NGC Magazine Issue 109

Introduction

August brought a Mario special, as for his 20th birthday the team previewed 8 brand new Mario games, including the big hitters on DS - Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros as well as several sports games, including Mario Baseball and Super Mario Strikers. They also looked at some of the classic Mario games, including relatively obscure games Mario Clash and Wrecking Crew.

Also this issue, the Time Warp feature was expanded, with Greener back in the fold to look at games from yesteryear. A new section called this month in gaming looked back at a month from Nintendo's history, although there were a few teething problems, as a look back on Issue 21 of Super Play from July 1994 was misprinted as Issue 12 from July 1998. They also looked back on classic parts of games, this time looking at a Classic Level from Jet force Gemini and the intro cutscene from Yoshi’s Island.

In the news they focussed around dispelling rumours about the upcoming Revolution console (what was to become the Wii). The big previews this month were a couple of movie tie-ins, King Kong and The Incredible Hulk. Big games Call of Duty 2: The big Red One and WWE: Day of Reckoning 2 were also previewed.

Over in NGC Pocket, this month’s big review was Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on DS, although it only scored three stars out of five. Fire Emblem on GBA was the only other review scoring four stars. With E3 only just gone, there was plenty of news about new games, including Sonic Rush, plus more information about the upcoming GB Micro.
There were only three Gamecube reviews this issue, with the big star being Killer 7. The obscure shooter scored 84%, with Geraint praising the originality as well as the art direction. Batman Begins (41%) and Medal of Honor: European Assault (62%) were the other UK releases.

There was also a special feature in this issue about Nintendo related crafts, with a lot of gamers creating excellent tributes from all manner of household materials. Killer 7 was also tipped this issue as they went through the whole game from start to finish.