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I love getting bargains on the games I purchase and nothing is music to my ears quite like "Buy 2, Get 1 Free". I can spend hours sifting through the titles they have in the store and working out the way to get the most bang for my buck. However, there are several issues that drive me up a wall.
First, the stickers. I understand you have to place them on the item so that we know what the price is. But seriously, do these stickers have to be made of a substance that no human can remove? And do we really need three different stickers in three different locations on the case? I have tried everything short of dark magic and when I do actually get the substance off, it usually causes some sort of damage to the case.
Second, the game switch. When I go through the games, I make sure to find the one with the best case, in the best shape and that it contains an instruction manual, also in the best condition possible. I bring my purchases up to the counter and what does the associate do? He pulls the old case switch and tosses one out that they are holding in the drawers. Why do you have ones in the drawers anyway? You had about 20 copies of the game out on the floor. Were these special cases? Nope, they were in worse shape than the one I picked out and didn't have a manual.
Third, portable games. I don't think this is an issue in every store, but it was in the store I was in this weekend. The DS and 3DS games were all loose. I had to ask an associate to even see the used 3DS games. I questioned them as to why they were tucked away behind the counter. He informed me that they didn't have cases and there were so few that they just held them back there. He further informed me that even when they do get cases, they toss them so that all the games look the same when they put them in that portable display case they have.
So basically, you need to speak to an associate to even get a glimpse at the used 3DS games. The second part however is unforgivable. You seriously throw out the cases? What the hell is wrong with you?! I could understand if you kept them in the drawers until someone makes a purchase (though it would still annoy me). But you threw them out?!
I want three simple things when I get a used game. I want it to play, have a case and a manual, and not look like it was mauled by a bear. Is this really so hard?
Apparently it is!
Firstly I want to apologize for not updating this blog more often. I intended to, but came to the realization that time spent blogging was time spent not playing KoF XIII. I did however try to update the blog the night prior to the event, but a certain Shadow (who will remain nameless) toppled the rfgen empire that day. Anyway....
When we last left our hero (me  ) he was giving serious thought regarding his choice of team members. Kyo was on his way out, with a few people sitting in the shadows waiting to claim his spot. Fast forward to Nov.22nd and I was finally able to grab a copy of KoFXIII after salivating over youtube videos and fighting forums for weeks. After playing around with many ideas for teams I ended up playing Joe, Robert and Yuri. I was happy enough to take that team online and start challenging real players. I was quite confident going in, but quickly found myself getting destroyed game after game. I chalked it up to being unfamiliar with the genre and still learning my characters. But.... before I knew it I had played 80 games and had a win ratio of 10%. Things were not looking good and time was running out.
I gave some serious thought as to why I was losing so much. Control method, lack of experience, missing combos/drive cancels/ etc. and character choices. I noticed that Robert was holding me back and Yuri wasnt delivering like I'd hoped she would. I spent more time in practice mode exploring my options and was delighted with what I found. Two characters I previously overlooked seemed right up my alley. Robert and Yuri were tossed aside for King and Andy.
I also had to change my play style to accomodate my new characters and the 360 pad. I scrapped the idea of impressive combo chains and focused soley on short and consistant combos that had a bit of knockback. Also on single powerful hits and ranged attacks.
After taking this new team and strategy online I was immediately succesful. After nearly 200 more matches I was able to rise my win percentage from the pitiful 10% well above 40%. With more time I have no doubt I could have gotten it above 60-70% even.
I was able to get the achievements for 100 matches won (I was ranked 8 out of thousands of players for numbers of victories), another achievement for 10 ranked victories in a row and peaked at number 13 on the leaderboards. My confidence was back and I was winning more than ever.
Now onto the tournament!
Got off work at 7am (event was at 11:00am) on game day. Snuck a quick nap in until 09:30 since sleep seemed more important than a couple more hours of practice. Woke up and had a quick meal, shower, prepared a lunch/drink/snacks for myself to bring along and then knocked out 3 more battles online. My parents arrived to take my son during the event. Dropped my wife off at her cousins house and made my way to EB Games were the tournament was taking place.
I got there about 10 minutes early and there were a few others already there playing practice rounds on the 360 kiosk in the store. I played a warm up match against the youngest competitor (12 years old, all the other contestants were my own age). With all my practice I found my best order was King followed by Andy with Joe being my tail. I went with that and was able to win my warm up with little trouble. The boy had little experience with the series and I gave him a few pointers on the gameplay (he wasnt quite sure how the drive meter worked for instance). After that I watched several others play a few games. It was quite obvious who the 2 best players to watch for were. There was a lot of names on the sign up sheet for the tournament, but after waiting until about 11:30 we started the event with only about 10 players.
I was up first against one of the stronger players I saw during practice rounds. He plugged himself into his Ipod so I couldnt trash talk him mercilessly during the round. He choose Kensou (who I dont like being matched against), Andy and another character that slips my mind. Match started and after a fairly slow battle he took out King with his first character Kensou. We started the next round with his Kensou at half health and me a little flustered that the first round didnt go so well. Must have been performace anxiety or adjusting to the play area. Whatever it was I was able to do fairly well with Andy (easily my strongest character) and pull a close win out. The matches were best 2 of 3 so I still had to repeat my win again to move on. This time around went much better and I was able to nearly defeat his first 2 characters with King. Andy finished up the scraps and we didnt get to Joe this time.
1 down and he was 1 of the 2 I had to worry about. Definitely feeling good so far. Watched the others play for a bit and learned my next match was going to be against who I felt was going to be my toughest match up. Went to the washroom and made sure to eat and drink.
Next match started. He was playing King, Leona, and Kim. First round went by and his King destroyed mine. He had nearly a full meter going into the next round. Ouch! Luckily Andy was able to earn his keep and took out King and most of Leona. Joe finished Leona and we entered the final round at close to even meters. He started off a lot better than myself and I was struggling at under half my health while he was comfortable with nearly three quaters of his. One of the reasons I like keeping Joe at the end is that his Neo Max is quite easy to do and with a little practice is fairly easy to connect with . I was able to blast him with one and drop his life to nearly nothing. A couple pokes and a Flying Knee finished the deal. At the end I had 1 or two hits of life left. It was much to close. Our second fight went surprisingly similar. I played a little better out of the gate this time though and ended it with another Joe Noe Max. Not as close as the last fight, but still uncomfortable.
Had to wait a while for my next game so I made sure to scope my competition in the meantime.
Next pairing was against a store employee. I hadnt seen him play much since he was helping customers much of the time I was there. The match started off strong with King and was finished easily with Andy. The next fight was a slaughter and really helped me feel like I was unstopable. This match was for a spot in the finals, so I was very happy to win the entire fight only using King. Thats right I was able to strike fear into my upcoming opponent by showing them the only 3 round fight that took place that day. It was very good momentem to bring with me to the last battle.
Another hiatus while people slugged it out for a chance to take me on in the final game. Not much to my surprise I was met once again by the player I had defeated in the second round. Rematch for the championship!!!
This time I made sure to take it a bit slower and did much better in our King on King mirror match. His Leona was able to deal a lot more damage to Andy than I would have liked though and once again we entered the final round on quite equal ground. Luckily for me since the only time he had seen me play as Joe I relied on Neo Max moves he hadnt really seen me play him. After several crossovers I was able to get him close to death while keeping my hyper drive meter at 4 bars. This meant that I could just spam my EX Hurricane Upper at him several times (12 hurricanes in a row!) and kill him through his block. Not the most honorable victory, but I was out to win. I apololgized for the lame victory and we moved onto our 2nd fight. Played out quite similar again, but when we reached our final round my Joe took much more of a beating this time. on the verge of death I was to once again save myself with a well placed EX Hurricane Upper juggling him across all 3 tornados for an anti-air victory.
Although there were some close calls I never actually lost a single match. The prize for my victory was a sealed copy (with the pre-order bonus soundtrack) on my choice of system. Since I had already grabbed it on the 360 I snagged a PS3 copy for my collection. I'll likely keep it sealed as a trophy since I've got another copy to play. Got my picture taken for the EBgames website also.
Other than my hard work paying off in a victory the best part was just chatting with fellow gamers my own age. I learned through my first match that there is actually a Street Fighter Club in town that meets each Sunday for league play! Cant wait to go check it out now!
Who wants to read another fighting blog, but about Street Fighter IV now? What? Nobody?
A while back I started collecting issues of PSM, which is one of my favorite PlayStation magazines. I suppose it's the "100% independent" part of it -- the idea that the views may be a bit more unbiased than those coming form Official PlayStation Magazine. Or maybe it's just how cool a lot of the cover art was. Who knows? But with Black Friday's arrival, I felt the urge to look back at the 2002 Holiday Buyer's Guide issue... from 2002. So let's see what PSM was urging everyone to shove under the tree 9 years ago, shall we?
Continue reading PSM: Holiday 2002, Issue 66
Happy Black Friday and Belated Thanksgiving RFGeners - hope you were sufficiently stuffed with Turkey and Mom's old fashioned potatoes yesterday! Today, however, is chaos and maybe a few deals. Did any of you go shopping today? Did you find anything good? Maybe something for your secret santa buddy?
I personally had to work so I slept in until the boss called me and told me I had to come in .
FMV Games...Video Games that use Full Motion Video for they're graphics. They died out in the late 90's, and haven't been seen since, as far as I know. For many, they're stupid and have no real value. For others, such as myself, they're fun and unique. Today, I'm here to present to you a look back at the most famous (and infamous) ones. Let's start.
That game there is Night Trap, a game with some controversial history behind it. There's a LOT behind it's story, but the short version is that a politician called it bad in the sense that it was too violent, and everyone believed him. Over time, the hype died down, and to some, it's now a cult classic. Originally released for the Sega CD, the goal is to trap Vampires called "Augers" using various trap doors in a house to protect several young women in the house having a sleepover. Simple, but it can raise your tension sometimes, because most of the time, one wrong move means Game Over. It was also released for the 3DO and the 32X-CD.
What's Special About It: The Main Character is portrayed by Dano Plato of Diff'rent Strokes fame. Also, as mentioned before, it caused a lot of controversy, but most of it only happened because someone was full of hot air.
What we have here is Wing Commander III, a game I like to call a Sleeper Hit. It's a Small-Spaceship Simulator, and your goal is to fend off the Kilrathi (Humanoid Lions). Besides the Spaceship Combat, it also plays like a typical FMV Adventure Game. You can talk to the Characters to initiate live action conversations with them, which look awesome. Wing Commander III is, without a doubt, my favorite FMV Game. Originally released for DOS, it has been ported to the 3DO and PS1.
What's Special About It: Mark Hamill, most famous for his portrayal of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars IV, V, and VI, plays the Main Character in this one, and in the fourth one, and he does an excellent job at it.
Mad Dog McCree is an Old West shooting game. The goal is to track down the outlaw Mad Dog McCree and save the Mayor's daughter. To do this, you have to shoot a bunch of other criminals while searching for Mad Dog. It's not too hard, but not too easy either, and the whole concept is really simple. It was originally released as an Arcade Machine, and has been ported to many other Consoles.
What's Special About It: It was actually pretty successful for an FMV Game, considering most people hate them.
Well, that's it for this short entry. It would've been longer, but I'm pretty bored right now, and I'm not really working at my fullest right now. Heh. Anyway, my next entry will be better.
I remember the first time I booted up Sonic the Hedgehog and how I was just blown away by how good it looked and sounded in comparison to the games I had been playing on the NES at the time, and I was hooked. So, you can imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I found a copy of Sonic Rush, one of the Sonic games I missed out on, sitting on the clearance rack at my local Target for a mere four dollars. I finally popped the game in a few days ago, as I had just finished up Generations, and was still wanting to spend some more time with the famous blue hedgehog. As a fan of Sonic Team's Sonic Advance games on the GBA, I had high hopes that this would be an excellent handheld outing for Sonic, so let's take a look and see how this game holds up.
Continue reading Collection Impressions #1 - Sonic Rush
 I know it is only Thanksgiving in the US, but I still want to wish all a happy Thanksgiving, be you American or not. For those of you that are, may the Turkey be plentiful and tasty.
On a completely different note, the Type of Release field is has been added to our database. At this time, you cannot see it on games or hardware pages because this is a mandatory field that will allow users to filter out entries they feel are extraneous from the database. Many users feel that RF Generation has grown beyond the original scope of the site. For those that feel that way, while we cannot undo the major changes in scope, we hope that this addition will help those that feel the database has grown to be unwieldy.
Please help our staff set types of release for all entries. Please note if you make any edit to the database you will be required now to also set the Type of Release field if it is not set. I must stress again that this field is mandatory.
Should you come across any major technical glitches with this please PM me about the glitch. Any questions or comments about the actual content of the field should be directed to a DB Editor or Mike.
I hope you enjoy this new addition, and oh yeah, Keep it on Channel Three.
-Your Friendly PHP Programmer
Hey everyone! After an extended absence from blogging, I've decided to return with a new articles called Collection Impressions. I came up with the idea for the last night when I was going through my collection over on my Backloggery. As I went through my games, I realized that I had nearly 80 titles that I haven't gotten around to playing at all. Of course this is one of the drawbacks of collecting, with each game you add to your collection you can only play so much due to what we like the call real life, so I thought about a way I could get around to trying some of these games and came up with this idea.
In each article of Collection Impressions, I'll aim to play a game in my collection that I've never played before or that I haven't played since my childhood and giving my impressions on gameplay, visuals, sound, and then wrap it up with whether or not I'll continue the game and if I recommend the title or not. It's a pretty simple premise, and obviously completely unoriginal, but if it will get me to not only play a few of these games, but also get my writing again then I can't see anything wrong with this decision. Well, that's about all for this one, I just thought I'd give you a run down of my plan for this new article before I actually start my first full article. I've already played the game I'm going to be writing about and I'm currently collecting my thoughts on it and hope to have the first article posted later in the week, so be on the look out and I hope you all enjoy. As always, thank you for reading everyone and I'll be sure to be back soon.
I was finally able to find someone online to play with yesterday! I fought the same guy 3 times in a row (after waiting for 35 minutes to get matched with someone). I won the first of our 3 matches. I could have loved to play more, but I guess he wanted to get a little more variety and took off after our 3rd battle.
A great feature in KoF XII though is that I was able to record all 3 fights and review them as many times as I wanted. It was painfully obvious in the 2 matches that I lost that I need to slow it down and be able to react to his moves. He was quite obvious a few times and I completely missed the cues and got punished for it. I also need to learn how to better exploit my opponents openings.
Last night I also spent several hours researching KoFXIII combos. After reading through many pages of character bios and watching tons of youtube videos I'm happy to stick with Joe and Robert. Since I'm going to be using a standard Xbox 360 pad and not an arcade stick I need to be able to execute simple, high damage combos. Both of those characters can delivery.
I am going to be swapping Kyo out of the rotation though. After last nights cram session here are the current candidates for his replacement: K', Shen, Iori, Maxima, Yuri. I'll dig into those 5 a little closer tonight and make sure I have one locked down today since XIII launches tomorrow and I want to get started on them asap.
I just registered on this site although I had visited it a few times in the past years. Seems to be a pretty cool place. I've been blogging and enjoying the community of Gamespot.com for a lot of years and thought I'd post my blogs over here too when I make them. I'll keep posting them here too if people don't hate them haha. If you want to read my older blogs you can find them here: http://www.gamespot.com/users/lazyhoboguy
Dead Space 1
Wow. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this game so much. It feels like a mixture between Resident Evil 4 and Doom 3 which were both games I liked quite a bit. It feels extremely inspired by Doom 3 to me. The space setting, use of lighting to make things scarey, and slow-paced nature of exploring corridors all make it feel a lot like Doom 3. It even has random audio and video logs scattered about just like Doom 3. The game feels like Resident Evil 4 since it is a 3rd person perspective and you have to do a lot of ammo and item management. I've also read around on the internet that this game is supposedly influenced by the Alien movies, but I wouldn't know since I haven't seen them yet.
If you have played Resident Evil 4, Doom 3, or survival horror games though do not start this game on the normal mode. I reached chapter 4 on this mode and never died once from an enemy. I died only once from an environmental danger that I didn't notice until it insta-killed me. On normal mode the game doesn't feel like survival horror at all and felt like a piece of cake third person shooter. I rarely ever got hit by anything and because of that I had tons of health items and ammo that I was never in any of danger of needing. I wasn't all that impressed with the game while playing on this mode. As soon as I started playing on hard mode though the game really started getting fun. On hard mode you have to be much more precise with your aim since there is less ammo and enemies take more hits. One important and cool aspect to the gameplay is that you have stasis which lets you slow down an enemy for a small amount of time. You really have to make good use of this on the hard mode since your supply of stasis is limited and many of the enemies are fast and attack in groups.
The game doesn't really feel scary to me, but neither did Resident Evil 4 or Doom 3 really. It has a creepy atmosphere like those games since you know enemies might pop out around any random corner. That is not really a flaw at all though. I didn't get the game because I wanted it to be scary. The only real small flaws I will mention are that the melee combat feels a bit awful. You can b****slap or stomp on enemies, but aiming these attacks feels really imprecise to the point that they are pretty pointless to ever use unless you have no ammo for any gun at all and there is absolutely nothing in the environment for you to toss at an enemy (yea there you can magically pick up and toss s*** at enemies with your hand like in Timesplitter's Future Perfect).
I hear this game has a new game plus mode where it gets harder and you keep your upgraded stuff. That sounds like something up my alley. This might turn out to be an extremely repayable game then. It already feels quite lengthy as I have put in a good amount of hours and am on like chapter 5 or 6. I might be wrong, but I believe i heard there were 12 chapters total.
After beating Dark Souls 2 times every game I tried to get into just couldn't match up haha. This is the first one that got me engrossed and not missing dark souls the whole time while playing it. Although, I still am playing Demon's Souls again sometimes because I am a weak addict.
Thought I'd have a quick two games done again tonight, but I was sadly mistaken. Apparently I'm fat and out of shape these days because I got my ass handed to me tons of time tonight on Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Mostly these were not honorable defeats. I did fine during the first two circuits, but the 3rd circuit just gave me way to much trouble tonight. I'll get crackin at it again tomorrow night.
Took a break from getting clobbered and snuck in some Kung Fu though. Its short and sweet so at least I got something beaten tonight.
Beaten Since Oct.8 - 62/100
(click on a name to see the video)
Super Mario Bros
Super Mario Bros 2
Super Mario Bros 3
Mega Man
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Mega Man 5
Mega Man 6
Castlevania
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Duck Tales
Duck Tales 2
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
Felix the Cat
Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
Ren and Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$
Double Dragon
Contra
Super C
Contra Force
Power Blade
Power Blade 2
Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus
Metal Storm
Journey to Silius
Air Fortress
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Blaster Master
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
Legendary Wings
BreakThru
Commando
Guerrilla War
World Games
Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular
Caveman Games
DK Classics
Jaws
Ninja Gaiden
Where's Waldo?
Bonk's Adventure
Panic Restaurant
Bubble Bobble 2
Dr. Mario
Bubble Bobble
MC Kids
Batman
Circus Caper
Roller Games
Widget
Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures 2
The Jetsons
The Little Mermaid
Monster in my Pocket
Gremlins 2
Kirby's Adventure
Kickle Cubicle
Kung Fu
Future Plans - More Punch Out!!. And if time permits, Rampage or Yo! Noid depending on my mood.
Had a bit of a setback yesterday which cut significantly into my KoF time. We had a pretty big snowfall and when I went out to snow blow (this is my first year with one so I was pretty psyched) I couldnt get the auger to spin. After a few hours of tinkering with my snow blower and finally shovelling snow, I found some time to relax.
Once again I couldnt find any online games so I after finishing arcade mode on Hard again (started with Kyo to get in some more practice with him) I jumped into practice mode. With all 3 of my characters I set out to practice executing moves from the 2P position. Quarter circles and Fireballs were no problem. I could get 10 or more off in a row without mistake. Moves that required a reverse dragon punch motion though gave me a lot more inconsistancies.
I'm also starting to doubt my choice in Kyo. I have definitely spent the least amount of time with him, but I'm kind of leaning towards swapping him out for someone else when XIII launches. I'll surely stick with Joe and Robert, but I may leave Kyo out for someone like Mai or Yuri when the new game arrives. This wont leave me with as much practice time with a new character, but it will allow me to narrow my focus before XIII launches to the 2 guys I'm happy with.
Went ahead with my plans for Kirby and Kickle Cubicle tonight. Choose Kirby first. It was a lot longer than I remembered. I'm pretty sure I've beaten it a long time ago, but not positive since a lot of stuff in the last couple levels seemed very unfamiliar. Kirby has always been a little awkward moving for my taste. Still a solid game though. The second to last boss fight was a lot of fun.
Followed Kirby with some Kickle Cubicle. Neat little puzzlish game. Kind of similar to Adventures of Lolo. Lots of talking food, and apparently the royalty that rules over said food is human. And you play as some kind of snowman with ear muffs. And the evil wizard that takes over the fantasy realm wears an upside down metal bucket on his head. Its has a very unusual setting and characters. The game was fairly easy until the 4th and final stage. It really ramped up the amount of deaths there. After getting the ending I was treated to a "special game" which was more puzzles, but if the first 2 were any indication they were going to be much more difficult.
I probably wont get to recording an audio track this week like I suggested earlier. I'm trying to focus on King of Fighters so I've put that on the back burner until after its done on the 26th.
Beaten Since Oct.8th - 61/100
(click on a title to see the video)
Super Mario Bros
Super Mario Bros 2
Super Mario Bros 3
Mega Man
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Mega Man 5
Mega Man 6
Castlevania
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Duck Tales
Duck Tales 2
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
Felix the Cat
Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
Ren and Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$
Double Dragon
Contra
Super C
Contra Force
Power Blade
Power Blade 2
Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus
Metal Storm
Journey to Silius
Air Fortress
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Blaster Master
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
Legendary Wings
BreakThru
Commando
Guerrilla War
World Games
Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular
Caveman Games
DK Classics
Jaws
Ninja Gaiden
Where's Waldo?
Bonk's Adventure
Panic Restaurant
Bubble Bobble 2
Dr. Mario
Bubble Bobble
MC Kids
Batman
Circus Caper
Roller Games
Widget
Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures 2
The Jetsons
The Little Mermaid
Monster in my Pocket
Gremlins 2
Kirby's Adventure
Kickle Cubicle
Future Plans - I've still got 59 days left to finish at least 39 games right now. I've got two more work days in this week so I'll bring something to play for those days, but starting Sunday until next Saturday I'll be bringing my 360 to work to keep blasting away at King of Fighers. So I'll be taking about a week off from this Nintendo Challenge to focus on the upcoming KoF tournament. I'm hoping since I've gotten a little bit ahead of schedule so far that this wont hurt me to bad in the long run.
Note: Alright, I have to say something, everyone. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to keep up with the blog for the past several months. I have just started college, so my free time has been scarce. I also didn't bring my Gamecube to college, in the interest of saving space. In retrospect, that was a mistake; I brought my PS3, and haven't touched it once since I got here. So, next semester, I will bring up my Gamecube, and the articles will continue! So, regardless of my busy schedule, this is one event that I wouldn't miss for the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, today is a grand day, indeed. On this day, ten years ago, the Nintendo Gamecube was released in North America, and a legacy was born. So, let's take a look at the console's conception, and follow it through its whole life, starting all the way back in the tumultuous era of 1998, when development started on Nintendo's Project Dolphin, a successor to the Nintendo 64, released two years prior. Nintendo saw that the time had finally passed for physical media in home consoles, seeing the success of the Sony PlayStation (and in Japan, the Sega Saturn), and despite many quality games and the most powerful system on the market at the time, was left in the dust in the console race, having come in second in North America, and dead last in its native country of Japan. Nintendo had lost a lot of big-name developers like Capcom, Namco, Squaresoft, and Enix with the Nintendo 64, all of which showed little to no support for the system, and seeked to win them back in the next generation. In response to the former, and to keep up with Sega's peppy new challenger the Dreamcast and its head start to the market, Nintendo started development on Project Dolphin to alleviate the shortcomings of their current system. Things got even more complicated when the software partnership between Sega and Microsoft broke off, and Microsoft decided to try their hand in the console market with the then-named Direct-X Box, later renamed the Xbox. Then, soon after, Sega was tragically crushed under the weight of the PlayStation 2, and just like that, the console war was back to 3 factions again. In 1999, the Dolphin was revealed to the gaming public, and had many gamers salivating at the sight of the capabilities of Nintendo's new hardware. After some various name changes in development from the initial Dolphin, to the Starcube, it was eventually given its true name, the Gamecube.
Nintendo certainly had their work cut out for them with the Gamecube The PS2 got a huge head start on them by releasing in 2000, but due to hardware and software shortages on Sony's end, Nitnendo was able to maintain a strong foothold during the Christmas season with their N64 with new titles like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Banjo-Tooie. However, it was a minor victory, as future Nintendo 64 releases would quickly slow to a trickle in the coming months, to a point where there were no new releases for several months prior to the Gamecube's launch. In contrast, it was nowhere near as bad as the drought of games between the Saturn and Dreamcast, something Nintendo can surely thank their lucky stars for. In a surprise move, in an attempt to grab some of Nintendo's early adopters, Mircosoft launched their Xbox 3 days before the Gamecube, making the 'Cube the last-released 6th-generation game console. The Nintendo Gamecube was finally released on November 18th in North America, preceded by a September 16th Japanese release, ushering in a fresh new start for Nintendo.
Nintendo tried many different hardware concepts in development for Dolphin, even some very forward-thinking ideas like hardware-supported Stereoscopic 3D, which actually made it into the final hardware for the Gamecube, but Nintendo never allowed any game to use it due to the rarity of 3D televisions at the time. (However, it was left in the code for launch title Luigi's Mansion, but was left disabled in the final build of the game.) Speaking of which, the hardware of the Gamecube is actually something quite special; in a technical sense, it was significantly different than the PlayStation 2, which relied on software workarounds to utilize graphical tricks like lighting, graphical filters, or multi-level anti-aliasing, all of which was built into the hardware itself on the Gamecube. This allowed for developers to offload system work that would otherwise have been handled by an already-busy CPU, like in the aforementioned PS2 setup. This made the Gamecube a very easy system to develop for in the eyes of developers. Not to mention already being more powerful than the PlayStation 2 in raw statistics, this allowed the Gamecube to achieve Xbox-level graphical fidelity. Many developers even were so bold as to say that the Gamecube was, in a practical sense, equal to the Xbox due to the Xbox's unoptimized and inefficient methods of processing code. This has sparked no end of debate amongst graphics junkies, and remains a topic of controversy to this day. The only thing about the Gamecube that has been a major hindrance that has kept it from the same games as its contemporaries was its limited storage medium, the mini-DVD.
Nintendo was eager to rush into the 6th hardware generation with optical media in the forefront of their minds. But, in order to attempt to keep the many advantages of cartridges, such as fast loading times, durability, and a proprietary game format, Nintendo opted for another controversial and unorthodox approach. What was born was the Mini-DVD, a semi-proprietary disc format created by Panasonic. It was significantly smaller and had a much lower capacity than a standard DVD, weighing in at 8 cm (~3 in) and 1.4 GB. Although the Gamecube's disc drive was technically capable of reading standard-sized DVDs, due to the laser's metal reading track, it cannot read past the length of a mini-DVD. Because of the medium's small size, the disc drive could spin at a faster rate, and data could be read off the disc faster without fear of damaging the drive with larger discs. This is why loading times are generally very fast on Gamecube games compared to their PS2 ports. This decision was also made to keep in sync with the overall aesthetic of the system, which was intended to be one of a compact design. In the end, this decision probably caused Nintendo more problems that it solved, as the lack of disc space lost Nintendo some very big 3rd-party games like Grand Theft Auto 3. Thus, the storage medium nightmare of the Nintendo 64 began anew. The medium did have some notable advantages, however. The large, open world of games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker would have never been possible, or at the very least, severely hampered if not for the fast loading speeds granted by the mini-DVD, continuing Nintendo's long-standing design tradition of lightning-fast loading times for first-party games; we all know the amount of care Nintendo puts into their first-party endeavors.
Even though the Gamecube was an amazing little machine in terms of specifications, it is really the software that stands out about the system. I've said this a few times before, but for Nintendo's in-house development, the Gamecube was a very experimental system. They did things that were actually pretty crazy when taken into perspective. A Mario game where the main focus of the game is not on his own jumping abilities? A Metroid First-Person Shooter? A Kirby Racing game? That weird-looking Zelda game? A Donkey Kong platformer that used a rhythm game controller? And weirdest of all, launching the console with a Mario game that doesn't star Mario? Insanity! These are all things Gamecube owners probably said at some point during the time they owned their system. It helped Nintendo try out a lot of concepts that they normally would never have been able to try. This is why the Gamecube is such a fascinating console; it gives the player unique experiences that they wouldn't ever find anywhere else, even on other Nintendo platforms. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the games here (each one really does deserve its own post), but the main point I want to convey is that the Gamecube is different. Who knows; if Nintendo had not gone and taken risks with the 'Cube, they may not have learned enough to make the Wii what it is today. That's not to say the Gamecube doesn't stand on its own merits; it more than does that. But, its influence extends far beyond what many people remember it as.
The Gamecube lasted almost 6 years before being discontinued in favor of the Wii. While it was outlasted by both the Xbox and by a much longer period, the PS2, its name will live on in gaming history. It is a console that deserves a lot more respect than it gets. But, the people who do appreciate it know exactly why it is such a great system. It epitomizes what makes Nintendo who they are. If nothing else, the Gamecube should always be remembered as the console that gave us something new and fresh, from a company that is so often criticized for being stale and predictable. All this is why I feel that the Gamecube represents one of Nintendo's finest hours. So, in closing, I want you to do something today. Something many of you may not have done in a while. I want you to play your Gamecube. Show it some love. What better way to close out an era than to go back to the very beginning, and remember what the Gamecube really is. Fun.
This is Lisalover1, and now you know the rest of the story.
P.S: There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to add to this article, like a top ten GameCube game list, or going into the various accessories for the system, but I just didn't have time. Maybe some other day, but right now, this will have to do.
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