In this game, you can pit one on one battles with your favorite Nintendo stars, such as Mario, Link, Kirby, Pikachu, Starfox, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Samus Aran. The game starts with all fighters entering the battlefield with 0% damage done to them. As they attack each other with a barrage of vicious attacks, their percentage moves up, and the higher the percentage, the farther the opponent flies after a hit. However, this percentage does not guarantee a winner, your goal is to knock your opponent off of the screen, and that could happen to the one with the lower percentage just as much as it could the character with the higher percentage. Graphics are okay, the backgrounds and characters are well made, but the arenas are a little bit blocky and flat.
<i>Super Smash Bros.</i> is a game that may keep you occupied for a few days, maybe weeks, until you’ve fought everyone against everyone else, found the secret characters, and unearthed all the other goodies. Then you leave it to sit and probably won't play it again for a while. Even still, I give Super Smash Bros. a 6 out of 10.
Mario has a tough job, what with all those evil turtles and freaky walking mushrooms to contend with, and from time to time, he deserves a vacation. Even that can't go right for the world-famous plumber. Upon flying out to island paradise Island Delfino with Peach, they are forced to land short on the runway due to a huge puddle of some paint-like substance. Mario crosses it and asks for help, and he's <i>blamed</i> for the mess! As he approaches a water pump he'll use to clean the mess, it props up and introduces itself as FLUDD, created by none other and Professor Gadd from Luigis Mansion. FLUDD identifies Mario and agrees to help him. Upon cleaning up the mess, the Delfino authorities take Mario away and throw him in jail. He is later released, and is sentenced to clean up all the graffiti which now covers Delfino. But one question lingers, why do they think Mario is behind it? You'll have to play to find out.
Gameplay is very smooth here, controls are straightforward and easy to use. It utilizes the analog functions of the L and R key, if you press R down partially, you can move while spraying, or you can press it down all the way to shoot out a stronger and longer reaching stream of water. Mario has a lot of jumps too, and they are all pretty simple to execute. If you turn the control stick 360 and then jump, you'll do a spin jump which sends you higher than the usual jump, and also gets rid of any goop which may have gotten on you. FLUDD has two functions at any one time, there is the normal spray, then one of three different nozzles can be attached. The HoverNozzle allows you to hover (obviously) for a few seconds, the Rocket Nozzle makes you blast high into the air, and the Tubo nozzle boosts your speed, even when swimming.
This game is <i>not</i> about just cleaning up messes like it may appear to be. There are plenty of puzzles to be solved, some force you to do them without FLUDD to help you.
Alas, as good as <i>Mario Sunshine</i> is, it has its flaws. First, there is a lot of stuff happening on the screen at one time and at times there can be some noticeable slowdown. Also some of the camera angles, even though it moves with Mario, can be constricting and there are some times when you can't even see your mustached hero. But the good far outweighs the bad in this game, the slowdown is only for a few seconds, and only at some times do you have trouble with the camera, otherwise, its a great Mario adventure with lots of puzzles and plenty to do. You'll never be bored in this game.
I give <i>Super Mario Sunshine</i> a 9.4 and if you own a GameCube, this is a game to buy before all others on that game rack at the store. Besides, no Nintendo system is complete without a Mario adventure.
Mr. Burns has bought the Springfield bus company, irradiated all of the buses and jack fares way up. So Springfield residents start using their own cars as taxis to zip people around town as fast as possible.
This game is frighteningly remiscent of Crazy Taxi but with a few differences, some good, some bad. For one, Springfield is huge, and packed with show references and familiar locations like the Kwik-E-Mart and Springfield Elementary. A good portion of the environment is destructable, such as street lights, trees, and signs. Thing is, they fall very unrealistically. It looks like a toy car driving to a platic tree, it moves with you, wobbles then falls down. In place of the classic green arrow now is a big yellow hand pointing to your destination. There are about 20 characters you can use to drive, (most need to be unlocked) each with their own vehicle. Groundskeeper Willie has a tractor, Professor Frink drives a flying car, and Grandpa drives a tiny Shriners car.
The real treat in this game is the voice acting. Everyone you pick up and all the drivers voices are the actual voices form the show. There are some great lines too. Flanders: "Could you take me to Reverend Lovejoys house? I want him to bless my new haircut" or Abe Simpson after hitting something "Oh, there's my pelvis!". One problem is timing though. In an odd game I drove Flanders to his destination, then picked up and drove Hans Moleman to his destination, and on my way to getting <i>another</i> passenger I finally hear Flanders thanking me for the ride, even though he's blocks away. Again, not good timing.
Simpsons fans (such as myself) should get a kick out of this game. If you liked Crazy Taxi there's really not much here not to like. Rent it first, if you think you'd enjoy it more by all means buy it, but I suggest waiting until your local rental store starts selling used copies for cheap. It's a fun and amusing games, but I personally won't pay 50 bucks for it.</font>
I rate The Simpsons: Road Rage a 7.5 and recommend at least renting it.
One of Segas gifts to the GameCube as a third party developer is Super Monkey Ball. Based on the arcade game of the same title, its the game arcaders remember plus more.
You have single player, in which you can play Beginner mode (10 courses) Advanced mode (30 courses) or Expert Mode (50 courses). In each course you must move the entire stage so the monkey inside the ball rolls to the end, along the way picking up bananas and trying not to fall off the edge. It takes a bit of practice to get the controls down so as to steer the monkey right, but once you have it down, its...well, still challenging at times!
Super Monkey Ball is at its best during Party Mode. Wherein you have Monkey fight, where up to four monkeys roll around with big boxing gloves attached to them trying to knock your opponents off the stage. Next is Monkey Race, which is up to four Monkey balls racing along tracks. Finally there is Monkey Target, where you roll down a steep hill then when you jump off, you open your ball and glide to a target across water, where you land on the target determines your points.</font></p>
There are also minigames to unlock, every time you play Single Player, you get points. When you get enough points you may unlock one of three minigames, Monkey Billiards, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Golf. All of which are fairly self-explanatory.
If you like getting together with friends with your Cube, Super Monkey Ball is the game for you, it's Party Games and Minigames are a lot of fun. However if you prefer to enjoy your Cube alone, and only venture out to share with friends on occasion, rent this game only. Single Player is fun, don't get me wrong. Fun for a few days. Then it gets kind of tiring and you just want to play minigames. Then they themselves really become no fun without friends to play with.
I rate Super Monkey Ball a 6.5 and I think it's worth at least a rental. If nothing else, you and your immature friends can laugh uncontrollably every time somebody mentions the word "balls".
So many secrets reside in that little disk waiting to be unlocked: characters, stages, trophies, and other goodies. We won't go into the trophies here, but we will tell you how to unlock everything else.
Unlockable Characters
<b><i>Unlock Jigglypuff:</i></b> Beat Classic or Adventure with any character on any difficulty or play 50 VS matches.
<b><i>Unlock Dr. Mario:</i></b> Beat Classic or Adventure with Mario without continuing or play 100 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Pichu:</i></b> Beat Event 37, Legendary Pokemon, or play 200 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Falco:</i></b> Beat the 100 Man Melee or play 300 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Marth:</i></b> Beat Classic or Adventure with the 14 original characters or play 400 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Young Link:</i></b> Clear Classic or Adventure with ten characters or play 500 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Ganondorf:</i></b> Beat Event 29, Triforce Gathering, or play 600 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock MewTwo:</i></b> Play 20 hours or 700 VS Matches
<b><i>Unlock Luigi:</i></b> Beat Luigi in Adventure (he appears if you finish Mushroom Kingdom with a 2 in the seconds, like 1:02 or 3:52)or play 800 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Roy:</i></b> Beat Classic or Adventure with Marth or play 900 VS matches
<b><i>Unlock Mr. Game and Watch:</i></b> Beat Classic or Adventure with every other character or play 1000 VS matches
Unlockable Arenas
<i><b>Mushroom Kingdom II:</i></b> Win Birdo from the Trophy Lottery
<i><b>Brinstar Depths:</i></b> Play 50 VS matches
<i><b>Fourside:</i></b> Play 100 VS matches
<i><b>Big Blue:</i></b> Play 150 VS Matches
<i><b>Poké Floats:</i></b> Play 200 VS Matches
<i><b>N64 Dream Land:</i></b> Beat Classic, Adventure, or Break the Targets with all 25 characters.
<i><b>N64 Kongo Jungle:</i></b> Beat the 15 Minute Melee
<i><b>N64 Yoshi's Island:</i></b> Hit the Sandbag 1350 feet in Home-Run Test.
<i><b>Flat Zone:</i></b> Unlock Mr. Game and Watch
<i><b>Battlefield</i></b> Beat All-Star with any character
<i><b>Final Destination</i></b> Beat all 51 Event Matches
Other Stuff
<i><b>All-Star Mode:</i></b> Unlock all 25 characters
<i><b>Score Display:</i></b> Earn a total of 5000 KOS (this will display your score in time mode.)
<i><b>Random Stage:</i></b> Open Brinstar Depths, Fourside, Big Blue, Poke Floats, Mushroom Kingdom II, and Flat Zone
<i><b>Sound Test:</i></b> Unlock all characters and stages
So there you have it, now go start unlocking and play this great game to its fullest!
It's the sequel to the smash hit Super Smash Bros that everyone has been waiting for! Featuring a starting cast of 14 fighters with more hidden characters and levels than you can shake a Beam Sword at!
You have several ways you can play <i>Melee</i>. First there is Classic mode, in which you fight a random assortment of characters in sequence to fight your way up to the evil Master Hand. Along the way you'll also be encountered with good old "Break the Targets" and "Race to the Finish" ("Board the Platforms" didn't make it to <i>Melee</i>).
Next is Adventure Mode. This is more uniform than Classic mode because you play the same levels. It may sound monotonous (and many do think it is), yet I find it to be a delightful side game. You go through levels from games, you fight your way through Mushroom Kingdom, get to dodge racers on the F-Zero track, and fly high over Corneria as you fight Fox and Falco on the Great Fox, then meet Bowser at the end.
As a fighting game, <i>Melee</i> has, of course, a multiplayer game, but not JUST a multiplayer game where you go in and fight. There are special types of Melees you can fight. You can fight giant size for a clash-of-the-titans remake, or tiny sized Melees for that ant-battle feel. Fixed Camera Mode just fixes on the battlefield and doesn't move, and Invisible Melee is self-explanatory! Theres even a Tournament mode for as many as 128 fighters (most are computer players, but wait till the GC Modem unviels! <i>MELEE!</i>)
Another addictive aspect of <i>Melee</i> are the trophies you can collect. Our very own Laser Link referred to them as the most addictive thing to collect since Pokemon cards! You get trophies for all sorts of things, such as beating classic mode with a character. You can wager the coins you win from fighting to the trophy lottery, where the more you bet, the more chance for a new trophy. The trophies can be anything. There's a trophy for the Super Scope, for every playable character, a Goomba, and some from games that never left Japan! There is also a side game during classic mode where three trophies fall from the sky, if you can hit any of them into the basket in the middle of the screen, you get to keep them, if not, well, maybe you'll see that trophy again eventually. There are 290 in total, can you collect them all?
There are also premade Events you can play, such as a battle with Pikachu where you may only inflict damage with Pokeballs and the Pokemon inside them.
Wow. Long review. But that just tells you how much there is to do in <i>Super Smash Bros: Melee</i>. I don't think I even covered a quarter of the cool stuff in this game. A must have, I repeat, MUST HAVE GameCube game! I rate it a 9.5!
The Mario Party series is getting a bit aged, as there isn't much new they can do with the series, however that doesn't keep <i>Mario Party 4</i> from being one hell of a fun game. Featuring over 50 Mini-games, 8 characters, 5 boards, a Party mode, and a Story mode, <i>Mario Party 4</i> is going to give your controller the biggest button-mashing bruising since Super Smash Bros. Melee.
It's a simple concept, one to four players can play in a board-game style game which end in a random mini-game after everyone takes their turn with the dice. Along the board, there are coin spaces, which I don't think I need to explain, Bowser spaces, which either calls one of the Koopa Kids to steal some of your coins, or the big bad Bowser himself, who then pulls some stunt, usually a Bowser game, wherein the loser usually either loses all his coins or all his items.
The Mini-games are a stroke of genius. Some of them are just so much fun to play, you'll be headed to Mini-game mode to play them over and over. Among a few of my favorites are Booksquirm, where the characters run around a huge book, avoiding falling pages by getting in holes in the pages. Domination is fun, you hit the A button as much as you can, racking up dominoes each time, then you knock them over after 10 seconds and find out who has the sorest thumb. Let's not forget the Battle Game Bowsers Bigger Blast, where there are switches to press. Each character takes their turn, one switch sets off a huge explosion. The process continues until only one remains. I could tell you more, but for the sake of continuity, I'll move on.
<i>Mario Party 4</i> is, obviously, at it's best with some friends to play with. If you're not a social gamer, fret not, there is plenty of fun to be had with this game by yourself. <i>Mario Party 4</i> will keep you coming back for more, and for that reason I rate this game an 8.5!
Luigi has won a mansion in a contest! Problem is he doesn't <i>remember</i> entering a contest! He calles Mario up and tell him the good news and Mario says he will meet him there and they'll celebrate. Luigi makes his way through a spooky forest before arriving at his mansion. He cautiously enters and sees everything is pitch dark. A ghost drops a key on the floor and Luigi uses it to open a door...where a ghost nearly scares him out of his skin! Then as the ghost closes in, a strange man with a vacuum cleaner starts to suck him up, but before he can, the ghost hits him and disappears. The man introduces himself as Professor Elvin Gadd (E. Gadd, get it?). Before he can say much else a bunch of ghosts appear and they make a run for it.
Back at Gadds lab he tells you that he has been hunting ghosts for decades, traveling the word and turning them into paintings using his invention, the <b>Ghost Portrificationizer!</b> Upon trying to capture a ghost recently though, he escaped and freed all the other imprisoned ghosts. He asks that while Luigi looks for Mario in the mansion, he would also try to get some of those prized ghosts back. Gadd gives Luigi another of his invention, (this is genius) <b>THE POLTERGUST 3000!</b> He also gives him a <b>Game Boy Horror</b> which is very useful. You can use it to check your map and inventory to name a few things. Armed with the Poltergust 3000 and the Game Boy Horror, Luigi enters the haunted mansion...
Luigi's Mansion is fun, the controls are very straightforward. Push the stick in the direction you want Luigi to go. To capture ghosts with the Poltergust 3000, you must first hit them with a beam from your flashlight, stunning them and showing you their "heart". Then you start to suck them up. To do that, simply press the control stick in the opposite direction of the ghost to Luigi. If the ghost is on the left of the screen, you'll want to press right, and so on and so forth. Little ghosts take only a bit of vacuuming, but bigger ones can take a few tries to get them all.
There are many types of ghosts in the mansion, some are straightforward and will attack when near you, but others can be a bit tricky. Some ghosts grab you from behind, while others can throw banana peels all over the place as you try to suck them in. In the house there are also 50 Boos. The Boos are the ones who freed the painting ghosts and Gadd wants them gone. He adds a special function to your Game Boy Horror which alerts you to a Boo (or Boo shaped object) hidden in a room.
One last thing, in the mansion is lots of MONEY. Its hidden in every nook and cranny, and it would not be a bad idea to collect it all, at the end of the game, how much money Luigi has is turned into your high score. How much can you make in a game?
Luigi's Mansion is a very entertaining game, its flaw is its length. There's about ten hours of total gameplay, which means it's not a good game for people who like ot get immersed in a good long game, but it is good for people who like games that can be beaten in a few days. This is great for a casual gamer. Its very fun, but it's lack of replayability costs it points, I give it a 7. Rent it and see if you like it before you shell out the money buy it.
Don't let the name fool you, <i>Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee</i> is not just a clone of Super Smash Bros. Melee, it is an original game that sci-fi fans everywhere will go wild for. Epic battles in real world cities with famous monsters like Megalon, King Ghidora, Rodan, and the all-powerful MechaGodzilla make this game one of the best fighters on the Cube today. Power-ups are scarce so you have little option other than to use every move in your arsenal to send your opponents flying.
You can fight in different sections of such cities as San Francisco, Tokyo and Monster Island with any of the 12 different characters. The visuals in the game are spectacular. The detail on the cities and monsters is absurdy well done, even the smallest detail isn't neglected. You can see the seemingly tiny cars you stomp on explode on the street below. The cities are also fully destructable, meaning if you jab at an opponent and miss or do a bit too much stomping around, you could take down buildings. As fun as this sounds (and it is), you have to make sure you don't overdo it. The army will attack whichever monster has done the most damage to the city with increasingly nasty weapons such as the freeze ray, which makes you a sitting duck for your opponent to hit you hard without chance of missing. The upside is, if you grab the other monster and toss him into a group of buildings, then the army considers him to have knocked them down and they start attacking him. It's a great sight to behold!
Controls are a bit clunky and do take some getting used to, especially if your used to the simple controls of SSB:Melee, once you have played for a while, it becomes easier to pull off those powerful attacks. As I mentioned earlier, the graphics are stunning and you even get a replay from different angles after every fight so you can watch in slo mo as that building you tossed smacks Rodan in his face. Oh, did I mention you can pick up and throw whole buildings? You can, and they do big damage too.
<i>Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee</i> is also a great multiplayer game. Up to four players can fight against one another in a last man standing match, a match to see who can do the most damage to a city in the given time, team battles, a survival mode where you fight against monster after monster and see how long you last.
It's got flaws though, for instance, when you first boot up the game, you have a weak choice of three playable monsters in 4 arenas, you must unlock everything else. Flying monster have a bit of a glitch too. Rodan can be soaring over the city and suddenly get hung up on an invisible wall and twitch there in mid-air for a few seconds before resuming flight. An option to change the sometimes ludicrously difficult computer players AI would also have been a welcome addition. Also the adventure mode is basically the same thing over and over, with rearranged monsters. There's no such thing as a perfect fighting game, but Godzilla made a fair attempt at being one. I give <i>Godzilla</i> a 6.5 and suggest you rent before you buy, as it may not be for everyone.
The evil wizard Garm has used the power of Runestones to unleash a great evil power named Skorn, who breaks free of Garms control and kills him. Skorn then begins to terrorize the eight realms and scatters the runestones so they can't be used against him.
The history of the arcade game Gauntlet has culminated up to this beautifully rendered game. The game is fairly easy to learn, with three different control styles so as to make it as uncomplicated as possible. In Gauntlet, you have your choice of 8 different characters, each with their strengths and weaknesses, and there are another 8 waiting to be unlocked. You have to throw weapons at enemies to kill them, and thats without powerups.
Powerups include anti death halos. Death can steal health and experience from you if it gets near you, with the halo, the opposite happens, you either gain health or an experience level. Also you can get the Hand of Death, which kills enemies you touch instantly for a short time. You can also charge your projectiles with electricity, fire, acid and other magic. You can find treasure to buy items or you can find them in the levels. Also a certain number of a certain type of crystal will open the doorway to another realm.
This game would be a dream come true for players of Dungeons and Dragons type games or earlier Gauntlet games. I give the game an 8.0 and recommend anyone with a Cube at least try the game. I myself never played any previous Gauntlets and I don't enjoy this type of genre typically, however this game was an exception, I enjoyed it very much.
