That Little Purple
Leading up to the release
One of my first events I remember closely following was E3 2001. This was the first time we finally got to the Nintendo Gamecube (or Dolphin as we had been calling it up into that point) in action. If I remember correctly we had seen the system the previous year, but now it was finally time to see the controller and games.
One of the first I remember seeing was Smash Bros. What a fantastic trailer that was… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbYUUaXPOMw almost brought a nerdy tear to my eye. Next was Luigi’s Mansion, the lighting effects, atmosphere and Luigis expressions really seemed remarkable at the time. Sadly the Gamecube would for the first time a Nintendo system didn’t launch with an official Mario game. But hey, they had Luigi. For the first time we got to see Wave Race: Blue Storm, Rouge Squadron II (Man this game was nice looking, remember seeing that for the first time?), Pikmin, Eternal Darkness and others. They also showed off the standard and wireless Wavebird controllers. I really liked the Gamecube controller. It conformed to your hand nicely. The button layout seemed to work out well and the triggers felt nice, with a neat click when fully pressed. The D-pad was kind of sucky, but overall it was a big step up from the N64. As a side note it’s funny to me that the Wavebird now has more value then the system itself.
Buying the system
It was a cold dreary Sunday morning, 4:45 a.m. to be exact. I’m not a morning person and suffice to say it takes a special something for me to wake this early. Today wasn’t like any other day though, today was the launch of the Gamecube. Only two places sold games in my town - WaI-Mart and K-Mart. K-Mart opened the earliest so that’s where I was headed. I had never bought a system on launch day so I didn’t really know what to expect. Was there going to be a line, how many systems do they have in stock? One lady was standing outside waiting for the store to open, I kept a close eye on the parking lot from the warmth of my car. Couple minutes before 5:00 I started to head into the store. Apparently the lady standing outside wanted something non game related. Ha, so I guess I was the only one who cared enough to pick it up that morning. Oh well, I was excited damn it. Hmm… I guess I can claim I was the first person in my town to own a Gamecube, that’s worth something right…? It was a choice between sleek stylish manly midnight black or school girl purple, so I debated for awhile and ended up going with black. I commend Nintendo on their boldness of color choices. I picked up a memory 59 card two controllers and three games. There was no “killer app” for me at launch, but there were a few titles I was interested in.
The Launch Line-up
What I walked out with:
First game was Waverace: Blue Storm. I loved the N64 game, so even though so of the tracks were rehashed from the original I was still excited to give this one a try. The thing I remember the most about this game was its water physics. Man, the water looked beautiful and the waves moved great. Water would splash the screen on higher jumps. I could almost feel the heat of the sun while cruising the waves. This was a nice feeling considering it was late November in Wyoming.
Second game was Super Monkey Ball – This game was kind of a wild card. A game about a Monkey in a ball that had to follow a path floating in space, trying to get to a finish line in a limited amount of time. Once you cross the finish you rocket into space, onto the next stage. Odd, but turned out to be awesome. Reminded me of Marble Madness. It was simple yet very challenging (something that’s been missing from the series since the first couple games).
My last purchase of was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. Now I wasn’t new to the Tony Hawk series, one of my most played Dreamcast games was THPS 2, I loved that game. THPS 3 was a proper sequel… more tricks, jumps, grinding and awesome music. I still have all the tracks from the games memorized. Really a ton of fun with great replay value. I played the hell out of this game.
A dozen of my favorites with short reviews:
F-Zero – Man the speed in this game was great! Challenge mode was hard but fun and building a fast car was very rewarding. Plus my vehicle had a giant dong on it thanks to the custom decal application.
Mario Golf – I put more time into this game than almost any other. Tons of fun and I was actually someone who enjoyed the GBA connectivity. I transferred my kickass player onto the big screen from my GBA. Ha, I was playing this the other day and had forgotten all about the custom taunts me and my friends had put in. Every time the other player would swing you could press the D-pad and a text box that said “Ass Hat” or “F*CK OFF” would pop up. It was immature but hey we were high schoolers. Nintendo where the heck is my new Mario Golf title?
Mario Kart: Double Dash – Great Multi-player, I’m not just talking about death matches, I’m talking about two players on one cart. It was fun to work together in this game. One player would steer, gas and brake while the other would throw items and smack the hell out of passing players.
Metal Gear: Twin Snakes – Finally back on a Nintendo Console. I missed the PS1 game the 1st time around, so this was an awesome experience. Snake!??? SSSNAAAAAAAKKKKEE!!!
Super Mario Sunshine – Mario is my favorite series, so sure it wasn’t as great as Super Mario 64 and it didn’t have all the different environments that you hope to have in a Mario game, but it was still fun. The water pack gave you great range to platform and the bonus levels were a blast (and seem to have directly inspired Mario Galaxy).
Resident Evil 4 – Sure this didn’t have all the Spokey Mansion enivements as the others, it did have a chainsaw bag faced manic. This was just a fun came to pick and play. Great weapons, great upgrades, and smart A.I.. I was pretty hyped up for this game before it released and I’m glad to say that for me it held up to the hype.
Resident Evil – Wow, this remake was Beautiful. Play this game in the dark, it still holds up and is scary. People complain about the controls and fixed camera of the classic RE games, but to me it was never a problem. The loneliness, despair and environment of these games could not be beat.
Pikmin 2 – Can’t wait for Pikmin 3, very fun game. Creating and sending an army of Pikmin to do your bidding was just fantastic. This is a great world to get lost in.
Super Monkey Ball – Mentioned above, great challenge and classic gameplay.
Timesplitters – Felt like the true successor to Goldeneye. Great characters, humor and gameplay.
Tony Hawk - Mentioned above, rocking sound track, tons of replay vaule. Can't you play as Darth Maul?
Zelda: The Wind Waker – I remember everyone crappying on this game when it was first shown… Celda this, Celda that. Funny how it’s unique art style allows it to stand the test of time visually. This game was fantastic, but I must admit that I haven’t put a ton of time in it, only the first couple dungeons. This is on the top of my list for a game to go back and play some more.
Completing a Set:
A complete set of GameCube game is around 555. How many exactly… well that’s a bit harder to say. What do you count? Do you count demos? How about 2-disks sets? How about preview disks? Depending on what you count the complete number will probably be somewhere between 555-560. I own a complete black label set. Counting all my variants, demos, protos and Player Choice titles I’m currently sitting at around 700 total. There still a fair amount of Player Choice and Kiosk disks I want to pick up and a small few variants. The last game I purchased for my set is called “One Piece: Grand Adventure”. It is a somewhat rare title. I bought this game three times before I received an actually copy. The reason for that is because there’s another game on GameCube that’s called “One Piece Grand Battle”. On two separate occasions I was send “Battle” instead of “Adventure”. Thanks to mb7241 I finally found an actual copy and for a great price. Thanks man, little did you know that was the last one I needed for the set.
Here’s some pictures of everything:
Overview:
Pricey Dozen:
Resident Evil
Sonic
Mario
The future of Gamecube
For a dead system the future of the Gamecube seems bright. I really feel that collecting for the ‘Cube is still in its infancy. It seems like the general Nintendo collecting atmosphere is starting to get heavily invested in the N64. I don’t doubt this trend will continue for the forseeable future, as the kids that grew up with this system are going to re-experience it. So the successor to the N64 will get it’s time to shine, your already seeing it in a small way around the forums. I suspect that Gamecube demand has barely started, give it a few more years and I think things will be much different. For a system that undersold X-Box and PS2 it seems just now that people are rediscovering this unique, corky, purple lunch box with its popular 1st party Nintendo titles and hidden gems. This system will become a well deserving classic.
Thanks for reading!
One of my first events I remember closely following was E3 2001. This was the first time we finally got to the Nintendo Gamecube (or Dolphin as we had been calling it up into that point) in action. If I remember correctly we had seen the system the previous year, but now it was finally time to see the controller and games.
One of the first I remember seeing was Smash Bros. What a fantastic trailer that was… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbYUUaXPOMw almost brought a nerdy tear to my eye. Next was Luigi’s Mansion, the lighting effects, atmosphere and Luigis expressions really seemed remarkable at the time. Sadly the Gamecube would for the first time a Nintendo system didn’t launch with an official Mario game. But hey, they had Luigi. For the first time we got to see Wave Race: Blue Storm, Rouge Squadron II (Man this game was nice looking, remember seeing that for the first time?), Pikmin, Eternal Darkness and others. They also showed off the standard and wireless Wavebird controllers. I really liked the Gamecube controller. It conformed to your hand nicely. The button layout seemed to work out well and the triggers felt nice, with a neat click when fully pressed. The D-pad was kind of sucky, but overall it was a big step up from the N64. As a side note it’s funny to me that the Wavebird now has more value then the system itself.
Buying the system
It was a cold dreary Sunday morning, 4:45 a.m. to be exact. I’m not a morning person and suffice to say it takes a special something for me to wake this early. Today wasn’t like any other day though, today was the launch of the Gamecube. Only two places sold games in my town - WaI-Mart and K-Mart. K-Mart opened the earliest so that’s where I was headed. I had never bought a system on launch day so I didn’t really know what to expect. Was there going to be a line, how many systems do they have in stock? One lady was standing outside waiting for the store to open, I kept a close eye on the parking lot from the warmth of my car. Couple minutes before 5:00 I started to head into the store. Apparently the lady standing outside wanted something non game related. Ha, so I guess I was the only one who cared enough to pick it up that morning. Oh well, I was excited damn it. Hmm… I guess I can claim I was the first person in my town to own a Gamecube, that’s worth something right…? It was a choice between sleek stylish manly midnight black or school girl purple, so I debated for awhile and ended up going with black. I commend Nintendo on their boldness of color choices. I picked up a memory 59 card two controllers and three games. There was no “killer app” for me at launch, but there were a few titles I was interested in.
The Launch Line-up
What I walked out with:
First game was Waverace: Blue Storm. I loved the N64 game, so even though so of the tracks were rehashed from the original I was still excited to give this one a try. The thing I remember the most about this game was its water physics. Man, the water looked beautiful and the waves moved great. Water would splash the screen on higher jumps. I could almost feel the heat of the sun while cruising the waves. This was a nice feeling considering it was late November in Wyoming.
Second game was Super Monkey Ball – This game was kind of a wild card. A game about a Monkey in a ball that had to follow a path floating in space, trying to get to a finish line in a limited amount of time. Once you cross the finish you rocket into space, onto the next stage. Odd, but turned out to be awesome. Reminded me of Marble Madness. It was simple yet very challenging (something that’s been missing from the series since the first couple games).
My last purchase of was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. Now I wasn’t new to the Tony Hawk series, one of my most played Dreamcast games was THPS 2, I loved that game. THPS 3 was a proper sequel… more tricks, jumps, grinding and awesome music. I still have all the tracks from the games memorized. Really a ton of fun with great replay value. I played the hell out of this game.
A dozen of my favorites with short reviews:
F-Zero – Man the speed in this game was great! Challenge mode was hard but fun and building a fast car was very rewarding. Plus my vehicle had a giant dong on it thanks to the custom decal application.
Mario Golf – I put more time into this game than almost any other. Tons of fun and I was actually someone who enjoyed the GBA connectivity. I transferred my kickass player onto the big screen from my GBA. Ha, I was playing this the other day and had forgotten all about the custom taunts me and my friends had put in. Every time the other player would swing you could press the D-pad and a text box that said “Ass Hat” or “F*CK OFF” would pop up. It was immature but hey we were high schoolers. Nintendo where the heck is my new Mario Golf title?
Mario Kart: Double Dash – Great Multi-player, I’m not just talking about death matches, I’m talking about two players on one cart. It was fun to work together in this game. One player would steer, gas and brake while the other would throw items and smack the hell out of passing players.
Metal Gear: Twin Snakes – Finally back on a Nintendo Console. I missed the PS1 game the 1st time around, so this was an awesome experience. Snake!??? SSSNAAAAAAAKKKKEE!!!
Super Mario Sunshine – Mario is my favorite series, so sure it wasn’t as great as Super Mario 64 and it didn’t have all the different environments that you hope to have in a Mario game, but it was still fun. The water pack gave you great range to platform and the bonus levels were a blast (and seem to have directly inspired Mario Galaxy).
Resident Evil 4 – Sure this didn’t have all the Spokey Mansion enivements as the others, it did have a chainsaw bag faced manic. This was just a fun came to pick and play. Great weapons, great upgrades, and smart A.I.. I was pretty hyped up for this game before it released and I’m glad to say that for me it held up to the hype.
Resident Evil – Wow, this remake was Beautiful. Play this game in the dark, it still holds up and is scary. People complain about the controls and fixed camera of the classic RE games, but to me it was never a problem. The loneliness, despair and environment of these games could not be beat.
Pikmin 2 – Can’t wait for Pikmin 3, very fun game. Creating and sending an army of Pikmin to do your bidding was just fantastic. This is a great world to get lost in.
Super Monkey Ball – Mentioned above, great challenge and classic gameplay.
Timesplitters – Felt like the true successor to Goldeneye. Great characters, humor and gameplay.
Tony Hawk - Mentioned above, rocking sound track, tons of replay vaule. Can't you play as Darth Maul?
Zelda: The Wind Waker – I remember everyone crappying on this game when it was first shown… Celda this, Celda that. Funny how it’s unique art style allows it to stand the test of time visually. This game was fantastic, but I must admit that I haven’t put a ton of time in it, only the first couple dungeons. This is on the top of my list for a game to go back and play some more.
Completing a Set:
A complete set of GameCube game is around 555. How many exactly… well that’s a bit harder to say. What do you count? Do you count demos? How about 2-disks sets? How about preview disks? Depending on what you count the complete number will probably be somewhere between 555-560. I own a complete black label set. Counting all my variants, demos, protos and Player Choice titles I’m currently sitting at around 700 total. There still a fair amount of Player Choice and Kiosk disks I want to pick up and a small few variants. The last game I purchased for my set is called “One Piece: Grand Adventure”. It is a somewhat rare title. I bought this game three times before I received an actually copy. The reason for that is because there’s another game on GameCube that’s called “One Piece Grand Battle”. On two separate occasions I was send “Battle” instead of “Adventure”. Thanks to mb7241 I finally found an actual copy and for a great price. Thanks man, little did you know that was the last one I needed for the set.
Here’s some pictures of everything:
Overview:
Pricey Dozen:
Resident Evil
Sonic
Mario
The future of Gamecube
For a dead system the future of the Gamecube seems bright. I really feel that collecting for the ‘Cube is still in its infancy. It seems like the general Nintendo collecting atmosphere is starting to get heavily invested in the N64. I don’t doubt this trend will continue for the forseeable future, as the kids that grew up with this system are going to re-experience it. So the successor to the N64 will get it’s time to shine, your already seeing it in a small way around the forums. I suspect that Gamecube demand has barely started, give it a few more years and I think things will be much different. For a system that undersold X-Box and PS2 it seems just now that people are rediscovering this unique, corky, purple lunch box with its popular 1st party Nintendo titles and hidden gems. This system will become a well deserving classic.
Thanks for reading!
Comments
I really like you collection. That's a lot GC games you have. You have them in alphabetical order correct?
Thanks for sharing, I would have gone home with the same stuff!
You, sir, have Super Monkey Balls.
Nintegrity - Yeah Gamecube was a great system for Resident Evil
sheikah/Drippy - As for harder to find titles. Hmm... that's a tough one. Of course most people know Metroid/Zelda and Pokemon Box are hard to come by... but as far as "underground" rares, I'm not really sure. Ones like One Piece: Grand Adventure, Buffy: Vampire Slayer, Disney Sports Baskeball, NHL Hitz Pro, NFL Blitz Pro, Hunter The Reckoning, Zatch Bell: Mundo Fury, Rally Championship, Top Angler, City Racer... those are a few that you don't see many people talking about and at the same time arn't super common.
Originally posted by: NintendoTwizer
Fierce Deity - Yep they are in alphebetical order.
Nintegrity - Yeah Gamecube was a great system for Resident Evil
sheikah/Drippy - As for harder to find titles. Hmm... that's a tough one. Of course most people know Metroid/Zelda and Pokemon Box are hard to come by... but as far as "underground" rares, I'm not really sure. Ones like One Piece: Grand Adventure, Buffy: Vampire Slayer, Disney Sports Baskeball, NHL Hitz Pro, NFL Blitz Pro, Hunter The Reckoning, Zatch Bell: Mundo Fury, Rally Championship, Top Angler, City Racer... those are a few that you don't see many people talking about and at the same time arn't super common.
Thanks for the response. On to the next question then: What are some "hidden" gems you've discovered while amassing this set?
Lets see, Both PSO's X collection, Tales, and Cubivore at least....
Those must be the lower end ones on that set I assume...
Originally posted by: Cabanon
3rd complete set, right ? and first CIB, right ? insane.
Yeah, I think so. Well almost forth, here's where I'm at right now:
NES: 99% Complete (Just missing Stadium Events)
SNES: 90% Complete (less then 100 to go)
N64: 100% Complete
Gamecube: 100% Complete
Virtual Boy: 100% Complete
I'll see if I can knock out SNES here next... it's going to be tough though, so many hard to find games.
Since you have a complete N64 collection, which games would you say were the hardest to find?
Originally posted by: GAiDENgt
I always like to hear how people picked up Pokemon Box, since it wasn't really a retail title. Did you buy it from the Pokemon center originally or was it a trade/purchase?
I don't have any right now. Briefly had the Japanese version out of stupidity, not realizing it wouldn't link to English carts.
Pretty sure I passed up a US one at a now-defunct game shop once.
At the moment I'm considering PAL from the Colosseum set. Not sure how much I can justify effectively 3 times the price or greater, just for 480p, when it's more of a utility than a game.