Category: Games

Holy crap… If you haven’t seen the in-game footage of Half-Life 2 yet, go and download it now. Screenshots have been appearring for the last month or so, and they’ve looked impressive, but not spectacular… But the video just blew me away. The lighting, terrain models and textures make it look like real life. The character models aren’t quite cinema quality, but they’re still shockingly good.

Wow. Looks like I’ve got until 30th September to upgrade my PC.

Yay! I just finished Metroid Prime earlier this evening. It’s an amazing game, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to add it to my all-time favourites list.

The visual design of the world is astonishing, the music is fabulously atmospheric, the puzzles are accessible without being overly simple, and the reward structure is brilliantly judged to keep you playing just that little bit more. The enemies throughout the game become increasingly tough, but the learning curve is tuned to help you get past them before they become frustrating. The bosses are bosses are tough–as they should be–but rarely do you get the impression that they’re impossible. It’s always a case of, “if I just try it one more time, I’m sure I can beat it!”

When I bought our Gamecube back in March, it was Mario Sunshine and Super Monkey Ball 2 that were the compelling reasons to buy it. Well, the Monkeys are up on eBay right now because they’re so damn frustrating, and Mario is coming dangerously close to that same fate. Just like with Super Mario 64, we’ve got to a point where it feels like a chore to have to get the next gold star/shine/silly-ass flying pig to progress to the next stage.

But Metroid Prime? That ought to have been the real reason I bought the ‘Cube. My thumbs still hurt, but it’s the pain of satisfying accomplishment.

We’ve had our Gamecube for just over two weeks now. The games we have for it are Super Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball 2, and Metroid Prime. Mario is currently seeing the most use, partly because Alex loves it, and partly because it’s just a great game. The puzzles are better signposted than in Mario 64, and the game leads you through the plot a bit more linearly. It also seems to have a better “reward” structure than Mario 64. You have to collect fewer shines (stars) before you get to a plot-advancing cut-scene, or a new area opens up. We like.

Metroid Prime is pretty damn good, too. Once I’d got used to the controls (no strafing! Well, there is, but you can’t strafe and run forward at the same time) the game opened up, and showed just how grand it is. The scenery is beautiful and atmospheric, the action is well paced, and–just as with Mario–the reward structure is exceedingly well judged. It keeps you hooked with the tantalising possibilities afforded by new power-ups, which open up more areas for you to explore, which in turn lead to more power-ups…. Very addictive.

The only one of the three that has been a bit of a disappointment is Super Monkey Ball 2. It’s got the “easy to learn, but hard to master” thing down pat, and it’s very easy to pick up for a quick game just before bedtime, but at times it’s just that little bit too frustrating. Also, the party games aren’t very entertaining if you’re playing it on your own. And the time I did have other people to play with, they didn’t turn out to be all that entertaining, either. (On the other hand, they were competing for our attention against 8-way Halo on 2 projector screens.) I suspect that this one may be up for the chop when Zelda comes around in May.

And a final note (for now) on controllers. The original Nintendo GameCube controller is a marvellous piece of functional and tactile design. Even more than the PS2’s DualShock controller, it feels like it is sculpted to your hands. And the octagonal bevels surrounding the joysticks, which allow you to easily lock on to a particular direction, and a stroke of genius. So if you have a choice between buying an original Ninendo controller and a MadCatz MicroCon, go with the Nintendo. Please. The MicroCon is horrid. The joysticks don’t have a decent rubberised surface, so your fingers keep slipping off them, and the buttons feel all clicky and loose–not at all like the finely judged springy resistance of the Nintendo pad. I’m note even sure if its shrunk-down size makes it better suited for smaller hands, because Alex (who is 2) can wrap his hands around the plain Nintendo controller just fine.

Yesterday I called around, er, a number of branches of Dixons in Scotland to see if I could find one with both a Gamecube and a copy of Super Mario Sunshine in stock. Fortunately I didn’t have to go too far. The Falkirk branch had ‘cubes, and one copy of Mario left. A very friendly assistant laid it aside for me, and Alex and I went there first thing this morning to pick it up.

For a change, the customer service at Dixons was excellent. Euan, the guy who had laid the ‘cube and game aside for me was there this morning, and we chatted for a good fifteen minutes about what accessories and games were worthwhile. He was a gamer himself, which meant he knew what he was talking about, rather than spouting the usual “Um, it’s got good graphics” twaddle. He did try to sell me the extended warranty (as they all have to try), but he was friendly about it. He didn’t make me feel under pressure to accept it, and of course I didn’t.

I came out of Dixons feeling all happy. Not just because I had a Gamecube tucked under my arm, but because I had been sold something by someone who cared about the product, and who cared about the store. I was made to feel like a valued customer.

The feeling didn’t last long. Alex and I had got up early and we hadn’t had breakfast yet. So we went into the Greggs bakery nearby for some breakfast rolls.

“I’ll have roll with bacon and sausage, and a plain white roll please.”

“Okay, so that’s a roll with bacon, and a roll with sausage, and a plain white roll.”

“No, a roll with bacon and sausage.

“You want both?

“Aye.”

“We don’t do both. Wait a minute–Suzanne? Can I do a roll with bacon and sausage in it?”

“No. Well, you could, but we’d have to charge you two pounds, for two rolls. The bacon and sausage aren’t individually priced.”

“So do you want two rolls, then?”

Sigh “No, I’ll just have one roll, with sausage, you muppets.”

I didn’t actually speak that last bit aloud. And I had a stronger insult in my mind than just “muppets”, but this is a wholesome family web site, and it’s not past the watershed yet. It’s not like the rolls were pre-made, either. They had metal catering trays of bacon and sausages, and they assembled the roll right in front of my eyes. But apparently they’ve never come across the concept of a bacon and sausage roll before. Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous…

(Oh, and later on in the afternoon I went out again and bought a copy of Super Monkey Ball 2. Monkeys! Balls! They’re super!)

This afternoon Alex and I traipsed around town, looking for a branch of Dixons that still had Gamecubes in stock AND was selling Mario Sunshine as part of the £99 bundle. Unfortunately, we had no luck. The special offer bundle varies from store to store: some branches allow you to choose from 5 games, whereas other branches give you a selection of 6–Mario being the sixth. It’s hardly unexpected, then, that the stores with Mario were sold out of ‘cubes. Also, as they’ve now reduced the price of all GC games to under £25, the game shelves were looking rather bare, too.

Some of the stores did say that they were expecting new ‘cube stock towards the end of this week. I’ll probably keep poking my head in every now and then to see what’s available.

I’m starting to wonder if the huge Gamecube price drop at Dixons isn’t part of some cunning plot by Nintendo to just shift large volumes of ‘cubes in advance of their big game releases this year (Metroid, Zelda), or just to have a stronger claim at second place in the console market in the UK (getting the edge on XBox).

Dixons and Nintendo would have to be in it together. A rumour “leaks” out of Dixons to the effect that they’re about to drop the GC from their retail line-up, and have dropped their prices to shift all their leftover stock. Nintendo puts out a denial. Everyone who had been thinking about getting a ‘cube at some point in the indeterminate future now thinks, “Hey, now’s the time to get one at Dixons, but I’d better grab one before they run out.”

Dixons shifts a couple of thousand units in the space of a week or two. Then they put out an official press release stating that they never intended to stop stocking the ‘cube (confirming Nintendo’s official line all along), and that the price reduction was just a special offer. Presto, you’ve just hooked a bundle of customer who might otherwise have just let the ‘cube pass them by, and waited for the next wave of consoles.

That would be pretty cynical, wouldn’t it?