Electronic Gaming Monthly (August 2002)

Electronic Gaming Monthly (August 2002)

Electronic Gaming Monthly was perhaps the most popular and certain one of the longest lasting video game magazines in the U.S. The first issue came out in the late 1980s and it continued publication into the 2000s. The August 2002 issue includes:

Features

• Miyamoto's Angels - Referring to Nintendo's popular franchises Metroid, Mario and Zelda. This article previews the new games coming soon in those franchises to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance including Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube), Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (GBA), Metroid Prime (GameCube), Metroid Fusion (Game Boy Advance), Legend of Zelda (GameCube), and Zelda GBA.


• The First GameCube and Xbox RPGs - Morrowind for the Xbox (but honestly, your better off playing it on a PC) and Lost Kingdoms for the GameCube are a couple of the first major RPGs for those platforms.

_{Table of Contents from the August 2002 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly}

Departments

• Editorial - Looking at trends in video games, both good (adult themes in games) and bad (poor licensed games...but this has almost always been a trend).


• Letters - Letters from readers about Tony Hawk 4, cel shading, Star Wars games, the Final Fantasy movie, and much more.


• Press Start - The top news this month includes highlights from E3, and update on the PlayStation 2's success, Microsoft pushes online gaming with the Xbox and new games like Unreal Championship, Nintendo pushing new games in major franchises but lacks online presence (Phantasy Star Online is the only online game at the time). For the GBA, more games are being released that make use of the GB/GBA link. Get extras in Animal Crossing and Phantasy Star Online.


• Gossip - Quartermann speculates on rumors including Sonic retiring from Adventure games; Rare to start developing games for multiple systems; Doom III for the Xbox; and more.


• Review Crew
  • PlayStation 2
  • Aggressive Inline - Like Tony Hawk games but with inline skates.
  • Britney's Dance Beat - A pretty terrible music based game.
  • Dropship: United Peace Force - A combat vehicle sim in which you not only pilot aircraft but drive ground vehicles as well.
  • Endgame - A light gun game that you probably don't want.
  • Freekstyle - Kind of like SSX but with dirt bikes in instead of snowboards.
  • Legion: The Legend of Excalibur - A Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance like action/RPG that unfortunately does not live up to that comparison.
  • Fire Blade - A 3D combat helicopter arcade game.
  • The Mark of Kri - A 3D action adventure game that earns EGM's 'Game of the Month'.
  • MLB Slugfest 20-03 - A baseball game on steroids.
  • MX SuperFly Featuring Ricky Carmichael - A motocross sim with unrealistic physics...but fun to play.
  • Shifters - A not so great action/RPG.
  • Xbox
  • Test Drive - A continuation of the Test Drive series that I started playing on the Commodore 64. This one is comparable to Burnout.
  • Crazy Taxi 3 - A great sequel in a great series.
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - An excellent RPG from the PC world. The Xbox version is excellent...it's just that the PC version is better.
  • GameCube
  • Bomberman Generation - There have been a great many Bomberman games over the Years. This is one of the better ones.
  • Lost Kingdoms - A new and somewhat unique RPG for the GameCube.
  • Game Boy Advance
  • Guilty Gear X: Advance Addition - A decent portable 2D fighter.
  
  
• Tricks - Infinite grenades in Resident Evil, play as Laura Croft in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, several secrets for Jedi Starfighter, increase the size of your stolen-car collection in GTA3, Bonesaw in Spider-Man, strategies and clues for Eternal Darkness, unlock hidden wrestlers and arenas in Wrestlemania X8, plus tons of codes, GameShark codes, and questions answered by the Game Doctor.

_{Back cover of the August 2002 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly}

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SSX 3 (Electronic Arts)

SSX 3 (Electronic Arts)

SSX 3 is a 3rd person snowboard racing game that was released by EA in 2003 for various systems, including the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. As the name would suggest, this is the 3rd game in the series though the second game was called SSX Tricky. As far as this type of game goes, this was one of the best. It received very high ratings and sold well. I'm not much of a fan of sports game in general but this one plays more like a racing game. I happen to like racing games. If you like racing games then you may like this game regardless of your feelings about snowboarding or sports games in general. However, a significant component of the game is performing tricks both during races and as part of separate freestyle events. This is an excellent example of the genre so if you have any interest at all this one is worth giving a shot. The good news is that there is even a recent release of this game in the form of an enhanced Xbox One port that was released in 2018. Otherwise, an original copy for the Xbox, PS2 or GameCube shouldn't be too hard to track down either. The image at the top is from Girls of Gaming and features Elise, one of the characters from the game. Screen shots are from the GameCube version of the game.

Vanessa Z. Schneider (P.N.03)

P.N.03 is perhaps one of Capcom's more obscure games. However, that obscurity comes from the fact that this title was released exclusively on the GameCube and was not one of Capcom's better games. P.N.03 was released in 2003 and is short for Product Number Zero Three. It is more or less a fairly generic third person shooter and the plot bears at least a passing resemblance to I Robot (the Will Smith movie) with a little bit of Orphan Black thrown in. Though to be fair, this game preceded both.

In P.N.03 you take the role of Vanessa Z. Schneider (pictured above from Girls of Gaming) who is hired by an unknown client to destroy the robots of Computerized Armament Management System that have run amok. Along the way Vanessa discovers a clone of herself and receives a message from her client who also appears to be a clone and the plot thickens. However, it doesn't really go anywhere because that's the end.

Because of financial problems Capcom was having at the time, development for this game was rushed. The rather shallow plot is one of several problems with the game. Despite the intriguing sounding twists described above, the game is really just about blowing up robots, not that there is anything wrong with that. P.N.03 also had some odd gameplay mechanics like not being able to shoot while moving. There was also an emphasis on defensive action which seems a little odd when you are supposed to be destroying robots. At the end of the day, there was just too little variety and too much repetition. However, the gameplay may remind you of more classic arcade play, just with updated graphics.

P.N.03 has never been re-released as far as I know. It was the first game of the "Capcom Five" which were five games that were originally supposed to be exclusive to the GameCube and introduce new intellectual property. Of those five games, one was cancelled and only P.N.03 remained exclusive to the GameCube. P.N.03 can still be had pretty cheaply. It may be one of those games destined to rise in price though as it never sold particularly well and despite its flaws, it really isn't a bad game.

Electronic Gaming Monthly, Number 152, March 2002

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The March 2002 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly

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