Blood and Gore Intense Violence Strong Language Strong Language Violence www.hami PlayStation 2 kill.switchTM & © 2003 Namco Hometek Inc. All rights reserved: © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Xbox and the Xtwx logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries and are used under license from Microsoft. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. Software platform logo TM and © lEMA 2003, All other trademarks and trade rvarnes arethe properties of their respective owners. , ' PlayStation,E ifitiKiwiri:i 'Quite possibly the purest, most polished and innovative platformer of the year (or any other for that matter)..." —PLAY Magazine I-Ninja f “ & © 2003 Argonaut Games PLC. Licensed exclusively to Namco Hometek Inc. All rights res^fgHHS 2003 Microst^ Corporatio^'AII countries and are used under Kcense from Microsoft. “PlayStation" and the “PS" Family logo arej;M|i^^ trademarks of Sony Computa‘4nterti|||||i^ registered trademark oP ^e Siterta inment Software Association. All other trade marlcs a i j^ri tturOT lI^ are the properties of their req^iv&(^nei^PB| Spawn and its logo are are many of its characters and symbofs. Comic Spawn © 2003 Toe Todd MeFarlane Productions, Inc. Video game bpawrcArm^MroFfW^S Namoj limited AR rights reserved , •C Animated Blood Violence i ^ .1 'r' r* 1 1 RmMiS Football gets funky ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ . NEW&TESTEDj GAMECODESll iB ameiuiicnes miSm^tiiSii ri^6ajne^^Eilitors} ga^ ^TwriWggtfrladwagsrr^ MCnoi^Awards1 ‘"a{ What you likjBj lhandnelm mmmsi liiuisiblelVUai|n(^fPC)^ i!i!!jei!l!lLega ^rajni( PS2) ^^^g^^^raS4pXD^pGameCubie)i MSKhunm^y^sw™, ■T', ".r THIS WORLD IS BETTER LEET TO JAK ^OG PlayStation®? SHOUT OUT COMMANDS TO YOUR ELITE SQUAD OF GHOSTS USING STATE-OF-THE-ART VOICE COMMAND TECHNOLOGY. JOIN INTENSE BATTLES WITH PLAYERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE NEW PLAYSTATION 2 ^ ONLINE FUNCTIONALITY, k ^ EXPERIENCE NEW JUNGLE WARFARE AS THE GHOSTS RESTORE CUBA’S PEACE AND TAKE DOWN AN EVIL COLOMBIAN DRUG CARTEL. THE MOST INTENSE, REALISTIC ACTION NOW ONLINE FOR PlayStation®2 ihe ‘cttismg Sales Director Greg Fox Business Deveiopment Director Chris Kobran Mating Manager Sherry Pedrin Marketing Associate David McCaman informatTon S^'stems Manager Chris Sipe K Support Specialist Eng Lim Founder GamePro magazine Patrick J. Ferrell En^re cements cop:.ngF,t ztm by iO0 Commumcgdofis. >ne M rigms resewsd, Reprcductton in lA-ncde oj p'-‘Cr written psrffitsaon by the h nrQt^jied. Alt subrntssic^ts including, bit? net kmited to, amvork. text, pbotcgrspbs. and videotapes become tt» fveperty (rf ^pubtlsher. Sii£iGitss4t»vs rannof be netijmect’ stndm snoukt leiain a copy. The 6Af.€- PRO ■^. DVOPRC'-^, aBtd NETPFjl?^ are Registeted Trademarlis of Internationa} Data Gtotip, inc. r-jintevio. Hin- tendo 64, Gatne 6ov; 5^ Game Soy Advance Gan^ube. and the 30 -N' togs are TradKusBls of Nintaido of Am^rtea, Me. ^ga. Q^sracssi, aadme Qrmpjmi m Registered Trademarks or Traefemarks of Sega Enterprises, ^‘-^yStadon, Pla^'SlaSoQ 2, PS oas. and Uie Pla\?^atiQn4i^G are Registered Tratemaiks of Sony Cc-moiaer Bitsnssmmt arsd Jage are ^feeff fademark&«r Re^stered Traderr^rks of fsfe’osoft Gorporatioo. Ak other tredemarics propsiiy of Uiaii' 5^Ks^V8-ffiiyaeiS.~Aj} producfsjidl the characters contalnaJ fserem are owned by the respeebve and oapyrSsh* does not daim aty copydght in the screen snots herein. Copyoint m as srree''- comained Uas ptifijfe^-areTj?w?ed by their fespeclive co-mpames. All materials listed in this guide are aobjeci to “J^nge anti % sticti cna^s. Printed in the U.S.,A. P-O-£px.3T5?a,|0pne.,,}A^ of the Audit Bureau of Cheuiattons Atjdrt Bureau of Circulations “THE MOST INTENSE WWll ★ ★★★★ ★★★★★ SHOOTER EVER!” "FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS” “ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF 2003 PC Gumer - Maxim - Gamespy IN THE WAR THAT ' CHANGED THE WORLD ONE FOUGHT ALONE. 24 EPIC SINGLE PLAYER MISSIONS - SPANNING FOUR CAMPAIGNS WITH ONE GOAL - BERLIN ONLINE AXIS VERSUS ALLIES TEAM'BASED MULTIPLAYER AVAILABLE NOW “ WWW.CALLOFDUTY.COM AcliVisioK. Answer The Call ©2003 Activision, Inc. and its affiliates. Published and distributed by Activision Publishing, Inc. Activision is a registered trademark and Call of Duty is a trademark of Activision, inc., and its affiliates. Ail rights reserved. Developed by Infinity Ward, Inc. This product contains software technology licensed from Id Software (“Id Technology”). Id Technology© 1999-2000 Id Software, Inc. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA Logo and the Way Its Meant to be Played Logo are registered trademarks and./'or trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the United States and other countries. © 2003 Creative Technology Ltd. All rights reserved. The Creative logo, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster logo are registered trademarks of Creative Technology Ltd. in the United States and/or other countries. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. PC CD-ROM logo TM & © lEMA 2003. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. Syphon Filter FEATURES ■ departments ] 30 NFL Street / lEXCLUSn^ 14 Loading... 92 Games To Go Can the guys who brought you the Maddens f bring you...the Streets? EA Sports Big recruited FIRST ^ REVIEW / ) 50 Sneak Previews 96 Sports Pages the Madden-makers EA Tiburon to bring you football ^ - like it’s never been played before—NFL Street for the 62 PlaySmart 102 Role-Player's Realm PS2, Xbox, and GameCube! 64 ProReviews 105 Reader's Survey 34 Game Cliches 84 PC GamePro Maybe you think crates make a great game, but they really make only a crate game. Here are some classic game design props that we’ve all come to know and love—and hate. 42 Editors' Choice 2003 The GamePro editors reveal their picks for the best games of the year. Shocking! 43 Readers' Choice 2003 Ballot Now you get a chance to stand up and be counted for your favorite games of 2003. Cover art courtesy of Electronic Arts INTRODUCING GOTCHA FORCE! gdDiEHWAETERS. INFINITE POSSIBIlimESI Fantasy Violence EVERYONE CAPCOM ©2003 Capcom Co., Ltd. © 2002, 2003 Capcom U.S.A. Inc. All Rights Reserved. Gotcha Force, Capcom and the Capcom logo are trademarks of Capcom Co., Ltd., which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. TM, ® and the Nintendo GameCube are trademarks of Nintendo. © 2001 Nintendo. GAME FINDER Xbox Battlestar Galactica.75 Counter-Strike.66 Deus Ex: Invisible War.64 Grand Theft Auto Double Pack.78 Mission: Impossible—Operation Surma _74 Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition .102 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.81 GameCube 1080° Avalanche.80 The Hobbit.77 Pac-Man Vs.75 Pokemon Channel.80 Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom.79 Game Boy Advance Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance.94 The King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood ... 94 Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge.94 Sword of Mana .93 N-Gage Red Faction.93 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.93 56 50 90 59 54 57 90 98 70 68 102 . 81 . 77 . 77 . 72 . 76 . 75 . 78 PC Deus Ex: Invisible War. Lords of EverQuest. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ... Codes and Cheats Amped 2 . Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This at Home (PS2). Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This at Home (Xbox) . Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu . Grand Theft Auto Double Pack (PS2) .... Grand Theft Auto Double Pack (Xbox) ... NBA Live 2004 . SSX3 . Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (PS2, Xbox). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (GameCube, GBA) . Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 .. Tony Hawk’s Underground ... True Crime: Streets of L.A. 108 Code Vault 113 112 109 113 110 111 109 108 109 112 113 109 109 108 Check out tips and codes for True Crime: Streets of L.A. (PS2, Xbox, GameCube), SSX 3 (PS2, Xbox, GameCube), NBA Live 2004 (PS2, Xbox, GameCube), and more. Previews All-Star Baseball 2005.96 The Bard’s Tale .107 Bomberman Jetters.55 Champions of Norrath.106 Dead or Alive Online.56 Drakengard .57 Far Cry .88 Final Fantasy XII .104 Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life.106 Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.91 LifeLine .52 The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth.88 Lupin the Third: Treasure of the Sorcerer King.54 Mega Man Anniversary Collection .59 MVP Baseball 2004.96 NBA Bailers.98 Painkiller .91 Phantasy Star Online III: C.A.R.D. Revolution.107 Plague of Darkness.58 Seven Samurai 20XX .55 Silent Scope Complete .58 Soldner .91 Sonic Battle.92 Star Wars: Battlefront . Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain .... Terminator 3: War of the Machines ... Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow . Transformers Armada . Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 International. Reviews Multiplatform Legacy of Kain: Defiance . Sonic Heroes. PlayStation 2 Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 . Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 1-Ninja . Manhunt. Maximo vs. Army of Zin. Spawn Armageddon . SpyHunter 2. «nflnflr.gameprO-com 0NU«t Final Fantasy XU Interview GamePro was on hand in Japan for the world ^ premiere of Square’s latest installment for the Final Fantasy saga. . 2] NFL Street Interview We analyzed every pixel of the game for this issue’s review, now head online for some one- on-one with Graeme Bayless, the game’s producer. Expanded Editors’ Choice What do the GamePros really think about their picks? Here’s the lowdown on why each game was chosen. Game Cliches Uncut The worst gaming cliches ex¬ posed! You hate them, we hate them, why do developers keep using them? Stay on top of the gaming scene! Sign up for free weekly newsletters delivered to your inbox! ' Fly LuherB no Jet has gone before. Rfter conpuering the skies , : break through the earth's atmosphere and take on the universe. LUith over 130 planes to choose from, BO missions, a full creuu of playable pilots, and Logitech® Flight Force™ flight stick support, RirForce Delta Strike defies the limits. Mild Language Violence PlayStation*^ www.konami.com/usa KQNAWil® and Airforce Delta Strike’^’^ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of KONAMi CORPORATION. ©2004 KONAMI & Konami Computer Entertainment Studios. Lockheed Martin Trademarks used under license to Konami Corporation. Produced under license from Boeing Management Company. Produced under a license from Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation. Produced under license from BAE SYSTEMS PLC. Certain Aircraft names and designs are protected by Trade Marks, copyright and other rights owned by BAE SYSTEMS PLC and its partners and are not to be reproduced except as permitted by the license without the prior written consent of BAE SYSTEMS PLC, With support of JGSOF, JMSDF, and JASDF. ©2004 Logitech. Ail rights reserved. Logitech, the Logitech logo and other Logitech marks are owned by Logitech and may be registered. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. “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. KONAMI Crude Humor Mature Sexual Themes Mild Violence INTBINET CONfSCrrMlYfeqtM gaaie pisy die HayStaM^epniereiliiiil (mTy. PtayStadofi 2 onftte r8(MR» bdetael eontec^ Nef»K»1( © 2ffl03 Etectrffliic Arts Inc, Tl« Slntt, EA. U ttie B GAI^ ^ afk iaSilteK}e regtstered tf^lefriafks of Bss^cs^ Am tnc. in tfie U.S.aascl^of 5^ csaftnes. Alt n^resefvsJ. 'H^^eSasCji&e^ are re^stered tr^terajfe {rf Soi^ Ceri^it^ Enleifejs®^ Ine. l?ie Oiine tern is a tnc Microsoft Xlx»c 2 ^kI 0% Xb^ tjogm aiB rs^ed IK laden^ of and am used um^ tic^selfom fifeosoft. TM,,i§i Sie H\rmki logo and Sameisy Afeaace logo © 2)01 Nintendo.AH otfmf Itademadm am tim property of tteir i^jecStve owsfs, IA€A^» is an Eleotfo^ Ads- ^i/VIE BOYADy^CEf:^! Home ain^t that swe^t Mona Lott is a dancer at Club Rubb. Stie digs her man Bing, but, that doesn^t mean she won^t have some lovin^ to spare. Fran Foofarow lets it all hang out at Pixel Acres. Play your cards right and you'll be seeing more of her. A lot more. Goldie Toane - flex for her at the gym, and shell coo over your buff body and maybe tell you a few dirty jokes if you're lucky. wise easames.com Challenge Everyl-hlng' Play5tation®E f /^if/ f EDITOR'S LETTER: The NFL Gets Some Sizzle J ust in time to celebrate the end of the NFL season you get...more foot¬ ball? NFL Street certainly sports the National Football League license, and the characters in the game look vaguely familiar—but football this ain’t. At least it’s not football by any established definition so far, and that makes Street pretty cool. Just as Midway’s decided to “freshen up” its classic NFL Blitz by mak¬ ing it more like a sim (read “more like Madden”), here comes EA charging to fill in the emerging hole like Ray Lewis zeroing in on the-quarterback- of-the-week. NFL Street is an imaginatively weird sports game, fascinating in that it doesn’t even take off from any sort of established real-world off-shoot with a following like NBA Street does with “street” basketball, or Arena League Football does with pro football, or the Pittsburgh Penguins do with ice hockey. Instead, EATiburon does a bizarro-world flip on itself by inventing a totally fresh take on a classic sport using the NFL license (and not involving trampolines, the WWE, or babes in bikinis). It’s something that can be done only with a video game, which EA does very well. That Electronics Arts would be the ones to try to turn football video gameplay on its ear is not so strange to all who remember Mutant League Football and the rest of the 16-bit Mutant League games. But kudos to them anyway for trying to create something completely different. Now if someone would just bring back Super Dodge Ball.... The GamePros, Oakland, CA letters@gaiiiepro.coni Freedom of Choice I got GamePro #181, October 2003.1 like the new Editors’ Choice icon for games, and I can understand how a game is rated. But one thing i feel is a little clumsy is that a game that receives a 4.5 rating is given an Editors’ Choice icon. A 4.5 rating looks like a runner-up to me. i beiieve that a game should be given an Editors’ Choice only if it receives a 5.0 rating. Can you explain why an Editors’ Choice is given to games with ratings of both 4.5 and 5.0? Thanks. ^ Eddie—Via Internet Sure. What we’re talking about is the difference between an excellent game and a very good game. Often you’ll see a game that’s truly innova¬ tive or pushes boundaries get a 5.0—but what if a game doesn’t innovate but instead represents an excellent example of the existing elements? Freestyle Metal X is a good illustration here—Dan Elektro didn’t feel that it brought anything particularly new to the genre, but it did everything that was expected of a trick-based motocross game, and it did those things very well in his opinion. Hence, it received a 4.5. Sometimes we get angry letters about games that got a 4.5 for Fun Factor, and the reader asks why we hated the game. Urn, what? There’s no hatred if the game gets one step below our highest rating. We can tell you that the companies don’t complain about praise. Socks To Be InterAct Got a question for ya. Over the past couple of months. I’ve been trying to access InterAct’s websites (interactaccessories.com and interact-acc.com) and have been terribly unlucky. I hope the sock monster didn’t eat them. That wouid be horribie. ► Cevius—Via Internet Yes, but InterAct’s fate is worse: The company no longer exists. Rival Mad Catz swooped in and bought up the GameShark name, and some of the surviving ex-employees moved on and set up Elite Interactive, the folks behind that mammoth 13.3” TFT LCD screen. But if you’re seeking support for a faulty memory card or any other customer service, you’re outta luck ’cause they’re outta business. Intec just bought the leftovers. Dolph! Dolph! Dolph! Who is this Scott Dolph mentioned in the game Metai Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty? i just recently got back into playing it, and the name Scott Dolph came up a lot. He was the CO on the Tanker mission. He was Fortune’s father (not realiy a spoiler because she men¬ Loading. • • Head2Heaci ...._ ....14 GeekSpeak ... .. .24 Buyers Beware. ....18 GamePro Labs.. ,.. .25 ProNews .......... ... .20 Static .............. .. .25 GP Interview ....... ... .22 Internal Combustion ... .. .25 tions that Snake kiiled her father on the tanker). He was the voice of the “hostage” mentioned in the credits. He did some things for the production of the game. Plus, Snake tells Raiden about Dolph be¬ ing bisexual. Why is this one person ail over this game and made the butt of some jokes? > Maestro—Via Internet Scott Dolph is Hideo Kojima’s translator (he translates everything Mr. Kojima says—even if another translator is provided). Mr. Dolph was at the Nintendo press conference at E^ during the Twin Snakes segment, and he acts more as a “handler.” Everything Mr. Kojima says goes through Mr. Dolph when translated from Japanese to English. Major Mike, who often stalks, er, interviews Mr. Kojima at E^ and other industry events, has never seen his target without the enigmatic Dolph by his side. Gordon Had a Litde Lambda My friend and I want to know something! What is the weird sign that is the Half-Life logo? It’s normally shown as the “a,” but I think it is something different. Can you teli me what it is? ► Aaron—Via Internet The Half-Life logo is not the letter “a”—you’re right to be suspicious. It’s the Greek letter lambda in lowercase. (Uppercase is an upside- down V as seen in Revenge of the Nerds.) The reactor at the Black Mesa Research Facility is called the Lambda Reactor. In science, lambda is used in the calculation of decay of radioactive substances—better known as a material’s half-life. So it all makes sense if you pay enough attention in class. And none of this will make the sequel come out any faster, anyway. Longing for Torture It has recently come to my attention that GamePro has stopped doing its Annual Con¬ troller Torture Test. Whatever happened to it? I found it enter¬ taining how you Pros came up with ways to see how well controllers are built. The test that sticks with me the most is the one where you guys and gals flung the controllers against brick walls. I also found the infor¬ mation about them after each test to be helpful because it Visit www.esrb.org or call 1-800-771-3772 for more ratings information. PlayStations^ WWW.DRIV3R.COM REFLECTIONS iraOE HJUViM BNIIMOJ # /^if/ f informed me of which controilers were worthy to buy and which ones just plain sucked. So anyways, how come there has not been a recent controller torture test? ► Hellspawn—Via Internet Well, the main reason we put a stop to that series of annual articles is that it was getting way out of hand. The goal was always to provide de¬ cent advice on which controllers were worth the money, and as it went on (we did it three years in a row), the “simulations” of intense real-world wear got more harsh and more strange—and in the process, less useful. Sure, you might drop your controller or, in a fit of rage, throw it against the wall, but would you really hit it with a hockey stick? What real-world oc¬ currence does that simulate? It seemed like we were setting up every controller to fail, and our results—first-party controllers came in first every year—were ultimately obvious. So what were we proving, and how were we going to get all those shards of broken plastic out of our hair? We found no good answers other than, “It’s fun to break stuff.” Instead, we’ve been doing two accessories per issue in GamePro Labs plus some ex¬ panded controller coverage in gift guides, but we might go back to the torture test concept...it seems like a lot of people miss it. Or maybe they’re just sadists. Down in Blades of Glory I have a complaint about those damn Star Wars games. In the movies, the weapons of Jedi are the lightsabers. Don’t get me wrong—these kick ass; they kill on contact. So how come in games, the friggin’ things take multiple hits before killing someone? Like in the duels. they should kill your enemy if you miss the saber and hit them and vice versa. I don’t understand what the hell LucasArts was thinking when they decided to make this feature in the game. ^ XboxerPhil-Via Internet Your question caused much geek discussion here in the office. Some of the more interesting responses (that we could print anyway) include Analog Avenger’s explanation: “The biggest problem with your one-hit-kill system is that all the games would have to be called something like Star Wars: Jedi Massacre because it would be nearly impossible to proceed 10 con¬ secutive seconds through a game without dying. Also, remember when Mark Hamill guest starred on The Simpsons and made his entrance at BiMonSciFiCon by walking out of a spaceship and knocking over card¬ board stand-ups of Stormtroopers with a plastic lightsaber? That’s what the games would be like with the one-hit-kill system.” Strafe Maru con¬ curs: “Every time we see a Jedi touch anything with a lightsaber, it literally falls apart (unless it’s another lightsaber, of course): however, I think this falls under the category of ‘things that are the way they are because if they weren’t, they’d be way less entertaining.’ The Star Wars universe seems particularly susceptible to this problem when you consider what color you would paint your spaceships if you were going to be dogfighting in deep space...of course you’d paint them black so you could have the advantage of some pretty decent camouflage, but it makes for a really boring movie!” But as always, D-Pad Destroyer has the final word: “The reason you can’t kill with one hit with a lightsaber is because you suck. Everyone else can do it.” For more letters, go to GamePro.com! Age Group: Age Group: 8-13 14-18 Age Group: 19 and up All winners will be notified via e-malh Got a strange urge to communicate with the GamePro editors? E-mail them at “editor’s name”@gamepro.com! air_henclrix brobuzz danelektro dpad_destroyer dr.zombie dunjin_master four-eyed_dragon jen_x major_mike miss_spell pongsifu star_dingo strafemaru tokyo_drifter the_vixen Smd us your art! Winners receise a tree GamePro T-shirt! GamePro magazine • Art Attack • P. 0. Box 22210 • Oakland, CA 94623-2210 All art becomes the property of GamePro magazine. Sorry, we cannot return artwork. We will accept color photocopies or digital scans. Send to artattack@gamepro.com. Visit www.esrb.org or calM-800771-3772 for more ratings information. xeox www.ninjagaidengame.com \wa% GAMES [ L V _ € f f T ried using Scotch tape, turning it upside down, and sacrificing chickens and your PlayStation 2 still won't play your Vampire in Brookiyn DVD? Well, The Watch Dog asked Strafe Maru to tell you about something he tried that you may be interested in....— The Watch Dog Teach Your PS2 How To Read...Again My PlayStation 2 has not been reading my discs correctly for months. I did some searching on the Internet and found a site that gives detailed instructions describing how to help fix this, along with loading problems, skipping discs, and sketchy DVD playback, at tweak3d.net/articles/ps2repair/2.shtml. I am pretty handy with tools, and I have no problem voiding my warranty by taking apart my console, but before I go through the trouble, I was wondering: Will this really work? ► Scott Holbert—Via Internet Strafe Maru followed the site’s walkthrough after experiencing loading problems with his PlayStation 2, and he swears by it. This method can be a cost-effective alternative to shipping your console to Sony for repair... as long as you know what you are doing, which brings us to the most important part: A Following any or all of these instructions will void your warranty. By attempting this, you may wind up damaging your PS2 even further, and it may not even fix the problem. Do not attempt this repair unless you are confident in your own abilities and willing to take the in¬ herent risks—both to your console and your own health as you will be working with live electricity. Adult supervision is strongly recommended throughout this process. That said, if you still want to go ahead and follow the site’s instructions, then by all means, go for it. And for readers who don’t have Internet access and want to try this yourself, here’s a repair play-by- play provided by Strafe Maru: “First, make sure you have the following items at your disposal: a Phillips head screwdriver, an extremely small Phillips head screwdriver (suitable for eyeglass repair), a butter knife (to pry off the little plastic covers on the screws), isopropyl rubbing alcohol (the higher the percentage of alcohol, the better), some cotton swabs, and a permanent marker (preferably with a fine point). Once you have these items, you’re ready to take apart your PS2. Keep in mind that this is the fastest way to void your warranty, but if you’ve had your PS2 for more than two years, it has probably already run out. Before begin¬ ning the dissection, take a moment to touch something metal in order to ground yourself and re¬ lieve any lingering static charge that may have built up on your body as it is deadly to the insides of your PS2 (a metal desk lamp is ideal). “Now that you’re tooled up and static free, flip your PS2 over and use the butter knife to remove the little plastic covers for the eight screws around the perimeter of the device, then use the Phillips head screwdriver to re¬ move those screws. Be sure to keep the screws in a safe place so that you don’t lose any! Once all of the screws have been removed, carefully flip your PS2 over again and position it so that the disc tray would open toward you. “Delicately lift and pull the up¬ per portion of the PS2 hous¬ ing off the lower portion while making sure that the ribbon cable connecting the lower portion to the power switch on the upper portion remains intact (you can remove the tape from the drive, but don’t break that cable!). “Now use the extremely small Phillips head screwdriver to remove the four screws that secure the cover of the DVD drive and then remove the cover. Be particularly careful with these screws as they are very small. “Find the little white gear at the rear of the DVD drive, par¬ ticularly where it contacts the metal sprocket. Mark the point of contact with the permanent marker so that you can set it back to its original position if necessary (it also helps you to measure how far you’ve twisted the little bugger!). Once you have marked the gear, you can turn it either clockwise or counter¬ clockwise, and you should see the laser lens assembly tilting as you turn it. Turn the gear about an eighth of a turn. Take a minute to soak the cot¬ ton swab in alcohol and then rub it over the laser lens to clean it. Wait about five minutes for the alcohol to dry (it might dry sooner, but why take a chance?). A You are about to turn on your PS2 while it is still disassembled. By doing so, you run the risk of electrocution. Seriously, 120 volts is nothing to screw with. Double-check everything before touching anything. Adult supervision is strongly recommended. “Carefully plug your PS2 into your TV and an electric socket to test out your handiwork (you don’t have to put it all back together, and you proba¬ bly don’t want to as you may not get it to work the first time you try it). Replace the DVD drive cover (you don’t have to put the screws back in yet) and insert one of your “problem” discs. If the disc still won’t read (and there’s a chance that it might not), unplug the PS2 and fiddle with the white gear some more, but don’t go too crazy as it shouldn’t need that much turning—about a quarter to a half turn is the most it should require. Once you’ve successfully tested some discs, close your PS2 by replacing all 12 screws. Congratulations, you have successfully field-serviced your PS2! Now, about your PC’s processor upgrade...” Submissions At GamePro, listening is what we do best. When you have a prob¬ lem with a product or feel you’ve been ripped off, we want to know. Write to: GamePro’s Buyers Beware RO. Box 22210 Oakland, CA 94623-2210 Or e-mail us at: buyers_beware.gamepro@ gamepro.com You Make the Call Having problems with hardware or software from Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft? Here are the cus¬ tomer service numbers to call: Sony: 800/345-7669 _ Nintendo: 800/255«3700 Microsoft: 800/469-9269 ? i"'I^ii: ri?^: S [ ii'] 7p:jijE’a''^v"--''"-C- 'C/-^ ^vGtev's . •graperm^K Nintendo's Mystery Machine New hardware to debut in 2004-but what wiii it be? As 2003 wound down, Nintendo started putting its 2004 plans into place, breaking some good news with some bad. While there’s a new Nintendo machine on the horizon, it may not be what you think—and there are more * pressing matters at hand. First, the bad news: The company announced a $26.7 million loss for the first half of its fiscal year. Citing slow GameCube sales and unfavorable international currency rates, the loss was the first the company has posted in over 40 years. GameCube sales were slow—about 890,000 units sold in the six-month period—but the Game Boy Advance continues to perform well with over 8 million machines sold worldwide. The second half of Nintendo’s fiscal year includes the key holiday shopping season, and the company is sticking with its prediction to sell 6 million GameCubes before March. However, by May, the buzz will be surrounding Nintendo’s newest piece of hardware, which will make its debut at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E^) in Los Angeles. What’s not being discussed yet is the nature of the hardware—there’s no word on whether it will be a handheld system, a TV-based console machine, or some¬ thing else entirely. Nintendo currently has technology development deals with ATI, NEC, Sharp, and IBM, any or all of which could bear fruit for the new machine. With the price of the GameCube slashed to $99 this past fall, many people speculate that the mystery machine will be its successor and the original GameCube will disappear, but that’s merely conjecture. Furthermore, the console has resumed production (it had ceased in January 2003 but was restarted in November 2003) to meet expected holiday demand. Then again, the GBA is the company’s true moneymaker at the moment, so this new machine may be an extension of that line. Nintendo, for its part, is keeping mum on its true plans and any other details about the new machine. When we have concrete information, you’ll see it here. Activision Acquires Infinity Ward, Canceis Sequels Nintendo is not the only company facing some concurrent highs and lows. Activision recently acquired game developer Infinity Ward, the team behind its acclaimed PC World War II shooter Call of Duty. Key figures Grant Collier, Vince Zampella, and Jason West have signed long-term contracts to stay with the company; this is in line with Activision’s goal to build Call of Duty into a major brand. On the downside, the company slipped into the red for its sec¬ ond fiscal quarter with a net loss of $10.1 million. Even though a boost was expected for the holidays (Activision had no strong stand¬ out release during the period of loss), the company chose to cancel a few games in development, which, according to Activision Presi¬ dent Ron Doornink, will “align our business with the evolution of the video-game market.” The canned titles are Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder 2, Street Hoops 2, and the sci-fi multiplatform shooter Trinity. The company also moved the release of Doom 3 out of fiscal year 2004 and into 2005. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Doom 3 is officially pushed back because id software has not offered a release date, but late 2004 seems realistic. Hackers Crack the N-Gage Nokia has confirmed that hackers have cracked the copy protection code of games developed for the N-Gage handheld console. In November, the gaming website Spong.com revealed successful hacks of N-Gage games, saying the games could be “cracked like an egg.” “We have discovered that some of the N-Gage games are available for downloading on a number of websites,” said Damian Stathonikos, a Nokia spokesperson. “We will work closely with ISPs and authorities, and continue to develop our own copy protection mechanisms to curb this action.” Club-Siemens.net, an unofficial website for users of Siemens mobile phones run by Silje Brevik and Jorgen Molna, posted a message confirming that N-Gage games can be downloaded and installed on the Siemens SX1 mobile phone, showing several screen shots of N-Gage games installed on the phone. It was also stated that N-Gage games run “very well on the SX1 ” with “nice” sound and “perfect” graphics. Siemens phone users only need to transfer the game file to the MMC and use a specific application to install the game, according to the post. One gamer, who chose to remain anonymous, said he was surprised to see how easily N-Gage games could be cracked and also by the fact that the games run on other Nokia phones, such as the 3650 and 6600 models. “I was under the impression that the N-Gage was completely different hardware, but this doesn’t appear to be the case,” he said. The news of its handheld console being cracked doesn’t seem to be a total surprise to Nokia. “We thought this might happen,” Stathonikos said. “This behavior is, unfortunately, a relatively common occurrence in the gaming industry.” The N-Gage has received a lukewarm reception with some figures showing that the N-Gage sold only 5000 units at its U.S. launch. Enjoy this screen shot of IKnity; now that the game has been cancelled, there won’t be any more. Sony To Cut 20k Jobs Due to poor electronic appliance sales and cheaper competition, Sony has been on the decline re¬ cently and will cut 20,000 jobs, or about 13 percent of its 161,100 global work force. Sony said the job cuts will happen over the next three years and will include 7000 workers in Japan. The overhaul aims to capitalize on its strengths— entertainment, electronics, and video games—while trimming costs. “It may appear as though Sony is being sucked into a black hole,” Sony Executive Deputy President Ken Kutaragi said at a press con¬ ference in Tokyo, showing a slide that had a black dot in the middle of a sky with images depicting Sony’s electronics, game, and entertainment sectors. “But we hope to create a ‘Big Bang’ that will lead to new business.” In the U.S., Sony plans to inte¬ grate overlapping administrative and corporate jobs, merging the East Coast operations into the West. Rick Clancy, a spokesman for U.S.-based Sony Electronics Inc., said moving most of Sony’s East Coast operations to the West Coast may result in a “few hun¬ dred” layoffs but that the actual number of cuts remains unclear. Sony has about 22,000 employees in the U.S. Nintendo’s iQue in China With all the speculation over what Nintendo’s next big U.S. game ma¬ chine will be, know this much: It’s not the iQue. The iQue (scheduled for a China-only release at the end of 2004 for 568 Yuan, or about $69) is essentially an N64 contained in a controller. The product will come with an AV cable, power supply, a 64 MB flash card, and the full ver¬ sion of the puzzle game Dr. Mario. The flash card will also include demos of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Wave Race 64, and Star Fox: Lyat Wars. Full versions of these games can be unlocked at authorized Nin¬ tendo booths for 48 Yuan ($5.80). Nintendo has taken numerous steps to ensure a solid digital distribution system for the iQue, no doubt in part due to China’s rampant piracy. The in-store booths will apparently be capable of updating the operat¬ ing system on the console, and the flash card will keep track of games you’ve purchased, enabling you to put games back in without having to pay again. Although the iQue wiii not likely be sold outside of China, the iQue reportedly features NTSC TV (China is a PAL territory) output; this could suggest that Nintendo plans to launch the console over¬ seas in the future. BestBuycom © 2004 Best Buy GameCube™ Finsl Fantasy Crystal Chronicles PS2:007- Everything Or Nothing ^/7i^ The GP Interview: Bill Roper Bill Roper was vice president over at Blizzard and made many, many trips to GamePro to show StarCraft Ghost and WarCraft III. When we heard that he had left Blizzard and formed his own company called Flagship Studios (along with Diablo creators Dave Brevik and Erich and Max Schaefer), we had some questions for Mr. Roper. GamePro: We wanted to ask about the situation surrounding you leaving Blizzard. A lot of you guys left all at once. Can you talk about that? Bin Roper: It’s kind of interesting, really. Leaving Blizzard was never a goal or intention of ours. There was the pretty well publicized search of Vivendi Uni¬ versal to sell off the game division, and obviously Blizzard was going to be a key component in that. We were concerned that we didn’t have any real insight into what was happening and no chance to have any communication with Vivendi Universal, so we ended up tendering resignations with the goal of having them call us. It was really a way to show how serious we were about wanting to talk with these guys, and Vivendi elected not to afford us that opportunity. I guess they found it was easier to accept those resignations than to give us a phone call. GP: So you guys got together and said, “You know, we should start our own company?” BR: Yeah, pretty much. As soon as we knew what was happening, we all sort of jumped together and said, “Well, what are we going to do?” We all love working with each other and respect each other’s abilities, so we said, “Let’s do what we know how to do best,” and that’s make games. GP: Have you thought about what kind of games you’re going to make? BR: Yeah! We’re already working on our first one. We’ve been working on it for a few months now. It’s still way too early in our process to talk about it, mainly because it’s going to change a thousand times before we ever show it for the first time and, obviously, we want to get the biggest punch possible when we do show it for the first time as there will be a lot of expectations, I think. We’re definitely not doing something that’s exactly what we’ve done before. We’ve really set that as a goal for ourselves because we don’t want to just chase our past success. We want to build on it and make the next big thing. It’s an idea that we’re surprised hasn’t been done before, and it is definitely something that we all want to play. We’re staying where our strengths are and our reputa¬ tion is, and that’s the PC. We think that the idea we have is very console friendly, though. But I do think that the concepts and the idea of the game we have, with the right focus, could be turned into a really kickass console game. Fresh from Famitsu Overseas news from Japan's finest news source Xbox Price Drops in Japan With console sales even lower than the PS one’s and the PS2’s recent price drop, Microsoft cut the price of its console in Japan by over 30 percent on November 20. Famitsu reports that the new price is 16,800 yen ($155), down from the previous price of 24,800 yen ($228). Microsoft’s announcement came a week after Sony announced its own price cut for the PS2 in Japan. The PS2’s new price, which went into effect November 13, is 19,800 yen ($180), which means the Xbox is 3000 yen ($28) cheaper than the PS2. For a limited time, Microsoft is offering a holiday “Platinum Bundle Pack” that includes Halo, Project Gotham Racing 2, an extra con¬ troller, a DVD playback kit, and two free months of Xbox Live with the console for 19,800 yen, the same price as the PS2’s new price. Movies on the GBA In November, AM3 launched its Advance Movie Adapter, a periph¬ eral that plays movies and video off specially modified Smart Media cards. Priced at 3200 yen ($29), the Smart Media adapter allows customers to view popular TV shows, movies, and music by down¬ loading them at kiosks at retail outlets. The Smart Media card sells for 1800 yen (about $16) and costs anywhere from 100-400 yen to download content ($.90-$3.60). It stores up to 24 minutes of video content. For a limited time, AM3 is offering four episodes of the popular cartoon series Detective Conan with its launch of the Advance Movie Adapter, priced at 3800 yen ($35). Gran Thrismo 4: Prologue Version Sony recently unveiled Gran Turismo 4: Prologue Version in Japan, a smaller version of the upcoming massive Gran Turismo 4 game. Featuring over 50 cars, including the SL 55 AMG, Rx-8, Ford GT, and Skyline, and five race courses. Prologue Version is as big as other race games on the market. The five courses featured are Italy’s brick-layered rural roads, downtown New York (complete with Times Square), a rally course through the Grand Canyon, a classic version of Fuji Speedway, and a short technical race course called Tsukuba Circuit. The full version of GT4 will have about 500 cars to choose from, a huge jump from Gran Turismo 3’s 150. in addition to old classics like the Nissan 240Z, cars unveiled at last year’s Tokyo Motorshow will also make an appearance, including EyeToy Production x14 Can’t get enough of the EyeToy? Neither could the rest of the world. After the peripheral’s incredibly strong European debut (1 million units sold between July and October), manufacturing partner Nam Tai Electronics announced that it had increased production from 50,000 EyeToy units a month to—are you sitting down—750,000 units a month, or 14 times as many li’l USB cameras as before. “We are very excited to see that the EyeToy has received such a great market response since its first launch in Europe,” said Tadao Murakami, chairman of Nam Tai. “We believe that the EyeToy will continue to make a great success with its forth¬ coming release in both Japan and North America.” The EyeToy was designed by California-based peripheral specialist Logitech, which also created the SOCOM USB headset for Sony. Honda’s HSC concept (a possible successor to the NSX). Aside from the aesthetic pleasantries, one notable new twist will be the “human element.” The pit areas will now have pit crews that change your tires, and Rally courses will have realistically neurotic fans who stand in front of cars speeding and skidding at 100-plus miles per hour. Gran Turismo 4: Prologue Version was due to be released on December 4, 2003, a month before the release of the full version, which was slated to go on sale in Japan on January 6, 2004. Sega's Sonic Theme Park Famitsu Online revealed that a “Sega World Sonic Town” opened in the Gifu prefecture of Japan this past fail. The theme park centers on Sega’s iconic hedgehog and features Sonic live shows and over 170 game machines (mostly prize games). Sega also plans to un¬ veil the latest information on upcoming Sonic game console titles and Sonic anime series at the theme park. Interngtlofiol ■' -" -^v-. - Vicious monsters, unrivaled graphics and explosive spells Over 40 new levels of addictiv^^mibat Five new customizable heroes PlayStation 2 Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance, Forgotten fieatms, the Forgotten Realms Logo, Dungeons & Dragons, the Dungeons & Dragons logo, and Wizards of the Coast and its logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast. Inc., in the U.S.A. and other countries, and are used with permission. ©2003 Wizards. HASBRO and its logo are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. Software ©2003 Interplay Entertainment Corp. and used with permission under license from Atari, Inc. All rights reserved. Black Isle Studios, the Black Isle Studios logo and the Interplay logo are trademarks of Interplay Entertainment Corp, The Vivendi Universal Games logo is a trademark of Vivendi Universal Games, Inc. Microsoft, Xbox, 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. PlayStation' and the 'PS' Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. TEEN t Blood Use of Alcohol Violence rrafTT!^ By MC Squared What is overclocking, exactly? SYLVAX-VIA GAME PRO.COM Forums Oh, damn—I was going to give you a vague answer, but since you asked for it exactly, okay. In broad terms, overclocking is a way to improve the performance of your computer by making it run faster than it’s actually designed to run. But before we get too specific, let’s talk about 21-inch rims. Let’s take fine automobiles as an example. Anybody can drive around in a stock Toyota—but if you really want that Supra to be super, you have to trick it out. Of course, the coolest paint job and all the neon in the world won’t make the car go faster, so if you really want high performance, you have to mess with the motor. Overclocking your computer is like running nitrous oxide boosters into your engine—you speed up a hell of a lot, but if you push it too hard, something’s going to explode. So overclocking is something of a subtle science combined with an extreme sport. Every modern PC runs on a basic input/output system, more commonly known as the BIOS. This is the core set of instructions that flash on your screen before the Windows logo comes up—a quickie diagnostics check to make sure your hard drive and video card are where they should be, and then things get rollin’. The BIOS also contains information about your computer’s main processor and its clock speed. For instance, if you have a Pentium III 700, the 700 is your clock speed, or how many million cycles per second the chip can compute. Higher clock speeds mean faster com¬ puters. But what if you could trick that 700 MHz chip into running at, say, 750 MHz? Unreal Tournament would run even faster. So enterprising tinkerers went into the BIOS, changed some things they probably shouldn’t have changed, and got mo’ power for no money. Just to hammer the auto analogy home One problem, though: All that electricity coursing through a computer chip creates a lot of heat (sorry, we’re being exact, so that’s exothermic radiation), and if you run them too hard, computer processors kinda, you know, melt. Hence the vast market of case fans, custom heat sinks, even water-cooled cases, all to keep those overworked, overclocked chips from freakin’ out. And why put all that stuff in if you can’t add a little style? Hence, we get etched case windows, spinning LEDs, cold cathode tubes, and an eerie parallel that takes us back to the car thing—all the neon in the world won’t make your machine go faster. But at least it will look fresh. Some CPUs and motherboards are now designed specifically for over¬ clocking—there are special settings in the BIOS that help take some of the guesswork out of the deal, such as variable speed fans that get con¬ stant temperature updates from the motherboard. And it’s not just CPUs, either—video card chips get overclocked, too, in a desperate attempt to squeeze as many triangles out of the silicon as possible. It’s still warranty- voiding, potentially dangerous stuff and not for novices; if this is all new to you and you want a faster computer, you’re probably better off buying a new one. Do that. Do exactly that. Got a gaming tech question? Send it to geekspeak@gamepro.com! Tome Reader: Book Reviews Because Batteries Die “Throughout 13 chapters. Game Art presents the complete guide to the world of computer and video games.” Well, no—what Dave Morris and Leo Hartas’s Game Art: The Graphic Art of Computer Games presents is a decent look at the visual world of computer and video games, but sometimes it tries to put screens so large on its oversized glossy pages that the result is actually not a compliment to the games (the entries for Animal Crossing and TimeSplit- ters 2, for instance). There are some interesting storyboards and other behind-the-scenes peeks at how game art elements are created, from characters and creatures to textures and the oft-ignored realm of user interfaces. With chapters divided by genre, there’s bound to be at least one you want to browse—but browse first because at $30, this very wide scope may not be deep enough to satisfy. You can’t say that about Marc Saltzman’s Game Creation and Careers, a fat 700-plus page paperback that starts with the core elements of game design and works its way through puzzle design, A.I., art and animation, all the way up to creating shareware and breaking into the biz—even the forgotten realms of public rela¬ tions and technical support. Along the way, there’s a ton of advice straight from the mouths of the people who know because they’ve been there: Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, Yuji Naka, Lome Lanning, Hideo Kojima, Joel Jewett, and literally dozens more. Instead of a straight-up Q&A, the interviews are relayed through a somewhat uncomfortable excerpted-quote format, so the book isn’t exactly a smooth read—but the extremely practical information it contains is very well or¬ ganized as a result (lots of lists and clearly stated guidelines), making it an invaluable handbook for anybody who’s serious about a future in the game business—any aspect of it. "Two B^IG Tfc»M^„Up{^ SHREK (SINGLE DISC EDITION) (FULL) 2971505 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOW¬ SHIP OF THE RING 2719706 HARRY POHER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS™ 2807709 THE LORD DF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS 2842300 ANGER MANAGEMENT SPECIAL EDITION 2932408 THE MATRIX RELOADED™ 2932705 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS 2933604 THE MATRIX 2622405 OLD SCHOOL UNRATED AND DUT DF CONTROL!^ 2838605 GLADIATOR (2000J (SINGLE DISC EDITid 2971307 with membership. See details. SPIDER-MAN (2002 SPECIAL EDITION 2752707 XXX SPECIAL EDITION 2786101 A MAN APART IDENTITY SPECIAL EDITION 2962900 THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (200lj COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2665008 ICE AGE SPECIAL EDITION 2761906 DIE ANDTHER DAY SPECIAL EDITION 2809903 DADDY DAY CARE SPECIAL EDITION 2976603 BARBERSHOP SPECIAL EDITION 2780609 A MAN APART 2891406 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION (WIDESCREEN) 2411601 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN ( 2002 ) 2806909 BLADE II PLATINUM SERIES 2744100 BULLETPROOF MONK SPECIAL EDITION 2885309 8 MILE 2800605 THE WIZARD DF OZ 2383602 BLACK HAWK DOWN 2724102 GOODFELLAS 0969808 STAR TREK: NEMESIS 2826709 1229301 DARKNESS FALLS (2003) SPECIAL EDITION FORREST GUMP SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2634202 THE EXORCIST: THE VERSION YOU’VE NEVER SEEN _ 2551802 CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2818201 THE USUAL SUSPECTS SPECIAL EDITION 1922707 2833804 JACKASS THE MOVIE SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2809606 CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE THE HUNT FDR RED OCTOBER SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION WILURD (2003) PLATINUM SERIES 2973006 2833705 SCOOBY-DOO (2002) 2858603 2778306 STUART LITTLE 2 SPECIAL EDITION 1345503 2769800 AMERICAN PIE 2 COLLECTOR’S EDITION THE SCORPION KING COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2665107 (UNRATED) 2739308 STRIPES 2469203 FARGO TWO WEEKS NOTICE MR. DEEDS (2002) 2799005 SPECIAL EDITION 2762201 BAD BOYS (1995) SPECIAL EDITION SPECIAL EDITION MEN IN BLACK II SPECIAL EDITION LOVE & BASKETBALL UNDERCOVER BROTHER COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2781102 Other side ♦♦♦ 2518009 CHEECH & CHONG’S UP IN SMOKE More to choose from on 2660405 SPECIAL EDITION 1491604 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: 2619104 THE BEST OF CHRIS FARLEY 2908002 SAVE THE LAST DANCE FREE SHIPPING! TEARS OF THE SUN SPECIAL EDITION 2862605 TRAINING DAY 2679900 BASIC 2891604 JOHN QINFINIFILM™ 2724409 HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS 2859809 DUMB AND DUMBERER: WHEN HARRY MET LLOYD PLATINUM SERIES 2973105 MINORITY REPORT (SINGLE DISC EDITION) 2971406 ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS PUTINUM SERIES 2724508 PHONE BOOTH 2884302 OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001) 2699304 RED DRAGON COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2791101 BRAVEHEART 1491604 NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION EDITION 2951804 THE TRANSPORTER SPECIAL EDITION 2822005 DESPERADO SPECIAL EDITION 2947604 EL MARIACHI SPECIAL EDITION 2947703 MEET THE PARENTS (2000) COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2577906 WE WERE SOLDIERS 2733806 IN COLD BLDDD (1967) 0163709 RUSH HOUR 2 INFINIFILM 2652501 ROAD TO PERDITION 2789501 BLUE CRUSH COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2781003 THE SUM OF ALL FEARS SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2762300 AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER INFINIFILM™ 2765600 THIRTEEN GHOSTS (2001) 2694305 PINK FLOYD-THE WALL DELUXE EDITION 2425205 THE COLOR PURPLE 0630103 FACE/OFF 2152007 BLOW INFINIFILM 2637502 BRING IT ON COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2545101 CHANGING LANES 2752608 AMERICAN HISTORY X 2320604 GREASE 2755106 THE BOURNE IDENTITY ( 2002 ) COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2781201 I with membership, s See details. DREAMCATCHER 2913309 LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE & BLONDE SPECIAL EDITION 2971208 HARRY POHER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE 2703502 GHOST SHIP I 279660! MAID IN MANHAHAN 2812907 THE GREEN MILE 2467009 “I HEAD OF STATE STRIPTEASE (UNRATED INTERNATIONAL VERSION) 2365807 Detach here and mail to: A KNIGHT’S TALE SPECIAL EDmO» FUa METAL JACKET 2648004 LEGENDS OF THE FALL THE MUMMY RETURNS (2001) COUECTOR’S EDITION SPECIAL EDITION 2519403 FAST TIMES AT RID6EM0NT HIGH COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2424406 WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOUTE FACTORY (WIDESCREEN) 2672202 (WIDESCREEN) 2646206 THE SWEETEST THING (UNRATED VERSION) CAOOYSHACK 2748705 CROUCHING TIGER, 2469708 HALF PAST DEAD LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2005809 SUPER TROOPERS UWRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT 252180 5 APOCALYPSE NOW 0250105 QUEEN OF THE DAMNED 2748507 LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL (UNCUT INTERNATIONAL 2741502 VERSION) 2497303 JURASSIC PARK COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2301505 251330 7 INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE SPECIAL EDITION_2 BQYZNTHEHOODTLBX) 1423300 2719805 2503407" THE SILENCE OFTHEUMBS SPECIAL EDITION (WIDESCREEN) 2524700 ZOOUNDER BUY YOUB PmiT SELBCnON MOW AND HAVi LESS TO BUY LATEIU Also send my First Selection for an adcHtionai $14.95, Which I’m aeWing to my $2.45 payment (total: $17.40). I will receive 6 DVDs and then need to buy only 4 more DVDs (Instead of 5) in the next 2 years. KISS OF THE DRAGON 2660306 BLAZING SADDLES THE PATRIOT (2000) SPECIAL EDITION 2495406 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE 2637106 THE ONE SPECIAL EDITION 2697704 HANNIBAL SPECIAL EDITION 2659902 WHO SHAGGED ME PUTINUM SERIES 242300 2 2703106 TAKE A BONUS r* SEUCTION NOW AT A SPECIAL PlliCE! Also send me a 7™ DVD for the low price of $9.95, which I’m adding to my $17.40 payment (total: $27.35). TRAFFIC SOUTH PARK: BIGGER. LONGER ENTER THE DRAGON 25TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION 2420503 (THE UNRATED VERSION) 2747509 JOY RIDE (2001) SPECIAL EDITION ROAD TRIP (UNRATED) 2544807 OFFICE SPACE 2747806 THE DIRECTOR’S CUT JURASSIC PARK III COLLECTOR’S EDITION (WIDESCREEN) 2652600 THE SHINING (1980) RESERVOIR DOGS: TEN YEARS SPECIAL EDITION 2727402 2637403 PREDATOR GOLDENEYE SPECIAL EDITION JURASSIC PARK COLLECTOR’S EDITION 2513208 2780302 a FREE jW^' You'll be eligible to earn FunCash™ every time you purchase a DVD from Columbia House. As your FunCash adds up, you can use it towards the purchase of regularly priced DVDs. Earn enough FunCash and get FREE DVDs. You pay only shipping and prxessing. r for private offerings and Enjoy guaran¬ teed price reductions on hundreds of terrific titles! You’ll save up to 25% on our latest releases and big box-office hits even before special offer discounts are applied! tO^V Review Reriod, We’ll send details of the Club’s operation and your membership agreement with your introductory package. If you’re not satisfied, return everything within 10 days, at our expense, for a full refund and no further obligation. If you want a movie on DVD that you doni see here, just visit our website. FREE SHIPPING! GHo: FIRST NAME (PLEASE PRINT) LAST NAME CITY STATE ZIP Note; The Columbia House DVD Club reserves the right to request additional information, reject any application or cancei any membership. Offer valid for customers in the continental United States. Customers from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, U.S. Territories, APO and FPO addresses and Canada, please write for separate offer. Tax added in states where applicable. ©2004, The Columbia House Company C-20104-GP Simply choose any 5 DVDs in this adver¬ tisement for 490 each, fill out the coupon and mail today. The shipping charge is on us! In exchange, you simply agree to buy five more DVDs in the next two years at regular Club prices (which currently start as low as $19.95, plus shipping and processing) and you may cancel anytime thereafter. What’s more, you can get one more movie for the low price of $14.95—and have less to buy later, and take a bonus 7" selection at the special iow price of $9.95. Fn&e ISagai'^6 35; meks (up to 13 times a year), reviewing our Director’s Selection—plus scores of alternate choices, including many lower priced DVDs. And you may also receive Special Selection mailings up to four times a year. (That’s up to 17 buying opportunities a year.) Buy 01 % ^ mgm If you want the Director’s Selection, do nothing—it will be sent automatically. 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As a Columbia House member, I need to buy only 5 more DVDs at regular Club prices within the next 2 years and I then may cancel any time thereafter. Send me these 5 DVDs for only 49t each (a total of $2.45) f GamePro Labs Gamester Game Changer SP Rating; 4.5 i^^What a great idea—a three-game jukebox for your GBA! No more losing your games in tiny pouches—or worse, forgetting cartridges in your pockets before you throw your jeans in the wash. The Game Changer plugs into your GBA SP like a normal (albeit huge) cartridge; you pop three games into its slots along the sides. A simple three-way switch controls which game is in play at any given time, and if the SP is turned on, you cannot switch games without powering down—a nice safety feature to avoid accidents. The unit itself is very light, and textured rear panels offer good grip. Better still, the wider profile actually reduces SP hand cramp. Granted, it works only on GBA SP games (no original GB or GB Color titles—so that means ixnay on carrying around the troika of Poke- mon Red, Blue, and Yellow), but for this price, how can you not want this ?—Dan Elektro Price: $9.99. Contact: Radica, 972/490-4247, gamesterusa.com Intec DVD Remote, Multitap, and Vertical Stand Rating: 4.0 @ Intec brings you the greatest hits of PS2 accessories in one monumental package. The first thing you’ll notice is your PS2’s new striking profile as it sits on high, flanked by four controller and memory card ports. The base sta¬ tion features S-Video, Composite, and Sony AV Multi video jacks; four inputs and one output allow you to funnel all your signals through this central point. The cute little remote switches between AV inputs and operates the PS2’s DVD functions. It’s a breeze to get everything connected (assuming you have the proper cabling on hand). The vertical stand is sturdy and leaves room to store four games or DVDs. However, the slick, compact design does contain a few flaws. The multitap plug makes the remote’s cradle inaccessible, and the configuration of the AV inputs is unusual. AV1, the default channel, is a Sony AV Multi In. Due to the relative obscurity of Multi to Multi cables, you’ll end up having to plug your PS2 into one of the other three channels that offer S-Vid or Composite In. Assuming that your PS2 is the center of your entertainment universe, this bizarre setup means that you’ll have to grab the remote and toggle over to your PS2 every time you turn it on instead of having instant access. Design quirks aside. Intec’s amalgam brings new function¬ ality and style to your stock ’Station .—DJ Dinobot Price: $34.99. Contact: Intec, inteclink.com Best-Selling Video Game Titles: October 2003 r TITLE PLATFORM PUBLISHER 1 1 NBA Live 2004 PlayStation 2 EA Sports 2 Jak II PlayStation 2 Sony 3 Madden NFL 2004 PlayStation 2 EA Sports 4 Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 GBA Nintendo 5 WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain PlayStation 2 THQ 6 Tony Hawk’s Underground PlayStation 2 Activision 7 Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike GameCube LucasArts 8 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 PlayStation 2 EA Sports 9 NBA Live 2004 Xbox EA Sports 10 Viewtiful Joe GameCube Nintendo Source: The NPD Group/NPD Funworld A M AS reet...NFL Street...Microsoft’s next . IClU console, sometimes referred to as the Xbox 2 or NextBox, is reportedly code-named Xenon. Damn, just name the console that for real—^that’s cool. And noble! * Okay, it’s under¬ standable that you would want to use sport-specific terminology in your headline for a basketball game, but does anybody not see an old man drooling on himself when you read the headline “NBA ShootOut Dribbles Into Stores”? Maybe it, urn, depends on your point of view...but we’re not revealing the name of the guilty party. It wasn’t 989. • Not that you really needed to read it to make it true, but believe it or not, Rockstar Games says it’s going to give this GTA thing another try. No details, just a confirmation in a fiscal announcement. Exactly the kind of tease that keeps one’s stock values high. • Why has the game industry suddenly suffered a deadly bout of colon cancer? They’re everywhere: extended titles for games that don’t really need extended titles. Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, Castlevania: Lament of Inno¬ cence, DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution, True Crime: Streets of L.A., R: Racing Evolution, and the completely unnecessary Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, just to name too many. Folks, it’s like this: If your subtitle is longer than the main title, assume that people will use one or the other, but not both. Take a cue from Jak li and Ninja Gaiden: Save yourself some trouble and leave it off. Besides: You’re driving our copy edit staff bananas. • Far Cry...Far Cry...Far Cry...Far Cry. ..Fa. Internal Combustion 'nilDITBMS USAmSENT, MY PRECIOUS, n HMM?^ M his is where we keep the games, ^hat stays locked, A ^^kay, NateT^Nl r Let me show you ^ around GamePro. This , is the Demo Room —l don’t go in there.^ Welcome home! You’ll get along great with the sother interns^ Where can I go? oai7l7ie: Aucn n Amricn vooaxee-. mao And this is the 6erver Room that’s restricted ^ access. THE BARS MAY KEEP you IN. BUT THEY WON'T KEEP THEM OUT THESUFFERINC.MIDWAY.COM NINE TEIilllfyiNS LEVELS, HOUfiOfi LURKS IN EVERY DARK CURNER. A DOZEN HORRIFIC MONSIERS-EACH REPRESENTIN5 IHE MEANS OF EXECUTION THAI BEFELL THEM. amazing character morphing-transform INTO A HIDEOUS AND POWERFUL CREATURE. INTERACT i’lTH HARDENED CRIMINALS; GARNER THEIR ASSISTANCE OR END THEIR.LIFE. OVER 10 DEADLy VEAPONS FROM THE SHIV TO THE flamethrower to help you survive THIS NIGHTMARE. THREE DISTINCT ENDINGS DEPENDING ON HOW you PLAY THE GAME. •4 irwwm, The Suffering is an all-new next-generation entry into the action horror genre, and the first game of its kind to probe into the very unsettling and seedy underbelly of a maximum-security penitentiary, which is haunted by horrific and grotesque apparitions, all represented by thej unique and disturbing executions that previously befell them. Take on the role of Torque, an inmate who must face much more than his own inner demons and the harsh and gritty reality of death row, as he fights to escape the unleashing of the penitentiary’s gruesome secrets in what amounts to be a challenging and terrifying journey through one of the most hellish environments ever imagined. The Suffering features ultra-mature content and three distinctly different endings depending upon how you choose to survive. £BEATyRE DESIGIH BY STAN WINSTON STOOIOS “Midway’s action/horror title could be the most gruesome videogame ever” - IGN.COM “...adults will get a demented, \ scary ride” ~ Game Informer PlayStation*^ MIDWAY PRISON IS HELL The Sullerina © 2003 Midway Home .^nterrainment Ific, MIDWAY and i !■ Ail nqhls reserved. iViicrosoft. Xbox and the Xbox Logos are eithc?' rpgsstereo ^ "PiavStation" and the PS© Blood Violence POWERED BY gemespy SlERR/^ CONTENT I ENTERTAINMENT ^mcGanm Gandatf '^Icome to Middle-eaftk The joumef begins this Ml BASED ON THE LITERARY WORKS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN www.lordoftherings.com Memo to Peter Jackson This is an epic.” - GAMESPY.COM War'of the Ring is dripp with personality and life »-:-„ign:'com Strengthen armies with Gandalf or the Balrog. A rock-solid* :sr real-time strategy game '^’•GAMEOVER ONLINE MAGAZINE. Wage war in open lands and 3^D structures. BING Hi. 0^Utfrm Cover Feature NFL Street y' Yoiir Own Damn y You asked for EA's urban take on gridiron warfare, and now you’re gonna get it. Footbaii leaves the field with NFL Street—and saves a genre in the process By oan Eiektro PROUP; To be ahead after 12 plays In the NFL Challenge against the Broncos, defense is key. Don’t take Style risks on this one—tt won’t last long enough to enable Game- Breakers anyway. PROTIP: Riose “frick plays” aren’t just for show. There are some money plays In with the razzle-dazzle, so open your trick bag often. 30 CAMEPRO FEB 04 ' irst, there was Madden NFL. And it was good, but it had lots of rules and players, and even¬ tually it became a religion. Then there was NFL Blitz, and it was good, but it lost its way, forgetting its arcade roots and the joy of simplicity. But now there is NFL Street, which offers true harmony between arcade and simulation football games, but with more attitude than both of them put together. Oh, and it’s fun, too. EXCLUSIVE FIRST REVIEW Yoked Up NFL Street streamlines pro football to a seven-on-seven battle of not just athleticism but also the ability to be a pure show-off. It’s as much about how you play as it is about the sport itself. That sense of personality- in the forms of flashy moves, choice of clothing, and self-expression through customization—is a crucial element to the game, by design. Producer Graeme Bayless says that NFL Street lets gamers “play foot¬ ball the way we envisioned it as kids. Play how you want, dress how you want, and show your style.” That philosophy is everywhere, on the field and off. Custom teams with your favorite colors and choice of logo are only the beginning—you can name, upgrade, and dress each individual player as you see fit, unlocking new (and very detailed) gear like shoulder pads, basketball jerseys, and shoes as you go (some of which boosts performance). The depth of customization gives gamers a true sense of ownership, making victories truly something to celebrate— and defeats all the more stinging. Of course, there are a few current and past superstars crammed in here—say, 300 or so. NFL Street features real players like Randy Moss. Donovan McNabb, and the Raider Woodsons, all pumped up to cartoon > proportions (just like the basketball stars in its crosstown cousin, NBA Street). Massive muscles, huge tattoos, XL afros... j It's based on reality, just bigger. The result may annoy football purists, but gamers who know they’re getting into a fantasy treatment of pro sports won’t mind — and according to Bayless, neither do the players. “We’ve had the game in front of a bunch of guys, including Shannon Sharpe. Ray Lewis, Mike Vick. Barry Sanders, Marcells Wiley, and others,” he says. “They love the way they look, all ‘yo^^d up’ as they say. They’ve really appre- V12J dated the attention to detail in their faces, tat- NFL Street Producer Graeme Bayless says that the game toos and all that ’ didn’t grow as an expansion of the Street franchise so much as a desire to make an alternative to Madden. y Cah^Hi managing man-to-man B and sharp reflexes. AiwitfOng atmosphere, especially when a playt fences on the boundaries, however, now they’re angry. All three versions i features SC Undo the Helmet Naturally, the players perform over-the-top moves to match their looks. There’S plenty of end-zone dancing, tricky passing, and plain ol' bragging, none of which (well, okay, not as much of which) you'd find on an NFL gridiron. Player animations are super-smooth, and moves like jukes and dives are linked very well; details like shaking off a collision and some taunting after a denial help sell the personality even more. Tackles are especially brutal with helicopter spins and backflips a fairly common (but still exciting!) occurrence. ‘Though obviously football is a contact sport, that contact is all within the context of football," says Bayless. “NFL Street has no wrestling-style moves or the tike that don t fit the context of football. Maybe wrestling is in the eye of the beholder—you'll spot a clothesline tackle in almost every Street showdown—but it’s true that there are none of the late hits or leg drops that NFL Blitz fans so often see. However, bringing out player personality and a sense of style also means bringing down some barriers, including the removal of helmets from the players. Granted, that’s how everybody plays a friendly game of football in the park—but generally, it’s not full contact the way it is here with hard-hitting slams that spin players in mid-air before they come crash¬ ing down and head-first dives into end zones. Still, even the league under¬ stands it's all a fantasy. “Agreeing to have no helmets wasn t really a major negotiation," says Bayless, "as the NFL understands that bringing out player personalities is a key to success for NFL Street.” Extra Mustards Dog Player personality is more than just a catchphrase—it’s part of the gameplay. Any pass, tackle, run. or catch can be modified by holding down the Style button, which adds personal flair and scores extra GameBreaker points at the risk of not getting the job done. For instance, a no-look pass will net you 3000 more GameBreaker points, but it’s harder to con¬ nect to your receiver; if he does catch it, he can high- step all the way to the end zone but might fumble when hit. Put a little Style into a tackle, and you’ll gain some extra inertia for a harder hit, but you lose the ability to change your angle of attack. It's a constant balancing act that offers another level of strategy to football, and control-wise, it's pleasantly simple. In fact, all three versions of the game (PS2, Xbox. and GameCube) feature responsive controls and pressure-sensitive passes—tap quick for a touch pass or hold the button for a bullet. Pitching is essential to success; often times, runs that would end in disaster |^n turn into touchdowns with a well-timed dish of the ball to J open teammate. While the basic controls feel instantly comfcMable, switching players in time to snag interceptions and eve| coverage takes quite a bit of practij Then again, so does; real fociball True to the game’s name, you wk’t play a single scrim¬ mage in a stadium; the fields include even the lawn outside EAs own Bay You want attitude? NFL Street thrives on it—smack talk, mocking dances, and plenty of self>aggrandlzatlon are all part of the package. PROTIP: If you use Style or TUrbo on a catch, you’re a lot more likely to fumble. A lot. PROTIP: It sounds shnple, but it’s vtey effective; Gall a passing play, let the defense taki#^ ball^ then run your QB. Often, you can get within fe^ a first dovsin. a beach, a rooftop, and krea office. Interactive sideline objects like surfboards on th| beach don’t interfere with plays, but they do add some nice goes barreling through them. The appearance of walls and ignificantly changes things. You can run opponents into the side of a building but they won’t be (Lt of bounds, so if they recover, look out—the ball’s live and PROUP: If you’re having trouble on de¬ fense, call your play and take control of your defensive back. Keep him as your personal wlldcaid and let die computer run the rest PROTIP: Pitching is one of the most Im¬ portant skills to learn. As you’re being tackled, hit Pitch and ditch the ball to a teammate for a second chance. The com¬ puter has this down cold.... gameplay, PROTIP: A GameBreaker does not make you Impervious! You can still fumble, be Intercepted, and generally mess yourself up. Don’t get too cocky. of the game look more or less identical; the Xbox version features s< ne extra shine, this time in the form of nylon jerseys. A mix o rap and rock in the menu screens is joined by similar looping beats durii g play (and points for having the beats change as the game develops < id possession switches sides). The player chatter is varied, urban, gru , and chock full of smart-alecky put-downs (“You thought you were good ..well, 1 guess that’s what you get for thinkin’!”) that don’t loop too much 1 > be annoying. Man' s Machine The game does come with tutorials on the unique elements of Street but they would be more interesting if they were interactive; instead, yfj’re just watching a video of how proper play is supposed to CONTINUED ► GAMEPRO FEB 04 31 Cover Feature NFL Street BitttVktH' ■ Published by EA Sports Big « S49.99 ■ Available January ■ Football ■ 4 players For an interview witit NFL Street Producer Graeme Bayiess, go to GamePro,com! PROTIP: Always throwing a pass with Styie is a good habit to buiid, but you must be mindful of the defense— throwing a Styie pass into coverage rarely works out. Edit Team ScmrcH aAkBB'MfMW 40,300 '' ' 's 5w^ndi\/£ msoo Each creatNsd team features Its own cus¬ tom colors, name, and logo—and you can unlock more logos with success In the Chaffenges. PROTfPl The runnhtg play Containment is one of the best all-around defenses for both rtishes and short passes. If In doubt, call NFL Challences Doz«r PROTIP: Before you attempt the NFL Chal¬ lenge ladder, hit the mdividiial challenges— you’ll ne^ the dev points. PROTIP: One of the safest places to show Style Is when diving into the endzone for a TO. it’s an easy 1500 points. . For short pass yardage, espe¬ cially in goal line situations, use Gimme Time. The receivers can double as blockers if you decide to run the QB. look. You'll learn as much about game mechanics by doing it yourself, so a better way to learn to play is to dive straight into the NFL Challenges, which is where you'll spend most of your single-player time anyway. These mini-games are true to their name: tough situations and specific goals (race to 14 points, be ahead after X number of minutes, score IDs under certain condi¬ tions) that must be completed if you want any development points to help build your sorry-from-birth created team. It's proof of the adage that If you want to be the man. youVe got to beat the man. You’ll also ascend a tournament ladder, fighting your squad's way up the NFL's ranks while unlocking new fields. When the teams are well-matched, the game feels great; just about any NFL squad can take on any other without a huge ability gap to weaken the contest, and the limited play- book really forces creativity and unorthodox surprise moves. But any time you use your created squad against an NFL team, the odds are inevitably stacked against you—you won't have enough development points to get your team up to pro levels for several hours of play. It’s frustrating to play to the best of your abilities and try to emulate the computer teams with Style moves and pitches, only to get hammered again and again, simply because you suck, by design. Suffice it to say that the football is not the only thing you’ll want to throw as hard as you can. However, when you add the human element—whether you invite one to three friends over or, on the PS2. find someone to scrimmage online—NFL Street becomes a lot more fun. The dynamics of the game only really work when both sides have something to boast about and can back it up. NFL Streak The single-player NFL Challenge mode can destroy your enjoyment in short order, but as long as you have real-life friends to join you. NFL Street is a blast—and a much-needed shot in the arm for the genre. This should get football fans through the off-season in lots and lots of style. ir^ ■Developed by EA Tiburon bLB ■ EP GRAPHICS 4.5 SOUND 4.5 CONTROL 4.0 FUN FACTOR 4».,i X GRAPHICS 4.5 SOUND 4.5 CONTROL 4.0 FUN FACTOR 4.0^ t GRAPHICS 4.5 SOUND 4.5 CONTROL 4.0 FUN FACTOR 32 GAMEPRO FEB 04 Limited. All : right reserved, Itlustratldn: ©2003 by Todd McFarlane Productidns, {hc. Atl rights reserved. Violence Suggestive Themes WWW REFLECTIONS OF TRADITION. Exclusively on the PlayStation "2 computer entertainment system, Tekken legend Heihachi Jumps into the SoulcaliburdI arena. The battle will be hard fought with old Soulcalibur favorites and new masters ready to battle anyone with the guts. And the fighting continues with over 10 modes of play, including the new Weapon Master Mode, giving you the chance to unlock hundreds of weapons, costumes, arenas and hidden characters. PlayStation»2 Feature A tot of games today rely on a handful of gaming cliches that just get older and older each year. Will the madness ever end — or should it? By O-Pad Destroyer know what they are, even if you don’t know it. The Chosen One. JT The Jumping Puzzle. The Exploding Barrel. The Crate. They’re all part of a twisted zodiac of game design that finds references in pretty much every game in recent memory. Some are good, and some are bad, but they’re all repeated over and over. But why? We’ve assembled a panel of game design experts to find out. Cliches serve as anchors inside a game to help gamers get into the game more quickly. But once the gamer’s there, do ever-increasing cliches help or hinder? Our panel took a look at some of the most-used gaming cliches to see why developers keep scraping the bottom of the explosive barrel. CjMr€ [xpimrms HeMor, Spt, St€alw[ A Away put your weapon—it’s time to stealth! Stealth levels had a stunning mainstream debut in Thief: The Dark Project, and they were perfected in Metal Gear Solid, but since then almost every action, shooting, adventure, or platforming game has featured stealth mis¬ sions in one way or another. Alex Jones doesn’t mince words; he calls the stealth mission “the worst thing that has ever happened to a good game since the dream sequence level of Max Payne.” Not everyone feels quite as strongly, but Jason Rubin agrees, “I don’t like being forced to put my guns away. If I have guns, then damn it, I am going in hard" Bill Roper feels that stealth levels have their place, how¬ ever: “The challenge here is to make this gameplay exciting and challenging, not just a way to conveniently use your sniper rifle on every poor sap on the level.” One of the most universally maligned cliches in gaming happens to be the hapless crate. Whether used to store power-ups, block paths, or trigger puzzles when pushed onto pressure plates in the floor, crates have somehow earned the crit¬ ical eye of the industry. “Not sure if Naughty Dog was the first to do crates, but the TNT crate was definitely ours,” says Jason Rubin. “Stacking different types of crates to make puzzles was also our invention. Ratchet & Clank uses them as a foundation of gameplay. We don’t get royalty checks.” Crates seem to be a mainstay of games, from platform games like Whiplash to hardcore shooters like Max Payne 2. Some games use them for puzzles, as seen in the Legacy of Kain games, while RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic return crates to their original use by packing them full of treasure and items. Larry Holland observes, “Bad guys seem to be un¬ tidy fellows and very bad at storing things in a warehouse where they belong.” In the crates’ de¬ fense, Harvey Smith offers, “How else does one deliver grenades and lockpicks to one’s elite field operative in enemy territory?” One of the most-heard questions whenever a pub¬ lisher shows a platform game these days is, “Will there be crates?” Crates are reviled, not because they’re annoying or boring, but simply because they’re everywhere. It’s ttie age-old rivalry of Kain versus the crates. This time, Kain wins. ^ Can you survive the utterly contrived save system? Sa¥pM€[ But Ouly, Say, Pm Tnnes This one really roused some ire among the panel. In many games, the number of saves or continues you have is very limited. This dates back to the glory days of the arcades, when game machines were designed to eat quarters like Pac-Man at a pellet buffet. Now that most gaming is taking place in the home, the idea just seems dated. Alex Jones asks, “How can you make a feature of something some coin-op marketer thought up to make sure the machine makes its turn-over targets?” Lome Lanning is one of the cliche’s most heated opponents. “When I put a video game in at my home, I’m not sitting at a damn arcade and I’m not feeding quarters into the machine. I don’t want to replay the same crap over and over and over and then be told that I have to start from the beginning of the whole dang shabang again because I didn’t succeed in three lives. I refuse to play games with limited lives. These are the worst, and their time has long since past.” Jason Rubin approaches the cliche from a design perspec¬ tive: “Making a player earn continues is exactly counter to good balance. The good players earn continues they won’t use, and the bad players can’t earn continues they desperately need.” Game Cliches iscottrSemci “These tend to suck. Even though we had escort missions in most of our Spyro games, they were always tedious and a bit frustrating,” says Ted Price, who is responsible for some of the only escort missions outside the action or flight-sim genres. You know the scenario: You are the hero, charged with protecting a helpless person, animal, capital ship, or zeppelin through enemy-infested territory. Not only must you keep from dying yourself, but you must also make sure the poorly scripted moron makes it through alive as well. Jason Rubin compares escort missions to dating: “You have to do it, it goes slower than you want it to, you have to pretend to care about the other person, it sucks when you have to start over, and you lose interest once you get what you want. But we keep dating, don’t we?” Bill Roper is the cliche’s main defender, stating, “You can really break up a run-n-gun game with a well-scripted escort mission as you usually have to change your tactics completely.” Your mission: escort this moron with a target on his T-shirt and do so without tossing your con¬ troller through the TV Mor£ Fur Thar a Barrbl of Hitro “Carefully arranging barrels of highly flammable material to ensure the most destruction in the smallest space seems to be in every modern and future secret lair builder’s handbook,” says Bill Roper. These days, any time you see crates in a game, you can be sure explosive barrels can’t be far away. Barrel fan Harvey Smith says, “It’s too awesome a gameplay moment to pass up. It gives the player tactical point-and-click death powers, plus it can lead to some interesting emergent moments. May the explosive barrel reign forever.” Think about it a moment. When have you ever seen an explosive barrel in real life? Yet they’re everywhere in games, especially placed exactly where a stray bullet or whirling Australian marsupial can set them off in violent, health-meter-depleting fashion. “Why not?” asks Jason Rubin. “If you fill them with Nitrous Oxide and paint them red, then they’re going to explode when you hit them, right?” Larry Holland agrees, “Isn’t that what barrels are supposed to do?” Roper has some advice for designers dead set on red barrels: “Mixing up the gameplay with them—such as letting players tip and roll the barrels to then blow them up as they hurtle into the middle of a pack of goons—can do a lot to breathe new life into this cliche.” Trtrooucirg THi Parfl Our esteemed panel of experts contains some of gaming’s best designers and guiltiest tdiche-mongers. Brian Fargo CEO, inXUe Known for: The Bard’s Tale, founding Interplay Least favorite cliche: The Chosen One, “where some kid with no particular skills is picked to save the world from evil.” Larry Hoiiand President and Founder, Totally Games Known for: X-Wing, Secret Weapons Over Normandy Least favorite cliche: “I’d almost rather have my teeth cleaned, twice, than do a jumping puzzle.” Alex Jones Producer, Crystal Dynamics Known for: Whiplash Least favorite cliche: Collecting orbs. “I hate them mostly because it seems like arbitrary busy work.” Lome Lanning President, Oddworld Inhabitants Known for: Abe’s Oddysee, Munch’s Oddysee Least favorite cliche: Limited saves/continues. “When I put a video game in at my home, I want to play, I want to win; I have a life and a job to go to.” Ted Price President, CEO, and Founder, Insomniac Known for: Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando Least favorite cliche: “Every shooter has to have a machine gun, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a rocket launcher. It’s basically impossible to avoid.” Bill Roper CEO, Flagship Studios Known for: StarCraft Ghost, World of WarCraft (for Blizzard) Least favorite cliche: “For any developer out there who is making a game with jumping puzzles, please, please stop.” Jason Rubin President and Co-founder. Naughty Dog Known for: Crash Bandicoot, Jak II Least favorite cliche: Mining for experience. “In the end, you are no more or less challenged fighting ‘Thor, The God of Thunder’ than you are a ‘giant ant’ when you started.” Harvey Smith Project Director, Ion Storm Known for: Deus Ex: Invisible War Least favorite cliche: “The rocket launcher. Every time we include one in a game, I cringe.” Barrel is gray, it’s a peaceful day. Barrel is red, soon you’ll be dead. Feature Game Cliches IVMTiR Of OfAW The mightiest heroes in gaming fold like paper dolls when they face the most abundant resource on the planet. Water has been the bane of existence for heroes through the history of gaming. Bill Roper asks, “How does a hero who can slay mighty beasts, crush his enemies, and scale the highest mountain to save the kingdom from certain doom die by stepping in water?” Ted Price says, “Hey, as long as it’s explained, it can work. The water is rea//y cold! Or rea/Zy toxic!” Jason Rubin has an answer: “We opt for water that doesn’t kill the player but never put anything useful below the surface. If we need to kill the player, then there is always lava.” Hail the infinite MacGuffin! Th€ Boss of You Almost every game has bosses, those big monsters that are so powerful they command their own room and their own theme music. Usually, they mark a moment in which you take everything you’ve learned up until that point and apply it all to end the life of one super-powerful creature. Bill Roper is a big fan of the boss showdown: “I want a defined, visible goal, and quite often that is facing off against the man/woman/monster that killed my family/destroyed my town/stole the princess. If the path there was fun and exciting, I can really revel in the challenge and the meaning of the final showdown.” Jason Rubin adds, “On one hand, bosses never play as well as the rest of the game. On the other, they are the perfect gate for plot and story. Think of the action movie without the final fight against the bad guy. They are never dispatched in collateral damage; they must be thrown in a pit on a noose with a grenade in their pants.” Harvey Smith has even found an application for boss fights in real life. “I’ve been watching [Ion Storm Studio Director] Warren Spector for years “Don’t worry, sir, your three distinct combat maneu- , ,. ^ . vers are fine. Also, don’t let them hit you on the giant now, looking for his weak- thing on your head, or you’ll die after three good, ness. I’ve noticed that square hits.” sometimes, when he holds up a whiteboard marker, there’s a strange marshmallowy orange organ hidden in his left armpit. But I’m afraid that if I strike at it and miss, he’ll unleash an 18th level barrage of biz speak at me...for which I have no defense, really.” Who’d have known that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a hydrophobe? OofTA Off Mom 0ms Super Mario 64 came along and changed the industry some years back. Not only did it feature compelling platform gameplay in three dimensions, but it also ushered in the age of the collectable orb. Nowadays, this cliche is seen most often in the less imaginative platformers, which require you to seek out huge numbers of well- hidden orbs, stars, or jiggies to continue on with the game. Yes, we’re looking at you, Jason Rubin and Ted Price. “Sounds familiar, though I don’t think I’ve seen any games with this cliche,” jokes Price. Rubin explains his orbs: “In Jak and Daxter, we ran out of time to design gameplay, so we put in the Spyro gems. We just rounded them and made them orange.” That pretty much sums it up right there. In recent years, games have begun to move away from collectable orbs. Alex Jones’ Whiplash asks you to destroy property, not collect it, while Price’s Ratchet & Clank and Rubin’s Jak II have both pretty much ventured off into new platform-game territory altogether. La¥a Hot a Fight€R Cmos€A foa What? it seems like these days no one can be a hero without first being Chosen. Fate intervenes in a young character’s life and chooses him or her to go out and defeat evil. This is a major plot in the RPG world, but it shows up in other places as well. According to Jason Rubin, “It would suck to play the other 99 per¬ cent of dudes who are destined to fail.” Harvey Smith disagrees: “I am far more interested in the counter to this cliche, the hero who starts out ordinary, with nothing but determination, then crushes everyone in his path on the way to cosmic superhero rockstar status. Someone who obtains importance by working for it, rather than You are the Chosen One, chosen hy Fate to wear a big spiky hairdo and beat up siimes and sentient cactus creatures. being chosen by Fate.” Brian Fargo even pokes fun at the Chosen One cliche in The Bard’s Tale, making the main character a selfish, lazy lout who adventures solely for his own benefit. Larry Holland feels we didn’t go far enough with this category. “Add to the list: the ‘Young Wannabe from Timbuktu who becomes the Hero,’ the ‘I Can’t Re¬ member Anything Hero,’ ‘The Boy Who Lost His Parents and Goes on a Revenge Spree Hero,’ plus the old standbys ‘The Reluctant Hero’ and ‘The Accidental Hero.’” o Remember this game? It’s the one where you’re in a chamber made of stone. You’re moving from platform to platform, jumping and possibly fighting some enemies, and you have to avoid the lava or you die. Remember that one? If you took a sample of all the games out there, particularly adventure games or plat- formers, you’ll find that a majority of them have lava levels. Is there something about lava ^ that makes it such a hot topic in gaming? Bill Roper points out, “Fire is way up there on the ‘cool factor’ in games, so, by default, lava is cool.” But he adds that lava “can be destructively frustrating when it is used for the instant death penalty.” ^ Ted Price and Jason Rubin have both used lava in their own games. Price says that lava levels are “hard to avoid when you’ve gone through just about every environ¬ ment idea possible and still have a few ips to fill.” Rubin adds, “Lava equals Death. That is a simple formula. It makes the dan- ' areas painfully obvious. Lava is also cool. I don’t know why.” On the other hand, Brian Fargo declares, “We have a standing order at inXile that if anyone puts in a lava level, they’re fired.” o Sometimes it pays to not get out of bed in the morning. Game Cliches A T “Hey, that chain-toting thug had a fuli-on roasted turkey in his pocket! Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!” Tr£msur!€ Popping Out All Owtp You’re in a big street rumble. You get the upper hand and knock out one of the bad guys. As he hits the ground (and begins blinking in prepara¬ tion to disappear forever), a giant roasted turkey pops out of him and lands in the street. Your first impulse: walk over and eat that thing before someone else does. Larry Holland says, “Most power-ups are just plain silly if you stop to think about them, but most of the time they are just plain convenient, so you rarely give them a second thought.” Alex Jones notes that “roasted turkey is a little too cliche, but, say, a little package of jerky snacks...where’s the harm in that?” Of course, this goes for any kind of power-up exploding forth from a defeated enemy. “It always cracked me up when a broadsword would pop out of some wolf you just killed,” says Brian Fargo. “I mean, where on Earth was he hiding the thing? And how about the powerful items that pop from other enemies? If they were so great, why didn’t they use them?” Harvey Smith gets a little more specific. “I love Diablo, where enemies die in a Pavlovian shower of blood, magic weapons, and gold. You cannot beat that. ” Might AS Wgll Jump In the beginning, video-game characters could go left, right, up, and down. Shigeru Miyamoto was charged to create a new game, and so he brought the world Donkey Kong and its hero, Jumpman, later to be renamed Mario. Since then, prob¬ ably 80 percent of game characters have had the ability to jump, and most of them have had not only the ability but also a directive to do so. Repeatedly. “If I never see a jumping puzzle again,” says Bill Roper, “I will be a very, very happy gamer.” He adds, “I do think that there are ways to make this style of gameplay fun and non¬ frustrating, and I hold out The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as perhaps the perfect example of how to accomplish this.” On the other hand, Jason Rubin defends the mechanic that got so many of his company’s characters off the ground. “What’s wrong with jumping? What sucks is games where you can’t\ump and there are ledges at knee level that you can’t get over.” However, even he isn’t totally convinced: “I am over ‘butt-bonking.’ It’s as done as ‘Von Dutch’ hats.” “Step forward, step back, turn around three times, and jump. Mister Faicon.” Matte WHene Tttar Cme Fttou When the research into gaming cliches began, no one had any idea how big an issue it would become. The panelists had a lot of strong opinions on the topics; what you’ve read here is just a collection of excerpts. If you’re interested in knowing more, check out GamePro.com for the full transcripts of the panelists’ responses and a more exhaustive list of gaming cliches. iL€M€HTARY, AS ALWAYS You might not have noticed, but a disturbing amount of fantasy-based games use the elements (typically Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) as the basis for all magic in the game. D&D Heroes does it, as did Nightcaster. Even Pokemon uses its own version of the elements. Ted Price says, “Hey man, we’re ripping off fantasy writers who’ve been doing it for the last century. But yeah, it’s getting old.’ Brian Fargo adds, “I can see where the whole idea of using the elements as a basis for magic came from, but we’ve definitely had enough of that. I’d settle for the four basic food groups as the magical center at this point.” Jason Rubin han¬ dles it even more succinctly: “If there was a book on overused design elements, this would be Chapter 1. I’m over it. Hire someone with some creativity.” ^ . Earth, Air, Fire, Water; sometimes Life and Death WATCH YOUR STEP . .! L rsr- Animated Blood Violence 6NV\AXlMO !$ BACK ANP> TH lf TIME ir$ WAR. Arsenal of devastating combos and attacks. Army of Zin declare war on the living. Unleash the terrifying power of Grim AVAILABLE JANUARY 2004 CAPCOM PlayStations^ CAPCOM.COM/MAXIMO to IHE §t WARNING NO SMOKING S«l« of Ci§M = dMsmns totjacco, i^tdts^ h«rfe.- or other tobacco ^ p»|Mfr» or pip^s m pi ttodler IS ifeors of m i PROHIBITED BY I uni connect Tobacco companies maKe S1.8 billion from sales to under-^e people every year. A tobacco company has called teenagers “tomorrow’s potential customers.” Tobacco signage is often placed at a child s eye Feature Best of2003 This past year, Jedi made a big editors took to the skies, and the does the cel. Here are our picks for the best of 2K3. Log on to GamePro.com for expanded explanations of each editor’s list! Air Hendrix DanElektro 1. Secret Weapons Over Normandy PS2 It’s been too long since a flight-combat game could compete with the year’s best first-person shooters, but the riveting Secret Weapons has the right stuff to win that battle. Its accessible, innovative controls make it a delight to dogfight, but its real genius is the absorbing mission design, which sweeps you up in sprawling, free-form battles. 2. Cali of Duty PC 3. NCAA Football 2004 PS2 4. Deus Ex: Invisible War Xbox 5. XIII PS 2 6. Counter-Strike Xbox 7. Top Spin Xbox 8. IGI2: Covert Strike pc 9. 1080° Avalanche GameCube 10. Everblue 2 PS2 Most Promising Acquisition: The High Heat baseball franchise by Microsoft. With Bill’s bucks finally giving this series the support it’s deserved for so long, we could finally get a Madden-caliber baseball game. If we’re lucky. 1. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge xbox Crimson Skies offers everything an action gamer could want: big guns, brassy dames, thrilling dogfights, a sense of humor, and plenty of eye candy—not to mention a killer app for Xbox Live. Thanks to intuitive con¬ trols, anybody can pick up Crimson Skies and feel like a hero...and that’s what gam¬ ing is all about, isn’t it? 2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Xbox 3. Tony Hawk’s Underground PS2 4. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising gba 5. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis xbox 6. Burnout 2: Point of Impact—Developer’s Cut xbox 7. Tron 2.0 pc 8. Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega MIcrogameS gba 9. Ikaruga GameCube 10. Xlil Xbox Easter Egg of the Year: Geometry Wars, the nerve-rattling arcade shooter hidden within Project Gotham Racing 2 (walk up to the coin-op in the garage). Insane action, vec¬ tor graphics...and Xbox Live rankings! 1. SSX 3 P$2,Xbox I’ve been a huge fan of this series since the original and am addicted to the incredible sensation of speed and heights that this game creates on my TV screen. A perfect game for a quick gaming fix or a full after¬ noon of nonstop fun. 2. ESPN NFL Football 2K4 PS 2 ,Xbox 3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King PS2, Xbox 4. Soul Callbur II xbox 5. Medal of Honor: Rising Sun PS2, xbox 6. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo gba 7. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando PS2 8. Top Spin Xbox 9. Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike GameCube 10. The Getaway PS2 Best Innovation: The EyeToy. The first “true” virtual reality game that works like a charm. Plus, the games are all extremely intuitive and user-friendly for gamers of all ages and abilities. This is much more than a toy; it’s a watershed in video-gaming technology. D-Pad Destroyer 1. star Wars: Kniglits of the Old Republic Xltox,PC There aren’t enough good words in the Eng¬ lish language to describe how great this game is. Console RPGs don’t often engage me for more than 10 hours; this one took up over 100 hours of my life as I beat it, beat it again, and started all over one more time. Watch your back, Lucas; BioWare’s beaten you at your own game. 2. Deus Ex: invisible War mmx, f€ 3. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker saimCube 4. Dungeons & Dragons Heroes Xbsx 5. Magic: The GaDtering—Battlegrounds Mtax 6. Dead or Alive Xtrente Beach Volleyball Xbox 7. Whiplash xtox 8. Def Jam Vendetta ps 2 , eameSube 9. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Xbox 10. Freedom Fighters ps 2, xbox, satmCube Something I Just Noticed Award: The Xbox. I just noticed that eight out of 10 games on the above list are Xbox games. I believe my feud with the Xbox is officially over. Brother Buzz 1. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker GameCube What do you do with a game when the bar for quality is set at “legendary?” You rattle every fan’s cage by turning the visual style on its ear right down to Link’s little brown booties...and make it work! Playing it safe was not even a consideration with Shigeru Miyamoto, who chose to stay true to his vision. Amazing. 2. Vlewhful Joe Gamt^be 3. Jak II PS2 4. Silent Hill 3 PS2 5. Boktal: The Sun Is in Your Hand sba 6. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando PS 2 7. Secret Weapons Over Normandy ps 2 8. ESPN NBA Basketball 2K4 Xbex 9. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 PS 2 10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ps 2 The “Never Care Again, Thought r Award: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the Xbox. Four-Eyed Dragon 2. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker OameCuim 3. Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand gsa 4. Top Spin Xbox 5. XIII PS2, Xbox, GanwCube 6. Soul Callbur II PS2, Xbox, GanwCube 7. Prince of Persia; The Sands of Time PS2, Xbox, aameCube 8. SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEAU PS2 9. Counter-Strike mox 10. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge xbex . Vlewtlhll Joe SameCube Originality and creativity are the hallmarks of a “Top 10” game. Viewtiful Joe cer¬ tainly matches these criteria and goes way beyond the typical side-scrolling beat-em- up. It’s a dazzling adventure that mixes deep gameplay and extravagant visuals into an unforgettable concoction of just plain fun. The Most Mature-Rated (and Disturbing) Game of the Yean Manhunt. This is as grue¬ some and graphically violent as a game can reach without being too brutally perverse. The premise will literally make you self-conscious of your own morals, while the game itself is as visually unpleasant as it is addictive to the sick-minded. Readers’ Choice 2003 We’ve made our cases—now make yours. Tell us your favorite games of the year for fun and prizes. Best Action Game Armed and Daugereus mox CasHevaiiia: Lament of Innocence ps 2 Fr^om Fighters m 2 , xmm, camcobo Legacy of Kaln: Defiance m 2 , )mx The Lord of the Rings: The Rehim of ttte King m2, max Metal Arms: Glitch In Hie System m2, mrnx, Ninja Galden xbox Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time m 2 , mm, CrnmCiibe Viewtiful Joe Best Combat Game Xlli m2, Xbox, SmmCoM Counter-Strike Xb&x Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Xbax Deus Ex: invisible War xbax ikaniga som^abo Medal of Honon Rising Sun m 2 ,Mb&x, Panzer Dragoon Orta xbax Return to Castle Wolfenstein m 2 , max Semet Weaimns Over Normandy m 2 SOCOM if: U.S. Navy SEALs m 2 Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix rnmx Star Wars Rogue Squadron ill: Rebel Shike Sam^bo Best Adventure Game Beyond Good & Evil PS 2 , max, saimCube The Getaway m 2 Grand Theft Auto Double Pack m 2 , xb&x The Legend of Zelda; The Wind Waker rnmdkiim Manhunt m 2 Primal m 2 Silent Hill 3 m 2 The Simpsons Hit & Run m 2 , xbox, SamsCubo Best Platform Game Ape Escape 2 m 2 Jak 11 m 2 Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando m 2 Tak and Hte Power of Juju m 2 , oaimCaim Whiplash m 2 ,]mx Best Fighting Game Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This at Home m 2 , Xbox, GameCube Def Jam Vendetta ps 2 , sam^kibe Dragon Ball Z: Budokal Gaa^be Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 m 2 Soul Callbur II Xlmx, SaimCube Wrtua Fighter 4: Evolution m 2 CONTINUED ^ Feature 1. The Legend of Zelda: Hie Wind Waker GameCube What happens when you dare to try some¬ thing different (and potentially devastating) with one of your most beloved franchises? Miyamoto is gaming’s Miyazaki, and this is a gorgeous, visually resplendent masterpiece of exploration and storytelling. 2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Xbox 3. Deus Ex: Invisible War Xbox 4. Silent Hill 3 PS2 5. Dungeons & Dragons Heroes xbox 6. Panzer Dragoon Orta xbox 7. Wario War^ Inc.: Mega MicrogameS gba 8. Soul Caiibur il PS2, Xbox, Gam^ube 9. Jak II p$2 10. Viewtiful Joe GameCube 1. star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Xbox KOTOR single-handedly resuscitated all that is good about the Star Wars mythos and set the standard for the modern-day RPG. It of¬ fered the most talked about plot(s) of the year, too. 2. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker GameCube 3. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball xbox 4. Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega MlcrogameS gba 5. Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution PS 2 6. Viewtiful Joe GameCube 7. Soul Caiibur il PS2,Xbox, GameCube 8. Call of Duty PC 9. Ikaruga GameCube 10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time PS2, Xbox, GameCube Best Hiche: All those great late-year Game Boy Advance RPGs—Sword of Mana, Mario & Luigi: Super- star Saga, Boktai, Final Fantasy Tactics Ad¬ vance, Fire Emblem. They’re just perfect for portables. Worst Name for a Great Game: Ninja Five-0 meshed everything that worked in 2D side-scrolling action games. The name just screams bargain basement junk instead of retro gold. Overseas, it was called Ninja Cop, which CONTINUED Best Role-Playing Game Dungeons & Dragons Heroes Xbax EverQuest Online Adventures PS 2 Final Fantasy X-2 PS 2 .hack Part 2: MuMlon PS 2 .hack Part 3: Outbreak PS 2 .hack Part 4: Quarantine PS 2 Morrowlnd: Came of the Year Edition xtox Skies of Arcadia Legends GameCube Star Wars; Knights of the Old Republic xbox Best Racing Game 1080^ Avalanche GameCube Burnout 2; Point of Impact-— Developer’s Cut xbox Crash NItro Kart PS2, Xbox, GameCube F-Zero CX GameCube Mario Kait: Double Dashli sameCtBrn Midnight Club li m 2 , Xbux Need for Speed Underground PS2,mox, GameCube Project Gotham Racing 2 mox R: Racing Evolution PS2, xbox, SameCube Best Brain/Reflex Game DDRMAX2 Dance Dant^ Revolution PS 2 EyeToy Play ps 2 Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde PS2, Ximx, GameCube Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis ps 2 ,ximx Karaoke Revolution ps 2 Magic; Ihe Gathering—Battlegrounds xbox Mario Party 5 Gam^ube I The Sims: Bustin’ Out PS2,xbsx, GaumCube Space Channel 5; Special Edition p $2 Best Sports Game: Footbali ESPN NFL Football 2K4 P$2, Xbux, GaimCube Madden NFL 2(N)4 P§2, Xbox, GameCube NCAA Football 2004 p §2 NFL Blitz Flo P$2, Wb&x, GameCulm Best Sports Game: Basketball ESPN NBA Basketball 2K4 P§2,Xbox, GameCube NBA Jam PS2, Xbox, GameCube NBA Live 2004 PS2,Xbox, Gam^ube NBA Street Vol. 2 PS2, Xbox, GameCi^ Best Sports Game: Other Dead or Alive Xhome Beach Volleyball xtox RFA Soccer 2004 PS2, mex, GameCube High Heat Major League Baseball 2004 PS 2 ,xbox Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour GatmCube MVP Baseball 2003 p$ 2, Xbox Outlaw Voileyball mox Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 p$2, mox, Sam^be Top Spin Mb&x ; World Series Baseball 2K3 PS 2 , xiwx Best Action Sports Game Amped 2 Xbox Freestyle Metal X P$ 2 , Xtmx, GameCube SSX 3 P$2, M^Xf Sam^lm Tony Hawk’s Underground PS2,jawx, sameCube Violence and a ma star^^ ha deadly ai^ at war. the mastermind SinTzuh dri^n by a lone desire -ta conquer. Sin Tzu designed by cnmics legend Jim Lee Sin Tzu, cunning master uf strategy and mertial arts, makes history as the first Batman character to debut in a videogama. Ploy Bs Bstman, Rabin, Batgirl, nr Hightwing. Play bdId nr rBcruit b friend tD defend Entbam C/tyfrom the new rising evil. Playstation^^ © 2003 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. TM, ®, Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo GameCube logo are trademarks of Nintendo. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony'Computer Entertainment Inc. Microsoft, Xbox and the Xbox Logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or in other countries and are used under license from Microsoft. DC Bullet logo, BATMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics. WBIE LOGO: ™ & ©Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. I ^ ^ i* (so3) V-SSi,/ Feature 1. Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ gba The manic thrills provided by Wario Ware’s deconstructionist philosophy could trigger synaptic psychic blowouts. You will see these 200-plus mini-games in your sleep. The Dr. Wario game alone kept me hooked for days. It should be classified as an illegal substance. Consider your social life warned. 2. Ikaniga GameCube 3. Viewtiful Joe GameCube 4. Ape Escape 2 PS 2 5. Space Channel 5: Special Edition PS 2 6. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising gba 7. Soul Calibur II PS2, Xbox, GameCube 8. Armed and Dangerous xbox 9. Silent Hill 3 PS 2 10. Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand gba Most Untikable Protagonist Ever: Nick Kang from True Crime: Streets of L.A. Your thoroughly irritating personality, combined with a bad fashion sense and chunk-blowingly atrocious one-liners, made watching you get shot, stabbed, and carjacked by middle-aged housewives a true joy. Major Mike 1. Command & Conquer Generals and Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour n When it came down to it, C&C Generals sucked up more of my gaming hours than any other title. Generals featured a dynamite play engine but not nearly enough single¬ player missions. Zero Hour added a few more campaigns and extra combat units...but two words for the C&C team: more, please. 2. XIII Xbox 3. Call of Duty pc 4. Castlevania; Lament of Innocence ps2 5. Final Fantasy X-2 PS2 6. Soul Calibur II xbox 7. Viewtiful Joe GameCube 8. Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand gba 9. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! GameCube 10. Burnout 2: Point of Impact—Developer’s Cut xbox Prediction: Resident Evil 4 will not appear on the GameCube but on Nintendo’s next console. Best PC Game Black Hawk Down Call of Duty Command & Conquen Generals Deus Ex: Invisible War Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna Final Fantasy Xi Halo Lords of EverQuest Max Payne 2: The Fail of Max Payne PlanetSide Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic The Temple of Elemental Evil iron 2.0 Best Hancihelcl Game Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising gba Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand gba Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow gba Final Fantasy Tactics Advance gba Fire Emblem gba Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga gba Mega Man Zero 2 gba Pok^mon Ruby/Sapphire gba Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 gba Sword of Mana gba Wario Ware, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ gba Console of the Year Game Boy Advance/Game Boy Advance SP GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox Game of the Year Across all platforms, throughout the whole year of 2003, which game was the absolute best? The Polling Booth To cast your vote, please log on to WWW.gamepro.COm/rca and enter to win these fabulous prizes from iQ, jZ ,|] 1 Grand Prize Winner 5 First Prize Winners will receive one pair of Gigaworks S750 will receive one pair of Inspire 7.1 Speakers and one DDTS-100 Decoder GD580 5.1 Speakers 10 Second Prize Winners will receive a Muvo NX 128 MP3 Player You can also send in your votes via snail mail, but this option should be used only when nec¬ essary by those folks who don’t have Internet access. If that’s you, please mail your votes listed by category (as well as your name, address, age, gender, phone number, and e-mail—if available) to: GamePro’s Readers’ Choice 2003, P.O. Box 23040 Oakland, CA 94623-0040. Mailed entries must be received by February 13, 2004. Only one ballot per person will be accepted. We must have your completed ballot and your full name, address, and telephone number so we may reach you for notification of your prize. Please vote for only one game in each category, or your ballot will be disqualified! Results will appear in the May 2004 issue. All winners will be selected at random from com¬ pleted ballots received by the deadline through the mail or online. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Contest ends February 13, 2004. See page 115 for GamePro’s Readers’ Choice 2003 Official Rules. Fantasy Violence Be warned - this is not a mere battle of brawn. In this world, war must be waged with a wary hand; fqurney from land to land, battle to battle as you deftly command your army of demons, centaurs and dragons. Exploit their strengths. Mind their weaknesses Slash, claw and slay your way to power - and if you rpust, unleash your wrath. Cast magic spells. Pit darkness against light. Bend fire, wind and water to your will. And ultimately dominate the world. PlayStation®^ wrathunleashed.com BEAT ANY 6AME ACTION REPLAY MAX~ is the only cheat system that can send lightning-fast broadband code updates direct to your PS2® in seconds...free! Now you can kiss goodbye to manual code entry forever*. With a liquid- smooth user interface that's light years ahead of similar products, super-fast game save downloads direct to your memory card, disc auto-detect, clash- free Intelligent Codes and much more, MAX" IS THE ONLY CHEAT CODE SYSTEM WORTH SHELUNfi OUT FOR. UNLBASH THE POWER BEifOr THE GAME! Unlimited lives Extra ammo Hidden levels ^ay import mo\ ...andmoch *To get the most out of Action Replay MAX'S™ revolutionary new features a PS2® network adaptor and an existing account with a broadband internet provider are recommended. For users without broadband, code updates can still be performed manually using a standard PS2® game controller or a Datel PowerBoard™ (available separately). Animated Power Bar lets you tweak a game's difficulty level. 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Action Replay' comes equipped with an optional USB link cable to allow connection to the web via any internet enabled PC. ^ J L Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain @ The Omega Strain opens up a brand-new chapter in the Syphon Filter saga about the virus that just won’t die. With 17 fresh single¬ player missions plus four-player and peer-to-peer online gameplay, this is already shaping up to be a full-fledged secret agent tale sure to please fans, and it’s really only missing one thing—Gabe Logan. Gabe in Charge In Omega Strain, Gabe’s now in charge of his own espionage agency after battling disease dealers in the previous games. When citizens start dropping dead around the world with Syphon Filter—like symptoms and Gabe’s old nemesis, Mara Aramov, escapes from prison, he calls you up for duty. You can design your own field agent right down to the shape of his or her nose. The design-a-spy interface was simple to use in the pre¬ view version, making creative character crafting a breeze. Of course, it’s going to take more than looking good to solve this mystery. The basic gameplay and controls are going to feel very familiar to Syphon Filter fans. As with the other versions, you either love or hate the behind-the-agent view. The prerelease game fea¬ tured strafing with the directional pad or a joystick and the ability to aim weapons with precision. In fact, you can lock on to targets during moves like crouching, climbing, or forward¬ rolling, and you can aim to disable specific body parts, too. Sony’s promising 100 weapons and gadgets, and each successive level of the game will relinquish more complex gear. You can carry only four weapons at a time, so strat¬ egy is at a premium. If stealth is your style, you can whip out a trusty K-bar knife (that doesn’t count against your four-weapon count, by the way). Syphon Filter Online Online Omega Strain could turn out to be pretty cool. There’s four-player cooperative gameplay for nine of the single-player missions; by using teamwork, you can reach new areas and pull maneuvers that are unavailable in single-player mode. A headset (either USB or for SOCOM) enables online squads to communicate with each other, and Sony is planning a match-making service so that players of similar caliber can play together. Spies Like Us Omega Strain’s going to run up against a crowd of action spy - games, including Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and 007: Everything or Nothing, but the Syphon Filter hardcore should be pleased with this new installment- plus the online gameplay sounds like a worthy option. And don’t worry, Sony’s also saying that if you beat the game, you earn four bonus single-player missions in which you’ll be able to play as Gabe .—Brother Buzz ■ Hands-On * Developed and published by Sony ■ Target release date: January I I I I Little Voice Lifeline takes place at a futuristic hotel in outer space. After a horde of monsters unexpectedly overruns the ship (and eats most of the hu¬ mans), you awake to find yourself trapped in the hotel’s security control room. The only other human survivor is Rio, a waitress who is your only link to the “outside” world. You watch Rio through var¬ ious surveillance cam¬ eras, unlock doors for her with the controller, and give voice com¬ mands via the USB headset—and she re¬ acts accordingly. Rio can recognize more than 5000 words and 10,000 phrases, and she’s voiced by Kristen Miller (star of the tele¬ vision show She Spies). Activities in Lifeline fall into two camps—exploration and com¬ bat. When you aren’t guiding Rio to thoroughly search rooms and examine items, you help her fight off monsters. You tell Rio, armed with a pistol and other weapons, where to target her enemies’ weak points, when to pull the trigger, and when to dodge and reload. You also guide her across crumbling walkways and other dangerous surfaces (you’re likely to see hazards from your point of view that she can’t from hers). But Rio’s no mere order-taker: She’s got personality and a bit of an attitude—she doesn’t hesitate to quickly respond to lousy or irrelevant commands (“strip,” “die”) with some biting remarks of her own. She even engages in limited conversation and scolds you to action if you remain silent for an extended time. Voices Carry In playable form. Lifeline’s voice-reliant interface worked well, although a few phrases managed to slip past our heroine. The action moves at a slower pace than that of your usual survival/horror offer¬ ing, but the real reward is working with Rio to guide her to safety. Lifeline has all the makings of a good time—especially if you’re faster with your mouth than your thumbs .—Major Mike ■ Hands-On ■ Developed by SCEJ ■ Published by Konami ■ Target release date: March Lifeline "■"fith Karaoke Revolution already under its belt, Kon- ami’s quite the innovator in regards to software that utilizes the Play¬ Station 2 headset. Case in point: Lifeline, a survival/horror title where the main character is completely controlled by your voice. Lifeline was a smash hit in Japan, where it was released under the title Op¬ erator’s Side. No ONES TOLUr TK