When I first got my Gamecube, F-Zero GX was the first game I “reviewed” for the platform. I say that with a smile on my face because in hindisight I completely missed the fucking point of the game. Focusing on things like “story mode” and getting pissy over it being hard to unlock more vehicles (a trend that has sadly continued in every racer I’ve played since) is really not important. I would happily play the game with the default four racers, the ones that were introduced in the original F-Zero. It wouldn’t make a difference. Because F-Zero GX is not about pulling stunts or rewinding time or launching red shells or realistic physics. It is about winning a race. Crossing the finish line is the only goal that could ever matter as the landscape blasts past you at 1200 km/h with the siren blazing that you need repairs badly.

F-Zero GX is about going fast at all costs. It is a racing game in its purest, most concentrated form. And that’s why I still love it.

At its best, Full Auto is a tease. For a game that calls itself “the world’s most destructible racing game”, I guess it’s pretty accurate. You can destroy lots of things in this game. Buildings, street-side cafés, fences – well, as long as it’s accessible from the race track. You aren’t offered much flexibility to drift off of it. And if you were to compare it to Rock N’ Roll Racing as I noted in Part 1, it might be a more accurate representation of the style of gameplay that is being offered.

However, while we were playing I couldn’t help but reminisce about Carmageddon 2, which was a lot more open in its design. I’d even call it ahead of its time. Free form “races” with multiple conditions for winning (like killing a certain number of pedestrians, or destroying all of your opponents), and all of it doused with a thick red coating of ultra violence. As long as you could suspend your disbelief when you ran over the pedestrians with cubic heads. Full Auto doesn’t allow you to simply go after your adversaries and destroy them, because you’re in a race. Unless the objectives at the beginning of a mission stated otherwise, crossing the finish line was the only necessary goal to complete.

To be fair, you can do a lot of damage to the environment in Full Auto, but it has no real effect on the way you drive. You can plow through three fuel tankers causing massive explosions and keep going as if nothing happened. This apparent lack of repercussions is even stranger in the face of the detailed damage modelling of the vehicles.

I found that my car was exploding without any real warning beyond the damage indicator on the bottom of the screen, which I rarely checked due to the fast-paced nature of the action. My vehicle may have looked like a scrap heap on wheels, but it didn’t drive any differently. It didn’t cause me to rethink my strategy to conserve energy or shields – I simply kept driving until I was ultimately destroyed by gunfire, colliding with another car, or simply diving headlong off of the top level of a parking garage.

Though all this can be avoided: the “Unwreck” feature is a Prince of Persia-styled reversing of time to make a jump, avoid a rollover, or even being targeted by an adversary’s machine gun. I wondered if a feature like this was even necessary. Is the ultimate point of Full Auto total destruction or winning a race? Carmageddon had an auto-repair feature you could use while driving (depending on how much money you had available). It was equally unrealistic, but was at least suited to the overall theme.

What bothered me was the lack of originality and variation in the weapons available to upgrade vehicles. They’re often made up of one forward weapon and one rear, and categorized into “packages” like Assault and Melee. Individual components of the sets can’t be interchanged. What’s worse, like the other cars in the game, the weapon sets must be unlocked.

The available game modes are pretty straightforward, and actually kind of dull after the initial novelty of driving clear through a brick building with a hot rod wears off. The most glaring omission was the lack of a free for all or arena mode included in the likes of Carmageddon or Twisted Metal. In a game that’s bent on providing wholesale destruction, why is it so focused on racing? Perhaps I was simply attributing features to the game it was never intended to have.

Nevertheless, there was something about Full Auto that just felt rushed, as if Pseudo Interactive started with a sound concept that got stripped down to meet the “arcade racing” requirement for the 360′s library. I’d call it “Semi-Auto”, but that’s too obvious. It isn’t a bad game. Just an unremarkable one.

A couple of weekends ago I spent the afternoon with fellow über-gamers Tony and Chris, where we gathered for some quality time with Chris’ new XBox 360. I’ve since had the time to record some of the following impressions. Unrelated: Chris is an excellent cook.

After setting up our XBox Live player profiles (a strange necessity), we were ready to get playing. Gripping the iPod white controller in both hands, I recognized a refined design. Elminating the annoying Black and White buttons that would often be pressed by mistake, the 360′s controller is also lightweight, easy to handle and best of all – completely wireless. Once we inserted the disc for Dead or Alive 4 we had to log in to XBox Live. And then to confirm what player profiles we wanted to use. And where we wanted to save the game data for each player. It was a bizarre amount of menu options and screens considering we were playing on a console. This is all for XBox Live’s new Gamerscore system that basically records data from every one of your play sessions, but that’s another issue entirely. What happened to just turning it on and playing? Is this what we can expect from consoles adopting online features? Being simple to set-up is one of the advantages consoles have had over PCs until this point. After selecting our characters for the game it was finally time to play.

Dead or Alive 4

We had to get Dead or Alive 4 out of the way because it was the easiest target for mockery; after all, a fighting game with this many busty females doing high kicks in short skirts is essentially pornography. I direct you to the bio for Leifang, from the official site:

It starts with a 6 year old memory, always accompanied by battle cries that sound like they come from a strange bird. The gleaming blade rushes towards her as she feels it may be too late. Then, in an instant, the young man with the embroidered dragon leaps on the scene. He massacres the hoodlums with a single blow, accompanied by a piercing yell. Since then she has committed herself to reaching the highest plateau of ability, all so that she may exist in the same world as that young man. She must defeat him!

We are swimming in deep waters here, for sure. Too bad more time was spent animating breasts than developing a plotline, but who ever expected one of those from a fighting game? After I spent a few rounds kicking everyone’s asses, it seemed that I was the fighting game veteran of us three. I then tried story mode to unlock some of the other characters. The game is ridiculously hard, and clearly rewards those that are more interested in perfecting the art of fighting than contemplating how the laws of physics defy Christie’s leather jacket so that it covers her chest in every fight. The character animations and environments are amazingly detailed, and along with Project Gotham 3 is definitely a showcase for the 360′s hardware. But that’s about it.

Project Gotham Racing 3

For the most part, I suck at racing games unless they have the word “Mario” or “Zero” in the title. The realistic physics modelling of the cars makes it tough to get used to, but is probably a boon for car enthusiasts. Even though the application of real-world physics is less intense than say, Gran Turismo 4, Project Gotham 3 still manages to convey a pretty realistic driving experience. Every car handled differently, and it’s definitely another game that rewards skill. I got bored of it pretty quickly though – I think Tony and I started doing head-on collisions after a while. It was definitely time for Full Auto.

Full Auto

After playing Auto Assault I was anxious to see someone do Car Wars right. Unfortunately, Pseudo Interactive attached guns to cars and put them on a racetrack. Except it’s not as fun as Rock ‘N’ Roll Racing. This is actually the only game out of the ones we played that prompted some deeper thinking, so I suppose that could be considered a good thing. You can read the rest in Part 2.

Kameo

Rare caught a lot of flak for this title, and I’m not sure why. It’s not particularly offensive; in fact, I found it refreshing in its presentation. The bright colors and the cartoon-like character models gave it a storybook quality. I’m not sure why I was so impressed by that, but it could be the trend towards darker, (im)mature themed games that made Kameo really stand out. It didn’t seem very deep, but I think I still would have had fun with it given the chance to spend more than 15 minutes playing.

Amped 3

Did somebody fart? A semi-serious sports title has been turned into a cartoon. Uninteresting, and probably even unnecessary.

Back to the Gamerscore. Based on point values associated with “Achievements” reached within each game on the XBox 360, it updates a player’s Gamerscore on XBox Live accordingly. It introduces a kind of arcade-styled competiton factor between players, but is anyone other than the hardcore willing to bother with this? Games like Project Gotham 3 and Dead or Alive 4 have their own set of unlockable rewards such as new cars and different playable characters, which adds incentive to contributing to the system. Though this is another trend that I’m growing increasingly uneasy about: the use of unlockable content to artificially extend a game’s life. These tactics are aimed squarely at gamers with an excess of time to complete the requirements. I can’t help but feel cheated when I’m stuck with a bunch of crappy cars in a racing game and forced to earn better ones through extended play. Shouldn’t the fun be instantaneous? The Gamerscore as an over-arching concept seems interesting, but I can’t help but sense that it imposes the requirement for an internet connection to play any game on a console, approaching the time when the patching of console games is commonplace.

The race begins, your foot is on the gas, and your mind on getting a red shell. What you don’t expect is to take the lead only to be offered an endless supply of banana peels. This is part of MKDS’ attempt at balancing the action. At the start, each character gets two Karts, a Kart unique to the character and a standard Kart, but unlike Double Dash you can’t drive another character’s Kart. I liked being able to match the performance of a vehicle with the special attacks of another character in Double Dash. In Mario Kart DS, there are no special attacks, making your choice of character your choice of vehicle. What matters now is the balance of your Kart’s performance to the quality of item drops associated with the Kart – both visible from the character selection screen. Even then, if you take the lead and manage to keep it, the quality of your drops will remain poor. If you’re in last, however, you’re more likely to get the more devastating items.

Jumping has not only returned, it has been reworked to start a powerslide. Further to powersliding is the ability to draft your oponents: using their speed to accelerate your own Kart by driving up behind them. But as always, you can make racing as technical or as hamfisted as you like, because it is often not even necessary to do anything except hold down that ‘A’ button.

Nintendo has provided a Mario Kart “Greatest Hits” of sorts with the Retro Grand Prix. Aside from the four entirely new cups available, Mario Kart DS has four additional cups that are made up of tracks from previous Mario Kart incarnations on the SNES, N64, GBA and Gamecube. All of the tracks are as I remember them, though it quickly becomes obvious where advancements in technology have almost made the old tracks look bad.

The most valuable addition MKDS makes to the Mario Kart franchise is wireless multiplayer through the internet. Launching a worldwide Wi-Fi service on a portable platform was ingenious for Nintendo. It shows their commitment to online play. It also lays the groundwork for the Revolution, proving that these guys actually do have a strategy for bringing their games into the next generation.

To engage other players online requires access to a wireless internet connection, of which I had none. Having no other wireless devices, with hardwire drops in every room I needed them, there was really never a requirement. What Nintendo offers for people in this situation is the USB Wireless adapter specifically designed for the DS (it says so on the box!). This essentially forms a wireless bridge between the DS and your PC, which is already connected to the internet. This is a fine solution if you don’t mind dropping half the cost of a wireless router on an accessory that can only be used with one device, ever. Furthermore, I had visions of having to sit near a PC if I wanted to ever access the online service. This was not a reasonable option for me, so I bought a wireless router.

The WiFi matching service is easy enough to navigate, and is probably too simple for its own good. It’s not like the server browsers you’d see in a FPS – the game simply looks for other people who are looking for a match and throws you all into a race. Not to mention it takes forever for this process to complete, as there are no doubt impatient types that simply quit and force the game to look for additional players to fill the empty spots. Or worse yet, drop out half way through a race when victory is absolutely certain.There is also no way to avoid these types in the future. Then there are the Friend Codes¹, which could have been used more effectively. Entering a Friend Code is only part of the process. See, your “friend” must enter your code as well in order for you to see any information about them or match up with them. Even then, the information available is limited to Wins, Losses and last time online, and the “matching” is simply a menu option called “Friends” (you can’t start a race with a specific friend). What would have been more useful is an email notifying you that someone has added your friend code, or wants to start a game. Nintendo allows you to link your DS WiFi ID (different than the friend code) to your MyNintendo account, but after doing that I didn’t notice any added functionality. This would have been a perfect way to allow these notifications. In the end, Friend Codes are really only useful when you’re all online at the same time. Not exactly a picture of convenience.

I usually go out of my way to mock reviewers that consider online play on a console “new and exciting”. As someone who regularly takes advantage of this feature on PCs, it shouldn’t seem like a big deal. The first time I joined a race, though – it was pretty exciting. Who knew where these players were located? They behaved like humans. There was no lag. It seemed like an even match-up. Until they quit the race, of course.

There are no pretenses about Mario Kart DS. It is a Kart racing game and there is nothing in it that you haven’t experienced before. The controls are easily grasped and there is enough single-player gameplay embedded within its menus to provide hours of fun for someone who doesn’t even have a wireless internet connection. Nintendo has shown us what it can do with the Internet, with a game that allows any type of gamer entrance into the fold. I think that’s brilliant. They have also produced one of the strongest games to be released for the Nintendo DS.

____________
1. For anyone interested in a race, my friend code is 545522 / 934077.

oktober nineteen eighty-three

It’s hard to take anything gamespy says seriously anymore, let alone read it at all. Their own arrogance and lazyness have made them irrelevant, and even though they’re usually the first to review a new game I can’t honestly name anyone who considers them a trusted source. Not like gamespot is any better, with their ads slapping you in the mouth every couple of minutes to make sure you know that what you’re reading isn’t free. But at least they don’t pull any exclusive shit just so that people will visit their site every once in a while. In their latest efforts to shock gamers, a recent “Spy/Counterspy” alleged that Nintendo has lost their knack for originality by releasing slightly different versions of past titles. The case in point was obviously Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and seeing as how the game is all but placed on the pedestal of best of 2003, I’d hardly think that it’s a result of Nintendo being comfortable. Moreover, the award of multiple Golden Joysticks to some of Nintendo’s titles released this year shows that they still have the ability to create an engaging experience. In the business of games – especially consoles, where their typical audience has the attention span of a goldfish – you need to put out those types of titles to bring in new gamers that may have otherwise turned an eye away from your console. I would have hardly considered a Gamecube on the sole basis of say, Viewtiful Joe, but show me screens of F-Zero GX or Metroid Prime and I’m right up against the glass. It should also say something that during the Thanksgiving weekend south of the border, Nintendo has reached #1 in console sales. The reasons have been mentioned before, but again I am very happy for them.

As promised, I’m going to try and string together a few sentences to describe my experiences with Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. The day we got it, both of us were grinning and wide eyed. It was a great looking game, it was colorful (a typical characteristic of Mario games), the controls were dead simple, and of course the tried and true Kart racing gameplay was all there. But this time, you get to bring a friend.

The addition of “co-pilots” for each kart was a great gameplay decision, because it opens up a cooperative approach to the Grand Prix. Victory can be shared by both people, even when one isn’t that great of a driver, because they’ll be the ones lobbing shells and banana peels at your opponents. Of course if you decide to play versus the AI or Human opponents, you’ll have control over your accompanying character. You can throw either forward or backward, and although you can’t see anything behind you (a rear view would have been nice) it’s pretty obivous when someone is trying to overtake you.

The kart designs are fun and clearly represent their intended drivers. As with Mario Golf, character size has the most impact on Kart performance. The small characters will only be able to drive the light karts, which will accelerate faster but have a low top speed. At the opposite end, the big characters like Bowser and Wario will only be able to drive the heavy karts, which tend to go a lot faster but have poor acceleration. The game supplies some highly impressive visuals in this respect. All the characters are smooth looking and well animated, right down to the rear character shifting their weight when you make turns. There are more karts and characters that are unlockable through winning the Grand Prix on each difficulty level.

The power-ups shouldn’t be unfamiliar to fans of the SNES original, however Double Dash gives each character their own special power up. My personal favorites, the Koopas, can carry three shells at once, providing extra ammunition to secure first place. The most entertaining is the Chomp Chain, which is Baby Mario/Baby Luigi’s special ability. I remember seeing this thing in Link’s Awakening. It’s a giant, barking, sharp-toothed ball on a chain that spins out all opponents in front of you while giving an added boost by pulling your cart. Another great feature is the ability to “steal” powerups. If you bump into an opponent on the road, your partner will automatically reach out and steal any powerups they are carrying.

One thing I noticed while getting used to the controls is that I couldn’t seem to press the “Jump” button that was so handy to get over barriers or take shortcuts in the SNES version. Quickly scanning the game manual I found that there isn’t a jump button; you can’t jump at all in Double Dash. After playing through all of the Championships numerous times, I can’t really say that it’s a necessary thing. But when some of the track shortcuts require a Mushroom boost for you to leap a chasm or risk falling to your doom, I begin to miss the ability to jump.

Battle mode is probably the most disappointing part of the game. Being weaned on the excellent SNES version, I was expecting larger, track-style arenas – not cage matches. The areas are too small and it’s far too easy to win both the “Shine Thief” and “Balloon Battle” modes. Even the way the balloons are oriented – floating above each kart – are a pale imitation of the 16-bit predecessor, where they rotated around the bumper.

Completing all the main Championships at 100cc unlocks the Special Cup, which in my humble opinion is the best set of tracks in the game. Wario Colliseum, Dino Dino Jungle, Bowser’s Castle and Rainbow Road – the names smack of Nintendo’s usual sillyness but I assure you their designs are ingenious, and shockingly similar to F-Zero GX’s. Maybe it’s just me playing too much F-Zero GX, but they definitely had the same feel. No track barriers, and an ample amount of corkscrews, powerslides and gravity-defying turns for your kart.

As I said before, the feeling I get after playing Double Dash can be compared to meeting up with an old friend and not having anything to talk about except the past. Yeah, those were good times, weren’t they Mario? This is by no means a bad game; the level of quality and polish upon which Nintendo prides itself is clearly present. However beyond going through each Grand Prix there really isn’t much to it. If you own a Gamecube, you can do no harm by purchasing Double Dash; even in comparison to other so called “kart racers” it stands apart.

Lucky for me, a friend that works at EB hooked me up with a copy of Double Dash with the Bonus Disc. I never really expected to get much from the disc; happily I was surprised at what was included. The Star Wars: Rebel Strike demo had a foot mission where you dodge lumbering AT-ATs on the plains of Hoth armed only with a blaster pistol, which was most likely the opening level of the game. I found myself wandering around aimlessly in the third person, asking myself “that’s it?” repeatedly. Not exactly the way you get people to buy your game. The minigames included from Mario Party 5 were fun, and it would make a great investment for some fluffy multiplayer action. Sonic Heroes looks great; Sonic Team has successfully recreated the thrilling speeds that were first experienced in Sonic’s first adventure on the Genesis. Controlling three characters at once and having to stop to use their special abilities makes the gameplay a bit choppy, though. But I was won over by the smooth camera panning when my three-person team separated at the bottom of a series separate loops to run around them individually. It’s one of many slick effects, and aside from the awkward controls I’m pretty much sold on this game. The Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles movie made me want to weep. How could I have underestimated this game? Even The Wife approved. It’s pretty obvious from recent posts that this is on my watch list for 2004, and could be next year’s Wind Waker – the reason people buy a Gamecube. It’s never too late.

straight over a cliff and into the sea

In recent months the Gamecube seems to be picking up steam and it’s most certainly a result of the price reduction for the Fall. I mean at $99 US, who wouldn’t pick one up as a second system, if only to have access to all of the fantastic Nintendo exclusives? They’ve even resumed production of new Gamecubes after a few months hiatus, which signifies at least another year left in the console’s lifespan. I could hazard a guess that half of Nintendo’s problem is their dearth of developers. I think they have set their standards and expectations too high and completely misjudged the market, especially after their bumbling around with the N64. I highly recommend this great interview with Nintendo of America Senior VP George Harrison that lays out what went wrong with their approach to selling the Gamecube and the future of Nintendo in North America. We can only wait and see if Nintendo has the market clout it thinks it has to keep the titles coming.

I’d probably tell you that Metroid Prime is the reason that I was really considering the Gamecube, but in complete honesty F-Zero GX was a very close second. The original game revolutionized the genre of futuristic racers, and the addition of gravity-defying tracks and a multitiude of AI characters and opponents in F-Zero X made the series even better. With F-Zero GX, Sega (I can’t believe I’m writing this) has developed a solid title that should be a part of every Gamecube owner’s collection. The graphics are completely jaw-dropping, and the ability for the game to keep you at the edge of your seat track after track is a feat in itself – I was convinced I was travelling at 1200 km/h.

The only down side I can see at this is that sometimes the AI can bee a little too unforgiving. I easily won the Ruby Cup on Novice difficulty, but when trying the other Grand Prix competitions and higher difficulties I found that the best I could do was place in the top 10. It’s really tough, and you must learn to tilt through all turns and use your boosters sparingly. Another small thing would be the Tickets system. In theory, the multiple game modes would make it fun to collect more tickets, but sometimes I just want to try out one of the 20+ unlockable vehicles in a VS. Battle without having to complete a Story Mode level or win another Grand Prix. The tickets can also be used to unlock new vehicles, parts to customize your own vehicle, or to unlock more story mode levels. The fact that you need to buy your way into the next Story Mode level is a bit strange, because to me it seems like a waste of tickets that you could be spending on more practical things – like more drivable vehicles.

Story mode – although suspect at first – is actually pretty fun. It’s hard to imagine a storyline based around a game which focuses on intense futuristic racing, but then again just look at fighting games where story is usually an afterthought. You play through story mode as Captain Falcon where you must comple missions of increasing difficulty to gain more tickets. There’s even an Anime series in Japan based on this game, and you can watch for F-Zero: Falcon Legend which hits the GBA in Japan at the end of November and will be available sometime next year in North America.

F-Zero GX is definitely a solid title and worth getting if you’re one of the proud (but misguided?) few that own a Gamecube. Whether you’re a fan of the series or not, it’s a great racing game that provides a veritable bounty of fast-paced gravity-defying action for solo or head-to-head play. Plus it makes for great downtime with the wife (I don’t lose on purpose, I swear).

airplanes are heavy, ships deserve to sink