Archive for the 'GameCube games' Category

Dream game: Resident Evil 4 for the Wii

Have you thought about how great it would be?

And Capcom could produce it in an instant. They’d just have to:

- use all the content from the GameCube version
- add all the extra content from the PS2 version, updated to have GC-like graphics and lighting (otherwise, the extras would look visibly worse than the rest of the game)
- add widescreen mode (I think the PS2 version already includes it)
- add wiimote + nunchuk support.

Advantages:

- it would look better than most current Wii games (including Zelda: TP and Red Steel)
- most of it is already done, so development time and costs would be low
- the game really begs for wiimote control.

Me, I’d buy it in a second, even though I already have the GC version.

Finished Path of Radiance; now playing…

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in 2000s games, 90s games, GameCube games, Now playing and PC games. 3 Comments

… Ultima VII! Using Exult, an open source Ultima VII engine for modern operating systems (because the original game used a weird memory manager that only works in MS-DOS, and in very specific MS-DOS configurations, at that.)

Continue reading ‘Finished Path of Radiance; now playing…’

Sonic Heroes: first impressions

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in 2000s games, GameCube games, PC games, PS2 games and Xbox games. 1 Comment

I received it last Friday, for the GameCube, and played it yesterday for a couple of hours.

First, let me say that this is my first Sonic game since the original ones for the Megadrive (I have the 2 Sonic Adventures ordered, but one of them is back-ordered and so they haven’t arrived yet). This means that it’s also my first Sonic in 3D.

From what I’ve played so far: the graphics are good. Not great, but good. Voice acting is… OK. The levels themselves look very, very nice, and the sense of speed is absolutely amazing. The camera, however, is quite poor – quite often you have to use your memory about what you’ve seen earlier, because you’re not seeing where you’re going – the camera takes too long to turn.

Even though the game is fully 3D, it plays (at least, so far – I’ve just got past the first boss) much like the old 2D games, in the sense that it’s quite linear – it’s always obvious where you have to go, and there’s not really any exploration, except to look for hidden areas and items. In other words, instead of free exploration like, say, Mario 64 or the 3D Zeldas, Sonic Heroes plays more like an “obstacle course”. A beautiful and varied one, though.

As you’ll know if you’ve read any (p)review or seen any ad for the game, you don’t just play one character, but a team of 3. There are 4 different teams, with slightly different storylines, goals, game styles and difficulty levels. Basically, however, each team has one “Speed” character, one “Power” character and one “Flight” character (for instance, in Team Sonic, they’re Sonic, Knuckles and Tails, respectively). In many parts of the game, you have to use a specific kind of character, though many challenges can be overcome with different characters, and sometimes you even get to choose paths, such as one which requires Power and one which requires Flight.

So far, I’m enjoying it, and thanks to its being a Player’s Choice game, it was quite cheap, too.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: continuing impressions

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in 2000s games and GameCube games. 1 Comment

Spent half of yesterday playing it. The game keeps getting better and better. Most of my characters have now changed classes, and a couple of them are absolute killing machines. But, finally, there have been decent bosses – “decent” as in “I have to use several characters at the same time to stand a change”, instead of “I have to hit them a couple more times”, as most of them were in the first half of the game.

The story is really good, and actually quite mature, even though the game doesn’t have a drop of blood.

2 of my characters have died so far, which isn’t bad. I really prefer to play “realistically”, instead of attempting a “perfect game” – though I have reset and reloaded a couple of times, due to really stupid deaths.

More games ordered

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in 2000s games and GameCube games. 3 Comments

All of them for the GameCube. I ordered them through the “buy used” option at Amazon.co.uk, where sometimes one can get great great deals.

Sonic Heroes (yup, another one)
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
TimeSplitters 2 (never played one of them, and this was the cheapest. )

I don’t know if I’ll get them before Christmas… I hope so.

I’m also struggling heavily with the tempation to buy Nintendo’s new DS/Mario Kart DS pack. Maybe I’ll do it in about two weeks, if money allows it.

Sonic games ordered

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in GameCube games and Misc stuff. 3 Comments

I’ve just ordered the 2 Sonic Adventure games for the GameCube. I know, they’re Dreamcast ports, and therefore don’t use the Cube to the full; on the other hand, graphics aren’t everything, and they were cheap. Besides, both of them introduce new characters to the Sonic mythos.

Also, yesterday I “unburied” a game I’ve had for a few months, but had never played after trying out when I got it: Star Wars: Rogue Leader. Very nice, and more “Wing Commanderish” than I remembered it.

Some games I want

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in GameCube games, Misc stuff and PC games. 3 Comments

Since it’s almost Christmas…

In no particular order:

Sonic Adventure / Sonic Adventure 2: Battle / Sonic Heroes / Shadow the Hedgehog (GameCube): I haven’t played a Sonic game since the first 2D ones on the Megadrive, and I miss the blue guy. I think I’ll start with the first two, which are already Player’s Choice games, and can be bought cheaply.
Doom 3 (PC): I’ve only tried the demo, some months ago, and my PC is too slow to play it properly. But I’d like to play it in full when I get new hardware, a couple of months from now. I know a lot of people were disappointed with the game, as they were expecting a rocket-fest such as multi-player Quake, and Doom 3 is more of a horror game – but I’m curious about it.
X-Men Legends 2 (GameCube): loved the first one – the 4-player mode was great! I want more of it.
Mario Superstar Baseball (GameCube): one more for the post-lunch gaming sessions at home.
more tactical RPGs (several systems): after “discovering” Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, I want more. Most of them are for the GBA, it seems…
an RTS (PC): probably Age of Empires III, but, again, I need to upgrade my puny PC first…

Looking at that list, I realize an interesting fact: that after being a computer (8-bit, 16-bit, PC) gamer for most of my life, my tastes have slowly been turning to consoles more and more. I still play and enjoy PC games, but most of them are older ones – and, except for Civ 4 and the R:TW expansion, I haven’t bought any recently. I guess that would change if I had a more powerful PC, but… I don’t know. Not only do console games not have compatibility problems or hardware requirements that cost an arm and a leg to fulfill, but they’re… different. And they still feel “fresh” to me, while PC games increasing feel like what I’ve been playing all my life. Maybe I simply needed a change.

But it’s a fact that, for the past few months, I’ve been spending much more time on the GameCube than on the PC.

Now playing: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Beyond Good and Evil

Published on 4 years, 3 months ago in 2000s games, GameCube games, Now playing, PC games, PS2 games and Xbox games. 2 Comments

I haven’t had much time to play games, in the last few days. This weekend, I was ill (though, in the immortal words of Monty Python, “I got better”), and there has been a lot of other stuff to do. Still, I had a little time to “maintain my sanity”, and I’ve been playing two games, mostly.

The first of them is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, on the GameCube, which I’ve already mentioned a couple of times here. It keeps getting better and better – good story, interesting characters, more decisions to make, and, best of all, the need for different strategies in every level – not simply “advance and kill everyone in your path”. It’s really a joy to play.

The second one is a bit older: Beyond Good and Evil, also on the Cube (this isn’t an exclusive, though, it’s also available for PC, PS2 and Xbox). I’ve had this game for about a year, but for some reason had never got around to play it… until now. And it’s brilliant.

IGN’s review, quoted on the back of the box, describes it as “Zelda for grown-ups”. While I don’t think that it’s a perfect description – among other reasons, because the Zelda games aren’t really for kids – it’s certainly a quick way to explain to people what the game looks and plays like. It’s an action/adventure game, with a great story (involving control of the media by the government – guess that’s where the “for grown-ups” bit comes from), and absolutely endearing characters. For instance, one of your “party members” is Pey’j, a pig-like humanoid – whose personality, voice acting and mannerisms make him more “human” and lovable than more than 95% of video game characters. Jade herself, the character you control, is one of the few female characters that is feminine without looking as if she’s just there for making male teens drool.

BG&E has been called “the best game nobody played”, as, while every review out there described it as brilliant, it almost didn’t sell. But you can probably still buy it, and cheaply, too. If you like the 3D Zeldas (Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker), go buy it immediately; if not, or if you don’t know them, at least take a look at it; rent it, or something. It’s a work of art – so much that Peter Jackson recently contacted the main author, Michael Ancel, to create the game version of his next movie, King Kong.