IGN

• PS2
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Not a lot to dislike here, honestly, unless you have a rabid aversion to golf. This is a very well-done golf game in the simulation mode, and one with a particularly friendly attitude towards newer players. They'll appreciate the tutorials and intuitive gameplay, while I expect advanced players will like the more detailed options available to them. Everyone should get a kick out of the career-oriented challenge features, and speed golf is there for multiplayer fiends. It remains only to look forward to next year, when the series should only get better -- particularly, if we're lucky, better visuals and more courses. The partially 2D PC Tigers still do dwarf the selection of holes on tap here, even though the 3D presentation makes up for that and then some. No point in letting what might be get in the way of what is, though, particularly when what we have here is so good.

• XBOX
• 8.8 / 10
• États-Unis

I enjoy NBA 2K2 mainly because it won my heart a few years ago as the NBA sim of choice and this latest version on Xbox is the best VC hoop game out there. The established animation-physics system and tough-as-nails AI have kept millions of gamers locked to their TVs for hours at a time always playing ¿just one more¿ and I¿m one of them. On the Xbox, the game looks better than ever and plays the same as I remember from Dreamcast. Visual Concepts¿ basketball engine will likely be refined even more when 2K3 comes out and this will be a great thing for all gamers. High Voltage¿s surprisingly solid engine for NBA Inside Drive 2002 has suddenly turned the NBA sim derby into a two horse race. Now that Sega Sports has established itself on other consoles with the 2K2 rounds of football and basketball, both as solid as expected, the future is going to be a bright one indeed for sports gamers. Upon its release NBA 2K2 will be the best NBA sim available on the Xbox, getting the nod over Inside Drive because Microsoft¿s game lacked way too many features to be taken as a wholehearted effort. If you¿ve been talking to your Xbox, waiting for your first hoop game, NBA 2K2 is it.

• N64
• 8.6 / 10
• États-Unis

• PS2
• 8.5 / 10
• États-Unis

Gitaroo-Man, sadly, has "niche" written all over it, but everyone reading this had ought to do their very best to make that niche as large as possible. A niche is too small to hold a game like this -- it has a huge variety of rocking music, fascinating graphics, and an original gameplay system that manages to hold up surprisingly well in comparison to the monotonous rhythm competition. Put it this way -- the world deserves Gitaroo-Man Two. Make it happen.

• NGC
• PS2
• XBOX
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Pac-man World 2 is a fun and friendly game that has a great level of accessibility to it. The graphics and sound are standard fare, but the Pac-man license really adds to appeal. Honestly, if the game were full of generic characters, the game would not be as fun. But seeing and hearing the sights and sounds I grew up with pull a string in me that I just can¿t let go of. And just look at Pac-man¿s smile. How could you say no to a face like that. The game follows just about every platforming convention, only with a Pac-man twist to it. Pac-man world 2 is a great game for younger gamers, who are obviously the game¿s target audience, but many older gamers can enjoy it as well. Maybe even more so, considering many younger gamers don¿t even know who Pac-man is. While not quite a fifty-dollar purchase, this game would be a great thirty-dollar or less title for fans of the Pac-man series, or for those who need a ¿safe¿ game to play after a round of Silent Hill, before going to sleep

• GBA
• 10 / 10
• États-Unis

• PC
• 2.7 / 10
• États-Unis

Jekyll & Hyde might have been a great action/adventure title several years ago, but today it is far behind the curve. Poor graphics, horrible animation and the lack of any challenge far outweigh whatever story this game might have. Playing it through once is rough enough, so I can¿t imagine anyone ever giving it a second go. Perhaps if it had a great ending, it would shine a little brighter, but as many other games of this genre seem to ignore the dramatic ending lately, this one is no exception. There really is no reason to buy this game, unless a person really loves games that are at least four years behind its time.

• NGC
• 3.4 / 10
• États-Unis

• DC
• 9.2 / 10
• États-Unis

If you have a Dreamcast, and love hockey, run to the store tomorrow and buy this game. It's fun, fast-paced and deep as the Dead Sea. The gameplay and features are the slickest out there, and in terms of simulating the experience of hockey, NHL 2K2 delivers the most authentic representation I've seen yet. It's lacking a Franchise mode, but that's a feature that will surely be added to 2K3. Until then, this is a great game.

• XBOX
• 9.1 / 10
• États-Unis

WWF Raw has a fantastic wrestling engine which goes a long way towards making this game enjoyable. It looks and feels like you're in control of a WWF match from beginning to end and this is what wrestling games are supposed to give us. I was a huge fan of No Mercy and Wrestlemania 2000 on N64 and this feels like a huge next generation leap forward from those games in terms of gameplay. I'm not sure how Wrestlemania X8 is going to turn out on GameCube, but I know long time Nintendo/wrestling fans would definitely want something like Raw. The lack of a true career mode hurts this game the same way it hurts sports games that merely pay lip service to this feature. I had lofty expectations for the first Xbox wrestling game and I wanted to see complicated, interactive, choose-your-own adventure type story modes. Even though I was being very unrealistic, it's still disappointing that Raw, with this Title Match Mode, does not even attempt any sort of true career/story mode. With that said, Raw does a whole lot more good than bad, and it's still a game that Xbox owners need to pick up if they have even the slightest interest in the WWF. I'm not sure if there's such a thing as casual WWF/Xbox fan but Raw will appeal to them as well with its outstanding WWF realism. The hardcore fans will get plenty of enjoyment out of the difficult AI, the awesome multiplayer modes and the super deep Create-A-Wrestler mode.

• GBA
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

My only real gripe about this game is its more sloppy interface...THQ is targeting a younger audience for Hot Wheels: Burnin' Rubber, but the menus aren't as neatly laid-out or designed as they were in the "older" racer the company released back in June 2001. But other than that little issue, this game is extremely inviting for racing fans, despite the license and younger feel...and it's worth a look if you felt cheated buying the US version of GT Advance.

• PS2
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

• PS2
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

I'm not sure what the current state of the secondary Dreamcast market is right now, but I do know that a few months ago, at least, you could buy a new Dreamcast on clearance and a copy of Grandia II to play on it for about as much money as the brand-new PlayStation 2 version will cost you now. Maybe it would cost a little more than $50, but you'd get a Dreamcast out of the deal, meaning you could get on with playing Bangaioh (since I know you haven't yet). Viewed purely in the context of the PlayStation 2, of course, Grandia II is perhaps one of the top three RPGs on the system. If you don't want to buy anything for any other system (ya doink), go ahead and pick this up. It has its ups and its downs, and it certainly isn't the equal of its predecessor, but it's a good-looking game and an absolutely great-playing one, which is getting to be a harder thing to say of RPGs nowadays. Nevertheless, Dreamcast fans get to lay down at least this one trump card -- Sega's system did it better. For information on Ubi Soft's Great RPG Giveaway, of which Grandia II is a part, follow the link you just finished reading.

• GBA
• 5.1 / 10
• États-Unis

I've always been a big fan of multi-event Olympic style games, but these six events just aren't designed well enough to make the cut. The three skiing/snowboarding events are poorly thought out, and the bobsled event is counterproductive. The only event worth playing many times over is, strangely enough, Curling. But the package, as a whole, is pretty cold in its Olympic presentation.

• GBA
• 9.1 / 10
• États-Unis

To be honest, I've more been a fan of Sonic the character more than Sonic the videogames...even from the beginning, on the Sega Genesis, the huge turn-off for me was simply the fact that the level designers focused more on super huge levels to get the character up to speed...which unfortunately left me wondering what I'm passing by. The whole feeling of exploration was thrown out the window because of the heavy focus on speed. And that's why I loved the NeoGeo Pocket Color's Sonic Pocket Adventure...the designers included little hidden tokens to collect throughout the game levels, encouraging the exploration element in its game design.

• GBA
• 2.2 / 10
• États-Unis

David Beckham Soccer is a failure on every level. The AI is laughable, the controls are limited, the graphics are muddy, the sound is non-existent, there is no way to save, and virtually any player above the age of six can win the matches without any practice at all. When I picked up this game for the very first time, I won 14:1 without even knowing the controls. It's almost like the goalie in this game discounted the chance that a player would approach the goal at an angle. Perhaps a link-up game against a human player would have provided some much-needed challenge, but since the game is devoid of a multiplayer mode, the only way to enjoy David Beckham Soccer is to not play it.

• GBA
• 9.9 / 10
• États-Unis

Advance Wars is as brilliant as they come on the Game Boy Advance. The game isn't this action-packed button-mashing thumb-buster on the system, but Advance Wars is incredibly intense and amazingly addictive...especially when you learn every little nuance of the game design. Single player mode is a challenge in itself, but when you get another player (or three) into the battlefield, that's when you see just how versatile the game design really is. The learning curve has been addressed with a well-designed and integrated tutorial mode that must be completed in order to gain access to the rest of the game. I hesitated giving this game a perfect 10, and decided to knock a single tenth of a point simply due to a problem in the link cable mode. Since it's turn-based, the players who are not involved sit and watch the player in charge making his move -- it would have been extremely helpful to add a function to let these players check on their troops during the move...especially when enemy forces are moving into their territory. In single player mode, the computer AI moves so fast that you wouldn't have much time to check your stats anyway...but when you're sitting idle after a turn, your mind should be working strategically, and to not have the ability to see your troops' status is a bit annoying. But that's really the only true complaint I can make about the game. Advance Wars is an absolutely brilliant design, and a title that absolutely deserves a place in your Game Boy Advance collection. It will be amazing to see this series continue in the states, simply because the design is near perfect as it is. What could they possibly do to the game to make it better?

• DC
• 8.5 / 10
• États-Unis