GameCube Mailbag - March 24, 2005

Matt responds: Wow. That is an incredibly difficult question to answer. I can tell you that Nintendo is my favorite developer in the world. Most of my most cherished games come from Entertainment, Analysis and Development or (EAD), which is Nintendo of Japan's internal group. Shigeru Miyamoto-headed classics like Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time come to mind. Considering that one of my favorite games of all time is Metroid Prime, I think I would have to rank Retro Studios as my second favorite developer. Echoes was a fantastic sequel, which proved to me that the studio is much more than a one-hit wonder. Next is Capcom Entertainment, which continues to amaze me with brilliant sequels like Resident Evil 4 and stylized, original works like Killer 7, Viewtiful Joe and Okami. Throughout my career, I've followed and really enjoyed games from Silicon Knights, which makes the developer next on my list. Eternal Darkness was outstanding. Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was a bold and enjoyable role-playing game for its time. And few future titles have me more intrigued than the epic sci-fi thriller Too Human, which is almost certainly deep in development by the company as I write this. And finally, there's Ubisoft, which has really come into its own this generation. Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six rock, but I find myself even more drawn to the studio's ambitious adventure games, such as Beyond Good & Evil and (the original) Prince of Persia.

It's really hard to narrow the list to just five. I also really respect other development studios, including Valve Software (for Half-Life 2), Sony Computer Entertainment (for Ico and Wipeout Pure), Amusement Vision (for Super Monkey Ball and F-Zero GX), Camelot Software (for its Mario sports games), HAL (for Super Smash Bros. Melee), Konami (for Metal Gear Solid), Namco (for Soul Calibur II), Bioware (for Knights of the Old Republic), Sucker Punch Studios (for Sly Cooper), Criterion (for Burnout) and more. In the next several years, I think you will see Eurocom Entertainment, which developed Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, become a breakout software house. I think Factor 5 will set new technological standards on next-generation platforms. And I really can't wait to see what Starbreeze, which developed Chronicles of Riddick (incidentally my sleeper choice for last year) will do during the next round.

A Star is Born

Hey guys,

will Nintendo be giving any details on games being developed for Nintendo Revolution besides the console itself?

(fingers crossed for Star Fox Revolution) :)

Thank you.

- MSAM

Matt responds: You know, I've been thinking about the Star Fox franchise (for two minutes) and I've just had an epiphany. I grew up with Star Fox. I bought every game. I loved most of them. I'm sure the haters will come after me Resident Evil 4 style for writing this, but it can't be avoided. Star Fox is a really, really, impossibly stupid franchise. The characters in this series are the antithesis of cool in every conceivable way. They can't be made cool. They are at war with cool. They can't be updated because even when they were fresh, they were idiotic. But beyond that, the characters are at war with the license. A rabid fox and an ambiguously homosexual toad have no place in futuristic space ships just as Donkey Kong has no place in F-Zero. For all of these reasons and plenty more, I'm not too hot on a Star Fox sequel at the moment. I'd rather Nintendo devote its resources to Kid Icarus, who is the absolute epitome of cool, as we all know.

Oh yeah, you had a question. I do expect that we'll see some form of Revolution software demos at the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2005. Reggie said that Mario 128 would be there, and there's good reason to believe that this is a Revolution title. That'd be enough for me, but I' m sure the company will have a surprise or two to debut, too.

Beetle Adventure Racing

What color Beetle do you have? And do you have a boisterous sunflower in the vase?

Matt responds: All right, mister! I see what you're getting at. You're insinuating that I'm a hippie, aren't you? Well, I'll have you know that I was born well after the 60s ended. In all honesty, I really have no idea what was going through my mind when I bought that damned stupid car. But alas, I am only days away now from correcting the nasty oversight by replacing it with a more desirable choice of vehicle. I'll be sure to post pictures when the fateful afternoon arrives.

Preemptive response: yes, sure, yes, I realize this has nothing to do with GameCube. Except, now it sort of does because I just mentioned the word GameCube. Also: GameCube. Now I've stated it several times. So in a way, this is an extremely GameCube-oriented subject now. (Wrote GameCube again. Oh, snap! And again when I just wrote GameCube that last time! Oh man, and another time when I mentioned GameCube by name there. Holy! This has to be the most GameCube-awesomest response ever.)

Bang, Crash!

Have you -- or any of your readers -- had any problems with Timesplitters: Future Perfect? I have had it lock up on me several times (both in single and multiplayer) in the short time I have owned the game. Needless to say, this is ruining an otherwise fun game for me. Do you know if the PS2 and Xbox versions suffer this problem as well? If not, I wonder if EA/Free Radical knew about the issue and decided that (since it was "only" a problem for the GC version) it wasn't worth fixing. Thanks.

Matt responds: Actually, I have encountered that problem. The game crashed on me several times during my play through the second level. Had to reboot. I was trying to capture GameCube movies at the time, and running particularly late with the day's update, so I can vividly remember these crashes. I also still have bruises on my knuckles from punching the computer monitor. On a related note, some other readers have complained of sound pops during play. Not sure what the deal is here, but clearly there seem to be a couple of bugs in the GCN version. I wouldn't call these game-ruining bugs, but they are nevertheless unfortunate oversights.

Knights

matt do you think Silicon Knights and Sega are making Too Human?

Matt responds: Well, I speculated so in our news piece on the collaboration, but the more I think about it, the less likely I see that happening. I expect that Silicon Knights and Sega are working on an entirely new franchise -- one that we didn't previously know about. However, I do believe very much that Too Human is still in development. I just think that it'll happen with another publisher.

Chaotic

I just read the review of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the X-Box channel. How does the GameCube build stack up?

Matt responds: A fine question if I ever read one. Sadly, also very unanswerable. The good folks at Ubisoft recently told me that we would not be receiving a reviewable copy of Chaos Theory for GameCube until the game ships. So if you're looking for an early review, I apologize. Right now, I know as much as you do about the game. It's got Game Boy Advance link functionality and an exclusive in-game move, and that's it. Meanwhile, we recently posted first-ever GCN screenshots, and they actually look pretty good. The port will probably be solid, but I'm always suspicious when we don't get early builds. Regardless, if you have an Xbox, that's the version to get for the added online experience.

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