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Nintendo Gamecube now $99.00

Nintendo has lowered the price of the Gamecube to $99.00 today. This is almost half the price of the PS2 or the Xbox, and the same price as the GameBoy Advance. In other words, it’s damn cheap. You can get a ‘Cube and a couple of games for the same price as one of the other systems.

If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend picking one up. It’s by far my favorite console, and has a ton of awesome games.

Some of my favorites:

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
One of the first “Adult oriented” games on a Nintendo system in quite a while, this is one of my favorite games ever. The gameplay is great, with an interesting “sanity meter” to gauge your character’s sanity in the game. When your sanity meter is empty, you experience a number of different hallucinations that can affect the game. Sometimes you’ll hear voices whispering in the background, or everything will be upside down, etc. Some of them are very subtle, and you don’t even notice them for a while. But I remember getting freaked out a couple of times from the effects, because it makes you think things are happening in the game that aren’t really happening. It’s quite interesting. The story is also quite good. Good enough that my wife, who has absolutely no interest in video games, sat beside me through the entire game, just watching me play. That’s a pretty good indication of a good game. The only bad thing about the game is that it is kind of short. I played through it in a weekend, probably 12 - 14 hours. If you think you can put that much time into it, it may be a better idea to rent it.

Pikmin
Yeah, so this one isn’t as adult oriented as Eternal Darkness, but contrary to popular belief, playing fun cartoonish games made by Nintendo will not make your penis smaller! I promise. Anyway, this game was spawned by the gaming genius Shigeru Miyamato, who also created Mario, Zelda, and basically every great Nintendo game ever.

The game starts out with a little alien spaceship man crashing onto a planet. He recovers from his crash landing, and begins exploring his surroudings, only to find these little creatures called Pikmin. He uses his whistle to control the Pikmin, and have them do things for him like collect resources, tear down walls, and most importantly, find and recover all of the pieces to his spaceship. That’s the basics to the game, gathering Pikmin, and having the Pikmin gather parts to your ship so you can return home. There are of course quite a lot of other things involved in the game, like fighting various enemies around the levels, and some interesting boss battles. You can tell the Pikmin to attack by using your whistle, or by picking them up and throwing them onto your enemies. Many of the boss battles involve throwing as many Pikmin onto the boss as possible, until he dies. Boss battles are always sad however, because inevitably some of your little Pikmin will die, and that is a sad, sad, day indeed. They are so cute and helpful you really do feel like you need to protect them.

There is even a real flower that was created for (or maybe named after) the Pikmin. It’s called the Pikmin flower, and it is actually the real name of a certain kind of flower.

This game is definitely worth buying, as it is pretty long and a ton of fun to play. Plus it is a Gamecube classic title now, which means it only costs $19.99.

Super Monkey Ball
This is probably one of my favorite multi-player games ever. I bought it a week or so after the Gamecube launched, not really knowing what it was. But I was definitely not disappointed. The game is basically a puzzle/maze type game. You pick one of four monkeys to play, and they are then put inside of a bit plastic ball, like one of those balls that hamsters roll around in. You are then dropped onto a level, and by using analog stick, you tilt the level, which causes the monkeyball to roll. The object of the game is to get your monkey through a goal at the other end of the level in the fastest time possible. It starts off pretty easy, but after a while it can get very nerveracking, trying to get through the levels before the time runs out.

The single player game is great, but the real multi-player fun comes with the Mini-games, which you unlock by completing levels in the main game. There are six mini-games:

Monkey bowling is a bowling game, where you set the aim, placement, and rotation of the monkeyball, and try to knock down bowling pins at the end of the lane.

Monkey golf is a putt-putt style game where you putt your monkey ball into a hole at the end of a course, while trying to negotiate hazards, barriers, etc.

Monkey race is a relatively straightforward racing game, where you race through several tracks to try and finish first. There are powerups and weapons along the way, ala Mario Kart, which allow you to slow down your opponents by knocking them off the track or slipping a banana peel in front of them.

Monkey billiards is a billiards game that uses the monkeyballs as the cue balls. There isn’t much more to say than that, except that the physics are pretty good, and it’s actually a pretty good little pool game.

Monkey fight is a boxing on wheels type game, where you roll around an arena with a huge boxing glove attached to your monkeyball. The object is to punch your opponents out of the ring, which scores you points. The one with the highest points wins. This one can get pretty frantic, and is a blast to play with four people.

Monkey target is by far my favorite mini-game. Basically it involves launching your monkeyball off of a huge ramp, then opening your ball so that it functions like a hang-glider. Then you fly out over the ocean, and try to land on targets that are floating on the water. Different zones are worth different amounts of points, and there are 3 different levels that the game cycles through. My friend Kevin and I have spent dozens of hours playing this one mini-game, not to mention the rest of the games. It would have been worth $50 for monkey target alone.

This is the perfect game to have if you have more than one controller and friends that like to play. Even if they don’t normally like video games, the controls are extremely easy to learn, usually involving only the analog stick and the A button, allowing anyone to jump in and play. This is one of the only games my wife will play, aside from the SNES Super Mario Brothers. :)

Super Monkey Ball 2
Obviously this is the sequel to SMB, and is basically the same as far as gameplay goes. It adds another 150 levels to the main game, as well as remakes of the original six mini-games, plus 6 more.

The new games are:

Monkey boat where you paddle your monkeyball down a river by alternately mashing the two top shoulder buttons on the Gamecube controller. This game is a lof fun, but has to be played in short bursts because it is absolutely murder on your hands. We’re talking instant carpal tunnel, here. Pain aside, it’s still a pretty fun game until your hands fall off.

Monkey target is a game where you shoot various objects, kind of like Virtua Cop. I haven’t unlocked this one, so I don’t exactly know how it plays.

Monkey baseball is a very simple baseball game, maybe a little too simple. I haven’t played this one very much.

Monkey tennis is a simple tennis game, which can be fun, but is a little too simple as well.

There is also Monkey soccer, which I haven’t played yet either. But as you can guess, it’s a simple soccer game.

If you liked the first Super Monkey Ball, you can’t go wrong with the sequel.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Say what you will about this games silly title, this is an absolute gaming masterpiece. I can easily recommend buying a Gamecube just to play this game, it is so good.

It’s hard to describe why this game is so good. But basically it’s just perfect. The graphics are vibrant, bright, and extremely well animated. The sound is perfect, from the music to the sound effects and the little musical fanfare that is played every time you hit an enemy with your sword. The story is involved and interesting, making you want to keep playing just to see what happens next. The control setup is flawless, allowing you to perform normally complex maneuvers with ease. The puzzles in the game are challenging, but are always common sense. If you can’t figure something out, you will always receive a subtle hint to point you in the right direction, without being overly obvious and spoiling the challenge.

Whenever I finish this game I will write up a good long review about it. But suffice it to say for now that if you are at all interested in games, you have to have this game. Trust me.

Other games that I hear are good, but haven’t had a chance to play yet:

Animal Crossing
Soul Calibur II
Simpsons: Hit & Run
Mario Golf
Ikaruga
F-Zero

Not to mention all the great new games coming out soon like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, 1080 Avalanche Snowboarding, several more Zelda games, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snake, Metroid Prime 2, Pikmin 2, a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, more Mario games, and much more!

This is a great console overall and I highly recommend you pick one up.