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Final GameCube Stats Roundup!
Saturday / 07.21.07 / 12:31AM / Joe / all entries in Farewell to the GameCube / comments: 4
And now, the bare facts about my GameCube collection. First, THE GRAPH.
This charts the number of games I bought each month, from November 2001 to March 2007. There are 52 games total, with '03 and '04 tied for most number of purchases. For the first three full years, my GameCube buys were pretty much steady, with the only obvious "drought" in summer of '03... which was then evened out by the '03 holiday release blitz. (Of course, by mid-2005, things were unapologetically grim.) On average, that's about one new game every five weeks!
A dot with a gray center indicates a month where I picked up a game that was several months (if not years) old at the time... so you can see that the majority of my purchases were full-price, first-week-of-release buys.
IGN gives my collection an average rating of 8.3, which is no doubt a reflection of the modern reviewing system of giving every game a B+ unless it totally obviously totally stinks. I have 56 GameCube games there because my IGN list includes four bonus disks - the GameCube Preview (Viewiful Joe, Billy Hatcher, etc), the Mario Kart Double Dash Bonus, the Metroid Prime 2 Bonus, and the Pokemon Colosseum Bonus.
All of the following rankings refer to MY collection of games, not the entire GameCube library.
Brand New IPs: Super Monkey Ball, Eternal Darkness*, Animal Crossing*, Splinter Cell, Pikmin*, Viewtiful Joe, I-Ninja, Beyond Good & Evil, Gun, Chibi-Robo*, Odama*, Killer 7, Baten Kaitos* (* = exclusive to GameCube)
Number of games with "Mario" in the title: 7 (but 6 more either have Mario in them or could be considered Mario Universe games)
Number of GameCube-exclusive games (as of this posting): 33
Number of memory cards: 6... one 59, two 251s, one 1019, the Animal Crossing 59, and the Pokemon Box 59.
Number of controllers: 7... five regular, two WaveBirds. I had to have four for Smash Bros (adoy), then picked up the WaveBirds when they came out, and then got another controller with my second GameCube.
Peripherals: DK Bongos, Game Boy Player, Broadband Adapter (never used!), two Microphones (one with Odama and one with Mario Party 6), several third-party controller cable extenders, five or six GBA-to-GameCube cables.
Soundtrack albums I grabbed: Smash Bros Melee, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Soul Calibur 2, Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Animal Crossing, Wind Waker, The Hobbit, Crystal Chronicles, Baten Kaitos.
| BEST BOX ART |
WORST BOX ART |
The Wind Waker Link taken into anime territory, with beautiful dramatic color and lighting.
RUNNERS-UP:
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Huh? Jill getting strangled near a pointlessly-emphasized glowy window makes the cover?
RUNNERS-UP:
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| BIGGEST SURPRISE |
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT |
I was expecting something boring and it turned out nicely weird.
RUNNERS-UP:
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Promised a full RPG experience and delivered more endless battles, just now with mindless walking inbetween.
RUNNERS-UP:
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| BEST CONCEPTS: standout features that will found future games |
1. The real time clock with built-in holiday events. This was a life-altering feature. |
2. Insanity effects. Ranging from absurd to disturbing, the insanity meter became this game's raison d'etre. |
3. GBA screen. An ahead-of-its-time idea. |
4. Web-swinging. NYC was boring and drab, but getting around town was the closest I've felt to flying. |
| WORST CONCEPTS: classically dopey design mistakes |
1. The unbeatable boss. "Exclusive content," my ass! |
2. Foreign embassies with no interior lighting. Come on now. |
3. The whole fucking control scheme. Walk on A? Get out of here. |
4. Giant robot wasps. Even given the twist ending this makes no sense. |
| RECOMMENDED GAMES YOU PROBABLY OVERLOOKED: what, are you cheap, stupid or both? |
1. Eternal Darkness. The poster child for undeservedly underplayed GameCube games. |
2. Pikmin 2. Bigger and better than the first one, which also rocked. |
3. Chibi-Robo. Fantastic low-impact sandbox, in a Toy Story-meets-Wonderland setting. |
4. I-Ninja. Just plain fun. Deserves a sequel. |
| SO BAD THEY'RE GOOD: games that you have to see to believe | UNJUSTLY ACCUSED: games that were beat up for no good reason |
1. Odama. Wonderful concept, but terrible execution. Almost unplayable at points, but confidently bizarre. |
2. Beach Spikers. Cheesy (but not sleazy) all-women volleyball. |
1. Wind Waker. "Celda" comments were so, so short-sighted. |
2. Mario Sunshine. I hated what people liked about this one, and liked what people hated. |
| BEST MULTIPLAYER: for the best in game nights |
1. Soul Calibur 2. My requests for the new one: Talim, Talim, Talim and Talim. |
2. Super Smash Bros Melee. This game makes fans out of everyone. |
3. Double Dash. Having two players in one kart was brilliant... I'm sad that it doesn't even seem to be an option in the upcoming Wii edition. |
4. Four Swords Adventures. Think different: 2D gameplay plus GBA controls plus player voting plus gorgeous Wind Waker styling. |
| TOP FOUR |
BOTTOM FOUR |
A winning experiment in delayed gratification, sprinkled with secrets and run by furries.
RUNNERS-UP:
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Buggy and ugly, the best thing about this game is that it smells.
RUNNERS-UP:
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Not a bad GC collection. I'm surprised you didn't enjoy BGE. I enjoyed that game very much and I'm glad I have a copy in my collection.
I had at one point over 80 GC games but have since trimmed that number down to over 50 of the top games. I'd have a hard time finding a top four but AC would definitely be in there. Probably Nintendo Puzzle Collection (Japanese release - Played a ton of Puzzle De Pon), Pikmin 2, and Zelda.
BG&E wasn't a terrible game, it was just supremely overrated. The story was completely transparent, the supporting cast a pile of amateur cliches, not a single twist to be discovered (a critical error for a game that was ostensibly all about secrets and conspiracies), and almost every bit of gameplay was done better in other contemporary games. (I think I was playing Ratchet & Clank 2 at around the same time, and that game had all the variety that BG&E attempted and failed.)
What really drives me crazy is that BG&E STILL gets all this critic talk about the deep storytelling, and it just didn't have any. The Alpha Sections are obviously evil from Cutscene 1, and your entire expose efforts amount to three easily-found photographs.
The combat was fun, the world itself very interesting (just waaay to small), but I honestly don't know what people are thinking when they go on and on about the "amazing" plotline.
Also, I probably should have been clearer, but my BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT category was intended to show the games that I was really really hyped over, and then they turned out to not live up to the pre-release excitement.
Chibi Robo is quite possibly one of the cutest games I've seen in a long time. I wish they had a DS version of it; I'd pick it up in a heartbeat.