The
Games of E3 2001: GameCube
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by Porter Hall
Going into E3, Nintendo's new GameCube system was the big
unknown. Rather than trumpet the system's abilities and games to
the press in the weeks before the show, the Big N played it
close to the vest, leading to rumors that the GameCube might
fall victim to a "freeze in production" before it was
released. Nintendo's flashy E3 media conference put those rumors
to rest, as the company unveiled a stunning lineup that made a
roomful of adult media professionals yelp like puppies. Now that
the cover's off and expectations for the GameCube are rising
fast, it appears that the fall 2001 console wars will be harder
fought (and better for gamers) than previously expected.
The Five Hot GameCube Showings
1.
Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II (Fall 2001)
Probably the biggest surprise of the show, Star Wars
Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II deserves every syllable of
its incredibly long name. Why? It's simply the best realization
of the screen magic the original Star Wars film brought
to the public back in 1977. The musical cues, the sound effects,
and even the X-Wing's targeting screen (use the Force, Luke) is
perfectly appropriate. Don't even get us started on the
movielike visuals--one looping maneuver into the Death Star
trenches and we were drooling on our shirts.
You play as Luke, with R2 riding shotgun, and you stick it to
the man in 11 missions over ice planet Hoth, the Death Star, and
other fabulously familiar locales. LucasArts and game developer
Factor 5 definitely stayed on target for this one.
2.
Eternal Darkness (Fall 2001) 
Eternal Darkness infuses the survival-horror genre
with loads of fresh ideas and visuals. For example, it appears
from the demo that in lieu of playing through location-based
game levels, players will mark the game's progression by playing
13 different characters whose lives span 2,000 years of history,
starting with a Roman centurion and culminating with a modern
heroine. Nintendo didn't reveal too much of the story connecting
these characters, other than saying that each represents a
different point in the lineage of one seemingly cursed family.
Players will not only gauge their characters' status through
health and magic meters, but they'll also watch a
"sanity" meter. When the sanity level drops, the
character is affected in subtle ways--sometimes becoming clumsy
or suffering poor aim. Substantial losses in sanity can provoke
playable hallucinations in the character. In one demonstration,
the character walked into a room and started losing pieces of
her body: her head fell off first, then an arm and a leg. A
dissolve showed that she never really went into the room at all,
but was stuck in a daydream. The preview we saw was polished
with detailed lighting effects, a dynamic camera scheme, and
dissolving status bars, all of which helped us forget it was
only a game.
3.
Pikmin (December 2001) 
What do you get when you cross the cuddly cute characters of
a game like Pokémon Gold with the do-my-bidding gameplay
of a title like Black & White? You might get
something like Pikmin--if you're lucky. Created by The
Legend of Zelda auteur Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin is an
action-strategy game in which you play as a Tom Thumb-sized
spaceman who has crash-landed among a race of sprouts with legs
(or are they flowering ants?). You'll find the sprouts friendly,
helpful, and more than willing to team up to move obstacles,
defend your base camp against predators, and bridge impassable
gaps so that you can find the necessary materials to fix your
ship and return home.
The game's control interface is simple, so anyone old enough to
grasp the nonlinear strategic gameplay elements can pick it up
and play. People at the show were drawn to the game's colorful
design (the backgrounds are based on Miyamoto's own garden), and
several people played the game as a group by suggesting new
solutions to the game's puzzles.
4.
Luigi's Mansion (November 2001) 
While it won't win many points for originality, Luigi's
Mansion is great fun to play, and is a perfect showcase for
the GameCube's graphics horsepower. In the game, Luigi--Mario's
younger brother and costar of several games through the
years--has inherited a spooky old mansion provided he can summon
the courage to spend the night within its haunted walls.
Luigi arrives prepared to clean house with a Ghostbusters-like
device that stuns the ghosts with light and then vacuums them up
safely. The gameplay gets tricky when some of the bigger
light-shy ghosts vanish before you can put the Hoover on them.
And, should one of the spectral pests sneak up on Luigi, he
looses courage and the common currency of all Mario-inspired
games: gold coins. Graphically, the game is amazing for its
translucent ghosts, mirrored images, and particle effects
(Luigi's vacuum device will also suck the dust off a chair and
the mist out of a freezer). The game's campy visuals are more
cute than spooky, so even jittery Mario fans will love this one.
5.
Super Smash Bros. Melee (November 2001) 
If you're looking for a roll call of famous Nintendo
characters, look no further than Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Based on the original N64 multiplayer game, this title brings
Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Kirby, Yoshi, and a slew of other
characters into a free-for-all brawl. Players can select
characters based on their signature moves and weapons, and then
go into fighting modes where objectives range from being the
last man standing to collecting the most gold coins during a
battle. There's even a point-scoring timed round where players
are judged on the technical accuracy of their combos.
All of the fight venues are taken from familiar Nintendo
landscapes, such as Donkey Kong's jungle or Link's Zelda
universe, but are upgraded to a level of detail that previous
Nintendo systems have been unable to achieve. The game will come
with a one-player side-scrolling mode, but it's clear that Melee
is meant to be played with a group of friends--up to four can
play at one time, and up to 64 people can partake in the game's
tournament mode.
Honorable
Mentions Was that it? Not by a long shot. We were
thrilled to see other games set to come out for the system, such
as sports titles Madden NFL 2002, NBA Courtside 2002,
and All-Star Baseball 2002; Sega's Phantasy Star
Online with a four-player split-screen mode; and Wave
Race: Blue Storm. Also, the nonplayable demos of Metroid
Prime, a new Legend of Zelda project, and Mario
Kart created a lot of buzz on the show floor.
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