Issue 47, June 2004
Editor’s letter
Firstly, let me congratulate you on your choice of PS2 magazine. In your hands you hold the undisputed king of games mags. The greatest of all time.
Think I’m getting a bit carried away here? Perhaps, but we’ve been picking up some awards lately and it might have gone to my head a bit. Hopefully it doesn’t surprise you that we’re considered the best mag gamers can buy. We do go on about how we are the only PS2 mag you need, or the biggest, or the only one for the big games, for reviews, for news…
We think these things are pretty obvious: we were first with Killzone, The Getaway 2, Def Jam Vendetta 2 and this month we have the world’s first Need for Speed 2 info and screens, plus the only GTA: San Andreas sticker you’ll find anywhere; we sell as many copies every month as all the other PS2 mags put together; we are the only PS2 mag with a playable DVD that means you can try out games before you play them; when we say we have an exclusive we really have it…
The baubles I’m grasping up there are the games industry’s major awards (InDin on the left and MCV) for magazine and mag team of the year. Let us know if you think we’re worth it, because without you it doesn’t mean a thing. See you next issue on Thursday, 17 June.
Richard Keith, Editor
Features
Still got Love for the Streets – Need for Speed Underground 2
To Hell and Back – Devil May Cry 3
Have you got the black one in XXL? – A selection of gaming-themed t-shirts.
Five reasons why you’ve never played a game like Driv3r – Driv3r
Monthly Articles
Funny Nicknames – This month, everyone names the award winner they most admire.
Could Be a Classic – An original non-sequel gets some focus. This month, Made Man, the Mafia-themed shooter.
She’s Got Game – A column from Kirsten Kearney from the perspective of female gamers. This month, saving constantly.
Replay – Revisiting Timesplitters 2 and Beyond Good and Evil, reader reviews for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds and Fightbox, cheats for James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, Pitfall: The Lost Expedition, The Haunted Mansion, Champions of Norrath, Kya: Dark Lineage and Tak and the Power of Juju, a walkthrough for LMA Manager 2004 plus online reviews for Rainbow Six 3, Champions of Norrath and Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm.
OPS2 Investigates – This month, Win before the game begins! Try these underhanded techniques to psyche out your opponent and ensure you have the upper hand. Just make sure you have enough friends before using these that you can afford to lose a few.
Back page list – This month, 11 gaming skills you shouldn’t use in real life.
Monitor
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow – “Well-toned as a solo outing but sublime with partners, Pandora Tomorrow’s practically an essential online play. Forget railguns, it’s all about those lethal shock rifle headshots…” Boiling
Naval Ops Commander – “Plenty of strategic depth, if not that much real action.” Warm
Crimson Tears – “It might be a loveable oddity. Then again it might just be a mess.” Warm
MTV Music Generator 3 – “It’s a clever idea, but you can’t help but feel that the simplistic route taken with MTVMG3 makes the whole genre a lot less appealing. Our review next month should reveal much more…” Warm
Richard Burns Rally – “Great looking and very quick, but Richard Burns Rally is often too difficult for comfort. But with slightly less emphasis on punishing realism this could more than challenge the flying Scotsman.” Warm
Athens 2004 – “You’ll need at least one other person to get the best from it.” Warm
Spider-Man 2 – “We’ll be firmly swinging the control system through its paces next month, but from what we’ve seen so far, Spider-Man 2 looks set to be a rather satisfying piece of pure gaming popcorn.” Boiling
Silent Hill 4: The Room – “Silent Hill 4: The Room may hold much that’s familiar, but it’s turning everything up to 11. Cynics of the series are unlikely to be converted by this, but the rest of us are in for quite a ride.” Boiling
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy – “Dazzling game effects but no real inclination to use them due to a seriously low-grade storyline. We need to care to enjoy these days Midway.” Warm
Fight Club – “Fight Club looks better than the initial screens suggested, but there remains an inherent stupidity to a punching game based on such complex source material. We’d prefer an American Psycho game.” Tepid
Def Jam: Fight for New York – “Wonderfully over-the-top, beautiful to look at, packed with clever touches and as vicious as we could’ve asked for. Now, it’s all about how it feels to play. You’ll know all about it one month from now.” Boiling
The Bard’s Tale – “Plenty of in-jokes for diehard RPGers, limited appeal otherwise.” Warm
Red Ninja – “Reasonably solid stealth-based gameplay and some neat touches, but we’re still unsure whether Red Ninja will amount to anything more than Tenchu with a cracking pair…” Warm
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – “No one does sneaking up behind men like Hideo Kojima does, and with MGS3 the stealth guru is set to reinvent the genre. Snake Eater has the potential to destroy every other action game on PS2. Believe.” Meltdown
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 – “Just looking at these first screens is enough to make us wish the summer was over and Brothers in Arms’ release date rounding the corner. If Gearbox can make the squad combat fly there’ll be no stopping the advance on PS2.” Boiling
Crash Twinsanity – “Can Crash pull something special out of the bag? We hope so.” Warm
Shadow of Rome – “Shadow of Rome is still a long way off completion, but it’s a definite thumbs up on what we’ve seen so far. We’ll bring you a report on how the chariots handle as soon as possible… Hail Caesar!” Hot
Cold Winter – “If Cold Winter was a book your dad would read it while sunning himself on a Majorcan beach. And yes, since you ask, that is a recommendation.” Hot
Reviews
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain – “Syphon Filter offers a compelling reason to fork out for a Network Adapter fused to an engrossing single-player game. Great stuff.” 8/10
Onimusha Blade Warriors – “A brash and energetic excursion into multiplayer battling for Onimusha that’s fun for a while but ultimately throwaway.” 6/10
Gran Turismo 4 Prologue – “Mixes some taxing driving requirements with some tediously easy tasks, but delivers on the quality front, if not the quantity.” 7/10
Drakengard – “For all its majestic battlefield scope, Drakengard’s long-term prospects are ultimately somewhat short-sighted.” 6/10
Riding Spirits 2 – “Meticulous attention to manufacturer detail can’t hide the fact that the spark of passion isn’t firing in RS2’s cylinders.” 6/10
Red Dead Revolver – “Red Dead Revolver is this year’s sleeper hit waiting to happen. Occasionally rough around the edges, but fun throughout.” 9/10
Cy Girls – “A second-rate adventure with nothing to give except some decent combat and a big ol’ lug of lifted ideas.” 6/10
Van Helsing – “Almost an unofficial sequel to one of the best games on PS2. Christ knows how they’ll get away with it, but you might as well enjoy it.” 8/10
Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2 – “Supreme tennis sim that builds on its predecessor with a killer career mode that’s as nuanced and rich as you want it to be.” 8/10
Serious Sam: Next Encounter – “Hardly reinventing the wheel, but good, honest, mindless fun with the bonus of online play. Not bad at all for 20 quid.” 7/10
Legends of Wrestling: Showdown – “Easy to get to grips with and plenty to do, but it lacks the exhaustive detail, scope and personality of Smackdown!” 6/10
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness – “Charm, an imaginative approach and accessibility overcome RPG suspicion and basic visuals to make a deeply satisfying game.” 8/10
Muppets Party Cruise – “With so many games, you should find something to like – but amusement decreases as the player numbers drop.” 6/10
International Golf Pro – “A simple, up-and-down golfer that can’t match the majesty of Tiger Woods but can still play a pretty mean 18.” 7/10
England International Football – “A mediocre footy simulation that adds nothing to the genre and stumbles behind PES and FIFA like an arthritic goal-keeping coach.” 5/10
Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku – “Action platformer that plays like a samurai-ed Maximo and looks like a comic strip. But in a good way.” 6/10
Seven Samurai 20XX – “So nearly a pure thumb breaking, button bashing actioner, Seven Samurai stabs itself in the foot by trying to stretch too far.” 6/10
Way of the Samurai 2 – “If practicing your sword technique and finding lost children isn’t your ideal occupation, you’re not likely to enjoy discovering them.” 7/10
Conan – “He looks nothing like Arnie, but you’ve probably never seen him as Conan anyway. Beyond that it’s standard fantasy nonsense.” 5/10
Firefighter FD18 – “With some more imagination and courage applied to the design this could’ve been a top interactive drama. Hot, rather than burning.” 6/10
Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade – “This is mindless in a strangely pacifying kind of way. You may well keep plugging away at it if you’ve finished everything else. Maybe.” 6/10
Maxxed Out Racing – “Totally unremarkable. A driving game with few redeeming features. It’s cheap, sure, problem is it’s not very cheerful.” 2/10
The Sniper 2 – “There is no reason to play this game. Do not buy it, and if someone buys it for you, slap them and put it on Ebay.” 2/10
League Series Baseball 2 – “Budget batter that’s better than the price suggests. The problem is, though, who’ll step up to the plate over here?” 5/10
Disc Content
Playable Demos
Alias
Champions of Norrath
Deadly Skies 3
Pool Paradise
Goblin Commander: Unleash the Horde
Mega Man X7
World War Zero: Ironstorm
Footage
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Killzone
Transformers
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain
Neo Contra
Singstar
Rumble Roses
Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2
Athens 2004
Save Files
Ratchet and Clank
Enter the Matrix
Splinter Cell
SSX 3
Maximo VS Army of Zin
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Trivia
* This is the first issue of Official Playstation 2 Magazine that I ever read. I read a friend’s copy (this is the same friend as in my Fightbox story). Funnily enough, I didn’t even own a PS2 at the time!
* A rumour had somehow gotten started around this time that Goldeneye: Rogue Agent had been cancelled. EA emphatically debunked the rumour as false, and this month OPS2 reiterate the falsehood of the rumour. Maybe the cancellation rumour was a deliberate false flag operation, since it’s a James Bond spin-off and they would want to cover up secret spy stuff?
* There’s a competition to design a new look for the Prince of Persia, with the prize of the winning design being included in Warrior Within. Ubi Soft were cutting it pretty fine with giving the Prince a redesign, considering the game was only about six months away.
* Van Helsing is fun, in that not only is it a shameless Devil May Cry clone, but at least until the release of Devil May Cry 3, it was somehow better than the real thing. You even got a bonus for finishing a level with Van Helsing’s hat on. How cool is that? On top of that, it’s also a member of the exclusive club of movie tie-in games better than the film. If you haven’t played it before, give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.
* The Disgaea review comes with a photo of two ladies in a hot tub, and the promise of plenty of nudity in the game. Of course, there isn’t really any nudity, but the magazine thought they needed a gimmick to draw the reader’s attention to the review, for fear of them skipping a great, if niche game. Well, I guess their heart’s in the right place…
* The Sniper 2 is infamous for being one of the worst games on PS2, to the point that when it was re-released on PSN, even the product description mocked it. I assume it was re-released due to the so-bad-it’s-good demographic finding value in it.
* The upcoming games release dates page has God of War marked under “Avoid Me”. Of all the things in the magazine that have aged poorly, that’s one of the worst.
Quote of the Month: “Bitter experience has taught us that women aren’t massively enthusiastic about sharing their beds with men who sleep with enormous knives.” So that’s where I’ve been going wrong all this time!
Cover price: £5.49
Page Count: 146
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