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The Legend of Zelda - The Twilight Princess (GC)
by MikeBridges88
The last game on Gamecube and one of the first on Wii, is an amazing link in the Zelda franchise. Learning from the cartooney graphics of The Wind Waker, the Nintendo team went back to the Ocarina of Time, slightly more adult graphic style.
In the game you play as a teenage Link rather than the traditional child. Link is a ... farmer in Ordon Village outside of Hyrule. One day the children are stolen and Link makes chase. He comes across a wall of Twilight and is dragged in by a Shadow Beast. Link turns into a wolf and is imprisoned in the Twilight realm. There he meets an imp called Midna who helps you escape to find Princess Zelda. Link's told that a ruler called Zant has usurped the king of the Twili and is conquering Hyrule.
With the help of Midna, Link transforms between wolf and man completing tasks and puzzles like any good Zelda game. The doggy sense of wolf Link adds a wonderful mechanic to puzzle solving, and creates amusing dialogue with animals: Epona talks.
Definitely one of the greatest games on the Cube.
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Luigi's Mansion (GC)
by illogicology
Luigi's Mansion was a launch title for the Gamecube in the way back when of 2001. This was one of the first games I played on my shiny new console (right after Rogue Squadron, I was Star Wars mad back then.) While the game was short, it was a great experience and remains one of my favourite games on the 'cube.
The story is ... pretty simple but provides for a nice setup. Luigi has won a luxurious mansion in a contest he didn't even enter, arranging to meet Mario there; he arrives in the dead of night and finds the castle infested by ghosts. After being rescued by an old man with a modified vacuum cleaner, Luigi is informed that his prize has only appeared in the last few days and that Mario entered shortly before he arrived but hasn't yet left. The old man, Professor E. Gadd, provides Luigi with his ghost hunting vac, The Poltergust 3000 and a handy "Gameboy Horror" containing detailed maps of the mansion, and off you go to rescue Mario and solve the mystery of the mansion.
The castle is a giant maze of corridors and locked rooms, each room begins in the dark and must be cleared of ghosts before releasing a key to another part of the mansion. Ghosts range from simple, colourful spooks you'll find in every room to troubled spirits that must be appeased or distracted before you suck their souls into your hoover of doom. Each room in the mansion is essentially a small puzzle but part of a larger quest to unlock every room. Fortunately each room is interesting and what begins as a simple ghosthunting game unfolds into quite a varied and intriguing adventure.
Gameplay is original and not the traditional platforming style the series is famous for. Luigi is unable to jump or run, instead he shuffles around with his vac, flashlight at the ready. sucking up the basic baddies is simple, stun them with the flashlight then blast them with the vac. This becomes much more varied later as the game asks more of you before allowing you to suck up more powerful ghosts. You will also upgrade the vac as you move on, allowing you to blow elemental spirits out; burning, freezing or otherwise inconveniencing your foes. While sucking up your enemies can be tricky, it's largely very simple gameplay. The game focuses its difficulty on traversing the mansion and works better for it, I feel. The story moves along at a nice pace and thanks to a seamless joining of cutscene and gameplay, each revelation feels truly like part of your own adventure. The entirety of the game could probably be completed in a day but it feels so tightly designed that it never feels like a waste.
The presentation of the game is absolutely beautiful. Off the bat Nintendo seem determined to show the capabilities of the Gamecube here and some lovely effects are on show. The mansion is beautifully rendered and given a makeover in HD, it would probably still look great now. Luigi himself is probably the most dated element, but then he's wearing big white gloves and a big green hat. The lower polygon count shows up a bit more on these more stylised elements. Some of the most impressive features however are the particle effects and shading techniques. Everywhere he walks, Luigi kicks up realistic plumes of dust and throwing his flashlight around casts shadows and reflection around the room. Times may have moved on but Luigi's Mansion is one of those wonderful games that still seems to look exactly as it was supposed to look.
This is a game that also has a lot of fun with audio. Music here is based around the same theme, a slow comedically spooky piece of music that totally fits a haunted house in a cartoon world. This piece plays in the background for the majority of the game, something that probably should annoy but the music is understated enough to blend in. However, it's not the only music you'll here. As you work deeper into the castle, Luigi will begin to hum along with the music. Lose a bit of health and wander down a dark corridor, Luigi's humming will become distinctly nervous. It's a nice touch that illustrates just how full of character this game is. Every so often, Luigi will also shout out for Mario. He never comes but it's nice to see he cares.
As I mentioned, Luigi's Mansion is not a long game, nor is it a particularly difficult game. It is however, quite fun while being reasonably stimulating for the brain cells. It moves along comfortably with each room being something of its own exhibit. It looks lovely, even by today's standards and is a great title for all members of the family. Also, it's nice to see Luigi taking a starring role. I'm not too fussed for fictional sibling equality, but it puts a nice spin on series conventions and offers a bit of variety. I can firmly recommend this.
As with all gamecube titles, this can be played on a Wii, however it requires a Gamecube controller to play. These aren't hard to come by though.
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Universal Studios Theme Park (GC)
by illogicology
I still have very fond memories of the early days of the Gamecube. There were only a few games out, Luigi's Mansion had been to short; Super Mario Sunshine was a couple of months away. Rogue Squadron was still fun with friends and we still couldn't beat that monster lurking at the end of Piikmin. And then of course, there was Universal ... Studios, the runt of the litter.
Universal Studios is probably the worst game that ever fell upon the Gamecube. It proudly displayed its "Only For Gamecube" sticker while we Nintendo fans hoped it would go grace some other console with its bad luck. So, what's it all about?
Essentially Universal Studios isn't a game at all, instead it's a very long and tedious advert for the park. The box describes it as a virtual tour of the famous Universal Studios park complete with exciting games to play. So, how does this work out in the game? Well, you're a young guest at Universal Studios... that's true. You're greeted by a more annoying than ever Woody Woodpecker who gives you jobs to do. Mainly picking up litter. Y'see, the park is very busy, very dirty and queues are so long that waiting to go on the rides isn't worth the time. Yes, that is actually how this game portrays the park. I'm quite sure the developers were slipped a backhander from Disney's PR department because I wouldn't step foot in the miserable place present here.
So Woody Woodpecker wants you to keep his tip of a park tidy for him, in return for mucking out his filth, he rewards you with magic passes that allow you to bypass the huge queues for the rides. Finally we reach the game part of the game. And after all that picking up rubbish and exploring a really boring park, the fruit must taste ever so sweet, right? Wrong. It's a collection of some of the most boring minigames ever conceived, poorly coded and with no reward for completion.
Take, for example, the game's version of the Back to the Future ride. The original ride is a simulator trip that includes a lot of footage filmed with actors from the film series and creates a seamless story and real life action scene that is a fun ride and a nice moment for fans of the films. A video game version of such a ride, complete with the original footage and a fun game based on the twists and turns of the ride would be a nice piece of merchandise for Back to the Future fans around the world who couldn't travel to America just for the ride. Sadly, that's not on offer here. Rather we are treated to a horrendous, horrible looking game that involves driving a delorean along a mostly straight track, bashin a delorean in front. It includes no footage or sound from the original ride with the exception of the Back to the Future theme song looping in the background.
I'm not going to go into all the games, they're largely the same as this. Boring, terrible looking games, very loosely based on attractions from the park. The fact that they take so much effort to unlock, with none playable until you've collected quite a lot of rubbish, is horrendous. They're also incredibly easy and can be completed in no time at all. One game in specific, based on Jaws, took me only a minute and a half to complete. They only consist of single level challenges and there's no bonus for going back and beating your high score. (No high scores either) They're so bad however, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
It's rare to see a product that fails in so many ways as Universal Studios for the Gamecube. As a game, it fails completely. The actual "game" segments are locked away, the hub that binds these games is tedious and incredibly poorly designed and once the games are finally unlocked, they're horrible to play. It also looks incredibly poor, making nothing of the Gamecube's abilities.
As a virtual tour of the park or an advert, it achieves even less. A major focal point of the game is that the lines at Universal Studios are so ridiculously big that you have to do menial tasks for Woody Woodpecker and be granted a magic pass before you get in. Furthermore, it's full of litter and there's no much to do outside of the rides. The games representing the rides are not only poor games but make no attempt to communicate any of the charm or entertainment value I'm assuming the actual rides contain.
Where Universal Studios exceeds is as a demonstration of shoddy merchandising and cynical marketing. It offer nothing to the consumer in return for its initially rather high RRP (which soon fell, if I recall) but it has E.T and a Dinosaur on the box. So they know they'll sell a few.
Nintendo Gamecube games will run on any Wii console, though a Gamecube controller is needed to play them. However, don't buy this for anyone of any age for any reason.
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