Let's Play Every GameCube Game, Part 11
Drome Racers (Attention to Detail/EA, 2002)
Attention to Detail is an amazingly ironic name for the dev of a game where the loading screen shows tires clipping through the road. I also think it's hilarious that this is meant to be set in 2015. It's a racing game that's fine until other drivers show up, because every little hit or attack sends your car and the camera spinning off into a wall, which is both visually painful and very unfun to recover from.
Duel Masters: Nettou! Battle Arena (AI/Takara, 2003)
Card battler based on a manga. I can't imagine this was meant to be anyone's introduction to the franchise or the game. It's almost completely lacking in any kind of story, which is bizarre for a licensed game.
Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures (Artificial Mind and Movement/Midway Games, 2005)
Action game based on a cartoon I never watched. I guess it's nice that there are three playable characters, but that's about all it has going for it.
Egg Mania: Eggstreme Madness (HotGen/Kemco, 2002)
You're building a tower from falling blocks to try and reach a balloon above, but enemies and rising water can mess up your tower if you don't fill in each level. You're also an egg, for some reason. It isn't a terrible idea, but the controls don't feel intuitive/natural at all, and that's a fatal flaw in what's meant to be a quick-thinking puzzle game.
Eisei Meijin VI (Konami, 2002)
A very serious shogi game that's full of terms I've never encountered before, which is not surprising given that I don't play shogi. I'm sure it's great if you're a hardcore shogi fan. As for what I can actually evaluate, it has nice music?
Enter the Matrix (Shiny Entertainment/Infogrames, 2003)
Probably best described as a third person brawler. It had tank controls in 2003 and made some truly bizarre decisions like putting shoot on Y. I know this game has its fans, but I am not one of them.
ESPN International Winter Sports 2002 (Konami, 2002)
A collection of winter sports minigames themed around the Olympics. It doesn't have that many events and there's only one male and female competitor from each country for all events, plus a lot of the events are very basic. Not worth spending much time on.
ESPN MLS ExtraTime 2002 (Konami, 2002)
A soccer game based on the MLS season from 19 years ago. It's actually perfectly serviceable in-game and the graphics are acceptable, but really, who out there is going to play an ancient MLS game?
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Silicon Knights/Nintendo, 2002)
One of the canonical "best" GCN games, but also one practically no one bought. I've managed to make it this long without learning almost anything about it beyond that it plays tricks on you at low sanity, so this is the perfect opportunity to finally find out what it's all about.
Evolution Skateboarding (Konami Osaka/Konami, 2002)
A skateboarding game that reviewed terribly, but as someone who doesn't play this genre it seems unremarkable. Apparently it didn't really offer anything new and the controls make good combos awkward. At least it game with a demo for Metal Gear Solid.
Evolution Snowboarding (Konami, 2003)
A combat snowboarding game with death metal. It feels like a parody of something, but it plays itself completely seriously. And it looks terrible.
Evolution Worlds (Sting Entertainment/Ubisoft, 2002)
A port collection of two Dreamcast JRPGs that no one remembers. Combat is generic and the decision to make one of the characters almost never talk kind of limits what they can do with dialogue.
Extreme-G 3 (Acclaim Studios Cheltenham/Acclaim, 2001)
A Wipeout-style racing game with extremely annoying engine noises. I didn't think that problem would follow me from the GBC list. It was received pretty well at the time, but I've never been much of a fan of this genre or of racing games that start put the 1st place AI half the track ahead of you, so I won't be playing more of it.
F-Zero GX (Amusement Vision/Nintendo, 2003)
As mentioned for the last game, I don't really enjoy this genre. Still, it's one of the classic GCN games, so even though I've bounced off of it before, I feel obligated to give it another try and see if I can find what's special about it.
F1 2002 (EA Sports, 2002)
It's a decent racing sim considering the GCN's very limited ability to render far down the track, although I'm not much of a fan of their control layout. It feels like one of the triggers should be gas and break instead of A and B, and that the gear shifts could've gone on the dpad. Still, the bigger issue for it is that this series has evolved so much - even more than other sports games - that this is just a relic now.
The list:
1080° Avalanche
Animal Crossing
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Batman: Dark Tomorrow
Burnout 2: Point of Impact
Charinko Hero
Chibi-Robo!
Cocoto Kart Racer
Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest
Custom Robo
Dark Summit
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
F-Zero GX