NGC July 2002

Another strong month of games for the purple handbag. Page 6 through to page 45 is all previews, highlighting the sheer depth of great things to come. There was also an interesting interview with the rapper from Gorillaz (Del) which in 2002 was kind of a big deal.


*REVIEWS*

75-89% - Great fun, brilliantly programmed at times, but probably flawed.:

50-74% - Some great bits, some not-so-great bits. Decent but definitely problems.:

25-49% - Disappointing, stashed with faults and likely to be short of any quality.:

I've still got SSX Blur to play on the Wii but SSX Tricky is a god-damn CLASSIC. I've not played the first Pikmin and adore the second one, so that needs rectifying. Both Pikmin and Tricky are two of the cheaper Cube games so come payday, I'll DEFINITELY grab them. MUST. STOP. PLAYING. P. S. 4.

I've got the New Play Control Pikmin for the Wii. Got about halfway through before getting distracted by something... I should get back to it, but then there are about thirty games in the backlog that I could say the same thing about.

Dam I would have bought nearly all those games as a kid part from Dark Summit and Jeremy McGrath Supercross.

SSX Tricky is a god-damn CLASSIC right enough. It’s a unexplainable mystery as to why it hasn’t been given at least one update. It must be one of the most beloved games ever, surely? It’s one of the best games on any console it’s been on. On this topic, recently I was almost finished typing out a piece about the 2012 SSX reboot for the Crushing Disappointments thread, but I scrapped it when I really thought about it and realised I don’t like that game purely because it isn’t SSX Tricky.

It looks like there’s some good stuff this issue, and the volume of previews that they advertise on the cover helps to remind me how exciting a time it was to have a GameCube. It didn’t really sustain that early momentum in my opinion though. And Wario World wasn't as good as it looked, nosir.

If I recall correctly, they make the first Pikmin out to be the biggest disappointment ever because it only lasts fifteen hours (which is obviously mental). I think it’s better on Wii with the pointer controls, but it’s a stoater of a game regardless of where you play it. Definitely make sure youse do though!

I rented Spider-Man for a weekend when I was really, really ill, so it always reminds me of having the skits. Skitter-Man. Virtua Striker 3 has been dealt with really harshly, and worth kinder words than the reviewer gave it. It’s really cheap these days as well. They’re spot on about Legends of Wrestling though – that didn’t live up to even it’s fairly modest promise. Otherwise, there’s not too much else I remember here, other than buying 2002 FIFA World Cup, playing it for half an hour, hating it, and punting it back to Woolies for a refund after saying it was broken. Mechanically, it certainly was. It’s like FIFA 64 2 – bollocks!