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Here is what happened on Friday the 18th. The third day of this years
E3. Hey.. at least it isn't Friday the 13th.
Click here to read today's wonderful writeup.
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As I said in the GameBoy Advanced section, this was my Nintendo day. And what a day it was. Standing in line, well crowd really, for 15 minutes to play each game was.. uh.. hot. SO many bodies all crowded in.. ugh. Glad I brought bottled water. But in the end it was worth it. All, yes ALL of the GCN games were great. Even Eternal Darkness, which has only been upgraded a little of the N64 version so far, was fun to play. Once I had the controller in my hands I was hooked. I have never held a controller that was so comfortable and easy to use. It may look funny but it fits the hand perfectly allowing easy acces to all the buttons at any time. I was quite surprised at the true power of the Cube and how polished the games were even at this point in their development. And yes, the games were running on actual GameCubes. Each of the major games had a small closed off area behind the outside demo sites that showed the GameCube running the game on a 40+ inch widescreen TVs in full surround sound. And man was that sooooo sweet. I would have to say that only a disaster would keep Nintendo from meeting the November release date.
How about the games?
| Title | Thoughts |
| Eternal Darkness | This was your run of the mill Survival Horror game with undead meanies. What makes this one different then all the rest is that it is set in 3 different times. One is current day. Another character is in the Roman Empire days. And the final character is set in Medevil time. The controls are OK at this stage in development. It uses analog controls which makes moving around and combat much easier. Combat is standard for this type of game. One nice addition is the ability to target different body parts. And as normal, there is a finishing move to "kill" the undead. There are still some bugs to work out though. One person I watched playing the current day female character got her head cut off. But she didn't die. He was able to move her around and shoot the shotgun, even though she had no head. But he couldn't open doors or interact with anything so the rep had to restart the GameCube. The graphics were a little more detailed then in the N64 version but it was obvious they were still in the process of building a new game engine as there were quite a few texture bugs in it. One of the standout graphical features was the volumetric fog. No longer does it just lay around. It actually slowly moves around just like mist does in real life. It was a nice touch to the atmosphere of the game. |
| Smash Brothers Mele | This was the #2 game at the show, behind Rouge Leader. The crowds were big at all of the demo sets for this game and everyone couldn't praise the game enough. It was very similar to the original, since it was a 3D fighter on a 2D plane using Nintendo characters with powerups all over the place. What made this one so great was that it was multiplayer, looked great and the controls were about as good as you can ask for in a fighter. Another this impressive about the game was the levels. They were all very active and quite large. I played on the F-Zero level. And playing a fighter while the level is zooming by is simply incredible. I predict that this is going to be one of the best selling launch games. |
| Dinosaur Planet | Yea, yea.. Rare took Dinosaur planet and made it into a Starfox game. But you know what, I think that it works. Sure, StarFox is supposed to be a shooter, and this is a 3D adventure/platform game. So what. It's a fun game. And I for one am glad that Rare is moving away from the rut they were in. I mean all their 3D platform games had similar moves and similar tasks. You can only play so many different games that have super jump butt stomp moves and item collecting tasks before you get bored. This one isn't like that. You play Fox McCloud and you are out to save the worlds. You have a pet dino who can do various tasks for you, like distracting the enemies and digging up items for you. Your weapons in the demo consisted of a staff like item that you can use as both a mele weapon and' a gun. And you need to use it in both capacities to get through the game. The one boss shown was a huge Dragon like creature. It wasn't too obvious at first what you needed to do since your weapons have no effect on it. But once you reaolized you could use your pet to your advantage, the way you needed to kill it became more obvious. This is a must have game for Nintendo and Rare fans. |
| Rogue Leader/b> | What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said. It is great. It looks great. It plays great. It looks to be a one of the best Star Wars games since X-Wing. It was also the #1 game at the show. Not even FFX had crowds like this game had. That could be due to the fact that there were ony 3 stations to play this one, but over 30 to play FFX. But I think it would have been just as busy if they also had 30 demo systems. The game is simply that good. I won't say much since this is also one of the most talked about games in game mags and on game news sites. I'll leave you with this.. if there is just one game you buy, make it this one. Buy a GameCube if you have to, but get this game. |
| Wave Race | I can't say much about this game. It's Wave Race with MUCH improved graphics and sound. The physics were already good on the N64 version and they have been tweaked for this one. But other then the improved feeling of running a Jetski and much better graphics (way better) it's still Wave Race at it's core. Get it if you liked Wave Race. |
| Pikmin | The surprise Miyamoto-san game of the show. You are on a planet to help the Pikmin find the parts needed to repair their ship. Much like Munch, you control the main character and collect the other creatures, in this case Pikmin, to do the work. You work from sun-up to sun-down since the Pikmin are plant based life. Once you have collected them you move around the map bringing them to flowers and bugs so that they can fight them to collect the parts. Once they have defeated whatever it was that they were attacking a disc with a number pops up. The correct color Pikmin will pick up the parts and take them back to their ship. Once they have done that more Pikmin will pop out of the ship and you will have more of them to collect and control. If you don't have enough of the right color they won't be able to pick up the parts. The more parts it is worth the bigger and heavier it is. At the end of the day any Pikmin you have under your control will be with you when the next day starts, so you need to make sure you are controlling as many as you can when time runs out. Overall the game is very fun to play. Another in the line of Simple but Fun games from Nintendo. |
| Luigi's Manson | What can be said about this game. It looks just like the TECH DEMO Nintendo showed last year. You are Luigi and your sole weapon against all the ghosts in the Mansion is a vacume/flashlight gadget. You freeze the ghosts with the flashlight and suck them up with the vacume. And much like the Mario games you collect coins and keys. The lighting in this game is some of the best I have ever seen in a game. Everything makes accurate shadows and there are even some special ghosts that only appear when the light is nowhere near them and you are in a certain location. Also, the vacume has some neat effects on the environment. You can watch things that you can't suck up be effected by the suction as you move the vacume around. Once again, a Simple but Fun Nintendo game. |
| Batman | This one was not shown in a playable form. It was just shown as a video. It didn't have the cartoon look that the Playstation Batman game has. The look was more like a standard GC game has. I'm not sure if it was all FMV or if there was any gameplay shown, but from what I saw it looked similar to any other action game. |