ааа» IE <. 7] % “па NUS ER NUTS тх The #1 МұЙйодате Magazine ч 4 E ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA PLUS: -PS3 UPDATE - 17 | | = HDTV GUIDE FIR: THE DA VINCI CODE AND МВА BALLERS: PHENOM — |^ 5 „ШШШ ME © a YE ЖЕНЕ GALAGTIG BATTLE ARENA, Captured by a deranged media mogul, you're now forced to compete for your life in the scarred arena of an underground * > æ game show. The good news? You're not alone. You've got badass robot friends to help blast you through anything. Because it's not just how you fire your/weapons, it's how you fire your commands. as Play the mobile game now! - Text “RATCHET” to 4SONY (47669) ^a www.us.playstation.com www.rcarsenal.com Ratchet: Deadlocked 15-а trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Created and developed by Insomniac Games, Inc. ©2005 Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Online icon is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Online play requires Internet connection, Network Adaptor (for Fantasy Violence PlayStatione2) or PlayStatione2 with internal network connector, and Memory Card (8MB) (for PlayStatione2) (each sold separately). “PlayStation” and the "PS" Family Mild Lannuado 050 are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "Live In Your World. Play In Ours." is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. па -anguag ©2005 Sony Pictures Digital Inc. All rights reserved. Standard messaging rates, terms and conditions will apply. May not be available from all services previders or for all handsets. Check with your services provider for details. Walkman is a trademark of Sony Corporation. The symbol device is a trademark of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. The Sony and Ericsson trademarks are used under license from Sony Corporation, or Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, respectively. 5 2 5) % g & > LIVE IN YOUR WXRLD. BROADBAND ONLY С... е Р 2 PLAY ІМ OURS T. LLL 7 \ ШШЕ | — x шт ЖЗ ПА ШІ % ce ~ x ý caturing Music from: 2PAC, PUBLIC ENEMY GETO BOYS, KRS-ONE, TEGO CALDERGN AND MERE! MATURE 17+ Blood and Gore Drug Reference Intense Violence хвох sexual Themes "4 " 1 VY € СЭГ Е otrong | anguage =] ONLINE ENABLED BROADBAND ONLY 25 to Life © 2005 Eidos. Developed by Avalanche Software, LLC and Ritual Entertainment, Inc. Published by Eidos, Inc. Creative direction by Hwy Productions. Avalanche and the Avalanche logo are trademarks of Avalanche, LLC. 25 to Life, Eidos and the Eidos logos are registered trademarks of the Eidos Group of Companies. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. ‘PlayStation’ and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Online play requires Internet connection and Memory Card (8MB) (for PlayStation 2) (each sold separately). The Online icon is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox Live, the Live logo, and the Xbox logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries and are used under license from Microsoft. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. Game Experience May Change During Online Play. "PROTECT SOCIETY AS THE BOYS IN BLUE OR JOIN A GANG AND WAGE WAR ON IT” - PSM 7% www.25tolife.com L AVALANCHE DYNAMICS SOFTWARE 4 EVERYONE Visit www.esrb.org for updated rating information. ESRB CONTENT RATING WWW.BSrb.0rg Syn tva p e: JU . Y " 2 5 o Thee L. SMS CR. Y 75 RIDGE RACER™6 ©2005 NAMCO LTD., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, the Xbox logos and the Xbox Live logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners, s ON Cis diis Pn РИ 3g ds Жак Pas ылады 8 СО HEAD-TO-HEAD ІМ TIRE-SQUEALING ONLINE MULTIPLAYER ACTION. ха PARES EM RACES S FEEL THE FULL-THROTTLE EFFECTS Я OF THE EVOLVED NITROUS SYSTEM. zs THE ORIGINAL TOUR DE CENTRIFUGAL FORCE IN DRIFT RACING os ud i қ HAS OFFICIALLY LEFT ITS IMITATORS IN THE DUST. < ; RIDGE RACER 6 DOLES OUT ONE NITROUS-PUNCHING, WHITE-KNUCKLED RIDE AFTER ANOTHER THROUGH A ЕСІ HARROWING ARRAY OF HAIRPIN TURNS. AND WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS, eit. YOUR RACING SKILLS WILL REVEAL IF YOU'RE AMONG THE FEARLESS OR THE FORGOTTEN. “IT’S EVERYTHING A RIDGE RACER FAN COULD WANT OUT OF A NEXT-GEN TITLE." | —&AMESPY | “THESE MACHINES WERE FAST AS HELL ТО DRIVE." —тир.сам ™ IDGE RACER | AVAILABLE NOW ----ұ----------- Е E. A TUE Н boy from a village Ehe war spared, à troubled url on the run. Н traveler and an artist. Together they will save the world. а^ ” Welcome Со Wild ARMS Ч, Ehe latest chapter in the popular % Wild ARMS series. Featuring а new cast of characters, an original T Storyline and many new innovations. Use the new HER battle system to integrate strategy, action, and speed into battles. JKS = GAMES © ПІШІНІНЕ Ы com Fantasy Violence М ау5 ta Li O п ы e Wild ARMS is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. © 2006 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Mil d Lan guage All Rights Reserved. "PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. БЫ (ОП GRANDIA Heroes come together as their world is torn apart. ur / ч. А: 6: E va] die» Your historic flight to the mainland is interrupted by the appearance of a beautiful communicator on | the run. She is the only one who can speak tot SQUARE ENIX. www.square-enix.com Published by Square Enix, Inc. Fantasy Violence Mild Language © 1997, 1999, 2000 GAME ARTS. © 2005, 2006 GAME ARTS/SQUARE ENIX All Rights Reserved. 3 Character illustration: YOU YOSINARI. GRANDIA is a registered trademark of GAME ARTS. : Use of Alcohol PE SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are trademarks of Square Enix Co., Ltd. "PlayStation" and the Ey t "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is a od E trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. Cooperation provided by Fontworks Japan, Inc. UE LETTERS 14 In a special trip down memory lane, we offer modern-day answers to Classic EGM letters PRESS START Happy home to our news, previews, and features for 200 issues and counting... 20 MOORE’S LAW We speak in past, present, and future tense with Xbox 360’s daddy 32 THE DA VINCI CODE The hit novel is becoming a movie which is spawning a game ina synergy orgy for the ages 36 AFTERTHOUGHTS: STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT Il We speak geek to the makers of the game that finally lets us kill Jar-Jar 42 NBA BALLERS: PHENOM This arcadey b-baller takes a lesson from Grand Theft Auto 44 AFTERTHOUGHTS: STUBBS THE ZOMBIE A lively chat with makers of the game that features the most flatulent of the undead 48 PS3 UPDATED All the latest haps with Sony’s approaching dream machine 56 HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION 101 We break down all this HDTV mumbo-jumbo so you don’t have to GAME OVER Insert coin to continue 116 SEANBABY’S REST OF THE CRAP 118 CROSSWORD/GRUDGE MATCH 120 OLD SCHOOL 121 NEXT MONTH 122 HSU & CHAN ү гд 12) ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS Editor-in-Chief Dan "Shoe" Hsu Robert Ashley, Tom Byron, Marc Camron, Executive Editor Mark MacDonald Che Chou, Karen Chu, David Clugston, Managing Editor Jennifer Tsao Robert Coffey, Kevin Convertito, Jon Senior Editor Crispin Boyer Dudlak, Shawn Elliott, Greg Ford, Richard Previews Editor Shane Bettenhausen Li, James "Milkman" Mielke, Christian Reviews Editor Demian Linn Nutt, Jeremy Parish, Vincent S. Proce, News Editor Bryan Intihar Jared Rea, Ryan Scott, Seanbaby, Gerry International Editor John Ricciardi Serrano, Greg Sewart, Evan Shamoon, Intern Kathleen Sanders Justin Speer DESIGN Р Р Founder Steve Harris Art Director Monique Convertito Associate Art Director Stefan Belavy п Intern Melissa Tribur 12 e ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com contents issue 200. february 2006 COVER STORY: HEAD HONCHOS Anne Marie Miguel Account Executive Brent Martyn President Scott C. McCarthy Production Manager Monica Brent Southwest Vice President of Sales Scott McDaniel Southern California and Arizona Vice President of Operations and Business CIRCULATION Regional Sales Director Development Bill Daniher Consumer Marketing Director of Retail Leslie C. Gelfand Vice President and Editorial Director Sales William Michalopoulos Account Executive Rita Kline John Davison East Group Creative Director Simon Cox SALES AL, AR, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, Vice President of Sales Scott McDaniel KS, KY, LA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, COPY DESK Senior Director of Advertising Sales MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, Copy Chief Tom Edwards Marci Yamaguchi OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, Copy Editors Greg Ford, Susie Ochs Territory Managers & Acct. Execs. VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY, Canada Gaming Accounts Regional Sales Manager PRODUCTION Northwest Andrew Reedman Senior Production Manager Regional Sales Director Amy Mishra Account Executive Jessica Reback Consumer Accounts Senior Director of Consumer Advertising Sales Marc Callison West Regional Sales Director Laura Hill East Regional Sales Director Bruce Kaplan Account Executive Jessica Reinert Automotive - Detroit Regional Sales Manager Ken Stubblefield Promotions Manager Wendy Donohue Senior Advertising Coordinator Tipler Ubbelohde Administrative Assistant Lynn Fortunato Sales Assistant Tiffany Orf 1UP.com Editor-in-Chief Sam Kennedy Senior Manager of Client Services Alex Jakovleski Senior Manager of Ad Operations Adam Carey Manager of Ad Operations Steven Ng Audience Development Manager Nopadon Wongpakdee ХВОХ 360: THE NEXT WAVE You can’t keep playing Geometry Wars Evolved "* forever...check out our quick overview of the spring's * most promising next-gen releases for the Xbox 360 MARKETING Senior Director Rey Ledda Research Director May Tong PR Manager Jason Freidenfelds Marketing Coordinator Vanessa Alvarado Marketing Graphic Designer Drew Hathaway To contact Sales & Advertising, please call 415-547-8000 (Contact anyone on this masthead via e-mail using: firstname lastname @ziffdavis.com) ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA INC. Chairman & CEO Robert F. Callahan President, COO, and Interim CFO Bart W. Catalane Executive Vice President & Editorial Director Michael J. Miller General Counsel & Secretary Gregory Barton Executive Vice President, Presidents Scott C. McCarthy (Game Group) Sloan Seymour (Enterprise Group) Jason Young (Consumer Tech Group & Ziff Davis Internet) Senior Vice Presidents Jasmine Alexander (Technology & Sales Operations) Kenneth Beach (Corporate Sales) Jim Louderback (Editorial Director, Internet) Angelo Mandarano (Sales and Marketing, Internet) маи Schwartz (Custom Solutions roup) Elda Vale (Research/Market Intelligence and Corporate Marketing) Vice Presidents Ira Becker (Internet) Aiden Colie (CTO, Ziff Davis Internet) Bill Daniher (Ops and Business Development, Game Group) John Davison (Editorial Director, Game Group) Sara DeCarlo (Consumer Marketing & Database Management) EDITORIAL You'd think after 199 issues and two Top 100 Games lists, we'd have our s*** together. But nope. Screaming, cursing, hair pulling, eyeball gouging...and that's just EGM on normal deadlines. Throw in a few supernova discussions about what were the best 200 games of their time, and—well, it'd be illegal in 43 countries for me to describe what went down in those meetings. You know, Geneva Conventions and all... Part of the problem, naturally, is every editor working here has a different idea of what was a great game at the time. Some thought Panzer Dragoon Saga was a much better game than Final Fantasy VII (relative to when they were released); others didn't agree. Pong: Should that get the automatic No. 1 spot because it was pretty much the only game in town at the time? Or did other games make bigger impacts later? What multiplayer games absorbed our lives more? Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, Tetris Attack, Halo, Halo 2, Super Bomberman, GoldenEye 007...? Do we have enough perspective on newer games like Guitar Hero or Resident Evil 4 to put them on our list? Great, now | have a headache just thinking about all the stuff we had to think about when we first put this list together. But it was all worth it—it took a while and cost us dearly, but we have our Top 200 Games of Their Time all ready for you. We one (hundred) upped our previous Top 100 lists with a new spin (the whole “of their time" thing versus our old lists of games we would still enjoy today), quotes from all over the industry, and of course, the extra 100 games. Naturally, any list like this is bound to cause controversy, because no one out there will 100 percent agree with us, no matter what order we put these games in. So, you have several outlets for your frustration: our letters mailbox (no explosives or diseased powder, please), egm.1UP.com (where you'll get to nominate games that we may have missed, then see the Top 25 vote getters), and throwing some plates at a brick wall (or counting slowly to 200, if that works better for ya). Whew. See you in Issue #201. —Fditor-in-Chief, Dan “Shoe” Hsu ac , er 24: a 2-і ғы | ій | ШШ! Ммеңетесетіді > к= 2225 "n Ави | ра ы тт ГМ >< мы кек mm fi 3 nea ware j " м эз „т-с же» Cover illustrator Vincent S. Proce rocked all four of our collector's edition covers, which join end to end to form one long, butt-kicking scene. Note: Because we had to assign this cover-art project months in advance, the characters on the cover may not be represented in the Top 200 list. We didn't have our list finalized at the time, so we just had Vincent draw historically significant game characters, period. REVIEW CREW 100 Perfect Dark Zero 102 Project Gotham Racing 3 103 Quake 4 109 Samurai Shodown V 110 Crime Life: Gang Wars 110 Tokobot 111 Ape Escape Academy 104 Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones 106 50 Cent: Bulletproof 106 NCAA MVP 06 107 Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows 108 America's Army: Rise of a Soldier `. eras 27" 112 Electroplankton 112 Final Fantasy IV Advance 108 Ape Escape 3 109 Wild Arms 4 113 Reviews Wrap-up 115 Reviews Archive SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE Subscription Service 800-779-1174 Int'l Canada 303-604-7445 E-mail subhelpG'egmmag.com Aaron Goldberg (Market Experts) Barry Harrigan (Internet) Kristin Holmes (International Licensing) Michael Krieger (Market Experts) Rick Lehrbaum (Internet) Carlos Lugo (Production) Eric Lundquist (Editor-in-Chief, eWEEK) Chris Maginn (Internet) Stephen Sutton (Internet Audience Development) Stephen Veith (Enterprise Group Publishing Director) Monica Vila (Event Marketing Group) Randy Zane (Corporate Communications) All content copyright © 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc. Reproduction, modification, or transmission, in Jim McCabe (PC Magazine) IT West Coast ; Scott McDaniel (Sales, Game Group) Senior Technical Analyst whole vd in part, by any means, Hs O'Reilly (Event Marketing n Bill Sella without written permission from еп Pearlman (Editor-in-Chief, CIO Insight) Desktop Administrator ; ; ; Beth Repeta (Human Resources) Nick Kalister Ziff Davis Media inc is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 13 giant controllers, dropouts, and evil gross games We interrupt this Letters section to bring you old EGM letters, reanswered for our 200th issue. Do not be alarmed. We'll resume reading the mail from our friends in the pen next month. delayed again | am writing to your magazine because | just found out about the April 2000 delay of Perfect Dark. | couldn't even wait for December to come around and buy the game, but instead Nintendo had to delay it. Don't get me wrong; | would rather have a good/delayed game than a game that has flaws in it because the development team rushed it. But by the time Perfect Dark is out, the Nintendo 64 is going to look really dated compared to the other systems out there. — Matt Holt Sure, Perfect Dark ain't the prettiest thing on the Xbox 360, but if you can get past the weird shine, the cheesy charac- ters, and the...oh, the first one? Yeah, it looked like crap. EV C КЄ # ғғ. Joanna Dark never shows up on time. / POST OFFICE Brother In EGM, l've noticed references to a game called Choaniki: Great Brother. I'm still hav- ing trouble convincing myself this wasn't a hoax, due to the fact that the premise of the game sounded so incredibly stupid. Рт not a homosexual so it may seem typical that | think this game sounds stupid. However, I’m not homophobic, either. What does bother me is that they would put such blatant sexuality in a videogame. You play games because they’re fun, not because they turn you on. If you play a game for sexual stimulation, you’re pretty pathetic. There are magazines for that. —Kevin Brazee Why do you feel the need А 5 “ to sexualize | 4 а game about half-naked men who shoot rockets from their crotches and dry hump each other? It’s Japanese. They сап be weird. Compatibility | thought your article on the 16-bit systems (EGM #4) was awesome! | have a question about the TurboGrafx-16 machine. You said it used cards similar to the Sega Master System's cards. Since they are close to identical, could you play Sega cards on the TurboGrafx or vice versa? —Joe Neikirk Yeah, totally. Also, you can plug your American appliances right into European wall sockets, margarine tastes just like butter, and the True Crime series is on par with Grand Theft Auto. finally honored | was very disappointed with your Pokémon aptitude test in Issue #124. All | had to do was simply say that | don’t wear Pokémaniac underwear and, poof, lm not a Pokémaniac. That is 100 percent bullshiznit. | can sing the whole Pokérap, name all 151 Pokemon in less than a minute, and I’m known for Rambling and ranting from our message boards, boards.1URcom (look for Electronic Gaming Monthly's forums) - жө ж Asteroids or Space Invaders? TLS: The one with the spaceship. 14 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com РІС ver 3: Those games are old! Next thing we know, you'll be asking, “Who was around when polio was finally eradicated?” END3R: In Space Invaders, you actually kill stuff, right? Killing versus nonkilling... yeah, Space Invaders. Ozcatter: Space Invaders. Nothing's better than a roll of quarters, a 2 liter of Shasta, and my Rush mix tape. DTJAAAAMJSLM: Space Invaders. Asteroids is too nonlinear! Viewdrix: Galaga. Duh. Meta Knight: Godspeed, crew of the SS Triangle. TemplePilot: Space Invaders. | simply thought the narrative was stronger. NeoMaximum: WTF are those games? Thanks for your comments. Your illegible name and decade-old address mean you won't be win- ning a game. But please, enjoy this box art. running around and throwing my poor little dog on my friends and bellowing "Growlithe gooooo!” (I know, it's sad.) Your Pokémon test was as inaccurate as they come. —Elmo18497 The Correspondence Night School of Pokémon Studies hereby awards the retroactive status of "Pokémaniac" to the obviously dedicated trainer Elmo18497. If this man isn't a Pokémaniac, then who, pray tell, is? CONTACT EGM E-mail us at: EGM@ziffdavis.com Or write to: EGM Letters 101 2nd Street, 8th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 For subscription help, contact: E-mail: subhelp@egmmag.com Web: http://service.egmmag.com Phone: (800) 779-1174 To order back issues: E-mail: back_issues@ziffdavis.com тезге (—M—M емее . Crispin Boyer at crispin_boyer@ziffdavis. com. Pronto! the thrill | just found out that Thrill Kill won't reach store shelves because publisher EA won't release it. Now, | don't know about anyone else, but | don't want someone deciding for me what 1 can and can't play. Is this not what they made ratings for? If a child gets a copy of these types of games, then some First angry mom Please cancel my subscription immediately. As a mother of a 12- and 13-year-old, | am appalled at the gross and sexually revolting advertisements you have allowed in your publication. You should consider changing your name to EGM: Evil Gross Magazine. In recent issues, | have seen themes of presumed a jihadist—into custody. He's been held at Guantanamo to this day, and while we're sure he can handle physical torture, we've received word that inter- rogators regularly flush copies of Street Fighter Il: Turbo down the toilet in his presence. Stay strong, Sushi! parents are not doing their jobs. But don't zero satanic worship, sexual bondage, decide for us (adults) what we can and | just rented Mortal Kombat and just plain violence! The straw can't play. Mythologies for the that broke the camel's back was the Spawn ad with the guy's arm ripped off. If you guys are looking for shock value, you just succeeded in shock- ing yourself out of a subscriber. —Sharon Stewart —Kevin Newell ^ PlayStation, and | would like to point out a serious mistake in the instruction manual. The items section mentioned that "Sub-Zero is able to generate ice as cold at minus 500 degrees Fahrenheit by absorbing the sur- rounding air." І would like to point out that this isn't possible. Absolute zero is defined as "the lowest theoretical temperature a gas can OM MORTAL KOMBAT CS S s MY THOLGG its TEPA PlayStation jè We’re with you, Kevin. Hey, EA: Grow some stones and bring out Thrill Kill for the PS1. The world is finally ready for it. ЕТТ, Sushi-X Does Sushi-X really run around in his ninja outfit all the time? Wow, this makes old EGMs sound way more awesome than they actually were. innovation | don't know if it's just me, but I’m begin- —(Chad Yes, Sushi always wore his full ninja outfit, and it was a great joke until a fateful late-night deadline session in 2002 stopped the laughter forever. Sushi, decked head-to-toe in black ninja threads, stepped out to grab a burger. Unfortunately, a CIA antiterror task force raided the burger joint, taking Sushi— reach," and is measured at minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. —Charles Kinnin Jr. No, absolute zero is defined as “a guy who rents Mortal Kombat Mythologies (which is bad enough), and then fact checks the instruction book.” GAME DESIGN-O-RAMA Got proof that game design is best left to the pros? Send your concept (with art) to EGM@ziffdavis.com, subject: Design-o-rama INTELLIVISION ER Be My New Daddy Meet Eric. He’s got everything a kid needs: a loving mom, imaginary friends, and a passion for professional bowling. What he doesn’t have, ning to become bored with videogames in general. Come on, we've seen every type of game imaginable: shooters, action, simulations, puzzle, racing, and role-playing games. We've seen a lot of gimmicks like the Power Glove, the U-Force, and Sega's Master System 3D glasses. None really worked. Either companies need to come up with something original, or there are going to be some gamers like me leaving the hobby. —Michael Max And so it began, the call for innovation. A cry that echoed across the world, impaling the derivative, me-too games; bankrupting the makers of worthless, gimmicky peripherals; and destroying annual sequel franchises forever. Or not. huge controllers | just want to say "kudos" to publisher Capcom for having the huevos to take a huge risk on that monstrosity of a controller for its upcoming title Stee/ Battalion. You could argue that the company is a pioneer for bringing the arcade experience home. | wondered if you folks think this is going to be a new trend or just a fluke? —Jake The Steel Battalion controller is consid- ered a child's toy these days. For a taste of the present, try Namco's Space Shuttle Complete, which ships with a life-size shuttle cockpit with over 2,000 switches and knobs, and retails for around $17,999. We've been stuck in the tutorial for over eight months пом... 3% thanks to inoperable brain cancer, is a dad. Meet Herb. He's a budding pro bowler with everything going his way...everything but love. Help Eric play Cupid between Herb and his mom. Help Herb win the World Bowling Cup. Help Eric’s mom bring home what Eric wants most: a father. With Be My New Daddy, your Intellivision just got more heartwarming. Box of tissues sold separately. The pinnacle of controller ац TN excess or the birth of a new era? —Robert Ashley 16 е ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com ‚ EDITOR'S CHOICE GAME OF SHOW" RACING” ef AWARD” -Hardcore Gamer Mag -DailyGame.net -Gamespy + һы ee FEBRUARY 2006 SEGA is registered in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. SEGA, the SEGA logo and FULL AUTO are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SEGA Corporation. © SEGA Corporation, 2005. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, the Xbox logos, the Xbox Live logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. Шиш à THEY' VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU PINAL НІП АТ N T Ж НО ТЕТЕ Since 1997, the entire world has been gripped by their adventure. Now you can experience the explosive continuation of the FINAL FANTASY VII story. Coming soon on 2-disc Special Edition DVD and for PSP" SQUARE ENIX. [| Www. square-enix.com SONY PICTURES HOME www. SonyPictures.com/finalfantasyvii DVD UMD VIDEO = =.=. DODOLBY! VIDEO PRO LOGIC O "IPG-13|PARENTS STRONGLY CAUTIONEDK€2» FOR SEQUENCES OF INTENSE SCI-FI ACTION VIOLENCE ® © 1997, 2005 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. CHARACTER DESIGN: TETSUYA NOMURA. FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark of Square Enix Co., Ltd. ADVENT CHILDREN is a trademark of Square Enix Co., Ltd. =” = and “UMD” are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Dolby, Pro Logic, and the double-D symbol are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. press start МЕТІ Peter Moore, Xbox VP, - — holding his Xbox 360 with —— — eustom-painted faceplate. A қ и A SUI Roe aco А МТЕМОО5 NEXT CONSOLE WILL MISS OUT ON THE GAMES COMING TO THE PS3 AND XBOX 360? NINTENDO EXEC REGGIE Photographs by \ \ David Clugston 20 e ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com М 1 MOORE'S LAW He took on Sony and Nintendo. He's of elobal importance to Microsoft. And he hates our Kameo reviews. What does Peter Moore think of the Xbox 360's past, present, and future? eter Moore should be tired. P Today, the Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Retail Sales and Marketing for Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division (translation: He has to make Xbox 360 the No. 1 console in the world) woke up early enough to get in a 6 a.m. workout. So he could make this 8 a.m. interview with us. So he can work a full day afterwards. So he can finish in time to do a 5:00 p.m. photo shoot with us later. So he can wrap that up and work through the night (when it's busi- ness hours in Japan). So he can fly out to Tokyo in the morning. Just another 16-hour workday for the guy. But Moore isn't tired. He's bright- eyed awake and ready to discuss the Xbox 360's recent problems and future prospects. The man seems to draw from an endless supply of energy whenever he talks to the press, which is good for him, because this interview is no walk in the park.... —Dan “Shoe” Hsu The Past: Launch Time EGM: What was your big- gest worry leading up to the Xbox 360 launch? Peter Moore: | think you always worry when you're launching brand-new hard- ware, something as complex and next generational as this, that software won't be ready in the quantity and quality that you hope for on day one. But our biggest concern is getting the right launch titles out and meeting the genres that we need to for gamers' tastes. | think that now as | look back on it, we obvi- ously did a phenomenal job, getting 18 titles out on day one, spanning just about every genre. | guess the only slight disappoint- ment is that E/der Scrolls IV: Oblivion didn't make it, that we didn't have a [role-playing game]. But there's never really been an RPG at the launch of any major console anyway, and Elder Scrolls is not far behind. EGM: How did the 360 launch compare to the Dreamcast’s, which you worked on, and PS2's? PM: Well | certainly think the PlayStation 2, even by [Sony's] own admission, didn't have strong games at launch. | think the Dreamcast had some great games at launch, but it didn't have the abil- ity to sustain itself past the first six months, and of course it didn't have Electronic Arts on the platform at any point during its life cycle. So we're delighted with the quality and the quantity of titles at [Xbox 360's] launch on a global basis. EGM: You really didn't need a Halo to launch the Xbox 360, did you? PM: No, | don't think we did. It was never really in the plans. Clearly, when you're shipping Halo 2 the year before the launch of a new platform, to expect [developer] Bungie to then immediately move on to a brand-new architecture and bring out a third iteration of a franchise worthy of being one of the greatest franchises in videogame his- tory, it's unreasonable. So, we didn't believe we needed it. We felt that titles like Perfect Dark Zero would provide that first-person shooter fan with the fix they needed on launch day, particularly with the online ele- ments of that title. It’s nice to have [Halo 3] still in your back pocket, | guess. EGM: What was your favorite launch game? PM: Kameo! [Laughs] Some of the reviews are a little iffy—Shoe—but | think the game is gorgeous. | think the game, when you spend time with it, is very immersive. | continue to play it and discover things that | missed when | went through certain levels ...the PlayStation 2 didn't have strong games at launch.’ the first time. Just from a pure, lush, visual point of view, and some innovation in the gameplay...I’m real happy to call out Kameo as my favorite title. Clearly, Perfect Dark Zero is doing very, very well, and then from a third-party point of view, Call of Duty 2 is leading the pack from what | understand right now. EGM: So we know you have a beef with our Kameo reviews. You've even mentioned you wanted to see a re- review, which ain't hap- pening, by the way.... PM: I just felt that a launch title of that magnitude that's come from [developer] Rare deserves a bit more in-depth of a review. When you have a page divided by three people, a large paragraph each, it just didn't seem up to the quality of the reviews that l've begun to expect and enjoy from Kameo: Elements of Power...do the five of you out there who've played this game agree with our review scores? (6.0, 6.0, and 7.0 out of 10) FILS-AIME SAID IN A RECENT SPEECH THAT THIRD-PARTY DEVELOPERS WILL HAVE AN EASY TIME PORTING GAMES TO THE REVOLUTION. RR the magazine over the years that I’ve been reading it. And I’ve looked at some of the two- and three-page spreads for titles that | think are less worthy of the [space]. But, you know, | jokingly asked for a rereview. That's like asking for the referee to overturn a goal in soccer—most of the time it ain't going to happen. But | also felt that the focus [of the reviews] wasn’t on the game, but on how long the game [took to get to] market. | just don’t see the relevance of that. The Present: You Got A Problem? EGM: So we’re seeing Xbox 360 glitches, over- . heating, and now you have a lawsuit on your hands over a “defectively designed product.” > ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 21 MOORE'S LAW сом) >> PM: | don't even think we've seen the suit yet, as often is the case here. The press release comes out from the plaintiff before the actual suit is received by us, and I think that's the situation here. The huge majority of gamers are having trouble-free experiences with the Xbox 360. The very small number that have problems are being immediately taken care of by cus- tomer support. We Federal Express a ship- ping box to them, then they Federal Express the unit back, then we determine what the problem is and either replace it or repair it 22 * ELECTRONIC GAM { { immediately. | don't think gamers can ask for anything more than that. Really, the numbers are small. But in today's age of the Internet, you just need a dozen people to have a problem and it just seems to magnify itself enormously. Remember, we've shipped hundreds of thousands of these things around the world, and clearly here in the U.S. there have been a few problems, but we're taking care of them, and the people who actually do have the problems have nothing but great things to say about how they've been treated by customer service. No different from any other major consumer electronics product when you ship it in huge quantities. EGM: Wouldn't you be pissed if you paid $400 for a new console and many of its games looked only marginally better than their current-gen equivalents? PM: You wanna call out some games? Because I’m not gonna call out any games. "Clearly, there have been a few prob- lems, but were taking care of them. ” EGM: The 2K Sports games. Amped 3. Tony Hawk. Need for Speed. Gun. King Kong. People can argue they’re not getting that big next- gen leap in graphics. On top of that, you’re ask- ing consumers to pay an extra $10 for these games. To quote you, “Next-generation games will combine unprec- edented audio and visual experiences, create worlds that are beyond real, and they’ll deliver story lines and gameplay so compelling that it’ll feel like a...” PM: *...lucid dream." EGM: And then you also said that every game has to have the “essentials,” certain requirements every game must have. PM: Well, the essentials have always been every game needs to output in [high- definition resolution] 720p. It's gotta have multichannel sound, 5.1 minimum. The games have to render in 16x9 aspect ratio, and they've gotta have 2x antialiasing. The games do. You know, you called out King Kong as not looking next generation. The Xbox version looks great; you put it against the Xbox 360 version, though...[the 360 version] looks unbelievable. Games like Gun have not done well, but | don't know whether that's because of the graphics or because of the gameplay. It seems to be struggling in sales. But, it's such a subjective situation. I've gotten a lot of e-mails, believe me, in the last 10 days from consumers on all kinds of things. It's the first time I’ve heard from people; nobody has ever said, “Рт unhappy with the game experience from the next generation.” Гуе had a lot of complaints about a lot of [other] stuff, but nobody's complained about the games yet. | think also, gamers—the guys and the gals that are lining up on the sidewalks dur- ing the first 24 or 48 hours—are also very rational about what they expect on day one. They know things are going to continue to look even better as we get into the platform cycle. If it's graphics that they're concerned about, those will continue to get even better than they currently are today. But again, graphics...it's such a subjective thing, and one man's meat is another man's poison when you look at particular games. EGM: But let's look at the PS1 generation and the jump to Dreamcast. On all levels, no matter which games you look at, you can immediately CAPCOM DEVELOPER КЕМ INAFUNE RECENTLY TOLD THE JAPANESE MAG DORIMAGA THAT THE COMPANY HOPES FOR A SIMULTANEOUS see а huge improvement in graphics. With a lot of 360 games, the leap isn't there, don't you agree? PM: That's an opinion that | don't share, but look at it [this way]...we're selling games at an unprecedented rate; we're breaking records. Clearly, consumers are happy about something. And I think it's not just people looking at the graphics. Where people are really excited is the online expe- rience, the Marketplace experience, Xbox Live Arcade, and being able to join Xbox Live Silver for no charge and no credit card. You can't just pinpoint and say the graphics in Gun don't look good, therefore the entire ecosystem's got a problem. Gamers are smarter than that. They're look- ing at the entire experience. They also know games will continue to look better, if looking good is one of their higher criteria, which it typically is. But there are enough great- looking games out there to combat that, if you're looking for graphics. You know, people have to make their own choices, and if they determine that this is not worth their 400 bucks, then it does seem like there's somebody in line behind them that does think it is. EGM: What’s the deal with the voice-chat echo problem? PM: Yeah, there are some issues; we're working on that. | think particularly in Project Gotham Racing 3, there's been a number of people that have got an echo on Xbox Live during voice chat. We're working on trying to find out what that is, and we'll fix that. EGM: The machine's awfully loud, isn't it? PM: Hmm...you've got a lot going on there. | mean, | have not noticed it, and you know one of the cores will shut down when you're watching a movie on it, so | have noticed [the noise] once 1 get into gameplay. When it first cranks up, like a lot of things, the fans get going and off you go, but you've got a lot of power, you've got a lot of heat, and what you're hearing is the drive or the fans maybe—those things have to work. Again, that's another thing that nobody seems to be concerned about. EGM: OK, we're going to throw two games at you at a time, and we want you to tell us which one you like better. PM: Ugh, just like saying which of my kids do | love more. EGM: We hope we've made these easy for you. So: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory or Sneakers? PM: [Laughs] Well, as fond as | was of Sneakers, | have to say that Splinter Cell probably [tops] it. EGM: How about Soul Calibur Il or Kabuki Warriors? PM: Well, that would be Soul Calibur ll. EGM: Next: Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball or Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue? PM: Ah, Xtreme Volleyball...anything that [Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu] Itagaki- san does is always a big favorite with me. He's always been a big supporter of the platform, and it would be disloyal for me not to choose his title. EGM: So here's what we're getting at: You picked three Xbox 1 games that aren't back- wards compatible on the Xbox 360, and the other ones—Sneakers, Kabuki, and Barbie—are. It's a weird list, especially м 3 Top r row: NBA 2K6 gets slightly s fucum over for Xbox 360. Big жабғы? We don't think so. Bottom row: Soul Blade (PS1) looked great, but Soul Calibur (DC) looked oh-my-god when it came out. For more Xbox to Xbox 360 screenshot comparisons, check out hdera.1UP.com. fake your Barbie Horse Adventures and stick it up your ass, Moore tells us (if you read between the lines). when you exclude the heavy hitters.... [Shortly after this interview, Microsoft announced all three Splinter Cells to be backwards compatible on the Xbox 360. But we still thought this conversation was funny, so we left it intact.—Ed.] PM: Well, nobody excludes anything. You, probably like me, are not well versed in the vagaries of software emulation technol- ogy and how deep you need to go. Some games work because they can, because of the software emulation engine—and some don't. It's not like we said, “Hmm, Splinter Cell or Barbie...let's go for Barbie!” That's not how it's done. I'd be happy to get some of Microsoft's best and brightest to explain some of the technical reasons why one game works and another doesn't. Because | don't understand it... EGM: Well, obviously you're not going to pur- posely pick Barbie over Splinter Cell, but at what point is it not worth it to tell your programmers, “Get Splinter Cell work- ing on our system"? PM: Let's go back a year, when every- body was saying, “Boy, you know what? The games aren't going to be backwards compatible—this is a disaster, we're never going to get it done." And then we said the top-selling games will be backwards com- patible. And people asked if that's five or six games, and we came out with a list of 212, and still people pick it apart and ask, "Why is Barbie here?" Well, don't play Barbie. It's almost as if there's no winning in this situation. Is it perfect? 15 every game back- wards compatible that you want to be? No. There are huge technical issues that negate us from being able to provide that to the consumer, yes. Have I heard a single nega- tive word since launch about backwards compatibility? No. The Future: 15 Not Now EGM: What about the PlayStation 3 worries you? PM: Well, until | learn a lot more about it, then it's tough to worry about it. Is the spring launch date still on? What is the content? What are gonna be the day-one titles? What is their online strategy? It's very difficult to do any kind of analysis—where » USB2.0"cableand — . 360 TIPS The Xbox 360 is a versatile machine with a useless manual, so we put wur a list of frequent issues. —Greg Sewart | Echo! Distracted by that echo in voice chat? Have all players move their mics away from their big mouths and turn down the volume on the headsets and in Personal وود م‎ ышы Settings (found on е3 your per- - sonal Guide Blade by tapping the Xbox 360 Guide | ` button on your controller). Or try using - your original Xbox headset, which puas into the 360 controller. Your type Hate poking in letters with the joypad? Jack in a USB keyboard and type away. Change of view To change your background thome, go to Personal Settings (hit the Xbox 360 Guide button on the controller). Broken streams If your 360 and PC won't talk to each other using Windows Media Connect, try setting up a home net- work on your Windows XP system (Start/Control Panel/Network and Internet Connections/Setup or Change _ your home network). If that doesn't — Work, try downloading and installing .NET Framework 1.1 from Microsoft. Crash or burn If your 360 is crashing, it right be overheating. Give the machine and its King Kong power brick plenty of room. Still turned on? | If your wireless controller is plugged in, don’t worry if your 360 is still whirling after you turn it off. It's just charging your control pad, is all. iTunes tunes We've found a program that will con- vert your older iTunes songs to MP3s playable on the 360. Check pg. 54. Charging iPods Third generation and older iPods won't charge on your 360. Try getting Apple's “dock connector to FireWire and plugging one end into an AC adapter. RELEASE OF RESIDENT EVIL 5 ON THE PS3 AND XBOX 360. HE ALSO SAID THAT THE GAME WILL HAVE SOME KIND OF ONLINE ELEMENT... ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * www.1UP.com * 23 э... Ы” aye. EE a MOORE'S LAW cont) > we feel we're weak or strong—when you don't have the information. What we're completely focused on is driving our installed base, continuing to work with our third-party publishers to get great content on the box, and everything else is out of our hands as far as what the competition is going to do. EGM: What do you think about the Nintendo Revolution controller? PM: | found it very intriguing, and I'm always a big fan of companies that try and innovate in a space where we need to do things a little differently. It still remains to be seen [how well it'll do], because there's no game to demo against it yet, to get a feel for it, but I still respect and admire the fact that they're willing to take what is clearly a huge risk to innovate. EGM: [Xbox VP] J Allard once told us that he'd give creator] Shigeru Miyamoto quit Nintendo to go work for Microsoft. What would you give up? кеми? Let's see if it works out for them. up his Ferrari and his office if [Mario .TUP.com PM: [Laughs] For Miyamoto-san...well, | don't have a Ferrari to give up. I'd give up J's Ferrari again. | have five cars. Most of them are owned by my wife and kids, but | think I'd probably give ет all up for Miyamoto-san. I’m a huge fan, and | share J's desire that one day he will bring his incredible content and his incredible vision for what gaming should be to the Xbox. Yeah, I'd give up all of my cars. Might give up my house, too, if | could get it reim- bursed back оп my expenses. [Laughs] I’m not sure that would happen. EGM: If Nintendo or Sony offered to take Rare off your hands at cost, would you sign? PM: No. They're very important to the future of the platform. EGM: When will we see or hear something new from Rare? РМ: In the spring. EGM: Is Gears of War your *Halo" for 2006, or will Halo 3 be your Halo for 2006? РМ: That's a trick question! No, Gears of War is Gears of War and Halo is a very unique franchise. Gears of War is a 2006 title and obviously we haven't announced anything about any future Halo titles. EGM: Do you think Halo 3 can come out in 2006? РМ: Uhhhh...we still haven't announced anything about any future Halo titles! EGM: Think we'll still see True Online at some point? PM: Not right now. put that close to now. EGM: Any inter- est in mak- ing first-party sports games again, or are you too scared of Madden? РМ: Мо. I think that the sports category is incredibly well taken care of by both EA Fantasy Live No. | would zero right ` Ws official: Gears of War (pic- ise ©з (шей here) із NOT Halo. It's sim- ХАМЕ ‘ply Gears of War. That’s that. 0 C WU 5 «bs, TM ` ó Sports and 2K Sports, and in the world of soccer, Konami does a fabulous job with Winning Eleven. | just don’t think we add value there. My role is figuring out where Microsoft Game Studios should apply its resources and its talent. Coming up with another sports sim and competing with our partners in a space that already seems to be very competitive—and incredibly well taken care of with very talented develop- ers—just doesn't make any fiscal sense or sense for the consumer. EGM: What games due out in the next six months are you most excited for, besides Oblivion? РМ: I'm looking forward to Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. | think Tomb Raider is showing some real progress, and I’m hopeful that Lara [Croft] gets reborn with this latest iteration of this great franchise. What else...at some point | think you’re going to see Fight Night [see pg. 64 —Ed.], and from the little peek under the tent that I've seen recently, that thing now looks truly next generational. And I'm a big fan of the franchise anyway, so there's that. Splinter Cell at some point in 2006 will be out—we always look forward to Ubisoft [games] because they make great use of the Xbox Live service... EGM: What about beyond six months—what are you looking forward to in the next five years? РМ: Gears of War has everybody excited—the game continues to make progress. | think Crackdown is gonna be a visually interesting game. As well as taking an interesting look at the urban style of action-adventure-type games, Crackdown takes a very different perspective on where the action comes from. Mass Effect is something | look forward to—any game from BioWare always excites me. And then of course [I’m excited about] things that we haven’t announced yet that | can’t talk about right now.... And then our third-party partners continue to [offer] just a wealth of great content. THQ has got Saint’s Row coming through, The Outfit... | think Elder Scrolls will do really well. | look back at that game, and, you know, Morrowind did nearly a mil- lion units on the original Xbox, and | have to believe that [the new one] has got a great opportunity to do even more. EGM: Right now Xbox Live Marketplace is home to icons, themes, Live Arcade games, demos, and trailers. In the future, will you be able to buy anything more significant that may affect actual gameplay, like say, cars in driving games, or... PM: Oh, absolutely. | don't know what our schedule for release is, but as early as this spring, you're going to have the ability to buy and download tracks, cars, characters... all kinds of different things that'll refresh the game experience. There'll be a combination of stuff that will be for purchase, for points, and some stuff that may be free. The great thing about Marketplace is that it allows us to continue to interact with the gamer, [not only] to refresh the experience, but to make the games better. EGM: Let's say you want to introduce something » ‘The platform-development team should come back in a year, refreshed and looking for the next challenge. »$ aad ЫБ: with ihe ae eu “мегїпєз”.. _ Adrift on an endless, roit E. SR EUN nd | his sister sh unt i S p T n E those CORRER | П el and his р cty | € ccets of a legendary , discover the ties С Ship, an stg I that b ind them oll. Toke st 1 trength from friendship. Tak С pric : in love. 1 ake everything: "That you. belie’ уе Т апа Turn it all то рошег. У ЕНТЕВ ТОН wy NORMAS TREASURE CHEST А new cast of ende saring fast-paced real-time battles. over 70 hours of game play 12 ТҮСТҮҮ characters in а stunning Throw massive enemies for in o stirring tale of love and FOR MORE INFORMATION. USE CODE CPNEGM! 3D setting. the ficst time. heroism. ^ Мы» ج‎ Fantasy Violence Mild Language Suggestive Themes ermen. namca STRATEGY GUIDES PlayStation:e BRADYGAMES www.namco.com TALES OF LEGENDIA™“&©2005 NAMCO LTD., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "PlayStation" and the "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners. MOORE'S LAW coni) > that will affect gameplay, like a new car or a new weapon, and you have an entire group of Xbox 360 gamers that don't have access to the Internet. How will they access this content and how will they play with the people who do have it? How will it be balanced? PM: Well, that's all going to be determined by the depth of what we're doing. There may be an opportunity, as we did with Ha/o 2 as you recall, where the maps and levels are significant enough that we actually put them on a disc and sell them at retail. But 1 would [suspect] that the folks who are inter- ested in that sort of thing...the great major- ity do have access to the Internet. But you know, if you're that interested in downloads like that, then it may be time to get a high-speed Internet connection in your home. EGM: When do you start work- ing on the suc- cessor to the Xbox 360? РМ: Uh...I think the team that is on vacation right now would probably rebel if we started talking about going back to work and building the next one. | think you give them a little breather. What people don't see behind the scenes is the incredible work that development teams do in the six to nine months before a platform is released. There is so much work to do, testing, building the relationships with the suppliers, getting everything into the factories, making sure that everything we do is pristine, getting the games [certi- fied], getting them through all of the test cycles we need to do, and then getting [the machines] to market and doing it globally, and getting games translated into 12 differ- ent languages.... AND THEN THERE'S THIS GUY... | Does Bill Gates know something about Halo 3? (Answer: No) icrosoft head honcho Bill Г] Gates makes an ОК living selling computer software. But the geek from Redmond, WA, thinks he can finally score some real cash with this Xbox 360 thingy.... NEW ROLEPLAYERS— VALKYRIE PROFILE 2 (PS2) AND VALKYRIE PROFILE: LENNOTH (PSP)—ARE BOTH DUE OUT SOMETIME ІМ 2006.... >> EGM: You told Time magazine, “The day Sony launches the new PlayStation, they walk right into Halo 3.” 15 Bungie Studios OK with the development time- table you laid out for them? Bill Gates: Well, they will set their own timetable. [Laughs] | don’t get to decide in a creative process like that exactly when things come together. Obviously they’re working hard on another break- through—as soon as that thing gets done we'll put it out. We do think it'll be a great Xbox 360 title, but the timing on that won't be dictated by a competitor. EGM: Isn't there a bit of you that would like to tell Bungie, “Үош know, it'd sure be nice if you could get Halo 3 done in time for the PlayStation 3 launch...." RG: No, no, no...it's nice to have things ready for holiday seasons, so a bold executive might say to them, “Hey, you know, give it a shot for such and such a holiday season." But really...| was just overebullient when | made that comment. EGM: Microsoft has lost roughly $1 billion a year on the first Xbox since it launched. Was that worth it? BG: We knew going into the origi- nal Xbox that we would lose...a lot. Or you can say, invest a lot—that’s the nice way to say that. And we 26 е ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com knew the only thing we'd get out of that first generation was the learning and cred- ibility that came with that experience. EGM: If you lose money on the Xbox 360, will there be another successor? BG: Of course! | mean, geez—it was my decision to get into videogaming, so we're going to make that look like a good deci- sion no matter how long it takes. [Laughs] But we feel very good that we'll make money this time around. The things we got wrong last time, we've learned from. EGM: 360's graphics aren't mind-blow- ing, especially without an HDTV.... BG: Well, the Xbox 360 graphics are amaz- ing, and that's where the high-definition generation really comes in. With Xbox Live [on the original Xbox] we made a big bet on broadband, that the penetration would come up. Here again, we're making a bet that high definition becomes more preva- lent. As you say, you don't get the full benefit of the amazing graphics until you get up to HD, and then when you see that, it's pretty stunning.... EGM: But broadband penetration when Xbox 1 launched was much higher than HDTV penetration is right now.... BG: | think that’s right...but the prices аге coming down and the availability's going up. So that is a bet that we're making. In terms of our graphics pipeline, we actu- The consumer only sees the end product on the shelf, but boy, there's an incredible amount of work that went into that. So the platform-development team is taking a well-earned break, and they should come back in a year, refreshed and looking for the next challenge. ў / / / - қ “” е < its - ^ м? ` ә” 297 dw. - c Ми TRUER хат” E Geometry Wars: the best reason to check out Xbox Live Marketplace. ally think it's better than what Sony will come out with. EGM: Do you wish Microsoft had come up with the idea for the Nintendo Revolution controller? B6: Uh...no. [Laughs] We'll watch and see. Holding two different things like that? Anyway, Nintendo...you've got to give it to them. They march to the beat of a different drummer. Sometimes that makes them incredibly right and sometimes that makes them incredibly wrong. They're certainly making a very different bet in terms of how much they're putting into the graphics this time. | do think there is a question as to whether they can get outside the young age bracket at all. That's been tough for them. EGM: Who would serve as hetter backup, Master Chief or [crazy-ass Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer? BG: You know, | don't know how to give a serious answer to that.... Master Chief is very good looking, he's... EGM: You know, we haven't seen Master Chief's face.... BG: Well, he's kinda got this mysteri- ous thing going on. There are some similarities...maybe he is Steve, for all we know. Steve sneaks off from time to time.... Both are hardcore guys. ж [Nintendo marches] to the beat of a different drummer. _ WHO NEEDS WHEELS L.- WHEN YOU'VE GOT AIR? | Surf s TUUM bis di "e | Shred т" vili ч тр iss ШШ ине) НЕРУ 2006 PlayStation.c e (5% "E 5 О м Ic SEGA Cx SEGA is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. SEGA, the Sega logo, the SONIC TEAM logo and Sonic Riders are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SEGA Corporation, © SEGA Corporation, 2006. All Rights and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Microsoft, Xbox and the Xbox logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States Bp s M cu and the Nintendo Gamecube logo are trademarks of Nintendo. © 2001 Nintendo. The ratings icon is a trademark of Ue ter the Entertainment Software Association. | EVERYONE Comic Mischief Mild Cartoon Violence | | C) press start ЕСМЇЧТЕКМАТЇ®МАЬ Where men аге men and women are half-naked NINKYOUDEN: TOSEININ ICHIDAIKI I've seen this game before! You prob- ably have—Japanese publisher Genki has put out approximately 5 squillion action-adventure games set in ye olde 18th century Japan. Ninkyouder's different because—for once—you aren't a samurai, shogun, or anyone particularly respectable. You're just a random tattooed, barhopping bastard with a couple of underlings, and your mission is to build up a yakuza mob strong enough to intimidate the whole country into submission. So how do ! become “the man?" The usual: Beat up a ton of thugs, act silly around the women, and win a series of gambling-oriented minigames. Other titles may have experience points, but this one has "manliness" levels. Namby-pamby Final Fantasy heroes are not invited. ГЕЛИШ КУО КАКА МАОН! What's so different about this опе? Oh man, this role-playing game gives a whole new meaning to the word "different." Developed by a staff at Namco composed mostly of (dirty-minded) ladies, Kyo Kara Maoh! stars Yuri, a typical high-schooler who gets sucked through a toilet into the Great Demon Kingdom, where he's crowned Demon King and inadvertently gets engaged to a blond, effeminate prince. Is this for real? Yep—in fact, it's based on an anime that's out on DVD in the United States. And it /s a real RPG, albeit one with a lot of jokes about cross-dressing and flam- boyant sea pirates. ВУ ТНЕ HE AUCTION We've put together a short lesson for the hopelessly deluded on what obsession is actually worth. ON Кот: A Famicom (known as the NES in the United States) 20th anniversary box set with 30 Famicom Mini GBA games. Asking Price: $1,000. Bids? Zero. n ARE т SITES Us, ишт: ltem: A Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) cartridge signed by its creator, Koji Igarashi. Asking Price: $95. Number of bids? Zero. Item: Here’s а copy of Bubble Bath Babes (NES), the rare 8-bit action-bathing hotties simulator. Asking Price: $525. Number of Ash, inducing bids? Zero. seizures one Everyone loves a good poke Year that Pokémon Red and Blue (Game | Boy) were released in the United States Amount (in U.S. dollars) that, according _ to Nintendo, the Pokémon franchise « has generated in worldwide sales Р. Item: What sells? A Mario cos- tume. And look at the cute kid modeling the outfit. He’s adorable! Plus, he’s got something these other auctions don’t—an actual buyer. Winning Bid: $91. Number of known Pokémon critters / Number of Pokémon TV episodes that caused some Japanese children to have seizures >> BLIZZARD HAS CANNED THE GAMECUBE VERSION OF STARCRAFT: GHOST, WHICH IS STILL COMING TO PS2 AND XBOX IN SPRING '06.... >: 30 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com IN STORES FEBRUARY 28, 2006 PREORDER NOW" TO UNLOCK THE BFG FIVE RULES OF GUNCRAFT GUNS ARE THE STARS OF THIS SHOW BLACK™ explodes with a massive arsenal of high-powered firearms, including rifles, riot guns, and grenade launchers. EVERY BULLET IS YOUR BABY Make every miss count. If you can't get a target in your line of sight, blast the ceiling and bring it down on top of him. BIGGER AND LOUDER BLACK credos: Don't use a small gun when you can use a big one and don't blow up something small when you can blow up something big. LEAVE A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION Bullets pulverize plaster and splinter boards; bigger ammo breaks down doors and shears concrete from buildings in fat chunks. DEATH IS AN OPPORTUNITY Catch an enemy in the shoulder and spin him around into the enemy behind him, blow the balcony out beneath another— get creative with your kills. ALL GUNS BLAZING Visit www.esrb.org for updated rating information. $ T: 79 T ENR Arte s ska lC and мї m мее. AD Dinkes Р n қ tati" arri the "P< "^ 1 trademarks c ectronic Arts inc. in the U.S. and/or other untnes. Al Fights Meserved yotatx and the У а ес КЕЕ 474. о j er CoUNTNeS and are used ur derf Ci bt O > he X № *This game is пої yet rated ру the ESRB. If rated Mature you must be 17 or older or have permission from an adult to purchase the game. start A M ү b PS2/XB / EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK | p^ (s E | ud | оро 9 82, ре a mo р, EE ue ww ^ | E Publisher: 2K Games 1 Developer: The Collective/Foundation 9 Release Date: May 2006 Who knew Mona Lisa was a gamer? he best-selling novel The Da of the Vatican makes for truly scintillating a lot of sense. Solving the mystery of a the game basically designs itself. Т ` Vinci Code is one of those books reading. The Da Vinci Code is a page- gruesome murder requires you to deci- The Da Vinci Code is in development by you hear about long before you turner even for the less literary-minded pher complex codes, find, : The Collective and is scheduled for release read it. You might pick it up with some ош there, in paintings, and uneart his May to coincide with the opening of the initial skepticism—will it lead to a slip- But those same doubters really and hallways... You’re c ption picture also based on the book. It's pery slope of Oprah-approved literature _ ` couldn't be blamed for wondering why ing a sinister assassig that ends with Tuesdays With Morrie? а videogame company might snap up a shadowy ci сарай rd-person action-adventure that plays е same events from the novel using (And do you really want to read the same е Da Vinci Code license. It's not like You visit.a'Series. f c locations, —— of standard gameplay mechanics. novels as your mom?) It only takes a the book spent a gazillion weeks on the from the | out seum in Pari bt J down quiet hallways, car chases couple of pages, though, before even the best-seller lists because males aged 18 Pope's chamt ( ` through Rome, labyrinthine hedge mazes, doubters are hooked. The murder mys- to 34 were putting it on their Amazon catacombs of Rome and the cathedrals melee fighting psychotic monks—if Vatican tery mixed with cryptography plus a dash wish lists. If you think about it, though, of Britain.... Really, all you need now іѕ а priests in ancient Rome did it, chances are of power politics deep within the bowels adapting this book into a game makes nifty sidekick (surprise! DVC has one) and it's in this game. >> 5ОМУ HIRES A BUNCH OF APES — IHE HARDWARE MAKER RECENTLY ACQUIRED DEVELOPMENT HOUSE GUERRILLA GAMES (KILLZONE). THE 32 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY e www.1UP.com ABOUT THE ARTIST Back in the old days, it wasn't enough to be just a master painter. The original Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci, also studied anatomy, developed plans for a helicopter, and even designed the first robot in recorded history. The player will assume the role of Robert Langdon, the novel’s dashing protagonist. He’s a Harvard professor and the world’s leading symbologist (someone who interprets codes and cryptographs). Langdon is played by lovable everyman Tom Hanks in the movie, though it’s not yet certain whether Hanks’ likeness will be in the game. (Naturally, we’re hoping at least his laughably feathery hairdo will be rep- resented.) You'll also play as Langdon’s cohort, Sophie Neveu (played in the T Ё i ШІ шай T ia movie by Amelie cutie Audrey Tautou). Cordy Rierson, producer on the game, describes the two characters as “stylisti- cally and behaviorally different, provid- ing the player a variety of experiences, including stealth, adventure, and combat.” Each character will have his or her own strengths and weaknesses, too. “Sophie’s petite stature, physical speed, agility, and law enforcement skills” will be her pri- mary assets, says Rierson, while Langdon will utilize his “knowledge, physical capabilities, and prowess.” And he invented the pump sneaker. In other words, this won’t be a point and click adventure tale full of arcane puzzles and other such dull fare that might be more familiar to the people who haven’t played any games but CS/ or Myst. “There is so much diversity offered to the player in this game,” says Rierson, “whether it’s stealth play through dark corridors, creating diversions for a quick getaway, or facing the fire going toe-to- toe with a mercenary monk while fighting for your life.” So, while the book may have been targeted at the geriatric set, Sources close to the project reveal that the Da Vinci Code is definitely not Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. the game sounds like it’s aimed directly at today’s action gamers. The movie is being directed by Ron Howard, who’s come a long, long way since The Burbs. Recently, he’s execu- tive produced several TV series that are hits with the gamer crowd (Arrested Development, 24), and his record with movies (A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man) is impeccable. So if Steven Spielberg is getting involved in making games with Electronic Arts and Peter Jackson’s all about Kong, we wondered if Ron Howard > ANNOUNCEMENT ALSO CONFIRMED THAT GUERRILLA IS CURRENTLY MAKING K/LLZONE TITLES FOR BOTH PLAYSTATION 3 AND PSP.... >> ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 33 те -- = - 5.4 А ұз DL ЕД 5 bl. е “а, к - . hs ж “ә, mx 2 ^+, y ЫР EN CUI т =P. oF 2% “>. | Ке СЕ ———PÉESEMáa t 00 j /———————— > م‎ pee "pg coo RRR шд ae ee e 572941 Үу Және кенес Apte DETENI ы meson ow 2 Ж. йлы Ы нн duy жәе” tener wurde tues » would be wanting to get in on this game action. “Ron Howard has provided some key creative suggestions that have helped us stay true to the movie's spirit and touch on the major themes,” says Rierson, That said, the game will offer something new even to someone who's read the book and seen the movie. “The game expands The Da Vinci Code uni- verse and allows the player to explore locations not visited in the book or the film,” says Rierson. These early screens give no clear indication of how the game will play. But if even one out of 10 of the grannies who loved the book decides to pick this game up, it'll still stand a pretty good chance of outselling artsy fare such as Beyond Good апа Evil. —Jennifer Tsao E Some key locales came to us only as concept ———— IT IL TA ж poet KNOW THE CODE Fun facts about everyone's favorite airplane read The Vatican In the book, the Catholic Church's worldwide headquarters is where a lot of the major action goes down, and we'd imagine with all its hush-hush holiness, it will surely be the setting for a stealth mission or two in the game. Nuns, typi- cally, don't suffer trespassers lightly... Mona Lisa Opus Dei The Louvre The scene of the crime, and of the Mona Lisa. According to the website for the book, і the museum’s art 7, i z DX me collection is so mas- т nd ыш E sive that it would require an unwieldy number of full-time staffers to monitor all the museum's security cameras. Consequently, a bunch of the cam- eras are fake. Albino Monks The primary villain is Opus Dei operative Silas, a sex-crazed and self- flagellating albino Possibly the world's most famous work of art, La Gioconda, as she's known in her native Italian, plays a prominent role in The Da Vinci Code. The book posits that this painting, along with The Last Supper, contains hidden clues about Catholicism's deepest, darkest secrets. Respectable Catholic prelature that promotes clean living and hard work, or shadow cult with misogy- nistic, masochistic tendencies and a right-wing political agenda? We're still figuring that one out for sure, but you can imagine which charac- terization made it into the book. monk. The negative characterization has albino rights activists up in arms—especially as Silas’ eyes are spookily described as red. “That’s a myth,” says one expert. “Most often in people with albinism the eyes are light blue or even hazel.” (For the record, the movie stars the blue-eyed Paul Bettany in the role.) з EARLY ІМ 2006, LIONS GATE HOME ENTERTAINMENT WILL RELEASE THE DOORS, MADE, AND GODSEND ON THE PSP UMD FORMAT.... 34 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com It only plays like it's still there. Тһе new Xbox 360™ Wireless Controller. Unmatched precision апа performance to instantly reflect your every move. And with an advanced ecosystem of wireless products, you'll have the freedorn to get the most out of Xbox 360, because they come from Xbox 360. птен тн Шен тие ELST ICR EAL MR меттен тм M f | с Wireless Networking Universal Media Remote Play and Charge Kit ALME: М PEE р Аарц СЕ} altae eel Vie CR Q^ press start AF TERTHOUGHTS: 1 == DD Questions, we ask ongrats. You defeated the tate a Pepsi can. The way | figure it is, © evil Empire and saved all of Star Wars has been so entrenched in our human-, droid-, and Ewok- society on so many levels—there are so kind. But the victory didn’t seem many movies that reference Star Wars quite as grand or epic as how it all that have nothing to do with Star Wars, went down in the flicks. We think it’s for example—that for Star Wars itself because Star Wars Battlefront І! (PS2/ to acknowledge that it's an icon doesn’t XB), as fun as it is, could’ve been bet- bother me personally. | just see that as no ter. So we threw some tough questions different from, say, a Kevin Smith movie at Eric “Giz” Gewirtz (that’s “Giz” with trying to explain love in the form of Leia’s a hard “g” sound, by the way), director relationship with Han. [Laughs] at developer Pandemic Studios, to see what he has to say for himself. efront feels —Dan “Shoe” Hsu y and insub- pared to ars sti! e Halo 2. It ing war wit! Obviously Star Wars is still cool. It’s 1g ures ratner maintained its coolness factor for the ‘ually being generation that grew up with it, and it’s птгоорег o been able to pull in an entire new genera- Didier tion with the new trilogy. It's an amazing That's fairly intentional. We | universe—it's one of a kind. didn't want to go for the gritty, "realistic" Star Wars experience, n) what it would really be like to be a D stormtrooper, for example...how hot 25 198 it would be under the helmet... IS, Growing up, none of us had all of the toys. You just couldn’t get all the toys. You know, it’s never really bothered You'd go over to your rich friend's house, me as much as seeing Yoda Force-levi- and he had the AT-AT and the Millennium Am “ы T Т ае A iT Ua ж % See 2%. АҚ سا‎ anas м * 3. 36 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com TTLEFRONT | Falcon, and you’d set up as much as you can to do the Battle of Hoth. But you really wanted to have at your disposal every single cool character and toy from the Star Wars universe. We wanted to deliver on that experience—no game has ever done that. | feel like we’ve been getting a lot fewer complaints about that for Battlefront II than we did for Battlefront I. | personally feel like the А.І. kicks ass and does just what it’s supposed to. But at the same time we strike that balance of making you feel like you are a hero in the Star Wars universe, which is what we were going for. There are limi- tations with the current generation of platforms...but we wanted to make sure the A.l. looked like it was working as a team. Considering some of our competitors like Battlefield 2 [PC], where | >> THINK YOU САМ WEAVE А РКЕТТУ GOOD TALE? THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD CONSIDER ENTERING BIOWARE'S (STAR WARS: KNIGHTS ОҒ THE General Grievous: N not a big fan of the "Tussin. *cough* they just have Conquest [mode] gameplay, | think it's pretty impressive our A.I. can play capture the flag. It can [even] have a full match, A.I. versus A.I., moving in groups to capture, run, and defend the flag. Our snipers will actually look for sniping points, our rocket launcher guys will seek out the nearest vehicle, and they really work well within their own specialized unit and also in different game modes. | don’t think we get enough credit for how difficult that is to do, especially compared to some of these simpler games where they’re just focused on one style of game- play like Conquest. А. -- e ВАЙ. . Жж EGM: Have you ever tried challenging the Battlefield developers to a friendly match of your дате ог theirs? Giz: No, that _ would be fun, though—that would be really fun. EGM: The all- special- guys mode is rather unbal- anced. Han Solo is pretty useless against a Jedi.... Giz: Yeah, to be honest, we didn’t really worry about it that much. The novelty was to run around as the special characters. It’s too difficult to balance Anakin Skywalker versus the Emperor versus Darth Maul versus Yoda: Those people were never meant to be fairly matched. [Laughs] It’s kind of the same 4 М { d 4 1 ul “Fans wont be disappointed with where this franchise goes.’ —Pandemic Director Eric “Giz” Gewirtz thing as playing as the Ewoks or Gungans in Hunt mode. EGM: Yeah, Ewoks ver- sus scout troopers isn’t a very fair fight, but we actually had a mul- tiplayer match in the office where the Ewok team won, and that really stunned everyone. Giz: It hurts, doesn’t it? We had that here, too—the first team that won as the Ewoks never let anyone live it down. At the office, my team lost against the Gungans, and | think it’s actually more humiliating than losing to the Ewoks, because the Ewok team could at least say, “Well, that’s what happened in the movies.” But the Gungans really have no excuse for winning a battle. We were pretty embarrassed for a while. EGM: Is it possible to make a Star Wars game without a Hoth level? Giz: [Laughs] You know, that’s the ques- tion we’ve been asking ourselves. | don’t know the answer to that. Do you? Ра ask you. EGM: It’s a little played out at this point. It was exciting back on the Nintendo 64.... Giz: Did you enjoy it in Battlefront? EGM: Yeah, we didn't mind it so much, because it is one of a dozen stages that we're cycling through. Giz: How about—l'm interviewing you now [Laughs]—how about a Hoth in next-gen glory? EGM: Well, our big complaint about the Hoth level in any Star Wars game is that the AT-ATs don't feel big and intimidating. When you first saw one in The Empire Strikes Back, it was larger than life. When it stepped on the ground, the ground shook—it was huge. You never get that visceral feeling from any AT-AT in any videogame, ever. In Battlefront in particu- lar, AT-ATs feel like toys. We're not game designers, so we don’t know how you're going to make them that “big” without making everything else way too small. Giz: You'd be amazed how small things look from the head of an AT-AT when you make one really big; they’re just like these little ants running around. EGM: So what would you do with a next-gen Hoth? Giz: Can't answer that. [Laughs] But | think you and | are in line with a lot of what it needs to be...bigger, more epic. EGM: Is there anything that’s left to explore in the Star Wars universe? We've seen just about everything.... Giz: That's a question that | can't really answer. But all | can say is that the Star Wars universe is really vast, and | think that there are still a bunch of gameplay elements and Star Wars experiences that have yet to be tapped. EGM: Will you be dipping into the written fiction? Gi: Possibly...possibly that, possibly furthering the story, possibly looking into the past.... We’re exploring a bunch of dif- ferent options. There are a lot of exciting ways to play in this universe, as the other Star Wars games that came before us have shown. | think fans won't be disap- pointed with where this franchise goes. EGM: Last question—did Boba Fett die in Return of the Jedi? Giz: Absolutely not. Jetpacks! Jetpacks! THE HOT SEAT: CHOOSE OR LOSE We had to give poor Giz a break from the tough questions, so we stuck him in our Hot Seat...which must mean our “Hot Seat” isn’t very Giz: "Hmm....ah...l'd have to say Boba Fett, just because he can fly.” Sci-fi Alternatives £^ ж” 4 а \, AS 1 Buck Rogers Battlestar Galactica Giz: "New Battlestar Galactica?” [EGM: "Let's go with old."] “а have to say Buck Rogers, then. But I'd take new Battlestar Galactica over either of those two.” Needs Genocidin’ Giz: “With Ewoks, at least | don’t understand what they're saying." rk. OLD REPUBLIC, JADE EMPIRE) WRITING CONTEST. CHECK OUT THE DEVELOPER'S WEBSITE, WWW.BIOWARE.COM, FOR MORE DETAILS.... ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 37 © press start FOR OCTOBER WHAT'S PLAYING IN THE COMPUTER SALES CHARTS TOP 10 BEST-SELLING GAMES TOP 10 PS2 GAMING EE 2 NBA Live 06 Е Enemy Territory: 3 Madden NFL 06 Quake Wars — X | Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 5 FIFA Soccer 06 ig = ae , Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves dd MIL ux M 7 The Warriors ‚м sl u BL. | з Shadow of the Colossus 2 Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland - ) Soul Calibur Ш P Ubisoft’s Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (spring) mashes first-person per- XBOX spective’s immersion and more immedi- ate interface with the stat building and storytelling of a proper role-playing game. Similarly themed Savage 2 (fall) crams the stuff of desktop dictatorship in the same crucible as third- and first- person hack-n-slash. Same story with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (fall), an online army-versus-army shooter set in the same universe as its namesake and in which borglike strogg battle flesh-and-blood humans. Split second ee - e PS2 e Sony a U.S. Navy SEALs Р AL socom з: NBA Live 06 * PS2 * EA Sports | | | | | | | ! | | | Madden NFL 06 • PS2 • EA Sports d Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories e PSP e Rockstar Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi • PS2 • Atari Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness • GC • Nintendo 2 NBA Live 06 ; Madden NFL 06 reflexes and steady aim matter, but no 7 FIFA Soccer 06 • РЅ2 • ЕА Sports 4 Blitz: The League more than the mobile bunkers, missile - The Warriors silos, and plasma mortars you build. 8 Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves * PS2 * Sony > Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Bring it all to nerve-jarring life with 7 Топу Hawk's American Wasteland | "©Xt-gen graphics, and you've got a 9 The Warriors * PS2 ù Rockstar X-Men Legends Il: Rise of Apoc. “Game of the Year” hopeful. 2 FIFA Soccer 06 10 Shadow of the Colossus • Р52 • Ѕопу Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 Source: NPD TRSTS Video Games Service. Call (516) 625-6190 for questions regarding this list o» ТОР 10 RENTALS FOR THE WEEK ENDING 11/13/05 B © AJ ==“ “> co ҒҒ” RA с> ТОР 10 GAMECUBE | TOP їс And finally, some good news for the PC-phobic: Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter Huxley (fall) is headed the 360’s way as well. Thousands of wired citizens inhabit its cities of tomorrow, hobnobbing and 1 Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness 1 Gun * PS2 2 Mario Superstar Baseball 2 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow • DS 2 Gun • ХВ bartering, forming clans and coop- 3 Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance 3 Nintendogs: Dachshund • 05 З The Matrix: Path of Neo • PS2 erating in quests. And they compete, “DDR: Mario Mix 4 Madden NFL 06 е PSP 4 Call of Duty: Big Red One е PS2 too...120 at a time. In order to keep = Madagascar 5 Nintendogs: Labrador • 05 5 The Matrix: Path of Neo • XB their power-parched metropolis up and 5 Ultimate Spider-Man 5 Pokémon Emerald е GBA 5 Tony Hawk’s Am. Wasteland ° PS2 running, residents of one city must 7 Super Mario Sunshine 7 Nintendogs: Chihuahua • 05 7 Dragon Ball 7: Budo. Ten. * PS2 : trek to outlying mining stations to 3 Spongebob Squarepants: BFBB 2 Marvel Nemesis: ROTI е PSP 8 Call of Duty: Big Red One • XB S$ clash with those of another. Madden NFL 06 2 NBA Live 06 е PSP Э Madden NFL 06 • PS2 Š — Shawn Elliott, 10 Super Smash Bros. Melee 10 Bratz: Rock Angelz • GBA 10 The Warriors • PS2 S Computer Gaming World >> REALLY BIG NUMBERS—SONY ANNOUNCED THAT IT HAS NOW SHIPPED 100 MILLION PLAYSTATION 2 UNITS SINCE MARCH 2000.... >> 38 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com ФИ New software from Sony www.sony.com/mediasoftware wides тъ mierePre Pre 1 улу” ana 22 ystem )GDTM g E =rtertainmerit inc А, ۴ € " car i SUN cape we RES m _ wv AiG t ps | "А E E sd fact ЧЕН. aS E, 1 RERA 3 ' 9% Оу! БА Ж Re E T | i TM The easiest way to move music, movies and more to your PSP" system Video „а subsidiary OF Sony Corporation of America. Ай rights reserved. PSP is a trademark of Sony Computer E (PlayStation?Portable) dia Manager PSP™ (PlayStation® Portable) Media Manager software is the fastest and easiest way to move media to your PSP™ system for portable playback and sharing. Experience the full mobile entertainment capabilities of your device: it's your digital photo album, video player, portable music device, podcast manager and game console, all rolled into one. Just connect your personal computer to your PSP" system, and let the PSP" Media Manager software (boxed version includes 6 foot USB cable) provide the ideal PC interface for converting and moving media directly to your player. like.no.other^ WHAT'S UP AT n-— eno resto p cuf trate EGM.1UP.COM When EGM first started, we pub- "үне oo V, 1 lished the mag with rocks and the -~ | of males say they play online - eye ЖӘнЕ | кч К ү Toe. blood of our slain enemies. Since ` ` pretending to be a female, and ре ^ пы ME i then, the advances in technology 1% of females say they play | we ў ЧӨ | à are staggering, and it's no more online pretending to be a male | | Жы. apparent than at this website. It's where we put things that just 8 уо 27% won't fit in print, such as our Afterthoughts interview with King say "fresh competition" is their People who main motivation for playing online quit once they Kong maker Michel Ancel, in which he tells us how the great ape can land you chicks. CHEATS.1UP.COM : Those who use cheats prefer start losing to call them "tips" or *hints." If you're looking for those (or you're self-actualized enough to call them “cheats”), you'll find them right here. é GAMETAB.COM Console of choice for Say hello to the newest member of playing online games our family, GameTab.com. Not only does it collect all the news from the major gaming websites, but it can also tell you the aggregate review score of every release— from Project Gotham Racing 3 to Elf Bowling 1&2. Cheaters Improve skills/learn new techniques 20% Make new friends | 19% Hate playing against the A.l. 10% Other | 12% say they have cheated at least сел aa XBOX360.1UP.COM 13% Missed our Madden NFL 06 — review? Or want to see if your Xbox 360 GameCube copies of Kung Fu Chaos and Drake can play on Microsoft's next-gen machine? Then peep this website for all things Xbox 360, Street clothes including reviews, news, updated backward-compatibility lists, and О much more. 0 ШК say they play Featured Blog: say they have flirted А Ң Јоһп Тат with someone when online while Leisure suits That Guitar Hero game has taken playing online the entire EGM staff by storm. So we’re always happy to read what John Tam, maker of Guitar Hero 0 бау they trash talk and lead designer of that bitchin' А : controller, has to say in his online 0 when playing online diary at armad11I0.1UP.com. >> UBISOFUS MONTREAL STUDIO (PRINCE OF PERSIA) REPORTEDLY HAS FOUR UNANNOUNCED NEXT-GEN TITLES IN DEVELOPMENT. ... >> 40 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com i play. i win. i gloat. i kick back. i catch a movie. i hear some tunes. all thanks to one little card. Turn your PSP" (PlayStation? Portable) handheld entertainment device into a fully loaded multimedia machine. How? With a SanDisk? memory card. It gives you the power to play music, view pictures, watch movies and of course save countless game data, all with one device. It's the undisputed champion of flash memory, relied on more than any other. L7. Toe WWW.SANDISK.COM/OPMELECTRONICS p (Sa) К р ч 05 3 а U 0 > ONG Od XIAGAVOWIW Memory Stick PRO Duo™ sanDisk 74 STORE YOUR WORLD IN OURS™ SanDisk and the SanDisk logo are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the US and other countries. Store Your World in Ours is a trademark ot SanDisk Corporation. Memory Stick PRO Duo is a trademark of Sony Corporation. PlayStation and PSP are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI). Other brand names mentioned herein аге tor identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder/s. © 2005 SanDisk Corporation. All rights reserved. 1 megabyte (MB) | million bytes; 1 gigabyte (СВ) = 1 billion bytes Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus is not available for data storage 1 (>) press start 1 | m PS2/XB ДЖ си 100К 4 К, so the mature nature of the Grand Theft Auto franchise has ticked off plenty of parents, politicians, and one loony lawyer from Florida. But once you look past the controversy, you'll see a series that helped raise our expectations for videogames today, in particular with its go-anywhere, do-anything environments. Finally, this massive ingredient in GTA’s winning formula is finding its way into a sports title. NBA Ballers: Phenom, the follow-up to Midway’s arcade-rich hoopster, will make the entire city of Los Angeles—including downtown, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood—your playground. And surprisingly, you'll be spending almost as much time off the court as you do on it. = a IG BE N TS pua Just like any GTA metropolis, Phenom’s version of Los Angeles is full of life. *The game is set during a fictional NBA Finals week, so everyone is there, including the ‘who’s who’ of NBA athletes, music celebrities, coaches, agents, and media,” says Executive Producer George Gomez. “You can walk around several L.A. neighborhoods and interact with people, stores, and vendors.” Aside from chitchatting with the city’s beautiful people or shopping for some new duds, you can cruise the streets looking for extracurricular activities, such as snapping 42 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com PHENOM [hat's sure one big game of roundball — Bryan Intihar 4 | Publisher: Midway Developer: Midway pictures of pro players and working a charity car wash with those sexy Laker Girls. Photography? Charity work? Sounds kinda lame, you say? Gomez promises that won't be the case. “Once you see these events, | think they'll make you smile and | doubt that you’ll think of them as ‘cheesy,’” he says. “We are trying to create a rich environment that will allow you many choices. Some of the choices are more oriented toward performance in the game, and some are there simply for the exploration and entertainment value.” Speaking of choices, each one you Release Date: Spring 2006 make along the way will greatly affect the nh, Гу, alk ee game’s outcome. One possible scenario E has you winding up the No. 1 pick in the next NBA draft, while another puts you at the helm of an entertainment empire, split- ting time playing ball with movie shoots, record labels, and designing your own clothing line. "We have a Career Aptitude meter on your bio page that always tells you exactly what direction you're headed," says Designer Johnny Vignocchi. “Тһе mechanic is similar to what you see in modern role-playing games like Fable and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic." >> UBISOFT HAS TASKED DEVELOPER FREE RADICAL DESIGN (TIMESPLITTERS) WITH MAKING A NEXT-GEN ACTION GAME. ACCORDING TO THE T F $ < ` °з 82° Bw е» её 4OSGaw ae зз ө at d QN ` > 5-7 че і arrs Illustration DY Tim M oy A T a Long before Ervin Johnson became “Magic,” Michael became “Air Jordan,” and LeBron became “King James,” these basketball superstars spent years proving themselves on the court. Luckily, things happen much faster on the videogame hardwood. In Phenom, you’ve got only one week to show the roundball community that you're the real deal. “The player arrives [in Los Angeles] with nothing but his skills and his desire to make his mark," says Gomez. “Тһе week-long battle includes an old-time rivalry, a lost love, mentors, coaches, distractions, and maybe even a new love.” From the outset, you’ll walk around town and choose which pro-am tourneys to enter (you can also head to LAX and fly to venues in other cities). Obviously, victories will improve your rep. In addition, you'll earn clothing and equipment that can help—and hinder—your abilities. “As the ЕНН: "ABE a fa ри e player grows his collection of special gear, he’ll make his own choices about what gear to equip because not all of it is purely beneficial," explains Gomez. “Shaq’s ‘Diesel’ sneakers increase the players shot blocking and low-post offense, but reduce his long-range shooting attribute. The player will have to judge what's best for his own style." You can also hone your skills via assorted minigames, including Shootout, which tests whether you can sink jumpers under the pressure of a time limit and a defender all up in your grill. And remember those questionable off-the- court side missions? They might factor into wins and losses, too; completing certain tasks will help you build friendships with certain NBA players and celebrities, who may eventually become your teammates in the new 2-on-2 matchups (the original Ballers only featured 1-on-1 play). See, car washes are about more than staring at soapy T and A. For Ballers on the Go On the same day Phenom hits your console, Midway will bring NBA Ballers: Rebound to the PlayStation Portable. It’s basically the same game as the original console installment (which earned a Silver Award in EGM), but it comes packed with a few new minigames (like DunkFest), fantasy courts, and NBA players, including the Heat’s high-flyer Dwyane Wade and the Bulls’ three-point artist Ben Gordon. xh PRESS RELEASE, THE GAME WILL “TARGET MATURE GAMERS [AND] FEATURE DIFFICULT STRATEGIC CHOICES AND MORAL DILEMMAS” .... >> ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 43 STUBBS TH Bringing out the undead with designer Alex Seropian ow many chain-smoking, sheep-riding, redneck-pos- sessing zombies stalk the streets of Cold War-era America in videogames these days? Just one, unfortunately, and his name is Stubbs. His game, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse (XB), is the product of several new ideas in videogame development, chief among them the Fart button. But almost as impressive is the way Stubbs was made, built on the cheap by a tiny group of designers using the Halo engine. Alex Seropian’s team at Wideload outsourced the technical stuff, which freed them up to concentrate on the creative elements. Mission accomplished. —Robert Ashley Alex Seropian: | always wanted to make a game where you could fart. That was it—no, it's funny. Part of the way we do design work—we design a lot of games— [is that] we do a lot of high-level one-page treatments. | went back and looked at the original one-pager for Stubbs not too long ago. And what was funny about the one- pager versus what we shipped is that the mechanics are basically what we thought of from the very beginning, but the story is entirely different. The story was entirely changed around, but you could possess guys by throwing your hand on their head, or use the old flatulence, or throw your guts as a grenade. 44 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * www.1UP.com AS: Some things in the Halo engine work really, really, really well—like the aim- ing system and the way range combat works.... We were trying to make a game that was completely different, right? But there is shooting in our game, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We want to do stuff that is different, that is original. But | think the key to doing that is that you have to start with some common refer- ence point. Otherwise, it’s just too weird. AS: If you really think that, then I'm so flattered, ‘cause that’s exactly what we tried to do. It was so hard to do. We honestly spent six months developing this character, and at a certain point halfway through, we thought we were blowing it. We had gone through 300 concepts of this guy, and we hadn't nailed it yet. I’m glad we spent all that time, though. We had a bit of writer's block when we'd gotten about halfway through, so we brought in about 10 concept guys, and we had them all start doing their own ideas while we were piling in all kinds of refer- ence art, from pictures of Steve Buscemi to Shrek, and we got this huge cross sec- tion of ideas for [Stubbs]. It’s exactly how you said: How do you make a monster that you can like? AS: That contrast is really important. We thought it was funny to set the game in this utopian city in that utopian era, and to give the player a chance to destroy it. You know, everything is too good, too clean, too per- fect, too happy. We wanted to let you wipe the smile off their face. AS: Absolutely. You know, [during the production of Stubbs,] I'd get calls from my buddies in the industry all the time saying, "So, how goes your experiment?" | would just give the stock answer: “Оһ, it's going great"—Tregardless of how it was really going. But what better answer to that question than to be able to ship a game that way, a game that | think is pretty decent. And we're already working on the next game, so we loved the way the whole process worked. The coolest side effect of the whole thing is the work environment. We're all in one big room, and if anybody has an idea, they can share it. AS: We love the soundtrack too, but we really wanted to use music in the game in a way that wasn't just laid over the action. The songs play in appropriate places in the game, like in a jukebox and so on. It would have been cool to have the opportunity to build in more places for the soundtrack music, but the way it worked out was the way it worked out. AS: 1 don't think there was ever a meet- ing where someone said, “Let's make zombies blow up like this so people will want to show that in videos.” But we were all aware of things like the Warthog Jump video and its progeny, and we all sort of expected that some devious person would be doing something bizarre - with our game eventually—a flatulent zombie in a tank gives the prospective video maker a lot of ammo. йй >> THE OFT-DELAYED STATE OF EMERGENCY 2 WILL RIOT ON YOUR PS2 IN FEBRUARY. ALSO, A PSP VERSION IS PLANNED FOR THE FALL.... >> DOWNLOAD TODAY FROM THESE CARRIERS: Sprint ; | E di wireless ` 1 Veri "On wireless cingular ‘|: - -Mobile- ampd TM Look for DRIVER: PARALLEL LINES ў O — — Coming 2006 | T FIGHT ON FOOT INSIDE CASINOS BOMB THE CANYONS ATARI © 2005 Atari, Inc. All rights reserved. Background Technology © 2005 Glu Mobile. All rights reserved. DRIVER and related logos, characters, names, апа distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Atari, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used with permission. (>) press start OVERHEARD Oh no he di-int! one — 470 c it —tord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong director Peter Jackson discusses the Halo movie, which begins filming in 2006. He’s working on the project as a producer 1 EE RN Aa INE TA, ‹ ОАЗЕ > "E И Ке: 2 Ia ` 3 я E o i Wao! я 4 | n ЕТ КЕР tu bo i H Y ` - tt EN 1 i л 3 Ез З ©2005 Jeremy “Norm” Sco “Just because it is rated Mature doesn’t | | mean you shouldn’t buy it for your kids. Play the game and explain to them what they are playing.” —Rapper 50 Cent, ignoring the real reason why you shouldn’t buy his game, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, for anyone (check our review on page 106) “Maybe there’s a code you need | “I always wanted to have a custom-sized screen that wasn’t the typical four-cornered to enter to Unlock the | cathode-ray-tube TV. I’ve always thought that GAMMES WO uid eventuali y E Ns = E prat ; next-gen graphics." | break free of the confines of a TV screen to fill an entire те Xbox 360 version or NBA 2X6 for the frettime | Toom. But | would rather not say anything | more 4d that." the Xbox 360 version of NBA 2K6 for the first time | | — Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto stops talking about what he thinks games will be like in the future just when it was starting to get good “It is Microsoft. And | 42! "Sadly, most people won't take the time to look past the surface, the fiction, the context [of Grand Theft Auto]. TYT 4 | T | 1 | will kill them." | [ney don't see the fun and the freedom the game provides. they see car- jackings and gun battles М» hookers. You can talk about game design genius "til you're blue in the face—the and CEO Ken Kutaragi, asked in 1994 who he thought the biggest competition would be for people who want to regulate games, and the mainstream audience we want to reach, will ignore you.” his upcoming PlayStation game console | --бате designer Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Thief) has a point —Sony Computer Entertainment President PENNY ARCADE WWW.PENNY-ARCADE.COM I can really see “The best title I think Perfect Dark : : myself enjoying it under i is а misnomer. It May be : ; ever made in те tnat he game ony perc, jose circonstances. ШШШ RELI history of U.S. videogaming when played in the dark. д bake a while. Do you JF «К Look at it this way: now want anuthing? d was DragonStomper.” For example, during that they're done P«««ing around, yoning SS —From an article titled “Xbox 360 has nothing on the a power outage. bhey can bring back killer Instinct. INALLOY] А COME v oe Atari 2600” on Forbes.com. Seriously. We’re not jok- С i You remember all those good ing. The full article is even worse. With all due respect A) ҮІ m n un times? (which is to say, no respect at all), maybe Forbes.com should stick to worshipping CEOs and pork belly futures or whatever the hell it is they do over there ©2005 Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins 5 Ladies and gentlemen, Forbes.com’s greatest game ever made in all its glory. QUOTATION SOURCES FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, STARTING WITH LEFT COLUMN: QUARTERMANN, BUSINESS 2.0, FORBES.COM, DARKHORIZONS.COM, REUTERS, BUSINESSWEEK.COM, GAMESPOT.COM >> MTV PICKED UP THE FILM RIGHTS ТО MARC ECKO'S GETTING UP: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE (PS2/XB). STARS AND DATE ARE STILL TBD.... 46 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com с „00 фаса у de ue a Bs Bim HAM } Т1! WAN АКА А ГҮ ү wá ^ патол WEN E "ашу HA ` KONAMI Í www.findagamestore.com visi you, ORDER NOW Ї We take games seriously " To find a store nearest IS GAMES ( c “< € Апоїһег update оп Sony's next- -gen dream machine, lay ond = et "ег rip: With the recent launch of the Xbox 360, the first actual shot in the next- gen war has finally been fired. Still, we all know this fight won’t have much bloodshed until Sony brings out its big gun, PlayStation 3 (not to mention Nintendo’s remote-controlled » Revolution). The current console Meader remains hush-hush on a specific Felease date and cost for its much- anticipated system, yet most industry Гехрег1$ are predicting that the PS3 will Fland on U.S. store shelves іп fall 2006 F with a price tag of at least 400 smack- ers. So as we wait for Sony to start talkin’, chew on these PS3 updates. — Bryan Intihar БА ку) a on,” said esteemed developer Hideo be the reaction of the Metal Gear | i a new supersecretive mechanic being used in this PS3 stealth-espionage title. “With this in place, we'll introduce а new concept that's different from any : Kojima. "If it works out, I'm positive Idustry. It'll reflect well on the iure knows how to tease us.... DEC QUEMAR ———— Ё ‘ m Sorry kiddies, but you may really have | i to be at least 17 years old if you want | to try out Grand Theft Auto on your PS3. | You see, thé Entertainment Software Association announced that Sony's next-gen system—just like the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Revolution—will fea- ture parental controls, thus giving users the option to limit the types of games that can be played on the console. к x^, ^ ELIES Аааа No, we're not talking first-person shooters here, but rather frames per second (the more frames per second, the smoother the game looks in motion). Ken Kutaragi, Sony Computer Entertainment president and father of all things PlayStation, told Tokyo International Digital Conference attendees that PS3 titles will be able to run at a ridiculous 120 frames per second (most games—including those on Xbox 360—only go at 30 to 60 frames per sec- ond). Impressive numbers indeed, but too bad no televisions on the market today can refresh at such a fast rate. » ) REVOLUTION H HAS ON MORE SECRET YET TO BE REVEALED... 48 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * www.1UP.com |) 7-7 тле йы „лб JE SCONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE ` ШЕШШ UP: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE ШШ ҮТ THE COLLECTIVE Mes Drectionty ЕШ DIDDY COMBS Musichy AJOC. ГНЕЈА NOTORIOUSB.LG. TALIB KWEL ШЕШЕШЕШГ PHAROARE MONCH. Staring TALIB KWELI ІШ WEST BRITTANY MURPHY CHARLIE MURPHY GEORGE HAMILTON ЕШІГЕТШІШІ THERZA SEAN DIDDY” COMBS MICHAEL "MG SERO BERRIN and ANDY DICK as Bt @ Featuring Graffiti Legends COPE SHEPARD AIREY SEEN TRIN FUTURA SMITH and many more. e “ecko unltd: WWW.GETTINGURCOM pu 24 PlayStation.? ре E 1 bend SOFTWARE ©2005 Atari, Inc. All cd Reserved. ©2005 Ecko Unltd. Developed by The Collective. Powered.by “Slayer".™ The Collective name and logo are trademarks of Foundation 9 Entertainment. “PlayStation” and the Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony ComputerEntertainment Ine: Microsoft, Xbox, and the Xbox Logos are either registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation mobile by Blood glu : | Text keyword GETUP td Violence 41233 (GRAFF) on yo mobile phone. Standard messaging rates apply. Strong Language] — in the U.S. and/or in other countries and are used under license from Microsoft. The ESRB rating icons are registered trademarks of the Entertainment Software Association. THE POWER OF 3 сох PlayStation Live? Even though Sony is winning the current console war without breaking a sweat, Microsoft’s Xbox Live service—with its 2 million-plus subscribers and ease of use—is dominating the online space. What will Sony’s strategy be this go-around? “When we launch a PS3 online service, we certainly want to take advantage of the PS3, the technology it brings, and offer a great online experience for PS3 users,” said Sony Computer Entertainment America President Kaz Hirai in a recent interview with our sister publication Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. “But at the same time, we want to make sure we bring along the huge install base of PS2 users and the install base of PSP users and have them be able to take part in the online experi- ence as well.” An integrated online network for the entire PlayStation family sounds like a step in the right direction, but can Sony actually make it happen? The company’s been giving us the same song and dance for two years now. as in Virtua Fighter 5, which Sega has confirmed for the PS3 (it might even end up exclusive to the console). The technically savvy fighter is currently being tested in Japanese arcades, and aside from the much slicker eye candy, players are digging the game’s new Dodge button. M Madden NFL O6 © Some sports developers who wished — to remain anonymous tell us that the | brand-new game engines they just created for Xbox 360 titles will also used in creating the РЗ installments | (in а nutshell, it would be а waste of _ development dollars and time to Start from scratch again). So don’t expect too many differences between sports titles on either platform. E | A y Й Le | Же { др | || P Fire! |. Zero Point Software recently revealed its | debut title, Project IM. This futuristic first- _ Person shooter will come to both PS3 and _ Xbox 360, and it’s already being billed as 9 а trilogy. Mass Effect, Too Human, and now Project IM—apparently, NBA Live 06 7 Б trilo jies аге the hot next-gen trend. mà а voy Lj MOVING ТО JAPAN? IF SO, CHECK OUT SONY'S GAME YAROZE! PROGRAM, WHICH ASKS PEOPLE TO SUBMIT GAME PITCHES FOR PS3.... 50 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • M BLAZE THROUGH THE MOST AUTO-RACING Enjoy the special in-game visual effects with Intei« Pentiume Extreme Edition. Take your place on the grid and experience the excitement of wheel-to-wheel racing. Realistic damage and exhilarating handling. RACE DRIVER, Shunt out the competition and compete through the greatest range of auto-racing in any game. f 50 JAMMED PACKED WITH RACING... . LIKE BUYING ONE GAME AND GETTING ANOTHER FREE! 2 GAME INFORMER www.codemasters.com/tocaracedriver3 CONTENT RATED BY j E ® none BROADBAND ON ESRB жер s ors m ёл POW TRIED [27 x Codemasters’ © 2005 The Codemasters Software Company Limit lemasters"). All rights reserved. “Codemasters”® and the Codemasters logo are registered trademarks owned by Codemasters. Driver" "е 3, “Ultimate Racing Simulator”™ are trademarks of Codemasters. All other copyrights or trademarks are the property of their, respective owners and are being used by, Codemasters under, license: GameSpy and the, = Powered by, GameSpy” design are trademarks of GameSpy ies, Inc.All rights reserved. "PlayStation" and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. 0 ay requires internet connection and Memory Card (BMB) (for PlayStation 2) (each sold separately). The Online icon is a trademark of Sony, Computer Entertainment America Inc? Microsoft XDOXAXDOx Live and the Xbox and Xbox-Live logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks osoft Corporation іп the U.S. and/or in other countries and are used under license from Microsoft. Pentium, Intel, and the Intel Inside lo: ademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries THE RUMOR MILL 200 issues haven't slowed down our chatterbox ell, here we are—the big two- wW zero-zero. | still can’t believe that yours truly has been dishing the videogame dirt for 17 years now. Тһаёѕ a lot of damn rumors, people. Sure, I’ve had my share of embarrassing misses along the way (check out page 120), but I’ve also had plenty of mind-exploding, universe-shattering predic- tions that came true. Got any fond Q-Mann memories? Send them to quartermann@ziffdavis.com. Рт all for reminiscing.... —The Q Massively multiplayer hobbits Action, role-playing, turn-based strategy— The Lord of the Rings franchise has found its way into several genres (with varying results). Next up: the massively multiplay- er online role-playing sector. Yep, a Lord of the Rings-based MMORPG (suppos- edly subtitled The White Council) is BITS OF Q @ Publisher THQ is prepping a sequel heading to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. You can start looking for your long-lost hobbit love in Middle-earth during 2007. Colorless It’s been almost three years since publisher SCi announced a game based on Quentin Tarantino's first big flick, Reservoir Dogs. Well, I’ve got some good and bad news con- cerning the project: Reservoir Dogs will finally bloody up the PS2 and Xbox in 2006, but it won’t feature any of the actors’ voices or likenesses. No Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink? Lame. Spinning another web Q-Mann fact: Back in the day when my gossiping was limited to the playground, | had a bit of an obsession with Marvel's friendly neighborhood superhero (and I’ve got the Underoos to prove it). So yeah, I’m very glad to see that Ultimate Spider- Man 2 will swing to next-gen consoles to Destroy All Humans! But Pandemic, developer of the first game, won’t make it. Е The Wild West-set Gun is receiving а follow-up. Expect this one to mosey on over to next-gen consoles at the end of 2006. Ш This spring, you might see an Xbox 360 version of True Crime: New York City. Hopefully, they'll fix all the problems found in the current-gen edition. E A Destroy All Humans! sequel? Yeah, when cows fly. Huh? Wait a sec.... >> IN MARCH, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL 2K6 HEADS TO THE PS2, XBOX, AND GAMECUBE DIAMONDS. A 360 VERSION WILL COME LATER... 52 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com this fall. Just one request: Make the game longer than five hours, will ya? Online attraction OK, | know last issue’s entry concerning the Revolution’s questionable graphics irritated quite a few rabid fanboys. Buck up, little campers—1'm about to turn those frowns upside down. The Q's hear- ing that several developers (including those in the PC community) who mostly make online games want to work on Nintendo’s next-gen console. Happy now? Handheld war As much as | beg for additional original PlayStation Portable titles, it appears my pleas are falling on deaf ears. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that another well-known videogame franchise, Medal of Honor, will soon fight the good fight on Sony’s handheld. Oh well, at least this military first-person shooter f will have online play (a | feature | wish more PSP | games would start 4 7 including). 9 j A e^ OLI jT 4 9 TM ITAIRE GOES PLATINUM! — KEYWORD: t via * E er, a^ Б. 4 3 82174 * Standard SMS апа data charges apply THE TWOWL-H'RON'S Ls - e KORG. aac UU We KING KONG THE OFFICIA! MOBI F GAMF DF THE MAVIE e E LL Press 8.5 to Ресфәсш а dovblestrific KEYWORD: KEYWORD: KEYWORD: VZ8 KEYWORD: \у//4 KEYWORD: VZ1 , 238 v ي‎ gameloft www.gameloft.com verivonwireless Legal: (c) 2005 Gameloft. All Rights Reserved. Gameloft, the Gameloft logo, Asphalt: Urban GT and Midnight Pool are trademarks of Gameloft in the US and/or other countries. All manufacturers, cars, motorbikes, names, brands and associated imagery featured in Asphalt: Urban GT mobile game are trademarks and/or copyrighted materials of their respective owners. (c) 1989 Jordan Mechner. All Rights Reserved. Based on Prince of Persia(r) created by Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia The Two Thrones are trademarks of Jordan Mechner used under license by Gameloft. Universal Studios' King Kong movie (c) Universal Studios. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood Mobile Game (c) 2005 Gameloft. All rights reserved. Published by Gameloft under license from Ubisoft Entertainment. Brothers In Arms Earned in Blood is a trademark of Gearbox Software and is used under license. Gearbox Software and the Gearbox logo are registered trademarks of Gearbox Software, LLC. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. ©2005 Verizon Wireless. © press start ІНЕ HOT 10 Ten things to care about because we say so Xbox Live Py GS — Messages 3 Mystery Gamer . Friends 5 È i With Gotham TV gamers can watch any ptayer in the world on live news feeds. . Marketplace > | Play: Project Gotham Racing 3 9 Switch Profile ха | Shutdown Тор this, PS3! Select? ^1 4 XBOX LIVE chatting with a friend while he’s watching a DVD and you're racking up Project Gotham Racing 3 kudos— Microsoft's online service is definitely next gen. As for most of the 360 launch titles...well, not so much. ОМ 360 Downloadable game demos, the all-new spectator mode, 7 | LAUNCH SYSTEM FOR BIG BUCKS ON EBAY XBOX LIVE ARCADE Perfect Dark Zero: The Xbox 360° killer app? Pfft. We'd rather download (for a small fee) and play Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved or the original Gauntlet any day of the week. | THE “BLUE SKY IN GAMES” CAMPAIGN Those jokers at UK Resistance (ukresistance.co.uk) are offering some sound advice to developers. For example: “Games need BLUE SKIES! Games need BRIGHT YELLOW SUNS! Games need RED AND BLUE THINGS in them! We want to play in a HAPPY PRETEND LAND, not a s*** version of an American slum full of mixed- race gangsters wearing licensed sportswear.” Amen. SELLING YOUR Capitalism at its finest.... D_SKIN It really stings when you lend жет 85 —u ngo ps TIVO ONPSP ` Need to catch up on your Laguna Beach episodes? Starting in the spring, an enhanced TiVoToGo feature will allow you to transfer recorded programs to the PlayStation Portable. 360 ITUNES Head to www. hymn-project.com to download this easy-to-use software that converts your рге- iTunes 6.0 music into unprotected MP3s that will play on your Xbox 360 (both ways: through your home network or iPod). Thanks to reader Steven Doran for the heads-up. 8 a game disc to a friend, only to have him or her scratch the hell out of it. So slap on these protective sheets and problem solved. Plus, you don’t have to remove them to play that valuable copy of The Guy Game. HOMEMADE PLASMA SWORD LETTER OPENER Paying bills sucks. But as a dedicated Halo 2 fan shows us, at least one part—the opening por- tion—can be satisfying. жылын. FATHER VIDEOGAME GETS HIS DUE President George Bush recently announced that Ralph Baer, who basi- cally created the videogame, is one of the recipients of the 2004 National Medal of Technology. And it’s about freakin’ time.... B Junk mail, watch your back. | 94 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com а и е: Ки н Pn e on — nhe Ras © press start We drop science on the four families of НОТУ, along with five buying tips all gamers should know hat sales guy in the TV aisle is starting to think you’re stalking him. You’ve been staring at his goods for the past year, hemming and hawing over blowing your dough on a high-definition television. And now that the Xbox 360 has launched and the PlayStation 3 is on the way—both systems built for HDTV gaming—it’s time to commit. Unfortunately, although they’re cheaper than ever, HDTVs aren’t so easy to shop for. You can drown in a sea of set types, all emblazoned with letters and numbers that don’t mean much to the normal earthman (we translate all this alien lingo in a glossary on the opposite page). So before you creep out the sales guy one more time, arm yourself with info from our guide to the HDTV varieties. —Marc Camron lution: the number of horizontal lines the TV supports. The higher the num- ber, the better the picture. To qualify for 1 Consider your potential HDTV's reso- aad Е Many inexpensive plasmas are actually only *Extended Definition," meaning that they convert all digital signals to 480p, a nice picture but not nearly as sharp as HDTV. 56» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Direct-view CRT These are the boob tubes you grew up with: big CRTs stuck in bigger boxes. The technology is on the way out but still represents a good entry-level HDTV value for gamers without deep pockets or the need for a hyper-large screen. @ Much less expensive than other formats. You'll find a decent model for under a grand. @ Good ones have the best picture quality of all the HDTV types, with deep blacks and great color. @ No native resolution means no Pros TV stand. inches. worry of lag (see our buying tips below for a description of lag). @ They last forever. SPY BEFORE YOU BUY: FIVE ESSENTIAL SHOPPING TIPS... HDTV, the set must be at least 720p (the “р” stands for “progressive scan"—see our glossary), which is the standard resolution for Xbox 360 games. Sets that support 1080i (the “i” stands for “inter- laced”) have been available for a while, and new 1080p sets are becoming com- mon (Sony claims its PS3 will support 1080p). Unless your viewing environment is configured right—and you enjoy sitting close to the set—you can’t tell much dif- ference between 1080p and 720p. 2 a widescreen, ог 16:9, ratio—real- ly the only way to play since all HDTV programming and high-def games support widescreen format. Go with a television that comes in Make sure your new Set has lots 3 of inputs, or you'll end up invest- ing in an expensive switch box. The more HDMI/DVI and component inputs, the better oo | (decent models һауе a combination of at least five). Beware of lag. Most new HDTVs 4 have a native resolution (often 720p), and all incoming signals are scaled up or down to match it by the TV's video processor. A slow processor can cause a delay between when you push a button and the resulting onscreen action. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 (and some Xbox 1 games) can output a 720p picture, JOHN MADDEN GETS SERVED. ..WITH A LAWSUIT. PERNELL HARRIS SAYS THAT EA USED HIS IDEAS IN MADDEN NFL 06'S SUPERSTAR MODE. Cons @ BIG and HEAVY—could crush your average Ikea Ш Old technology means fewer bells and whistles. W No size larger than 36 and therefore make it unnecessary for 720p televisions to convert the signal, older systems output in standard televi- sion format at 480i or enhanced 480p. Your best defense against lag is to test for it: Drag your oldest game system to the store and try it out on different HDTV models using regular composite cables. 5 particular quirks. Does the pixel separation in certain LCD sets make it seem like you’re watching the action through a screen door? Are you one of the few unfortunate souls who sees the rainbow blur on DLP sets? Watch, play, and choose carefully. This isn’t a purchase you'll want to repeat anytime soon. Look carefully for each set’s Pros W Big picture. Really big. Like, enormous. Great if you live in a loft. @ Portable. Take it to These projectors come in a friend’s loft. nearly as many varieties— CRT, DLP, LCD—as the other set types. The only way to go if you want to rock the Xbox 360 on a 100-inch screen. Pros E Thin, beautiful, and futuristic. | LCDs can have great resolution; plasma sets even have good blacks. Wi Require less maintenance than the projection sets below. @ LCDs look good even in bright light, while plasmas do better in the dark. This is what most people picture when they think HDTV: sets sleek and thin enough to hang on the wall. LCDs top out at just about 50 inches, but plasma sets get much bigger, although you'll certainly pay for it. Pros Bi Inexpensive. You can get a lot of TV for a reasonable price. | LCDs from Sony and the LCOS sets from JVC feature a “game” mode. @ Most new 1080p sets fit into this category. E They're lighter than they look. Not as thin as the flat panels, but much thinner and lighter than their CRT counterparts, these HDTVs are available in sizes ranging from 40 inches to more than 60 inches. They offer the best value for your money, with plenty of great features and good picture quality to boot. Cons Ш Good ones аге still expensive. LI You need a separate screen and lots of wall space for that ginormous picture. ш Most don't do well in bright light, so you'll need heavy-duty drapes. Ш You'll need to reorganize your gear to get everything near the projector (which is often behind you). Cons Wi Expensive! True HD plasma sets and all good LCD flat panels are much pricier than the other set types. W Plasma fades over time, with по cheap way to recharge it. W May suffer lag because of their native resolutions. WE These sets—particularly plas- mas—are almost as heavy as direct-view CRTs. Cons E These displays don’t project a true black, although they are getting better. W Native resolutions could mean gaming lag, depending on the set. | LCDs can show а screen-door effect; DLPs can show color blur. W Projectors mean bulbs. Plan to spend $300 every 3,000 hours, or spring for the extended warranty when you buy the TV. ACCORDING TO HARRIS, IN 2003 HE PRESENTED THE COMPANY WITH A FOOTBALL CONCEPT THAT HAD MANY OF THE SAME FEATURES. ... >> — — A signal that draws every other line on the screen in two passes. Not as clear as progressive scan. Resolution formats include 480i— called standard resolution—and 1080i Draws every line every pass. Clearer than interlaced. Formats include 480p, 720p, and 1080p. The lowest resolution video connection. Cannot use for HD. Better than composite, but not good enough for HD. Here we go! The standard HD cable. The best HD connection. All digital, these two are compatible with each other, although HDMI passes the audio signal as well as video. Cathode-ray tube. Old-style sets, with vacuum tubes and everything. Liquid crystal display. Like the monitor on your laptop, available as a flat-panel or projection set. Digital light projection. Millions of micromirrors reflect the picture onto a screen. Available in either front or rear projection. Liquid crystal on silicone (also called HD-ILA or SXRD depending on the company). Liquid crystals that project the image onto the screen, similar to DLP. Gas-filled pixels that glow red, green, or blue depending on the electri- cal charge pumped through them. The size of the screen, given in inches wide by inches high. See the definitions below. Also called full screen. This is something of a misnomer, since widescreen (below) generally shows more picture. This is the shape of older, almost square televisions. Also called widescreen. The offi- cial format of HDTV, it comes closer to the screen ratio we see in movie the- aters. You will almost always get more of the picture with this format. DLP sets use a spinning color wheel to produce the picture, and some people see a psychedelic color streak behind moving images. = ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 57 (>) press start . COMING SOON w~ e Neon Chibi Robo Nintendo * GC — This oddball title casts you as a tiny robot tasked with pleasing his host family. Next stop: Roomba RPG. ” | mri Bounty Hounds Namco * PSP — Guns, aliens, guns, and more guns. These are outer space bounty hunters that will obviously shoot first. 24: The Game 2K Games • PS2 — As CTU agent Jack Bauer, you defend freedom in real time while stoically avoiding bathroom breaks. | EyeToy: Chat \ | Sony CEA * PS2 — Let's be real. They 2 | should just call this EyeToy: Get Naked on Î Your PS2 and Play Checkers With Hotties. Ubisoft » PSP — This art-deco action title updates the addictive side-scrolling arcade classic Elevator Action. Commandos: Strike Force Eidos • PS2/XB — If you're pining for a gritty WWII first-person shooter set in the European theater...you somehow missed the five released last year. Commandos offers a sliver of originality, at least: three unique playable characters and nonlinear missions. Generation of Chaos Sonic Riders | Nippon Ichi « PSP — Massive 30-on-30 | Sega * PS2/XB/GC — Take your Ritalin. Square Enix е PS2 — This offbeat role-playing epic serves up lush vistas, a colorful skirmishes make this the most er...cha- Sonic is extremely speedy in this grand cast of characters, and the ability to pilot aircraft. “1 believe players can feel wind, fly in otic tactical RPG on PSP to date. prix airboard-racing game. the big sky, and explore the vast world fully,” muses Grandia III Producer Katsunori Saito. Full Spectrum Warrior: Teen Titans Nintendo * GBA ~ Теп Hammers Majesco * PS2/XB/GC/GBA THQ * PS2/XB Field Commander ToCA Race Driver 3 Sony Online * PSP : Super Princess Peach Codemasters е PS2/XB ; is Nintendo * DS —á—. б s , E ToCA’s vehicular racin’ and rubbin’. >> |М MARCH, OUTRUN 2006: COAST 2 COAST DRIVES TO PS2 AND PSP. CONNECT THE TWO SYSTEMS AND YOU CAN UNLOCK NEW CONTENT... >> 58 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com PRODUCTS RANGE FROM RATING PENDING ro TEEN wet Е «> EE EE BY BAPE 02 > HERI 59% ЕЛРІШЕ Dn the PS ТМ S КА, 242622447 77222 Six Hot New Titles for your PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable) system ча sd CAPE PlayStation. Portable WWW.Cancom.cormi ОСАРСОМ CO., LTD. 1987, 2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MEGA MAN, CAPCOM and the САРСОМ LOGO are registered trademarks of CAPCOM CO., LTD. STREET ҒІСНТЕНФ is a registered trademark of CAPCOM U.S.A. INC. VIEWTIFUL JOE and MAVERICK HUNTER are trademarks of CAPCOM CO. LTD. “PSP” is a trademark and "PlayStation" and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Memory Stick Duo™ may be required (sold separately). The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. 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Here's a brief, no-nonsense look at the games that will grace your new system in the coming months.... hell out of the Xbox 360 launch ports, but at least the pickings aren't о you’ve already played the lineup. What’s next? Well, as with most new consoles, you'll see a lot with a second dose of 300 action o» Ф = © "an О с 3 С: D О С. i = О > 5 Q = О с 366 62 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com р ақы > а ы Е Фа Moa. Ce Bow) AL Vas i ea ү a F aW A - 1 ал У OE, Y +7 MV У n “4; ab ен ч! уа” " 462% Г Publisher: THQ • Release Date: March 2006 _ Sin City The vast urban playground you'll conquer in Saint's Row goes by the name of Stillwater. "It's loosely based on Chicago, but we took some big liberties," Designer Chris Stockman explains. “It’s a massive place, and we open up the full city from the outset, only holding the player's hand for the first hour— once you've got the basics, it's up to you what missions you take on." Mission Accomplished “We definitely used the free-roam- ing, mission-based Grand Theft Auto model as a basis, but | feel that we offer a lot of innovation, with greater freedom and deeper gameplay,” Stockman adds. “You can take on all sorts of missions, such as rob- bing stores, pimpin’.ho’s, fighting for turf, or even committing insurance йз | fraud—putting yourself in grave | , danger in front of an audience." | | Paging Mr. Thompson If killing cops, stealing cars, and pummeling hook- ers is old hat, spice it up with some substance abuse. “We’re not trying to encourage kids to do it, but we do have liquor and weed in the game as | healing items,” says Stockman. “If you drink a lot, | you get beer muscles and you're much better at fighting...take it too far, though, and you'll wake up | outside a bar wearing nothing but your boxers.” | e " , \ ыы == — On tougher shooting missions, you can bring two of your A.l.-controlled boys along to even the odds. MIELE | Callin’ for Backup | өл “ г = t v с et AEN Я 5 T 4 т - auk 1.3 w 5 o nb re Eun | | "Unlike GTA, our ‘shooting gameplay is based on traditional бао фр style acter customization, tweaking every detail of your chare аг; | body, and clothing," says Stockman. "It's especially с E Il be able to show off your pimp style on oa m 4 ^ TERRA —X A "oUf ұш ко Saint's Row will also offer various online | Е multiplayer contests nee aaa (modified versions of classic first-person shooting fare such as capture the flag) that unfold in small | chunks of the city. > MN OS SS O ea ------- س —— — —— ا ? ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 63 + xbox 360: the next wave EA's boxing sim delivers a stunning visual knockout 64» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com E LUN B Voices Carry f. Progress | Despite the nearly universal support for the Xbox ұт The online Final | Live headset, Square Enix previously stated that ' Fantasy XI community | FFXI would not support voice chat...yet, oddly, the ' current beta test does allow it. Dare we dream? is already home to over 1.5 million char- | acters, and the Xbox 360 release will be fully compatible with the PlayStation 2 and PC versions. Cross- console romance... now a reality. FINAL FANTASY А massive role-playing or the 360 ey Aural Upgrade While this FFX/ offers no exclusive content, audiophiles will dig the _, new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix. . ' = Questing in HD With the 360 FFXI, you'll finally be able to toast mandoragas in glorious widescreen high definition. "ETE л. _ _— — x 2 ; | ` E digg a) 29 D 0 ре | Í ) > items 3 беіасі ап item ИИО RC ERR : i à did ын | КУР P А ў с к m o Cana i x "ШҮ ы Ss E Sorry, America Б | m 008 _1п Japan, every Xbox Busuto +1 360 comes pre- Tasagokake — — ọ И 5011 Насһітакі soil Tekko loaded with a beta _ х | of FFXI. Here in the gag mmm TESTES уш TE = Ss Е" T | жаа" will soon begin its - | | | poe P ` 4. ve _own beta test...check Expanding Fantasy | | $ % on www.playonline.com The 360 version of FFXiwill | / | ЖО ОО ` | for details. > include all three content-rich | 2 дема жы Да, BUCO A expansion packs—Aise of the | Т Treasures of Aht Urhgan debuts the blue mage class, wizards who mas- ter enemies’ spells. E Zilart, Chains of Promathia, _. | and the brand-new Treasures DEL Urhgan. HIST ONE ---------- AA Ther б< сы. сар ONE ене ые Ун peak АЫ raed ДУР; А, CLES NAR + xbox 360: the next wave Aa d а" g : & ; pe M xs. м ЕЖ " fe КЕ j К E d 5 E i QN F 4 Wines” AxDeMRCHY “tame $ | E Fo аз ر‎ “а ғыт >” ғ 4 Н Ыы e" Į / b CAT ы? „4 М» ы Ж tr % 66 е ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com nl : HE YEAR ET ЖОРЫ : DEMMESSS DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT & MEDIA EXCELLENCE AWARDS Bilboard * DEMYXPO * wma "^ t > Y e b , y * ж , D able. y £s 4 „7 ot ESL ҮЗ = A\Fresh/Experience) Für: Mo БЕТТ С ДАО [ ( Ж у жс „Hugely Recommended: ¥ “ f & * 6 t ` b V LIU ыз - 4 & А © 2005 id Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ® 1993-2005 id Software, Inc. Published by JAMDAT Mobile Inc, under license from id Software D Inc. Fountainhead Entertainment and the FE logo are trademarks of Fountainhead Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved. JAMDAT, JAMDAT ) М W W D 0 0 М n p - £0 M AMD АП Mobile and the bubbles logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of JAMDAT Mobile Inc. in the United States and/or other countries/regions Ы ° Aro All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used with permission ~ Prices E - 4 ENTERTAINMENT, INC DOWNLOAD TODAY FROM THE GAMES MENU ON YOUR PHONE OR FROM WWW.JAMDAT.COM AVAILABLE ON THESE AND OTHER WIRELESS CARRIERS 2 cingular E gu а ail" Sprint veri7onwireless 5% xbox 360: ~» Ehe next wave XBOX 360: LATE LAUNCH Ihe best-laid plans don't always pan out—in a perfect world, you would have had these titles back in November... | This until "T i p В.Н ге. e 4 % b | shooter offers E ТУТ” | | fully destructible ^ ae | ші i environments, ZA ЭС. 71 тап. Let's ho GHOST RECON: ADVANCED WARFIGHTER _ hes vu a Fa toni vay | since its shaky debut. Its lush visuals, Sexy | cars, and inn es + in the -cooker to fix some nasty Slowdown. س --——-——— TUE (НЕ ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION 68 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY e www.1UP.com d % & тм ORDER 25 to Life PlayStation.c л/-- СӘ " > YS V e IPE T. А” a ts дү 4 us 0 М 0 ёл...‏ ر E ic‏ b‏ € Pe А p‏ ж ) 24 2‏ d _ „А‏ * < £ 5 ete (Жж ЗУ P » 4‏ BEP > М‏ т 2 » B.‏ í‏ * ^ P ET - >‏ ғы. Е 2‏ Y al о T HW |‏ "FE je ”‏ WU Ue‏ | " IM.‏ p ( oe T‏ "id EIA.‏ e T ۲ ^‏ , L^ u m". Я‏ “a t‏ %қ b 2%» I E T‏ A Va v “9%‏ ha 5‏ 4178,7 £ Шен” к =‏ ' ed T " ~A е‏ і 7 ң a Са 1‏ і 4‏ LS EE‏ ”= featuring in game hip-hop е | -so> artists such as Tech Nane, Geto E CO Boys, Yukmouth, UTP Playas, Ф ғо) апей, Jackpot / ) ] e. { ; "es Lo 90 VISIT WWW.FINDAGAMESTORE.COM FOR А STORE NEAR YOU GAMES | We take games seriously " = ido,» * xbox 360: the next wave XBOX 360: PORT CITY Since it’s easier to spruce up a current-gen game than to make an original 360 outing, here come the generational crossovers E — Bonus di a. 7» ------4 - 4 T x а Ў - — — - ona mbe 360. You'll now. be tile IT | replays, rack up impressive 130 How. | Lara’s Big omeba | After a gradual slide into i . repute, Lara Croft boun t ‚ back with more realis Е and а return с | As grand multiplayer : Indiana Jones-i 4 war sim gets little more - " NN {е "t than a minor face-lift for КЕР f» рау. joris айх its jump to Xbox 360. n ! 1 | Ұз ale Б ж. | 7 70 е ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Save with the New Way to Phone! Try 1 Month FREE with: Voicemail! Caller ІП! 3-Way Calling! Many More Features! UNLIMITED Try 1 Month FREE call: 1-800-970-1525 WWW.VONAGE.COM/SAVE5 Keep Your Phone Number" t Free month offer is valid ONLY for the $24.99 unlimited residential plan. Not valid for $14.99 residential or any business plans. Vonage 911 service operates differently than traditional 911. Service fee excludes: broadband service, activation, premium services, Vonage-compatible equipment, termination, regulatory recovery and taxes. International calls billed per minute. Credit card and high-speed Internet required. Satellite TV & alarm systems may require a land line. Restrictions apply. Visit WWW.VONAGE.COM/SAVES for Terms of Service and details. © 2001-2005 Vonage Marketing Inc. ^ Where Available. Timing varies. COMING SOON... TM IDEO See the latest game trailers, video strategies, features _ and much more at www.gamevideos.com Part of the 1UP Network КУУ Ne ub OES a АРЫ; s “мә IR Аты. Ае СС. ТА ағы 74 e ELECTRONIC GAMING MONIRE ууу 1UP.com ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY е www.1UP.com • 75 The Quest For The Rings қ.” DEO GAME {ЭЎ "p А | EXPANDED MEMORY CARTRIDGE MASTER STRATEGY Vil 4 2 LE У д А , J J ew vs { p Quest for the Rings Odyssey 2 * 1981 — Maybe you've never heard of this insanely EL ИЕ but if you ever enjoyed a Gauntlet, Secret of Mana, or Baldur's Gate game, you owe it a debt of gratitude. Two players choose from four classes to fight monsters (sound familiar yet?) and recover powerful rings. Complete with tokens апа а map, it was an early crucial step in bringing pen-and-paper RPGs to the TV. Super NES * 1991 Intellivision * 1981 Long before fatalities, prostitute beatings, and Jack Thompson sullied videogames’ good name, you could find do-good strate- gic fare like Utopia, where building schools and hospitals is part of the game. ЕСЗ Guitar Hero PS2 • 2005 Toting this game's Fisher-Price-style guitar peripheral around on your back won't get you laid—nor, in fact, will contorting yourself Clapton style through the game's 35 incredible tunes in front of the opposite sex. But play it solo or with a like-minded crüe and Guitar Hero will fulfill all your rock ’n’ roll fantasies. NFL 2K1 Dreamcast * 2000 The Chronicles of Riddick Xbox * 2004 Nam-1975 NeoGeo • 1990 SSX PS2 * 2000 | 192 | Shadow of the Colossus PS2 • 2005 Devil’s Crush ЕС) Turbografx-16 • 1990 Bushido Blade PlayStation * 1997 Say what you want about its blocky graphics, but in many ways this open- arena, hyperrealistic (one-hit kills!) fighting game still hasn't been topped. 76 e ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Super Castlevania IV Metal Gear NES • 1988 Chu-Chu Rocket! Dreamcast • 2000 Mario Party N64 * 1999 Elegantly transformed gaming into a social event and “normal people" into button- mashing fanatics. EC Dragon's Lair Arcade * 1983 Now that game graphics look better than Lego blocks shooting at other Lego blocks, it's easy to scoff at the simple memoriza- tion gameplay of this "interactive" cartoon and all the laser-disc-powered coin-ops that followed it. But at the time—admit itl—you were amazed. 10802 Snowboarding N64 • 1998 Blaster Master NES • 1988 Gorf Arcade • 1981 Psychonauts Xbox * 2005 River City Ransom NES • 1990 ECT) Super Off Road Arcade • 1989 Nobody really knew or cared who Ivan “Ironman” Stewart was, but damn if his game wasn't awesome. Super Off Road’s complex, tortuous tracks, vehicle upgrades, and arcade-cheap A.I. made it a classic. And when you won, you stood on a podium while the national anthem played and a chick in a bikini pinched your ass. Keep that thumb up, Ironman. Magician Lord NeoGeo • 1990 д hanco Dance Revolution сз ° 1998 висене i Meade ° 1982 Flashback Genesis • 1993 E PlayStation * 1997 — "It was an era where everyone was trying to do 3D, but I felt that instead of pushing 3D, we should push story and unique game mechanics inside of a somewhat retro style of puzzle/ platformer—and try to make it funny. We wanted the experience to make people feel a part of this strange world. They should be drawn toward distant locations simply due to the beauty and mystery of the landscape and architectural elements." —Oddworld director Lorne Lanning 174 The Legend of Zelda: 173 Link's Awakening Game Boy • 1994 Snatcher Sega CD • 1994 Katamari Damacy 17e PS2 • 2004 Beyond Good & Evil Multiplatform % 2003 171 Perfect Dark N64 • 2000 Crazy Taxi Arcade • 1999 Sega Rally Championship Arcade • 1995 1 P Medal of Honor PlayStation • 1999 “By far the best-sounding game on the PS1, and this amazing attention to detail lifted the game to a new level. My mind started to really fill in the gaps—4 actually felt like | was there. | would stand breathless by a wall, terrified of the approaching Germans | could hear.” —Alex Ward, creative director at Criterion (Burnout) Prince Of Persia: The Sands of Time Multiplatform • 2003 Double Dribble NES • 1987 Bionic Commando NES • 1988 Military Madness TurboGrafx-16 • 1989 Burnout 3: Takedown Multiplatform % 2004 l 6 1 Devil May Gry PS2 ° 2001 "It's [now] well known, but this game started out as 'a new Resident Evil for a next-generation console. DMC was my challenge to those who played light, casual games. | believed there were [more] people out there that had a true love of games—fortunately [when DMC was released it sold very well]. | was relieved that the game market was still strong and thriving.” —Hideki Kamiya, director of Devil May Cry NiGHTS into Dreams Saturn * 1996 Ecco the Dolphin Genesis * 1992 Herzog Zwei Genesis * 1989 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker GameCube * 2003 Legendary Axe TurboGrafx-16 • 1989 The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask Nintendo 64 * 2000 — “The repeating three days became an unprecedented, unique game system, but [it caused a lot of headaches in development]. Because it was so different, | was concerned that only a relatively small audience might love it. But Рт very glad to know that recently ап unexpectedly large number of game fans are calling it the best of Zelda.” —Eiji Aonuma, director of Majora's Mask FE) Moon Patrol Arcade * 1982 Conference ООА GameDevelopers Seek MARCH 20-24 о SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA Са x NL - CM “ XA Y E Ne: HIEN 3 4,5 ҰРЫС 2X CT анау Үйі F y ET P $ Ws Are "HRS RE А; ЖОГА uf o E y 2, { УАН у 2х тұ» 2 Jos v2 y 2 “> асуы $y і i v ; ee are ae у лы к, A GAME DEVELOPERS CHOICE AWARDS РСЕ Е \ GDC MOBILE ) SERIOUS GAMES SUMMIT ) GAME CONNECTION The next generation will be defined by the games you create. At GDC:06, learn lessons from next-gen, handheld, and current game development, and gain access to the people, technologies, and tools that will define what's next for our industry. LEARN MORE AT WWW.GDCONF.COM. REGISTER BY FEBRUARY 15, 2006 AND SAVE UP TO 35%! USE PRIORITY CODE RAMAXX WHEN REGISTERING. w the greatest 00 games Ys Book | & 11 TurboGrafx-16 CD * 1990 Cybernator Super NES • 1993 Front Line Arcade • 1982 Kirby's Adventure NES • 1993 Ghosts 'N Goblins Arcade * 1985 PaRappa the Rapper PlayStation • 1997 Spider-Man Atari 2600 • 1982 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Xbox * 2002 — “It may seem a bit strange, but the first word that comes to mind when I’m asked about the original Splinter Cell is ‘fear’ Positive fear! Developing an original game is always a great challenge—it could be a success, or it could lead to pure failure. For SC, we were so afraid of failure that we never stopped raising the bar at every phase of development. This is why the game ended up with such impressive graphics, game- play, and innovative features. Even when the game was released, we were still afraid—afraid of finding bugs!” —Mathieu Ferland, executive producer of Splinter Cell ЕТІ Road Rash 300 * 1994 “This product was my personal ‘jones’ for a while, and | worked hard to get to the highest level of the game. The 3DO plat- form would have been more successful if Road Rash had shipped a year earlier." —Former 300 CEO Trip Hawkins ЕТТІ International Superstar Soccer Super NES • 1995 5 Vey | Atari 2600 • 1981 ЕТТЕ Tekken 3 PlayStation * 1997 "This game was my life in college. | ditched class for a week so | could take the arcade strat- egy guide and remap the button combos for the PS1.” . —News Editor Bryan Intihar Paper Mario N64 * 2001 78» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Panzer Dragoon Saturn * 1995 R.B.l. Baseball NES % 1988 Mega MicrogameS GBA * 2003 Dig Dug Arcade * 1982 Phantasy Star IV Genesis * 1994 Ice Hockey NES • 1988 Yar's Revenge Atari 2600 • 1982 PS2 • 2001 Gaming’s premiere role-playing series took another great leap forward with this inaugural PS2 edition. Hollywood- quality voiceovers and lush 3D visuals kicked the series’ already high production values into overdrive, while a complex skill system and strategic battle engine deepened the gameplay. And we won't even begin to pontificate on how important this game was to the cosplay community... EEE Virtua Tennis Dreamcast • 2000 Arcade * 1982 “Be-ware, | live!” Twisted Metal PlayStation % 1995 Genesis * 1989 ЕЕ Samurai Shodown Il Neo*Geo * 1994 Bong, bong, bong......Deeeeeeeeeeeeeee deeeeeeeeee! Long long ago, there were a fighting game that try to make its quality ultimate. Because of its bloody life, it’s no accident that it was involved with the troubles. Arcade * 1982 ЕЕЗ Animal Crossing GameCube * 2002 ЕЕЕ Metal Gear Solid Game Boy Color * 2000 Stealth action, convoluted story line, keycards, ridiculous boss names (and ridiculously awesome boss battles)—yep, it’s a Metal Gear game all right. And a shockingly full-featured one, all crammed onto Nintendo's handheld. Revenge of Shinobi 124 Pole Position Arcade * 1982 Battlezone Arcade * 1980 EE Virtua Fighter 4 PS2 2002 It might lack the sizzle of Tekken and Soul Calibur, but nothing can match the depth of VF4. A refined combat engine, lifelike computer A.I., inventive new characters, and oodles of extras prove that the first 3D fighting series is still among the best. і a | PS2 • 2001 "The one game [of its generation] that | felt transported us to another place that had living characters we actually cared about. The artwork and castle design were stellar and seemed truly inspired—an obvious labor of love. [And] the hand-holding mechanic between the hero and the girl was nothing short of genius." —Oddworld Inhabitants cofounder Lorne Lanning OutRun Arcade * 1986 Castlevania Ill: Dracula’s Curse Pro Wrestling NES % 198 Indy 50 Atari 2600 * 1978 Shenmue Dreamcast * 2000 Star Fox Super NES • 1993 Neo*Geo Pocket Color * 1999 — The best (perhaps only?) reason to buy a Меоебео Pocket Color. Today, one EGM writer (Seanbaby, if you must know) is still trying to collect every last card... seven years later. trend.” Card Fighters’ Clash EE Lunar: The Silver Star God of War PS2 • 2005 “A game with soul that transcends borders and cultures. Its story, sense of world, and graphics gave me a strong, exotic impres- sion. [Mario creator Shigeru] Miyamoto and | had a laugh when we first played the game. We noticed a very Japanese- like ‘service’ to gamers, in particular the emphasis on details and sense. The God of War package includes an honest pre- sentation with love elements and a game design implemented with the player in mind. Lastly, the game was designed with a good balance of theme and play. | truly feel that God of War is a great culmination of Western and Japanese (i.e., Nintendo) game design. Let’s hope this is just the beginning for this trend.” Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima Dragon Force Saturn * 1996 Street Fighter Alpha 2 Arcade • 1996 110 Gradius Arcade * 1985 Super Mario Bros. 2 NES % 1988 Ms. Pac-Man Arcade • 1981 Donkey Kong Wipeout PlayStation ° 1995 Super Mario RPG Super NES * 1996 Landstalker Genesis • 1993 When we weren't swearing at its impos- sible jumps, Sega's answer to Ze/da blew us away with awesome puzzles and a deep story line. We can't wait to see the series reborn on the PSP. Ninja Gaiden Xbox * 2004 "It's a ereat culmination of Western and Japanese game design. Let's hope it’s just the beginning of this --Меігі Gear creator Hideo Kojima, talking about God of War (#772) Upload your files for а at any time: UNLIMITED space UNLIMITED uploads UNLIMITED downloads UNLIMITED bandwidth NO file size restrictions Give the public access to ANY OR ALL of your files! www.filefront.com Check it out! Part of the 1UP Network. т 99 | Arcade * 1989 — А beat- em-up starring a shirtless mayor who whaled on Andre the Giant clones. How could it not be awesome? ww a d» 5 ag | Arcade * 1989 He fought terrorists before fightin' ter- rorists was cool. Every 7-Eleven should be required by law to have this game. 4 [rosas ITO Et] | ЕЗ AAAI TI uq ب‎ ж С) Уууу | ГІ” тш | | EE a | Genesis * 1989 — Tragic ЕТ | Агсайе * 1984 95 | Arcade • 1997 death of party member? Check. Epic Not even its pizza-greased trackball Reinvented football in a way that quest? Yep. Depressing ending? Uh-huh. kept us from loving this maddeningly hooked so many editors, we had to Eat your heart out, Final Fantasy VII. addicting hit. Super Monkey Who? organize interoffice tourneys. 94 | Arcade * 1980 — А track- ball and strategic use of mushrooms: We didn't know it back then, but both would come in handy later in life. 90 Intellivision е 1982 — Early proof that videogames would replace 20- sided dice forever. Arcade * 1983 — Tap 9 1 Arcade • 1987 tap tap....tap...tap...tap..tap.. GameCube • 2001 — Billions of Enough time has passed—it’s OK to tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-taptaptap- things to unlock, plus Yoshi pummeling admit you wore this bitching, bucking taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.... “Dammit!” Pikachu with a bat. shooter’s seatbelt. We did too. "Don't hang up оп me, Mr. Haggar. Your daughter's life may depend ta ?? on t. —Mysterious voice on the phone, from the intro to Final Fight (#99) Ris | Arcade * 1989 Beat this fantastic fantasy brawler and you see its monsters attack the arcade. How meta is that? • Create your own store e Featured product listings e Rating system auctions for gamers by gamers • www.gameswapzone.com e Bulk uploading PlayStation = PS2 ш Xbox = PSP ш GameCube = N-Gage = Game Boy а PC Games а DVDs а and more “Doo doot doot doot doot doo doot doo dooooo-dooooo0! Daytoooonaaaa, let's 90 away!" —Annoying (yet somehow captivating) theme song from Daytona USA (278) B 5 | PlayStation • 1995 The Ridge series debuted with this PS1 launch game—and promptly drifted right into our hearts! г qoem чк ———————— Hd | Genesis * 1993 "We didn't try to make a hardcore game...we made what we'd want to play.” — Masato Maegawa, GH Producer 81 | Arcade * 1986 -- This two-player top-down bullet barrage out-Rambos the competition with nifty rotary joysticks and drivable tanks. 78 | Arcade * 1987 Is that spread-shot power-up worth sacrificing your human co-op partner for? You know the answer. 82 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com 85 | СВА • 2001 Years ago, Editor-in-Chief Shoe scored this sublime strategy game a 7.5. We all still give him s*** for that. y? 4 аа e P rz “ЭТ NITY OO al Ll ИМ Super NES * 1995 — Besides Baby Mario's grating cry, we loved every bit of this funky, innovative platformer. Saturn * 1998 — A fantastic, magical 3D role-playing game. Too bad only like 50 copies were made.... 28 | Arcade * 1994 “Rooooolling staaaaaaaaaaart!" Try to go easy on the car? Never, Mr. Announcer. NEVER!!! SH | Super NES • 1991 If you never discovered all 96 level exits, put the magazine down and go do it now. We'll wait. 7500 ga 7 | Arcade • 1980 A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess? Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty PS2 * 2001 — “Konami punked all of us with this ballsy follow-up. Prerelease foot- age of MGS hero Solid Snake was merely a red herring: Snake shows up only for the prologue—the meat of the game stars a whiny metrosexual named Raiden. Come for the stellar gameplay, stick around for the ambitious postmodern story line.” —Previews Editor Shane Bettenhausen LIS " ж Lid on та ELI жз. ж | =з = за +4 ч = = = Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Xbox * 2004 — “We used to have Pandora Tomorrow ‘training camps’ at EGM: Experienced players would help ease newbie coworkers into the steep learning curve that is the fantastic, adrenaline-filled spies-against-mercenaries versus mode, just so we had more people available to play with us. That's how much we loved multiplayer Pandora..." —FEditor-in-Chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu 9 and Nintendo DS are trademarks of Nintendo. © 2004 Nintendo. ә “CASTLEVANIA Dawn of Sorrow” is a trademark of KONAMI CORPORATION. Nintendo. TM, E: E: > ш mn pen 12] < о о с © > < z о x 3 -4 2 = 5 Q с Е о с (>) ж > о с. % Ф > Ф a g s - с Ф Е А Б] t Ф سه‎ с u co) = = a 8 о x > a E] Фф г 2 о 2 a > < 2. о ж о S N со cO о To a are registered trademarks of KONAMI CORPORATION. ТМ, @ and the Nintendo DS logo are trademarks of A v Fantasy Violence ч ESRB CONTENT RATING — www.esrb.org — ons. The adventure Nintefido DS players have been waiting for has arrived! | / The'Magic Seal $ destroy your enemies with the touch Screen f Enhañced Tactical’Souls : collect more souls to upgrade your abilities'and weapons f Wireless’ Versus-Mode: race another player through custom maps Wireléss Soul Exchange: trade acquired souls with other players ы `~ A ww.konami.com/ castlevania / Blood and Gore / 76 Xbox * 2004 — No Earth? 75 | No ending? No problem—wer're still too PS2 * 2001 — Talk isn't cheap in this busy loving Halo 2's online multiplayer first online console war game—it’s the to notice. King of the hill indeed. key to victory. Boomer, RIP. 74: Super NES 1995 — Like Dragon Quest, and Dragon Ball Z came together to create something amazing. ШШ, а = Bite >» бр 1 м a Ac "T Ld | 1.1 а қ, Li ` ilr i} LTIS ASLO) WINS 4-2” M |. p ІЗ ЕНГ y с Д ва о ВЕ JN (C SUB ZER 7e | Arcade * 1983 This ride's tricks made KITT look lamer than David Hasselhoff's singing career. And who can forget the music... Mortal Kombat И . , Arcade • 1993 — “ОК, MK2 may stink now—it doesn’t stand the test of time like Street Fighter Il does—but whef | it first arcades (and fighting for the Super NES “ controllers) to play it. Combos, air juggles, multiple fatalities, and...friendships? Mortal Kombat had become a legitimate fighting ‘game—with plenty of secrets to discover.” / — Shoe 71 | Arcade * 1980 — That spinning controller and the snazzy color vector graphics almost made you believe that, indeed, geometry was fun. 4 67 PlayStation * 1998 5h5 | NES * 1987 — "This was Two discs? Four scenarios to play the first game that led to bloodshed through? RE2 blew away our expecta- between my brother and me. It was not tions like so much rotting zombie head. the last." —Intern Kathleen Sanders "| made many mistakes, [and initially] the results were not so great. Luckily, Capcom allowed me О SOENE ытым 84 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Voltron, the talents behind Final Fantasy, |: БЕБЕ ЕЕЕ Е came out, we were waiting in line at the „< an INSERT COIN WIZARD SCORE HEALTH о € INSERT COIN ! INSERT COIN 73 | Arcade * 1985 — Wizard may be about to die, but this arcade icon never will. Twenty years later, we're still playing it on our Xbox 360s. 59 | Super NES * 1991 Taking the checkered flag always feels more satisfying when the speedometer reads 942 km/hr. НЕШЕ Ear) KE | Intellivision • 1980 Playbooks! Formations! Detailed score- boards! Safeties! An early 98-yard gain in football gaming. Resident Evil P PlayStation * 1996 — “What | remember strongly is that | had a really difficult time [working ón] Resident Evil. | even/collapsed and went to the hospital! [But now] | really appreciate hearing people say that they've never felt so scared playinga game—it makes me feel that all the effort was worth it.” 3 —Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil t€ ЧР РЧР NINTENDO E | NES * 1985 Once you got tired of the game's tracks, you could make your own. Ours were nothing but turbo strips and megajumps. Sah Ryumos “Stubborn bitch Kill her! pii > FY 8 K ыы: ш > 1 у L4 PlayStation * 1998 — One EGMer happily spent over 200 hours on this strategy-RPG. That's saying somethin'. 58 | МЕЅ • 1989 Diving and jumping catches, the abilities to create and trade players, great graph- ics—the best ball game for years to come. S5 | Arcade * 1993 Jam’s influence on arcadey sports games is still apparent in modern series like Street and Blitz. oz | Arcade * 1976 Few things in life are as satisfying as getting the ball up a narrow gap on either side and watching it go to town. -- = Ж ay А со | Super NES • 1993 “20-2. That's how bad my high-school lacrosse team lost after half of us stayed up all night droppin' bombs." —B.l. 7 (s К h 57 | Arcade * 1992 Never before and never again will a bunch of single-colored triangles look 50 beautiful. 55 | Агсайе * 1980 “Тһе only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." —FEugene Jarvis, creator of Defender "When you're a kid and eet your first bike, you want to go some- where you've never been before. ? Р ” That 5 P ok em ОП. --Рокетоп (#61) creator Satoshi Tajiri in Time 62 | Arcade * 1981 “бейіп” that frog across the street was my entire life." —George Costanza, Seinfeld £t 0“ „Заа INGS AO Nes imm 2, Hl lll t ШІН 4 J 24 EE س & CHARNÉSHDER TY [кишен ud. E 9/ т.) Ф | гене | کے | وج | 61 | Game Boy * 1998 Shave away the cutesy exterior and peel back all the marketing and you'll find a captivating RPG tailor-made for the GB. жы. P PERS, Sonic the EEE Genesis • 1991 — “Even loyal supporters will concede that nowadays Sonic's debut feels skimpy in the gameplay department, but its impact on other aspects of gaming has not diminished. The classy Art Deco aesthetics (compare its look to plain-Jane Super NES contemporary Super Mario World's) and 'tude-filled protagonist re- invented the platformer." е; NI E LJ ET SEIT E= fn: она бта ена Mega Man il NES • 1989 — “Capcom’s first Mega Man got a lot of things right—solid visuals, tough platforming, that clever weapon- stealing gimmick—but still felt rough around the edges. MM2 filled in all the cracks, delivering a massive audiovisual upgrade, new gameplay twists, a far longer quest, and, most important, that giant drag- on boss in Dr. Wily’s fortress. A screen-filling dragon in 1989? Sold!” —S.B. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY e www.1UP.com • 85 GameCube * 2002 — "From the beginning of the project until release, a lot of people were skeptical about how we would transform [the series’] 2D action into a 3D first-person shooter. But | think now they understand those fears were unnecessary; Retro created something nobody is hesitant to call a true Metroid game." —Kensuke Tanabe, MP supervisor "| was determined not to make just another first- person shooter where Samus Aran shows up." Super NES » 1992 "| was late to the Zelda party— Link to the Past was my first experience with the series. It was amazing—the dungeons, the boss battles, the music...the hookshot! If | ever fall into a coma, I'm pretty sure a few Zelda ringtones can drag —Reviews Editor Demian Linn 0 Arcade * 1980 "| recently stumbled on a four- player tabletop Warlords with some friends; we played until my eyeballs couldn't take it anymore. The first great game for more than two players, this is still one of the best multiplayer titles ever. Plus, it's perfect for gambling and drinking games." —Executive Editor Mark MacDonald 86 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com —WMetroid Prime (#52) project supervisor Kensuke Tanabe Genesis * 1992 "| bet l've logged more hours playing head-to-head NHLPA 93 than any other multiplayer game. This was before one-timers, before goalie control—the only question was, could you knock me down before | deked your goalie? No, you could not. That’s why the score was 14-12.” —D.L. Arcade • 1982 "When ostriches fly, you know something’s up. Then ej 7 they go and add floating eggs, bubbling lava, and the ‘unbeatable?’ pterodactyl. That's when you realize that, clearly, magic is at work, and you are best off just accepting it and flapping like hell." —Managing Editor Jennifer Tsao NES • 1987 “During the first few years of its existence, the NES library was a veritable minefield of horrendous third-party releases. Nintendo-published stuff was safe (save for Urban Champion), but stinkers like Chubby Cherub and Deadly Towers waited on store shelves to ambush unsuspecting tykes. Luckily, | spent my hard-earned cash on Castlevania after hearing two kids at church complaining that they couldn’t get past the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper? In a game? Boss! “Castlevania turned out to be just as badass as I'd dreamed, with killer weapons, lushly detailed levels, and spooky tunes. But yeah, the Grim Reaper was a dick.” —S.B. сы "i > рат) Resident Evil 4 GameCube * 2005 "It's just so new and fresh as a game. It's fun no matter how many times you play it! Creating this game helped me realize that there is.nothing we can’t achieve, and we should strive for the best without any compromise.” —Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of REA "As close to a perfect game as you're going to get, RE4 doesn't just suc- ceed because of the roller-coaster plot, amazing graphics, or deep game mechanics. It ultimately succeeds because of its pac- ing. You never get bored of the action; any time any sequence borders on lengthy, you’re shuffled to a new vari- ant.on the experience, be it a puzzle, boss battle, or rail- shooter segment. RE4 is also the first game I’ve played with an escort element [that] was enjoyable and not frustrating. This game took me over 20 hours, and | enjoyed every single moment of it.” — Cliff Bleszinski, Gears of War lead designer Arcade • 1987 “Forget the (mostly) lackluster sequels, home versions of varying quality, crappy cartoon, and silly straight-to- video film—when it debuted in the arcade, Double Dragon was it. Accessible and fun from the start but with plenty of depth to explore, it spawned a legion of imitations that rarely surpassed it.” --М.М. que: “Make it quick...| want to retire!” — Glass Joe “| was a boxing teacher...at the military academy!” —Von Kaiser “Pil give you a p —Piston Honda “| have my weakness. But І won't tell you! Ha, ha, ha!” —King Hippo “1 have purred long enough. Now hear me roar!” — Great Tiger “My barber didn’t know when to quit...do you?” —Bald Bull Arcade • 1982 “Тһе futuristic neo-neon cabi- net, digitized movie tunes, and challenging lightcycle stages made this my first stop at the arcade—even though | could never get past the third set of stages. Four great games in one. Well, OK, three—1 always thought the grid bugs stage was kinda B.S." TUE ed с Сд Sa RA Nc Re mt PEDES. шы are mme тазша A On a etam E T RS АУ РВ E a ап стат can om Tear it Tt ~ NES * 1988 — “Listen up, haters: Adventure of Link is one of Nintendo’s gutsiest sequels ever—an ambitious follow-up that abandons all of its predecessor’s conven- tions. Link simultaneously delivers an engrossing RPG (see: experience points, field map, magic system) and a sweet action game (tight control, big bosses)" --5.В. “Would you like Ha, ha, ha!” —Soda Popinski “| don’t smoke...but tonight, I’m gonna smoke you!” —Super Macho Man “They say | can’t lose. 77 — Mike Tyson Arcade * 1987 “Finally, a shooter that wasn’t just reflexes—you had to Ue ==. think about what power-ups to get and which to pass by, where to position your ship, and how to use the awesome Force pod. And that third level—a gigantic, ship, multiple screens long, that doubles as the boss? Brilliant. Tough as nails and fun as hell.” --М.М. Atari 2600 * 1977 “Аһ, remember when consoles came with a killer app packed right in the box? For the four years we played our Atari, my family never got tired of Combat. And | don't care what anyone says—invisible tanks with bouncy bullets still kick ass." --М.М. "When you meet with [John Madden] privately, every sentence contains the F-word. " —Flectronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins on the namesake of John Madden Football (#45) ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 87 Em greatest 0 games Asteroids Arcade * 1979 "With its simple gameplay concept (try not to die as you (=) g blow away an asteroid belt), nifty vector-graphics look, and surprisingly satisfying sense of inertia, Asteroids remained an arcade staple years after its debut. Not bad for a game without a joystick.” Multiplatform * 1996 “[Lara Сто] a bit of every- thing. She’s like every kind of sexy Tm actress I’ve ever watched, and yet she's also that guy from Crocodile Hunter in Australia— completely in love with danger. And then there's this whole personality that's emerged from me. | kept thinking, ‘I can't do this; I'm a serious actor.” And then suddenly | was in' my little outfit on top of a mountain in Iceland with /some dogs pulling me in a sled and some guns attached to me. And | thought, ‘Yeah! This is exactly who | am!’ I think I’m ridiculously brave, to а fault.1’d like to think that [Lara] fights for the right things and doesn't like injustice. She’s.a-good friend, she cares, and she would stand up for somebody if they were in a spot. | like that.” —Angelina Jolie, star of the Tomb Raider flicks E She is so gonna raid the s*** outta that tomb. 88» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com PUSH START BUTTON E ТЕНШ e Virtua Fighter 2 Arcade * 1995 “For the entire summer of "95, VF2 owned me. It left me penniless and a social outcast—I spent almost every night playing it at the Burger King castle (not exactly the town hot spot)—but it was worth it all just to master Akira’s tough-as-hell Stun Palm of Doom.” BEWIHAWA 500 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater PlayStation • 1999 “Former Editor Shawn Smith and | named our H.O.R.S.E. game the nonsensically vulgar ‘T.U.R.D.E.A.T.’ We took frequent T.U.R.D.E.A.T. breaks throughout the day, and once found ourselves playing in front of a bewildered PR dude for the game's publisher. As a goof, we asked him if the Dreamcast version included T.U.R.D.E.A.T. Thinking it was Tecmo Bowl NES * 1989 — "Sorry, Kristen Bates. If it weren't for this gridiron title—and my obsession one Sunday afternoon with beating every team in the game as the Chicago Bears—1 might've gone into the other room at Steve Bowman's house to kiss you." — В.І. “DICKS: Think Тез still Гайре? IUEDGE: Probably... » Judging from the urgency of our orders. Final Fantasy Ill Super NES • 1994 “When FFIII finally arrived in stores, | learned it was going to set me back $80. $80! That was a lot of money for me back then. So | hesitated buying it...for about 0.5 seconds. Honestly, | would’ve spent five times that to get what turned out to be one of the best RPGs ever.” —Shoe the mode’s actual name, he asked the developers, and of course they had no idea what he was talking about—and became concerned that they were missing some hidden feature. Reveling in the confusion, we finally let 'em know it was just our custom name for H.O.R.S.E. It's a mode we jokingly inquire about for every Tony Hawk sequel since." —Senior Editor Crispin Boyer LOORR Robotron: 2084 Arcade * 1982 “Robotron is the id of arcade gaming—all impulse and instinct and reflex. If you take the time to wait for conscious thought to move from your brain to your hands, you're dead—simple as that. It's just so pure... probably why it still holds up and will likely never feel dated." --М.М. "Sorry, Kristen Bates. If it weren't for my obses- sion [with this game], | might ve kissed you." —News Editor Bryan Intihar on the sacrifices he made for Tecmo Bowl (#33) "Since there hadn't been a Metroid for quite some time, we thought, why not try to make a better version of Metr oid?” —Којі Igarashi, producer of Castlevania: SOTN (#30) Arcade * 1983 — “It was like developer Atari invented a tractor beam for quarters with this mind-blowing vector-graphics shooter. “1 have you now,’ threatens a digitized Darth Vader—way before he blathered on about sand—near the game’s finale. You got that right, Darth.” Super NES ° 1991 e ©] “It wasn't the first FF (it was actually, uh, the fourth—long story), but it defined the series: The active-time battle system made combat exciting, and while the story was badly translated, it was never dull. Redemption, heroics, space whales. Who could ask for more?" —1UPcom Features Editor Jeremy Parish MYAU HP 179 MP да Sega Master System * 1988 "This pioneering epic actually came out (in America, at least) more than a year before Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, and it outclasses both in just about every cat- egory. Groundbreaking 3D dungeons, a grandiose scope (three planets to explore), and stunning visuals made Phantasy Star an instant classic." —S.B. PlayStation • 1997 “When we started working on it], this game was part of Japan's Dracula X Castlevania subseries, so | felt that | had more freedom to take it in a different direction. It was a one-off project, and we basically just did what- ever we wanted! So, | asked questions like, 'Is fighting with a whip even fun?' and 'Isn't this macho-man Œ) Arcade * 1981 ЄТ "It wasn't Luke finding out his kissy friend is actually his sister. Or Spock sacrificing himself at the end of Star Trek Il. No, the greatest space tragedy of the '80s was when you let one of the big Galaga bugs capture your ship before realizing it was your last one." —Shoe Cespar30U. U o. 288. Xr MEN ТАР. 2 a TUE 427 т PlayStation • 1998 "| was a road tester for a car magazine when Gran Turismo eo came out—it was my job to review cars. But GT did such a good job simulating what it's like to drive at ridiculous speeds that | didn't need to do it in real life anymore. Now | review games instead... think | made the right choice." —D.L. Belmont guy kind of boring?’ “Ultimately, we incorporated a lot of new ideas and took the game in a more exploration-based direction. Since there hadn’t been a Metroid for quite some time, we thought, why not try to make a better version of Metroid, but in the world of Castlevania?” —Којі Igarashi, producer of Castlevania: SOTN ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 89 “The second [possible name] was Zulu Gold. Without Cheech and Chong as spokespeople, | don't think [it would've] worked." 1... Super NES е 1996 "Once, my combo count in a head-to-head match got so high that it crashed the game. Strangely enough, I wasn't тай—1 considered it a nerdy victory of sorts. | must be pretty badass to crash a puzzle game with my skills alone! We still play this game every few weeks—it’s that good." — Shoe Ж, Dreamcast • 2001 e 1 "| was reviewing an early version of PSO we got right around the holidays and | was in love—1 just couldn't stop playing. | remember it was about 3 a.m. and | was just about to finally kill De Rol Le—that evil second boss fish—when suddenly everything went dark; it was a bitterly cold Chicago winter and my space heater and l—————— Arcade * 1993 — "The boxy characters and stark arenas look bizarre now, but back in the day this stuff looked like the future. Which it was. But VF's quality wasn't based on visuals—spectacular gameplay (a simple three-button setup masks oceanic depth) and real-world fighting styles (no fireballs or babalities here) truly advanced the genre." —S.B. 90 е ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Super NES • 1994 "Graphics, gameplay, control, music (oh man, the music!)—Super Metroid lived up to its name in every single category. Its minimal storyline even climaxes in a surprising final boss encounter people still talk about today. If you missed it, track it down and play it today—you won't be sorry." TV equipment all running at once blew a fuse. The fuse box was locked in the basement, and my landlord had already left for Christmas. The only working outlet was the опе my refrigerator was plugged into. So | did what | had to: moved the TV, Dreamcast, and couch into the kitchen, unplugged the fridge, and kept playing." 2 IX CE S s NS уз УУ 24; Po EIA Tn d д? m 2 Super NES * 1992 "Trigger a speed-boosting 'shroom right before you hit 7 SEN 9 ы. ATE IVA Ате / Ly п РТ < Ё 2 r3 ә " AAT. /> Or e i i ЖОСУН 1 EAE the jump bump in this game's first Ghost Valley course and you'll soar to the other side of the track, shaving seconds off your time. Try finding shortcuts that cool in Gran Turismo." —C.B. (жм) Atari 2600 е 1982 3 “The working title was Jungle Runner, and it came danger- ously close to going to market with that name. The second choice was Zulu Gold. Without Cheech and Chong as spokespeople, | don't think that name would have worked." —David Crane, creator of Pitfall! Хһох * 2001 “Halo is awesome because it’s solid and familiar. It's not necessarily groundbreaking—much of the fiction is derivative. But, it's put together well and it knew exactly what to borrow and what to invent." —Randy Pitchford, president p of Gearbox Software (Halo for PC) Ер ^ “4 "Ask any hardcore PC first-person shooter fan \ how to play their favorite genre and they'll 4 always respond 'keyboard and mouse. And yet Halo controls flawlessly on the Xbox controller, proving to an entire generation that the genre is doable on a console. ^ Millions of gamers can't be wrong. ШЕЛІ Halo didn't become a hit simply by having great controls. Bungie kept a clear and obvious visual consistency for the player; you could always figure out where to go, what your objectives were, and how you were affecting the enemies’ artificial intelligence. Add іп a memorable theme song, some great vehicles, and simple but deep multiplayer and you've got yourself a breakout phenomenon." — Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer at Epic (Unreal, Gears of War) Metal Gear Solid PlayStation • 1998 — "[Meta/ Gear creator Hideo] Kojima really knows how to create characters and surprise players. It shouldn’t surprise you that Metal Gear Solid was a huge inspiration for Splinter Cell. It was a pioneer for both the genre and the quality of directing, and I’m always flattered when people make comparisons between the two series." — Mathieu Ferland, executive producer of Splinter Cell n : A zx “о | 3 2 ге . Ё Г У -o - 1 ї $ г. " n2 : 3 ‚ТАШ } 8 2 AU 4 x v. - + 2-13 А + С ғ КЕТ ЕЕ [975713 f ы 26.4 Ұлы 4 UC f GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 • 1997 *[Back when] PC shooters [ruled the genre], a company called Rare proved that you could, in fact, make a great console FPS. GoldenEye wowed everyone with a stellar single-player campaign and an addictive splitscreen multiplayer mode. The world would never ре the same.” —Cliff Bleszinski, designer of Unreal Se кн Super Mario Bros. 3 NES • 1990 — “| still remem- ESR RT eed ber the first time | ran, then jT uc launched into the air to follow a secret trail of coins hidden in the sky. Mario can now fly! From that very first level to the airship armadas at the end, SMBS is unforgettable. Many (including me) still argue this is the best Mario game ever made." *MGS brought story, script, characters, voice acting, and cinemas to amazing levels. It was not only a landmark— it's a guiding light to the future of videogames." — Denis Dyack, head of Silicon Knights (MGS: The Twin Snakes) “I'm always flattered when people make comparisons between [Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell |." —Mathieu Ferland, executive producer of Splinter Cell (#146) Donkey Kong Arcade * 1981 “If there had not been Donkey Kong, | might be living a dif- ferent life today. | don't know if it would be better or worse, but I like being surrounded by Donkey Kong and Mario and Pikmin and my other friends. [Maybe] it is about time to create new companions...” —DK creator Shigeru Miyamoto Adventure Atari 2600 е 1978 “Before there was Zelda, there was Adventure. | played this game so much that | could actually navigate the entire game—including the catacombs—with my eyes shut. It was the first time a game felt like its own little self- contained world for you to explore. And they aren't ducks, dammit, they're dragons.” Metroid NES • 1987 "When we were working on the original Metroid, we didn't have much development experience. We were trying to establish a brand-new type of game: the sci-fi adventure. Even though we [had to feel] our way to completion, we never lost our ambition. *Now, looking back at how we were at that time, our attitude was like that of Samus Aran, who had to rush headlong into the vast and dangerous planet Zebes without hesitation. “We will keep on fighting and evolving with her in order to reach the goal that nobody has ever seen before." — Yoshio Sakamoto, director of Metroid 229 ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 91 Arcade • 1972 "Great for its time? Pong was practi- cally the only game of its time—every other title on this list owes this simple table-tennis simulator a massive debt. Unlike other prehistoric arcade fare (I’m looking at you, Space War), Pong was legitimately exciting, thanks to its nifty dial controllers. Twirling your knob to the increasing tension of a long volley until finally climaxing in a point...wait, what was | talking about? Hell, Pong is still fun today. Just a few months back, | lost huge sums of money to a fellow EGM staffer betting on a two-player Pong variant in Flipnic (PS2). The elder states- PS2 • 2001 man of gaming’s still got it." —S.B. "Once | played it for 10 minutes and realized the range of possibility in it, | was blown away, just because | understood that, oh, | can go anywhere in this city and | сап pick any car. | can go in there and be an ambulance driver and save all those people. | can go in and be a taxi driver. | can go in and be a badass. | feel like I’m controlling my own story. | can ignore the missions entirely. It’s a toy for me—a toy world. | was like, wow, this is cool. And then | knew, OK, this is gonna be big.” — Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity “Grand Theft Auto ЇЇ has missions? For my first few hours of playing, | couldn't tell. | got so caught up in just driving around in different cars and launching off ramps, | forgot GTA3 wasn't a ‘driving around in different cars and launching off ramps’ simulator—that it has this entire cinematic Mafioso story line as well. That was the beauty of this game: It wasn’t about the violence or controversy; it was about playing something however you want.” —Shoe N64 • 1998 “Coming six painfully long years after Nintendo wisely chose to impart a darker, the previous console Ze/da effort (Super more narrative mood, thereby appealing NES classic A Link to the Past), Ocarina to older gamers who grew up with the actually managed to exceed gamers’ lofty original Zelda. expectations. In much the same way that “My most potent memory of Ocarina Super Mario 64 successfully brought that (apart from scoring one of the swanky | series’ gameplay into 3D, this new Zelda limited-edition gold carts that Nintendo \ kept everything that we loved about the foisted upon an eager fan base) seems 65 \ old games—labyrinthine dungeons, tricky positively innocuous now: | was in awe the bosses, and oodles of inventive equip- first time Link reaches the vast, sprawling ment—while completely overhauling the Hyrule Field. Never before had a game control and combat to take advantage of created such a concrete feeling of physical =s the scope of 3D visuals. At the same time, space. Truly epic.” —S.B. 92 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com SCORE< 1 522@5]5, HI-SCORE пава CREDIT ай SCORE< 22 Super Mario 64 N64 * 1996 “Super Mario 64 had no guns, no vehicles, no additional playable characters—and it still managed to offer something fresh in every level [through] clever use of Mario's moves and brilliant level design. | mean, І can distinctly remember almost every one of those levels and its stages—1 can't say that for any other game l've ever played, including games we've made here at Insomniac...and l've played our games far more times. Mario 64 not only set the standard for modern platformers at the time, but it demonstrated a level of excel- lence and innovation in design that | think few games today have achieved." —Ted Price, designer of the Ratchet & Clank series (PS2) “Рт not always proud of my actions, but back during the summer of '96, l've never had so much fun being so damn bad. | was in high school then, and a few bud- dies and | simply couldn't wait for the U.S. Nintendo 64 launch to play the first 3D Space Invaders Arcade * 1978 “At the time, Atari's block-breaking game Breakout was popular in Japan. | thought the game was fun, too, and so | began making a game using [Breakout] as inspiration. | decided to change the blocks to targets that had shapes and make a shooting game—a shoot-out between those targets and the player. For the targets, | tested out tanks, planes, and soldiers, but | was stuck because none of them seemed to fit the image of the game. But then a movie called Star Wars came out, so | took a note from that and made it a space game, and when | tried chang- ing the targets to aliens, it looked very smooth—that settled it. “| started making Space Invaders around the summer of 1977. | did all the design, graphics, and programming on my own. In June 1978, | finished the game and had an unveiling, but the [arcade] operators didn’t like it, and we received almost no orders. Many of the operators Mario, so we convinced our Richie Rich friend to import the system and game from Japan—for about $600. That’s bad enough, but here’s where it gets worse: Each of us took the system home and fin- ished Super Mario 64 before our wealthy (and ignorant) pal even found his first star. Was | in the wrong? Yeah. Should | have been punished? Probably. If | could go back in time, would | do it again? Oh, hell yes!” —B.l. were older gentlemen; they said it was too hard. | don't think they knew how to deal with the targets shooting back—shooting games up to that point had been about the player shooting one way at targets, and this game went against that logic. But when the game went out into the world, its fresh approach brought thrills and excitement mainly to young people, and | think that led to it being a big hit. *The head of my company forced us to change the name of the game to Space Invaders, even though | had named it Space Monsters. | remember being really unhappy about that. This may come as a surprise to people—the game didn't leave me with a very good impression. But now time has passed, and when | think about how much this game has contributed to advancements in Japanese gaming, Рт very proud that | was able to create it." — Tomohiro Nishikado, Space Invaders creator лә ғ” ^^ Cr 0x30 AXT ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * www.1UP.com • 93 NES • 1987 "As a child, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto famously explored the coun- tryside near his home in Kyoto, Japan. This kid was a junior vagabond: He'd traverse dense forests, creepy grave- yards, and secluded mountain paths on a quest to better understand his world. Young Shigeru was even an amateur spe- lunker—he once brought his own lantern from home to help navigate a cave he discovered deep in the woods. And while it's unclear whether this insatiable curios- ity ever led our future game designer to a buried treasure trove or a distressed princess, it certainly inspired The Legend of Zelda. "After upending the world of action games with Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto once again reimagined the concept of game design with Ze/da. Here, the player m X1 (84/64 -LIFE- embarks on an open-ended adventure en ns А through a massive fantasy world. It's tough to convey just how groundbreaking 29292299 this game truly was when it hit stores in ^ 1987. Sure, we'd already seen ambitious nm 8 à PC role-playing fare like Ultima and Might NM k 19 19 and Magic, but a console action title with E MES AE nini this much depth was utterly unprecedent- 5101016 393 ed. As you guided elfin hero Link through Bag 233 the ancient land of Hyrule, every aspect of 2999999 33333323 the game fell perfectly into place—clever puzzles, cool enemies, creative bosses, and a nearly endless torrent of spectacular secrets (including a full second quest after you finish the game). “This is going to sound cheesy, but | still clearly remember what | felt when | solved that second quest some 18 years ago—that I’d never played a game like Zelda, that | really loved videogames, and that | might be too old to dress up as Link for Halloween." —S.B. The First Blockaholic We wish the rumors were true for the sake of a good story, but vodka binges played no part in creating this block-dropping blockbuster. “I don't even like vodka," says Alexey Pajitnov, who dreamed up Tetris in-his Moscow apartment in 1985. After punching his program into the appropriately Russki- sounding Electronika-60 computer, he encountered a different addictive substance: his own дате; "| had по score, no acceleration [of the pieces];" he says, “but І couldn't finish these parts...because | just sat and played Multiplatform • 1988 “It’s the king of games. There's nothing game's fun is not bound by its screen 94» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * www.1UP.com left to add or subtract from Tetris' design; in a way, it's nearly perfect. Logic and speed, the left brain and the right brain, intensity and relief—all done in only four blocks. This almost-miraculous game taught us the very important fact that a resolution. It proved to us that games can be a universal tongue, crossing language, borders, ethnicity, age, and platform." —Tetsuya Mizuguchi, designer of puzzle games Lumines (PSP) and Meteos (DS), and former head of United Game Artists with my half-working program.” His reward for creating the most cloned puzzle game of all time? Zilch—at least at first. “I didn’t get any money for Tetris for the first 10 years,” says Pajitnov, now working at Microsoft. Street Fighter ЇЇ Arcade * 1991 “We were told that [the original] Street Fighter was popular overseas, but | wasn't satisfied with many aspects of the [first] game. | wanted to play as a character that best suited me, and there weren't too many games where you could choose your player at the time. That was my initial motivation [for creating Street Fighter ll |." —Akira Nishitani, Street Fighter Il creator “One day, | stood up and walked out in the middle of my small, 16-student college Pac-Man Arcade • 1980 “Тһе whole thing actually started with me walking around arcades watching how many boys were playing and the fact that all the machines were about killing aliens, tanks, or people. Girls were simply not interested, and | suddenly had motiva- tion for my work: | wanted game arcades to shed this dark, sinister image, and it seemed to me that the way to raise the atmosphere of a place is to entice girls to come in. [So] the whole purpose of Pac- Man was to target women and couples, and get a different type of player involved. *So there | was, wondering what sort of things women would look for in a video- game. | sat in cafés and listened to what they were talking about; mostly it was fashion and boyfriends. Neither of those was really the stuff of a good videogame. Then they started talking about food— about cakes and sweets and fruit—and it hit me that food and eating would be the math class because | couldn't stand it any longer—1 had to play Street Fighter Il right then and there. The other students stared and my teacher looked at me funny, but | didn't say a word or offer any explanation. | silently marched straight to the local arcade, cashed in a ten, and spent the rest of the afternoon shoryukening away. Spending money and time that | really couldn’t afford...such was the draw of this incredible game.” —Shoe thing to concentrate on to get the girls interested.” — Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man creator, in an interview with Times Online “If | may be so bold as to compare Pac- Man to the Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’...in the same way that ‘Yesterday’ is the standard [for a good song] in the music industry, | also believe Pac-Man has become the standard in the game industry. For this reason, | believe Pac-Man will withstand the test of time and continue to be enjoyed by gamers in the years to come.” — Toru Iwatani in an interview with EGM Videogame record keepers Twin Galaxies believe Pac-Man has been played over 10 billion times in the 20th century, based on a study they did. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 95 20 ithe greatest 2002 Ü games 96 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com NES • 1985 B Mario was huge even before he broke out in this seminal side- him,” creator Shigeru Miyamoto said in a BusinessWeek interview about the ‘What if he can grow and shrink? How would he do that? It would have to be a But power-upping mushrooms—long since lasered into gaming iconology— rick-breaking Nintendo mascot scroller. Too huge, in fact. “So we shrank creation of his game. “Then we thought, magic mushroom!” were far from the only contributions of Miyamoto's masterpiece. Super Mario Bros. bred a generation of Nintendo fanboys- MARIO 002500 F 359555 ЛЕЛЕ e 4-life with such gameplay innovations as screens that scrolled, twitchy dungeon traps, regiments of trooping turtles, secrets that players passed via word of mouth—all mortared brick by smashable brick into an experience so gripping that we were happy to learn the princess was in another castle. Today, even Mario's boinging jump is enough to trigger Pavlovian thumb twitch- ing. ^I don't think there are many games that we can identify immediately by a simple sound effect," says Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami. And more than a few of gaming's greatest designers might have been lost to us if not for Miyamoto's D у = | a4 jr ІН уч [3 car ЕШ ri TH Fi а Fi ajai eere fa Fae‏ ر م er Mario Bros. best-seller. “1 encountered Super Mario Bros. back when | was a student,” Metal Gear series maker Hideo Kojima tells us. “It really changed my life. If | had somehow missed playing this game, the Hideo Kojima | am now would not exist.” Not bad for a game Miyamoto dreamed up two decades ago while wondering “what it would be like to have a character that bounces around,” he says. “Honestly speaking, 20 years ago, | could never dream that this game could lead up to such a beloved franchise all over the world.” Funny, because today we can’t imagine it any other way. “Up until the game was released, gamers were really tied to the one-play-per-coin system at the arcades. Then along came Super Mario Bros., a game that wasn't frus- trating or tedious. Rather, | think it was one of the first to nail down the idea of permanence in games. Even simple actions like running and jumping have deep gameplay implica- tions. And the more you play, the more you discover. It's simply impossible to grow tired of Super Mario Bros.” Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima “Super Mario Bros. and pizza grease and rodents of unusual size will always be intertwined in my mind. | first played the game—in its coin-op form—at a Chuck E. Cheese arcade, where | was working my first job. One of my coworkers, who could spend his whole lunch break playing Super Mario Bros. on one quarter, showed me its many secrets my first day on the job. [wo weeks later, —Senior Editor Crispin Boyer “Before | ever played Super Mario Bros., | remember my friend telling me all about the arcade game and it just didn't seem possible. He talked about . At a time when you could sum up most games in 30 seconds, һе went on and on like this for 30 minutes; | could tell he was getting excited to play it again just talking about it. When | finally saw the game, | was...l'm not sure how to put it. Awestruck, | guess. Not only was everything my friend said true, he had barely scratched the surface." —Executive Editor Mark MacDonald "Whenever | tell people what | do for a living, the most common response is, 'Games have gotten too complicated for me, but | really loved that Super Mario Bros.’ Everyone— young, old, boy, girl, gamer, non-gamer—has played Miyamotos masterpiece and, more importantly, thoroughly enjoyed it. What kind of impact has the plumber's NES debut had on the public? Well, ” —News Editor Bryan Intihar "| saw it at a cousin's house. | played it. It is the most amazing eame of its time, no question.” —Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu FECE WELCOME TO WARP ZONE ? 1а! | E ІЗ 4. pr "| still clearly remember church Sunday school the day after | got my NES back in 1986. Our teacher made each kid announce aloud something in their life that they thanked God for. with the utmost sincerity. It was the game that redefined the concept of gameplay: If you stop and really evaluate what's going on with Super Mario Bros.’ control—the precision jumping, the sense of inertia, the depth of mastery—it’s mind-blowing.” —Previews Editor Shane Bettenhausen Think we missed a game? Says you. Head to to submit your nominees, then check back online at the end of January when we'll run the Top .25 Games EGM Missed! zh Super Mario’s Odd World: Five bizarre facts about gaming’s biggest star Identity Crisis Nintendo swapped Mario, named after the company’s Italian landlord, with a scrub called Stan the Bugman in the 1983 coin- op Donkey Kong 3. Mario returned in the next game. Stan is still missing. тап Mario has been billed as everything from a plumber to À a doctor to a boxing ref to a demoli- tion man throughout his gaming career. “1 like to think of [the Mario brothers] as general contractors,” says Kyle Orland of the fansite www.smbhq.com. Poisoned power-ups With its Mario-kill- |- ing mushrooms Eoo and warp zones that launched you back to earlier points in the game, the real sequel to SMB was deemed too tricky for American gamers, so instead Nintendo inserted new char- acters into a game called Doki Doki Panic and released it as SMB2. Totally Glitchin' Super Mario Bros. is filled with helpful bugs, including the ability to jump off walls years before that power was canonized in Mario 64. The most infamous glitch: The minus world. Google it to find out how to reach this mysterious negative land. Casting miscall Before he was played by stocky Brit actor Bob Hoskins in the horrible Super Mario Bros. film, Mario was played by the considerably stockier Capt. Lou Albano on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. $h. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com * 97 Ге леш Creu e mixed bag of good and not so good, but fans of the genre will Like tt. try before you buy! aem Project Gotham Racing 3 апу sooner than you did, our Game of the winner is more like the е of Two Months Ago, but what can be AM least we had s contenders GAME DIRECTORY Xbox 360 100 Perfect Dark Zero 102 Project Gotham Racing 3 103 Quake 4 Multiplatform 104 Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones 106 50 Cent: Bulletproof 106 MVP 06 NCAA Baseball 107 Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows 108 America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier PlayStation 2 108 Ape Escape 3 109 Wild Arms 4 Xbox 109 Samurai Shodown V 110 Crime Life: Gang Wars PSP 110 Tokobot 111 Ape Escape Academy DS 112 Electroplankton Game Boy Advance 112 Final Fantasy ІУ Advance Extra Stuff 113 Reviews Wrap-up 115 Reviews Archive pa THE RATING SYSTEM & AWARDS 0-7 GOOD Ж % САМЕ ОР 5НАМЕ ОР THE MONTH | THE MONTH Platinum | Gold | Silver The highest- The lowest-rated Straight 10s. For For games with | For games with a scoring game | game with games that are | ап average score mean score of 8.0 each month gets | unanimously bad life-changing. | of 9.0 or higher. or higher. a star. | Scores. ESRB Ratings The ESRB's game ratings range from "Everyone" to "Adults Only." Visit www.esrb.org for the full lowdown. HSU • -in-Chief “Back in '89, | was sleeping through high school, making up in advance for all the sleep I'd lose later in life working on EGM deadlines." Then Playing: Anything Super Mario Bros.! Blog: egmshoe.1UP.com JENNIFER TSAO е Managing Editor "Luckily, | maxed out my social skills as a hipster teen before | had any clue that later in life my most exciting Friday night activity would be a Baldur's Gate LAN party..." Then Playing: Cello, quarters Blog: egmjennifer.1UP.com SHANE BETTENHAUSEN ° Previews Editor “Back in my middle-school days, | was a serious NES geek. Random kids would call me up in need of tips and guidance with games.” Then Playing: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Phantasy Star Blog: egmshane.1UP.com BRYAN INTIHAR е News Editor “For me, 1989 was all about seeing The Wizard on the big screen. Super Mario Bros. 3, Jenny Lewis (a total hottie), the Power Glove—how could anyone not love this flick?” Then Playing: Tetris (GB) Blog: egmbryan.1UP.com JON DUDLAK • Staff Reviewer "As a quiet, troubled, 10-year-old Double Dragon savant, | headed west with my bro to take on top gamers in Super Mario Bros. 3. tt was actually а pretty crappy trip." Then Playing: Everything with a Power Glove Blog: egm jonathan.1UP.com CHRISTIAN NUTT • Staff Reviewer “| still can't believe | conned a teacher into letting a friend and me design a new Mega Man game as a project in my foreign language class." % 2 1 Then Playing: Zelda ll, Zak 7 “Zp Zo McKracken and the Alien %, Mindbenders (C64) 7 4. Blog: ferricide.1UP.com GREG SEWART « Staff Reviewer “Buying my NES involved a bet, a trip to the mall through a blizzard, and climbing through the passenger-side window of an Olds Delta 88.” Then Playing: Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Castlevania Il Blog: stewy.1UP.com #1... МАЯК MACDONALD * Executive Editor “Turning 16 іп '89 meant | could finally drive—total freedom! Unfortunately, | pretty much just ended up at Babbages and the arcade." Then Playing: Tetris, Revenge of Shinobi, Mega Man Il, Zelda Il Blog: egmmark.1UP.com CRISPIN BOYER * Senior Editor "Picking between a Genesis or TurboGrafx- 16 was tougher than choosing a college. So | got 'em both and went to Barbazon Mullet Academy." Then Playing: Ghouls 'n Ghosts, The Legendary Axe Blog: egmcrispin.1UP.com сес DEMIAN LINN 9 Reviews Editor “Му folks wouldn't let me have a NES because they felt those newfangled videogames caused brain rot. So | was stuck reading D&D books." Then Playing: Test Drive 2 (PC), Super Mario Bros. (at a friend's house), Final Fight Blog: egmdemian.1UP.com ROBERT ASHLEY » Staff Reviewer *My dad took me to pool halls with him, gave me $10 worth of quarters, and sent me off to play Frogger and Ms. Pac- Man in the corner while he sharked the tables." Then Playing: Contra, The Legend of Zelda Blog: robertashley.1UP.com GREG FORD • Staff Reviewer “Until | got a NES, I'd go to my friends’ to get my Super Mario Bros. fix...then I'd go home and draw my own levels. Man, the geekery sure started early." Then Playing: Contra, Castlevania ІІ, Mega Man II Blog: egm ford.1UP.com KATHLEEN SANDERS * Staff Reviewer “For this awkward, nerdy, 10-year-old girl, the moment at the end of Metroid when Samus took HER helmet off was so totally awesome. It made me fall absolutely in love with videogames." Then Playing: Metroid Blog: cookiecups.1UP.com JUSTIN SPEER • Staff Reviewer “One of the first games | bought for NES was Airwolf...too bad | didn't read the EGM review first (four out of 10 across the board)." Then Playing: Contra, Xenophobe, Super Mario Bros. 2, Zelda Il Blog: zepyulos.1UP.com Ш OFFICIAL U.S. PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE and 1UP.COM are not nearly so finely aged as EGM, but those whippersnappers are always ready to share the reviews load. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 99 © review crew: xbox The graphics: definitely next деп. The enemies: still love hanging out next to clearly marked explosive barrels. . | m Xbox360 Á | m Xbox360 Á 360 PERFECT DARK ZERO ` Offline: bad, online: rad I’m not sure what upsets me more: the horrendous mess that is Perfect Dark Zero’s single- player game or all the glowing reviews out there (including Che’s). Are these crazies playing the same game as me? This first-person shooter sticks to its “futuristic James Bond” roots, so | didn’t mind stuff like the cornball villains and dialogue. | did, however, mind the level design. Now, І can appreciate nonlinear gameplay. But through a lot of the game, | was screaming, “What the f*** am | supposed to be doing now?!?” and wandering about aimlessly in areas that | wasn’t meant to go into at that time. But the game knows you may get lost, so after a while, your HQ “plots a course” for you, meaning it draws a big trail on the ground pointing you to where you're long overdue. That, my friends, is a quick-fix bandage for piss-poor level design. Multiplayer, however, is a whole different story. In the competitive modes, you get lots of custom- - ization options, a ngs of guns (PDZ’s best Four funny facets we н found и пе. Ferpect F Fark = d aS E a peus Physics If you're (un)lucky, you might see ап enemy corpse pinballing around a room like a super- bouncy ball. Also, try shooting vases and bottles for some strange chain reactions. Bad: Crappy single-player design What Happened To: The “Kill TV” spectator mode? Walk, Don’t Run Everything feels really sluggish and slow (especially while melee attack- ing), but you can tuck those guns for more speed. We wish you could always run that fast, though. С” я PEGA Аг { y "ms IA 20 RASA aman feature), and computer-controlled bots to fill in the blanks for when you don’t have enough human bodies. After | put in my numerous review-time hours, though, | really didn’t feel the urge to go back and play more, unlike the next two freaks whose reviews you’re about to read. While Shoe is absolutely right in his criti- cisms of PDZ's single-player mess, he doesn't give enough credit to what PDZ does so well: multiplay- er. And you'd better believe that a game launching with such an online-driven system will live and die by its online features. Co-op play makes the story mode bearable, even fun, despite its brain-melting craptitude. It's the online combat arena that proves ` most joyous, though. The typical deathmatch and capture-the-flag games do their jobs admirably, - and the myriad Dark Ops modes impress even | more, (mostly) giving you one life and one objec- tive to work with. The resulting tense firefights _ and simple ees are the е stuff of тарыды P WERL учеб, 220 SSP ESL РОНЕ а” жғне а A ^ turret fire. SHOE the form of PDZ's Dark Ops mode, which is h x multiplayer maps could have topped off мер д | now excellent online "ues = Dum, Da Dum Dum On later stages, the computer-con- trolled enemies have some annoying superhuman aim = | and perception. But = | they'll still do stu- | pid crap like stare at walls or run into dreams. While it’s no Halo, PDZ is the one launch game | see myself playing well into 2006. Although | can’t really defend PDZ’s single-player campaign against Shoe’s laundry list of complaints, | do think the game merits my score with its excellent suite of online co-op and multiplayer modes. | especially love how Rare managed to capture the feeling of what it was like to play GoldenEye (N64) with your: buddies huddled around a TV, except now, you’re eschewing splitscreen shenanigans for true — multiplayer over Xbox Live. On top of an awesome - set of weapons and solid, intuitive controls, PDZ throws in a variety of multiplayer elements, such as bots, vehicles, and gameplay modes, to keep things fresh. Finally, the online killer app comes in stakes, tactical, and very addictive. Only more - Riiiiiiiiiii-cola! _ | Badbadbad voicevoicevoice chat- * | chatchat echoesechoesechoes || maymaymay damp- ` | endampendampen Ф ) | Å | thethethe onlineon- I > || lineonline funfunfun J ӘЖ, д4 | (see page 23 for help on this). irkzero.com GJORD м4 61 EVERYONE 10+ ЕЛІ EUSA BR ADUUS ONLY 18+ EVERYONE Cartoon Violence Mild Lyrics CONTENT RATED BY ESRB CONTENT RATING — www.estb.org CONTENT RATED BY Е CONTENT RATED BY ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board WWW.ESRB.ORG (А review crew: xbox 360 اسح‎ Л я ш Xbox 360 моа ој СТАТ TAE ГА Qaa dia loi a dM E THEM яда ыса x $54 "NUM е 7 / „САМЕ OF ІНЕ MONTH ` GEAR 1. PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3 Kudos to you, sir DEMIAN: Now that’s some goooood lookin’ driving game right there. For me, Project Gotham Racing 3 is the best of 360’s launch titles; it grafts the series’ appealing mix of sorta realistic (much more so than Ridge Racer) but still forgiving (much more so than Forza) handling to some of the most impressive graphics I’ve ever seen on a console. If you're not playing in cockpit view, you're cheating yourself. | don't care if the dash eats up valuable visual real estate—little details like the flickering sunlight on the instrument panel and smudges on the windshield (only visible when the light hits it just right) really convey that behind-the- wheel feel. It’s incredibly intense, and all the usual clichés about white knuckles and forgetting to blink apply times 10. PGR's signature “kudos” system is back, so you'll earn kudo points for powerslides and over- taking maneuvers—but, strangely, you now also earn credits for doing well in races, and those are what you use to buy new cars. So piling up the kudos is pretty much worthless, except to climb the Xbox Live leaderboards. Weird. Don't expect that street-tuning malarky (sorry, dub fans) or free-roaming cities here. And while those things certainly don't make a racing game great, PGR3 could use a little more variety. The offline single player begins to feel like a treadmill of repetitive race events (though you can also earn credits through online races). Still, PGR3 is so damn pretty, | can't be mad at it for long. SHANE: Perched comfortably between the fanciful arcade insanity of Ridge Racer and the meticulous gearhead simulation of Gran Turismo, PGR3 deliv- ers uniquely semiserious racing thrills. Here, you don’t have to stress over automotive minutia (the only tweaking you'll do is to your paint job), and you can recklessly powerslide around corners in luxury cars like a spoiled rich kid. PGR3 offers instant gratification: From the outset you’re get- ting behind the wheels of some wickedly powerful sports cars. And you'll actually want to improve your skills, thanks to the series' trademark kudos system—garnering instant feedback (and unlock- able achievements) adds plenty of incentive to ` EFFECTS MODE keep on truckin’. Still, don’t expect a wildly inven- tive racer—the overall scope of the game hasn’t really expanded much from PGR2, but the lovely photo-realistic visuals and deep online play make it a worthwhile investment. TUP.GOM—GHE: PGR3 is pretty much everything I've been looking for in a racing game but somehow didn’t even know | wanted until | strapped into its gorgeous interior. It combines the gripping, edge- of-your-seat rush and ease of an exotic arcade racer with the depth and vehicular distinction of more sophisticated driving sims. The balance between the two gameplay styles is nearly perfect. Unlike PGR2, which upped the ante in terms of total and seamless online integration, PGR3’s great contribution to the genre is in the incredible in-car view that establishes not only an intense sense of speed, but also a sense of weight not found in even the most complex sim racing games. And you're never stuck driving a mundane Peugeot hatchback. There isn't another racer I’d rather play...well, at least until Forza hits Xbox 360. ж Spectator Sports Project Gotham Racing 3 borrows Gran Turismo 4's photo mode, then makes it better—you can pause race replays and then pose a pretty snapshot any- where on the track. But for the truly lazy, fire up Gotham TV on Xbox Live and watch the top-ranked players battle it out on the Heroes channel. Or hit the Friends channel and see your buddies ping-pong off the track walls and lose horribly. Good: The McLaren F1. Cockpit view. Oh yes Bad: Kudos. What are they good for now? Some Company, Please: Make a force-feedback 360 wheel! 102 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) DEMIAN Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Bizarre Creations Players: 1-2 (2-8 online or system link) ESRB: Everyone 10+ SHANE www.xbox.com E Xbox 360 QUAKE 4 Anyone could have predicted this Quake Besides the visual choppi- ness whenever you turn, it's hard to isolate specific problems with Quake 4—because there aren't апу. The controls аге solid; the enemy А... is fine; the gameplay is varied and com- petent. But maybe words like "solid," “competent,” and “fine” tell you why it’s also hard to recommend Quake 4: It's exactly what you've come to expect from a modern first-person shooter, and nothing else. A space marine blasting his way through a military base full of half- man half-machines is not the most exciting setting for a first-person shooter anymore; a short sequence where you're captured and trans- formed into the enemy is the only time Quake 4 even attempts to tweak the formula. It doesn't help that so much of the game, including all the enemies and most environments, looks straight out of Doom 3, right down to the ever-present, giant Rube e I o - =, o THE VERDICTS KATHLEEN Tragic twist at the end: The zombie robots just want to hug you. Goldberg machines pumping away at god knows what in the backgrounds. Likewise, multiplayer is basically Quake Ill warmed over with new lev- els: still a great, arcadey deathmatch experience, but nothing new. Even single-player’s limited squad combat bits and vehicle sections feel by the numbers. Quake 4 is far from terrible, but this series deserves better. All the FPS clichés are here: You’ve got your sewer level, you can’t climb anything without a lad- der, the most direct route is always blocked (but you'll find another way around involving a vent or a hole torn in a wall by an explosion, but one that you couldn't make with the rocket cannon in your back pocket), and you know when you're about to face a big baddie by the scads of health packs and ordnance lying around. Enjoy all of this while suppressing both frustration and epileptic fits due to the unforgivable slowdown problems. The multiplayer is totally decent (and lacks the graphical glitches, strange- ly), but $60 is steep for a game that I feel like I’ve played before. If you only play Quake 4 single-player you might be underwhelmed, particularly if you're expecting the A.I. from Halo and/or truly epic outdoor battles with alien forces. But if you can stomach the mediocre art direction, repetitive sci-fi environments, and occasional choppiness in the action, you'll find a fun solo campaign with a decent amount of gameplay. Quake 4's main attraction, of course, is its mad-dash multiplayer deathmatch, which to this day remains the fastest, most intuitive, and most skillful game around. So if you're not into the slower-paced Perfect Dark Zero, pick this up to satisfy your 360 twitch- shooter needs. 4 E The first-person sequence of Strogg “surgery” on your body is the story’s only real surprise. шы, Developer: Raven ESRB: Mature CHE Publisher: Activision www.activision.com Players: 1 (2-8 online or system link) Bachelor's Degree Programs in Game Development & Computer Animation e; d Real World Education school of Computer Animation Digital Arts & Design Entertainment Business Game Development Recording Arts Show Production & Touring 800.226.7625 fullsail.com If you’re serious about your dream, we'll take your dream seriously. 3300 University Boulevard Winter Park, FL 32792 Financial aid available to those who qualify Career development assistance Accredited College, ACCSCT © 2006 Full Sail, inc. All rights reserved. The terms “Full Sail,” "If you're serious about your dream, we'll take your dream seriously," "Full Sail Real World Education,” and the Full Sail logo are either registered service marks or service marks of Full Sail, Inc. revieu crew: multiplatform қ | mPS2/XB/GC || PRINCE OF THE TWO THRI the return of the king For many fans, the simple fact that the "rockin'" guitar riffs from last year's Warrior Within are gone is reason enough to consider The Two Thrones a superior game—but that’s just the start of a long list of substantial refinements and additions. Thrones brings the current-gen Prince of Persia trilogy to a close beautifully, once again sending the titular hero through a puzzle-heavy, time-fiddling action-adventure. This story starts when the Prince returns home to a war-torn Babylon, where his quest for revenge becomes a mission of self-discovery. Amusing inner dialogue highlights a struggle with his devil-on-the-shoulder alter ego, which manifests as uncontrollable transformations into the hyperviolent Dark Prince. Warrior Within’s angsty, badass Prince becomes much more endearing as he gradually figures out his true reasons for fighting. In fact, developer Ubisoft Montreal has addressed seemingly every misstep of last year’s Sharp Minds mostly grand adventure—too much backtrack- ing, hit-or-miss boss battles—making Thrones the series’ best-paced, least-frustrating entry (marred by only a few tedious puzzles). Getting through the constantly fresh environments requires some new techniques—including the ability to stab certain wall tiles, which greatly expands your cliff-scaling options—and combat gets a boost from the satisfying speed kills, which have you sneaking up on enemies and then hitting the attack button at designated instances during cinematic slayings (see side- bar). All these additions make for a near-perfect adventure; topped only by God of War, Thrones stands as one of 2005’s best. I’m with Greg and Crispin on Two Thrones’ environments and storytelling—they’re among the best in gaming. That last vertiginous level was awe-inspiring; | really felt like I'd scaled the Tower of Babel, one death-defying More of a thinker than a fighter? Two Thrones does | jas away with the constant combat of the last game and intermingles puzzles into the battles. You'll encounter roomfuls of enemies you can clear out Strong, violent types: Two Thrones boss roster starts out fierce (with this big guy), then kinda peters out. al, ap A at a time. But | simply can't agree that this is an altogether triumphant end-to the trilogy. Shouldn't they have figured out by now exactly where the saves and continues go? Yet Thrones features a tricky platforming sequence followed by a chariot race followed by a demanding boss battle without a single save point. I’ve lost count of how many times | replayed treacher- ous, trap-laden passages because | missed one stupid button press at the end—especially with the Dark Prince. He's got a great personality, but his gameplay sucks. Having to worry about his continuously depleting health often transformed what | like most about this series—the intel- lectually stimulating platforming—into a tedious exercise in timed button presses. Two Thrones' returning first-game char- acters, sillier sensibilities, and trippy self-depre- cating finale are like personal apologies from the developers for the last game’s goth-kid growing pains. This sequel makes it fun to be the Prince again. It unspools cunningly designed levels that keep him on the move—and you in the wall-run- ning, platform-leaping zone—even though the novelty of his greatest-of-ease acrobatics has worn off (more new moves, please). The game still makes missteps; it forgets about checkpoints What’s the diff? The Xbox and PS2 versions of ^^ Two Thrones are virtually identi- cal, even more so than the last game (especially У since the Xbox ET Live features are gone). We hadn't received the GameCube with the new timed-button stealth kills—but only if you figure out how to reach the first bad guy in the sequence, which often involves a climbing puzzle. Failure means facing the startled guards’ reinforce- ments. Of course, if combat is your thing, you can just blunder on in with your blades, you brute. disc by press time, so check the review at 1UP.com for an update on that version. during some tricky trap areas, the new one-button attacks become hard to pull off when the camera goes haywire, and the annoying final boss battle is as fun as leaping around a giant toilet bowl in a snowstorm. Otherwise, it’s nice to see a return of elegance to the series. ж Publisher: Ubisoft · Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Players: 1 ESRB: Mature Good: Sublime mix of adventure, combat, and storytelling Bad: Some tedious puzzles, the Dark Prince's depleting health Chariot Racing: Simple but fun bonus-game-type sequences THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) JENNIFER CRISPIN www.princeofpersiagame.com G. FORD 104 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com play on the coolest accessortes at sertousLy Lou prices ee SS Pelican Blade 2.4 GHz- Wireless for xbox 317 99 Mad Catz Control Pad Pro for PS2 $ 99 Rent 1 movie or game, GET ONE FREE! GAÊ ИШИ Membership rules apply. Not valid with any other specials or discounts. One coupon per person, per day. Excludes all equipment rentals. Free rental must be the lesser valued item of transaction. Valid on initial rental period only. Offer subject to ‘Instant RePlay' fees at the non-discounted rental rate. Expires: 12/31/05 к-------------------і ee SS Pelican Predator 2.4 GHz- Wireless | for PS2 & 17 9 9 Mad Catz’ Control Pad Pro for xbox © 0 0 еа Find a store. Log onto www.moviegallery.com FREE RENTAL with new membership Good for new members only. Not valid with any other specials or discounts. One coupon per account at opening of account. Excludes all equipment rentals. Free rental must be the lesser valued item of transaction. Valid on initial rental period only. Valid at participating locations. Expires: 12/31/05 == не а کک‎ кию кию єз ON س کے‎ кип ана ши эшн жиз Фен тер эи эш) эш эше эши жеп киз A LLL E SS ame emme eem E PS2/XB BASEBALL (кие) MVP O6NCAA | America’s pastime pulls a Bill Buckner THE VERDICTS OUT OF 10) BRYAN PS2/XB G. FORD MILKMAN 90 CENT: BULLETPROOF Please don't kill us | ima u. Cent is hold- WE baby instead. of a ) ; grenade launcher. і THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) ROBERT GREG S. JON D. 106 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Pe De Miei he ел aan L^ .10UT Gk?» Dude, you're a batter, not Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Publisher: EA Sports Developer: EA Canada Players: PS2 1-2 (2-4 via Multitap or online), XB 1-4 (2-4 online) ESRB: Everyone www.easports.com Publisher: VU Games Developer: Genuine Players: 1 ESRB: Mature www.50centbulletproof.com Poor MVP. Publisher 2K Sports and the console manufacturers now have exclusive rights to the MLB license, so ҒА5 MVP series has been booted from the bigs (turnabout is fair play—EA snatched up the NFL license first). With the forced change from the pros' wooden bats to college's metal whoppin' sticks, MVP has also lost its rep as one of the best baseball franchises. Now don't misunderstand, 06 sports two very welcomed innovations: right analog stick batting and throwing..But the problem here—and it's a biggie—is the execution of these new mechanics. Using the stick to chuck the ball around the diamond feels quite natural, yet the throwing meter doesn't react fast enough when turning double plays, and even perfect tosses force the first baseman off the bag too often. At the plate, the new system makes it easier to check-swing, but you'll rarely connect for an extra-base hit or home run. Luckily, you can always go back to last year's playing style, but even then, the game has rough spots: Infielders miss routine pop-ups, and the announcers continuously repeat them- selves. G. Ford may turn a cheek to these problems, but | feel like MVP 06 was rushed to get out in front of the big-leaguers. Bryan's being too harsh on these kids. It's not easy to nab baseballs rocket- ROBERT: How much street cred can nine bullet wounds buy? This is the question 50 Cent's career seeks to answer. Can you have your own flavor of pink mineral water and still call yourself a “gangsta”? Apparently. Can you star in a game in which you gruesomely stab people, steal their wallets, and then use their money to buy an assortment of promo merchandise? You bet. Bulletproof, a third-person shooter in the vein of Dead to Rights or Max Payne, was part of 2005's 50 Cent holiday marketing assault, and like all advertising it favors image over substance. The cut-scenes are top-notch, with dark, druggy art direction and great voice acting from 50, Eminem, and Dr. Dre. But as a game, Bulletproof is a disaster. Your G-Unit allies are so dumb they had to be made invincible to keep them alive. Your enemies, on the other hand, sense your presence from 100 yards away and run in erratic patterns as they spray bullets, a frustration compounded by sloppy aiming controls. Bulletproof is a blur of lazy design, pandering gore, and shame- less product placement. GREG 5: Fiddy’s game is barely worth the two quarters that his name comprises. Once you get past the fantastic character models and the mountains of licensed music found within (though the same x NCAA BAS ALL ing off of metal bats—even = major leaguers don't face that. Seriously, though, yeah, MVP 06's fielding system drops the ball, literally. Sure, ! got used to the analog stick fielding/throw- ing, but it always felt cumbersome. Most everything else is great, though. The analog swing system takes only a few innings to master and feels very intuitive, while the dynasty mode keeps you busy as you navigate play-off trees and spend time recruiting. Provided you can live with the ping of metal bats and lack of MLB stars (which definitely stings), MVP 06 is a great hardball sim. Remember the days when games like World Series Baseball for the Saturn provided deep, exciting gameplay with simple, intuitive controls? No? Well, | do, and while the spirit lives on in the MLB 2K series, it doesn't in MVP 06. This baseballer does a good job of simulat- ing the minor-league quality of college ball (read: errors seem more realistic and com- mon), but the overly convoluted functional- ity of the game kills it for me. Swinging the bat with the analog stick isn't as timely or precise as pressing a button, and when you factor in trigger pulls and other diversions, it becomes less a joy and more a chore to try to get a batter on base. four tracks play over and over again during the game), you have nothing but problems. The targeting system is useless, the levels are bland and filled with countless invisible barriers, and the camera is so hard to manipulate in tight spaces that you'll often end up star- ing right at 50’s face as he gets ventilated by the dozen enemies he just can’t see. | wouldn't even recommend this to hard- core 50 Cent fans. If you really need your gangsta fix, go replay Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas instead. JON D: Like every star-studded, fran- chised-to-hell game that plops on the PS2, Bulletproof looks like a million bucks and plays like, well, 50 cents. Trying to line up a target's head (hit 'im anywhere else and it'll take most of your magazine to drop him) with your pinhole of a reticule while running, diving, and dodging incoming fire is ridiculously cumbersome. And whether you're wielding a 9 milli or a 12-gauge, half the guns in the game have the same pea- shooter impact on enemy thugs when you are lucky enough to connect. The combat gimmicks—graphic, grappling insta-kills— look great but do zilch for gameplay since they’re autotriggered with a single button press. Maybe 50 should have approached Rockstar about getting dropped into the next GTA instead. Gandalf was always such a 6 ; * ‘ee "T 4 ^ Ps ы (с TS T S % y E Ш PS2/XB (PS2/XB) More sorrows than hours Good: Another solid, if mindless, round of elf clear-cutting Bad: Too short for such a simple game Nonsense: Cheese is worth more health than a turkey leg? ROBERT: Sometimes you just want to lean back in your chair, slice through a few hundred cliché fantasy-novel monsters, and let your mind wander. Luckily for you, Gauntlet—the grand- pappy of evil-horde-clearing hack-n- slash—is happy to oblige. Not much has changed since the old days. You still make your way through levels, looting treasure chests and dropping undead soldiers by the dozen. You still hunt down and destroy “generators,” the odd little shanties that spit out said creatures. It’s a simple formula, but one that still has the power to hold me in a mes- merized stupor, emphasis on stupor. Sure, a modern twist shows up here and there. Seven Sorrows baits you with a role-playing-game-style character development system, but the game’s short length (easily clocking in under six hours) makes leveling up unrewarding. The attacks held back as “unlockable” are essen- THE VERDICTS (QUT OF 10) В tial to enjoying the game’s bone-thin combat. And for a game named after its bosses (the “Seven Sorrows”), the boss fights sure are uninspired. We also noticed major lag issues online—hopefully Midway will work out the kinks. G. FORD: I’m surprised | had so much fun with such a derivative game. No, Seven Sorrows’ story isn’t anything special, nor are its graphics all that impressive. The action-RPG and puzzle elements reek of simplicity. Hacking and slashing, though respon- sive, take on a familiar tune (sure, you can make use of the purchasable combos, but banging on one button works just as well). And yet | found slogging through generic levels and destroying monster generators enjoy- able, even soothing. Add in the multi- player, which is practically a necessity against some bosses (and a pain with everyone confined to one screen), and б 5 تتفت‎ v f E ы Publisher: Midway ESRB: Teen “MAR ie GNIS i КТҮТІ T سم‎ ye: y е мы”. d "a .. Eins od Е "А ы ^ TE * Co MNT M Developer: Midway vert Players: PS2 1-2 (2-4 w/Multitap, ә 2-4 online), XB 1-4 (2-4 online) GAUNTLET: SEVEN SORROWS 3 ч У Y “ш E б you'll find it tough not to have some familiar, if fleeting, fun. MARK: In so many ways, Sorrows barely scrapes by: The pathetic story is little more than a voice over still pictures (leftover storyboards, perhaps?), the levels are predictable switch-flippers, and the plain graph- ics and muted effects are shrug-wor- thy. But against all this mediocrity, the engaging combat system (ranged attacks, special moves, melee com- bos) stands out; it’s great for button mashers and finesse players alike, even if the enemies rarely require any variation in tactics. And like all Gauntlet games, Sorrows’ short-lived fun multiplies with the number of players. It doesn’t encourage coop- eration in any interesting way, and lag screws up the game online, but with friends on the same console it periodically reminds you why this was once a great franchise. ж aS www.gauntletsevensorrows.com "| would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code." Higher Degree of Geek. Master of Science in Technology. Experience accelerated and customizable programs that will ignite the vision that burns in your dreams. You're already in the game. Now, prepare to join technology's elite. www.uat.edu/graduate or 800-658-5744 E| PS2/XB (PS2/XB) AMERICA'S ARMY: RISE OF A SOLDIER Dodge the draft ғ s pensan um i THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) CRISPIN SHOE KATHLEEN Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: Secret Level Players: 1 (2-16 online) ESRB: Teen www.riseofasoldier.com = 52 | APE ESCAPE 3 Not everybody loves monkeys NN ee re PIPO АНАК THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) JUSTIN G. FORD KATHLEEN 108 * ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com Publisher: Sony CEA Developer: Sony СЕ! Players: 1 ESRB: Everyone www.playstation.com In the first-person-shooter arms race, America’s Army coulda been the new superpower. Check its arsenal: You get a novel character-building system that lets you divvy up experience points among seven skills (including stealth and reflex- boosting honor). You choose between seven different roles, from a just-out-of-boot- camp rifleman to a night-stalking special- forces badass. And the game is Uncle Sam approved: Real soldiers served as advisors, which explains the authentic radio chatter and realistic take on everything from aim- ing to squad tactics. So it’s too bad that the missions them- selves suffer major malfunctions. Despite their frantic firefights, they’re completely canned, with enemies—and even your allies—going through the same motions every time. And the lack of enough check- points means you'll replay these battles so many times, you'll see 'em in your sleep. You'll also need to redo missions just to get experience points (be sure to build your honor skill, or you'll shoot worse than a stormtrooper). Online battles, of course, are much less predictable and definitely more fun—at least once you build your skills to where you can wield the better weapons. Playing army man reminds me of my days with the Rainbow Six and Ghost JUSTIN: | admit | was happy to hear that the monkeys from Ape Escape were running loose and causing mischief once again. Not because I’m a simian sympathiz- er, but because the series always makes catching the little guys so damn fun. As usual, you'll use both analog sticks in clever ways to net your monkey quota via lightweight puzzling and hop-and-bop action. Power-up costumes like Wild West Kid and Miracle Ninja might have cynical gamers rolling their eyes, but while each getup is required at certain moments, the game constantly inspires you to switch to your favorite costumes for the fun of it, with wacky scenarios that parody films like Friday the 13th, Titanic, and even Bruce Lee's Game of Death. Monkey gangsters playing mah-jongg in the back of a Chinese restaurant? Bust out the Dragon Kung Fu outfit and it's on. The game is short but packs tons of mostly ripe optional stuff to keep you amused. Minor control or camera issues may bite you in the butt now and then, but you just can’t help but have fun with this one. Unless your name is G. Ford or Kathleen. б. FORD: Remember when Ape Escape was the poster child of innovation, an amusing platformer that showed off the wonders of Sony’s DualShock control- ler? Well, using the right stick to attack Recon squads: lots of pin- point shooting of enemies (aka folks that don’t speak American) from as far away as possible. It’s not flashy—goofy animations and drab graphics take a lot of gung-ho out of this fight. But building up your character’s skills and the variety of soldier classes make this a shooter/role- playing-game hybrid that’s beefy and rather replayable. It can get impossibly difficult at times, though. І noticed the Xbox Live competition was very friendly, too—a big difference from the jerks playing Halo 2. Perhaps military games draw more Southern hospitality? This is not just an adven- ture; it’s also an Army recruitment tool. America’s Army offers a cool, RPG-ish character customization element, but then you'd better put a cork in any independent thought to survive the mind-numbingly linear campaign mode. Both friends and your brown-skinned foes (brown because of muddy, murky graphics...or racial profil- ing?) are crushingly stupid. On the upside, the online multiplayer's wide and elaborate game types and maps help offer some redemption. And as Shoe said, most players were refreshingly supportive nonasshats—just like real Army gentlemen. doesn't wow me so much апутоге— а rather have a functional camera. Ape Escape 3 finds itself in a world of hurt when it comes to keeping the action onscreen, but even if the camera were ideal, the game is far too uninspired and short (though generally competent) to keep its target younger demographic amused—get 'em Sony's superior Sly 3 instead, | say. Even the game’s potentially amusing Mesal Gear Solid minigame (an unlockable Metal Gear Solid riff) is chock- full of camera-bred frustration. KATHLEEN: | understand the compulsion to trap hordes of furry creatures to populate a private zoo. When the creatures are actually damn dirty apes bent on world domination of the human race—well, hand me one of those silly chimpanzee-snatching gadgets. | absolutely agree with Justin that the goofy lampoons make for fun levels and char- acter morphs, but snaring those slippery simians never gets challenging enough to stay enjoyable past the initial “Hey, how ’bout that—it’s a monkey Lord of the Rings!” moment. In fact, the only challenge comes from fighting the god-awful camera. The “GO-GO-TURBO Japanese cheerlead- ers on speed” mood and shallow, stupid puzzles are the sort of thing shut-in Naruto fans thrive on, but | found them irritating. Thankfully, it was short. EE CHUA WILD ARMS 4 Hex appeal же ` # Most hex-based battle systems are dauntingly ам - патта; = A A ГЛ Om ий EN 47) ^ f ` E» o Y Spurs no longer rattling, Wild Arms 4 moseys into town with its signature cowboy western take on console role-playing games strangely downplayed. Oh, you'll still get a few nostalgic nods to the series' six-shooter past, but the land of Filgaia is now more MegaTokyo 20XX than Dodge City 1849. Battles are quick but tactical affairs thanks to a simplified hex-based system that makes positioning and turn order top priorities. You still fight way too often, but boss battles in particular can tax yer noodle in a pleasing fashion. Nextly, jumping, sliding, and solving Ze/da-esque bomb and switch puzzles (plus the ability to slow down time) give dungeon/gulch- crawling a strong action-adventure feel. Certain side-view sections feel pleasantly reminiscent of side-scrolling old-time platformers, and the cast is right likeable as well. The main character is OK as far as wide-eyed kids go, and the sword-slingin’, nuclear-annihilation-sur- vivin’ Raquel is downright amiable—and kinda pretty. The story itself ain’t half bad either, but naive and hokey moments come with the territory, understand. THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) JUSTIN SHANE SENEM YS [E > А 0 Ур, < - 1 B Weird...what the hell have they done to Wild Arms? This new installment will totally baffle fans of the series. With its gloomy postindustrial setting, moderately complex platforming bits, and surprisingly different battle system, WA4 bears little resemblance to its charming, Wild West-themed predecessors. Once you get beyond that initial shock, though, you'll actually have a decent time here: The action- packed field maps feel fresh, and the simple hex-based battles add a shocking amount of strategy and originality to the mix. The adventure ends rather quickly, however—with only about 20 hours of gameplay to offer, WA4 winds down just as it should be peaking. | can't fault developer Media Vision for wanting to make Wild Arms 4 stand out from the usual RPG schlock, but its ambition has been squandered by some really strange decisions. Rather than trying to create, say, unique characters or a creative story, WA4 is just more of the usual “plucky kids save the world from an evil empire that wants ancient weapons”—a mash-up of scenes and ideas you've seen in a dozen other (bet- ter) RPGs. Even the sci-fi western feel has been discarded in favor of a more generic anime look. Instead, the devel- opers decided to spice things up with Klonoa-style (PS1) 2D-esque platforming and a ludicrously over-designed combat system. Not entirely unremarkable...but mostly for the wrong reasons. Publisher: Xseed Games Developer: Media Vision Players: 1 ESRB: Teen www.wildarms4.com Look familiar? SamSho V reuses old games’ graphics. РЕ SAMURAI SHODOWN V Not quite seppuku, but close JON 9: You've probably just asked one of the following three questions: 1. SAMURAI WHOZAWHATNOW? The arcade swan song to a '90s-sprung 2D fighter, SamSho V is what happens when a decade of solid arcade games is boiled down to one catch-all effort. If your fight- ing history starts with something in three dimensions and you're 2D-curious, it's a palatable sample of what used to be (that will play on a system that still is). 2. | STOPPED AT SAMSHO IlI—IS V ANY GOOD ON XBOX? Well, they merged the Slash/Bust variations of each character, oversimplified button functionality, and retooled or palette-swapped versions of existing characters for almost all the new samurai. So, yeah, it’s probably the worst one. But if you want to play online, it’s also the only one. 3. WILL HAOHMARU’S OUGI KOGETSU ZAN BE HINDERED BY INTERNET LATEN- CY? You'll be happy to know that online battles are silky smooth. Intermittent loading cuts short your real-time chatting and the online menu is a little archaic, but it’s easy to create or find matches. You can even set up a tournament that spans multiple days and see if “Victoly!” will indeed be yours. MARK: SamSho V doesn't just look like its decade-old prequels—much of it is its decade-old prequels, with graphics ripped directly from earlier games. Ра complain more about this “recycling” if the few characters and backgrounds they did add weren’t such ugly, uninspired piles of pixels. Still, | can’t deny that the THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) gameplay—a hodgepodge of elements from the last few games plus some new bits—while uneven and hardly imaginative, can be fun in the right matchup (i.e., no one chooses the annoying or unbalanced characters). And it’s nice to have all my favorite samurai together in one game, especially over the surprisingly robust and lag-free Xbox Live game, where you can fight other players of your same level worldwide and even set up tournaments. 1UP.COM—GCHE: It really doesn't get any more old school than a 2D SNK fighting game, and SamSho Vis really starting to show its age. At a discount price, there’s certainly nothing egregiously wrong with the game; Shodown packs plenty of characters and features a solid, straight- forward fighting system reminiscent of its two previous incarnations. But this classic weapons-based fighting series has lost much of its soul. While the original cast moves as fluidly as ever, the newer faces are the epitome of mediocre design and animation. Luckily, Xbox Live saves the day. The ability to set up a tournament among friends is an awesome touch. Publisher: SNK Playmore Developer: SNK Playmore Players: 1-2 (2 online) ESRB: Teen snkneogeousaconsumer.com ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 109 € 5» НАМЕ ОЕ САМО МАК5 Living in а gangster's ninth circle of hell This one time? | was rounding up some hookers for a rich guy in “Blingsley Hills”—we all get in a big street brawl, me, the hookers, and one of my pals against a bunch of guys that | know are bad because they're wearing blue vests. One of the hookers is getting low on health (if she dies, the mission restarts), so | leave the melee and run three blocks to the burger shop. І buy the ailing hooker—wWwho's still fighting down the street, remember—a nice burger with fries, which refills her health bar. As the battle rages, | stay in the safety of the burger joint, monitoring health bars and buying food when folks are about to die. This was the only fun moment | had with Crime Life, and it wasn't even, you know, literal fun; it was “hawhaw, what а stupid game" fun. І played Crime Life for over 10 hours before | put the controller down in dis- gust—not because it's a crass, mindless brawler designed to hit the lowest thug denominator (although that didn’t help), but because it’s so fundamentally terrible. The button-pounding gameplay is an ugly mess, the graphics, an even uglier mess, and the “urban” trappings are just embar- you can say Ў $ you did! J ۴ 77 THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) DEMIAN BRYAN rassing. | didn't finish Crime, but | know | didn't miss any good parts. The back of the box reads, “50 you wanna be a gangsta?" Oh hell no. From Crime Life's ridiculous missions (steal ^bling" so your boss can dress better, go get wasted and then beat the crap out of five nobodies—are you kid- ding me?) to its butt-ugly presentation, fighting for dummies combat, and hor- rible camera, this deeply flawed sandbox game is way overpriced even at $20. Just imagine for a second that you wanted a Gl Joe action figure for your birthday, but instead someone bought you that shoddy, odd-looking doll dressed in army fatigues with a Spider-Man head from the dollar store. Crime Life is the bargain bin version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This whole gangsta subgenre that grew up around San Andreas is hurt- ing. And Crime Life takes it to a new low, making titles like 50 Cent and 187: Ride or Die seem like masterpieces. A weak, uninspired fighting system, where the gruesome finishing moves are the sole highlight, is at the heart of the problem. But bad as the combat is, the developers commit a cardinal sin by omitting any sort of co-op play in a game that desper- ately cries out for it. What Crime Life needs even more, though, are graphics that don't look like they were done for a PS1 budget title. Seriously, Crime Life is one of the worst- looking games to come out this year. Just another reason to stay away, | guess. Publisher: Konami Developer: Hothouse Creations Players: 1 ESRB: Mature GREG S. www.konami-crimelife.com 110 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com СУ | TOKOBOT Robots on Ambien ж CHRISTIAN: Explaining Tokobot’s story would be an insult to your intelligence. It mines the slime-soaked well of kids’ anime clichés that gave us the Pokémon cartoon; the best thing about it is that developer Tecmo didn’t spring for voice acting, so it’s easy to ignore. Disregard the baby-game nonsense—the puzzle- filled platforming is the hook. Bolt, the main character, has devel- Oped an unusual bond with the titular tokobots; his metal pals follow him everywhere. What he lacks in athletic prowess the bots compensate for. They can help him glide over chasms and battle enemies. They even join together to form bigger, badder robots. The problem is, the control is so slug- gish that combat is a chore while explor- ing is a bore. My excitement gradually metamorphosed into a frustrated detach- ment. The boss battles are clever and the puzzles can be fun, but too often they’re just tedious to execute, thanks to Bolt’s molasses-like gait. The PSP needs more games like Tokobot—but Tokobot simply needs to be better. The idea is a very good one, but between the simple puzzles and snore- inducing pace, it’s not what it should have been. BRYAN: You’d think a game this damn cute would be quite accessible, yet it’s way too hard for all the wrong reasons: The camera’s atrocious, your character moves at a snail’s pace (making combat very tricky), and every environment is eye-high in platforming segments that THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) CHRISTIAN BRYAN іш. 4 “Нн = т This is one of the few platforming Sec- 25 tions that won't take 20 ім by attempts to complete. СС are frustrating death traps rather than challenging tests of agility. Difficulty aside, Tokobot also doesn't capitalize on the special transformations of its metallic costars; you'll find few instances that call for you to change into a sword-swinging samurai or a puzzle-solving crane. I’m all for more original titles on the PSP—just not this dud. 1UP.COM— JEREMY: Tokobot features one of the worst cameras l've experi- enced in years, which tag-teams with the lousy combat controls to create a game that’s often more frustrating than entertaining. That’s slightly heartbreak- ing because | really wanted to love Tokobot—it totally taps into the same vibe as Pikmin and Tron Bonne, two of my favorite games. Lead a squad of tiny companions into massive, ancient dungeons while seeking treasure...what’s not to like? Unfortunately, managing the tokobots is a pain thanks to their lack of self-reliance, and their slow, clumsy attack modes make it hard to fight back in tight situations—you know, when you need them most. There’s still a good time to be had, if you’re very patient. Publisher: Tecmo Developer: Tecmo Players: 1 ESRB: Everyone JEREMY www.tecmogames.com ЕЯ € (e APE ESCAPE y As a perennial reviewer of WarioWare, but Ape Escape Academy Mario Party and a committed follower of seems so very slow. When a game takes | 1 » WarioWare, lm pretty open-minded when 30 seconds to play, load time, which it comes to bundles of minigames. | under- 15 wrapped around each short game іп This mon Кеу 5 eot something to hide d stand that stupid silliness in 12-second Academy, is a total buzz kill. Many of the bursts can be wildly amusing and addic- games themselves are so convoluted they tive. But Ape Escape Academy makes me require several tries to understand, slow- appreciate those successfully silly games ing the pace further. Others simply go on all the more. Some of the minigames here much longer than they should. Academy are ОК—!'т not sure you can mess up has a few really good games (the bullfight bowling or rochambeau. But the bad ones and rock-paper-scissors battle), several are just painful, because they're either fun games (soccer and banana bridge), weirdly esoteric (quick, identify the nation- апа several not-so-fun games (the quizzes al flag of Macedonia!!!), have awful con- аге а real bummer). But if you need a PSP trols (good luck on the monkey totem pole minigame fix, this’ll tide you over. one), or are too confusing (Simian Suplex? | can't even pronounce it right!). Plus, the Where Ape Escape single-player mission structure is unnec- Academy should feel like a festive essarily limiting. You have to complete minigame extravaganza, it comes off rows on a tic-tac-toe board, which was as more of a collection of half-assed probably supposed to add a little challenge prototypes due to the overly complex chal- but ends up wasting time if you don't win lenges, unresponsive controls, and com- in the right spots. A game like this ought to plete lack of coherency. It's a sad state excel in multiplayer, but the wireless mode of design when a game like WarioWare gives you just a small handful of lame can teach you how to play a scene with a minigames to play. If you're absolutely single word of instruction, while Academy desperate for some mediocre entertain- falls flat on its face after both an instruc- ment on your PSP, this provides glimmers tional loading screen and video tutorial. of fun. But you have to wade through a lot Toss in sometimes-choppy graphics along of frustration to catch them. with a gimped local wireless mode (only four games? Are you kidding?) and you Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the have yet another failure of enjoyable pick- channel-surfing short attention span of up-and-play gaming in your hands. r$ Publisher: Sony CEA Developer: Sony CEI Players: 1 (2-4 via local Wi-Fi) ESRB: Everyone 10+ THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) JENNIFER ROBERT JARED www.playstation.com <» >> Main Campus - Tempe, AZ >> West Campus - Phoenix, AZ Collins College offers a Bachelor of Arts degree in Game Design and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Arts with a concentration in Game Art. Add a new 1-800-728-4500 dimension (0 www.CollinsCollege.edu Collins College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT). Financial Aid is available for those who qualify. Career services assistance. Collins College West is a branch of Collins College. Not all programs available at all locations. , by Rick O'Connor revieW Crew: ELECTROPLANKTON асва FINAL FANTASY IV ADVANCE Potent Portable for $30, Alex йи]! [к йа КЕДЕ, КЕШ Dude, don’t bogart that DS Good: Fantastically innovative Ваа: Мо датер!ау > TENERA A ° . 9, 4 ” سس Guess It Was Too Hard: To add that save feature JENNIFER: Electroplankton really threw me for a loop. l'd seen the demos of this music-maker and assumed they were early versions of something that would knock my socks off—once the real “game” had been designed. Unfortunately, it seems like the develop- ment team must’ve been really busy... playing Guitar Hero and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See, there is no game here; Electroplankton is more of an “experi- ence.” You can choose from 10 different compositional modes, in which you use the touch screen to manipulate notes and sounds. Electroplankton takes care of the rhythm for you, so you can keep chang- ing the sounds and mess around with notes while creating an electronic song. And that’s all she wrote. Electro- plankton might have been more engaging if it gave you goals, such as coming up with a certain number of notes in a given amount of time or having to replicate songs and riff on them. It should, at the very least, have allowed you to save your work; instead, your musical creations are fleeting and forgettable. It’s too bad, because this is an unusually cool and weird exercise in technological creativity. - Б: > E ty < $ Spins the other way south of the equator. THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) JENNIFER SHANE 50 So, while my score may seem low, keep in mind it would have been even lower if not for that. SHANE: Anyone can have fun messing around with E/ectroplankton's cutesy music-making applications for 15 min- utes, but unless you're an artsy Brian Eno wannabe, you won't get much out of it. This thing really isn't a game at all, nor could you call it serious music-compos- ing software (since you can't save your creations). Yet, for the right people... who are firmly in the proper (preferably altered) state of mind, Electroplankton becomes a trippy, transcendent, and beautiful fusion of art and music. And | guess т one of those people, because l've spent plenty of time exploring the subtle depths here. I’ve even seen musi- cians "play" Electroplankton as an instru- ment at live shows, and the results were absolutely stunning. MARK: The beauty of Electroplankton is that anyone who tries it will have fun making tunes in minutes, thanks to the friendly, intuitive interface. The problem with Electroplankton is that, after those first few minutes, everyone who tries it will wonder what the hell is the point. Without any option to record or store your creations, you can't mix together tracks you make with the different crit- ters, much less save a cool tune you stumble onto for your friends to hear. Electroplankton is just a novelty—its awesome potential is destroyed by this simple, obvious, unforgivable mistake. Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Players: 1 ESRB: Everyone MARK www.nintendo.com 112 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY e www.1UP.com Good: Classic role-playing game made even better Bad: Frustrating bits of slowdown New to You: Two huge dungeons SHANE: When this revered fantasy epic first hit the Super NES (as Final Fantasy Il) in 1991, it made an astonishing impact—most players had never expe- rienced such an intricate, involving role- playing game without the aid of a dice bag. Fourteen years later, the adventure retains its appeal in portable form, and developer Square Enix wisely grafts some meaty new bits onto the quest to surprise returning fans. The game's advanced age does show through: FF/V's broad-strokes story line and shallow characters lack the nuanced depth of those in modern RPGs, but at least a reworked translation omits many of the original’s groaners. Thankfully, the game’s engaging battles, challenging dungeons, and plentiful secrets ada- mantly withstand the ravages of time. And FF vets will swoon over the enhanced graphics, nifty gameplay tweaks (bring whichever party members you want into the final dungeon!), and innovative (not to mention colossal) new bonus dungeons. Don’t expect absolute perfection, though: Odd bouts of loading in the battle menu screens dampen your old-school RPG buzz a tad, but it’s nothing unforgivable. Few games have the same resonance with me as Final Fantasy /V— feel that it was the cornerstone of what made the Super NES great. It’s simply my favorite Final Fantasy game, even 14 years on. FFIV strikes an excel- lent balance between an interesting story—which is buoyed by the new, very readable translation—and entertaining THE VERDICTS (OUT OF 10) SHANE CHRISTIAN gameplay. The battles are fast, and the characters have their own unique and appealing skills. The addition of a dash to the GBA version makes exploring snappy, and the redone graphics look great. This game set the tone for the Final Fantasy series for years to come. Very few GBA RPGs can hope to compare. I'll agree that FFIV set the standard for subsequent Final Fantasy games, but between the dopey 1991 vintage translation and disappoint- ingly brief quest, I’ve always considered it one of the least enjoyable entries in the series (sorry, Christian). But this new version has forced me to reconsider. The new script gives the plot much-needed cohesion while toning down the goofy melodrama, and the impressive bonus features double the game’s length with seriously challenging dungeon crawling and a compelling new combat roster. The reworked graphics and music are classy, too. | could have done with a little more Dawn of Souls-style fan service (bosses from other games or whatever), and the slowdown during battles is annoy- ing. Even so, it’s a phenomenal portable RPG—bring оп FFV and ҒҒИ. ye LES Mind-blowing 3D effects from 1991. Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Square Enix Players: 1 ESRB: Everyone 10+ JEREMY www.nintendo.com ЭБШ" The $ game es that Were KING | KONG We ran a full review of King Kong’s PS2 and XB outings in last month’s issue, and after playing through this next-gen version, we can say that it’s the same great game, just slightly prettier. Except when it’s not—though we didn't run into issues ourselves, Ubisoft President Yves Guillemot told BBC.co.uk, “We have a problem on the 360. The screen is dark on some TVs апа it totally changes the experience.” Furthermore, the U.S. branch of Ubi is “actively investigating isolated reports of resolution issues on specific plasma screens,” according to a spokesperson. Bottom line: Stick with the PS2 and XB versions to be safe. They look great anyway. GUN XB360 * Activision е ESRB: M Big Sky country doesn't seem so big — when you can hop on a horse and gallop from the Great Plains to the blazing des- ert in a few minutes. And that's the big problem with this otherwise high-caliber Wild West shooter: It's kind of small. The 20 missions in the intriguing, hypervio- lent story (cowboys massacre Indians! Pistols blast off body parts!) push you along so quickly that you'll rarely cA s ЕП т=ш= шшш ae Мы as мді - cattle rey: Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland Î wrangler or any of the other rootin’ | ( XB360 • Activision • ESRB: T — Put the latest Tony in the 360 ; è SE м | disc tray and one thing immediately stands out: The cut-scenes tootin’ side jobs. suddenly seem hideous, even though they're pretty much exactly Bottom lima: The cowpoke cast looks the same as the PS2/XB versions’. Otherwise, the L.A: landscape and skaters look a little nicer, but aside from the unlockable vividly scruffier than it does inthe | | ru ` Sandi ine айты: ` other versions, but that slight boost in | gu: } gamer profile achievements, the version’s biggest c —_ is а its $60 price tag. visuals won't blow you away and isn't really worth the extra $10 cost. Bottom line: This is the best—and most expensive—American Wasteland, but if you already own another version, there's noth- ing to see here. > ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com e 113 review crew: wrap-up REVIEWS WRAP-UP сом; psp quickies only-one-analog-stick setup, And | while single-player zombie bust- ing is amusing (though repetitive), Infected's real hook is its clever multiplayer. Win local Wi-Fi or Palaternet matches to spread your - ` cüstomizable avatar into the losers" james rovided the schmucks . don't ca of the battle | rand. Bottom line: A quali y Internet-enabled propel PSP ° EA Games • ESRB: T — The life simulator returns, with slightly less potty micromanagement and slightly more direct control of your sim via amusing minigames. But the loading times on PSP are too frequent and delay the already slow-paced action. -- 2ottom line: If you grew tired of The Sims long ago, this won't renew your enthu- siasm for obsessive home furnishing. (D> ci@Latfarm smorgasbord Mega Man X Collection PS2/GC • Capcom • ESRB: E Experience the X series’ rise and fall with this compilation of the first six games. Unlike Anniversary Collection, these ports have no weird control probs. m IP ! Зоот line: Six good-to-great action- ers, reproduced with loving care. PS2 ° солои: ° ESRB: M Consider this an official apology for the obscenely difficult DMC3. Capcom axed the unfair continue system and made Dante’s bro a playablė character. Bottom line: A bargain at $20. 114 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY e www.1UP.com - Sma | RAW 2006 PSP • THQ * ESRB: T — With all the features (and twice the load time!) of its console brother, it's tough to find major faults with this handheld port. The ability to take your PS2 data on the go is nice, and when you link the two versions you'll unlock Jake the Snake (before he went off the deep end), too. — 20#от line: Killer load times aside, SmackDown! is easily the most enjoyable portable wrestler out there. Tamagotchi Connection + vh Vm SI у Ds е Bandai * . ESRB: E Corner Shop is the latest of Tamagotchi’s efforts to win back the virtual pet crown from those rascally Nintendogs. Its limited selection of minigames (in which you earn money to buy your little critter goodies) isn’t much of a threat to ‘Dog dominance, _ though. Players earn special bonuses for sharing the game with friends (via Wi-Fi), but is Tamagotchi swag really worth risking a friendship over? Bottom line: This might appeal to kids who really, really like minigames. Painfully lame minigames, that is. Skip it and just get a real Tamagotchi instead. You can kill it at your leisure. ж REVIEWS ARCHIVE Where our reviews go to retire in luxury... Was it good for you? The 360 launch, that is. We decide to com- pare the 360's four highest-scoring launch games to the best of the Қ. t November 22, 2005 Project Gotham Racing 3 * Microso Call of Duty 2 Activision Amped 3 2K Sports Madden NFL 06 EA Sports November 18, 2001 | „ТЗ Чыгу Super Smash Bros. 95 °95 А 9,5 Melee • Nintendo Star Wars: Rogue Leader * LucasArts SILL Skater 3 • Activision ЕДЫ Madden NFL 2002 үлүгү EA Sports 8.5 9.009.0 Tony Hawk's Pro November 15, 2001 Halo Microsoft Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee • Microsoft ФАБ АШ Madden NFL 2002 9.0 * 9.0 * 9.0 EA Sports Dead or Alive 3 Tecmo October 26, 2000 Ridge Racer V Namco SSX EA Sports Big Swing Away Golf EA Sports Koei 8.0°7.5°8.5 а 8.5 •9.5•9.0 9.5 • 8.5۰9.0 7.5•8.0•6.5 Dynasty Warriors 2 grs September 9, 1999 Soul Calibur Namco Sonic Adventure Sega NFL Blitz 2000 Midway 9.5°8.5°9.0 8.0 ° 9.0 o 9.0 Monaco Grand Prix 8.0•8.0•8.0 Ubisoft GAME Amped 3 Animal Crossing: Wild World Battlefield 2: Modern Combat Blitz: The League Call of Duty 2 Castlevania: Curse of Darkness The Con Condemned: Criminal Origins Crash Tag Team Racing Dragon Quest VIII Fatal Frame 111: The Tormented Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance GripShift Guitar Hero Gun Gunstar Super Heroes Jak X: Combat Racing James Bond 007: From Russia With Love Kameo: Elements of Power Kingdom of Paradise L.A. Rush The Lord of the Rings: Tactics SYSTEM XB360 DS PS2/XB PS2/XB XB360 PS2/XB PSP XB360 PS2/XB/GC PS2 PS2 GC PSP Р52 PS2/XB/GC GBA PS2 PS2/XB/GC XB360 PSP PS2/XB PSP The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion PSP Madden NFL 06 Magna Carta: Tears of Blood Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time Mario Kart DS Mario Party 7 Mario Tennis: Power Tour The Matrix: Path of Neo Metroid Prime Pinball NBA Live 06 NBA 2K6 Need for Speed: Most Wanted Need for Speed: Most Wanted NHL 06 NHL 2K6 Operation Flashpoint: Elite Peter Jackson's King Kong Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness Ratchet: Deadlocked Resident Evil 4 Ridge Racer 6 Romancing SaGa Shadow the Hedgehog SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs Sonic Rush Soul Calibur Ill Spider-Man 2 SSX on Tour SSX on Tour Star Wars Battlefront 2 Stubbs the Zombie Suikoden Tactics Super Mario Strikers Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland Trapt True Crime: New York City Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble The Warriors Without Warning WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 XB360 PS2 DS DS GC GBA PS2/XB DS XB360 XB360 PS2/XB/GC XB360 PS2/XB/GC PS2/XB XB PS2/XB/GC GC PS2 PS2 XB360 PS2 PS2/XB/GC PSP PS2 DS PS2 DS PS2/XB/GC PSP PSP XB PS2 GC PS2/XB/GC PS2 PS2/XB/GC DS GC PS2/XB PS2/XB PS2 *Games in red are previous Game of the Month winners. VERDICT wx | Ш Crazy-ass cut-scenes are fresh, bright spots in this huge snowboarding game 19 lll The same insane fairy-tale fishing/talking/walking game is now portable and online 7.5 W What pretend war is good for: explosions, rad weapons, and online havoc with friends 9.0 Ш Controversial, arcade-soiled gridiron game will shock those uptight NFL execs 8.0 W A fully functional military shooter with killer A.I., sound, maps, and gameplay 8.5 lll Lacks a bit in looks and scope, but offers deep combat and weapon customization 8.5 Ш Rotten camera and long-ass load times ruin this mishmash of strategy and brawling 5.0 lll Clunky controls hobble this macabre survival-horror title's deeply eerie gameplay 7.0 lll Kiddie-safe kartfest with weak platforming elements and lame minigames 55 ША polished and perfectly respectable return to the rich, fun RPG style of the past 9.0 lll Going ghost busting with young hotties and a camera should be more fun than this 6.5 lll Grid-based strategy series with a ton of characters brought into the 3D realm 8.5 lll Ride the brake around ugly courses and play with a track editor that isn't so awful 7.0 ш Now that ain't workin'—that's the way you do it. You play the guitar on the...PS2 9.0 Ш GTA meets Deadwood—a sight short on length, but still a rootin’, tootin’ shooter 7.5 ША A semidisappointing, yet solid, sequel to the beloved Genesis side-scrolling shooter 7.5 Ш Car combat that never really catches up to its peppier peers 7.0 Ш Sir Connery voices the titular character іп a flaccid action-shooter that plays itself 6.5 lll Lovely, but brief and sorta disappointing, adventure teases with flashes of brilliance 6.0 lll Hack-n-slash disguised as an RPG with lousy A.I. but sweet graphics and rad moves 7.0 W This racing game offers a ton of cool cars that crash in random, frustrating ways 6.5 lll Although cinematic and fresh, this tactical title's sloppy presentation frustrates 6.5 Ш "Old school" doesn't always mean "all good," but this RPG is classically sound 6.5 W Моге of a gridiron evolution than revolution 8.0 ш An RPG with strong visual design that drops the ball with an icky battle system 7.5 W Fun, dungeon-rific RPG with action-filled combat featuring your favorite Bros. 8.5 Ш Retains Mario's status as champ of Kart games, now portable and online 9.0 lll Seventh entry in the board-game-that-plays-itself series is just what you'd expect 6.5 Ш Mario's chatty, RPG-ish tennis game benefits from simple controls and fun multiplayer 8.0 Ш Playing through the movie trilogy would be a bit more fun with a better combo system 7.0 W The normally dignified Ms. Aran is dropped into a decent pinball game 7.5 W Visually, it's the only sports game that screams "next gen" 8.0 Ш Plays great, but where's the code to unlock the improved graphics? 6.0 lll The latest іп this racing series lets you drop the hammer оп the run from the law 8.0 lll The 360 version's differences are strictly cosmetic and probably not worth the extra $ 7.0 W The NHL series is still a bit arcadey, but it remains on the path to respectability 7.0 ША beautiful-looking game. Now, where's the goalie А.1? 75 W This überreal military shooter's multiplayer and maps help make up for how ugly itis 8.5 ША A cinematic, breathtaking action-adventure game that is fit for a King...um...Kong... 8.5 lll The series makes some strides on the Cube with this passable RPG for Pokémaniacs 7.0 Ш Chicken guns and robots galore spice up this platformer-shooter 8.0 W Stunning graphics, thrilling gameplay, and extras just for the PS2 9.5 ША solid racer underneath embarrassingly lackluster (is this really next gen?) visuals 6.0 W Wide-open, but totally confusing, RPG means a ton of wandering and not much fun 7.0 lll An adventure shooter with awful targeting and camera, starring Sonic's ugly-ass twin 6.0 W This combat shooter is pretty and portable but lacks the balls of the console version 6.5 W Multiplayer, with vehicles and up to 32 players online, makes up for the dumb-ass A.I. 8.0 ША A step back to the rushing, roller-coaster, side-scrolling Sonic done properly for 05 8.0 lll All the smooth, responsive fighting gameplay you've come to expect from this series 9.0 ШІ your spider sense is on the fritz, let us warn you to avoid this ho-hum adventure 6.0 E More of the same snowy excitement you'll find in SSX 3—now with skiing 8.0 Ш Awkward to play on the PSP, it's still a decent snow-sport game 7.0 lll This packed-with-Star- Wars-toys shooter's controls make it too awkward to enjoy 6.0 W Third-person, zombie Halo. Sound weird? It is, but brain-eating mayhem should be 8.5 ША A decent strategy-RPG and a gentle intro to the rather confusing Suikoden series 7.0 W This varsity-level soccer-playing-plumber game lacks the variety to make it great 7.0 lll A lack of fresh, new stuff makes this addition to the skater series a bit eh, whatever...7.0 W This build-it-and-they-will-come-to-be-impaled trap-setting adventure is repetitive 6.0 W An ambitious, but unfortunately buggy, ugly GTA clone set in the Big Apple 8:5 ША A modern, but repetitive, update to the side-scrolling brawlers we grew up with 8.0 ША A chaotic, button-smashing frenzy of fighting, bubble gum, and moviemaking 4.5 W We dig this sweet resurrection of both а '70s cult-classic film and the brawler genre 8.5 W There are no heroes in this lackluster third-person shooter with a preposterous plot 4.5 Ш Story mode is much improved, but tag-team partners still act like idiots in the ring 6.5 2 wm Half-Life 2’s Gordon Freeman: опе angry nerd. mean! Because the zero worst zeroes is stupidly impossible. —— 199 issues. Maybe we were too у текте 6y cor lows ol кіл | or ninja surfing to notice terrible gameplay. | - ER can relate: Love once clouded my judgment so — — Бойу that | went beyond Cee тек йке BUE oY pipni нар 0° DE CONKER'S POCKET TALES 1999 • Game Boy Color • EGM #122 FUTURE COP L.A.PD. 3067 e PlayStation • EGM #111 SURF NINJAS 1993 • Game Gear • ЕСМ #48 Original Review: “Опе last thing: What's with the lame name?” Original Review: “Surf Ninjas by Sega for the Game Gear isn’t а California-dreaming cart. These ninjas are serious.” Original Review: “Although the graphics aren’t the greatest, they do the job ina children’s storybook kind of way.” OK, what the #@$&! does a game have to be named for you to think it’s not a lame title? Calling this Future Cop L.A.PD. is one step down from naming it Jean Claude Van Damme's Nipple Cowgirl Command, and it tells us everything we need to know about the game's hero—he's half future, half cop, all L.A.P.D. If this were anything more than а How desensitized to ninja danger did this reviewer think we were? Must he point out that a game about ninjas is not about sunbathing? That's like taking a zoo tour and hearing, “Up next are the Alaskan Death Bears. Keep in This is a Conker children’s game. Which is strange, since with all of the religious talking vegetables out there that one could base a children’s game on, why would you handicap yourself by making yours about a mascot who only got attention because every single puzzle in his N64 and Xbox games was solved scream-at-the- mind these are not the kind of bears that bake by squirting bodily fluids on it? This G-rated version сгарру-сатега for you when you dangle your honey-covered proves that when you take away the risk of hepatitis, simulator, it leg into their cage." Although no reviewer Conker really loses his edge. And when you take would have mentioned this game’s crappiness, one did away any fun platforming elements, you just have been game of note that it @ © a boring remote-controlled squirrel. I’m not saying the year. Please was.based on AFT AT that it would have been fun с MANDA "ус, note: When in an upcoming ALLED if his face was launching Ы the actual future, movie ust 5 snot or if he was swinging pa s "v i future cops will and “that X NIN a diaper around, but atleast TT just be called by should really Her u then you’d have a reason ұрады rono their first names. stimulate IE! to look at the game, if only фы s E қ zo М, Like Zortran or sales.” to hate it. Future Jack. Thanks! MOONWALKER J|. 100 + consis + ecm m4 Original Review: Three of the four reviewers made a Later they all wrote this follow-up review: “After Michael Jackson pun: You should be warned that I’m looking back on what we typed, how do we ‘LIVE about to quote them below. WITH OURSELVES?” This is the only game that’s on the list because it was rated too Jow with its Pun #1: “It’s a bit too easy of a game, and average score of 7.0. This is at least a 15. It’s based unfortunately, you won't take very long to ‘beat it’.” on the true story of Michael Jackson turning into a | car and a spaceship to rescue children by dancing Pun 42: “Moonwalker isn't as ‘BAD’ as it's hyped up until kidnappers explode, although a friend of mine to be." theorizes that the villains are actually social workers desperate to keep Michael from the kids, and they’re Pun #3: “This game is no ‘thriller; but decent only dancing to disguise themselves as fellow child nevertheless.” predators. Either way, EGM stands corrected. WEREWOLF: THE LAST WARRIOR 1990 е NES е EGM #17 Original Review: “Very timely and exciting theme many different move techniques throughout average 5 A Е Е Е E73 EE3 Е EE Е كح‎ action game." gameplay." 1 don't have a joke about that. That's just top-notch writing. This might seem like an insane mix of random words He then ends his review by shouting, “Buttons instead of a description of Werewolf for Nintendo, but ‘A’ and ‘B’ should have been switched! Music it was in fact timely, since Congress had just passed orchestrates the ‘transformation!’” Are these the the 1990 Spooky Werewolf Act. This was simply unedited notes from his Nintendo Werewolf class? one of many reactionary works that followed the Go ahead and gripe about the button switching if you controversial act, my favorite of which was Golden must, but when you're telling me blatantly obvious ІНШІ ТИИИП ИИТИИ ИПИ! Girls episode 58: “Bingo! (Rose Bangs а Wolfman at things like the music orchestrates something, why LIFE nunun ENEMY Bingo).” The same reviewer goes on to describe the not finish up and say the graphics display the game — gameplay by saying, “The main character has many, and the controller manipulates the character? INSPECTOR GADGET 2001 • Game Boy Color • EGM #140 JE BALL 5 е EGM #41 : “Awesome musical tracks When your review’s main point is that the game Original Review: “Is this music from the show? I can't tell. Re m a famous rock band will keep ұм а- knows Motley Crüe better than all other game It sounds са а is not recognizable... And what's the point of the e -of-level puzzles? Тһеу'ге lame!” the course of the game.” acquaintances of Motley Crüe, that's when you stop giving it a 7.0 and start subtracting seven points e these classic reviews because, if they’re for games m along to a famous rock band’s from the review score. it С , they always start with useless | ash hits “Bloopdy Bloop (Ksh! Ksh! Ksh!)" and But forget about that. | wish science could tor Gadget is up to his old tricks again! And ntelligible static]" Seriously, did this reviewer somehow shrink me down so | could take an oh be | to all his heavy-metal music through his elevator through a human brain. Then | could pull | can see reet ШТІ averaged а 7 the first time 9 Воу зреакег? the crazy alarm if somebody's keeping "Motley through, though, s nce wi who could pick up something Jets 8 e beepy renditions of Motley Crüe Crüe Trivia” on the same floor as “Reasons Why called ws е get and пої subconsciously lower ni do seem to go with the terrible Motley Crüe I'd Be a Good Pinball Game.” | don't give a damn i | іс reviews “ сапооп iball physics, but one reviewer raised a much if you know Motley Crüe, game. 1 don't care if you ) ге important issue: “Crüe Ball is a rockin’, were backstage at the Dr. Feelgood tour and had 'sockin' pinball game that knows the Crüe like no to dig your cyber underwear out of Vince Neil's оїпег videogame іп history." puke—leave it off your video pinball résumé. ah ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com • 117 ACROSS 2. Shadow of the Colossus foes 8. Bible Adventures star 10. Floppy-eared PlayStation platformer 12. April '04 EGM cover game 13. Online Final Fantasy 14. Virtual Отѕ Bal- -Bow 16. Follows Zeus’ Altered Beast order? 18. Gauntlet cast member 21. Xbox 360 Western 22. Sega’s _ Booga 24. Monthly edition 26. Burning Rangers (Saturn) archenemy? 27. Dance Dance Revolution move 28. Xbox disc 29. Tony Hawk wall-plantable cash dispenser 31. Like Tekken’s Kuma 34. Affirmative 35. PS1 “misspelled” puzzler, for short 37. Steals weapon 39. Japan, to the import scene 41. Sony handhelds 42. Sneaky kill in PS2 Predator | J | y & Я Tt 4 & | GHOSTS OF EGM PAST (Solution on page 121) SEN со NEN -. N eo DOWN 1. Crash Bandicoot explosive crates 2. Battle (NES) or Virtual (N64) 3. Boots up 4. It's this or die in NES shredder title 5. Sony's Cooper 6. Highest score possible in EGM 7. Play Punch-Out!!? 9. Versus 11. Move right thumbstick in Halo 2 14. Fight Night battle scar? 15. Space invaders? 17. Bonk's Adventure volcano activity 19. /talian Job Charlie’s girlfriend 20. Mario Paint backdrop 23. Summoner sequel 25. SOCOM subject 30. Alone in the Dark 4 location 31. DS Pokémon 32. Battle of Olympus fairy 33. Ecco's right hand 36. Box-drawing coin-up 37. Pixel 38. DC Phantasy Star, for short 40. Sony’s first console (abbrv.) 118 • ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY • www.1UP.com GRUDGE MATCH leacher takes on student ALL ABOUT NINTENDO | | SEGA: ATARI Ms VIDEO GAMES | Plus Computer Software zine | ang Arcade Games ” | NINTENDO GAMES: | || Я! » жа | Pow OPERATION WOLF T Т DIT EGM THEN We know EGM has always melted your mind with the most comprehensive game coverage $5 to $6 can buy. But only the hardcore among you remember back when your favorite gaming mag had NES coverage, turquoise font treat- ments, and guys with mullets. Which EGM—past or present—brought more | joy to everyone's stick? | COVERS Next-gen Iron Sword consoles, mostly featuring Fabio Advantaa RUNNING FEATURES High scores your peers obtained in China Warrior (TG-16) ADVERTISEMENTS Pilot turned game designer “Major Wild Bill” Stealey and lots of Robocop Heck, some stuff’s got nothing to do with games REVIEW SCORES Mostly 7 to 10 Mostly 2 to 7 Shoe, Crispin Boyer Shoe, Crispin Boyer CONTEST PRIZES Secret Video Game — of the Month Tricks video!!! REVIEWS "| can't remember what "Aw, snap! Dat zombie game's raw, yo!" | this game was about.” —Mark MacDonald on Resident Evil 4 | —Ed em on ax КЕН 5 аллы ІШ 1) Нег 200 госКіп” issues, we thought we should take a break from commemorat- ing the greatest games of the past and commemorate the greatest magazine of the past. Namely, us. —Jeremy Parish v cn i E on == | In the Beginning... sm USE EGM was forged in the crucible Mp of 1989, when Nintendo's NES ruled all and 16-bit gaming was a mysterious but exciting cloud on the horizon. Gaming was pretty different back then. How different? Well, Mega Man games o Review and мемен were still fresh and exciting enough to warrant a cover. What a Joker We were different back then, | 7% ж f г «= fh Bae : : 1 : DUMP J BBLE M _ — «uu We've always been known for our April Fool's too. The three-man Review Crew USTIDE , » 4 = д - PL : jokes, which are different from most peo- ом PPERATION WOLF STRIDER format that we all know and love SUPER ®рн 3 | Га. ОХ Ч ға ; оды У 2 “МӨР -, KEN ИС ple's pranks in that they're, like, awe- was nowhere to be seen in that Fear tm j EM 4,9. | ы x some. And convincing: Some retail- ers began taking preorders for a Twilight Princess-style remake of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GC) that we completely made up (above). And people tried for years to get our Sheng Long trick in Street Fighter Il to work—and it's probably no coincidence that secret world warrior Akuma bears more than a passing resem- blance to the imaginary master we created for Ryu and Ken. first issue. Instead, a single review- er weighed in on each game with a full-page critique. And forget about - ; ow numbers in our scoring system— ІШІ ЖЕР “ағы games were rated from "Direct Hit!" eta to “Miss!” (EGM #2 kicked off the four-man Review Crew and the 10-point- scale tradition. And half-point scores were introduced in EGM #69.) But the really weird thing is that we briefly covered—believe it or not—PC games, including the LucasArts classic Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders for Min the Commodore 64. Yes, C64. We told you uc MONTHLY it was a different era. sas Fp ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY www.1UP.com • 19 f x E n MM uc E A Tcieksi& Arca. Wiss f ` . Sony Sports Frenzy. The inside Scoop on GameDay 96 and MLB 80 е A anet ЖАА" Р Е “>, : Back in the day, we devoted a hefty chunk of each magazine to strategy guides until readers insisted on more previews, reviews, news, and fea- tures—so we created EGM2 to contain the bounty of our expert talents. It was eventually renamed Expert Gamer, which passed the torch along to GameNOW a few years later. Longtime readers no doubt remember the most mysterious member of our Review Crew, the outspoken Sushi-X. He has moved along to new ven- tures, but Sushi’s exploits are still recalled with fondness— except maybe by role-playing fans, since the outspoken ninja hated RPGs as much as he loved fighting games. (Which could probably account for all those Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat covers....) Not that Sushi was always right on the money—he Called the Game Boy “a joke on the intelligence of mankind” and predicted its imminent failure at the hands of Lynx and Game Gear. Oops. We sometimes butted heads with Sushi over his iconoclastic opinions, but when he was right he was dead-on, as with his scathing indictment of Acclaim’s Total Recall for NES (which he summed up with an incisive “Total reject!”). Speaking of Total Recall, maybe the gaming industry hasn't changed all that much over the years after all. Acclaim threatened to pull its advertising in retaliation for our TR review. Fifteen years later, some publishers still think they can dictate our content and opin- ions, as current EGM Editor-in-Chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu mentioned just last issue. re Ro тамда М, ct C i CARI vs ЕСТЕОМІЕ сле TA 28 ^ LI ot. ” DA Е у. % х" 2 f 4%” o X (om > ] Ыы - ; 1 = ! н 4 ' б ) ; "3 РРЕЗ. ү "Wei 1 RT Ge 1 m4 الد‎ qii Us. 8. a Ш 120» ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY * w ж ! ЗА сү АЛ „аў : ^s Quartermann is a long-standing stalwart of the EGM universe. While he’s toned down his writing style over the years from his former glib, mouthy approach to rumormongering, he’s never lost his knack for canny predictions. He called a 64-bit console from Atari back in 1991 (the “64-bit” Jaguar arrived three years later) and the portable Genesis-compat- ible Sega Venus in 1994 (it arrived a year later under the name Nomad). Long before that, The Q reported Sega’s inter- est in acquiring the rights to Madden NFL Football for Genesis (a partnership which ultimately propelled both EA and Sega to impressive heights). The list goes on and continues to this day with shrewd prognostications such as “Ridge Racer 6 will be on Xbox 360.” Of course, not everything Quartermann has predicted has come true—but you can hardly blame him, Number of games that the Review Crew has seen in 200 issues Number of games that Senior Editor Crispin Boyer, | EGM's longest tenured staffer, has reviewed Number of full-time EGM editors who went on to make games Number of times an EGM editor has been asked, since it's not always his fault. For instance, rumors about the imminent release of the Wideboy (a device that enabled playing Game Boy software on a television long before the Super Game Boy came around) were well founded, but the device never made it to stores for various legal and financial reasons. And sometimes it’s just as well that the Q-Mann’s crystal ball is hazy, like when he predicts disasters as if he were gaming’s Nostradamus. For instance, when he said, “A game based on rocker Bon Jovi? It may not be that far away....” A lucky break for us all. “So, all you do for a living is play games?" ж =n жет Е =. "аф, V ED. 8 ci N Мк aw, x u ELECTRONI NG GRA = FALL PRE ef EC TRONIE WHAT'S EXT? > " в ұя - ғы c E GEAR so) in? жш еі, & lal 1 "uc 3 Î NEWS UN NEXT MONTH: MARCH - ISSUE #201 ON SALE FEBRUARY 14 ur exclusive Kingdom Hearts И cover story is packed with 0 enough Disney madness that, if properly harnessed, could power 15,000 Main Street Electrical Parades. Hold on to your Mickey Mouse ears, Disney maniacs! We've got brand-new screens, the dish on the worlds Sora and co. will explore (here's a hint...oh, forget it... Trom!), the celebrities who give life to the characters, ап interview with the game's creator, and our hands-on impressions of the game. Then we'll talk with Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo's outspoken vice president, about the company's next-gen Revolution. You'll want to hear what this guy has to say about this Xbox 360 business and what Mario's house plans to bring gamers this year. Also, many of you are well aware that the EGM staff has an infinite supply of answer-seeking missiles that are powered by truth and moxie. We'll find out why this newfangled next-gen Xbox 360 console keeps having the same dab-blasted problems (long-ass loads, slowdown) we find with current-gen consoles. We'll also deliver an exclusive interview with the creative minds behind the upcoming Silent Hill motion picture. The flick looks shockingly close to the source material, and this straight talk from Director Christophe Gans and Composer Akira Yamaoka will turn you into a believer. All of this and lots more as we set our sights on Issue #300...that we'll be printing with robot lasers from the moon directly to the surface of your mind! Gig Ш Tomb Raider: Leger iB X-Men 3 (XB360 XB lll Stuntman 2 (PS2/XB) А um W The Godfather (XB360/PS2/XB)... W Metal Gear Ac!d 2 (PSP) ғ М (All planned editorial content is subject to change.) ADVERTISER INDEX GHOSTS OF ATARI GAMELOFT SEGA OF AMERICA EG pn PAST млмм.айагї.сот........................ 49 www.gameloft.com .................... 53 мллілі,веда.сот..................... 17, 27 оп раде 118 САРСОМ И$А ІНС GAMESWAP SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT www.capcom.com ................. 59, 124 www.gameswapzone.com ............... 81 WWW.SCea.COm.... enn mmm 2-3 - , - n CODEMASTERS, INC. GLU MOBILE SONY MEDIA SOFTWARE N ol Al H "k| L| ol NL o A www.codemastersusa.com .............. 51 www.glumobile.COmM.................... 45 www.sony.com/mediasoftware ........... 39 | “s| a| NE о COLLINS COLLEGE IBUYPOWER COMPUTER SQUARE ENIX U.S.A., INC. е U www.collinscollegeedu ............... 111 www.ibuypower.com ................ 60-61 www.square-enix-usa.com ...... 10-11, 18-19 RI IL STES DREAMCATCHER INTERACTIVE JAMDAT MOBILE INC. ФМАРПАУ.СОМ........................... 21 | ul N IR 2 www.dreamcatchergames.com.........+.++ 15 www.jamdatmobile.com................. 67 WWW.SWapday.COM .................... 55 О EIDOS INTERACTIVE, INC MICROSOFT à UNIVERSITY OF ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY www.eidos.com ...................... 4-5 үллліі.тісгозоН.сот.................... 35 www.uat.edu ........................ 107 ELECTRONIC ARTS NAMCO HOMETEK VONAGE WWW.OR.CONM. . „5... ео ее, 28-29, 31 WWW.namco.com E 6-7, 25 улмм.мопаде.сот...................... 71 ELECTRONICS BOUTIQUE OFFICE FOR NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY XSEED JKS, INC. www.ebgames.com ............... ч . 47, 69 www.whatsyourantidrug.com ........... 123 улмм.х$еейдате$.сот................. 8-9 FULL SAIL REAL WORLD EDUCATION SANDISK млалл. іш ісай.сот..................... 103 WWW.SANDISK.COM .................... 41 ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY (ISSN #1058-918X) is published monthly by Ziff Davis Media Inc., 28 East 28th Street, New York, NY 10016. 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