PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME
(Ubisoft—GameCube, PC, PS2, Xbox) 9
Related Content
More About
The first Prince of Persia was 2-D; you play The Sands of Time in four dimensions. Plummet into a chasm? Rewind up to 10 seconds and take another leap. This evolution of Enter the Matrix’s bullet-time gimmick rounds out the game’s spectacularly acrobatic play, which finds you running along walls and climbing, dodging, jumping, flipping, and shimmying around enemies and through obstacles. The impeccably intuitive controls make this feel as magical as it looks. With empires like this, who needs revolutions?
R-Type Final
(Fresh Games/Eidos—PS2) 8
A 21st-century 2D shooter: Your insect-like fighter simply scrolls right, encountering enemies that must be showered with bombs and bullets. Yet 101 customizable crafts provide exponentially escalating ways to counter trickster bosses, some of which grow and change organically as you fight them. There are only six levels—some in space, others that involve going underwater—but many difficult-to-find paths through each. And no quarters required.
SECRET WEAPONS OVER NORMANDY
(LucasArts—GameCube, PC, PS2, Xbox) 6 One part History Channel, two parts
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, this flyover necessarily sucks much of the life-and-death from war history’s grand sweep and anonymous tragedy. Whaddya gonna do? It’s the postmortem—pardon me—postmodern condition. Secret Weapons’ assortment of bombing runs, dogfights, and detail missions fly by thanks to an emphasis on arcade-style ease-of-play, but one simply leads into the next. And characters are rendered in black and white: Stoic American Chase (heh-heh), forbidding Germans, pussy Englishmen.
THE SIMS: BUSTIN’ OUT
(EA Games—GameCube, PS2, Xbox) 9
While some games inspire religious devotion, only Sim spin-offs require it. In this saucy console debut update, you can take a disco nap, shower, shit, scooter to Club Rubb, grab ass, go home—mundane or fun, everything recedes into a heartbeat of flushing, snoring, and Simlish. And whether you join the military or “counterculture,” there’s a path to follow; adherents to the latter, for instance, need only keep fit and charismatic. That’s a world worth having faith in.
SSX 3
(EA Sports Big—GameCube, PS2, Xbox) 9
If the only snow you indulge in comes from Colombia, this franchise redesign justifies staying up all night. The winter’s best carve-and-grind title transmits texture, depth, and vertiginous launches with a combination of crisp, vista-encompassing graphics, fine response, and turbulent controller feedback. Dropped onto the slope, you follow signs to competitions or head off-trail and navigate fallen trees (doubling, of course, as rails), huge drops, and, on the third peak, avalanches and yawning chasms. I guarantee you won’t be “board”!
ULTIMATE MUSCLE: LEGENDS VS. NEW GENERATION
(Bandai—GameCube) 8
This is the most homoerotic game ever. Even the male-stripper stereotypes of the WWE can’t compare to Ultimate Muscle’s anime-rendered Village People lineup. The fighter’s fanciful settings, bitchy trash-talking, customizable everything, and series of attacks that culminate in nutty cut scenes bring life to a sometimes plodding genre. Plus, vibrant cel-shaded graphics perfectly complement the Fruity Pebbles sugar-buzz action. Fave character? Kevin Mask, who draws on his “latent power.”
VIEWTIFUL JOE
(Capcom—GameCube) 9
Helmed almost as a hobby by money-makin’ Resident Evil 2 director Hideki Kamiya, this remarkably well-thunk-out 2-D side scroller celebrates purely physical gaming-qua-gaming. Speeding or slowing time, Joe deflects the fists and bullets of comic characters and bosses, scarfs burgers, and completes small but tricky tasks while turning corners and leaping for coins. Smooth, engrossing, tough, and pretty, Viewtiful Joe exceeds every GameCube title except The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
