Let's Play Every GameCube Game, Part 9
Die Hard: Vendetta (Bits Studios/Vivendi Universal, 2002)
Licensed FPS with really awkward and floaty gun controls. Oddly, it does let you shoot friendly NPCs for no reason and even animates them dying and everyone else attacking you, but then it auto-fails the mission after a few seconds and resets everything. Might be the first time I've seen a game that lets you do that and then backs out of it so quickly.
Digimon Rumble Arena 2 (Bandai, 2004)
SSB with Digimon, basically. I like that you can evolve mid-fight and that there's simple stage damage effects, but the movepools are much too small and the AI is a moron. Could've used some more time in the oven.
Digimon World 4 (BEC/Bandai, 2005)
A Digimon action RPG that has very long load times between all of its areas even though they're not very big. Combat does not make use of any combos and feels stiff, and it's never very much to look at. Also, the music is barely there. That does not leave much to like about it.
Dinotopia: The Sunstone Odyssey (Vicious Cycle Software/TDK Mediactive, 2003)
I was a big fan of these books around 2003, so I'm glad I didn't know this game existed. It's an action adventure with really finnicky controls, and my setup had a fun glitch where every sound effect would play all at once every time in other sound was made. Not pleasant to listen to.
Disney Sports Basketball (Konami, 2003)
It takes the idea from Strikers of having a team of one known character and a couple generic nobodies playing a sport and ruins it. Your team is completely uninterested in defense, so everyone scores every time, and there's shooting is just pressing one button anyway. The announcer unbelievably obnoxious. This game was quite justifiably dumped on critically, but oddly the GBA version fared much better.
Disney Sports Football (Konami, 2002)
I think the fastest way to communicate this game's quality is to point out that, despite the camera angle, I'm actually the blue team here. Implementing two camera angles as too much, apparently. Everything that was bad about the last game is still bad here.
Disney Sports Skateboarding (Konami, 2002)
In case you were worried they were a one-trick pony, this game proved that Disney/Konami could ruin individual sports as well as team sports! It's an ugly, unresponsive Tony Hawk ripoff, and it still has that awful announcer who never shuts up.
Disney Sports Soccer (Konami, 2002)
This game plays itself to such an extent that I'm not even sure my inputs were doing anything. And yes, it still has the stupid announcer. It actually reviewed much better than all the other crappy sports games, but I have no idea why.
Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure (Toys for Bob/Activision, 2003)
A far more competent skater set inside various Disney/Pixar movies. There's no announcer! It's still not really my genre, but if you absolutely had to play a Disney skateboarding game, there's no contest between this one and Disney Skateboarding.
Disney's Hide and Sneak (Capcom, 2003)
Now we have Capcom teaming up with Disney to give us an incredibly slow-paced stealth game that uses slow-mo to make sure there's absolutely no skill involved. Apparently this was the last game to star Mickey Mouse until Epic Mickey in 2010, and I say good riddance. I doubt anyone starred in more absolute crap on GCN than the Mouse That Would Not Die.
Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse (Capcom/Nintendo, 2003)
The last game may have marked seven years without Mickey, but since this list is not in chronological order, there's still a lot of Mickey left to suffer through here. This one is a slow point-and-click with no text and almost no sound to keep you interested. I hope you really like to watch Mickey trudge across the room and perform basic animations!
Disney's Party (Neverland Co./EA, 2002)
Continuing a trend of stealing from Nintendo, it's a shameless ripoff of Mario Party whose only innovation is being terrible. It's MP with annoying sound effects, worse graphics, and a camera that's remarkably good at not focusing on anything you care about.
PK: Out of the Shadows (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft, 2002)
Here Disney shook things up and shamelessly stole from a mix of Sly Cooper and Ratchet & Clank instead of Nintendo, but it's still crap. The best thing I can say about it is that they at least gave Donald a voice that isn't completely insufferable for once. He just sounds exactly like Daxter now, because of course he does.
Tarzan: Untamed (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft, 2001)
You'd probably guess that this was a game about sliding around on things from the box art and this screenshot, but it's constantly interrupting those sections with slow and uninteresting platforming bits. Not that the sliding parts are very fast either. It'd be a great simulator of Tarzan when he's old and has stiff joints that just don't move like they used to.
Dokapon DX: Wataru Sekai wa Oni Darake (Asmik Ace, 2003)
I love the idea of Mario Party as a JRPG, but the ratio of mechanical depth to how long everything takes just isn't right. You spend ages and ages watching things happen and then get to press two buttons before it's back to watching the computer slowly take its turns.
Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft, 2002)
If you're thinking that this looks unacceptably terrible for a GCN game, that's because it's actually an almost unmodified port of a PS1 game from 2000. And a Crash knockoff. It goes without saying that it's not good. Thankfully, while this is not the last Disney game ever made, it is at least the last one I have to play until Finding Nemo. Any kind of a break from this crap is appreciated after eleven garbage games from one license in the same list.
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