GamesRadar - GameCube Reviews

Shrek 2: The Game (Review)

Jun 21, 2004

We're suspicious of any game that tells you to collect X amount of Ys within the first five minutes of the start. So when we came to Shrek 2 - which commands you to collect a bunch of eyeballs as its opening task - we really didn't hold out much hope.However, despite being pretty similar to Asterix in both its collecting marathons and its reliance on repetitive battling, Shrek 2 does have one thing going for it. That one thing being that it isn't a complete disaster.It's hardly going to win any ...

Shrek: Smash n' Crash Racing (Review)

Feb 27, 2007

Hows this for an award-winning premise for a game? Shrek and The Gingerbread Man seeing who can hold their breath the longest… Donkey showing up with the Fairy Godmothers magic wand… Donkey waving the wand around and – you guessed it – summoning up a swamp beast, a Cinderella-esque kart and a giant cupcake on wheels. Just the kind of respectful swansong the poor old GameCube deserves for its final ...

The Sims 2 Pets (Review)

Nov 3, 2006

Cooking, cleaning and using the toilet are, we hope, not the highlights of most people's lives. Why, then, do we find it so fascinating to watch those modern day sea monkeys, the Sims, go about these same insignificant routines? It all comes down to fundamentals - gameplay and presentation. Ordering a Sim to serve dinner to his family, take out the garbage and then hit the john is so effortless and intuitive that, in the same span of time, you could also specify for him to serve grilled cheese ...

The Sims 2 Pets (Review)

Oct 19, 2006

Thursday 19 October 2006 The first thing we thought when we woke up this morning was: today, we really want to play a game where you not only have to clean yourself, go to the toilet, do the dishes and tidy the house, but also clean the dog, feed the dog, take it for walks, play with it and then let it sleep on your bed because you can't afford a dog basket. Then we realised we were half asleep. Because that sounds like a dull and dreary life, let alone a game to play for fun.More tedious than ...

Smuggler's Run: Warzones (Review)

Apr 11, 2006

You're screaming through dense, sun-drenched Vietnam forest, army jeeps hot on your trail. There are two paths up ahead - one's a massive hill that looks impossible to climb, the other's a valley that's loaded with border patrol cronies. In a split-second decision, you go for the hill, your truck's engine roars in contempt but drags over the top anyway, launching you off a cliff and safely to your contraband drop zone. Mission accomplished. Smuggler's Run: Warzones is boiling over with moments ...

Sonic Riders (Review)

Mar 27, 2006

What was once a great and respectable franchise has now become a dumping ground for half-baked games. Sonic Riders straps the world-famous, sonic-booming hedgehog onto a hoverboard in the hopes of creating a blow-your-hair-back, thrill-a-minute mix of Mario Kart and snowboarding trickster SSX. It's fast all right. And loud, too. But everything else that matters (control, course layout, decent multiplayer ... you name it) comes up dead last. The various hoverboards, or "Extreme Gear," ...

Spartan: Total Warrior (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

Spartan is nothing but a killing machine. We cant say if its because he has no real name, if someone said he'd never make it in a third-person hack-and-slash game because he's not as pretty as Russell Crowe, or what. What we can say is this: the only way his countrymen could have designed a more effective tool for relieving Roman soldiers of their limbs would have been to attach giant razor blades to an airplane propeller. This meaty brand of third-person action slaughter is executed via the ...

Spider-man 2 (Review)

Jul 15, 2004

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? No, not Peter Parker's initial encounter with a radioactive arachnid, but those priceless first minutes after Spider-Man 2's opening cinematic, where you meet Treyarch's impressive (not to mention ambitious) new rendition of Manhattan head-on. As you may already know by now, this latest Spider-Man game has 'gone GTA', offering an expansive, free-roaming environment. Standing on top of one of the game's hundred or so skyscrapers, you await the end of the ...

SSX: On Tour (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

SSX: On Tour is a fantastic game... but scratch beneath the surface veneer and its definitely an evolution rather than revolution. Yet youd be forgiven for assuming the latter. First up is the new skiing option. There are those in the boarding fraternity that cant abide their cousins on skis and imagine that the introduction of the two-footers into their extreme sports games tantamount to collaboration with the enemy. But apart from shelving this outdated view (hey - we all love the snow, ...

Star Fox: Assault (Review)

Apr 4, 2005

Eight years! That's how much time has passed since Star Fox 64 made us even bigger fox fans than the Countryside Alliance. Now the Cornerian government has once again summoned the Star Fox armada to rescue the Lylat System from the assimilating alien aparoids. Cue the usual mix of galactic flying, blasting and... running?You see, Nintendo have entrusted Namco to take care of one of their crown jewels, and the new boys have certainly spiced things up a bit. Only a few of the levels now remain ...

Super Mario Strikers (Review)

Mar 24, 2006

We've seen Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom pals infiltrate every sport under the sun, from tennis to baseball to golf. Now it's soccer's turn to get a makeover and the result is yet another approachable sports title that flies high when you've got a group of friends going at it. Super Mario Strikers does to soccer what Mario Kart did to racing: make it completely nuts. You choose a captain (Mario, Luigi or one of the other headliners), pick their supporting players and take turns abusing the ...

Super Mario Sunshine (Review)

Mar 15, 2006

Back when Super Mario Sunshine was released in 2002, signs were everywhere that Nintendo had finally, unequivocally lost its freaking mind: Link's recently revealed Wind Waker makeover; Metroid Prime's apparent reinvention as some sort of first-person shooter; Mario's weird water cannon and sudden tree-hugging tendencies. Years later it's much easier to peg Sunshine for what it actually is: one of the most entertaining, satisfying, and solid 3D platformers ever made. The plot is simple: Some ...

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (Review)

Aug 14, 2006

Super Monkey Ball ruled, and that's a fact. It was polished to a sheen, it was tightly focused, and it had cute monkeys. Unfortunately, Super Monkey Ball Adventure, the latest entry in Sega's simian series, can only stake a claim to one of those merits. Taking the series in a more modern direction, Adventure offers up a lengthy story mode wherein you roam large environments in a rolling capsule, completing objectives to unlock further large environments. Trouble is, it lacks the series' former ...

Super Smash Brothers Melee (Review)

Mar 14, 2006

If there's one thing Nintendo fans (select GamesRadar editors included) can't get enough of, it's more Nintendo. Its reliable stable of characters has been glued into multiple generations of gamers and nothing revels in this quite like the free-for-all, fighting madness of Super Smash Bros. Melee. From beginning to unreachable end this is one giant tribute to Nintendo and its fans. The four-player battles feature the company's biggest stars from Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and ...