THE LATEST NEWS
FROM APRIL 2002
A
fter just five weeks on
European shelves, the
Xbox was already a
console in crisis. Though
Bill’s box was doing strong business
in North America, Japanese demand
for the device had already collapsed
to around 3,000 sales per week. The
situation was no better in Europe – initial
strong demand had already tailed off,
with The Independent suggesting that
Sony’s PlayStation 2 was outselling
the new machine by more than five to
one. In order to rescue the Xbox project
in the European market, Microsoft
made the bold move to cut the price
of the console from £299 to £199,matching the PlayStation 2. To head
off any potential resentment, early
Xbox adopters were offered two free
games and an extra controller by way
of thanks. Within days of Microsoft’s
announcement, Nintendo responded by
cutting the UK price of the GameCube
to £129, significantly undercutting both
of its competitors despite the fact that
the machine was still yet to launch.
For most console gamers, the price
war was the most exciting thing going
on this month. Edge feared that its April
2002 issue “will be viewed as the worst
issue for some considerable length
of time”, mostly because of the belief
that “the strength of an issue is, in themind of the reader, directly proportional
to the quality of games within”. The
only new game to reach 7/10 was Star
Trek: Bridge Commander, with the other
two being the PAL release of Dead
Or Alive 3 and the Game Boy Advance
conversion of Broken Sword. The pages
of other magazines weren’t exactly filled
with overlooked brilliance, either.
The best new game of the month
was Virtua Fighter 4 on PS2. Sega’s
coin-op conversion had already
been covered by Play on import the
previous month, scoring 94%, but
the UK version appeared in Official
PlayStation 2 Magazine this month and
scored 8/10. Reviewer Keith Stuart felt
that the game was “the only choice for
gamers who want a long-lasting single-
player challenge” due to its Kumite
mode, and that “Tekken has a hell of a
fight on its hands after dominating the
PlayStation fighting arena for seven
years.” However, he did also note that
it was “not a game for casual post-pub
pugilists” and that there were “no crazy
fireball moves”.
State Of Emergency certainly sold
well, but didn’t receive critical acclaim.
Official PlayStation 2 Magazine’sAPRIL 2002 – Games
critics cry out from under a
tidal wave of uninteresting
games, Xbox cuts its price
to match the PS2, while
the GBA has a fairly decent
month. Nick Thorpe gazes
ambivalently into the
time vortex...(^) On 4 April, the Angolan Civil
War finally ceased, ending an
armed struggle that had raged
for over two decades. The war
had started in 1975 following the
African nation’s independence from
Portugal, and the main belligerents
were two former independence
movements with differing goals
and leadership. The People’s
Movement for the Liberation of
Angola (MPLA) government finally
achieved victory following the
deaths of two opposition UNITA
leaders – Jonas Savimbi and
António Dembo.
The establishment of the
International Criminal Court was
officially ratified on 11 April, in a
UN ceremony in which ten nations
deposited their ratifications. The
countries that ratified on this day
were Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Cambodia, the Democratic
Republic Of The Congo, Ireland,
Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania
and Slovakia. Creating the court had
been an project since 1989, and it
would come into force on 1 June.
Alice In Chains vocalist and
songwriter Layne Staley was found
dead at the age of 34 on 19 April,
after accountants noticed a lack of
activity in his bank account. Police
discovered his body at his home,
where he had passed away some
two weeks prior – the autopsy and
toxicology report suggested that he
had died accidentally after taking a
mixture of heroin and cocaine.
NEWS
APRIL 2002
[PC] Star Trek: Bridge Commander allowed budding Jedi masters to control iconic craf t like the Millennium Falcon here.
[PS2] Despite some jagged graphics, Virtua Fighter 4
was a championship contender among PS2 brawlers.
[PS2] Despite misgivings from the press, State Of
Emergency managed to sell pretty well for Take Two.
18 | RETRO GAMER