fans of American Football, making a game that newcomers could enjoy, Sega Sports decided to head in the complete opposite direction, creating something immensely in depth with a ton of options. This pleased enthusiasts, but meant I had no idea what I was doing as you really need to understand the playbooks to do well at this. It does have a pleasing interface and a lot…
Competition kicked off big time in American Football games, with three releasing in quick succession for GameCube. I was pleasantly surprised with the GameCube version of Madden 2002 and yet this seems to be a very muted version, lacking some of the ease of use and atmosphere as the previous game. The gameplay is mostly the same, it just doesn’t feel as nice. Even the intro seems lacklustre – Madden 2002 has its own…
With a name invoking Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, and with both Capcom and Nintendo at the helm (and produced by the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto), you would expect a fun 3D platformer. It’s also worth noting that Nintendo’s exclusivity deal – with Magical Mirror being the main game – also meant that Square could not use Mickey in a more prominent way for Kingdom Hearts (although I think that actually…
Read the full review Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse
I know that during the GameCube generation, extreme sports games tried to branch out by being more violent or sexier. With a name like Aggressive Inline, I expected this to be the start, but this is surprisingly rather tame. The other surprise is that out of all the attempts to create a competitor to Tony Hawk, this one actually managed to nail the feel of those games. This is entirely due to one important thing: it…
Disney’s fascination with Mickey Mouse games on GameCube wasn’t with a single publisher. While Konami handled the sports games, Disney teamed up with Japanese developer Neverland with Hudson Soft to produce a Mario Party clone starring Mickey Mouse, which was then brought west by Electronic Arts. That said, Disney’s Party does deviate from Mario Party, and entirely in negative ways. I can only guess that the…
Mixed Martial Arts has one key thing about it: lots of different fighting styles involved in a single tournament. For a video game, this sounds like a great way to add variety and ways to make fighters feel significantly different from each other, which is something that fighting games not based on real sports manage to do. UFC Throwdown certainly has a lot of different fighting styles to choose from. There’s just…
The first year of the GameCube’s launch in Europe was a busy time for NGC Magazine. Not only were they trying to review games as they were released in the USA, but also re-reviewing games for their European releases and had expanded into handheld games. As a result, some games that got a PAL release ended up being overlooked by the magazine, as there simply wasn’t enough space in the pages. The only reference I…
Considering this is an EA Sports American Football game from the same developer as Madden, I was simply expecting this College Football game to just be a slight variant of Madden 2003. Surprisingly, it feels completely different. The way you choose plays has reverted back to previous games, so I still haven’t got much of a clue about what I’m doing there, but the running and dodging feels much, much better, letting…
Beach volleyball video games are made to appeal to men who want to see women bounce around in bikinis. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball even has that as its main plotline, with a sleazy guy inviting just the girls over for a tournament, only for it to be volleyball and not fighting. The advertising and tagline of Beach Spikers certainly seems like it’s going for that approach, but ends up coming across as…
When I was younger, Super Mario Sunshine was a game that just didn’t gel with me. I fully completed Super Mario 64 multiple times, yet I never got enough shines to reach Bowser in Sunshine. I was looking forward to giving the game a second chance in this playthrough, but sadly it didn’t take long for the same feelings to sink in. The story of Mario having to clean up after “Shadow Mario” spreads graffiti seems…
This far into my playthrough of GameCube games, It’s surprising that it has taken this long to get to the first Japan-only GameCube game with the yearly release of Power Pros Baseball. While the N64 went to using dates, the franchise carried on with full numbered titles on PS2, which now returns to Nintendo consoles. The series is now in 3D with a cel-shaded look and features a wonderful anime opening. The series…
Despite what the name implies, this football game doesn’t pit Disney franchises against each other, instead only focusing on Mickey Mouse. And even then, just a few core characters from Mickey Mouse. A cartoon sports game might decide to make this deficit less obvious by having teams of 3, but Disney Sports Football keeps to the full complement of 11. Which means that each team consists of one famous character and a…
The controls of this fighting game seem like they’re catered specifically to me. They’re nice and simple: punch and kick on the shoulder buttons, the face buttons for movement options and the c-stick lets you perform your special moves without the need for a combo. The ability to perform special moves with ease was exclusive to the GameCube version of the game, as the GameCube controller isn’t suited for this style…
Read the full review Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium
On the surface, Tetris Worlds seems like a great idea: six different forms of Tetris in a single package. Regular Tetris is the most well known puzzle game ever made. Square Tetris is the gameplay from The New Tetris. Cascade Tetris allows tetrominos to fall down into gaps after lines have been cleared. Sticky Tetris has special tetrominos in multiple parts, which can individually fall down into gaps. Hotline Tetris…
If I can perform really well at a Formula 1 game, there’s probably something wrong with it. These games are all about tuning, precise cornering and tactics. While assists to allow for easier driving are great ways to make the game accessible, the tactics that work well in this are more suited to other racing games, as I found myself crashing into opponents and walls to push me in the right direction, with no…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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 2002 being a World Cup year, it means two FIFA games in the space of six months. This means that in Europe, we missed out on the first fully-featured FIFA game and got this version on launch day. Unlike World Cup 98, though, this isn’t just the same core game with fewer teams, they actually made some changes. Passing has been reworked significantly, which means follow on passes are much more reliable, with your…
RPGs were a genre that the N64 didn’t get many games in, at least outside of Japan. So it was promising that the GameCube got one fairly early in its life, from a developer that is far more popular these days: FromSoftware, who make games that I personally don’t like. Lost Kingdoms is an RPG where you take control of Princess Katia, whose kingdom is being invaded by a mysterious fog, which brings monsters with it.…
When Treyarch was given the task of making a Spider-man game based on the first Sam Raimi film, they very clearly looked at Neversoft’s Spider-man game for the PS1 and N64, as this feels a lot like a sequel to that game in terms of how it controls and plays, even offering a “classic” control move based on that, and a similar web power structure. While the city levels still only let you move around a small square…
NGC Magazine compared this game to Gauntlet, but it’s actually something that borrows heavily from a Koei series that didn’t make its way to Nintendo platforms until much later: Dynasty Warriors. You control a powerful soldier on a battlefield, fighting your way through a massive amount of enemies. There is one massive difference, though. Dynasty Warriors is all about controlling the battlefield, helping your large…
The first traditional fighting game on GameCube, and this one is good fun. It’s the fourth game in the Bloody Roar series, and the first one to not be released in arcades. The series revolves around Zoanthropes, a human-like species with the ability to transform into animals such as tigers, elephants and rabbits – although they all walk on two feet like humans. A core concept of the game is swapping between your…
The first direct movie tie-in for GameCube, and it’s about a film I’ve never heard of. Driven was a personal project for Sylvester Stallone, who produced, wrote and starred in it. It was about an up and coming racing driver that started losing focus, so a champion is brought out of retirement (to help him out). It was supposed to be about Formula 1, but due to behind-the-scenes secrets, Stallone had to settle on…
Someone high up at Ubisoft really wanted the Donald Duck: Going Quackers/Quack Attack concept to work. Three different developers had already made completely different versions of the game for PlayStation, Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64 (with the N64 version getting PC and Dreamcast ports), but now it was Ubisoft Montreal’s turn to make a new version for the PS2 and GameCube. At this stage they mainly worked on…
With the GameCube, Nintendo wanted to appeal to mature gamers more than they had done previously, and part of this was striking up a strong partnership with Capcom. Nintendo managed to get them to not only make new Resident Evil games exclusive to the GameCube, but also bring over the previous main games to their platform. For the first Resident Evil, Capcom weren’t happy with just porting it over, and wanted to see…
Outside of EA’s FIFA and Madden, the biggest name in sports games these days is 2K Games, who have even branched out and publish non-sports games like BioShock, Mafia and X-Com. But they weren’t always part of publishing giant Take Two – they were originally part of Sega, with the 2K and Sega Sports branding being used for more simulation-like sports games, separate from their more arcade-like titles. After they…
Rave Master (or The Groove Adventure Rave for a direct translation of the original Japanese name) is an anime all about a kid that saves an old man and inherits the powers of “Rave” and sets out on a journey to collect special stones. I’d never heard anything about it, but with all the music-related terms, I was expecting something a bit more musical – perhaps that’s something that was lost when adapting it into a…
