magazine

AUGUST 2000 – One
hardware death, the gaming
equivalent of a nil-nil draw
on a rainy Sunday afternoon,
a few good games and not
a lot of news. That’s what
we enjoyed during 2000’s
summer holiday – let’s
dive on in…
NEWS AUGUST 2000
On 12 August 2000, the first
major Russian naval operation
in a decade ended in tragedy
when the Kursk submarine
was sunk, killing all on board.
During the loading of a dummy
torpedo, a hydrogen peroxide
solution leaked from the weapon
due to faulty case welding.
This caused an explosion with
kerosene fuel, which killed a
number of crew and started a
major fire. This fire caused the
explosion of roughly half a dozen
warheads, killing any survivors
and tearing a major hole in the
hull. The Russian government
claimed that the submarine had
merely been grounded and that
all crew members were alive on
14 August, but following rescue
aid from the UK and Norway, the
military was forced to reveal the
deaths of all crew on 23 August.
London gangster Reggie Kray
was released from prison on 26
August 2000, having served over
30 years for a series of crimes
including murder throughout the
Fifties and Sixties. The end of this
life sentence was ordered by the
Home Secretary Jack Straw, after
it was discovered that Kray was
suffering from terminal cancer.
Kray spent the remainder of his life
with his wife Roberta, whom he’d
married in 1997, before passing
away in his sleep on 1 October
2000. He was buried next to his
twin brother and partner in crime
Ronnie Kray, who had died of a
heart attack five years earlier.
THE LATEST NEWS
FROM AUGUST 2000
Though it barely registered
on many peoples’ radars,
SNK’s Neo-Geo Pocket
gained the unfortunate
distinction of becoming the first
console casualty of the decade, after
less than one year on the shelves.
While the system wasn’t anywhere
near challenging the Pokémon-driven
resurgence of the Game Boy, the
system was gaining a following amongst
hardcore gamers and had quickly
amassed a strong library of games. The
news came as a shock to SNK Europe
– speaking to Arcade, UK managing
director Robbie Phillips said, “We’ve all
worked hard to establish the platform in
[Game Boy Color]In a month of slim pickings for
Nintendo fans, Pro Pool came out on top.
a short space of time and it’s a pity that
we never got a chance to show what the
brand could do with real support.” The
move was part of a total withdrawal from
non-Japanese markets at the behest of
Aruze, a pachinko manufacturer that had
recently taken over SNK.
The release of the month was the
arrival of EA’s world-conquering FIFA
series on the PS2. Unfortunately,
FIFA Soccer: World Championship had
a lot in common with other early PS2
games, in that it was nowhere near
living up to the hype. While the graphical
leap over the previous generation was
noted, GamesMaster’s 67% review
swiftly condemned it, saying “that’s
all the game is good for – watching”.
Arcade was similarly unimpressed in a
3/5 review, complaining that “the players
are just plain stupid” and that multiplayer
hinged on enjoying the errors. “The
terrible refereeing decisions become
comical and the inability of your players
to clear the simplest ball out of the
box becomes clown-like,” Nick Jones
complained, concluding “that says it all,
FIFA is fun for all the wrong reasons.”
[Dreamcast] Marvel Vs Capcom 2 was excellent, though the
multiformat mags weren’t keen on making that clear.
Big names were thin on the ground
elsewhere, as the post-E3 news lull
combined with the usual summer
software drought. This ensured that
some of the less high-profile games
came to the fore in review sections this
month, with the best of them Silent
Bomber, a high-quality PlayStation
action game from the virtually unknown
Japanese developer CyberConnect2.
The game puts you in control of
mercenary Jutah Fate, whose goal is to
blow up the mothership Dante from the
inside with remote controlled bombs.
Arcade declared it ‘PlayStation Game Of
The Month’, and while we’re not sure
that we’d agree with the description,
“Metal Gear Solid with a firework up its
arse,” we can definitely agree with the
4/5 score. GamesMaster concluded that
it’s “not sexy, but got it where it counts”
in an 86% review.
Over on the Dreamcast, Marvel Vs
Capcom 2 was the biggest game of
the month. This 2D fighter took the
standard Capcom crossover formula
and turned everything up to 11 – the
game’s three-on-three tag battles were
14 | RETRO GAMER