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"I don't speak Japanese, though to be perfectly candid, they chose a pretty bad sound byte to play whenever [Professor E. Gadd] wants to chat. His voice is a cross between the "Tooki-tooki!" bird from George of the Jungle, and an Ewok."
------------------ Sidebar:: ----------------- "Scared ghosts...? One more time, here: scared ...GHOSTS?" Sure, Monsters, Inc. was amusing. It still seems odd to once again see a story where monsters aren't really monsters...or in this case, ghosts that are scared by a mere flashlight. Well, at least your kids may think this is pretty cute...though I'd much more prefer Rogue Leader or Halo. "GameCube uses ATI graphic chipsets; is that the problem...?" Answer: Not by a long shot. I had ATI graphics chips in my computers for years; on at least one, I still do. My brother as well. Their latest Radeon chips give nVidia chips a run for their money, in every fair and impartial benchmark. This could've been a graphically stunning game based on ATI graphic potential. Nintendo just didn't take the time...
----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
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Luigi's Mansion
Click graphic, above, to order this game (Nintendo GameCube) A Techtite Review
Okay, so the Nintendo GameCube is a cute little thing. So, it's not as DVD-compatible, as hard-drive inclusive, or even as big in game size as the X-box. Did Nintendo still have to make their vanguard game for the system so...childish? Regardless, if you don't wince at the thought of scooping up ghosts with a mere vacuum cleaner, Luigi's Mansion is a fun trip through a haunted house, with creeks and things that go "boo!" at every turn. First of all, I must mention the feeling
gamers have upon entering this game; this is not the "Super Mario
2001" we all hoped for (i.e., the most
logical choice of premier game title for the GameCube).
So, what does this vacuum cleaner do? Unless you have a strong joystick finger, not much. Every time you shine your flashlight on a ghost, it gets scared, and you must take that time to scoop them up. Trouble is, you must push your joystick in "the opposite direction" in order to scoop them up properly. Why? I don't have a clue. It's as if the game designers said, "Okay, simply pressing the fire button is too lame; let's make it a fire button-joystick combo!" Got that? If you do, you're halfway through solving the whole game. Is it really that simple? In most cases, yes, it is.
Worst of all,
there are no real "wowser" The truth is, everyone wants to be nice, and give this game either an equal or close-to-equal grade as its opposition (in particular, X-box's Halo). The belief is often that, if we pretend this is as good as the opposition, maybe it will buy Nintendo time until the games improve. However, that mistake has been done before. Remember Crash & Burn on the 3DO, or worse yet, Cybermorph on the Atari Jaguar? Fanboys of those systems blindly praised those games, saying that they were fantastic initial releases for those systems. Then both systems ceased distributing, in less than three years. I do not want the same thing to happen to GameCube, which deserves to have a game worthy of Nintendo's first non-cartridge game system (hopefully...Zelda?). If Nintendo doesn't wish to give such effort, why should most gamers give the effort to play them?
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Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
This is Luigi's
Mansion. Who's Luigi? Diehard classic gamers remember him as the other
of the two "Super Mario Brothers." It's still perplexing that
they'd make him the star of their main attraction for the Game Cube, upon
the launch of the whole system. Luigi is certainly no Mario, as is apparent when the most Sesame-Street-style of
smiley-faced ghosts approaches him in the dark, and he acts as if he's
scared out of his wits. Well, that makes one of us.
Fortunately, he is saved by a little scientist named
Professor Edgar
Gadd. In case you missed it, that's E. Gadd. Gadd doesn't have
any voice lines (???--- Even Princess peach, on the cartridge-game
Mario64, had voice lines!), which means he mumbles the same sound byte
endlessly, as his latest text
balloon flashes across the screen. I don't speak Japanese, though to be
perfectly candid, they chose a pretty bad sound byte to play whenever this
guy wants to chat. His voice is a cross between the "Tooki-tooki!"
bird from George of the Jungle, and an Ewok. The fact that he only
gives you a vacuum cleaner to protect you from ghosts, doesn't improve his
image.
FX, to remind you that this is the
alleged follow-up to Super Mario 64. Now, there was a game way ahead of
its time; from the ripple effect when jumping through paintings, to the awesome grand
finale. Its successor has barely any such moments to speak of. "GameCubists"
might say
in defense, "well, you can see right through the ghosts as if they
were transparent; that's something." Yes, it is...though not as much
as anyone hoped. I admit, I can see a lot more graphic potential here than
I saw in Sega Dreamcast's initial Sonic Adventure, though
considering that Sega ceased manufacturing of its Dreamcast system in less than two years, that
isn't saying much, is it?