From Japan comes yet another unique concept for the Gamecube. Doshin the Giant was possibly the most famous game on the ill-fated 64DD add-on and yet it was a pretty dire effort. Now 4 years on the game has been completely overhauled for the next generation Nintendo system and, thankfully, all of the negatives have been extinguished to create a very positive gaming experience. The basic story of Doshin The Giant is fairly straightforward. You play as Doshin, a big yellow giant designated to oversee...

Dave Mirra BMX 2 revolves around doing tricks on a BMX bike, with an initial Tony Hawks feel to it, but after a short amount of play it is clear that Dave Mirra has carved its own niche and style. Doing basic tricks on bikes in real life is not difficult to learn, although the learning process can be fairly painful, but the more adventurous, sick and dangerous moves will only ever be pulled off by a few skilled individuals who have spent years mastering their art.
However, learning a def...

In certain circles, Need for Speed on the 3DO is considered a classic. Combining a true sense of speed with busy roads and pursuing police, thrill based road racing hasn't been bettered. BurnOut is a homage to the EA classic, taking the arcade race gameplay and bringing it to the GameCube.
There are two schools of thought on what a racing game should be. The first camp believes a good racing game is about tuning performance, brake discs and gear ratios. The second thinks to race is to li...

Rocket Punch were a small Chinese developer with no games under their belt when they launched the Kickstarter for the then-named Code: HARDCORE. Details were scarce, but the kickass art, and the promise of sidescrolling fast-paced giant robot action was enough to draw backers in, including myself. While still under development the game garnered several awards wherever it was shown, and after a change of title due to Japanese copyright laws, delays typical of Kickstarter projects, and Arc...

There used to be a time when the phrase “Bomberman is great” could be declared with pride. Unfortunately nowadays (edit: first published 2002), along with “Star Wars is great, apart from The Phantom Menace”, you have to say “Bomberman is great, apart from the two N64 versions”. Fortunately this year, not only has George Lucas redeemed Star Wars to a certain extent with Attack of the Clones, but Hudson Soft have also returned Bomberman to greatness with Bomberman Generations.
Undoubt...

The N64 had a minute library of fighting games and the handful that were available generally failed to impress. With that in mind, owners of the Gamecube will be pleased to see signs of some decent support in that genre within the early stage of its life. First up is the latest edition to the Bloody Roar series. Its origins date back to the Playstation, with a number of sequels on both of Sony's machines. Now the PS2 game, Bloody Roar 3, has received a major overhaul and has been released onto the...

Time can be a funny thing. Almost an enigma in itself. On the one hand, it can present the past as if very recent, on the other, it can make only yesterday seem almost a lifetime ago. These may be weighty words but it is these kinds of thoughts I seem to have been consistently dwelling on since I began playing this updated edition of the survival horror classic. Biohazard (Resident Evil in the west) was released back in 1996, when people were hunting each other in Quake 2 or discovering the brave,...

When both Mario Sunshine and Beach Spikers arrive on the same day an interesting dilemma arises. On one hand you have the latest title from Sega favourites AM2 and on the other you have the eagerly awaited next instalment of Mario that you've been waiting six years for, which to play first? Since you just know that Mario will be impossible to put down from the moment the game begins, Beach Spikers gets the first nod, just for a quick go you understand. Ten minutes later and things are going well,...

Based loosely around the Houshin Engi anime, Battle Houshin promises Dynasty Warrior style game play and is Koei's first Gamecube effort. The story appears to be your usual good versus evil plot. An evil warlord and his minions have gained control of a powerful globe shaped weapon of mass destruction in an attempt to take over the land. From the start the game boasts a choice of 4 playable characters. As seems extremely common these days, they are based around the elements. ...

The first Blaster Master landed in 1988 on the NES. It gave control over a nimble tank in sidescrolling stages and the tank's pilot in overhead stages, providing players with two distinct playstyles that mixed of exploration, platforming, and enemy killing, something that would be described as Metroidvania today. Blaster Master proved popular enough to receive multiple sequels, the last being re-imagining of the first game on the Wii in 2010. Fast forward to 2017 and Inti Creates released Blast...