"Nintendo's 4th Console... How does it fare in the harsh competition of today?"

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Its History
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With its predecessor the Nintendo 64 in its death throes, the GameCube, abbreviated as GCN or NGC, was released in late 2001 to take the burden of those who will naysay anything they don't like.

In fact, the naysayers only have personal opinion and comparisons to Playstation2 and the Xbox to draw on.

One of the biggest drawers of blood of the Nintendo 64 was its lack of 3rd party developers, a gaping black hole that was barely satiated by the Big N's 1st party games. This was mainly caused by the utilization of cartridges to play games with on the Nintendo 64. The Nintendo 64DD project, an add-on to the Nintendo 64 to play CD games, never left the ground.

However, while the Sony Playstation2 still has the majority of support in the industry, Nintendo has drawn good cards, with games coming from Capcom, the now 3rd party Sega, Silicon Knights, Namco, and even Square Enix. This has helped fill in the once-defunct heterogeneity of genres that Nintendo alone was unable to freight; most notable RPGs, Sports, and Fighting.

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Its Capabilities
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The GameCube operates on CDs; however, in the usual form of Nintendo having to be different in some way, the CDs are miniature forms of a normal DVD. This unfortunately causes the storage capacity to pale in comparison to a regular CD, forcing some games to be multi-disk for the FMVs to fit. Although this does not bide well with many, this is the key factor to Nintendo's fight against piracy. While Xbox and Playstation2 were hacked quickly, there is only one GameCube ROM, with no PC emulator. This same ROM also plays terribly on the GameCube.

The graphical power of the GameCube is stronger than that of a PS2 game and about equal to an Xbox game, although the Xbox has more space for graphical development. The graphics processor can produce several million polygons a second, and can read disks at an astronomically expeditious rate. Many games such as Metroid Prime have both very detailed textures and high frame rates.

The GameCube sells for about 99$ American. There has been no record of a wildfire of failing drive failures, and the GameCube has been created with the same plastic that earlier Nintendo consoles were made with. So yes, you could probably drop this out of a helicopter at 500 feet above the ground, and it would still survive.

The one drawback so far is that the Player's Choice games tend to be a bit pricier than Xbox or Playstation2 games that have sold at least a million, and also appear to take longer to lessen in price.

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Its Design
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The console itself is cube-shaped, and although a bit vertically larger than the Xbox or Playstation2, does not measure even 8 inches across. There are many standards of colors, such as orange, purple, black, and limited edition platinum.

On the top of the system itself, there are three buttons that operate in an XYZ right angle. The top-left button will activate your system, the bottom-left will reset your game, and the bottom-right will open the cover flap for you to take out and put games in. On the bottom of the ‘Cube, you have two jack-ins for GameCube add-ons that are protected by removable and re-attachable plastic covers.

The front of the GameCube has two memory slots and four controllers. The idea of four controllers, while rare, is much easier on one's wallet than the requirement of a multitap that most four-controller systems require, especially with many party games on the GameCube, such as Super Smash Brothers Melee. The memory card slots are also an improvement over the Nintendo 64's location of memory card, in the controller itself. The back has plugs for analog and digital output besides the AC power cord. What is added onto the back is a handle that makes it much easier for one to carry the console in their hand.

The controller has a six foot cord, two feet smaller than the Xbox and Playstation2's cords. The controller itself is noticeably a bit vertically smaller than the Nintendo 64's controller, although it still maintains about the same bit of width. An analog stick sensitive to how hard you press it is put in the left side, bordered by a D-Pad. On the right, in the center is a large A button, bordered by a small B button, and an X and Y button. A 2nd 360 degrees knob-like analog stick is under the B button. On the top, you have your L and R button, with the Z button just in front of the R button. The grip of the GameCube controller is frankly comfortable, although it harkens a lot from the Playstation and Playstation2 controllers. Lastly, the controllers now have built in rumble packs.

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Its Accessories
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One of the biggest hinderers of the juggernaught known as the GameCube were its memory cards. The memory cards to come out at launch were only 59 blocks worth. When many games go over 15 blocks, and newer ones over 59, this became obsolete. Thankfully, Nintendo does have a 251 memory block on the market, and there are rumors of a to-be block that will hold over 1000 blocks.

Next, we have the Wavebird, the wireless controller for the GameCube. Many have tried and failed, as every wireless controller up to now for multiple systems has been crap. The Wavebird breaks the trend by being successful. It uses radio waves so one does not require a line of sight with the TV, allowing one to go as much as 200 feet away from your GameCube. It also operates on over a dozen channels, thus stopping the chance of interference from other Wavebirds. Unfortunately, the rumble feature was removed to save battery power, of which 2 AA batteries can last up to 50 hours.

There is also the GameCube – Gameboy Advance link cable, which links the two systems for connectivity between various games, and unlocking features on certain GameCube games.

Lastly, there is the Gameboy Player. This device can be jacked into the bottom of the GameCube, and will play Gameboy Advance games. Although there is no slot for headphones, the Gameboy Player has a slot for the Gameboy Advance game itself and a jack for a link cable. However, one cannot use a Gameboy Advance – GameCube link cable with this, as a disk is required to implement the Gameboy Player.

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Conclusion
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Nintendo has lost a lot of their power over the years, and the amount that they managed to hold onto had diminished. They look to be a strong force in years to come with the GameCube. However, they tend to have bad habits, such as refusing to go with new things. It was cartridges that damaged them in the Nintendo 64 era, and it looks to be that this era won't be that much better.

The GameCube is challenged at every turn by Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's Playstation2, both of which utilize devices such as DVD players. A casual person is likely to be turned off by the GameCube in the main run of things, as he or she would like a device that can do more than just games. However, the games for GameCube are enough for any hardcore gamer to need one, even if they need to sell their soul.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/04