darkside

Game of the Month

Tiger Woods 2004 (All Systems) 9.0 9.0 9.5

PS2
Alter Echo (also on Xbox) 6.5 6.5 4.0
Buffy 2 (also on Xbox,GCN) 4.5 6.5 7.5
NHL Hitz Pro (also on Xbox, GCN) 7.5 8.5 8.0
ESPN NHL Hockey (also on Xbox) 8.5 9.0 9.0
NHL 2004 (also on Xbox, GCN) 8.5 6.5 7.0
Futurama (also on Xbox, GCN) 4.5 5.0 5.0
Simpsons Hit and Run (also on Xbox, GCN) 8.0 6.5 7.0
Splashdown (exclusive) 7.0 8.0 6.5
.Hack part 3 (exclusive) 6.0 6.5 8.0
Disgaea (exclusive) 8.5 8.0 7.5

Xbox
Freedom Fighters (also on PS2, GCN) 7.5 8.5 8.0
Nascar Thunder 2004 (also on PS2, GCN) 9.5 8.0 8.0
Great Escape (also on PS2) 4.5 4.0 6.5
Dino Crisis 3 (exclusive) 6.5 6.0 6.5
Otogi (exclusive) 9.0 7.0 9.0

GCN
FZero GX (exclusive) 9.0 7.5 7.0
Billy Hatcher (exclusive) 7.0 8.0 8.5
Mario Golf (exclusive) 8.0 8.0 7.5
P.N. 03 (exclusive) 4.0 5.0 4.0

GBA
Boktai 9.0 8.0 8.5
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 9.0 9.0 9.0
Shining Soul 7.0 7.5 6.5


I'm really upset the FFTA wasn't game of the month. If you ask me something is funny there. It got a flawless review, but only 9s.

Tiger Woods 2004 does look excellent though. There are minor differences in the three, but all three versions are considered great. The Xbox has the slickest visuals (duh), the PS2 has online play, and the GameCube version has GBA connectibility for unlocking tournaments and earning extra cash.

The reason FZero got such low scores is because its too hard. What happened to the days when all games were hard? Anyway it looks like an amazing game from the review just too difficult in the eyes of the reviewers. I've noticed EGM whinning about difficulty a lot lately. I don't mind it being mentioned, but deducting from the score?

Lots of good stuff to buy on all four systems. Enjoy!

Setzer

Yeah EGM has screwed Square out of the GOTM awards in the past. If you recall FFX missed out on the award by a .5 score and was beat by Super Smash Bros Melee, which is a decent game. There were several others...Kingdom Hearts & FFIX come to mind...I'll have to dig up some past issues but I remember the games that beat them out weren't deserving of it.

Not like it matters though...a 9/10 is still a good, solid score but it should have received GOTM over Tiger Woods.

kvrdave

Happy to see Tiger Woods 2004 will be all I could hope for.

Nascar Thunder 2004 might be interesting as well.

Groucho

Yeah, Tiger Woods 2004 looks pretty good. Apparently, it offers a ton of options in terms of what your character looks like. Sounds neat.

Glad I got in on that $19.99 deal from a while back.

Superboy

I thought they were a little too harsh on the Gamecube games.

young

thanks for the list.

--
man... pn03 must suck. i thought it was going to be a premiere game.

Superboy

I played the import. It's not a bad game, there's just absolutely no variety. It's like playing PSO with a hunter by yourself...

darkside

Yeah, me too. Its back up to $49.99 now.

Captain Harlock

Simpsons Hit and Run has been getting pretty good scores from game magazines. Looks like this might be a decent Simpsons game for a change.

Freedom Fighters also got good marks. That looks cool.

rayw69

Got an email from BestBuy.com saying there was a problem with my Tiger order, so I gotta call them up about it. So this deal might be dead, at least for me.

Deftones

can't wait, can't wait, can't wait for FFTA!

Outlaw

Must get Boktai, FFTA, F-Zero GX, Disgea: Hour of Darkness!!!!! .

Tuan Jim

Yeah, the ads and previews for FF look pretty neat. Dunno how they'll handle things controlwise, but I'm looking forward to it.

PalmerJoss

Does anyone know if there will be downloadable content for Tiger Woods on Xbox? I'd pick it up if there were going to be other courses or golfers made available through Xbox Live.

Groucho

It wasn't mentioned in the review, and since EA has not made any of their sports games Xbox Live compatable I doubt it.

jeffdsmith

This is stupid. What a bunch of pansies. It's a difficult game, but in a good way. The game does not "cheat" you, the game is not impossible. Bah!

It's the first game in a long time that actually challeneges me, god forbid we have games that are a challenge. Perhaps all developers should release all their games so they are easy to beat but then you have to replay the same boards at a harder level with cheap AI to unluck stuff.

This is a real bad trend. Games shouldn't have to reduce themselves to the lowest common denominator in order to get a good score.

darkside

Online is only for the PS2 version. I'm guessing its only for online play.

goLUCKY

You may want to give Links a chance. It's gonna have downloadable content and LIVE tournaments.

jediwicz

Deducting points because of difficulty blows. EGM gave IMO a great game (Wario World) 7's because it was to "easy" a couple of months ago and now F-Zero gets deductions for being to "hard".
IGN gave F-Zero straight 9's and 10's. Whatever EGM.

trigun

I tend to feel that in general, IGN gives higher scores than most sites.

I think games should be difficult, but I can see the point that the reviewers made. Seems kind of cheesy to put lots of instant deaths into the last track of a series, and force you to start over after a couple tries.

jeffdsmith

I can agree that people may feel cheesy deaths suck, but after playing this game quite a bit it's not like that. You as a player CAN react quick enough to pull it off on your first try. (Quite awesome feeling when you do.)

We arn't talking about a boss in a game that is designed to kill you no matter what. The course is constant and obviously able to be done. Most won't make it their first time on some courses, it's not a super easy game. I dunno, I don't see as cheesy, rather a challenge that happens to be a step up from the usual.

As a "mature" gamer this is exactly the quality challenging game I look for. I know some play for easy relaxation, to each his own, but I love racing, and I love feeling like I actually beat the game, not just sat through it pushing some buttons.

Chris_D

Does anyone have any comments on Otogi? The IGN review makes it sound pretty swish and the EGM scores are high. Also, how does Disgaea play compared to Final Fantasy tactics?

thanks

Setzer

Well, I played the Otogi demo that came with my latest issue of OXM. I enjoyed it enough that I picked it up along with Soul Calibur 2. I suggest grabbing the mag if you're unsure about buying the game or rent it but I definitely had a blast playing it.

Disgaea and FFTA are both Strategy/RPG's and from what I've read both are excellent games. I didn't even know about Disgaea until just this past week. I understand it has roughly 40hrs of game play and the graphics appear to be similar to that of FFT but polished. I don't know how they will compare in terms of gameplay. This game was created by Atlus and they created the Ogre tactics series which uses the same engine as FFT so their could be some similarities. FFTA, from what I understand, has over 150 hours of gameplay so you're definitely getting the most 'bang for your buck' there. I would pick both of them up hehe that's what I'm doing.

Chris_D

My concern with Otogi is that IGN seemed to keep comparing in to Gun Valkyrie which I thought was decent but struggled with the controls. Apart from that it sounds like a good diversion.

I liked FFT except for the shoddy production values (mainly the translation) and the way the difficulty suddenly seemed to spike up in the middle of the game which killed my interest a bit. No GBA over here unfortunately, although 150 hrs of gameplay is not really a selling point these days considering my backlog . Looking forward to my 5 hrs of silent hill 3 when I get round to it!

Chris

Kromax

Agreed. I think a lot of times they base scores on reputation.