Pokemon Colosseum - GC

The Gamecube is probably my favourite console of all time. At the time the popularity went more for the PS2 and the Xbox. I honestly hated both of them, I wasn’t impressed with the PS2 as it didn’t do much to improve from PS1 other then a DVD player and better graphics. Xbox just had the worst controller to play any game with, it was literally a black and green painted brick with buttons on. Gamecube just felt like a better leap from N64. Also it has some of the best games I’ve ever encountered, Super Smash Bros Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, F Zero GX, Pikmin, the list goes on. Somewhere along the list comes Pokemon Colosseum what could be one of the most overlooked games of all time.

Pokemon Colosseum sets itself in a new area of the Pokémon universe, Orre. Orre has a very mixed variety of environments from Deserts, Grassy mountains, Oasis’. In contrast to the lush, almost-too perfect environments of Kanto and Johto. It’s nice Game Freak have gone out of the regular Pokémon mold this time. In fact you’ll pretty much hear me say that a lot. This game is so much more unique then the regular Beat 8 Gym Leaders, Then the Elite Four, Then become Champion.

You play as the protagonist defaultly known as Wes. Wes at the beginning of the game is infiltrating the secret hideout of Team Snagem, Oh looks like there is a recurring matter in all Pokémon games, evil syndicates. Wes steals a machine known as The Snag Machine. Well I supposed it isn’t Poké-branded like most Pokémon items in the Poké-Universe, however The Poké-Snagger could of caught on. After he successfully steals The Snag Machine Wes plants a Poké-Bomb in Team Snagem’s base, gets onto his Poké-Bike and gets the Poké-**** out of there. So basically Wes causes genocide and gets away with the mass murdering of hundreds of thugs. Nah I’m kidding, The only thing to ever die in a Pokémon game was Cubone’s Mother, and the franchises dignity when Black and White comes out.

After committing a terrorist attack upon the Team Snagem Wes ends up in the oasis-like city of Phenac. Here Wes sees two Snagem grunts with a giant sack, obviously from the fact Wes just destroyed their base the last two Snagem Grunts flee in terror. Inside the sack is a girl, called Rui (Roo-ee? Ree-ou? I can’t pronounce it, I just called her Misty0.2, she has a strikingly odd resemblance to Misty anyway). I don’t want to give too much story away but it basically goes like this. Wes and Misty0.2 discover Shadow Pokemon, Pokemon which hearts have been sealed up and made evil, somehow. Misty0.2 has the power to sense Shadow Pokemon so they must snag all the Shadow Pokemon and Purify them. The story is entertaining throughout the whole game and has a quite scary twist at the end, you’d never guess it and it’s quite a shock.



You start off the game with an Espeon and an Umbreon. The only other Pokemon to collect are the Shadow Pokemon, which is a bit of a shame as the Shadow Pokemon themselves are quite limited. At least 50 (excluding there evolutions) of the 396 available at the time. But the roster of the Pokemon is strange. While the is no Pokemon available to snag from Generation 1, the best of Generation 2 and 3 are obtainable, I think that’s quite good, sure everyone loves Generation 1, but it’s a good way the introduce newer Pokemon (at the time). Overall the roster, whilst quite limited, is still quite good.

To snag a Shadow Pokemon Wes must first lower the Pokemon’s health and then attempt to catch it, very similar to the handheld games, so you can really get into it if you’ve played any of the handheld games. Purifying them comes later into the game, you have to fight with the Shadow Pokemon which will help it lower it’s “Shadow Meter”, once it’s fully gone it’s ready to be purified. You have to go to a specific location in the game to do it. The Shadow Pokemon won’t level up until purified, once they are all the experience from battles is given to them in a big boost and feels good as a reward. There is an award for snagging and purifying every Shadow Pokemon and it is a nice reward, but in my opinion it wasn’t enough.


Geodudes hate Dandruff

The soundtrack to this game is absolutely perfect. With the GBA games at the time the soundtrack to them was actually quite annoying. At this point I thought Game Freak lost it when it came to soundtrack. I spent most of my time on Ruby and Sapphire with the sound off.
I was so relieved with this game’s soundtrack. The over world music is either soothing, suspenseful or even in some cases classy. It also suit’s the environments around or the events happening. As for the battle themes, Amazing, simply amazing, words cannot describe how awesome the battle themes are. The battles have more pumped impact upon it thanks to the music. Even simple friendly battles have such amazing feel. The only soundtrack to disappoint me was the Final Battle of a tournament, which is just a cut version of The Cipher Admin battle, which that sounds epic

The visuals of the environments are beautiful. It really has a lot of charm added to it. Whatever area you’re in the visuals will impress you. You can definitely tell just from first look Game Freak have really gone out of their way to make this game so much different. While the Visuals look stunningly good the models for the People and the Pokemon in battle look quite poor. The population of Orre look like they’re still in an N64 game and they so no emotion at all. The Pokemon models in battle again look like they’re from Pokemon Stadium. In fact that’s true for the 1st 2 generation Pokemon, they are the exact same models from Pokemon Stadium, no updates, no changes, the exact same as before. It’s quite a disappointment.



[SIZE="4"]CONCLUSION[/SIZE]
This game is fantastic. It’s great in everyway and the things I have criticised are quite minimal. It’s just a shame it’s not very popular. I seriously advise anyone who still has a Gamecube or a Wii, to go buy this game and adore it’s beauty. Even if you don’t have a Gamecube or a Wii, buy one and get this game. You might want a new Memory Card too, this game takes up most of its space.

+ Unique and Original
+ Story good enough to keep the game interesting
+ A nice roster of Pokemon
+ Presentation is amazing
- Few, very minimal but very noticeable flaws

[SIZE="4"]9[/SIZE]

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Senna, Liuzzi or Heidfeld to replace injured Kubica


Kubica's car shows severity of crash

Bruno Senna, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nick Heidfeld are in the frame to replace injured Renault driver Robert Kubica.
Hospitalised Kubica faces more surgery on multiple fractures after a rally crash in Italy, which Renault say will keep him out for at least two months.
"We will look for Kubica's substitute: the names considered are Senna, Liuzzi and Heidfeld," said Renault's team principal Eric Boullier on Tuesday.
BBC Sport understands that Heidfeld has been in talks with Renault on Tuesday.
Heidfeld's camp would make no comment on the 33-year-old German's future in F1.

KUBICA STATS & FACTS


Team: Renault
Former team: BMW Sauber
Team-mate: Vitaly Petrov
Nationality: Polish
Born: 7/12/1984, Krakow
F1 GP debut: Hungary 2006
Doctors have suggested that it could take Kubica, who is likely to remain in hospital for two to three weeks after Sunday's crash, up to a year to recover fully.
The Pole was operated on for seven hours by two teams of surgeons after being airlifted to a hospital near Genoa.
"The team is close to Robert, we wait for him with open arms and we hope he can come back before the end of the season," added Boullier.
Senna - who raced for the Hispania team for much of last year - is the first reserve at Renault, while Liuzzi and the highly experienced Heidfeld are looking for a seat after losing out at Force India and Sauber respectively.
Renault say they will not be making any announcements on the driver line-up for the four day-test which begins in Jerez this Thursday.
The team would only confirm that Russian Vitaly Petrov would resume his driving duties as normal.
Kubica's right hand was partially severed in the high-speed crash, and he also suffered arm and leg fractures after his car hit a church wall.
Initial reports suggested he was in danger of losing his hand, although those fears were later played down.
Renault said the general condition of Kubica - who is one of F1's most talented drivers - had continued to improve overnight.

ANDREW BENSON'S BLOG
It is an awful irony that it has taken Kubica's horrific crash in a rally car to bring him to the attention of the wider world...
"On Thursday, Robert should undergo some more surgery in order to stabilise the fractures to his right shoulder and right foot," said the Lotus-backed team in a statement.
"Three or four days later, another operation will allow his elbow fracture to be stabilised as well.
"According to the doctors, the levels of inflammation are in the norm considering his medical condition, and the recovery of his forearm remains encouraging.
"Yesterday [Monday], Robert was able to talk to his doctors and relatives. His medication makes him sleep quite a lot, but he is responding to all external stimulation."