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Gamecube Review
-November 27th, 2001-
It's been ages since Nintendo lost the "respect" they had gained over the years. When the N64 launched, people bought it, which followed with the discovery in the long run how much crap it would bring. Meanwhile, Sony with their mighty Playstation and Sega with their now-deceased Dreamcast dominated sales over the Nintendo 64, bringing the CD games of yester-year that were once crap to the mainstream and making millions. Nintendo had Mario, Goldeneye and Zelda to boast about. Ouch.
So after 5 years, they finally do it. They make a system that is capable of playing CDs, miniature ones at that(I'll get into that later), and which manages to live up to the current technology in terms of sound and video. Not only that, but they also manage to nab up the rights to have the Biohazard series exclusively on the pretty little thing(I'll also get into that later), and just have a general array of promising-looking titles in the future(yeah, that too, later).
So here I go, reviewing my 24-hour experience with it. It's been awhile since I've reviewed anything, but whatever.
This Gamecube experience was brought to you by none other than Pueto Sanchez. That's right kids, Pueto's a loaded one. Loaded in the sense that he has money, whereas I don't, and he does, and he can take it out and buy things with it, that is. Anyway, the guy, being the smart, silent, Soon-to-be Greatest Guitar Sensation in the World that he is, waits in line for 30 minutes outside the Electronics Boutique, then nabs up his copy with relative ease. But you can't just buy a console these days... no. To spite gamers, those fat babies make you buy a game [i]seperately[/i], forcing you to dish out more cold cash. But wait, there's more. Being so nice as to switch to Miniature CDs, Nintendo now, for the first time in history, uses tiny little memory cards to store the game saves on. More money. Psh, man, "The Establishment"; always getting us down...
So the guy pays for the system, decides to pick up the cliche Mario Bros. title that everyone always gets first, Luigi's Mansion, and a lil' baby memory card. Aww.
Nintendo has, in fact, at least for the time being, created a pretty darn good-looking system, one capable of reviving the legend that once surrounded their name. The graphics are by most aspects good, although I rarely give a crap to notice "THE GREAT REALISM AND EMOTION!" in 3D games these days. I was crapping bricks when I saw Supa Mario 64 5 years ago. Since then, the Playstation is about the only other thing to really make me become "shocked" by what they're doing these days in terms of a game's looks. If you've seen 3D, you've seen 3D. It just gets slightly better as the years pass. But anyway, when it comes to Nintendo, they've made quite a huge jump from their all-cartoon graphics of yester-year, and while trying not to get all nostalgic like I usually do, a leap that defies no bounds from the ol' 8-bit sprite days. Back in the days when we all though Mario was bald... or, maybe, just some of us.
First, the console it's self.
I was surprised first-off by the many minor changes that Nintendo made to their "new" way of doing things. The guy that was stoned while making the N64's controller was apparently not in charge of creating the new Gamecube controller, as the designs were completely different. But, everybody could see that easily. I know I had. It was when I held it that I felt the real difference. It almost reminded me of the old square NES controllers from back in the day; a simple design, except this time around we've got all sorts of strange knobs and colored thingys everywhere. Using the control stick to spin things around, which apparently was thought to be somewhat of a problem from before, is remedied by an odd yellow "button" that has a secret function... it goes around in a circle. A full, 360-degree circle. Really, really, amazing, I know.
 What really caught my eye was Nintendo's embeding both the four controller ports AND the memory card ports into the system it's self. Over the years it's been like Goldylocks and the Three Bears in terms of how the approach has been handled; the Playstation was okay because it had MC ports in the console, but no four controller ports, the Dreamcast had 4 controller ports, but no MC ports, and now the Gamecube is just right. Bad analagy, yes, bad thing to have, no. It's just a nice thing that they finally got a couple of nice things together in one big nice package. NICE.
The mini-CDs are quite interesting. Last I heard about those were the several-Dragonball Z track-packed 4 dollar Japanese CDs that sold several years ago, but never did I imagine we'd be seeing games on the suckers. I suppose Nintendo decided that if they were going to move on to CDs, they'd do it entirely differently. Always the unique ones, never blending in. Can't they just wear jeans and shirts like all the OTHER Video Game Industries?
And the memory cards are small. Yeah... that's good... I guess. What? BABIES CAN CHOKE ON THOSE THINGS! Then again, they could easily lodge a PSX, Dreamcast or N64(with a bit of effort) Memory Card into their throats too. Whatever. When I heard the "Cube" in "Gamecube", I didn't take the title literally, but I really should have. This thing's shaped like a frikin' ice block(a mini-ice block, rather). It really, truely is, a cube. A box. But not an X-Box. Ah ha ha ha... sorry.
Moving on to the games, I got the chance to try Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race Blue Storm, so I had at it.
The first thought that went through my head(which I reiterated to Pueto, who typically doesn't even bother to try and understand me(and who does?)) when I heard that Luigi's Mansion was actually coming out was... wow. He did it. He really did it. Luigi, after years of suffering and torment, got his very own game that didn't involve time travel or world history. But unfortunately, he STILL gets the shaft by once again having to save the cruel brother who's shadow the Italian's lived in for years. It's been ages since I conducted my interview with the poor guy, but even now as I stared into the eyes of a man carrying a Polerguist 3000 in both hands and bolstering into the unknown to save his "poor" brother, I could see the sadness. The deep, deep depression. Or maybe that was just because he was being chased by Boos. Either/or, I guess.
As the title implies, you're in a mansion. And, you've got a vaccum, which, you suck up Boos with. Boos, if you don't know, are the equivilant of Stars from Mario 64. Only difference is, they fight back, and there's only 50 of them. Sure makes the game awful short, but I'm not complaining. The graphics are good, Luigi looks real, yadda yadda... everybody knows all that stuff. What really ticked me off though was something that must have been misplaced during shipment... LUIGI CAN'T JUMP! He's a damned Mario Brother... Mario Brothers jump. When you base your entire career around jumping on to platforms for a living, you usually tend not to REMOVE that part from your contract. Luigi must have entered the Mansion drunk, seeing as how he thinks he has to catch every Boo in the house when all Mario ever had to do was jump behind them and hit 'em. It's been a long time for our seldom-seen hero, but I didn't think he'd be that rusty.
 The controls were quite... peculiar... and took a bit of getting used to before I could hold my own against a giant Boo(Pueto was courteous enough to allow me to start playing for the first time after he gets stuck on one of the few serious bosses in the game). The Big Yellow Thingy(or "C Button" if I recall) rotates The Polterguist 3000, in every which-way, all over the place. And it controls in a sort of "Flight Simulator" way, which of course means it's as ass-backwords as Paully Shore at a Lou Bega concert. Alot of times I was just struggling to figure out which way to move the darn thing to get it to go where I wanted it to, as Flight Simulator-esque controls rarely work well with me. Still, it didn't bother me much, as the gameplay was surprisingly entertaining. A fine detail to the game that caught my interest was Luigi's sheer terror as he navigates the house, humming tunes with a cracked voice as we explored unknown territory and whistling a little Mario Bros. tune in explored ones. Speaking of Mario Bros., the original(and I do mean THE original, although it's obviously been remixed) SMB tune from the NES can be heard in some sort of Music Room, or something, reminiscent of the classic Supa Mario RPG stunt of the same nature. Gnarly.
Next was Wave Race: Blue Storm, which I only tried several minutes of because, honestly, driving around on a Jet Ski being ordered to pick up power-ups never has been my idea of fun. Jet Moto had it's moments, but Wave Race never really had that spunk to get me interested. It's basically the same as I remember Wave Race for the N64 being... nicely done graphics, but a boring play aspect. I was merely racing just to check out the nice water and scenery, but that's just me. The only racing game I've ever been addicted to was Supa Mario Kart for the SNES. Go figure.
Overall, the Gamecube appears to be the system with promise in the future, if Nintendo really lucks out and breaks that awful curse they've had over their heads for several years. Capcom's signed exclusively with them, so all the Biohazard fans like myself will be forced to purchase one if they wish to see the rest of the series(not that big of a deal to myself), or the original's remake that's planned to be released within the next year(quite a big deal to myself). The X-Box from this point appears to be the path of Gaming that I'd rather not see, littered with "temporary soundtracks" that can be replaced by simply downloading new music, games relying mainly on online play, and just an overall "Computer" feel. I hate computers. Never, in my life, do I want to scream at a small box on my Entertainment Center because a CPI 446 Disk Flangelor Error occured while trying to load "Munch's Odyssey". "Please restart your video game now".
-Grand Master Dragon
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