12/6/2006: GameCube: Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, The, Mario Party 7, Super Mario Strikers

[VideoGameCritic]

This is for the people who think I've been ignoring the GameCube.  I have more GameCube reviews on the way.  Let's hear what you think!

[Michael D]

Nice Reviews, but there are a couple of things I need to mention.

 

1. Mario Party first hit the N64 in 1999, not 1998. 

2. "There aren't many games like Grim Adventures on the market" is simply not true.  There have been tons of Power Stone rip-offs (many based on popular licenses) over the past couple of years (and even pretty recently), like Rave Master, the One Piece fighting games, Kung Fu Chaos, Loons: Fight for Fame, Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction etc etc.

 

And finally, more of an observation than anything.  Didn't it drive you crazy that Nintendo short-changed us in the Gamecube era by not incorporating voices into their games? They had the technology and space to do more than just reading dialog text, but they rarely took advantage of it. Talk about underutilizing your system's capabilities.

 

[a1]

[QUOTE=Michael D]

They had the technology and space to do more than just reading dialog text, but they rarely took advantage of it. Talk about underutilizing your system's capabilities.

 

[/QUOTE]

If you want to hear Mario Talk, just watch the old cartoons. Personally, I'm really glad Nintendo stuck with no voice acting. Have you ever played Sonic Adventure? I wanted to throttle Sonic with one hand and Tails with the other, which would have left me with no hands to choke Amy and Eggman. The voices were awful. Plus, Mario and Link don't talk in any games. Once again I think this is a wise choice by Nintendo.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=a]

If you want to hear Mario Talk, just watch the old cartoons. Personally, I'm really glad Nintendo stuck with no voice acting. Have you ever played Sonic Adventure? I wanted to throttle Sonic with one hand and Tails with the other, which would have left me with no hands to choke Amy and Eggman. The voices were awful. Plus, Mario and Link don't talk in any games. Once again I think this is a wise choice by Nintendo.

[/QUOTE]
100% agreed.  If it isn't done well with voices like Snake and Master Chief, then the voices will be terribly annoying.  Look at Link in the cd-i games, or Sonic in the Adventure games, or Frogger in the new Frogger ones.  Cartoon character voices in games are almost always sucky and should be avoided. 

Regarding the Mario Party 7 review, I do think this one has the 2 most fun boards I've played in the series personally.  The one where you ride the chainchomps is a hit with my friends, as is the "buying windmills" board (which quickly becomes a bidding war), but then, I haven't played some of the games. 

The mic games do suck for me, as I have a VERY strong Irish Newfoundland accent and the game never has a clue what I'm saying.  It can't even understand when I say "fire" (once the counter went all the way down without it once picking up on that one simple word no matter how many ways I said it). 

[Paul Campbell]

Dave, your review of Billy and Mandy sure suggests a higher grade than a C+.  Maybe you should include a few more negative things about the game to justify it, or raise the grade.  The whole review was praise except for one sentence about not being able to tell what's going on on the screen, which isn't even that big of a deal for this kind of game.

I also agree that it was a GOOD move on Nintendo's part not to mess with voice acting too much. 

[Chicken Warrior]

Yes, the Mario Party series is overrated. Yes, it hasn't really evolved...but D+? I'm really surprised Nintendo redid the mic thing (it was a total flop in 6, too), but even without the microphone there's a lot of gaming for your buck. And undoubtly, it is still Mario Party. To justify such a low score, MP 7 would have to be worse than other GC Mario Party games, in my opinion. And it's not the sort of series where anyone actually buys all the games. They just pick and choose, and I don't think they'd be any worse off with 7 than 4, personally. I think a C+ would be more accurate.

Just my 2 cents.

[Michael D]

Good points about the voice-over thing, but to me, I got the sense that Nintendo teased us with it just enough in some of their games that it was kind of disappointing that they didn't go all the way with it.  For example, Super Smash Bros Melee and Super Mario Sunshine had great voices in there; wouldn't it have been nice for them to use them to their fullest extent like in Star Fox Assault?

 

By the way, I can certainly understand the arguement on Nintendo choosing not to use voice-overs, but I'm really curious who can defend their underutilization of the audio.  Again, Super Smash Bros Melee and Star Fox Assult had wonderful orchestral and/or instrumental music; wouldn't all their other games be enhanced with that same level of quality? 

[a1]

Don't even get me started on Mario Party. I liked the first 2 back when I was 8 years old, but even those piss me off now. I get incredibly bored waiting for people rolling, and it's even worse if it's computers. Party games can be fun if it is just a lot of well done mini-games, rather than a few really fun mini-games (bumper ball was always one of my favorites) and a bunch of button mashers, all thrown into a board game. The board game part just isn't fun; I might consider playing one if I didn't have to hit dice blocks.

[chrisbid1]

a C+ is a good grade on this site

[JustLikeHeaven1]

Critic I think these are three of your best reviews.  Each one made valid points,entertaining and most importantly well written.  Nice work man.

You seem to pick up quite a few games that are aimed at younger audiences (Grim Adventures, Scooby Doo, Finding Nemo etc...) why is that?  Do you do it simply for diversity at the site or do you just take a chance every now and then?  By the way your review of Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy really made me want to buy that game.  I always found the show gross and funny (kind of like a sub-par Ren and Stimpy) and the game looked decent enough...but your review has pushed me towards buying it.

Reading your review of Super Mario Strikers made me think of the excellent game that it so blatently ripped off, Sega Soccer Slam.  If you compare the two title you will find them to be very similar...except the one with Mario sold like hotcakes and the other one is a buried treasure in most people's libraries. 

I would also like to note that reading your Mario Party review made me think of how awesome that game could be on the Wii...The remote and nunchuck would work perfectly for minigames.