As a devout player of video games and a fan of Nintendo’s flagship franchises I feel it is my duty to remind our dear readers of something they may have forgotten ever existed: the GameCube. Now the reason I say that you may have forgotten it is because it never really left. It’s still there, collecting dust like it did before, only now in the form of a Wii. The GameCube is a SHAPESHIFTER!
Seriously though, this month marks the 10th anniversary of the GameCube in North America (my favorite of all the Americas) and I thought we should pause and reflect on the system that confirmed Nintendo had lost its freaking mind. We weren’t sure if the Nintendo 64 was an anomaly or the way of the future for the Big N, but when we caught our first glimpse of the GameCube and its WTF controller, well I think we all called our local mental hospital and asked if it was possible to check in an entire corporation. (Same thing happened this year with Netflix. And the answer is no, you can’t. And I thought corporations were people, too!)
But the GameCube did have its moments of greatness. Pikmin, for instance. Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker rank amongst my favorite games of all time to this very day. Even if Super Mario Sunshine wasn’t up to the usual standard of amazing associated with the plucky plumber, it was still a damn good game. And who can forget about Eternal Darkness and the mind games that it played with you?
So what are your fondest memories of the GameCube? What games stood out for you?
LOL at the shapeshifter bit.
The GameCube was the first console of that gen that I bought and I played Metroid Prime so much my parents began to get worried about me, which hasn’t happened before or since.
I traded my first GameCube in for a Xbox but I bought another one when Ninty dropped the price to $99.99. Then I bought a PS2. I miss when consoles eventually became affordable.
No mention of Smash Bros Melee? For shame!!
I actually won my Gamecube at a football match of all places. I had got there with my family really early and a couple of people from the stadium came up and asked if I wanted a chance to win a Gamecube or a Gameboy Advance. I went along with them and it turned out that another kid and I were going to play off against each other in SSBM (before it was released), the winner got the Gamecube, loser got the GBA. The game was supposed to be played at half time but that never happened unfortunately. I ended up losing but because it took so long for them to ship my prize to me it got upgraded to a Gamecube as an apology 🙂
In the end SSBM was really the only big name game that I played. I got games like Luigi’s Mansion which I quite enjoyed, but for some reason I never ended up buying the Pikmins, the Wind Waker’s, the Metroids. And for the life of me I have no idea why. I guess it was because I was still kinda new to gaming, and the internet wasnt a huge deal for me back then either so I never knew what was good and what wasn’t.
Happy Birthday Gamecube, we miss you.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, by Silicon Knights. It was just a bonus that it was made 50 miles south of where I live.
And Mitch, major price drops HAVE happened on the consoles…a 20 GB PS3 was $550 on release, later a 40 GB was $400 (60 GB was $550). BBC shows an Uncharted 3 (and God of War III), 320 GB PS3 is currently $300.
Something that I think was all but ignored was the capability to hook up your GBA to your GameCube and use it as a controller! The only two games I ever played like this (and maybe the only two games with this feature) were Zelda: Four Swords, and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. My then roomate and I lost ridiculous hours to just those two games.
In Zelda, each player (up to 4, though we only ever played with 2) was a different color Link, and some of the action took place on the screen, but if you entered a cave or room, you would have to look down at your GBA. In FF, each screen would have a different graphic, either a map or radar or other things I don’t remember, again up to four players.
This feature will always be my favorite memory of the GameCube, and I don’t even know anyone who took advantage of this feature.
@GT5Canuck: Call me when it’s $99.99 🙂