NBrid

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Written by: Hybrid

Well we all waited again and the "excitement" of Spaceworld
has come and gone. Like every other major GameCube appearance, the same
things happen this year. There was another hardware delay, online plans
were barely touched upon, and we learned something that we never imagined.
Even though this show had the smallest delay and the most playable games,
people are acting a lot more disappointed than they were at E3. Let's
get the bad news out of the way first.

I'm pretty sure 90% of the visitor's of this site do not read my daily
GC info…which is fine. So I'll just have to tell you if you didn't
know already, that GameCube has been delayed again. First at last year's
Spaceworld we all heard the obvious delay of a September release for America,
then at E3 we heard November 5th would be final. Now the true release
date of GameCube is November 18th. The smallest, yet most important delay
yet. What does this 13 day shift mean? Basically it means that it will
come out a week later than Xbox. This could affect sales of the system
drastically. But that's not the only thing that could affect sales. The
REAL flagship title of GC, Smash Bros. Melee has also been delayed to
December 3rd. This one makes sense in that it appeared to be coming out
in America before Japan. Oh and remember how the GC controller was $20?
Well now it's $35…don't ask me why because I have no idea.

So, why the delay? Nintendo says that this delay will help get 200,000
more units out to the public and keep the flow of hardware coming through
Christmas sales. It also allows them to release the system in another
color, black. Although an orange system should follow a month or two after,
spicy orange and clear/indigo controllers will also be available at launch.
Peter Main confirmed that Nintendo would be shipping on November 15th
to retailers and there will be 350,000 of each color GCN at launch. Well
if I have to wait almost 2 more weeks to get a black GC…it's almost worth
it. Oh and you always have to figure this extra time will give developers
a little more polishing time. It took me a while to deal with the delay
but it's not like they canned any games.

Another thing some people are complaining about is the new look for
Zelda. I saw all the screens and intend to see a movie soon, and so far
the game looks pretty damned original. The game we thought was coming
would have played like a very pretty Ocarina of Time. We are used to most
sequels just being a visual upgrade but this new cell shaded look for
the Zelda franchise is pretty interesting. Some people say Link looks
younger while I think he actually looks about 16. It's just he's very
cartoony that you assume the otherwise. This living cartoon approach gives
much more emotion to the series and I've already seen Link to have a much
more diverse personality than just gasping or staring blankly occasionally.
The gameplay is still intact, but right now I have no idea what the story
is like. So if you just want a really sweet looking OoT, I'm sorry. Majora's
Mask was only original because of the time aspects and mask collecting.
Where else can you go but a living cartoon?

Just as I suspected, Marionette ISN'T a Mario game. It is "marionette"
game utilizing a puppet. Miyamoto wants this game to be simple..yet complicated..who
knows how he will do that.

How could I mention Mario without mentioning Mario Sunshine? Miyamoto
said a while ago that he felt the Mario series applied towards mostly
younger people and he'd like to make him "more grown up" to
apply to all ages. How does he do this you ask? Well first off you've
got to name the game Mario Sunshine, reminding players of the dreaded
solar radiation that destroys crops and causes skin cancer throughout
the world. Second you have to make Mario's voice just a liiittle higher
than in Mario 64 in order to strike fear in hearts of your enemies. Finally
you put a goofy clear sun harnessy type object…OF DEATH on his back. Seriously
though, the game looks great in action. It seems to utilize the wall jump
a lot more than Mario 64 did. The strangest part is…he's running around
an area you'd expect to see in Sonic Adventure. Yet again, Nintendo is
trying to completely change one of its franchises to avoid monotony. The
game comes out this coming summer in Japan. It's sure to kick ass.

So what about Metroid? The game was shown for a whopping 2 seconds this
time. Only it was gameplay, not FMV. I have not seen this 2 seconds of
footage but I hear even now it is close to cg quality. Miyamoto even had
the full tape in his bag but was advised not to show it. This adviser
has mysteriously disappeared. The game is slated for late 2002 but knowing
Nintendo, with Zelda definitely coming out Christmas of 2002, expect to
not see the final Metroid game until early 2003. Sometimes I just hate
how they know we will buy a certain game so they push them far enough
apart just so we buy them all…it sickens me.

At least one of you must be wondering what the hell happened to Pokemon
on GameCube? I will give you a quote and you decipher it:



"Our main focus of today was the international software to be introduced
by this year. That's why we didn't include Pokemon and several other projects,"
said Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. "But in the future we are
going to show something on GameCube Pokemon. Of course, we have shown
it once or twice and today we didn't show, so in that case please suspect
there is something about it that isn't decided and something not yet ready
to be shown. When it's ready, we will show it."



This basically means the game is really deep and you shouldn't expect
to see any of it for a long time. Hmm, the pattern of 2002 seems to be
Starfox, Mario, Zelda. Metroid and PD2 fit somewhere around Zelda so where
will Pokemon show up? Right now…I personally don't care.

One big problem with E3 was that Nintendo did not announce too much 3rd
party information. Sadly the delays made people forget that Soul Calibur
2 is coming to GameCube. Rumor has it that the game was actually running
on GC hardware. After seeing pictures, this game looks amazing and since
Namco has had kits for about a year now, this game is pretty far along.
Most of the 3rd party news has trickled out between E3 and now but you
can check out
nintendo.com/spaceworld for a "full" games list.
Some are excited about Sonic Adventure 2 while others wish it could be
Sonic 3 instead. The game is currently a very early port but I feel that
Sonic Team could pull off a full revamped port within 4 months. However
I doubt it will release this year.

A mystery of this year's show has to be the fact that neither Perfect
Dark Zero or Resident Evil Zero were not shown in any way. Now I could
make a corny joke about the coincidence in their names but the games are
still confirmed and RE0 is still exclusive to GC. Oh but Capcom showed
that Mickey game that everyone is dying to play (insert sarcasm here).

Well that is the gist of this year's show with the obvious exception
of screenshots. When you compare Spaceworld to E3, what comparisons can
you draw? SW revealed more 3rd party plans, SW finalized the GC colors,
there were more polished playable games, the delay was a lot shorter,
and we realized that the only reason E3 was so big for us Nintendo fans
was because it showed Nintendo truly is in game. SW could be seen as a
letdown for many because after seeing so much new stuff, we want it as
soon as we can get it. The closer you get to the system launch, the worse
a delay can be, no matter how long. The system may not sell as well for
the mainstream gamers this November because they say, "Well if I'm
going to put a large sum of money down on something, it better come out
the day I am at the mall." Others of us may not buy the system at
launch because the game we wanted was delayed. Even though only 2 launch
games were delayed, they were my personal favs (Starfox and Melee) but
I'll still get the system at launch. I plan on getting a black system
with an extra orange controller, WaveRace, and possibly another game.
Waiting truly is the hardest part, but after almost 3 years, a couple
weeks can't seem that bad.