Happy Birthday GameCube. We All Miss You :)
That’s right boys and girls, the purple lunchbox turns ten years old today, and what a joyous day it is. Similar to what I did with the Xbox, let’s take a trip down memory lane and discuss our highlights of one of Nintendo’s most unusual console generations.
It all started with this…
That’s bizarre, am I right? You have to place yourself back in 2001, at a time when Nintendo’s image skewed very young. Remember “Nintendo’s for kids” and all that jazz. Well most of that started towards the end of the N64 era, but honestly, the GameCube’s overall appearance sure didn’t help anything. Even the controller looked like something you’d find in a Fisher Price catalog. What were they thinking?! One shoulder button on the left side of the controller and two on the other, bizarrely shaped buttons and a colour-scheme that was extremely questionable. Right away the GameCube screwed “kiddie,” and because of that many people skipped out on it in favour of the PS2 or the much, much larger Xbox.
For all of you that used to think like that all I can say is, what’s wrong with you? The GameCube was a superb console, one that slowly showed where Nintendo was going to take the industry in the coming years. So many people dismissed the GameCube for no other reason than it looked goofy and featured more than a few games catered to young players. Let’s not forget Eternal Darkness, Twin Snakes, Resident Evil Remake, Baten Kaitos, Tales of Symphonia, P.N03, Resident Evil 4 and many others. This was a kickass console, make no mistake about it. Even its launch title, Luigi’s Mansion remains a superb and innovative game featuring everyone’s favourite brother.
The hardware was extremely powerful, the choice of medium was questionable, but hey, at least we saw Nintendo move into the optical generation. If you really want to see the ultimate GameCube, and no I’m not going to talk about the Panasonic Q, take a look at this…
In my mind this will always be the GameCube I remember…except in purple. The Game Boy Player was without a doubt the best peripheral ever invented. It allowed you play to all Game Boy games up to and including Game Boy Advance on your big screen! It’s the only reason I even kept my GameCube once the Wii launched. The Wavebird is also the first extremely popular wireless controller for a console, and one I use to this very day when I play GameCube games. Then there was the GBA connectivity. Honestly, this system was so underrated for all the good it brought to the industry.
Let’s not forget about the excellent first-party titles Nintendo brought to the table. We had interesting collaborations like with F-Zero GX, we had a brilliant Zelda with Wind Waker although that also hurt Nintendo’s image more than anything. Ironic, because years later it is remembered as being one of the most stunning looking games of the generation that holds up surprisingly well even today. We also had another 3D Mario with Mario Sunshine although not quite as impressive as Mario 64 was before it. The list goes on and on. Even Soul Calibur II was best on the Cube because of Link’s appearance. The GameCube remains one of my favourite Nintendo platforms, that I wish more people got to experience. While I played most of my games on the PS2, and a few exclusives on the Xbox, the GameCube was never unappreciated in my home. It was a superb console that had a bad wrap, a childish image and a parent company that just couldn’t get their cards in order.
What are your favourite GameCube moments?
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People are kind of funny man. On one hand people love to hate on Nintendo when they suddenly perform badly, but they love them when they’re doing well. I won’t lie, when the Wii first hit I wasn’t very involved in their motion controls direction. I’m still not really into them, but there were some really great games on the Wii and I’m looking forward to seeing what Nintendo had in store for us with the Wii U. As for the GameCube, it was an awesome system that more people should have given a chance.
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I loved the GameCube. Such a great little system. I have lots of fond memories of it.
I got my original GameCube (Jet Black FTW!) around the 2001 holiday season, along with copies of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Luigi’s Mansion, and Star Wars: Rogue Leader. Being a Smash Bros. aficionado, I just had to dive into Melee first. I was really awestruck by the visual presentation when I booted the system up. It really was like entering in another age. I grew up with the 8-bit NES and 16-bit Super NES, and to go from that, to seeing Nintendo put games on disc media was just a strange and wonderful thing. When the GameCube logo appeared on the screen and I was treated to Melee’s amazing introductory cut scene, I was transfixed. I played the system just about non-stop throughout that holiday season, taking every opportunity to show it to friends. I remember going to my older brother’s house after Christmas, and bringing my Cube with me. He was in the Xbox camp, but he still had a vivid appreciation for what Nintendo did–and what only Nintendo can do.
Eternal Darkness and the Resident Evil remake were both big games for me in 2002. I didn’t really get into horror games previously, so this was one of my first times getting into the genre–and it was a heck of a start. They will stick with me for a long time, and honestly, games like Dead Space have nothing on Eternal Darkness. The sanity effects, the storytelling, everything about the game was just creepy and macabre. Toward the end of 2002, was the launch of Metroid Prime–which was one of the most amazing, immersive games in the entire system library.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Super Mario Sunshine, Viewtiful Joe, Resident Evil 4, and tons of other great games as well. Plenty of underrated hits too. I really liked Star Fox Adventures and Luigi’s Mansion, for example. The GameCube was a capable system with a great library. The Game Boy Player was also one of the absolute best peripherals EVER released. I can only hope the Wii U opens up the possibility of a DS home player.
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My favorite moments were playing the exclusives like resident evil zero, Metroid Prime (both), baten kaitos (both), eternal darkness, etc all the nintendo titles of course, and a few third party tittles that also were on other consoles like splinter cell, and Killer 7 , especially killer 7, and one game odama really great bizarre games.
And like you, i did love my gamecube as most as my ps2 and xbox, and i think my shelf space is equally on all the consoles, i mean i have the same amount of games for each one, thats how much i love it, love live nintendo, i hope the keep in the busines for a long time, like sony and miscrosoft for that matter, but i say this because there is a lot of hate torwards nintendo and some people are quite happy with the dire time nintendo is facing right now.