Nintendo Cube Club in LA

Just thought I'd post a quick post-mortem of the LA "Cube Club" Game Cube launch promo.

We drove down to Hollywood last night to check it out. Basically it was a room full of cubes in cabinets (you know the type -- console behind perspex with controller hanging out... big tv). There were probably 40 or 50 of these. There were also a bunch of "private rooms" (maybe six of these) set up with home theatre setups.

Then there was a (really good) PA and a (OK) DJ spinning thumping techno. They were going for a rave vibe... but it was a like a drug and alcohol free rave with no girls Lots of couches though, which was cool. And lights, etc.

Free stuff was thin on the ground. Got a little foam cube thing that you have to put together like a jigsaw, a Gameboy Advance sticker, some cube fake tattoos a cool little demo CD (PC-format movies, but GC size). A lame comic that I can't be bothered reading. Oh wait I checked it's DC "Young Justice". No idea why we got that, but my friend got "Sport Illustrated for Kids" so I guess it could've been worse.

So, games!

There were heaps of peeps (line outside) so the only games I actually played were Pikmin (my main interest in going was to see this game in action) and Monkey Ball. Both were excellent. Pikmin is a really quite novel gameplay concept, and surprised me by being pretty friendly to pick up 'n play.

If you haven't heard about Pikmin, you're a tiny space dude who has crashed in a garden (? - that's what it looks like). You've got to repair your craft, but to that you need to recruit a squad of Pikmin. These are little chaps who grow in the ground. You uproot them with your glowing circle thingie and they follow you around and doing your bidding. By the end of my turns I had like 40 Pikmin, but I believe you can get way more.

The squad AI and pathfinding is top notch, and the animation and effects are cool (watching the Pikmin attack things is both cute and cool).

Monkey Ball was awesome fun. Go Sega! Looks cool, plays great. I played with three complete strangers. We took turns rolling down a kind of ski-ramp and launching into the air. You then split open your ball (like the name suggests in Monkey Ball you play a monkey in a ball) and use it as a glider. You glide down and attempt to land on a target for points. It's tricky and fun, and reminds me of landing in Pilot Wings. No bad thing.

Star Wars looked great. There was a basketball game (NBA Courtside?... can't be bothered checking names) that looked nice, but a bit slow and mannered. Nice looking NFL game.

Wace Race looked good but very first-gen, if you know what I mean. Not as impressive as some of the other titles. I didn't get a hands on, but I imagine it plays like the N64 version. If so, cool, 'coz that was a fun game.

There was a decent looking RPG called "Eternal Dark" (or Darkness, or something). Didn't spend a lot of time looking, and it's not really an RPG (it reminded me of Soul Reaver a little).

Luigi's Mansion looked lower-res than I expected. Also first-gen, I guess. Still there was some nice detail in the environments. The use of a flashlight as a key gameplay element really shows off the power of the cube. The real time shadows and everything look really nice. The game seems to be based on the Ghostbusters vibe of sucking up ghosts. Again I didn't play this hands on so I wasn't 100% sure how it worked. But it looked fun. I've heard it's very short... a sugar rush to hold us over until Mario Sunshine I guess.

Star Fox: Dino Planet (or whatever) was there. The character models were cool and detailed, but the world really showed it's N-64 origins. Low detail geometry, high detail textures. The gameplay resembled Zelda (Ocarina) as much as anything (but I'm sure I'm wrong about that).

Oh, like everyone says, the controller rules -- I like the dual-shock style built in rumble.

Anyway, it was a fun night, and I think anyone would have come away with a favourable impression of the cube.

grib

 

Cool, thanks Grib.

 

hey did you have any problems with the shoulder buttons? i did when i played the cube at etcs

'Drunken idiot walking or staggering HIC,

 

no, they seemed fine to me. In fact, I liked them. The first analog shoulder buttons that had a decent feel to me...

 

Sounds really cool! thx!!/versus/images/icons/wink.gif