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The Official Nintendo Gamecube Thread


Tanooki

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With some other official threads popping up and the seeming increase of interest and relevance of the Gamecube due to the recent GC HDMI v2 Adapter reveal and future sales coming I felt it was time for this.

 

The Gamecube stood alone as a unique yet not console. Going with smaller media it eventually caused them some problems in the back end of life, but unlike the N64 before or the Wii after the system really was capable of playing with the big boys and ultimately ended up having better third party franchise level support for Nintendo not seen since the SNES era. Capcom, Factor 5, Midway, Ubisoft, and others brought a really brought their solid A game efforts. PS2 owned the era much like the PS1 did in the previous, but it really kept neck and neck with the other competition. Perhaps had Nintendo properly utilized the broadband adapter it could have still edge over not under 2nd place. Despite being unjustly ragged on for no network (as if Sony had one either) it did ultimately in quite a few cases get the superior version of titles that were ported between the three, yet sadly was the sole one who got excluded from some games due to size, or developer politics (GTA-Rockstar) as well.

 

How do you feel about the Gamecube now, or how about back then? Feel it has held up fairly well? How about that HDMI mod where it removes the vaseline and gives a stunning view of what was hiding under the usual look of things? Perhaps you know of some games that either go for a little or in a few cases a lot that still justify being looked at for overlooked (or not) solid titles?

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Hi guys,

 

Great underrated unit. Spent many hours playing on it and thought that it had so much to offer. I still participate on local Super Smash Bros Melee tournaments and have a few Gamecube units unopened.

 

With the Game Boy Player, how can you not want having this unit in your collection. So many great memories on this console after I graduated from H.S. :)

 

Anthony..

Edited by fdurso224
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I love the GameCube. Mario kart double dash might be my favorite of the series. Metroid prime was a complete shock being as good as it was. It was worth owning a GameCube just for that. I was also amazed at how resident evil 4 turned out. That was also reason enough to own a GameCube, at least until it came out on the ps2. It looked like a toy but it really was great system.

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You know I agree, if you think about it and toss that GB Player on your system there probably isn't another Nintendo (if overall) device out there with a larger game library. You get the entire GC lineup, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance out of one little box.

 

It is a shame it didn't get fair treatment back in the day by the ms blowing press over online which conveniently they didn't drag the PS2 through the mud over as that didn't help things. Got mocked for being a purple lunchbox, then that, yet the only really legit problems would be the lack of 1 controller button for some games and the 1.5GB discs vs a full size DVD.

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The GC is one of my favorite systems. I had one when it first came out but ended up selling it along with 90% Of my collection in a huge purge around 2005. I bought another one around five years ago. Over time I ended up getting the GB player, an extra wavebird, and most of the games that are on top ten lists.

 

I feel the system aged the best out of its generation. Every once in a while I'll pull it out of the closet and every time I'm impressed with how good/clean the graphics are. Also that controller is a treat to play with.

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Super Monkey Ball 2 is the best f'ing game on the system. Not a swipe at the system's other games, but it was such an amazing party game. We had four Wavebirds specifically to do monkey bowling and monkey hang gliding, back when the Wavebird was in production. Sold two of them when they first spiked in popularity and wish I hadn't. Can't understand why Nintendo didn't re-release it to go with the Wii U Gamecube adapter and Smash Bros.

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Love the GameCube, although I do think the system would have done better if it had used DVDs or something similar in storage capacity. They had this console that could pump out some amazing graphics, but could only hold a tiny amount of data on the minidiscs. This was a big reason why many RPGs weren't made for it. Probably prevented Guitar Hero from being ported over as well, which was huge at the time.

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The OG Xbox had a DVD drive and didn't get plastic guitar games, so it's not the only reason.

 

I do agree with your belief the system would have sold far better if it had a DVD drive and played DVD games. That's the big reason the PS2 won its generation, I think. Later on the exclusive games were a big deal, but early on it crushed the Dreamcast because it had a DVD player where Sega didn't.

Edited by derFunkenstein
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You know there really were quite a few good Sega games and Sega DC conversions to the system, almost too cozy in how well it was done. I kind of am surprised I forgot to throw Ikaruga up there as it's very impressive. I forgot about Beach Spikers until this weekend, almost grabbed it with the other two cheap games I got but the box and stuff was so suspect the disc I imagine was nasty too so I left it. I had it in the day and put quite a few hours on it, surprisingly good.

 

I do agree that the controller is a comfy treat, I really enjoy playing on it and I haven't bought Nintendo games from the past consoles in a long long time but in the last week I snapped up Skies of Arcadia for $45 and $5/ea for MOH European Assault and Wave Race locally and it has been great using the system again after so long. It really has aged the best of that era very noticeably so too. I found finally a replacement (to the one from the time period) wave bird perhaps a year ago or so, and that controller is so amazing how well it works. Nintendo has been pretty on the nose with tech that doesn't introduce lag or other problems removing the cable.

 

I think much of us agree Nintendo being idiots and using so called piracy proof 1.5GB mini-dvds is what locked them out of a strong running against the PS2. Sure some clowns would have played their childish games they did more so back then and just snubbed them either way, but I think a good many more RPGs and larger adventure and open world type games including the music stuff would have made it because there would be no storage problems. DVDs held over 4GB of data and even if the company popped for the 2nd disc to bring the GC up to 3GB you still were short and at the mercy of both either mass compression at a loss, or trying to stumble into a point of making a semi-unique build with a breakpoint on it asking for disc #2 like old FF games on PS1 did.

 

Despite what I'm saying there though, I think it wasn't as much the size but trying to dice up a game too. Someone on a Sony forum put a random list of PS2 game sizes down and they're notable PS2 RPGS, racing games, MGS titles, and others. A lot of those so called BIG RPGs actually were between just 2-3GB in size. Easily fit into a space of 2 discs. So it probably came down to not wanting to find a place to dice a game into 2 halves and the somewhat added possible expense of doing that outside of paying a few cents more for another mini-dvd. Stuff like MGS2/3 an FF10/10-2 they're into the mid3GB to lower4GB size that would either just be impossible or needed some compression that may foul the game so I can see ignoring those.

 

See the list for yourself: http://www.psu.com/forums/showthread.php/120556-PS2-Game-Data-Size

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I really enjoyed my GameCube. Funny thing is one of my favorite titles from it has had a bunch of re-releases. Resident Evil 4.

 

Beyond that, there's a lot of great titles here with a decent mixture of every genre with (I feel) slightly less bloat than the PS2 had. Both Legend of Zeldas, F-Zero GX, Metroid Prime 1 & 2, and other titles whose names escape me right now.

 

I also really liked the Game Boy Player as well, and I had one of them at release! But then I stupidly sold it and had to rebuy it recently.

 

The HDMI has done wonders to make it look better as modern TVs aren't doing it any favors.

 

Surprisingly enough, GameCube emulation is actually really easy and awesome to do as well if you want to relive it without having to get a full setup again. (Granted GameCube is probably one of the cheapest older consoles to acquire.) Just look up the Dolphin emulator if interested!

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I've got Dolphin installed along with backups of my current library too and it's sharp. The only problem is with dolphin you need a pretty hefty machine to run it at a solid 30 or 60fps depending how the game was locked. I've got the hardware thankfully for it at least. I'm not sure if they ever really honestly tried to benchmark it with minimum processor, ram, and video card/vram ratings like you see for min/recommended on gog/steam for PC stuff or most other emulators with their text files in the compressed archives.

 

One thing I recall GC did well outside of some superb conversions/ports from other systems and the blowout with the GB Player was quirk value and late to the game IP arrivals (GBA did this one too.) Nintendo didn't have so much of a backbone even a few years earlier on N64 but on GC you got weird good stuff like Chibi Robo, Custom Robo, Cubivore(thank Atlus for the US at least), Animal Crossing, (Battalion) Wars, Fire Emblem, and other stuff that showed up as far back as the Famicom for the Japanese. They finally also tried to make a new IP after a LONG stretch with Pikmin as well as I think the last one was co-developed in the mid90s (Pokemon) a decade earlier.

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Pre ordering the Game Cube in UK gave you an inflatable Nintendo chair, I still have mine sealed:

Game_Cube_inflatchair2.jpg

 

 

They probably didn't give these out in the US because the possibility of all the loud poppings that might of be confused with small bombs going off.icon_biggrinwink.gif

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Looks fun but not like something that could take a lot of weight either most likely.

 

In the US at the E3 they gave out those stress foam type material stuff in the shape of a 1/3 scale purple Gamecube, but I noticed they seemed to show up at some preorder location somewhere as I saw them in the day away from the E3 group where I got mine. I wish I still had it but a few years back age got to that thin outer layer and cracked and flaked away to where it looked rotten so I dumped it as it was a cheapo item that fell apart. Hell of a show though for the Gamecube in 2001 along with GBA. That year they had Charles Martinet on the floor mouthing for a full animatronic Mario talking back and forth with anyone who would listen or just randomly crack jokes and banter as they spun this wheel with 10 spots every 5min of the show on all days. You could win the foam cube, foam GBA, GBA carrying case(I got this too), and in 1 case was a real GBA with mario or f-zero in the slot a month or two before the street date. That place ended up having lines like 2-3hours deep for a try. That aside the booth was probably the coolest most insane spread they ever did having that dual system year blowout. All these anchored GBAs with the launch library all over there and in the third party area, and then same goes with the GC -- and the lines around Star Wars were insane not that Luigi or Wave Race didn't impress much less either.

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I liked some games, monkey ball was awesome. Starfox adventures was great, kind of disappointed no space shooter type. SFA did show the systems processing muscle though. Over all though I didn't care for the system and until the GBP came out it was largely unused. After I got GBP it became the most used for years.

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Looks fun but not like something that could take a lot of weight either most likely.

 

In the US at the E3 they gave out those stress foam type material stuff in the shape of a 1/3 scale purple Gamecube, but I noticed they seemed to show up at some preorder location somewhere as I saw them in the day away from the E3 group where I got mine. I wish I still had it but a few years back age got to that thin outer layer and cracked and flaked away to where it looked rotten so I dumped it as it was a cheapo item that fell apart. Hell of a show though for the Gamecube in 2001 along with GBA. That year they had Charles Martinet on the floor mouthing for a full animatronic Mario talking back and forth with anyone who would listen or just randomly crack jokes and banter as they spun this wheel with 10 spots every 5min of the show on all days. You could win the foam cube, foam GBA, GBA carrying case(I got this too), and in 1 case was a real GBA with mario or f-zero in the slot a month or two before the street date. That place ended up having lines like 2-3hours deep for a try. That aside the booth was probably the coolest most insane spread they ever did having that dual system year blowout. All these anchored GBAs with the launch library all over there and in the third party area, and then same goes with the GC -- and the lines around Star Wars were insane not that Luigi or Wave Race didn't impress much less either.

I got one of those foam GCs, but not a foam GBA. Somewhere I do have a pack or two of unopened E3 GBA e-reader cards. I don't recall which year they were giving those away (IIRC you were supposed to open them to potentially win something).

 

I love the GameCube. RE4 was my favorite game of the generation, and I was happy to play all the RE games on the 'Cube. They were all really well done. Paper Mario 1000 Year Door was stellar. I had already put in 200+ hours on PSO on the Dreamcast, but got right back into it on the GameCube. Zelda Wind Waker and Four Swords were both cool. I loved Animal Crossing... so many great games

 

I wasn't a big fan of Mario Sunshine or Mario Kart Double Dash, though.

 

While 3rd party support did die down later in its life, it was a lot better than I think a lot of people give it credit for. Most major publishers supported the GameCube with their AAA titles for a good while.

Edited by BydoEmpire
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The OG Xbox had a DVD drive and didn't get plastic guitar games, so it's not the only reason.

 

I do agree with your belief the system would have sold far better if it had a DVD drive and played DVD games. That's the big reason the PS2 won its generation, I think. Later on the exclusive games were a big deal, but early on it crushed the Dreamcast because it had a DVD player where Sega didn't.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. I always forget the original XBox since it seemed to be out for only 15 minutes lol.

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I remember going to a Gamestop to buy a used Gamecube for my brother as a Christmas present, the year the Wii came out.

 

"Do you have any black Gamecubes in stock? I'd like one."

"Sure! *yells* Hey boss, any of the Gamecubes we got black?"

"Yeah, probably!"

".... can you check?"

"Wait, does somebody WANT one?"

 

At which point he stuck his head out of the back room confused. I waved.

 

I wish I could find a really thorough repair guide for the wavebird online. I bought a box of assorted gaming junk at a church rummage sale for $5 because I found a wavebird in the box. It mostly works, but you have to sit there and shake it around to get it to power on/connect. Once it's going, you're fine. I'd love to know what to poke on the inside to fix that.

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