The thing about Wind Waker is that, no matter how great the game is, it will forever be labelled as the One That Let Everybody Down. Even though by the time everyone actually played it, most people got past the kneejerk whiny ex-fanboy reaction and decided the game was a worthy addition to the series.

Maybe it's because I was pretty late to the Zelda bandwagon (I was annoyed by Link to the Past and got-bored-and-left on Ocarina of Time), but I was more or less okay with the Wind Waker look sooner than most. Yes, I had seen the Spaceworld 2000 demo. Yes, I thought that looked cool. My only reservation to the cel-shaded reveal was one of irritation-by-proxy; I (rightly) figured that this would be assessed as a graphics downgrade and be yankee doodled as an example of how the GameCube is a weaker machine than the Xbox and the PS2. So it wasn't so much that I was ticked that Link didn't look like a cosplayer, but that it would add fuel to the Nintendo Haters party.

Wind Waker polarized the Nintendo audience: you had the half that felt disappointed that "their" franchise had been denied the opportunity to graduate into a fully realistic, modern experience... and you had the other half who began chanting "GAMEPLAY NOT GRAPHICS" at every opportunity.

And it sold like crazy, but that was too little of a press release too late... the street damage had already been done. Perception is reality, and the new reality was the same as the old N64 reality: Nintendo as kiddie friendly, Nintendo as unwilling to appeal to the core demographics, Nintendo surviving on tentpole first-party releases. This was the junction box, and Nintendo stayed on the road well-travelled.

It would be another two years before a game would come along with the anticipation and hype to rival Wind Waker.

Memory Score: Wind Waker sealed the GameCube's fate as the N64-2

This game sucked.

Cleverly timed to release alongside the X2 movie but lacking anything to do with X2 (other than some stock photography of Hugh Jackman on the cover), this is a terrible game with some good ideas that fails at every turn. I'm sure you're surprised.

Bad camera, bad level design, bad enemy lock-on, bad kill combo triggers, bad save points, bad boss fights. And it borrows a bad idea from the unimpressive PS2 game The Getaway in that you have to stand still for half an hour to let Wolvie heal up. At least in the Marvel Comics world, that makes sense... but it still makes a tedious game all the more depressing.

Note to future Wolverine developers (I know you're out there): Sabretooth does not have the ability to leap into the air and create rings of fire when he lands.

The only interesting feature is the stealth mode that lets you see the world through Wolverine's enhanced senses, including the heat signatures of footprints and the lingering smell of generic enemy guards. Oh, and some of the kill animations are pretty cool.

But nothing is worth all the terrible this game puts out.

Memory Score: The cool kill moves are randomized. That's how awful this game is.

I have a huge chip on my shoulder about the Splinter Cell series.

It all goes back to when the first Splinter Cell was purposefully and maliciously marketed as an Xbox exclusive... remember all the commercials showing off the incredible lighting effects? It was the big holiday 2002 title for Microsoft - positioned against genuine console exclusives Metroid Prime and Vice City - so you can bet that the Xbox PR dicks figured that sales would cool considerably if anybody realized that the damn game was coming to Cube and PS2 in six months. So they fudged it and fooled a lot of people. You'll still find fanboys out there who consider Splinter Cell an "Xbox" kind of game, whatever that means.

And to add insult to malicious, intentional injury, the flacks then went about calling Splinter Cell the game that was like Metal Gear Solid without all the crap you hate about Metal Gear Solid (Anti-Raiden sentiment was still riding high.) Which is just plain fightin' words.

Now, they've developed the franchise since this first installment (chiefly into the realm of online play), but this one is an overly-linear, ridiculous dungeon crawl with a crappy story and lots of typically Clancy psuedo-realistic government mumbo-jumbo. I mean, come on, the dude crouches in a shadow and he turns fucking invisible? That's realism?

Memory Score: I got it for the GBA hookup, which I thought was great

Next time: an animated GTA clone, a satisfying Cube success story, and my first Player's Choice selection.