What do you like or dislike about the Nintendo GameCube

The Gamecube is the first Nintendo console I have bought since NES. I have to say it is probably my favorite console to date. The level of quality and originality that Nintendo seems to put into their games is just unmatched.


Metroid Prime has to be one of the best games I have played in a long time. It's very rare when I get so anxious to come home and start playing a game again, but Metroid Prime had me always looking forward to seeing what was coming next.


The wavebird controller is my preference for any videogame console as well. I didn't think I would care much for a wireless controller as I figured it wouldn't be very responsive and would lack the rumble feature. But, after playing with the wavebird for some time, it's difficult to go back to wired controllers. The level of freedom with wireless is just simply amazing and is something to be experienced.


I personally am not all that concerned about Nintendo's lack of online play. I'm not really interested in playing games online. I would gladly take an incredible single player game than an online game from Nintendo any day of the week. I'm sure Nintendo will get into the business soon enough, but it's sad to see so many people(not here but in other forums I read) turning up their nose to Nintendo for this reason.


Personally, I always thought Rare was a little overrated. They made very good games, don't get me wrong, but their games usually came in second to Nintendo's. I think Nintendo made a good decision selling them off as they got some MAJOR cash for them and now they can use that money to invest in other game developers such as Retro. Retro's first game, Metroid Prime, turns out to be way better than anything Rare ever put out, and it probably cost Nintendo half as much to pay these guys as it would've to pay Rare to make a similar game.


In any event, I hope nintendo can manage to stay alive in these competetive console wars. I think Nintendo makes the best products on the market. However, with Sony and now M$ as competitors it will be very tough as both Sony and M$ have MUCH deeper pockets than Nintendo and can afford to take a loss for a while.


As long as Nintendo keeps making great hardware and software, they'll continue to get my business.

I love the Gamecube starting with one game:


Eternal Darkness..


It's awesome. And hey, it even has a 16:9 mode.


DISLIKES:


They need to get over the kiddy crap and also make a system the plays DVDs


I like the design of the Gamecube, but damn, it really does have a "Lunchbox" feel to it.....

I love the controller . . . can play Crazy Taxi for an hour before feeling any problems in my hands/wrists but I could barely play 2 sessions (maybe 12 minutes if I was lucky) without excruciating pain on the DC pad (yeah, I've got corpal tunnel syndrome). The WaveBird just makes it that much better. No rumble on wireless if fine by me as I normally switch it off, anyway, as it causes more strain on my hands and wrists than I need.


After that, I dig the fact that it was easily modded (I've had JPN Cube switch modded since the October before its US release), which leads to the fact that I love having something I can easily play imports on (I dig being able to try out weird, likely Japanese only stuff sometimes, and love being ahead of the curve on big titles like Soul Calibur II).


In the past, I haven't been perfectly happy with the size/shape of the thing. Not that I care what it looks like, but in a past incarnation of my gamming rig, I've actually had to rig more open space on a shelf just so I could get disks in and out of the Cube whereas my DC could share the same space (height wise) with my Xbox and still switch games. I don't generally recomment tray mechanisms for devices as they can be a bad failure point (just look at all the dead PS2s and other lesser known tray load DVD players), but it might have been very helpful. Of course, I've since redesigned things and this is less of an issue now.


A lesser dislike was the external power brick and the odd placement of it along the cable length. I've not come up with a good way of running this in my rig, so I've had to settle with hiding it behind the XBox most of the time (see, its not too big, its the perfect size to hide my GC powersupply =-p).


Kensai

Likes:

Games - Metroid & Zelda

Controller - Wavebird Wireless rocks


Dislikes:

Progressive Display: Not 100% support from titles & don't like being prompted every single time I fire a progressive scan game up to again put it in that mode.

Online: Non-existant compared to XBox & PS2

It's not as much as the amount of memory on the cards. It's how the games are saved on the cards. Very very retarded.


I have the original memory card, and the 251.


I have 137 left on my 251, BUT all 16 blocks are used....so OVER HALF the memory card is unusable.


Did I mention this was retarded.


The PS2 memory card was implemented much better. You can use all 8 megs of the card since there isn't a fixed number of blocks.


But here is the solution for Nintendo's goof-up
http://www.play-asia.com/paos-13-709e804e.html

likes

-wavebird- simply put the best controller ever! cheap as dirt and it just works. nibbles away at batteries too so you're not constantly replacing them.

-progressive scan mode- games are smooth like butta

-1st party games- you can't beat mario, zelda and metroid

-audio quality- for a plain old analog stereo out it still manages to sound mighty nice.

-gba linking- being able to use your gba in gc games is a great idea and cool when done right. what the Dreamcast VMU and Sony PocketStation wished to be and more!

-price- not that i got mine cheap, but if you're in the market now it's the best bang for the buck going.


dislikes

-progressive scan mode- you should only have to set it up in the dashboard and have it engage it automatically every time.

-audio output- pro logic II might be great for those with the right equipment, but I don't have a new receiver and I feel i'm missing out

-controller button placement- it may feel comfy to hold, but using the z-button and the directional pad is just plain awkward.

Likes:


The Games!!! Every 1st party game released on the cube is quality and there are plenty of third party games to satisfy my appetite.


The controller is very nice and perhaps the best first party controller ever. The PSOne/PS2 contoller hurts my hand and the Xbox oneis too big and the DC controller just stunk. Nintendo's controller is the most natural controller I've ever used.


Dislikes:

Its called the kids system when there are plenty of games that anyone can enjoy. Nintendo doesn't exclude the older gamers, its the other consoles who exclude the kids.


The D-Pad: Okay the controller isn't 100% perfect, but darn near...