Starwars: Rebel Strike - Rouge Squadron III for the Nintendo GameCube

Starwars: Rebel Strike – Rogue Squadron III for Nintendo GameCube 7.0

Developer: Factor 5
Publisher: LucasArts
Platform: Nintendo GameCube
Release Date:
NA: October 15, 2003
PAL: November 7, 2003
Genre: Action
Mode(s): Single Player, Multiplayer
Ratings:
ESRB: T
OFLC: G8+
PEGI: 12+

Starwars: Rebel Strike – Rouge Squadron III is based on the incredibly famous Starwars franchise, and I think the Starwars franchise needs no explanation. Starwars games have appeared thorough videogame generations in general, whether it’s the first generation or newer generation consoles bringing quality movie based games. This game appears to be a sequel to another game that had appeared on the GameCube called ‘Starwars: Rogue Squadron’.

The game’s story is based after the destruction of the Death Star and the rebellion; Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles, and the rest of the alliance face an invasion that assaults the Rebel Base at Yarvin 4. TIE fighters swarm the skies and imperial forces storm the base to capture any remaining high-ranking Alliance officers; it is up to the rebellion to repel the Imperial forces swarming them.

In Rebel Strike, missions revolve around objectives you must do before completing a mission, these which usually revolve around destroying a number of things, protecting objects, or simply getting to the end of a level. There are three ways to play the game, by land, by air, or by using machines such as ‘Walkers’.

You spend most of the game fighting by air; before starting a mission, you can usually decide which craft you would like to fly with. Flying is pretty good with abilities to either shoot or throw bombs, plus change camera angles and using good use of the control; there also good quantities of enemies by screen which is pretty cool.

By Land, you usually play as a character either wielding a gun or a lightsaber, you can pick up guns from enemies and also throw bombs when available. There’s one problem related to the foot missions, though, and that’s the camera. The camera can sometimes either leave you behind or can get too close to you, while it’s not much a problem, it’s not perfect, and makes some foot stages seem awkward; nevertheless, they are playable, and it’s not much of a big deal.

Finally, playing by using machines is definitely the most tedious way to play the game. Using vehicles like motorcycles isn’t very annoying, but playing with walkers is a living hell. You move the walker by pressing the R button and aiming with the joy stick, which is really a very an odd way to play; it’s clunky, and the only time of the game were the controls really do suck. You can get stuck and aiming can be the most imprecise thing in the world.

Now to how the game actually works, you can choose different campaigns as you progress in the game, this being by playing as Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles or unlocking bonus levels from medals you’ve acquired in the game; with all these missions you will be either playing them by land, by machines, or by the air.There game isn’t really broken so there’s really not much to say… but there’s one great problem the game has. It gets too hard way too fast; and I’ll mention why. For example, in the game you go by never dying in a mission, to try to complete a mission five to eight times in a row. You only start with three lives, and while some air crafts and machines may recover energy, you can never get any more lives in a mission, and trust me, you’d wish you could get one. In fact, the game would have been a lot more enjoyable if it simply weren’t as hard as it is.

Rebel Strike is too difficult, whether it’s being confused to how to complete a mission to the actual playability of the game. If you’re lucky to actually play the game right you’ll be awarded by a medal, in which medals, depending on the one you get, gives you points for unlocking goodies in the game. Gold Medals give 10 points, Silver medals give you 6, and Bronze Medals give you 3. Getting Gold Medals is literally impossible, there is no way possible one could get one, unless you’re some sort of master player or something crazy like that. But apparently, the game expects you to get them, because it’s not long enough before some bonus missions request large amounts of points; meaning you’d have to turn into a Starwars pro to actually unlock every single mission in the game.

The graphics in the game are ugly. I’ve seen games from 2002 look like a Godsend compared to this game’s graphics, there’s no real excuse. It’s also funny since the cover and back of the game box shows really nice graphics compared to the actual game. The game can also show cut scenes of past movies, and although they look really cool, shouldn’t be the main graphic point of the game.

The music in the game is pretty much one of the most professional things about the game. You’ll be listening to tracks from the original trilogy along with good voice actors and good sound effects. There’s nothing lacking in here.

Overall, Star Wars Rebel Strike – Rogue Squadron III is a pretty good game, but also passable. If you can get past the bad controls of the Walkers and stand the difficulty, you’ll probably find a good game here.

Gamplay: 8.0 A good game in terms of playability. It’s really cool on how you could actually choose between three types of game play, but it could have worked out even better.

Graphics: 6.0 Ugly by the time. In all honestly, facial features are pretty weak and some of it isn’t very pretty to look at. Movie cut scenes are pretty good, though.

Controls: 7.0 Good use of lesser known buttons of the Nintendo GameCube. The controls would have been almos perfect if it weren't for the use of the Walkers, thank God you don't use them as often.

Sound: 9.0 Top Notch stuff. Music from the old trilogy packed with good voice overs and great sound effects.

Overall 7.0: It’s passable, but it’s a good game if you can get past all the issues within it.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja for the Nintendo GameCube

Naruto: Clash of Ninja for the Nintendo GameCube 6.8






Developer: Eighting
Publisher: TOMY
Release Date(s):
JP: April 11, 2003
NA: March 7, 2006
Genre: Fighting:
Modes: Single Player, Multiplayer
Ratings:
CERO: A (All ages)
ESRB: T (Teens)

Chances are, that unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d know there’s a new Dragon Ball Z called ‘Naruto’. If you don’t know what Naruto is, I’ll offer a back story. Naruto is an anime based on a twelve year old ninja that goes by the same name, his dream is to become ‘hokage’, or the best ninja in the village; however this proves to be an obstacle for him since he’s a prankster and everyone else thinks he’s annoying. Now that you know the basic plot of the anime, you’d think that a game based on that would be pretty much awful. You might be wrong just there, though; Naruto Clash of Ninja is actually a pretty decent game.

First I’d like to talk of the origin of the game, Naruto Clash of Ninja was a fighter released in Japan in the year 2003, later re-packaged, dubbed into English and sent for the United States around three years later when the anime series got dubbed into English and became a hit. The game features seven different fighters plus an unlockable one and a different version of one of the seven characters.The fighting game itself is pretty simple, apart from the traditional life bar you have a ‘chakra’ bar in which you can save energy for special attacks and other handy attacks, activating your special attack is extremely easy, just revolving around pressing a simple button when the chakra bar is full, doing combos is also pretty easy and you never really have to look at the combo list. I know what you’re thinking, while the game itself is pretty easy, all characters in the game are very unique and feature different and complex playing styles in which gives the game a good advantage over other anime fighters.

There are some faults of the fighting concept in the game other than the easy nature of it, like the grab attack, honestly, it’s useless and a complete waste of time, chances are you’ll never use it because it does so little damage, and on top of that your enemy can use it to his or her advantage by performing a ‘substitution jutsu’ (A type of move that takes energy from your chakra bar but let’s you dodge some attacks easily).The game features eight modes in total and seven in which you can actually interact with them; it brings the traditional Story Mode, One Player mode, Player against Computer, Training, Survival, and Multiplayer. The Story mode is lacking since it’s just a one player mode with dialogue and just one playable character.

The game also has the lamest unlockables ever, consisting of just unlocking two characters, character profiles, sound test, and unlocking a mural filled with Naruto pictures. Now I have a deal with the mural, because unlocking all the images in it is simply impossible and imprecise, since there’s no hint of how to unlock them except fighting your ass off in ‘One Player’ and ‘Survival’. Speaking of that, the game does get awfully repetitive in One Player mode since that’s practically where you get most of the unlockables in the game.

Overall, Naruto Clash of Ninja is a decent fighting game (Believe it or not) since the characters are really unique in fighting modes, but it gets too repetive and there’s barely any significant unlockables at all. The music in the game is pretty uninspiring but it does have pretty decent voice overs, sound effects are good, and the graphics are actually pretty cool being cell-shaded but then again, pretty simple

.Gameplay: 7.0 Pretty simple stuff, not bad. Newcomers to fighting games will get used to it quite quickly.

Graphics: 6.5 Simple cell-shaded graphics with not many 3-D elements in the game. The game uses constant anime cut outs as well.

Controls: 7.0 Very simple and chances are you won’t get lost at all.

Sound: 7.0 Features bland music for the background, but character voices are pretty decent and sound effects aren’t bad either.

Overall Score: 6.8 It’s a decent fighter and a good example of decent anime videogames. It has its fails in the game but it’s not bad. It’s definitely passable, but Naruto fans should certainly pick this one up if they can.