The Game Cube.

[justinlynch3]

Released November 18, 2001.   The Game Cube was Nintendo's answer to the Playstation and XBOX.    However despite having better specs under the hood, the Cube could nothing to stop the dominate Playstation 2 of the time.    This Cube has been misunderstood and I would say largely overlook, but for those who has played it, what do you think of it?



For me Nintendo's downfall was starting here.   I hated the controller, much preferring Sony's.   Most games of interest to me was also multi-platform.   What need did I have for a Cube when I already had a PS2 to game with?     I played the Cube at a friends house and had various chances to buy it, but I keep turning him down.   I have no need for it, and frankly don't want it for anything outside a few Mario titles, which isn't enough to justify buying a console.

I'm voting it as Alright.  It's better in my opiion then the Wii, but meh, I wouldn't be interested in owning one personally.

[ethanm1834]

I found that I had more games on my ps2 than on my gamecube. Which tends to happen with my nintendo products. A lot of the time I find myself wondering why I purchase these systems at all.

I had Smash bros, Resident evil 4, Animal Crossing, sonic Heroes, WWE Day of reckoning, and wind waker that was it. However on my PS2 I'd literally have to sit down and pull out all the dvds of the games I still own. For me it wasn't about what's under the hood, rather than the software the console offers.

[miketheratguy]

I chose alright, though to be fair I came close to choosing "good". Like the N64 before it, I found the 'Cube to basically be a distant third in the rotation of that particular generation of consoles, a niche system that had a few fun exclusives and a hideous controller (though I kind of liked the ergonomic design of the Gamecube controller, monstrous as it looked).

I have the system to thank for games like Animal Crossing, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, the Zelda Anniversary disc, the Resident Evil remake and the moderately fun Wrestlemania 19. Other than that, didn't really do much for me. It was okay.

[justinlynch3]

Dec 2, 2013 1:49:28 GMT -5 ethanm1834 said:

I found that I had more games on my ps2 than on my gamecube. Which tends to happen with my nintendo products. A lot of the time I find myself wondering why I purchase these systems at all.

I had Smash bros, Resident evil 4, Animal Crossing, sonic Heroes, WWE Day of reckoning, and wind waker that was it. However on my PS2 I'd literally have to sit down and pull out all the dvds of the games I still own. For me it wasn't about what's under the hood, rather than the software the console offers.

Exactly.   Hell I knew nothing of system specs back then.     For a while I thought PS2 was actually the better console, I was surprised when I learned Game Cube was actually more powerful.

But back then you couldn't really tell much of a difference anyway.   PS2, GC and XBOX all ran off Composite cables and at the time, many of them plugged into the old SD tube TV's.   You would of never told any difference on most games.    These days we all have high dev TV's, HD cables, home theater sound sets, mic sets etc.  Everybody nitpicks graphics and frame rates like it's life or death.     While I'm sure these people has always been around in some compasity, I refuse to believe they was as common back in 2001, 2002 as they are now.

[miketheratguy]

The console wars of the early 90s made sure everyone knew about system specs. "Both the Genesis and SNES are 16-bit systems but they're different because one has a superior color palette while the other has "blast processing" and this one over here has "mode 7" and bla bla bla. Game magazines like EGM had a regular box in their review section that reminded the reader how many "megs" a game contained ("Holy s***, Super Street Fighter 2 is 40 megs? ZOMG!") and everyone made a huge deal out of the fact that the Playstation and Saturn were 32-bit systems.

The whole notion of judging a system based on its processor numbers more or less died out by the 2000s but I do worry that with all the perfectionist pixel junkies who cry themselves to sleep when something isn't x resolution at 1080p the trend might be picking back up again.

[justinlynch3]

Maybe a dumb question, but I didn't really follow tech stuff back in the N64 days, but what the hell is a meg?

[miketheratguy]

Nah it's not dumb, like I said they don't really throw out those terms anymore. In that vernacular a "meg" translated into "megabit", aka "storage capacity of a game cartridge". It was generally felt that the more "megs" a game cartridge had, the better it would look and sound. SNES and Genesis games were usually around 8 to 32 megs whereas N64 carts, for comparison, were something like 256.

EDIT: I mentioned Super Street Fighter 2 as an example and this is probably why: Here they are advertising the amount of megs right on the back of the game's box.

[ethanm1834]

Well if you go to a game site they argue specs all day. Fanboy's or fan girls like to validate their choices by arguing specs and what not.

[setokaiba]

I got to go with bad. Take away Smash Bros and Mario Kart and there was nothing on that system I cared for.

[monkeywool]

I remember gaming back when it wasn't even megs it was kilobits, now we are into gigs and stuff like that. I thought it was a huge upgrade when I went from a 48k to a 128k.

Mind boggling it is.

[miketheratguy]

Atari games were like 12 kilobytes, it's very amusing to me. Even NES games that cost fifty bucks and were these huge deals for the company in the late 80s and early 90s were a couple hundred kilobytes in size.

Not long ago I showed my dad the dime-sized 32 gig memory card that fits in my ebook reader and told him that every single video game he and my mom ever bought me as a kid would fit on it a thousand times over. It blew his mind, lol.

Dec 2, 2013 2:43:46 GMT -5 ethanm1834 said:

Well if you go to a game site they argue specs all day. Fanboy's or fan girls like to validate their choices by arguing specs and what not.

The fanboys still argue about it, yes- especially in this modern world of the aforementioned pixel junkies- but it's not the marketing focus that it once was.

[monkeywool]

Now it's all about skynet watching you, waiting for you to tell it to go on and view porn so it can send a report back to the government.

[charliebucketsgranpa]

I liked the Gamecube enough to give it a "good" but in all honestly it had a weak library.

Had some strong games for it though.

[miketheratguy]

Yep, that doesn't feel far from the truth. From demanding mandatory online system updates to embedding technology that can allow publishers to stop their games from being sold, the industry is inexorably moving closer to full control of how and when we play our games.

As soon as Google buys Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and the federal government- which it likely will- it's all over. Which really sucks because I like my porn and don't want to have to answer to the president about it.

[monkeywool]

Dec 2, 2013 19:12:58 GMT -5 miketheratguy said:

Yep, that doesn't feel far from the truth. From demanding mandatory online system updates to embedding technology that can allow publishers to stop their games from being sold, the industry is inexorably moving closer to full control of how and when we play our games.

As soon as Google buys Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and the federal government- which it likely will- it's all over. Which really sucks because I like my porn and don't want to have to answer to the president about it.

Ah, but you must answer! Or else pay the price! You'll have to compete in the hunger games or something.

[ethanm1834]

O.o I wouldn't go that far, but sure Google does things that can seem draconian at times.

[miketheratguy]

Google buys everything, makes it worse, and tries to get people to use its crummy operating system. That's pretty much what they do. They're like a digital parasite that just keeps consuming with no end in sight.

I think my favorite example of this is when the person who co-founded Youtube took down all of his videos and said "Why the fuck do I need Google Plus to comment on Youtube now?"

Dec 2, 2013 19:14:58 GMT -5 monkeywool said:

Dec 2, 2013 19:12:58 GMT -5 miketheratguy said:

Yep, that doesn't feel far from the truth. From demanding mandatory online system updates to embedding technology that can allow publishers to stop their games from being sold, the industry is inexorably moving closer to full control of how and when we play our games.

As soon as Google buys Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and the federal government- which it likely will- it's all over. Which really sucks because I like my porn and don't want to have to answer to the president about it.

Ah, but you must answer! Or else pay the price! You'll have to compete in the hunger games or something.

Our country is growing closer to The Hunger Games every year. Ironically I'd say it's the current and previous president who have some answering to do.

[ethanm1834]

Eh Google is just doing what companies do. They buy crap and own crap. Then get too big and lose their way, ultimately either going bankrupt or having competition bite at their heels.

[miketheratguy]

Give it a few years, Google won't allow you to make comments like that on this forum.

[wildknight]

GameCube = worst console I've ever owned, and second only to DreamCast for worst wrestling games