Console Wars Battle - PS2 vs GameCube

 

Before I begin my Console Wars Battle for PS2 and GameCube, I also wanted to make a small recap that I've previously did my very first Console Wars Battle for SNES and Genesis/MD about 11 years ago talking about the 16-bit system's own best choices of the libraries, graphics, sounds, design, and controller, so if you haven't seen my very first Console Wars Battle blogpost that I've made long time ago then here's the link down below:

https://zeeshanmirzasblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/super-nintendo-vs-sega-genesis.html  

Okay, let's begin with my second Console Wars Battle mayhem for now.   

Back in the days of the 5th generation gaming era became a thing, when the forthcoming of PS1, N64, and Saturn had entered a console wars competition to compete against each other by showing off their impressive 3D technology visually which was innovative at the time in mid-90s.

It had an incredible design for 3D titles that became a ground-breaking that was a totally new to its gaming industry and had a best software available to its system like PS1 had Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII, Nintendo 64 had Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and of course Saturn had Panzer Dragoon and Nights into Dreams really showcasing the hardware's real-time 3D polygonal are absolute game changer for mid-90s.

By going forward to the 6th generation gaming era that was started in late 90s when SEGA Dreamcast just had released at lunch delivering such an impressive launch titles like Power Stone, Ready 2 Rumble, Sonic Adventure, Hydro Thunder, House of the Dead 2, and Soul Calibur.

Dreamcast are also a first system that introduces the dial-up modem for online gaming services like Dream Arena or SEGANET which allows users in ability to play online multiplayer matches. 

While Dreamcast had a good start, SONY had launched PS2 in around early 2000s showcasing the new technology feats such as Emotion Engine CPU designed for improved 3D graphics, has ability to play PS1 software titles and watch DVD videos, and of course has the launch titles like Armored Core 2, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, Ridge Racer V, Tekken Tag Tournament, and TimeSplitters.       

It became a fastest-selling system at launch which sold over 10.6 million units by 2001 which totally destroys SEGA's own hardware couldn't able to beat the competition which led the discontinuation of SEGA's hardware business in 2001 and shift focus on making software for multiplatform instead.

While the success of SONY's own machine, the forthcoming of two rivalries such as Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox original had entered the competition to battle SONY PS2 showcasing the graphics technologies and their killer titles such as GameCube had Super Smash Bros Melee became a best-selling title for Nintendo platform exclusivity and Xbox had Halo was best showcasing for the multiplayer matches through online services such as Xbox Live being first introduced on Microsoft first system which helped their sales of hardware units quite a bit, but not quite has the same level as the SONY's own system still remained as the top-selling system which the PS2 is best suited for both casuals and core audience to use PS2 console as the multimedia entertainment machine thanks to DVD video playback and ability to play PS1 games as backward-compatibility is the reason why it sold really well at the launch of year 2000.  

So I wanted to create my own console wars competition by comparing twos system for its console design, controller, graphics and sounds, features, and of course most importantly the numerous of game libraries.

Full Disclaimer: This is only just for my opinion guys, so to all the console fans out there please don't get upset or triggered if you don't enjoy my Console Wars Battle, so all I can say is just simply enjoy my stuff as it is and move the f**k right on.  

So without go further do, let the console wars battle begin with the PS2 vs GameCube.

Best Console Design

 

 

The original PS2 model was launched in year 2000 and the system itself is looking quite rad back then because it has nice looking ridges around the console, vents underneath at the front of the console, two memory slots for save data, two controller ports for 2-players, disc-tray, two USB ports for additional accessories, and the back of the console has large-size fan to keep the system cool and has storage external space for network adapter. 

SONY had later revision the system with the slim model was released in 2005 and it was small and more compact sized compared with large and bulky original system makes the slim model more cheap and affordable but sadly it's nowhere near good as the original model in terms of PS1's emulation performance which they had removed the PS1's chipset support to keep the costing of the slim model more efficient but not performed nicely when playing the PS1 games, and the quality of the slim model feels very cheap in comparison with the original system makes it much easier to fragile the slim model.

That being said, I rather much preferred the original model over the slim model for its better emulation performance for PS1 games and sturdy console design which lasts more than the slim model.

I also liked the way PS2 console goes vertical position which is cool, but the issue is that the system will struggle to read disc when putting it on vertical position affecting the disc's laser mechanism, so it's better to put it on horizontal position for better disc reading.   

   

GameCube was launched in a year 2002 and came with two coloured variants such as purple and black.

This system is looking quite simple and compact because I really liked how they designed the system to make it look like a cubed-shaped which is really appealing to look at it.

It has disc-tray loader on top with 3 functional buttons such as open, reset, and power, and it also has really nice rounded decal displaying GameCube logo, so the cool thing about the system is that it has a push button on the centre of the disk holder which just pops out the GameCube disc.

It has 4-controller port for local multiplayer games and has two memory slots for save data on front of the console, two vents on both sides of the console, has an handle on back of the system to hold things, and of course it has three external space on the bottom of the system for GB Player and network adapter. 

I say I really liked the design of the GameCube system lot more because it is the best way to describe it as the cubed-shaped gaming system is just feels like a GameCube, and I really liked the size of the system that is not big and enormous like the PS2, so it's just fits nicely on the TV cabinet.

Winner: GameCube

Best Controller 

 

The PS2 controller named as DualShock 2 is identical to PS1's DualShock analog controller in terms of design, so it included the input such as 2 analog sticks, 8 action buttons such as square, cross, circle, triangle, L1, R1, L2, and R2, as well as d-pad buttons, 5 digital buttons such as start, select, analog, L3, and R3.

It's one of the first controller to feature pressure-sensitive buttons which acts as an analog values for d-pad and 8-action buttons that I've mentioned above, so this will allow you to use for certain of the games such as Ridge Racer V and Gran Turismo 3: A-Specs which are reliant on pressure-sensitivity buttons functionally for acceleration and brake control, then on some action games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater where you're using the circle as the pressure sensitive button for take downs such as the light press will let you grab enemies for interrogation where the hard press will instantly kill them, and you aim the weapon by lightly holding the square button then hard tap it to shoot them.

It works well for several of the PS2 games with pressure-sensitivity button just adds up the game's realism.

Aside with the pressure-sensitivity buttons, the rest of the layouts on the controller is incredibly great because I much preferred both of these analog sticks being on bottom as opposed to GameCube controller which has controller stick and d-pad button other way around similar to Xbox controller, so having both of the analog stick being on the bottom just feels right on my thumbs being both placed on the sticks makes it easier to move around like I can use those for FPS games for aiming and shooting stuff as well as an RPGs games for navigating stuffs and rotating camera system during an exploration.

The d-pad button and 8 action buttons are perfectly aligned because it's gives me sort of the SNES controller vibes to it, so these buttons are nicely push which feels an easier to press things just perfect for arcade games such as I can able to pull-off some moves and combos for fighting games, I can able to control ship and hold down to shoot for shoot-em-ups games, and I can able to drive around for racing games.

The grips on the controller is much lighter and feels comfortable to hold and I also loved the built-in vibration that starts rumbling during the gameplay which is why I loved the PS2 controller as being one of the SONY's best video game controller they ever designed.

If that's not enough, the PS2 controller also works on PS1 console as forward compatibility, as well as PS3 console by the use of 3rd-party peripherals (such as PS2 to USB adapter) which connect the controller to the console via a USB port, so that's what you call an iconic video games controller.   

    

GameCube controller on other hand is something similar to PS2 controller in terms of design, so it has 2 analog sticks, 2 analog triggers, 6 action buttons such as A,B, X,Y, Z, and Start, and d-pad button.

GameCube controller was designed to create with more conventional handle bar style controller shape like the PS2 controller as opposed to N64's gimmicky M-shaped design, and it also a first Nintendo controller to include 2 analog stick and 2 analog triggers designed for better gameplay inputs for games.

The 2 analog stick are designed for the movements and camera rotating system, and the 2 analog triggers are designed as both the digital and analog inputs for some games such as Luigi's Mansion uses analog triggers for the Poltergeist 3000, a vacuum cleaner equipment are used for capturing and sucking the ghost inside, so when lightly half-pressed the right trigger button slows the speed of the vacuum power while pressing and holding further down makes it more faster, then you have Super Mario Sunshine where you use analog triggers for FLUDD's water pack that allows you to spray water out of the tank by lightly half-pressed the right trigger button for short-distance squirt while pressing and holding further down for long-distance squirt, and lastly most of the 3rd-party racing games uses the analog triggers for the gas pedal and brakes makes it an easier to accelerate the driving speed.

The controller is fine for its grips which is also comfortable to hold which is no problem, and I do like the layouts of the buttons, triggers, and stick which are pretty good, but sadly it missed out other action buttons such as the left shoulder button as 2nd Z button, select button like the NES and SNES controller has, and of course the thumbstick buttons on 2 analog sticks which is quite shame because having to missed out some action buttons is the reason why GameCube had missed out several of the 3rd-party games which requires many action inputs that needed to fit in the controller's requirements in order to play the game properly without having to miss out many important inputs which is why PS2 and Xbox controller does better for its controller's requirements for 3rd-party games.

Don't get me wrong because I do like the GameCube controller which is the best designed for titles like Super Smash Bros Melee which I find this controller a lot easier to pull-off many moves is due to GameCube's controller layout choices they putting in which is why the fans loved the game. 

It also works on later system like the Wii which has a GameCube controller port also works on several of Wii titles that support GameCube controller. 

Winner: PS2

Best Graphics and Sounds

The PS2's hardware specs has the main CPU which is the 64-bit R5900-based Emotion Engine, a custom-designed by SONY and Toshiba.

It consists of 8 separate units each performing a specific task which integrated onto the same die.

These units include a central CPU core, 2 VPU, 10-channel DMA unit, MCU, and an IPU.

There are 3 interfaces such as I/O processor running at a clock speed of 36.864 MHz, a graphics interface to the graphics synthesiser, and a memory interface to the system memory.

The Emotion Engine CPU has a clock rate of 294.912 MHz and 6,000 MIPS, with a floating point performance of 6.2 GFLOPS.

The system I/O processor was based on the PlayStation's CPU and was designed to provide full backward compatibility with the PS1 games, and the system has 32MB of RDRAM.

The GPU is custom-designed for the console with graphics synthesizer which has a fill-rate of 2.4 gigapixels per second, capable of rendering up to 75 million polygons per second.

The GPU also runs with a clock frequency of 147.456 MHz, 4MB of DRAM is capable of transmitting a display output of 1280 x 1024 pixels on both PAL and NTSC televisions.

It has a maximum color depth of  16.7 million true colors, so when accounting for features such as lighting, texture mapping, artificial intelligence, and game physics the console has a performance of 25 million per second.

It can natively output video resolutions on SDTV and HDTV from 480i to 480p for many games, and some games such as Gran Turismo 4 are known to support upscaled 1080i resolution.

It supports the following standards such as composite video (480i), S-Video (480i), RGB (480i/p) VGA for progressive scan games, YpbPr component video which display most original PlayStation games in their native 240p mode which most HDTV sets do not support, and D-Terminal.

The audio uses SPU2 dual-core sound processing unit featuring local memory of 2MB EDO RAM, SPU cores with twos 16-bit SPU cores clocked at 8 MHz, supports ADPCM sources up to 24 channels per core for a total of 48 channels.

The Sound buffer source such as PCM has the sampling rates of up to 48 kHz, supports applying digital effects for ADPCM sources include pitch modulation, envelope, looping, and digital reverb.

It output gaussian interpolated stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, DTS, and Dolby Pro Logic II.

Gamecube's hardware specs has the main CPU which has 32-bit 486 MHz IBM PowerPC CPU based on the 750CXe and 750FX, 3 issue of superscalar processor, two 4-stage interger-units of 32-bit IU1 and IU2, front-side bus that ran on 162 MHz 64-bit enhanced, on-chip caches has 32 KB 8-way set-associative on both L1 instruction and data cache and 256 KB 2-way set-associative of L2 cache, 64-bit FPU ran on PowerPC 750 + 50 new SIMD instructions geared toward 3D graphics.

The GPU contains 162 MHz ArtX-designed ATI ASIC ran at 9.4 GFLOPS, 3 MB of on-chip 1T-SRAM, 24 MB 1T-SRAM main memory at 324 MHz, 24-bit RGB and 32-bit RGBA of color depth, and 11 GFLOPS of system floating-point. 

It has 648 megapixels of fill-rate with Z-buffering, alpha blending, fogging, texture mapping, trilinear filtering, mipmapping, and S3 texture compression, as well as the 66 million per second of raw polygon performance.

It has image processing functions featuring volumetric fog, heat haze, motion blur, bloom, anti-aliasing, lighting, bump mapping, shadow mapping, bilinear filtering, antisotropic filtering, cel-shading, and dithering.

The system memory has 43 MB total non-unified RAM and 16 MB DRAM used as I/O buffer for audio and mini-DVD drive, 64-bit main system RAM, 896-bit internal GPU memory, and 8-bit ARAM.

It can natively output video resolutions from 480i to 480p supporting 60Hz for NTSC games and 50Hz for PAL games.

It has audio processor being integrated into custom 81 MHz macronix 16-bit DSP which sampling frequency of 48 kHz, has 64 simultaneous channels of ADPCM encoding, 8 KB RAM and ROM of  both instruction and data memory.

The external auxiliary RAM ran on 16 MB DRAM at 81 MHz, Stereo output may contain 5.1 channel surround via Dolby Pro Logic II.               

By comparing these two systems, the PS2's hardware specs is actually quite decent for the use of Emotion Engine CPU which sparked as an improvement over the PS1's LSI CoreWare CPU, as you can tell the details of the visuals on some games are looking quite better for its character's model, texture mapping, background details, and the lighting and shadow effects, but it's nowhere near detailed as other systems like Dreamcast, Gamecube, and Xbox which appears to be more crispy and smooth on environmental design where as the PS2 tends to appeared as blurry and rough in some areas.

Gamecube's hardware specs is what impressed me the most for it's graphical department because the details on textures, backgrounds, surfaces, and animation just looks very smooth in comparison especially on 60Hz CRT TV just cleans out the jags and roughness in some environmental design, and the color and lighting are just nicely balanced, and had better overall performance proves that the Gamecube had better use of graphics thanks to ATi technology.

I say the audio on Gamecube is much more sharper, cleaner, and clearer for sound design as opposed to PS2 are kinda bit muffled and quiet in comparison which means the GameCube can produce a better overall sounds for environmental and ambient when using the surround sound system.  

Here is the comparison video down below:        

 

Winner: GameCube

Best Features

The PS2's biggest selling point is mostly ability to play PS1 games as an backwards compatibility, so which means that this system has PS1's I/O chipset mostly on the original PS2 model which gives you an access to use the PS1 software disc to play most of the PS1 libraries, same goes with DVD playback format that the PS2 console can give you an access to watch your favourite films, TV series, and documentaries, as well as the audio CD playback which give you an access to listen your favourite soundtrack.

That's the best thing the SONY had ever done on their 6th-gen machine just blew me away of seeing the system that could actually play most of the PS1 games, DVD films, and music CDs, so you don't really need to get a PS1 console, DVD player, and CD Player to play these because it's all built-ins within console and the system is actually cheaper and affordable to buy one making it an easier for consumers to access all 3 formats in one PS2 console.

The PS2 shares with great accessories that really enhanced your gaming experiences such as the light-gun controller which is perfect for playing most of the light-gun titles like Time Crisis 2 and 3, Vampire Night, and Virtua Cop: Elite Edition which I really liked shooting the f**k out of these guys on my CRT TV screen. 

Then you have guitar controller peripherals which are designed for playing most of the Guitar Hero titles which was hugely popular back in the mid-2000s where they can pick up their guitar controller and start playing some rock n roll songs is the coolest things about the musics in video games like this that had people talked more about it.

Then you have keyboard and mouse support that plugs onto the USB port of the console are handful for FPS games like Half-Life, Red Faction 2, Unreal Tournament, Solder of Fortune, and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. 

Then lastly the most innovative things that the SONY had ever delivered to the PS2 console is the EyeToy Motion Camera is a device that uses the computer vision and gesture recognition for supported games which allows you to interact with the games using motion control, color detection, and also sound through its build-in microphone, so I remember back then in early-2000s time when I was young kid at the time and my siblings took me to the electronic store where I've discovered the EyeToy at the entertainment section which I began to start playing the games that was designed to use EyeToy camera as an motion controller and I was incredibly amazed to see SONY are doing something new for the PS2 console.    

The GameCube however had missed out both the DVD and CD playback is due to optical disc differences which the GameCube uses the small sized miniDVD-based disc just to keep the costing of the console down.

What's really cool things about the GameCube is that you can connect your GBA handheld system to your GameCube console via GBA link cable which allow you to use GBA system link-in for transferring data between related games, unlocking additional content, and of course turning the GBA into a controller or second screen display may work on 62 compatible GameCube games with the corresponding GBA game, so that's pretty innovative at the time which reminded me of SEGA's own VMUs for Dreamcast did a similar thing just way before Nintendo just took the idea for GBA's link cable.

Then you have GB Player which is the system's add-ons that plugs under the GameCube's system, so that gives you an access to play most of the GBA games which you really need a GBA game cart that plugs onto the GB Player's slot and the software disc in order to play it on your GameCube, so having to play GBA games on the television screen seems to be really cool back then.

In honesty, the GB Player add-ons are stupidly expensive nowadays which goes over £200 or something is not just makes it difficult to find it cheaper, but what even worse is that you also need to have a software disc in order to boot-up your GB Player is not an easier to find one online which is quite an headache because who came up with the dumb idea of requiring the software disc to make your GB Player fully functioned on your GameCube system. 

It would have been better off not relying on the software disc to get it booted, so why can't just simply plug the damn GB Player underneath the GameCube system then turn on the system and let it boot-it self automatically, so is it really hard for the company to get it working without making it too complicated so that everyone can able to access to play GBA games without requiring the disc.

Aside with the GBA's link cable and GB Player, there are quite of decent numbers of accessories such as DK Bongos which is a two-drums controller are designed for games like Donkey Konga where you had to play it out the songs by banging on the bongos during the gameplay, and then you have an microphone device that are used for specially designed games like Mario Party 6 and 7 where you had to use this microphone mostly worked for various mini-games.

Those were good, but I had to preferred more on the PS2 for better overall features, can't go wrong with built-in backward compatibility and gaming accessories is the reason why PS2 does a better job.

Winner: PS2

Best Games Libraries

The video games libraries is what the gaming consoles is all about...the 3rd-party, the 2nd-party, and of course the 1st-party titles, so let's start with the PS2.

PS2 has wide selection of thousand games to play for both 1st-party and 3rd party games.

 

It has great FPS games like Star Wars Battlefront 1-2, DarkWatch, Project Snowblind, Cold Winter, Area 51, Urban Chaos: Riot Response, and Half-Life.

The Action-Packed games like Armored Core 2-3, Metal Gear Solid 2-3, and Max Payne. 

The Fighting games like Tekken Tag Tournament, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, Soul Calibur 3, Guilty Gear X, Capcom vs SNK 2, and Mortal Kombat Deception.

The Racing titles such as Burnout 3: Takedowns, Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, Ridge Racer V, and Gran Turismo 3 and 4.

The RPGs stuffs like Disgaea 1-2, Persona 3-4, Final Fantasy 10, and Kingdom Hearts 1-2.

The Action-Adventure games like Onimusha, Shadow of the Colosseus, and Grand Theft Auto 3 + Vice City + San Andreas.

The Horror games like Fatal Frame 1-3, Cold Fear, Clock Tower 3, and Silent Hill 2-3.

The Hack n Slash action games like Devil May Cry 1 and 3, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness + Lament of Innocence, and God of War 1-2. 

The 3D Platforming titles like Ratchet and Clank 1-3, Jax and Daxter 1-3, and Ape Escape 2-3.

These are the games that I've listed above which made everyone buys the PS2 console, so stuff like GTA, Gran Turismo, Tekken, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Jak and Daxter, and Ratchet and Clank are the main selling point that attracts people to buy the system for these best-selling titles.  

I acknowledge the 1st party titles like God of War, Gran Turismo, and Ratchet and Clank was created by SONY game developers are made for PS2 console exclusives, and there are some of the games like Devil May Cry 1 and 3, Metal Gear Solid 2-3, Silent Hill 2-3, and of course GTA 3+VC+SA was created by 3rd-party developers are made to designed for the PS2 system that are really incredible to play which is why the system had sold remarkably well at the release.

Let's talk about the games that defines the PS2 consoles starting right now:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a fantastic stealth action game which was known for its cinematic story presentation and likable cast of characters which adds the game's charm, and you got to admit the visuals are incredibly looking good for the PS2's hardware showcasing the environmental design and animation, and it does have the best video game soundtrack entirely fits the game's atmospheres.

The stealthy mechanics and combat action are the major highlight of the overall gameplay design with hiding, sneaking, take downs, and shooting is what made the game so fun to play making it Konami's best action game on the system.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening is a solid Hack n Slash action game as a prequel to first original game featuring badass protagonist, stylish combat gameplay with wicked weapons to choose and upgradable combo moves, has many cool stages with lots of great battles against the hordes of enemies and tough as nails bosses, has catchy soundtrack that made you pumped for action, and has tons of replay values.

Silent Hill 2 is a psychological horror title act as sequel to first original game with different storyline and characters, but this game was best known for its dark and terrifying presentation filled with creepy atmosphere settings that are so disturbing to play and has the most horrifying creatures in any of horror games especially like the mother f***ing pyramid head just gives you sort of an night terror.

Many they say it's considered to be not just being the best in the whole series, but also being one of the Konami's best horror game ever made for PS2 system which I definitely 100% agree.             

God of War 2 is a SONY's Hack n Slash action game act as sequel to first original game set in Ancient Greek mythologies where you take control of badass spartan warrior Kratos went on his quest for his raging vengeance against the olympian gods.

Its a huge step-forward for its strong overall presentation, rich environmental design showcasing PS2's powerhouse, great voice performance for character's role, and of course the overall gameplay design with improved combat system, has great selection of weapons and magics with upgradable combos and power, has numerous of locations filled with puzzle solving and discoveries, and of course the epic battles between the enemies and bosses is what makes this game truly the masterpiece.

GTA 3 is an action-adventure sparked as the very first GTA game being shifted to 3D open-world approach as opposed to 2D top-down perspective like a previous twos. 

What makes the game quite stand out is the massive open-world environments where you go out wondering for fun to start messing around like stealing cars, shooting and beating the living shit of these people, looking for the fight with gangs, getting chased off by cops, and plenty more things to do is what made this game so memorable to play back then, but as a now it's all to do with the good story and characters are also the important part of the series to know what's the game is all about.      

It is the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful video game title ever made, and it is also being credited as the most influential video game that defines the open-world sandbox genre.

GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas are also just was well received which helped the sales of not just the software on its own, but also helped the sales of the PS2 hardware as well.

Many people had said that the San Andreas is by far the best in the entire series, where as others much preferred more on Vice City better depending your taste on the story presentation, lead characters, and open-world gameplay you liked the best.

  

GameCube does have several of great exclusive games like F-Zero GX, Paper Mario 2: A Thousand Doors, Starfox Adventures, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Luigi's Mansion, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Eternal Darkness, Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and of course the major-selling title such as Super Smash Bros Melee.

There are some of the amazing games by 3rd-party developers are made to designed for GameCube console such as Super Monkey Ball 1-2, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Eggs, Ikaruga, and of course Resident Evil 1 (2002 remake) + Zero.

Some of the 3rd-party games that are played better on the GameCube such as Viewiful Joe, Soul Calibur 2, and Resident Evil 4 really showcasing the system's powerhouse.   

There are some of the 3rd-party games that the GameCube had really missed out the best ones such as Max Payne, Burnout 3: Takedowns, Star Wars Battlefront 1-2, Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, DarkWatch, Indiana Jones: The Emperor Tomb, Kill.Switch, Dead or Alive 2, Guilty Gear X, Unreal Tournament, Half-Life, and Clock Tower 3 as an example that never got made for GameCube which is quite a shame for the GameCube owners are not being able to get the see these kinds of games that the PS2 has on their libraries, so I can honestly blame the Nintendo's decision of choosing the miniDVD optical disc format which holds 1.46GB of file size which is smaller compared to regular DVD disc format like the PS2 which has 4.7GB for single-layer disc or 8.5GB for dual-layer disc, meaning that several of 3rd-party games will not fit perfectly on the small-sized GameCube disc which is why it misses out some of the great 3rd-party games.

Don't feel bad because of course GameCube had decent numbers of 3rd-party games which are also on PS2 like The Lord of the Ring: Return of the King, Tomb Raider: Legends, Beyond Good and Evil, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, TimeSplitters 2 + Future Perfect, SSX 3, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4, Medal of Honor: Frontline, and Need for Speed: Underground, so those were awesome to play that you guys didn't miss out.

Let's talk about the games that defines the GameCube consoles starting right now:  

Super Smash Bros Melee is a follow-up to N64's original game, and it is a 2D fighting games featuring all fighting rosters from Nintendo franchise must compete each other in fighting battle arena.

The game has amazing single-player modes such as adventure mode, classic mode, event mode, and some mini-games stuffs like target mode, homerun mode, and multi-man mode.

The 4-player battle matchs such as melee versus, stamina match, giant mode match, tiny mode match, sudden death match, slow-mo mode match, and lighting mode match.

It has best selection of playable rosters to play as like Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Kirby, Pikachu, Link, Samus, Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong, Bowser, and you name it.

The fighting gameplay are straight-forward with simple controls makes it an easier to pull-off many combos and special moves, and it has the best fighting stages filled with crazy environmental attacks is the reason why its been labelled as one of the GameCube's best fighting games of all-time that helped the sales of GameCube's hardware.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is a FPS-Metroidvania game act as a sequel to first original game, where you take control of bounty hunter Samus Aran went on her quest to find missing Galactic Federation Marines in near Aether.

The whole single-player campaign is incredibly large for the GameCube title showcasing the hardware technical feats for its massive open-world environments are great for the exploration.

The game involves discovering new areas, hidden secrets, obtaining new abilities, and collecting key objects, as well as encountering with the variety of enemies and bosses that keeps me playing the game.

The gameplay works mostly well throughout the playthrough with tons of combat upgrades, new weapon, and new abilities that allowing you to gain access to the next undiscovered areas is what made the game so special.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is an interesting action-adventure title where you take control of Link went on his adventure to rescue his sister Aryll from the sorcerer Ganon, while being aided by allies including female pirate captain and a talking sail-boat lion helping him throughout the journey.

While its felt so different from the previous Zelda entries, this game are actually pretty look good for its cel-shaded animation just looks quite comical and cartoony which I really liked the style of art-direction that Nintendo are going for a different route.

The gameplay plays just like what you see from the predecessor for its sword-play combat and open-world exploration, but it also shares with many great varieties of weapons and items to obtain became quite useful for many stuffs such as puzzle solving, discoveries, and battles, so it's an excellent action-adventure title that the GameCube owners should not miss this out.  

Eternal Darkness is a psychological horror title which I had to adore this because I did not expect family-friendly company like Nintendo had bought their own matured-rated horror title to their platform which is no surprise, as we already learned the other mature-rated games like Conker's Bad Fur Day are was to the N64 console aimed for the adult audience market.

So going back to this game, it was quite known for its dark and sinister tone of settings that I got to praise the game for its creepy atmosphere and several of disturbing sequences that gives the people a night terror during the horrible sanity level.

While it does have the scare factor moments, the game shares with great storytelling, fun survival and puzzles, and well developed visuals and sound design just adds up the game's charm.

The game has been long forgotten for two decades since its been only released on GameCube with no consideration of re-releasing the game for today's modern platform, so that's a shame because it's a definite an underrated horror title that should not be ignored and convince GameCube owner to give this game a worth of shot.

So out of all these libraries of games, I really liked the GameCube games because its brings me my childhood nostalgia that I never forget those classics like Super Smash Bros Melee is always be my no.1 favourite fighting game of all-time, those amazing stuffs like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Eternal Darkness are my highlights of the GameCube libraries, some great multiplayer titles like Mario Kart: Double Dash, F-Zero GX, and Super Monkey Ball 1-2, and of course some 3rd-party games that does better on GameCube such as Soul Calibur 2 is due to one playable exclusive roster such as Link, and you can't go wrong with Capcom's horror games like Resident Evil (2002 remake) and Zero are the great horror titles to play, but I got to say Resident Evil 4 is an definite the best entry in the series that took the genre into the new level of horror gaming.

As the grown adult now for the retrospective, I just feel like that I'm gonna go with the PS2 is because this system has the best wide selection of games to play. 

It had so many more 3D platformer, FPS, RPGs, Horror, Action-Adventures, Fighting, and Racing games that made people to buy the system like Ratchet and Clank 1-3, Jax and Daxter 1-3, Ape Escape 2-3, Gran Turismo 3-4, Ridge Racer V, Tekken Tag Tournament, Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, Final Fantasy 10, Shadow of the Colossus, Onimusha, Fatal Frame 1-3, Star Wars Battlefront 1-2, and Max Payne.

I find Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is such a ground-breaking title for SONY's platform which I'm incredibly amazed with the cinematic story presentation and has tons of action-packed moments that made me loved the MGS franchise.

Silent Hill 2 is a one scary game filled with dark storyline, mysterious looking locations, and has several of psychological night terrors which I will never forget the part in the game that defines the whole franchise.

Devil May Cry 3 is clearly one of the best title in the series thanks to more improved combat gameplay with fast-paced stylish combo system, has wide selection of weapons with cool upgrades, and over-the-top battle with the enemies and bosses, so if that's not enough then go check out God of War 2 because it clearly has better overall combat, puzzles, and gory action which is an definite must play for PS2 owners. 

All 3 GTA games that I've mentioned above is definite impressed me the most for its technical achievement delivering a massive open-world design with lots of exploration, and has the amazing single-player missions to play that never gets old, and of course the series has the best storyline and characters throughout the game is what makes the GTA games so recognisable on PS2 system as the system's best-selling titles that changed the video game industry forever.                                                  

Winner: PS2   

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, GameCube gets the points for its console design being nice and compact in comparison to PS2 console, and the technical hardware specs are considered superior for its graphics and sounds are much cleaner and clearer in many games, but it was been overshadowed by the PS2 gets more points for its best designed controller with great layouts and playability matched perfectly for most games, and it has an additional built-in features that became the PS2 console's major selling point such as ability to play PS1 games and DVD Playback, as well as offering the amazing accessories like light-gun controller, guitar controller, and EyeToy camera that enhanced your gaming experiences, and most importantly is the large libraries of games that made PS2 being recognisable over the years.

Here is the score down below:

PS2 - 3 

GameCube - 2

Winner: PS2 

GameCube had managed to sold almost 22 million units as of 2010 which is 13 million units sold more than Dreamcast had sold over 9 million units as of 2002, where as the Xbox had sold 24 million units as of 2006 which is 2 million units more than the GameCube's unit sold, and then finally the PS2 just totally destroys their competitors which sold 160 million as of 2024 which makes it not just being the best-selling system on the 6th-gen era, but also being one of the all-time best-selling consoles of all consoles generation had managed to reach at number 1 ranking spot which proves that the PS2 console is the most popular video game system for all casuals and core audiences.  

To be fair for you guys, all I can say is no matter what the games console you're playing on or had in your home, so all you had to do is just enjoy your gaming as it is because we all gamers should be grateful what we had on our childhood.   

As much as I loved the Dreamcast and Xbox on the same generation era for its varieties of games libraries and introductory of online gaming services, GameCube and PS2 are two of the amazing system that defines the 6th-gen era that kept pushing the gaming technologies forward showcasing the hardware's graphics, sounds, and additionals proving that the gaming industries had been improving since the 5th-gen era, and we can all agree that both of these systems had the great games to play on.

To wrap it all up now, this is basically my own Console Wars Battle which I did it just for the fun and I hope you guys enjoying my content on my recent blog that I've made today, so I will consider making another Console Wars Battle in the future.       

   

If you like my recent blog, please hit like and comment below for further questions.  

This is Zeeshan Mirza's Blog and I'll see you next time, happy blogging everyone.  

          

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered PS5 Review

 

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a Action-Adventure game was released in 2024 for PS5, PS4, XBONE, XSX/S, Switch, and PC.

It was both developed and published by Aspyr in partnership with current series developer Crystal Dynamics and Saber Interactive, and it is a fully remastered compilation of first three games in the series originally developed by Core Design.

I remember the time when the 5th-gen system like the PS1, N64, and Saturn became the thing in mid-90s where these system's hardware power demonstrating the new technology that was designed to run on the 3D polygonal engine which was quite a ground-breaking at the time.

I considered Super Mario 64 as the most revolutionary N64 title that not only it defines the 3D platforming genres but also changes the gaming industry, Metal Gear Solid was hailed as the greatest stealth action game was praised for its cinematic story presentation and innovative stealth combat, Final Fantasy VII was critically and commercially successful at the release became one of the PS1's system-selling RPGs title in 1997, and of course The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the N64's universally acclaimed title of all-time and also the biggest landmark of open-world adventure games in history.  

There's one of the franchise that had people talk so much about it especially in my old times whether its my friends, classmates, families, etc. had been obsessed with the thing that I know the reason why they had a PS1 console or PC for a one particular game they been spend playing in their home, so that is Tomb Raider.

It is a 1996's Action-Adventure game made its first debut of the series for PS1, Saturn, and PCs created by Core Design where you take control of Lara Croft, an female British archaeologist who travels around the world, went on searching for lost artefacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins.

The first original game was critically praised for its innovative 3D graphics, controls scheme, and gameplay design, and it was commercially successful at release in 1996 became PS1's best-selling title with 7 million units sold worldwide.

It is also went on to win several awards and is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made.

Many gamers had recognising Lara Croft as the biggest cultural icon and becoming one of the best and most beloved video game female protagonist of all-times is the reason why she appears on not just video games itself, but also appeared on numerous of things such as gaming magazines, TV commercials, promotional advert poster, and you name it.

She's everywhere that had attracts the audience that made them buy a copy of Tomb Raider off from the gaming stores is the reason why she is so popular back in the days of 90s.

After the success of the first game, it spawns numerous of sequels such as TR2, TR3, and TR: The Last Revolution are also just as well received as the first game, and then sadly it goes wrong with the later twos such as TR: Chronicles are the last title on the PS1 era are critically and commercially flopped at the release and then when the PS2 came around in 2000 they bought TR: Angel of Darkness in 2003 makes it the last developed game by Core Design which unfortunately it became universally panned by gaming medias that killed off not only just the whole franchise but also destroyed the whole career of Core Design had declared bankruptcy making the 5th and 6th title as twos of the worst in the series, as the franchise IPs been quickly handed over to Crystal Dynamics to take over the development of next Tomb Raider game with the TR: Legend in 2006 had sparked as the massive improvement over the previous titles thanks to redesigned control schemes for better camera system and interaction as well as combat and movement are so much easier to pull-off jumping, climbing, and shooting just made the game better to play is the reason why this game just saves the whole franchise and it receives mostly positive from the gaming medias labelled the game as the return to form for the franchise and had improved upon the sales which sold 2.9 million units at release.

Then we also had a full remake of the 1996's original game titled as TR: Anniversary was released in 2007 and TR: Underworld was released in 2008 are also received just as good as the TR: Legend.

In around 2013, Crystal Dynamics had bought the full reboot to the franchise titled as Tomb Raider acting as the first installiment in the reboot trilogy that reconstructs the Lara Croft origins making it a completely going on a different direction as survival action rather than the adventurous approach like from the previous titles.

The game was critically acclaimed at the release in 2013 praised by gaming medias for its campaign, story, visuals, and gameplay, as well as the 2015 sequel such as Rise of Tomb Raider are also received a same praise as the 2013's game, and then lastly with the 2018's final entry titled as Shadow of Tomb Raider which are also positive but not nearly had the same level as the previous twos for its lack of innovation and repetitive playthroughs and it also suffers the slow start in sales at the release.

In around 2023, Aspyr had finally bought the video game compilation of the classic threes Tomb Raider games to the modern platforms such as PCs and consoles completely packed with 3 games to introduced newcomers to get into with the TR franchise featuring additional content as well as enhanced visuals and controls.

So what do I think about Tomb Raider series as the whole? well initially at the start in my mid-90s as a child where my brother had rented the copy of the first TR game on SEGA Saturn, I wasn't really good at it when I had a first go is due to wonky tank controls which requires a skill to learn the control by making the jump and grab on ledge in perfect timing without having to fall off the platforming stage which is why I never get passed to through the first level which made me avoid the series for long time till I've decided to give it a second chance with the TR: HD collection for PS3 packs with threes such as Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld which plays better then I've expected, and then I get to enjoy with the two reboots such as TR: 2013 and Rise of Tomb Raider is incredibly outstanding because it's plays and feels different from original TR series.

That being said, it's a really interesting video game franchise that shares with solid storyline, likable protagonist, atmospheric presentation, and campaign filled with challenges and puzzles just keeps you busy playing the game.

So where can I enjoy the original TR games without having to go through with the tank controls? well I've just bought the physical boxed deluxe edition of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered off from online store just for curiosity to see if this anything plays better than I remember back then, so the answer is yes it maybe plays better but it still has flaws in some parts which is why I am here to review the game to point out some of good stuffs and some bads.

So without go further do, lets start the review.

Presentation

This compilation packs with 3 games to select on the menu such as TR 1, TR 2, and TR 3. 

The first TR game follows archaeologist-adventurer named Lara Croft who is hired by businesswoman Jacquelline Natla to find an artefact called the Scion of Atlantis, where as the second TR game focusing on Lara went for hunting the Dagger of Xian, a magical weapon once used by an ancient Chinese emperor, in competition with an Italian cult, and then lastly the third TR game focusing on Lara's quest to recover four pieces of a meteorite that are scattered across the world.       

I got to say that despite the three original games that was made back in the mid-90s, I actually enjoyed the storyline of the first game which is a great introduction to the iconic character went for her adventure to find an artefact that keeps me so interested in the original trilogy, where as the second game does share with the decent opening scene and some plot aspects throughout the game that tells the whole history of magical dagger that was made back in the ancient China times, and lastly I got to be honest with the third game which I do finding it okay at best but not quite fully detailed as the previous twos in my opinion.

Aside with the storylines in each games, you all had to admit Lara Croft is still an smokin hot lady especially back in the 90s and 2000s filled with poster ad, commercials, and magazines is the major reason why it gained her popularity as the biggest gaming icon.

She goes out doing her adventurous stuffs by jumping and climbing around the platforms, evading many traps and pits throughout the rooms, shooting the f**k out of dinosaurs, lizards, tigers, and bats, does acrobatic stunts moves, swimming under the pool, and of course kicking everyone asses is what I liked about her, so the best part in the TR game that made everyone liked her the most is got to be none other than staring at her ass...oh yeah try it with the photo mode or go under the small gap with crouching mode I double dare you guys. 

Her in-game appearance looked way better on the remastered version than the classic original because it feels like it makes her face and body design look more like Lara you see on the game's front cover especially on both the PS1 and PC jewel case back in the old days.   

The presentation in these games are fantastic because Tomb Raider franchise was best known for its atmospheric settings of the ancient tombs and ruins just looks incredibly amazing back in the days of 90s, so as the fully remastered version of these games just looks so much better with the enhancements details in each locations.

Stuff like in Peru has dark caves filled with mazes and big waterfall of valley in Peru, the huge colosseum arena and legendary palace with garden in Greece, the ancient tombs and objects in Egypt, the creepy flesh and red skins environments in Atlantis, the great wall and temple in China, the large opera house in Italy, the mysterious underground catacombs in Tibet, the jungle and temple ruins in India, and of course the village and temple of Puna in South Pacific is so much beautiful to explore around the area is what made the series so special because it gives me sort of Indiana Jones vibes to these kind of games just fits the style of presentation.

The remastered version of these 3 games still has an old-school FMVs cutscenes from the original which is quite acceptable back in the 90s, so no complaint to these whatsoever because it's part of the nostalgia things that made Tomb Raider series quite special back then.    

Overall, it has enjoyable storyline, memorable protagonist, and fantastic presentation settings.

 

Gameplay

You take control of Lara Croft in 3rd-person perspective as your main goal is to find and obtain the artefact, so in order to do that you must complete several of things to get through to the new area such as solving the puzzles, evading many traps and pits, jumping and climbing the walls and gaps, and of course find the key or object to unlock stuff.

Full disclosure: I'm using the modern controls as opposed to tank controls, so that will be different ways of playing the game.

Pushing the left stick control or pressing the d-pad button is to move Lara, and pushing the right stick control is to rotate the camera around.

Press the cross button is to jump which allows Lara to jump across the platforms, holding the square button is to make Lara walk instead of running so that will help you to prevent you from falling off the gap, press the circle button to make Lara roll used as evade to dodge the projectile, press the triangle button to interact things like activating the switch, pick up items, and of course pulling and pushing the objects by holding the triangle button then press forward or backward with the left stick control or d-pad button when the interaction icon appears on screen, holding the left trigger button will equip the weapon can be automatically lock-on enemies then press or hold the right trigger button to shoot them.

You will have the secondary button on your right trigger which allowing Lara to do stuffs like grabbing on the ledge or gap while in mid-air or ground or make Lara climb down slowly and holding the gap by holding the right trigger then move forward to the gap.

While holding onto the gap, you can move across the gap by pressing the left stick control or d-pad left and right button then climb up the gap by holding the right trigger then push left stick up or press the d-pad up button or drop down from the gap by pressing the circle button.

You can climb on walls and ladders by holding the right trigger then push left stick or d-pad forward to grab on wall or ladder then climb with the left stick control or d-pad button. 

The third game introduces the two action control button that the first and second game had missed out such as the crouch mode with the left shoulder button allowing Lara to duck down the ground then crawl through with the left stick control or d-pad button which works mostly for small under hole and she can also do hard sprinting by pressing the left thumbstick button allowing her to run faster till the sprint meter appears on the screen depleted which can be refilled automatically itself.

Lara has ability to do acrobatic moves such as jumping sideways, backflip, and of course doing her gymnastics pose while holding on the gap, but to keep you in mind that the modern controls are not perfect to use her acrobatic moves in comparison with the tank controls, so it only works when equipping with the weapon by holding the left trigger button then press the cross button before you push the left stick control or d-pad button to do acrobatic moves.    

She can also swim under the water by jumping on the pool then press cross button to start swimming under and you can ascend and descend with the right stick control as well as swim forward or backwards with the left stick control, but pay close attention to oxygen level bar at the top-right screen which displays how long can you breath under the water, so if the oxygen level goes down lower then you might hurry back up to catch the breath before you starting to drown.    

You can access to item inventory by pressing the touchpad button to display the weapon and health item you carry, the key or object you've obtained, and you can also load or save game to keep track with your progress allowing you to continue the game where you're left off.

                         

So far, the modern controls does play slightly bit better for its movement because you could able to move around in 360 degrees makes it easier to play which is good addition for the newcomers, so that I can able to jump on platforms, grab and hold onto the gap, and of course having a rotating 360 degree camera system makes it an easier to navigate around the level.

Sadly like I did mentioned on above about the acrobatic moves may not play well on the modern controls in comparison with the tank controls, so you might missed out some moves like side-stepping, back-stepping, backflip, and jumping sideways.

I wish that they should've have added one more additional control to make it flexible to play like for example: we had two options such as classic control method plays like the original PS1 games, the modern control method are completely new ones act as an default, so we need one more control option to add it to these games that will allow us to use both the tank and modern control layout such as the d-pad for tank control and left stick for modern control just makes it sounds more convenient for those who doesn't want to keep going on the pause menu to change the control configuration.  

I also wanted to point out the auto-lock aiming system is not quite easy to pull-off because you really need to precisely aim directly to the enemies by facing at them while holding the left trigger button then shoot them properly, so it can be headache at sometimes when fighting with the enemies and bosses, but taking more sometime to practice the better you able to play will likely to make you get used with the auto-aiming control.         

While the controls plays fine for most part but still has flaws that may put you off, I did manage to enjoy most of the puzzles and platforming aspects in the game is because I really liked going on the exploration to finding the way of entering the new area like jumping on the gaps in higher platforms that leads me to the next room, collecting keys or activating switches to unlock doors, and of course obtaining the objects that are used for puzzle elements to open the path is what keeps me going. 

I also had fun evading several of deadly environmental hazards like spiky pits, shredding blades, swinging axes, bursting flames, shooting arrows, lava pits, crocodiles and sharks bites you under the water, guy with harpoon swimming around, and of course the rolling boulder came tumbling down is all to do with game's overall challenge makes it very intense but also fun to play at the same time.

Sometime you can also get lost in the game too because Tomb Raider is all to do with exploring around the levels to search for clues which is fine, but the issue is that you don't want to keep backtracking in the same level as you visited before if you can't able to find the way of getting to the new or finishing area, so it would have been nice if they added an option to include the map inventory screen that the original game had lacked the feature, so you don't have to go through exploring around the area until you found one which took an hour to figure out. 

These games did have really great action segments going on like riding on the snowmobile and quad-biking which I really liked pulling the stunts in some levels, shooting the f**k out of that mother f***ing T-Rex in Peru, encountering with a crazy blonde woman Sophia Leigh welds with magical stick shooting at you while you had to find the way of defeating her, doing a stealth in the Area 51 military bases to find the escape in Nevada, and of course swimming around the ocean filled with dangerous sea animals in underwater facility is what makes 3 of these game so special. 

The levels does have some hidden secrets in which you'll be exploring around the area to find an undiscovered place that rewards you with the items like health pack and ammunition, as well as collecting a blue crystal which are just collectables rather than act as the save point objects like from the original game because you could save your progress by going on the pause menu does seem to be much easier to save the progress and just simply continue on with the game. 

The game also has three bonus campaign such as Unfinished Business, Golden Mask, and Lost Artefacts which is basically an extra single-player game with additional levels to play is just a great addition to this content.

I also liked the Lara's Minor where you could do stuff in these 3 games such as gameplay tutorial, training course, and of course do wondering around in hallways, kitchen, bedroom, swimming area, and garden which I finding it quite interesting to explore and touring around Lara's own home, so don't forget to trap the old butler inside the frozen room...he he.

Overall, it has fine modern control, fun puzzles and platforming, great action segments, and has 3 decent games to play.     

     

Graphics

The graphics in these remastered games are looking quite decent thanks to revamped graphical design to make it look more up-to-date classic title with better overhaul environments with hi-quality textures, clean surfaces detail, some good amounts of lighting and shadow effects in some areas, and good use of colours.

I also wanted to praise the additional backgrounds layouts and upgraded details on these remastered games that was completely missing in the originals, so it is really nice to add stuff to this because it makes these games look and feel more like a proper remastered titles for modern platforms.    

The character's model is looking quite amazing in these remastered games especially Lara is looking so much better than the ones in the original 1996's game.

These games does give you an option to switch between the classic and modern visuals with the option button on your controller to choose any of two graphical option that suits you the best, so the classic ones that made back in mid-90s are for those who grew up with their nostalgic times of PS1 era, where as the modern ones are fully remastered with enhance visuals makes these games suitable recommendation for those who are a new to the franchise. 

In case you guys been wondering how are these games had performed well on the platforms? I say both of these PCs and consoles worked really good as the PS5, XSX/S (X Model), and PCs ran on full 4k resolution with 60fps where as the XSX/S (S model) locked on 1440p resolution but also ran on 60fps just works very smoothly without any of frame-drops, so same goes with Switch which ran on 1080p docked mode and 720p undocked mode with 60fps, and then of course PS4 and XBONE are likely also ran with the 60fps mode so the resolution of the base system goes up to 1080p and then the pro system goes up to 4k.

Overall, it has enhanced visual design for environments, layouts, and character's model, as well as butter smooth performance with stable frame-rate and high resolution display. 

Music and Sounds

I say I really liked the original soundtrack of these 3 games which I really liked the ancient style of orchestrated music really fits the game's presentation especially with the theme song are astoundingly beautiful to listen which is why Tomb Raider franchise had the best overall soundtrack, so it was composed by Nathan McCree, who was Core Design's composer worked between 1996 and 98 is best known for creating the original music for 3 Tomb Raider games, did a outstanding job of delivering the adventurous and mysterious tone of score just fits perfectly on these kind of games.

I also wanted to praise the overall sound design for its atmospheric sound effects, background noises, and some ambience tone just works well on some levels depending on locations. 

It still has the original voice acting from the classic 3 games which makes all sense because why not, it's still sounds pretty decent especially back in the mid-90s.

Overall, it has beautiful soundtrack, atmospheric sound design, and decent voice acting.

Special Features

Each of these 3 games has bonus campaign to play such as Unfinished Business, Golden Mask, and Lost Artefects which has extras levels, and it also have unlockable costumes after you beat the game, and then you can also use photo mode to take the picture in the game.

The physical collector's boxset of Deluxe Edition packed with not only just the physical disc game, but also comes with exclusive steelbook case, exploration map book, and official soundtrack with both physical music CD and digital download code.                         

  

Overall, an excellent content and bundle.

Advantages

Fantastic story presentation

Memorable protagonist 

Modern control is good addition

Challenging puzzles and platforming levels

Great action segments

Decent visuals

Beautiful music and sound design

Packed with 3 games with bonus campaign levels

 

Disadvantages

Backtracking in some levels

Clunky auto-lock aiming system 

Could have an additional control setting (like D-pad for tank and left stick for modern)

Final Verdict

Presentation 8/10 - enjoyable storyline, memorable protagonist, and fantastic presentation settings.

Gameplay 7/10 - fine modern control, fun puzzles and platforming, great action segments, and has 3 decent games to play.

Graphics 8/10 - enhanced visual design for environments, layouts, and character's model, as well as butter smooth performance with stable frame-rate and high resolution display. 

Music and Sounds 8.5/10 - beautiful soundtrack, atmospheric sound design, and decent voice acting.

Special Features 9/10 - bonus campaign, unlockable costumes, and physical collector's boxset as Deluxe Edition. 

Overall 7.5/10 - As I originally had troubled with the original game back then, but looking back now as a fully remastered games does make a hell of a difference thanks to additional modern control just made these games plays better than I remembered back then, which is why I decided to give the classic Tomb Raider games a second chance.

Having these games as a remastered version delivers a enhanced overall experience with upgraded visuals just made the game look appealing for modern gaming console in terms of environments, layouts, and animation just ran pretty smoothly for most parts.

I did able to enjoy the game for its great story and character, atmospheric presentation, and of course the adventurous gameplay with puzzles, platforming, and action is what makes the original 3 Tomb Raider a worth playing as today.

There are a two physical editions for console releases such as standard edition which cost around over £25 where as the deluxe edition are cost between £40 and £50.

The digital storefront such as PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam are cost between £25 and £27.       

Is it an recommended to buy? I say the remastered version packed with 3 games for £25 standard edition is worth for purchase or if you're a big gaming collector like me would go for a much expensive deluxe edition packed with goodies are also worth to pick up.

I'm looking forward for another remastered trilogy of Tomb Raider IV-VI is coming on this month, so even though I heard many bad things about TR: Chronicles and Angel of Darkness as I'm hoping for Aspyr to resolve the issues that the original games had suffered back then, so be prepared for the upcoming IV-VI remastered this February release and hope it will turned out to be well. 

Anyway like I said, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is actually a good trilogy collection and you might want to give these games a worth a try and see what you think, so please check it out. 

  

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Tevi PS5 Review

 

Tevi is a 2D Side-scrolling Metroidvania game was released in 2023 for PS5, PS4, XSX/S, Switch, and PC. 

It was developed by CreSpirit or GemaYue and published PM Studios, Inc, and it is meant to be a spiritual successor to 2016's original game such as Rabi-Ribi. 

Yeah, I remember playing Rabi-Ribi on PS4 that I already covered this on my review 7 years ago, which I described it as a cute 2D Platform Adventure game with the mix of great Metroidvania style exploration and insane bullet hell action that makes it a totally-fun hidden gem title, so if you haven't previously seen my review on Rabi-Ribi then the link is down below to check it out before proceeding to my recent review of Tevi:

https://zeeshanmirzasblog.blogspot.com/2018/03/rabi-ribi-ps4-review.html   

Okay then let's dive down to my review for now, so after previously enjoyed the predecessor I've discovered the CreSpirit recent game that was revealed back in 2023 which titled as Tevi, a side-scrolling Metroidvania game that I am looking forward to play this for the 9th-gem system, which is why I've bought this last month to see if this game actually done better in terms of presentation, exploration, combat, and so forth.

In my analysis after finishing the whole game which took me about a week, Tevi is surprisingly a solid game which I will cover all the pros and cons to this review detailing the story, characters, design, combat, and exploration.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

The story starts out with the Tevi, a female bunny-eared engineer, who was held in prison at Az base had managed to escape from the cell, as she went on her quest in Az to find and obtain the Astral Gears, a relics of a bygone era that contain vast amounts of power, to achieve her dad's research goal.

She then greeted with twos such as Celia, an busty female angel from Valhalla who collects an intel data, and Sable, a little young demon boy from Tartarus who got lost in Ana Thema when he's out of his home, went on the search for something or someone, as they agreed to join Tevi in the journey and support her to gain the trust.               

I say the story in this game is somewhat sounds better than I should say Rabi-Ribi is because I really liked the idea of having a main lead and two supportives went on the adventure to search for a obscure treasure that has sort of power are being hidden somewhere in the land, as Tevi made her promised to help her dad to achieve a dream on his research work.

As Tevi and her friends are still on the quest to find one, they will also made a new discovery in some places that there's more to the world at large than Tevi's point of view implied which makes the story quite interesting to learn about locations, species, and histories throughout the exploration.

I say Tevi as a lead character in the game is actually pretty good due to her intelligence and ambition on engineering and exploring, and making a great friendship with twos is what I've liked about her...oh she has a cute hat with bunny-ears attached to it.

Then you have Celia does look really an attractive with her busty outfits which I find her really appealing to look at...yeah I'm talking about an smokin hot angel does look so good on this.

Finally Sable which is a young demon kid can be mistaken as girl due to his skinny feminine feature on his girly looking face and that waitress outfit he wore in the game which I don't really care, but at least he isn't downright annoying throughout the in-game dialogue which thankfully it doesn't seem to ruin the game.

There are NPCs in the game such as Professor Zema who is a Tevi's adoptive father and also an inventor who had a love and passion on his research and adoring his bunny-little daughter for her ambition on her engineering skills as well as quest for searching a mysterious treasure during the adventure.

Then you have a cat-like inventor Vena who constantly follows Tevi around with the intent of finally besting her in a battle of engineering, but is also suspiciously willing to lend her help.

Then you have Ian and CC who works at the shops as an shopkeeper that sells stuff like potion, equipment, and other items.

The presentation in this game is genuinely fantastic for its anime-style artwork on settings and environments making the game quite appealing throughout the locations. 

Stuff like you have like Oasis which is a desert like environments, Morose is a town with old fashioned structures, Mines is a dark cave underground, Industrial Park are filled with factory and construction areas, Forest are filled with greenery areas, Ulvosa are crooked looking locations, Ana Thema has old-fashioned house and castles, Sea which is a deep blue underwater area, Village are a simple small areas with old house and greyish areas around it, Snowveil is a blizzardly cold and frosty places with mountains and hills, Valhalla is a home place for angels, Magma Pits are filled with lavas and firey environments, and Tartarus is a home place for demons. 

I also liked the illustration on some of the dialogue cutscenes which are also amazing can be automatically unlocked on the gallery mode, so this proves that the game has the nice looking art-style in any of 2D Metroidvania games.    

Overall, it has good story, likable characters, and fantastic presentation design. 

Gameplay

You take control of Tevi in 2D side-scrolling perspective, as your main goal is to find and collect the Astral Gears, so in order to do that you had to complete each story chapter to progress the game's story campaign.

You will have a HUD screen on the top-left corner indicating the player's health and mana bar, and you will also have a mini-map screen on the top-right corner showing a display of player's location, but you can also check a full-on map screen by pressing the right thumbstick button to easily display the whole screen of map.

For the gameplay, pushing the left stick controls or pressing the left and right d-pad button to move Tevi, and pressing the cross button to jump allowing her to jump on reachable platform.

For the combat, tapping the square button to use melee weapon to attack on enemies dealing with mild or frequent damage hit depending on how much longer can you hit them while tapping the square button. 

Pressing the triangle button uses the range firing attack with the orbs worked effectively on distance range, but deals a bit low-damage hit on enemies. 

If the mana bar has reaches up to 100% then you can also fire a big projectile once which deals a much damage hit on enemies, so after using it then your mana bar can also slowly automatically refill it in few seconds or use one of mana item that instantly refills your mana bar. 

You can change or switch your orbs with left or right shoulder button, so the left ones are for dark orb and the right ones are for light orb.

You will also collect any of two magic gems such as red for dark orb and blue for light orb, so what it does is when you've collected more than 6 magic gems this will allow you to perform a severe magic attack on enemies or bosses in each orbs by pressing the circle button to release the powerful magic projectiles.

After learning the basic controls, you may require to collect and upgrade your character which can be found somewhere in any location, so stuff such as your new abilities that you may going to need it for the later locations such as boots that allow you to do stuff like double jump to reach a higher difficult platforms, being able to slide through a below gap, doing a air dash to reach a long distance platform, and do a wall jumps on narrow side platforms which you will need these to bypass to the new undiscovered areas during the exploration.

There are also a useful items may also require too like bombs that explodes the unbreakable blocks to open a new path, the mask that protects you from taking damage at decay areas, the ring that protects you from taking damage at lava pit areas, and you have jetpack that allow you to temporary hovering in the air.

There are some of these ability items that may come in use for combat such as rapid shots modchip that allow your orbs to fire rapidly, adding new module for orbs such as charged shot, combustible that extends your bomb's blast length, upper slash moves, ground and air combos, spinning attack, dodging moves, and these modular blueprints that you can collect magic gems up to 10 or 15.  

What makes the game quite unique to play is the sigils enhancements which allows you to select any of these items to enhanced your character's effects such as your increased combo speed, increased melee damage attacks, breaking enemy's combos, better heal amount, reduced cooldown time, increased mana points, and so forth that made your character stronger to fight against the higher skilled enemies and bosses. 

You may not able to select all the sigils in one go from the pause menu due to limited number of sigils points, so you may require to level up your character by gaining enough experience point to increase your skill level, which means that once you have levelled up your character enough by defeating many enemies as possible then you can able to add more enhanced sigils with increased sigils points.

You can also head to the shop which sells potions and sigils items, so the potions that can improve upon your attributes such as your melee, ranged, combo, basic, and special may going to help your character as well, but you will need enough currencies to purchase these items which you can able to find a zennies coins somewhere hidden around the areas. 

The game also has a crafting system which you may need to collect enough resources can be obtained by defeating enemies in each locations in order to create and crafting the items such as your health item, mana item, upgradable ability item, creating more sigils, improved orbs, and other useful stuffs.

So far, the controls is pretty simple and easy to learn for the platforming and combat gameplay is because I find the character's movement feels natural when controlling Tevi throughout the areas, so the responsiveness of jumping, sliding, wall kicking, hovering, and air dashing seems to work really well without any signs of input delays.

I also wanted to praise the combat system just plays it so smooth when delivering multiples of combo moves just feels like a traditional button mashing game where you had to make a combination of buttons by tapping square and triangle button and randomly pressing the d-pad button and right trigger to make a combo moves just works nicely during the battles.

The ideas of using the enhancement items will benefit your character's effects with additional health points, reduced cooldown times, more multiple combo hits, taking less damage from enemy's projectiles, and so on just seems to be nicely balanced to play this kind of 2D Metroidvania games.

I got to say that I've enjoyed exploring around the areas which has over 20 locations to discover stuff which is why I really liked playing the game where you can able to find hidden secrets, obtaining item and objects, fighting with the enemies to gain more skill levels to improve your character's strengths, talking with NPCs for infos, and of course it shares with great puzzle elements and platforming segments in many areas. 

What makes the game plays it great is the boss battles where you're be facing against the foes that are tough as nails to fight thanks to over-the-top bullet hell action which is a terms for the bosses that can spread multiples of projectiles and makes the patterns difficult to dodge things around it which is why the game is challenging to play, but it also makes the game quite entertaining as well. 

Besides the main objectives, the game also has side-missions to participate where you had to complete your friend's task and there's a boss rush that your goal is to survive and defeat many bosses as possible without being killed in action, so that's something cool.

Overall, it has solid controls, smooth combat and enhancements, enjoyable exploration, and great boss battles.

                            

Graphics

The graphics is looking amazing in the game thanks to anime art-style that made everything look good on the design wise.

The environments is looking quite colourful with bold surfaces and smooth textures, and I also liked the layouts on backgrounds to make it look like the landscape objects in each locations.

It does have a use of parallax scrolling when controlling the character that makes the foreground moves faster and made background layouts move slowly just feels right for the game's design to make it look more like a 2.5D side-scrolling games.

I also liked the use of special effects in some locations such as the misty fog in green forest, fireflies in swamp forest, floating hills in Valhalla, and wavey effect with bunch of fishes swimming in underground water.

I got to adore the animation on sprites which I consider as cute and adorable with chibi-like appearance which I loved about the anime designed characters.

Sure the bullet-hell projectiles in boss battles is stunningly sharp and bright giving it a heavy look just made it easier to spot-on where the enemies and bosses had shootout their projectiles, and of course I also liked the hit collision effects on enemies and bosses knowing that you're properly attacking on these guys.

The game's performance is running smoothly in 60fps meaning that you won't get any of slowdowns during the battle, so hopefully all the PCs and console platforms will play absolutely fine throughout the single-player game.

Overall, it has amazing environments, impressive parallax scrolling, cute and adorable animation, and flawless performance. 

Music and Sounds      

The original soundtrack in the game is probably the best part of entire thing that fits the game's exploration as well as the actions.

There are several of soundtrack that are incredibly good to listen such as Bandit Base, Morose, Ulvosa, Verdazure sea, The Catacombs, and Cor Machina which was composed by 3R2, Oli Jan, Triodust, Bo-Xun Lin, and Brandon Yates, so if you think that is not enough then my favourite soundtrack is got to be those songs by the synth-metal band called Dance with the Dead just nails it with their amazing 80s style music such as Venom, Entity, Blood Moon, Stoic, The Awakening, and Banshee.

I highly recommend to disable streamer mode from the option menu because having a streamer mode turned on just blocks the Dance with the Dead's soundtrack to avoid copyright strikes is kinda bummer for those who wanted to stream their playthrough videos online didn't want to disable a 6 great musics, so I'm pretty sure there are another ways to stream the playthrough live video with having a streamer mode turned off without getting the false copyright strikes.

The sound effects is really good for its hitboxes noises when attacking the enemies, the stage areas has nice use of ambient noises, and of course the Japanese voice dialogue are pretty decent on the in-game cutscenes.

Overall, it has incredible soundtrack, really good sound effects, and decent voice dialogue.

Special Features

The game does have unlockable gallery and new game plus mode after beating the game which is cool, and what's even cool in the game is that the game does have a custom options where you can able to use these for its speedruns, free roam, turbo mode, random sigils, fast learner, aggro bosses, elite enemies, speedster, sigil pass, and potion scale.

Overall, a very good content.

 

Advantages

Fantastic overall presentation

Smooth combat system 

Enjoyable exploration

Great boss battles

Amazing visuals

Incredible soundtrack 

Disadvantages

Streamer mode blocks D.W.T.D's soundtrack

Final Verdict

Presentation 8/10 - good story, likable characters, and fantastic presentation design.

Gameplay 8.5/10 - solid controls, smooth combat and enhancements, enjoyable exploration, and great boss battles.

Graphics 8.5/10 - amazing environments, very good parallax scrolling, cute and adorable animation, and flawless performance. 

Music and Sounds 9/10 - incredible soundtrack, really good sound effects, and decent voice dialogue.

Special Features 8/10 - Unlockable stuffs and has custom options.

Overall 8.5/10 - As I previously enjoyed Rabi-Ribi from past 7 years ago, Tevi does a little better job than the predecessor for its straight-forward story scenario and solid character's development that adds up the game's charm, as well as shares with cutesy art-direction choices for visuals, strong presentation design for its stage level design, has the best overall soundtrack, and of course the positive side on combat, exploration, and bullet-hell boss battles is really showing that the game development team had put up many great effort on this 2D Metroidvania title just making the game an easy to pick-up and play.

The physical copy for PS5 and Switch cost around between £25 to £35, where as the digital copy from the storefront such as PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam are cost between £25 to £30.    I say this is an easy recommendation for 2D Metroidvania fanatic will likely to enjoy this game for both PCs and Consoles, so please check it out.   

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