Back To The Noughties
More time travel japes with Nick as he touches down in October 2003
F-Zero GX has finally arrived, and games™ neatly summarised our feelings on the month’s big import by asking, “How can a game travelling at over 1,000 km/h take so long to reach us?” But frustration at the wait quickly turned to joy as the press realised that Nintendo’s first development partnership with Sega was every bit as good as had been promised. NGC felt that because the developers had added trackside detail that the N64’s F-zero X had lacked, “the experience is far more exhilarating than anything the F-zero series has ever delivered”. The magazine scored the game 93%, and games™ was just as impressed, awarding a 9/10 score to what it felt was “a deceptively deep title with a level of variety seldom seen in the genre”. Edge scored it 8/10 saying, “No one expected a radical departure from the F-zero heritage, but the surprise here is that Amusement Vision has bettered the previous Nintendo-developed versions.”
Also out on import, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour offered family sports fun. NGC felt that the game offered “as much depth as any of its competitors, and considerably more character”, awarding it 85%. It also earned 8/10 in games™, but Edge was less impressed and scored it
6/10, questioning whether anyone “will be prepared to dig beneath the old-fashioned thinking and the inept presentation” to find its better qualities. Nintendo would have been hoping that those games would shift some hardware, as Edge reported that it had recently had to put Gamecube production on hold, “in order to allow the company to clear a backlog of inventory”. If they didn’t, what would? The only other exclusive on the horizon was WWE Wrestlemania XIX (68% NGC), and people were hardly going to buy the console for slightly underwhelming wrestling games.
Then again, it wasn’t like the other consoles were doing much better. Sony didn’t need any help selling consoles, but that was good because the PS2 exclusives on offer were always destined to become cult favourites rather than blockbuster hits. “It is only the hardware that will convince most players this is a modern game. Those weaned on Medal Of Honor or SOCOM will despise R-type Final for everything it does,” Edge astutely observed of
Irem’s resolutely old-fashioned series swan song. The magazine felt it was “dangerously close to the best in the genre” and gave it 8/10, while Play’s enthusiasm for the “bloody excellent shoot-’em-up” saw it award an 89% score. Namco’s import RPG Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille Zur Macht scored 83% in a rather belated review in Play, with the reviewer commenting that despite the abundance of cutscenes, “the balance of action and watching soon levels out”, and that the game “looks great and plays just as well”.
XBM was concerned about Microsoft’s prospects at Christmas, though magazines were catching up with their Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic reviews following the Official Xbox Magazine exclusive the previous month. It scored 9/10 in both games™ and Edge. A distinctly Japanese game like Otogi was always in for a rough ride on Xbox, and Fromsoftware’s hack-and-slash scored just 6/10 in games™ and 5/10 in XBM, with the latter claiming that it “fails to engage the player at a basic level” and becomes repetitive. For those who preferred gaming with a keyboard, the much-hyped political strategy game Republic: The Revolution failed to live up to expectations on PC. Edge bemoaned the “cumbersome user interface” and “3D engine that’s surplus to requirements”, awarding a 6/10 score with the conclusion “what promised to be revolutionary has emerged as a mere curio”.
If you were looking for something a bit more mainstream, you’d need to turn to multiplatform releases.
Colin Mcrae Rally 04 scored 9/10 in XBM and 93% in Play, with the former saying that Codemasters’ sequel “doesn’t have the wow factor that the first, second or even the third game had” but was “by default, the best rally game to date”. Slightly less impressed was games™, which awarded it 7/10. IO Interactive’s third-person squad shooter Freedom Fighters pitted Americans against occupying Soviet forces, and received a broadly positive reception. XBM, Cube and games™ all gave it 8/10, while Play’s enthusiasm for the game which had “the whole team crowded round a TV, jostling for the next go” earned it 92%. Edge scored it 6/10 and criticised the “dolefully, desperately dumb” enemies and weapons that failed to offer “the visceral satisfaction a game like this needs”. If you fancied your squad-based shooting with more uncomfortable timeliness, Conflict: Desert Storm II (7/10 XBM, 7/10 games™, 87% Play) was “more of the same but still good fun” according to games™. Film tie-in The Italian Job: LA Heist was hugely divisive (3/10 XBM, 54% NGC, 85% Play), though its short length was a common criticism. Lastly, Disney Extreme
Skate Adventure (74% NGC, 7.0/10 Cube, 7/10 XBM) was a surprisingly competent extreme sports tie-in for the under-ten crowd.
Join us again next month, as the pre-christmas silly season starts kicking into high gear.