Just got back from the Cube Club.
 

The roving Nintendo GameCube tour came to Austin, so I drove up and spent a few hours playing. The giveaways were all the same old stuff I got at EB except for the Metroid shirt I picked up.

The first game I played was Zelda and any doubts I had are gone. Not only does this game look great with Cel Animation, but I'm now thinking it looks much better than the more realistic N64 look and I kind of hope they stick with Cel Animation. Some of the enemies like the Lava Worm (or whatever it is) looked incredible and the game play is the very easy Ocarina style lock on and attack. You can now pick up enemies weapons and use them, but the big sword I picked up broke after awhile.

The demo had five different parts of the game to check out and all of them looked great. This game is definetly looking like its worth all the praise from Japanese reviewers.

The only other major unreleased demo was 1080 Snowboarding. I was far from impressed by this game. The graphics look N64, the game moves like mollases, and the controls couldn't be more sloppy. The 1080 demo was pretty much open the whole time. People would pick up a controller, play for about a minute and quickly put the controller down and walk away. Maybe the final version might be better, but this looks like bargain bin trash from my first impression. The interactive levels are kind of neat, but the two courses on the demo were pretty uninspired and the trick system is pretty weak compared to other Snow Boarding games I played.

All the other games were already out, but I did get to try some games I hadn't really played much. Star Fox Adventures held my interest for quite awhile and I might end up buying this at some point, because its much better than I thought. Had some multiplayer fun playing Godzilla, Mortal Kombat, and Monkey Ball 2. They also had a Wavebird area with Mario Party 4. I was really impressed by Mario Party 4. Much better than I was expecting and as much 4 player fun as you could wish for.

I really didn't like Die Hard (sucked would be the word I would choose). Jedi Outcast, Medal of Honor, and Nightfire were pretty good. Nightfire is probably the only one of the three I would buy though. I liked the assortment of Bond weapons and graphics were incredibly sharp.

The TVs used were really good Panasonic ones and the Sega Sports games looked pathetic next to the ones from EA. Both NFL2K3 and NBA2K3 look terrible when compared to graphics of the EA sports titles. Sega should be ashamed of the poor conversions they did for the Cube. The also had the EA NHL and Knockout Kings up and I liked both games. I got pounded by some 12 year old kid playing Knockout Kings though and would rather not talk about it anymore. :D

Overall it was an interesting experience. I'm not sure if this is really going to help Nintendo's sales overall, but I am sold on Zelda, Starfox, and Nightfire so I guess something good came of it.

Thanks for your impressions. I attended the cube club here in Indy and bascially had the same impressions as you line for line. I talked with one of the "smart" Nintendo hosts about 1080 needing some major work. He took out a pad of paper and wrote down what I was saying, I thought that was cool. He also did tell me that it's a very early build at the show just to generate awareness. I told him it may not be the kind of awarness they need...

I went to the Cube Club in NYC on Friday night. This was a 21 and over affair because of the free beer. I had already played all of the games there except for Zelda and 1080 so once I played those I just played some multiplayer games with my friends and got drunk. Zelda was 100% awesome. 1080 sucked in a lot of ways but it was still fun -- I liked the revamped trick system.

I went there with 3 friends. One was a big Nintendo fan and he had pretty much the same reactions as me. One was a video game player but not a Nintendo fan. He was very impressed, especially by Metroid. The other guy never plays video games. He was awestruck the entire time. He asked why would Nintendo spend all this money (on lights, music, giveaways, HDTVs, beer, etc.). As an answer I asked him if he was interested in the Gamecube now. He said yes.

Oh man, free beer? My gf and I were planning on attending it but didn't go. :(

Yeah, Friday nights are beer night, but unfortunately I had to work and I ended up going on Snapple night. Weeee! :lol:

Was it Snapple with a twist of vodka by any chance? Thanks for the heads up on Friday nights Darkside. I think that there are a few nights planned for NYC.

I went when it was in Phoenix a few months ago before most of the games were out. Free Snapple was cool.

That confirms my suspicions about 1080, i had watched some of the movies and it looked really slow and clunky, but i figured it was that it was different when you play it, but apparently it isn't. I liked the first one, hopefully our resident game designer consultant Jeffdsmith gave them some good pointers :D. its good to see they are actually listening to gamers, hopefully it isn't too late to implement those changes. The music was pretty neat, anyone remember the character selection theme? "Work your body....wo-work your body" it used to get stuck in my head. :)

It sounds like Sega really has to get on the ball about doing good ports. I don't play those kinds of sports games, but you have to wonder why they were surprised when no one bought crap and then they said that they don't sell well.

I wanted to go to the Cube Club in Chicago, but its a 3 hour drive away. I want to play Zelda!!

I went to the one in Phoenix before the games were out too.

It sold me on Metroid Prime and the new Zelda.

Wow that sucks about 1080, I had some big expectations for the game. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next Amped to come out.

The game's not out yet...

I probably won't get to go to one of these being that I am in Louisville, KY(although starting this year we become the 16th largest city in the nation, due to a merger). Hopefully once all that falls into place, we will start to get cool stuff like these events.

Anyway, those that were sold on Zelda, were you sold before you went, or were you hating the new graphics scheme, and thought they should leave well enough alone? i.e., did playing the game change your impression of the graphic switch?

According to Flay's list, it comes out 1/31. That's not too far away. Do you really think they can make it into a great game by then?

Jeff, you know the rule of this forum, if you play an early beta of a game, you are supposed to post a message that says IT SUCKS, and then base all opinions of the game from the early beta, I'm just following the rules my friend. :lol:

Gallant, you should have gone to the Cube Club when it was here (we were in the first batch of cities). It sounds like nothing has changed over the past months since it was here.

I will echo the 1080 feelings. Hopefully it will look better than it did when I played it.

Where was it, MOA?

Yep, across the street in the old Met Center parking lot. Was there for 2 weekends.

I was optimistic about the game before playing it and I was never against the cel animation. Playing the game just reinforced my opinion of it and took away any lingering doubts I had.

To be fair I was pretty positive going in about 1080 and playing it changed my mind, but to be fair the final version of the game may be totally different. I just don't see why Nintendo would put out a demo of a game thats so far from being playable. Its not going to help future sales.

I was also pretty negative about Star Fox and after playing it I really changed my mind and may pick it up.

what were the giveaways?

I thought Zelda was gonna be great despite the graphics style. Now I think the graphics style really adds a lot to the game. Also, my friend who's a big Zelda fan used to whine about the cel-shaded graphcs non-stop. He's singing a new tune after seeing the game in motion.

GP - You are right about the "rules of the forum" I forgot about that.

My comment was is just based on the fact that I think it will improve because, well, it is Nintendo. Yeah, they half have arsed stuff in the past, but it is a rarity.

What I was also considering is that I doubt Nintendo bothers to update the builds of the game as it goes across the country. In other words, yes the game may to scheduled to ship in less then 2 months, but the build we were playing may have been from the beginning of the cube clubs, putting the build closer 6 months old or older. Hell, if Factor 5 can make Rogue Leader 2 in 9 months, more then 6 months should be plenty of time for Nintendo... right?

(I have high hopes for 1080 as I loved the original.)

If 1080 is looking that bad, I highly doubt it will make it's 1/31 release date. It's not like Nintendo doesn't have a history of delaying games.

I wasn't interested in it to start with though, as I burnt myself out on extreme sports games and didn't like the original that well on the N64.

Jeff, what I meant in that question wasn't to be doubtful, I really wanted to know if you think the game was salvagable with some tweaks or whatever. What do you think? And not to sound too superficial, but how were the graphics? If good, maybe they can tweak the gameplay and make it great. If not good, well hopefully the gameplay will be awesome.

How do the graphics compare to Tricky and Amped?

I though 1080 was just dull. There wasn't the sense of speed or control it had on N64. Even the graphics were unimpressive. I played it in November and it doesn't sound like things have improved.

I was excited about Zelda before and after the Cel shaded look because it is Zelda. Even though I wasn't a huge fan of the style I walked away even more excited about the cartoony look because Nintendo pulled it off so well. The game has to be seen in motion to appreciate it.

Worse than both in my opinion. This could also be because it was in progressive scan and hadn't quite gotten the full upgrade to that yet. It just looked crappy...Nintendo might think about leaving this title in the ground if the preview was ANY indication of the final product.