| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
released June 2004, purchased August 2004
There is exactly one reason why I bought this game: EyeToy. This game contains one of the best uses of the EyeToy that anybody ever bothered to make.
Things have improved slightly since that amazing Fall of 2004, but back then there was just about nothing worthwhile on the EyeToy. Interesting gimmick, lousy games. And it had been out for almost a year!
This Harry Potter game - which came with a free ticket to the movie, assuming you cashed it in before the end of July! - managed to out-do every EyeToy-dedicated title to date and in the foreseeable future. How did it achieve this goal: by framing the wacky camera games with a tournament-style scoring system. It's that simple, folks, and yet the makers of EyeToy: Play and the upcoming Sega Superstars managed to miss it.
Fire up the EyeToy portion of the disc and your first act is to get sorted. Yeah, it's random, and yeah, four players are going to get four different Houses... but you can't beat the geeky fanboy awe of seeing yourself standing there with the goddamn Sorting Hat chewing on your hair and spouting Potter poetry. Then you all take turns in a series of mini-games events, scoring points for the big finish. And unlike EyeToy: Play or Sega Superstars, all of these games are fun.
There's a scoring structure; there's a definite end with a crowned champion. That's all we want from any party game, so why did it take a year before somebody got it right? And it was done as an extra feature inside a movie game that wasn't even strictly an EyeToy title. For shame, Sony.
Oh right, the regular game. I actually went back and beat the movie portion during a PS2 dry spell in the summer of '05. It was pretty bad.
Memory Score: Best EyeToy experience ever; the Potter window dressing is a happy bonus.
released September 2004, purchased September 2004
click here for my review written in September 2004!
I can take a car game every now and then, but games like Gran Turismo always make me feel like I'm not getting my $50 worth. I could care less about all the unlockable vehicles and upgrades and repairs and whatever other motorhead minutiae they toss in there. I just want to drive fast cars around crazy fun tracks. I'm an arcade racer; more of a kart game fan.
So when a driving game with realistic cars on the cover shows up, I tend to filter it right out. That's how I've managed to ignore the Burnout series thus far. Somehow, #3 pierced the veil and the arcadey message made it to my innards. This is a car game for people who hate car games.
With an emphasis on blazing speed and insane crashes, Burnout 3 is just an out-and-out joy to play. Where other driving games opt for tedious detail, Burnout 3 just tells you to go smash 15 enemy cars. While avoiding innocent civilian cars! It's perfect, even when the camera bails out on you to go watch an enemy car flip off into a hot dog stand... it's still perfect, plus now it's extravagant.
Load times are completely disgusting, however. And to grind in the pain, the loading screens are painted with embarrassing "hints" like "Did you try USING BOOST?" Aside from opening up more cars, the unlockable elements are all trophy-based and utterly lame.
But that's all largely incidental complaints. Burnout figured out how to turn a smash-'em-up racing game into a full-bore dramatic arcade action game. Kudos.
Memory Score: Bought two songs off the soundtrack.
released September 2004, purchased September 2004
I don't think I played a single game of this offline. This was a thoroughly online purchase, shared by fellow PS2 hockey nuts Mike and Scott. We all bought it and even managed to play fairly regularly for a couple weeks. Just like that old Xbox commercial with the retarded triplets.
This was the year that the entire line of ESPN games debuted at $20, trying to break EA's stranglehold lock on sports. The tactic didn't work, but it meant the three of us each got a brand new online hockey game for slightly more than the cost of one EA brand new online hockey game. (Sort of ironic that I bought this game immediately after buying two EA titles, see above.)
And the major reviews really didn't differentiate much between ESPN and EA hockey. I researched that, believe it, because we were all steadfast EA hockey guys. I think Scott and Mike will back me up: it was largely error-free (had a couple annoying third period crashes, but not many), voice chat was fine, and the experience was much the same as our familiar EA offline games. As in: Mike and Scott make all the plays while I forget what "offsides" means.
So what did you do in the single-player offline mode? I have no idea. Probably played a lot of hockey and unlocked Big Head codes.
Memory Score: First hockey game since September '01. You won't sucker me with a new roster update.
Next time: The crazy month of September 2004 continues with a much-awaited sequel, a new DDR game... and the little game about rolling things up that shocked the world.
