By now we're all somewhat familiar with the unlucky simian quartet of Super Monkey Ball. They're obscenely adorable, baby-voiced tykes that can't seem to escape the glass ball / perpetual hamster wheel that encases them. Usually, you'd be tasked with wheeling them through a floating, twisting maze (like the wooden Labyrinth board game), but this time the primates are rolling into some Mario-style platforming. Super Monkey Ball Adventure keeps the little guys inside their round prisons, but ...
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14 Mar 2006

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent

GC Preview | Splinter Cell 4

Splinter Cell shares the spotlight with Metal Gear Solid as the other major force in stealth-action gaming - and the more realistic one of the two. It's also maturing as a franchise. Sarcastic middle-aged super spy Sam Fisher has only grown more short-tempered in each of the series' first three entries. Meanwhile, the Splinter Cell gameplay has in turn expanded to a more open-ended, replayable experience that culminated in last year's Chaos Theory. In Chaos Theory, Fisher's character was much ...
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10 Mar 2006

Teen Titans

GC Preview | Teen Titans

"Back in my day,” say the oldest of the old-school gamers, “all we had was the local arcade, and we loved it! We happily dropped 25 cents a game to get our asses handed to us." Those days of traveling places to play games are gone, but a property from about the same by-gone era, the recently revived Teen Titans comic book franchise, will try to bring the arcade-style button-masher glory days back. Just because it's an old idea, it isn't necessarily a bad one. In Teen Titans, you ...
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9 Mar 2006

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

GC Preview | LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

Slicing plastic robots into tumbling bricks as a miniature and rather angular Obi-Wan Kenobi plugs into that "pure fun" part of our brain in the same way that building forts out of couch cushions used to. Lego Star Wars drew out that imaginative joy with ease, and now we get to do it all over again ... but with the original trilogy of Star Wars ...
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9 Mar 2006

Harvest Moon: Magical Melody

GC Preview | Harvest Moon: Magical Melody

Bored of staking half-naked vampire chicks through the hooters? Tired of lugging around furniture sized sci-fi laser cannons, exploring dwarf riddled netherworlds and bending your Lamborghini round a flag pole? Then why not become a farmer and nestle yourself in this quiet little town filled with helpful country folk just looking to make ends meet? This is a game that moves at a pace you dictate. Rise at 6 A.M., till the dirt, plant some seeds and carry on with your daily farming routine. The ...
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9 Mar 2006

Odama

GC Preview | Odama

We love pinball. We love strategic battles. Nintendo is betting that when Odama combines the two, we'll love the new concoction as well. The game has been lurking in the file marked 'coming soon' for a while now, gradually gaining new features and visual polish. But the core gameplay, in which players use a giant metal ball to knock down enemies, looks so weird and addictive that the wait should be worth it. There is a story behind the strange proceedings; something about feudal intrigue. ...
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9 Mar 2006

Baten Kaitos II

GC Preview | Baten Kaitos 2

Baten Kaitos wasn't exactly wheeled out with much of a fanfare, which, frankly is a something of a shame considering it's easily one of GameCube's better RPGs. Even if it was a little, well, odd. Soon, the oddness will continue in Baten Kaitos II. On the surface it's a fairly traditional RPG. A vast, sweeping epic played out on pre-rendered backdrops. You have the obligatory towns in which to purchase items, meet characters and further plot development, and between these you have the game's ...
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3 Mar 2006

X-Men: The Official Game

GC Preview | X-Men The Official Game

Ever since Nightcrawler teleported his way through the White House, drop-kicking and hip-tossing countless armed guards along the way in X2, he's been the one X-Man everyone's wanted to control. And while the past X-Men movie games have been a bland sort, Nightcrawler's inclusion may make the third film's tie-in action game a must-play. For those not in the comic book loop, Nightcrawler's a blue-furred, teleporting, acrobatic mutant who can literally be in two places at once. Guiding him ...
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2 Mar 2006

Rampage: Total Destruction

GC Preview | Rampage Total Destruction

You don't have to love classic monster moves to enjoy Rampage: Total Destruction, but it helps. Midway unleashed a fresh batch of screens for its old-school building basher in late February, and we got a little bit of hands-on time to go with 'em. Total Destruction sticks close to Rampage's arcade roots; players control giant monsters (more than 25 of them, including giant sharks and octopi) as they go on a nearly brainless tear through modern metropolii, smashing buildings, eating people, and ...
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2 Mar 2006

Naruto: Clash of Ninja

GC Preview | Naruto: Clash of Ninja

If you ever want to know what the next big thing is going to be, figure out what was cool in Japan at least a year ago. Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z took over gamers' minds there well before kids were lining up for Pikachu pajamas and Budokai in the United States. Flash forward to 2006, and it looks like yet another anime series is set to dominate Cartoon Network. Naruto, (think ninja Hogwarts) has already begun its inevitable ascension from Borders shelf-stuffer to superstar franchise. The ...
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