NGC Issue 71 (September 2002)

SEPTEMBER 2002

Yeah yeah we're a little late with this one, but it features an insane 12-page Super Mario Sunshine review and it's apt to celebrate the game before the world goes all Odyssey crazy.

The full magazine is available for download here - http://kiwis.world/index.php/component/jdownloads/download/269-ngc-magazine/2813-071

*REVIEWS*

90%+ STAR GAME:

75-89%:

50-74%:

Two great Gamecube exclusives this month and while the 96 for Sunshine may feel excessive now, it was a darned good game in 2002. I did start playing it again recently on an emulator and it holds up well. I had Red Card back in the day and it's definitely a one-trick pony, but it's hilarious particularly in multiplayer. The camera zooms in on the referee at the final whistle so it was always fun to dropkick him in the 91st minute.

Ah, Sunshine. I asked my brother to get it for me for Christmas the year I got my Wii, not realising at the time that I would need a GC pad and memory card. Once I'd got both, SMS was my single player game of choice for a long time. Brilliant game - although, yes, time has not looked kindly at the 96% score there. Yershk.

"Reassuringly familiar" and "fantastic fun" it may be, but to be honest I was never one of these folk who regarded Sunshine as 'the second best platformer ever made, after Super Mario 64'. I actually thought there were quite a few platformers on the N64 that were better than it, like the first Banjo, any maybe even Rocket: Robot on Wheels. Even on the PS2, Jak & Daxter just did more with it's ideas. That said, I do agree with Geraint Evans saying that it's "everything you'd ever want it to be: happy, colourful, colourful, challenging, sprawling and beguiling". Those are my memories of Sunshine, of what's definitely still a very sound game.

I've just had a quick gander at the rest of the issue. It's so clear how much hard work went into each magazine. They weren't fannying about when they called it "The World's Biggest GameCube Magazine!" on the cover. At least at the start, NGC was really good value at £3.50.

Also, I can't believe that I'd forgotten all about Dr. Kitt's Game Clinic. That was a genuine NGC highlight each month.

Agreed. I was just looking at the NGamer five years later being £4.99 and by that price hike, an NGamer in October 2017 would (conveniently) be worth £7.

I do like how Turok was still a big deal at this stage in the Cube's life. Was anyone a fan of Eternal Darkness? It never hooked me gameplay-wise.

Nah, same here, I wasn't that into Eternal Darkness, gameplay-wise or by the visuals. I thought it looked like an N64 game, and that was the worst thing possible in late 2002, even though I played N64 all the time just six months earlier.

What a month Sunshine and Eternal Darkness which are both bangers, I even recently played some Sunshine.

ED suffered from coming out after RE:Make which showed what you could do with the GameCube in the genre but still a top notch game and one of my favourites on the system, games like it is why we need a VC on Switch with Cube games.

I think I also bought ZooCube back in the day and I do own in my collection.

Went back and looked at Augusts issue and it is so weird reading about Perfect Dark Zero, Cube being Nintendo's last system also what games they're talking about in it's first year like Sunshine, Wind Waker and now 15 years later where getting a simliar line up.

Last month I would have likely got Lost Kingdom, WWE X8, Bomberman Generations and 007 Agent Under Fire but on Xbox.