NGamer Issue 12 (August 2007)

AUGUST 2007

Cor, if last month's cover wasn't intimidating enough, I don't know how this Ring-like eye shot went down. Perhaps more controversially, there's the review score on the front cover.

The featured games this month couldn't be any more different from Mario Strikers and Super Paper Mario. Resident Evil 4 receives its imaginatively titled "Wii Edition", Kittsy raves about Manhunt 2 and even Trauma Center sees you hacking apart bodies with scalpels. There's an interesting piece on the ideal length of a videogame called “Is that it?”. The love-in for Eledees continues (specifically the level editor) - check this: “This level of interactivity is surely the way forward - imagine how good a Super Mario Bros level creator would be. Make it, Shigsy, go on- we won’t be friends with you anymore if you don’t.” Looks like Shigsy missed the NGamer crew.

There was definitely a different approach to Mario Party with a two-page spread called “Party Hits!”. NGamer call it Nintendo’s “critically maligned - yet hugely successful series” despite handing out 85 and 88 to the first two games. I’m sure Mario Party 5 got an 80 too and I remember that game being well-received. Castle didn’t like Mario Party 8 in his review but I know he tweeted earlier this year about his disdain for the series.

*REVIEWS*

Bingo! (85%+):

Good (70-84%):

Not so bad (50-69%):

On a related note, I played a bit of SSX Blur and found the controls were off. You try to steer left or right and it only seemed to work half of the time - was this noticeable for anyone else or am I doing something wrong? I remember previous SSX games being very responsive to control.

RE4 is a stone cold classic, an absolutely stunning game from top to bottom. I bought it as part of a personal drive to buy games in genres I wouldn't ordinarily touch, and it paid off big time.

I've only ever played one Mario Party game and I couldn't even tell you which one, although it was on the GameCube. Not a gamer's game, I would say, but good fun for the party I was at at the time.

Times were tough for The Cappuccino Kid in summer 2007, and the only eighty quid I had went towards NGamer Issue 12, Resident Evil 4 and Truama Centre Second Opinion. I didn't get on with Resident Evil 4 to be honest. Worse, I was furious that I'd planted £40 on that Truama Centre game - I'm pretty certain NGamer neglected to mention that it was a port of a DS game that I already had. Truama Centre is permanently 50p these days though, and to be fair it plays brilliantly with the pointer and nunchuck. I don't recall bothering with anything else that's reviewed here. On a side note, I bought that G1 Jockey game for 25p a while ago so I could break a note and pay for a bus up the road; I ended up trading it in for a loss.

I remember this issue fairly well, because I read it to buggery. That's a really good feature on the length of games, if anybody can find it.

G1 Jockey and another is coming to Switch.

Out of those games the only one I bought was RE4 which still plays best on Wii far as I'm concerned as the motion controls worked. I wouldn't be shocked to see it on Switch after Capcom have said they plan to bring more of their games to Switch.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Times were tough for The Cappuccino Kid in summer 2007, and the only eighty quid I had went towards NGamer Issue 12, Resident Evil 4 and Truama Centre Second Opinion. I didn't get on with Resident Evil 4 to be honest. Worse, I was furious that I'd planted £40 on that Truama Centre game - I'm pretty certain NGamer neglected to mention that it was a port of a DS game that I already had. Truama Centre is permanently 50p these days though, and to be fair it plays brilliantly with the pointer and nunchuck. I don't recall bothering with anything else that's reviewed here. On a side note, I bought that G1 Jockey game for 25p a while ago so I could break a note and pay for a bus up the road; I ended up trading it in for a loss.

I remember this issue fairly well, because I read it to buggery. That's a really good feature on the length of games, if anybody can find it.

Yeah I'd be peeved off if I spent £40 on Trauma Center too. I got through most of New Blood with my wife - that game is a riot in co-op, but looking forward to trying Second Opinion. I also picked it up for about 50p and if I don't play it soon I doubt I'll ever play it.

I don't have the hand-accuracy to play Trauma Center. Everyone would just be lasered.

Favourite bits so far:

Caption for a screenshot of what seems to be army barracks in Ghost Squad:

The The Simpsons Game has a screenshot from Bart's Nightmare instead:

That was a bit...

Mario Party 8 in a nutshell:

Looking at the previews section, I was genuinely excited about Soul Calibur Legends; given the design of the characters and their backstories, having an action adventure instead of a one-on-one fighter seemed like a good idea. Ha ha ha ha ha silly me.

Actually the games: I got the Wii version of RE4; whether it's better or worse than the Cube version I can't say, but I definitely remember a lot more about Leon's adventure, compared with a lot of games I've played since...

gjones wrote:

On a related note, I played a bit of SSX Blur and found the controls were off. You try to steer left or right and it only seemed to work half of the time - was this noticeable for anyone else or am I doing something wrong? I remember previous SSX games being very responsive to control.

I never had a problem steering, but I remember having a real problem triggering the special move/ability where you had to draw a symbol for a trick or something along those lines. Never worked for me.

Is anyone still up for these? I've not had the Wii on as I've been addicted to The Division and now have PES. With the SNES Mini arriving this week, the ol' motion controllers aren't going to be, well, motioning any time soon. I know the September '07 issue was quiet review-wise, but October does see the imminent coverage of Metroid Prime 3 and Mario Galaxy. I'd love to play Prime 3, particularly with Prime 4 on the horizon, but will be sinking my teeth in to Super Metroid.

Thoughts?

I'd really like to see these continue - they're my favourite threads on the forum. I've got nothing but fond memories of that period of gaming, and I masisvely enjoy reading everybody elses' recollections too.

Seconding Cappa - happy to see these continue. It's looking back over the reason most of us are here, after all! I will join you in playing Prime 3: it'll give me some impetus to replace my broken Wii Sensor Bar, which I've been dithering about for a couple of weeks.

Sort of, I wasn't much for the Wii or DS that I do like to look back and see what was around and think to myself I should have given that a go.

Even if just the review scores go up, we can all use that as a bases for chat.

I've got to admit Grant, I really love it! It's an excuse to read the old mags again, and, given that we started on the forum from said mag, it also allows us to use our 20-20 hindsight. If you're OK to carry on, I'd love it

Yeah I really enjoy reading these threads but I just never seem to get around to posting in them, I also have to download these early issues because I no longer have the real ones.