Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat

Become Largo Winch, the billionaire in blue jeans.

• EU release: 1st October 2002
• NA release: N/A
• JP release: N/A
• Developer: UbiSoft Annecy
• Publisher: UbiSoft
• NGC Magazine Score: N/A
• Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Largo Winch is a Belgian comic book character. He becomes the head of a large multinational business when his adoptive father is murdered. As he discovers more about the business, he ends up on many James Bond-style adventures as he gets in trouble around the globe. The video game adaptation follows suit, with Largo Winch being informed about genetically modified grain being created and stolen from one of his labs, with nobody there knowing it existed in the first place.

The supporting characters all have acceptable voice acting, but Largo Winch himself is…something special. While there is a credit for the voice (and has done much better work in Beyond Good & Evil and FarCry), I would absolutely believe that the old Microsoft Sam text to speech generator was used instead. Not only is it completely emotionless and stiff (when the character is supposed to be a suave, charming ladies man), but even simple words like “Hello” are spoken as though the person saying it has never heard another human say it before.

The majority of the game is a point and click adventure with set cameras, letting you pick between tank controls or the positioning changing whenever the camera angle changes. Because you have to walk around, objects you interact with don’t glow until you get close. There’s a library with loads of books, but only two certain ones are ones you can interact with. In other instances, the objects are immensely tiny that, even when following a guide, are very difficult to find.

Puzzles range from the obvious to just trying random things because there’s no way you can actually figure it out logically. The very start of one level has Largo breaking into a lab and has specialist equipment. Only it turns out that you need to use pliers to break apart this equipment – and then again to reshape it into something very different. It never feels like you’re actually solving anything.

You’ll also encounter some minigames throughout, the most common being hacking. Here you have to move around different nodes while an antivirus follows you. It’s far more complex than the rest of the game, as you need to strengthen nodes and move around so the antivirus “wears out”. I ended up following a guide for most of them. There’s also poker, a sliding puzzle and a version of BioWare’s favourite challenge: Tower of Hanoi.

At set points in the game, you’ll also have to take part in turn-based combat. There’s not much strategy to this as it’s a case of using any items you have then resorting to standard punches and kicks (using any ally you have with you to stun enemies). The problem is that sometimes, sheer luck means you have no chance to win. Unlike the hacking challenges (where you can just restart), losing these sends you back to the main menu, so if you haven’t saved for a while, you’ll lose progress.

Despite some poor elements, the main story in Largo Winch is intriguing, with plenty of good twists and turns throughout, so I was compelled to see it through to the end. Even though the game has set cameras, the backgrounds aren’t pre-rendered, and have a great amount of detail for the time, so it’s at least nice to look at while you’re looking for a tiny key in a desert.

Fine

Even on the GameCube, Largo Winch is nothing more than a well-intentioned attempt to make the genre more appealing to a new audience. The atmosphere is coherent, but many ideas remain unused, making for a rather poor gaming experience. Anyone who has never played an adventure game should consider buying it because of the easy puzzles and nice story. However, anyone who has a PS2 (or better yet, an Xbox) at home should definitely get the corresponding version, because graphically, Largo Winch is massively underwhelming for the GameCube and is definitely the weakest version.

Mathias Oertel, 4Players.de (Translated)

Remake or remaster?

A re-release with an autosave would be good. And perhaps a skip for the hacking.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Largo Winch: Empire Under Threat.

Europe

Japan

North America

GameCube Games by Date

2001: Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

2007: Mar, Jun, Aug

adventure gamecube point and click puzzle ubisoft