10th Anniversary of the GameCube

[pratty]

Starfox was cruelly under-rated imo,

I agree, I really like it. I remember being absolutely blown away by the screen shots in the magazines, just drooling over the graphics, thinking surely these are just cut-scenes. Did the same for Twilight Princess as well actually.

Speaking of Zelda, Windwaker was another stunner, such a gorgeous art style complimented by a wonderful soundtrack. The Mario and Zelda Big Band rendition of the Dragon Roost Island theme is especially sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyPyjprGvW0

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

I really liked star fox as well. The namco one was gash though

[HalcyonDaze00]

never really liked the GC but I do agree it's retro, and its about time the mag had more stuff from this period.

[James A]

Gawd is that 10 years already. I remember getting mine for £50 two weeks after launch from ahem a very unsavoury friend of mine in the pub one Friday evening. I ended up getting rid of it a few weeks later as i didn't feel any of the games id picked up were any good. Fast forward a few years i picked up another one along with most of the rare games pretty cheap when Gamestation were flogging them for peanuts.

[JetSetWilly]

I remember when I first got my GC. A purchase from GAME in Hastings, whilst on holiday, roughly 2003. Bought with Luigi's Mansion and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, and never looked back. Got as much playtime as the PS2, and maybe a little more. I always got the impression it had more power under the hood than it made out, and I was always blown away by whatever game I loaded up. Might have to get another at some point. I really wish I never sold it.

Happy Anniversary, my little square box friend.

[killbot]

I remember getting my first one from Game in Mansfield. It was an impulse buy - paid about £100 for it with Mario Sunshine. I have about 70 games now including most of the rarer stuff (Baten Kaitos, Fire Emblem, Twilight Princess). Still looking for Beyond Good And Evil, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Chibi Robo. I'll probably consider the collection pretty much done with when I have those.

[ShadowNeku]

We got ours with the Gameboy Player, Super Smash Bros Melee and Eggo Mania when the console was relatively far into its life. Never played the first on N64 so i had no idea what to expect but i was blown away. So much content and Nintendo history packed into one game.

A fantastic console really. We own so many quality games for it.

[Roo]

Despite having one for ten years now, the GameCube remains a bit of a mystery to me. Yes, many people point to the GameCube's heyday as being Nintendo at it's absolute creative peak, knocking out games at a dizzying pace that are still spoken of and played today. That said, I can't quite shake the feeling that the GameCube was merely just a good console that the devlopers and publishers of the early 2000's simply let drift by them.

Anyhoo, got the black GameCube with a memory card and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for £184.99 in Electronics Boutique, pretty much entirely paid by with my N64 collection. £5 trade-in for DK64 with the expansion pack? What was I thinking...?

[stvd]

I'll maybe set mine up in way of celebration.
I bought mine a few years ago when game were selling them off and got a split-new
white model (mario smash football pack) for £24.99.

I only have around 10 games for it but haven't actually got round to playing any of them.

[greenberet79]

Where has the time gone? I'm unsettled by it. Nice reading everyone's memories.

The GameCube came out when I wasn't playing games anymore (I had drink, work and women to think about!) but my mum and dad got one for my younger brother for Christmas - 2002? Must have been.

Anyway, he got the purple one (classically unique, IMO) with Mario Sunshine, Rogue Leader and Simpson's hit and run. I still remember hogging the telly on Christmas day with Rogue Leader! Wow, it was amazing. I played it on and off for a couple of years, but still wasn't really playing games.

Then in about 2008 mum and dad moved house, and put a load of boxes in my flat. I was nosing through them and there was the GameCube. I literally dusted it off, plugged it into the telly and played F-Zero for about 3 hours straight!

I have the GameCube to thank for keeping my gaming interest above water in my lost years!

(Oh, and I still have it, with a tonne of games. My brother's not getting it back.)

[pratty]

Despite having one for ten years now, the GameCube remains a bit of a mystery to me. Yes, many people point to the GameCube's heyday as being Nintendo at it's absolute creative peak, knocking out games at a dizzying pace that are still spoken of and played today. That said, I can't quite shake the feeling that the GameCube was merely just a good console that the devlopers and publishers of the early 2000's simply let drift by them.

That may be true to an extent but I don't think it came out of that too badly. While it missed out on games like Pro Evo and GTA it still got quite a lot of the quality multi-plats going around (including arguably superior versions of some games like RE4, Viewtiful Joe and Killer 7), and some excellent 3rd-party exclusives such as Rouge Leader, REmake, RE Zero, Eternal Darkness, Twin Snakes, Tales of Symphonia, Baiton Kaitos, Chibi Robo etc.

And for me the 1st-party stuff made up for the things it missed so I was very satisfied with only the Gamecube last gen.

[Babbage]

my second console I ever personally owned after the Dreamcast. Bought on a bit of a whim and I don't think I made very good selections when buying games for it, which left me with a probably unfairly bad opinion of it.

[jcdentont1000]

I think the GameCube is the one console I truly regret buying, in earnest. I bought one shortly after release from MVC (lol) bundled with one of four games (Fifa Road to World Cup 2002, Super Monkey Ball, Luigi's Mansion or 007: Agent Under Fire IIRC). I didn't fancy the footie game (was PES fan), my brother already had Monkey Ball, I'd heard from a friend that Luigi's Mansion was 'really easy' so I stupidly chose Agent Under Fire, wrongly believing it to be an even better version of GoldenEye.

I think I only bought about three more games after that (and three third party controllers so my mates - none of who had GameCube's, because they were - quote - 'censored' - could play some four player Agent Under Fire action). I've added hugely to my collection retrospectively and my GameCube is in amazing nick seeing as it hardly got used.

To this day I wish I'd spent the money on something else, like cigarettes or developing a healthy crack addiction.

And I think Nintendo know it was a disappointing machine too. That's why they made the Wii and now Wii-U, because they know they lost the hardcore gamer market with the GameCube, they have done very well to recover and focus their efforts on casual gamers.

[pantal00ns]

Completely passed me by first time around, as did most of the last Gen consoles except the PS2 which I used for about a year.

Must admit I like it, its a little different:

Its a cube!
Cute discs.
Wavebird is a nice controller.
Some interesting releases, not a huge Zelda fan but Windwaker grab my attention for a while.

Definitley a console with character.

[theantmeister]

I still remember the day I bought my Gamecube (not bad, considering it was 10 years ago and I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday). I went out that day to specifically buy a PS2, but they were totally out of stock. I went into all three game shops in Salisbury (we're down to one now ), with the last one being an independent. There they had a freshly imported Japanese 'cube, modified to run US games with a switch, running Star Wars Rogue Squadron.

They wanted a fortune for it and the PAL launch was only a week away...but I bought it anyway, along with a Japanese copy of Luigi's mansion.