Rant: The Nintendo Gamecube

If you were to associate one company with video games, it would be Nintendo. Think of all the genius they've come out with. Super Mario Bros, Zelda, NES, Wii, Donkey Kong the list goes on and on. Well, there's one particular creation, well two counting the Virtual Boy, that in my opinio, downright sucked. And this is the little lunchbox known as the Nintendo Gamecube. Let's start with the most important things when it comes to a gaming console, the games. The Gamecube had only 600 games made for it, when you think about it, that's pretty small. The PS2 had over 5000. 5000 vs. 600, which will you take, yeah that's what I thought. Not to mention about 100 of titles were kiddy shovelware. Let's see, what's next, oh yeah graphics. Now I'not an expert with graphical numbers and bits and that's stuff, but compared to the Ps2 amd Xbox, the Gamecube was terrible, and you could tell with just one look. The Gamecube had huge graphical limitations it showed on games, example Windwaker. I refuse to play that game. Zelda with a cartoony, kiddy interface, blah. Sadly, it was a sign of things to come, no I don't mean Twilight Princess, I mean the Wii itself. Speaking of major franchises, the Gamecube was a franchise BOMB. Literally, so many Gamecube games are remembered as blotches on Nintendo's classic franchises, or leaving franchises behind all together. Super Mario Sunshine, who the fuck gave that the green light. Mario with a water squirting backpack, it's like Super Mario Bros. 2 all over again, except this game was legitimate. How about Mario Kart: Double Dash, it was good, but it could have been a lot better. Any Yoshi games, nope. Kirby who. 1080 Avalanche was okay, but compared to another series I like to call SSX, it was a piece of shit. Bomberman, ugh. Wave Race: Blue Storm was the biggest dissapointment of my life. How can you go from arguably the best racing game ever (Wave Race 64) to a mediocre title. And newsflash Nintendo, Star Fox belongs in the sky, not on land. Mega Man, no explanation required. Did you bother bringing back Castlevania, Sin and Punishment, Punch-Out, Excitebike, the list goes on. If it weren't for Metroid Prime, Pikmin, Donkey Kong and Resident Evil 4, the console would have gone down the tubes faster than the R-Zone. Never heard of it, that because it fucking sucked. Speaking of major franchises, the Gamecube just didn't have them, and they all rocked. I already mentioned SSX, but how about Halo, Gran Turismo, Killzone, Guitar Hero and so many more. You know this cool thing called online play invented around this time, does the Gamecube have it, nope. Then the controller, oh my god the controller. If you took all the contollers of the fifth and sixth gaming generations and had them make a deformed child, it was the Nintendo Gamecube controller. Who the fuck designed that piece of shit. Why are the buttons so disproportionate, why is the A button huge and the B button the size of a thumbtack. Why a the X and Y buttons elongated. Why is there only three shoulder buttons, not four. Whose bright idea was it to swap the positions of the D-Pad and the Analog stick which is okay, but keep their sizes. The D-Pad is so small it's impossible push down only one direction and the Analog Stick is supposed to be SMALLER than your thumb. It's like Nintendo tried to make the controller look as strange as possible. Look at a PS2 controller, it's so organized, D-Pad, two Angalog sticks well placed, four equally sized equally placed buttons, four shoulder buttons. How could it be any better? Next, and this complaint officially banishes the Gamecube to hell with the Atari 5200, Virtual Boy and 3DO. Did you ever wonder why the games felt so limited. Why the content seemed restricted. The RPGs weren't as deep, the adventures were shorter. Why there were only 16 tracks in Double Dash, why you beat Sonic Heroes and DK: Jungle Beat in about 5 hours, why Harvest Moon: A Wonderful had a set storyline (I just had to mention a Harvest Moon game). Well maybe it was because the Gamecube disks WERE THE SIZE OF A FUCKING PIZZA BAGEL. Really, was making the discs and the console small really that important, limited gameplay was a worthy sacrifice. That's why we had limited graphics, no online play, smaller games. Because of Nintendo's shitty smaller is better policy. I just don't fucking geti t. Why do the Japenese constantly think things need to be small. What do we care if we have to put our console large shelves or our DS can't fit the back pocket, just the front. It's America, everything's larger over here. And not to insult Japan, but Nintendo should be answering our appeals not Japan's because we are the clear majority of their sales. Here's another example of this shitty policy is the DS. The Nintendo DSi is 11% smaller than the DS Lite. Oh that's nice, what's 11%, half a milimeter. At what cost is this minor removal of bulkiness, oh not much just a QUARTER OF THE FUCKING BATTERY LIFE. Yeah an 11% bulk removal was definetly worth that. But I'm getting off topic. In conclusion, even though Gamecube will not go down in history as one of gaming shittiest consoles, as modern generations go, it certainly is at the bottom of the barrel.