GameCube Launch Party - London
On Friday night allie and I had the good fortune to be invited to a Gamecube launch party thrown at Brick Lane here in London. The event was held in a renovated brewery building, and featured live DJ’s, a rodeo-style WaveRace machine and best of all (except for the free drinks), a large number of GameCubes setup where guests could play games at their leisure.
Having yawned through an uninspiring UK Xbox launch last month, I must say that the GameCube’s lineup is looking very promising - especially after having played a few of the titles first-hand.
Let me premise this by making something clear. Compared to some other BigKidders, I’m not much of a GameCube fanatic, vowing that a PS2 is still a sufficent investment in console-dom for any self-respecting gamer this year. Having said that, I was quite impressed with the lineup Nintendo has going - all the games look great, and most of them play even better.
Here’s some quick (unresearched) notes about what we saw…
- The Cube Itself
The graphics are looking amazing. Textures on total ports like Tony Hawks 3 and Crazy Taxi were crisper and more detailed than PS2 versions. IMHO game poly counts are better than ever. Controller is also cool… not big and awkward like the XBox or stupid like the Dreamcast. It’s basically a friendly Nintendo version of the PS2 controller. - Pikmin
Very very cute, with amazing textures and detail. We had a good play of Pikmin, and after some initial confusion about the controls, we could appreciate that it contains some engaging & original gameplay. It has shades of Black & White in the ability to zoom in and out and the control of small characters, but probably won’t suffer from the genre mish-mash that was B&W’s undoing. - Dark Summit
SSX style snowboarding game. Some slick graphics but perhaps not the replayability. - Super Smash Brothers
This looks like good fun. Not necessarily my cup-of-tea, but the sort of game my cousins love to play in fours at family gatherings. It’s basically a fast-action fighting game that works in two dimensions. - Ports & Sports
There’s a fair number of games been ported from PS2 versions, so you won’t be lacking for ’safe bets’ with a Cube. eg. ISS2, FIFA 2002, Crazy Taxi, Tony Hawks 3. The driving game Burnout also looked quite good, and from what I’ve read has much better gameplay than similar Xbox titles like Wreckless or Gotham. - Other Stuff That Looked Good
To Nintendo’s credit, there’s enough fun GameCube games coming out that in the 5 hours we were there we didn’t have time to get around and play everything. Games that looked quite cool… Sonic Adventure 2, Luigi’s Mansion
The Gamecube launches in the UK on May 3rd, and with a low price of only �130… it’s looking quite enticing. The recent price drop of the Xbox wasn’t as dramatic here as in Australia, so both the Xbox & PS2 are still around the �200 mark.
If only the Gamecube could play DVD’s… I’d be running out and getting one straight away!
posted by bruce · at 2:45 pm · filed under First Impressions
But you already have the PS2 - why do you need DVD functionality in a GameCube?!?