TimeSplitters (PS2)

Developer:

Free Radical

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

PS2

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out a game I haven't really played before: the original TimeSplitters for the PlayStation 2! Not Time Stalkers for the Dreamcast, that's something very different. (Just to make it more confusing, in the EU the two games came out less than two weeks apart.)

TimeSplitters was created by Free Radical Design, a company that has had a bit of a rough time of things over the years, as it's been killed off at least twice. The first time was in 2014, after they'd spent some time in disguise as Crytek UK, the second was last year after the Embracer group decided it would be better for their shareholders if we didn't get a fourth TimeSplitters game made by the original founders.

Free Radical was originally formed in early 1999 by staff that left Rare during the production of N64 FPS Perfect Dark. So it's pretty impressive that they got this out in late 2000, just a few months after Perfect Dark came out, especially as it was for a brand-new system. Rare had been focused on N64 and Game Boy games during the latter half of the 90s, but this was a launch title for the PlayStation 2. So I guess I'm going to see what Dr Doak and the GoldenEye team could do in 16 months on unfamiliar hardware.

I won't be seeing it on any other machines though, as to this day the game remains a PlayStation 2 exclusive. It's a product of that horrifying period of history where first-person shooters sometimes never got a version with mouse controls, and unlike its sequels it never made it to a system supported by backwards compatibility like the Xbox.

Alright, I'm going to check out the single-player for a bit and see if it's still fun in 2024. Assuming it was ever fun. And assuming it even has a single-player mode. It's going to really screw up my plans if it doesn't!

Perfect Dark (Xbox 360)

Developer:

Rare

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

N64, Xbox 360

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the spiritual successor to Rare's legendary N64 FPS GoldenEye 007: the slightly less legendary Perfect Darkﾞ!

It came out three years later for the same console, runs on the same engine, and was developed by a lot of the same people, so it's basically GoldenEye 2 (or GoldenEye 008?) There were proper sequels to GoldenEye, but Rare had been outbid by EA and decided they'd rather do their own thing anyway, so Black Ops gave us third person shooter Tomorrow Never Dies on the PlayStation and Eurocom got to make the next first person N64 Bond shooter, The World is Not Enough. Both considerably less legendary.

Perfect Dark was was released late in the N64's life and was so ambitious that it required the Expansion Pak installed in order to access 65% of its content. Though even with double the RAM under the hood, the game still suffers from framerate issues. Fortunately I'm mostly going to be playing the remastered Xbox 360 version on the Xbox One, which has about 2000 times the RAM. I would've played the PC version and used a mouse but to this day the game still hasn't got a PC port.

If you're wondering why there's an N behind the title despite the letter not appearing in either word, that's so that the Nintendo logo can spin around and morph into the logo! It's a little different in the Xbox Live Arcade version, as 4J Studio's logo takes Nintendo's place. Not a lot of Nintendo logos on Microsoft games I've noticed. If you're wondering why there's a dakuten (ﾞ) after the K... I've got no idea. They thought it'd look cool I guess. Like how Street Fighter II′ has a dash.

Alright I'll put this on and give it an hour or two then. I used to love the game but I can't remember if there's anything notable I should be playing up to (mostly because it's the multiplayer I was obsessed with), so I'm just going to play the first few levels and document my findings.

The Sims (PC)

Developer:

Maxis

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

PC, Mac

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing The Sims! The original game from the year 2000, installed right off the CD I bought and played it from years ago. In fact I don't even think you can buy this digitally, which sucks. I haven't got any of the expansions but from what I've heard I'm probably better keeping my installation light. At least if I want to avoid suffering long loading times and crashes.

My Super Adventures gimmick for this year is 'games that have appeared on a top ten list' and I found The Sims on an old list of bestselling PC games ever, right up at number 1. It kicked the ass of all the previous 'Sim' games like SimCity and SimAnt, and I can see why. It's pretty much the most relatable video game ever made as it's simulating everyone's normal life, to a degree that no game had ever managed up to this point. This time you're controlling the people who live in the SimCity, the tiny Sims that complain about crime and traffic all the time, and you get to dress them up and buy them microwaves and stuff!

To be honest I've been meaning to write about the game forever, but it's always been too daunting for me. Other people always manage to construct insane narratives around their Sims' lives and I know my own playthrough is going to be depressingly sedate and uneventful by comparison. I just don't have it in me to torture my little computer people! I'm not going to let them use the oven and burn the house down, I'm not going to seal them up in a wall in a puddle of their own urine, and I'm definitely not going to build a swimming pool and then delete the steps when they're in. So really, what's even the point of this?

But eventually I came to an epiphany: if nothing interesting happens then that's the game's fault, not mine! I'm just going to play it as boring and normal as possible and if see if the various interacting simulations can give us some entertainment. C'mon game, amuse me!

Dragon Warrior VII / Dragon Quest VII (PSX) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still playing Dragon Warrior VII, a game that never actually starts.

It'd better give me some gameplay soon though, because there's not going to be a part three to this. There's countless other shiny things competing for my attention and I'm sure your patience isn't infinite either.

(If you want to jump back to part one click any of these words.)

Dragon Warrior VII / Dragon Quest VII (PSX) - Part 1

Developer:

Heartbeat

|

Release Date:

2001 NA (2000 JP)

|

Systems:

PSX, 3DS, iOS, Android

---

This week on Super Adventures, it's Dragon Quest VII! Or Dragon Warrior VII if you're in the US (even though it was the fifth game released there).

If you're in Europe it's... nothing at all, because it just didn't come out here. We had to wait until until the 3DS remake was released 16 years later (with the new subtitle Fragments of the Forgotten Past). Enix basically ignored Europe so Dragon Quest wasn't a thing over here and I have absolutely zero knowledge about this game. Well, except for what I've just read on Wikipedia. It's apparently number 20th on the PlayStation's all-time best selling games list with 4.1 million sales!

The thing is, it was only sold in Japan and the US, and in America it sold just 200,000 copies over its lifetime, so that means 95% of those 4.1 million sales were in Japan alone. For comparison, Final Fantasy VII sold 330,000 copies in the US in its first weekend and it's currently up to 12.8 million sales worldwide (it's number 2 on the PlayStation all-time list). That one did come out in Europe btw.

I did another five minutes of research and learned that this was the last of the two Dragon Quest games made by Heartbeat, as they took a break afterwards and then never came back. I guess making a game this huge takes it out of you, especially when you're fully aware how massive the fanbase is. This was also the final main series Dragon Quest game to be published by Enix... because they merged with their nemesis Square in 2003. On the other hand, it's the first of the series to be released on the PlayStation, and it somehow came out after Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX. In fact the US version was released just six weeks before Final Fantasy X arrived there on the PS2!

Of course none of these games came out on the Nintendo 64, because Nintendo had pretty much opted out of JRPGs for that generation by opting to use low capacity cartridges instead of CDs. Though the game was originally announced for the N64DD!

I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh right, this year I'm playing games that made it onto someone's 'top 10' list for whatever reason, and Dragon Quest VII was voted the 9th best game ever made on the 2006 Famitsu reader's poll. I'm going to give it an hour or so and see if I agree.

Handkerchief. (Demo) (PC) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, rogue guest reviewer mecha-neko has returned to dredge up a forgotten piece of PC history. And this time he's even found an ancient demo of it so you can try it for yourself!

Handkerchief doesn't exactly fit in with my 'games from a top 10 list' theme I've been going with this year, as it's so obscure that even the people making 'Top 10 Most Obscure PC Games' lists apparently haven't heard about it. But whenever mecha-neko plays a game I get a week off, so I'm giving the theme a week off as well.

Developer:

Opus Corp.

|

Release Date:

22nd September 2000 (Full game)

|

Systems:

Windows

---

Hello everyone! It's my tenth anniversary of writing for Super Adventures! It seems like just yesterday that I was rummaging through mouldy disks and finding gems like David Wolf: Secret Agent, and doing foolish things like trying out sports games.

To mark the occasion, I'm playing a much-loved game from my secret past. It's one that doesn't appear on any Top Ten lists that I can find, sorry Ray. This is Handkerchief., a demo that I used to play endlessly back in 2000, over twenty years ago!

Let's go!

Valkyrie Profile (PSX)

Developer:

tri-Ace

|

Release Date:

2000 (JP 1999)

|

Systems:

PSX, PSP

---

This week on Super Adventures, I've got some screenshots from Nordically-themed PlayStation JRPG Valkyrie Profile for you. Maybe even a couple of GIFs as well! That's the original PlayStation by the way, though you'd forgiven for being confused by this atypically high resolution menu screen. I suppose they needed the extra pixels to fit in all those choices (there are two separate 'play intro' options there!)

The game's by tri-Ace, makers of the Star Ocean series, among other RPGs. I was going to list a few of the ones I've already written about and give you some links to click but when I went looking I couldn't actually find any. 1200+ games on Super Adventures so far and this is my very first tri-Ace title!

I'm sure I must have at least tried the game before, but it would've been in ages past so if I seem like I'm surprised or clueless about something, that's because I am. I really don't know what this game's going to be like. Well okay, it's a platformer with an unusual turn-based JRPG battle system, I know that much. I also know that I have to play the US version because there isn't a European version of it for me to show off. Us Europeans had to wait for the PSP version, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, which came out seven years later. That's an entire console generation!

SPOILER WARNING: JRPGs typically have a fair bit of story in them and I'm going to be going through the first couple of hours of this one, so be aware that I will reveal and ruin any twists up to that point. There's still 30 or 40 hours of it I won't be spoiling though.

Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (PC) - Part 2

Today on Super Adventures I'm just playing a bit more of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (Enhanced Edition). Well actually I'll be playing a lot more, but I wouldn't worry too much about spoilers as I'll just be skipping through all the interesting parts to whine about things that bother me.

I'm sorry I can't be as in-depth or insightful as the CRPG Addict, but it seems like he's going to take another decade or more to reach the 2000s, so why not read my words while you wait? I mean I'm assuming you've probably read part one already. If not you can get to it by clicking here: PART ONE.

Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (PC) - Part 1

Enhanced -	Developer:	Overhaul	|	Release Date:	2013	|	Systems:	Win, OS X, iPad, Android, iPhone, Linux, Switch, PS4, XBOne
Original Game -	Developer:	BioWare	|	Release Date:	2000	|	Systems:	Win

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the Enhanced Edition of the gigantic Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. This one's a titan of RPGs, an absolute classic, and very similar to the original Baldur's Gate... which I've already written about. In fact you might be wondering why I'd spend so much time trying to play and then summarise something so massive and complex (and yet also so well known) when I've basically done it already, but it's too late for you to talk me out of it.

Baldur's Gate II was BioWare's fourth title, after mech action game Shattered Steel, Baldur's Gate, and misc action game MDK2, and this is the point where they cast away all distractions to fully devote themselves to the RPG genre. But they only make blockbuster AAA titles these days, so Beamdog (their Overhaul Games division to be precise) got to be the ones to update this game for modern systems 13 years later. They updated the Throne of Bhaal expansion as well, and even threw in a bonus battle arena called The Black Pits II (which I'm not gonna play).

The Enhanced Editions apparently sold well enough, as a few years later Beamdog also got to make a new expansion for the first Baldur's Gate, called Siege of Dragonspear, which fills you in what happened to your hero in the time skip between the two games. So Baldur's Gate II is now following on from content made 16 years after it. You can import your character from that expansion into this and start off way overleveled... by like 2 levels (Dungeons & Dragons can be incredibly stingy with the level ups it seems).

I never played pen and paper D&D and I haven't read any Forgotten Realms books, so I'll have no idea how faithful Baldur's Gate II is to the lore and gameplay. I have played a few of the videogames before though... including this one. In fact it was probably my first D&D game after Eye of the Beholder, and I completely bounced off it the first time I installed it because I had no bloody idea what I was doing. I don't even think I knew I was supposed to rest occasionally. But then I gave it a second go later and made real progress. Tons of progress. I didn't actually beat the bloody game though and it's been tormenting me ever since.

I'm thinking that I got about two thirds of the way through on my last time, but it's a bloody long game so I'm not really sure. All I know is that it's going to take more than the first hour to really get an idea of how it plays, but I'll try to skip through without really spoiling anything beyond the prologue. Expect lots of zoomed out images of tactical combat and beautiful shots of menu screens.

Nox (PC)

Developer:

Westwood Pacific

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

Windows, OS X

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about Nox. Not the Android Emulator, I'm talking about the classic Diablo 'em up video game by Westwood. Not the Westwood that made Command and Conquer and Blade Runner, I'm talking about the other one, Westwood Pacific. They're the ones who made the 'Christopher Lloyd in Toontown' adventure game Toonstruck, back when they were known as 'Burst Studios'.

Nox has already made an appearance on Super Adventures, as guest reviewer Ocean guest reviewed it for me. But that was way back in April 2011, when the site was just three months old, so I figured it was about time that I had a look at the game myself. Plus I'm going to justify the existence of this second article right away by giving you some trivia that you won't find in Ocean's post: the word 'nox' is Latin for night or darkness. Here's another fact: the game was released five months before Diablo II, which is maybe a bit closer than you want, but much preferable to releasing five months after it.

Okay I'm going to give the game a couple of hours and see how it plays. Oh, I should mention that I'm running the GOG.com version, and I've installed the 'Nox GUI' SDL patch to increase the chances of it working properly for me on Windows 10.

Need for Speed Games Part 3: Need for Speed: Porsche 2000 (aka Porsche Unleashed)

This week on Super Adventures, I've been playing through all the Need for Speed games released during their first decade. Well maybe not all of them, I'm sure there's one I've accidentally skipped, because they just kept making the things! There are more Need for Speed games than there are Bond movies at this point. Well, kind of. It depends on whether you count games like Need for Speed: V-Rally and Over Drivin' Skyline Memorial. Or if you count games like Porsche 2000, Porsche 2000 and Porsche 2000.

Speaking of which, today I'm writing about Need for Speed: Porsche 2000, also known as Porsche Unleashed, or sometimes just Porsche. Once again the US version has the better name, as I don't think a game has any business having '2000' in its title when it actually came out during the year 2000. FIFA 2000 coming out in 1999, that's fine. Death Race 2000 coming out in 1975, that's cool too. But this I don't like.

This is the third part of four. If you want to go back to an earlier part you can find them here and here.

(If I don't mention what system a screenshot came from, it's from the PC version.)

Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster (PSX)

Developer:

Radical

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

PlayStation

---

This week on Ray Hardgrit's Super Adventures, I'm playing Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster on the original PlayStation! Hang on, that's not right, I'm sure the box called it Jackie Chan: Stuntmaster. Where'd this 's' come from? Is he the Stuntmaster or is Stuntmaster his?

There's no 's' anywhere in the US version, and in the UK it shows up in the game and the manual but not on the box. This is the opposite of important or interesting, but it's definitely weird.

Anyway, Stuntmaster was developed by Radical Entertainment Ltd (not to be confused with Ritual Entertainment), who also made games like Mario is Missing!, Power Piggs of the Dark Age and The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Sadly their days of making their own games ended in 2012 when Prototype 2 underperformed and now they just support other Activision studios. At least that's what Wikipedia told me.

But here's a fact for you that no one can nick from Wikipedia: this was one of the first PlayStation games I ever owned, because it came with my beautiful little second-hand PSOne. It's also the second Jackie Chan game I owned, after Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu on the NES, but they're far from the only games with his name on. There's a bunch of them on the MSX, there's a couple of surprisingly gory Mortal Kombat-inspired arcade fighters, there are two based on the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon, and there's even two on the XaviXPORT console.

Wait, what the hell's a XaviXPORT?

Escape from Monkey Island (PC)

Developer:

LucasArts

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac, PlayStation 2

---

Super Adventures is going on another break (sorry about that), but first I'm going to finally fix a gaping hole in my site. I wrote about Curse of Monkey Island in 2013, two years later I followed it up with Secret and Tales, and then two years after that I played LeChuck's Revenge. Not the recommended order I know, but if I always did what people recommended I wouldn't be playing Escape from Monkey Island at all. It's been another two years since I played a Monkey Island game though, so I have to play Escape now to continue the pattern!

This is the fourth of the games and for the better part of a decade it seemed like it was going to be the last of them. It wasn't though, which is fortunate because it would've been a bit of a depressing note to leave the series on. Not that Escape from Monkey Island is outright hated by fans, in fact it got good reviews, but it's often considered to be the weakest of them.

It's not the only classic adventure game sequel to suffer after the switch to 3D though, as there's also Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Simon the Sorcerer 3D... actually it'd be quicker to name the ones that pulled it off. Uh, Sam and Max: Save the World maybe? The transition from being the prettiest 2D games to the ugliest 3D games with the worst controls didn't go well for them, but the game design seemed to go downhill in general. Even the reasonably well liked Gabriel Knight 3 gave the world the cat hair moustache puzzle that killed adventure games forever. Or maybe they died off because increasing budgets due to 3D visuals and voice acting made them increasingly unprofitable. Could be a bit of both.

Speaking of things disappearing forever but then actually coming back a while later, Super Adventures is taking the next two months off, so I've given you a few more screenshots than usual to keep you going. If you ration them out, one screenshot a day, it should get you most of the way through. But if you find yourself thinking 'When is this damn post going to end???', then don't worry, I'll shut up just as soon as I've achieved something on the second island.

This will of course mean there'll be SPOILERS for the events up to that point. Oh, and for the earlier games as well.

Animorphs (GBC) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, legendary guest poster mecha-neko returns out of nowhere to show off a Game Boy Color game about people who turn into animals going around catching animals so that they have more animals to turn into, or something.

Developer:

Runny-Fun

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

Game Boy Color

---

What's up, docs? I'm guest poster mecha-neko who is a cat. You're tuned into Super Adventures in Gaming, where I'm gonna play Animorphs, an RPG on the Game Boy Color.

Be warned that this post contains flashing animations, and gratuitous images of a cheap cash-in title based on a kids book.

Messiah (PC)

Developer:

Shiny

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

Windows

---

Today on Super Adventures I'm playing... a PlayStation demo disc I guess. I mean check out the menu theme I'm hearing right now: Youtube link. A Fear Factory soundtrack's not entirely what was I expecting from a game with a cherub on the cover by the makers of Earthworm Jim.

I've actually had a few requests for Messiah, all of them coming after I wrote about Dark Messiah: Might and Magic a few weeks back. I figured that eventually someone might have suggested the Japanese survival horror Dark Messiah (AKA. Hellnight) instead, but nope everyone wants to see the one with the baby angel in it. So a creepy baby angel's what you'll get.

(Click the gameplay screenshots to view them at their original resolution.)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen (PC)

Developer:

The Collective

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac

---

Today on Super Adventures... it's another licensed sci-fi game! Apparently they come in pairs this year. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - The Fallen comes from the Star Trek gamesplosion of 2000, when a ridiculous amount of Trek games all appeared at once, and some were even good! The 'Deep Space Nine' spin-off itself had actually ended back in '99, but they boldly went forward and gave the fans a couple more games anyway.

You might think your game backlog is bad, but this has been sitting on my shelf unplayed for like 15 years now. Mostly because I could never get the damn thing to run properly. It always came out running too fast, or way too dark, or with unfiltered textures and giant space pixels in place of stars.

This time though I'm using the dgVoodoo 2 Glide wrapper to trick the game into thinking I have a 3dfx card, and it's actually working pretty great... except for the low resolution and 16-bit colour depth. So be aware that the game can theoretically look better than it does in the upcoming screenshots.

Warning: this will likely contain spoilers for the 'Deep Space Nine' TV series. Like the fact that it has one episode entirely about one of the main cast having a sex change to stand in for his mother, and it's still a better series than 'Voyager'.

(Click an image to see the original screenshot, if you're in the mood for disappointment. They ain't HD by a long shot.)

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64) - Replay

Developer:

Nintendo

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

N64

---

Super Adventures is teetering on the precipice of becoming four years old, and it's become a tradition for me to use each anniversary as an opportunity to look back at five or six of the games I played back in the earliest days of the site and give them another try. Traditions are boring though, so this year I'm only replaying a single game, the latest one, and I'm putting it up on the wrong day.

You could argue that I didn't really give Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask a fair chance last time, but I wouldn't bother because I'd only end up agreeing with you. I mean what could I say in my defence, that quitting before I'd even encountered the defining mechanic of the game was justified because I was bored?

It's a game about fighting through dungeons, earning masks, and rewinding time, and I didn't get far enough on my first try to do any of that. I played hide and seek and lost, and then a moon fell on me, the end. But I figured it'd be thematically appropriate to give it a second look, in the hope that we can both do better this time around. I was actually thinking of scheduling this for three days ago as well, but then that would've just been confusing.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)

Developer:

Nintendo

|

Release Date:

2000

|

Systems:

N64

---

Today on Super Adventures it’s the very last and final game of my year long alphabetical gimmick event: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask! I couldn't finish off the alphabet without the biggest 'Z' in gaming; the entirety of the ‘Majora’s Mask’ text is taking up about 1.3% of the pixels in that title screen, while the ‘Z’ on its own covers a massive 3.4%! Anyway after this game I’ll be free to play whatever I feel like and I never have to worry about titles again... until I come up with some other dumb idea.

I don't really like talking about these Zelda games to be honest, as I always feel like I'm wrong about them. I've criticised critically acclaimed games before, I'll point out flaws when I see them, but if reviewers were able to measure a game's entertainment value using a universally recognised SI unit, they'd be using kiloZeldas. This series sets the standard that other games are judged against, and if any professional reviewer were to give them a low grade, people would likely consider them to be at fault. I say likely, because I can't even find one single truly negative review for a 3D era Zelda on metacritic.

But I’ve put a few hours into Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time now and I walked away from each of them unimpressed. I’m not going to say they’re bad games, and I’m definitely not about to start throwing about words like ‘overrated’, but either I’m immune to their charms or they sure take their time getting to the good bit. So I’m coming into Majora’s Mask with zero nostalgia and a little bit of apprehension. I’ll give it an hour or so to win me over, I’m here to learn, not to hate, but there’s a fair chance this is going to end in tears and you should adjust your own expectations accordingly.

Donald Duck: Quack Attack / Goin' Qu@ckers*! (PSX)

Alright, the last 'Q' game I'll be looking at this year is the Playstation version of Disney's Donald Duck "Qu@ck Att@ck"?*! (AKA. "Goin' Qu@ckers*!" in North America). Seriously, that's what it's called, you can see the title screen right there. I'm going to assume the bonus punctuation is standing in for unintelligible angry duck swearing, because it totally is.

Today's game is a request... uh, a suggestion... well okay someone basically just pointed out in a comment that the thing exists and begins with 'Q', but that's good enough for me. It turns out that Q isn't the most popular letter for video game titles, so I appreciate the help. R, S and T on the other hand I've got covered (and then some), so I wouldn't recommend recommending anything beginning with one of those letters for the next four months or so.

I've never even heard of this one before by the way, so I've no idea what kind of game it is or what the critical response to it was. Somehow though I don't expect to be impressed, but I'll give it an hour or two to surprise me.

Evolva (PC) - Guest Post

CREATE YOUR OWN GENETIC WARRIORS!

I lent this from a friend a million years ago. Never played it. Then I bought it from GOG for next to nothing, promising that I would find out what the game was all about. Never did. Have you played it? Didn't think so! Somehow, the game simply deflects attention.

If I don't play it now, no-one might ever have played it! I suppose I should play it.

If you like what you see, you can click the pictures to view them a little bigger!