BaD 2002: The Year of the Gamecube

On 02/13/2018 at 06:02 PM by Super Step

Sonic Advernture 2 Battle

I will honestly still defend the Sonic and Shadow levels in this game as being some of the most cheesy fun I've had in a video game, especially considering the music. 2 player was a nice bonus.

I never did get into the Chao raising, which was apparently some people's favorite part of the game.

The shooter missions were decent, but the big drawback, as in the other Adventure title, was the set of missions where you looked for the damn emeralds. They literally made fetch quest mini-games in spaces just big enough to make the things irritating to find and just small enough to be completely uninteresting.

Jet Set Radio Future

I played this one on the neighbors' XBOX and it was a grand ole time; same goes for that time I played one at a kiosk. Man, I love me some cel shading.

Virtua Fighter 4

This game was incredibly impressive at the time as far as graphics. My neighbor/friend Jarvis let me have it cause he was so bored with it ... while I really tried to like it, I came to see why.

Sorry, VF fans.

Spider-Man: The Movie

This was a decent movie tie-in, and I was huge into Spider-Man at the time. But it never really matched the charm or the personality of the PS1/N64 game and didn't have the swing mechanics from 2. It was a pretty decent game though. I never knew it was Bruce Campbell berating you in these games.

NFL 2K3

NFL Blitz

NFL GameDay

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what years I did or did not play these series, but I definitely played each one at some point, so they get a mention. My favorite by far is the arcadey NFL Blitz, because I couldn't care less about things like realism and roster updates in my video games.

Now I want to play Yakuza 0 for some reason.

Super Mario Sunshine

I can see why people who grew up with Mario 64 might prefer it, but I honestly just VASTLY prefer this iteration of Mario.

Redlettermedia has a sister channel on YouTube called Previously Recorded that mentioned FLUDD made 3D platforming so much less awkward than usual and I couldn't agree more.

This game was hated on for being "gay" when I was 12, but everyone who played it said it was fun. That honestly works as pretty good shorthand for my experience with the Gamecube in general, honestly. I never really thought about just how young I was at the time. Memory is a funny thing.

Animal Crossing

In any other circumstance, my response to seeing this on the "Coming Soon" TVs at Blockbuster would have been, "ewwwwww, what's with the N64 graphics?"

But not this year. This was the year I was in full on Gamecube defense mode and really solidified my 12 year old self as an annoying fanboy.

It's just too bad I couldn't stomach needing a whole other memory card just to save the damn thing and finding the voices grating like nails on a chalkboard.

Kingdom Hearts

This was a pretty good game that I got far enough in I think, but if I'm being honest what I remember most is the opening cutscene with "Simple and Clean" as its theme song. So here's that.

I think I got to the Hercules colisuem, unless that's 2 and I'm getting them confused. Or was it the Tarzan level?

Sly Cooper

This game was given an 8 or something like that in EGM for being a bit too easy/short. For me, it's the perfect kind of game: short enough I can finish it, but with just enough stuff to collect and upgrades to get to make me want to actually complete it and it's infinitely replayable for me.

This game is at the front of my mind when I think of quality over quantity.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had some promo videos for it involving how much Elijah Wood loves video games. That kind of thing always made me suspicious; not that the actor didn't like games in this case, but why exactly that mattered as far as the game's quality.

I thought this was a mediocre hack-and-slash, personally.

Burnout 2

was yet more Burnout, and therefore amazing.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2

is still probably my favorite game in the series. The music and sense of speed made it like F-Zero with real cars and cop chases. It also looked really friggin' good at the time.

Timesplitters 2

is the only first person game I'd be clamoring for a reboot of and the only one that's highly unlikely to get one. I'm not holding out hope for any Kickstarters.

I want my monkeys, dammit!

Bloodrayne

was a vampire game I never played, but it was known for its sexy superheroine, I guess. I remember hearing about the game and not playing it. So ... I dunno, was it any good? You tell me. It certainly got gaming media attention.

Vice City

was a bigger, more 80s version of GTA IIIi and I know I played it back then, but not a whole lot. I still need to beat it on PS4. I prefer the radio stations in the game to the ones in III, so there's at least that.

Shinobi

was a reboot that I remember being super hyped for and never playing because it was rated mature. I think I had the poster though. Or something similar from EGM.

Yeah, this was when I was reading a ton of EGM, but didn't really have the money to buy games, and renting was getting scarcer.

Sonic Mega Collection

was my introduction to most Sonic games. I really liked 2, 3 seemed like the biggest but I hated getting lost in that stupid carnival level and 1 ... got pretty damn ugly after Green Hill, honestly.

Metroid Prime

This was THE game to have as a Gamecube owner. I can still remember someone in my class buying a GCN because I talked about it so damn much and them saying, "So I played Metroid Prime. It's NOT THAT GOOD." Oh, memories ...

And to be honest, I really didn't like it too much myself at first, because I was not used to backtracking being an intentional part of a game. Once I got used to that, I liked the game quite a bit more. Not as much as a lot of people, but it's still a good time.

Metroid Fusion

was honestly more my speed because of how linear it was. I know that pissed fans off, but that made it a much better entry point for the series if you're not used to METROIDVANIA games.

BMX XXX

is something no one has played but everyone has heard of. It sold about 160,000 copies, according to Motherboard.vice.com and was banned from retailers like Toys R Us and Wal Mart.

Back then, it was a bad idea because of how controversial it was. Now it would be a bad idea because porn is free and so easily accessible.

It's like there was no place in the space-time continuum where this would be a good idea, and yet it exists.

Splinter Cell

was XBOX's answer to MGS at first, IIRC, but I had fun with its more realistic stealth missions.

007: Nightfire

was a 007 made just for video games; no movie tie-in, just the 007 brand. I remember it being pretty decent.

Wiiiiind Wakeeeeeeer

had some of the worst press before its release, with everyone wondering what the hell Nintendo was thinking with that art style. I personally thought the initial images shown in EGM looked like absolute shit.

But the prettied up version that went to retail is considered one of the best and, whoda thunk, most visually appealing games in the series.

KnightDriver

02/13/2018 at 10:12 PM

I've been wanting to play Wind Waker for the longest time.

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/13/2018 at 11:40 PM

Do it

Cary Woodham

02/14/2018 at 12:53 AM

The Sonic Adventure games were pretty neat, even if the first one hasn't aged as well. I liked the Tails levels.

Even when he was little, my brother Jeff LOVED the Jet Set Radio games.

OK now guess my favorite Virtua Fighter characters. :)

Mario Sunshine was great at making you feel like you were on a vacation. Sonic Adventure did that, too, in a way.

And you know how I feel about Animal Crossing. :)

I like the Kingdom Hearts games but the storyline is garbage.

I felt that Sly Cooper was too Crash Bandicoot-ey for my tastes. I hear the sequels are better.

Only BloodRayne game I played was BloodRayne Betrayal, which was a 2-D platformer by WayForward. It kind of reminded me of Castlevania. My mom likes vampire movies and didn't even know that the BloodRayne movies were based on a video game. When I told her that, she asked me why I never played them. I told her that was a dumb question to ask me. She agreed. :)

Only thing that interested me about Vice City is I heard it had a lot of 80s music. But so did Activision Anthology so guess what I played.

I really liked the Metroid Prime games, and I didn't think I would.

I've always liked Wind Waker's art style, even when no one else did.

02/14/2018 at 12:26 PM

I only really know Ryu and the old drunkard as far as VF characters. Like I said, I wasn't really a huge fan of the game.

I don't think Sly Cooper and Crash Bandicoot are much alike at all, personally. The platforming in Sly is much smoother and simpler. Crash has that level of frustration to it Sly just doesn't and while it's still platforming-based, Sly puts a lot more emphasis on stealth. It's much more open than Crash as well. Sorry, I just really don't see the comparison outside of both being platformers, but I like both.

Is your mom into Dracula or Twilight style vampires?

I loved Wind Waker's style once I actually played it, but I always thought those early screenshots were pretty dark and rough. It seems a lot of people who grew up with the original game's instruction booklet artwork were a lot more fond of those visuals.

02/14/2018 at 12:53 PM

My favorite VF characters are Vanessa, Sarah Bryant, and Jeffry.

My mom likes any kind of vampire movie. I can't stand them.

goaztecs

02/14/2018 at 11:32 AM

There's a mod for Super Mario Sunshine on the PC that kicks up the graphics. I tried to use it but the game constantly crashed. I might be doing something wrong.

I never got into the Gamecube. By this point I was Playstation first, and then I was just getting into the X-Box but later than everyone else. JSRF was awesome, I lost interest in the Virtua Fighter games after the 1st game because draw of being futuristic was done and it was just like every other fighter.

Oh you know I played all those football games. When I wanted to play crazy over the top football it was Blitz, when I wanted to go something more real I went with GameDay. 2K series didn't hit their pinnacle until 2K5.

02/14/2018 at 12:32 PM

I always loved the water graphics for Gamecube, especially Wave Race: Blue Storm (which I think I might have missed on here ... dammit, Wikipedia) and Sunshine. So shiny.

Well, you and everyone else looking at the sales figures. But on my playground there was a big war between Gamecube and Xbox and I was GCN all the way. But most everyone also had access to a PS2 ... yeah, little me was kind of insufferable.

Like I said, I'm not really aware of which year/versions of these games I played, since I never got them every year. Maybe my brother did, but I'm not going to say for sure, and there's nothing for me to really talk about, since I barely understood football at the time. Any features they added would have been lost on me.

The ONE thing in a football game I remember thinking was super cool was you could watch fans tear down the goalpost in an NCAA game. I rented it specifically to see that happen, only for EGM to run a correction saying that feature was only in their review copies. That got me pretty salty, honestly.

SanAndreas

02/15/2018 at 03:55 PM

Other than possibly VF3 vs Tekken 3, I've always liked Virtua Fighter better than Tekken. I like the game mechanics a lot better. I loved VF4 on PS2, it was my favorite fighting game of the generation. I just wish the series had been more successful in the US.

You can count me in as one of the people who like SM64 better than Sunshine. Sunshine was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much. Metroid Prime was my 2002 GOTY, but I kind of wish that the Prime games could have incorporated more of the game mechanics from the 2-D games, like the real Space Jump and Screw Attack, and the ability to freeze enemies into platforms. They did pretty good with the Morph Ball, though.

BMX XXX... that and The Guy Game were a couple of the lowest points the video game industry had seen since Custer's Revenge.

02/15/2018 at 04:28 PM

I don't know what it was about Virtua Fightr 4, which is the only game in the series I played, but I just couldn't get interested in the mechanics. I'll believe anyone who says it's the most technical fighter, but at the end of the day I like some speed and flashy special moves in my fighters. VF4 just seemed a bit too straightforward for my taste and I imagine that's why the series doesn't do as well stateside, especially since UFC games apparently do a good job representing more realistic fighting bouts.

Most people prefer 64, so that's no surprise. No one ever claims it's due to their nostalgia, but as someone who was never wowed by Mario 64 after having experienced Star Fox 64 first, I always wonder. Did any game in the Prime series have a screw attack? I thought the original did have a space jump at least, though it was really just a double jump. Honestly, I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back that game has some of the most intuitive platforming in any first-person game outside of maybe Titanfall 2.

Funny you mention The Guy Game, since I saw a review of that on a YouTube channel called Scott the Woz recently.

Machocruz

02/15/2018 at 06:40 PM

I pretty much frown on 3D platformers, but Sunshine was fun because of Fludd. If you're not going to have precision platforming, which most 3D platformers don't relative to what's possible in a side scroller, than having a fun traversal mechanic is the next best thing.

I think today there is a lot of revisionism surrounding Wind Waker. It's become hip to say "Oh I always thought WW was the best." Yeah right, no one thought that at the time. Counter culture/hipsterism at its finest. Still good though, with sublime environmental graphics.

Metroid Prime is one of the GOATs imo. I bought a GC just for that and REmake.

JSRF really stood out to me. Only got to play it once at a friend's house. Very memorable.

02/15/2018 at 11:46 PM

I think a lot of people came around on WW upon actually playing it, but the buzz leading up to it was negative for sure.

I really want to play JSRF again.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

02/15/2018 at 09:51 PM

Never played sunshine. Id like to though. Did u ever have a wii or play mario galaxy? Those are great.

Love windwaker.

02/16/2018 at 12:30 PM

I actually skipped the 2006-2013 consoles almost altogether ...

PixlBit