Nintendo Gamecube > Reviews (117)

This marks Nintendo's fourth Console, known as the Gamecube. I'll be reviewing in five different categories, Design, Controller, Graphics, Multiplayer, and Game Library.

The design of the system is actually pretty good. The Gamecube is small and light and isn't as bulky as its two competitors (the PS2 and Xbox). It is a small square shaped system with four controller slots.The Gamecube is the first console to use to mini-cd's for its games. While it's innovative, it does prevent this system from using regular CD's. This system is the only one out two of the four consoles from this generation that doesn't have a DVD player (the other being the Dreamcast).

I honestly didn't think that Nintendo could create a controller that could drive me as mad as the N64 controller did but then Nintendo came up with the Gamecube controller. Besides being incredibly ugly, this controller has probably the weirdest placements for its buttons, mainly the analog sticks and its D-pad. The other buttons are in their traditional places but are also weird. Nintendo made a really lame choice by making the A-button unbelievably huge and the X, B, and Y buttons incredibly small because this makes certain games very tough to handle. If you have played the Xbox before the placements of the analog sticks shouldn't be an issue but what will be an issue is that one stick is the traditional analog stick, but the other one is the C stick. The C stick is like the C buttons on the N64 controller, they usually control the camera but also other things depending on the game. I honestly didn't like the idea of controlling the camera on the N64 and i feel no different about it with the Gamecube.

Graphically, on its own, the Gamecube is a pretty impressive system but when compared to its two opponents, it sadly comes in last. The Gamecube's graphics look almost like the Playstation 2 but lacks in a few areas. The character models aren't as good, the colors aren't as bright and for some reason some of the sound in most of the games just doesn't match up. The only game that i remember that made this system look better then the PS2 is the Metroid Prime, that game was legendary. However, the Gamecube is nowhere near the Xbox's graphical limits. Despite how good Metroid looked, Halo and Halo 2 blew it away.

The Gamecube doesn't have Online gameplay, which was definitely a huge disadvantage since both the Xbox and PS2 had online. But the Nintendo had a great regular multiplayer, with most of their games supporting up to four players.

The Gamecube's game library is smaller then the PS2's but slightly bigger then the Xbox's. The Gamecube's library is obviously the more family friendly, with Mario, Zelda, and more. It does have a good number of Mature rated games but to be quite honest, while i have played most of the Gamecubes library, for some reason i never bought any M rated games for this console, i only bought them for the PS2 and Xbox. But i will admit, most of the Gamecubes games are fun. While i loved games like Halo and GTA, i would still go to Mario, Zelda and Metroid and would play those for hours as well.

Overall, while i do consider the weakest out of the three, the Gamecube is still a fun system and i think any Nintendo fan will like it.