Ordered a Gamecube

[Chylde Roland]

Well, I finally broke down.... it started with my Gameboy Advance. Then I started looking seriously at the cube ... then I ordered one online yesterday. It was on sale, and came with a free memory card. AGH! Now I'll own all three major consoles, and a pretty good gaming PC. Now what am I gonna do? It's going to be hell deciding what to play.

Anyway, I also ordered Pikmin and Starfox Adventures. Does anybody have any other suggestions? I'm also curious about the memory card thing. The one I got is a 4MB card. How much info does that hold? Should I plan on getting several more cards, like I had to do for my PS2?

[Bruenor]

Well, I finally broke down.... it started with my Gameboy Advance. Then I started looking seriously at the cube ... then I ordered one online yesterday. It was on sale, and came with a free memory card. AGH! Now I'll own all three major consoles, and a pretty good gaming PC. Now what am I gonna do? It's going to be hell deciding what to play.


Welcome to my world, although it's generally not that bad of a problem to be stuck with to tell you the truth. :wink:

[Impresario]

I'm debating whether I should pick up the cube for my 3 1/2 year-old. I just don't know if I should start him on his own console this early? I've tried to keep him away from my Xbox but he likes fooling around with the cars in PGR2. Do any of you have kids this young that you allow to play video games, and does anybody know any cube games that are educational/appropriate for kids of this age?

[Ojnod]

Impresario I dont know about you but I would say that the best bet is to start him with something older. NES, SNES, or Genesis come to mind. Those consoles have games that have a lot less to think about than the fancy schmancy new stuff. There was an article in some magazine I read recently which was discussing how the difficulty of games has grown over the years. Us gamers have grown with it, but firing up mario sunshine is going to be a lot harder than playing Mario Bros. on the NES. You don't need to take him all the way back and have him play older systems where it acctually was more work :p:, but I would say the NES would be a good place to start.

[DanTheManPR]

Super Smash bros melee is great! Metroid Prime is supposedly great, although I haven't really played it.

[Impresario]

That's a good idea Donjo, thanks.

[Nova]

Metroid Prime is pretty good.

If you like 1500km/h arcade racers and don't mind an extremely difficult but rewarding game, get F-Zero GX.

I haven't played anything else :):

[Chylde Roland]

I might have to try out Metroid and FZero. I"ve also heard Viewtiful Joe is pretty good.

Can anyone answer my Q about the memory cards? I was looking at my online retailer, and I see some at 4MB, 8MB, 16MB, etc.... obviously bigger is better, but I'm wondering what the avaerage sotrage capacities are, like how many save games you can fit in 4MB of space.

And Bruenor, do you have recommendations? Our tastes are very similar, so I completely trust any suggestions you might have.

thanks all!

[Nova]

I use a 251 block memory card. That's enough for me...

And yes, do try F-Zero! It's the best arcade racer I've ever played :):

[Chylde Roland]

Thanks Nova! That's one of the cards I saw online, so maybe I'll try it out! Of course, I know I'll have a much better idea once I get the machine with the pipsy 4MB card I got for free, lol.

[Ojnod]

I have a 59 block and the 200some block card (the official nintendo ones). The 200 some one would be enough for me but I got that 2nd so I still have the 59 block. If you play alot of sports games you may need more though. My Fifa soccer save takes up a large majority of that 59 block itself. Most games however do not take very much.

[Bruenor]

And Bruenor, do you have recommendations? Our tastes are very similar, so I completely trust any suggestions you might have.

thanks all!

Well, you liked Beyond Good and Evil so the natural choice is the Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. It's easier that OOT, but then BGE was pretty easy too.

Also, Summoner: A Goddess Reborn was pretty good, but not great. But it is a decent RPG (note that it the same as SUmmoner 2 on the PS2 with a few tweaks and extra features).

Metroid Prime is a pretty good game too, although the more I got into it, the more I disliked it. I am one of the rare ones though, everyone else seems to think that MP was the one of the greatest games ever.

That's all I got right now.

[Chylde Roland]

Thanks Bruenor! I think Wind Waker will be one of my next choices after I get into Starfox Adventures and Pikmin. I'll probably rent Metroid Prime to see if it's my thing or not. I already played and beat Summoner 2 on PS2, so I don't think I'll be getting that one.

Thanks also to Donjo and Nova for the card info, I appreciate it!

[Nova]

No problem :):

P.S.: Get F-Zero. Now. NOW!

[Chylde Roland]

Just wanted to report I got my GCN yesterday. And here's my initial response: What the heck is with Nintendo and their SMALL stuff? The box is puny, almost 25% of the size of an Xbox! And they use those little tiny mini-DVDs for the games. Geeze, first it was the tiny little GBA, now this.

don't get me wrong though, I like the sizes. It fits beautifully into my enterainment centre, right next to my PS2. :):

The games are cool, too. I just started Starfox Adventures, and I have to say I'm mighty, mighty impressed with the production values. I have Pikmin as well, but haven't tried it yet.

Next on my agenda: rent Fzero this weekend to test it out. My next buy will probably be Wind Waker, but if I like Fzero it will become my second next buy. I also want a wavebird, being wirless on my PS2 and Xbox has spoiled me, so I want the same for the GCN.

[Nova]

Nice!

If you don't mind a challenge I'm sure you'll like F-Zero. The controls are very easy to pick up at first, but there are tons of more advanced and less obvious techniques that are extremely useful for winning in the later difficulty levels, which, obviously, are not easy at all. Don't get cocky once you've beaten everything on novice :p:

The races themselves are simply amazing and I still am not getting tired of them. Every course requires a different set of skills to master and racing on them at 1300 km/h with 29 other opponents gives a hell of a rush.

There's also a HUGE amount of unlockable content, which is another reason why I'm hopelessly addicted. There are 11 unlockable courses in addition the the 15 available at the start, 11 "secret" racers/machines in addition to the 30 always available ones (you have to purchase them, you start with 4), new music tracks, tons of custom parts to create and design your own vehicle, a new difficulty level and more.

The music in the game is hard rock/techno stuff, but boy is it good! Every of the 41 racers in the game has their own theme, some being very catchy. These racers all have different looks, background information, vehicles, personnalities (some are way more aggressive than others during races) and unlockable videos, which gives the feeling that you're not competing against boring AI bots.

This is only some of what the game offers. I did not rent it before buying it and I sure don't regret it. Hell, I'm not even a racing fan and I love it. I've already beaten all the GP's on the hardest difficulty but I'm nowhere near done with it. F-Zero GX is in my opinion the very best arcade racing game ever made. I don't think it's possible to delve into everything it has to offer in one rent, but I understand why you'd want to do so first :thumbup:

Hope you like it :):

[Chylde Roland]

Well, that's a pretty stellar review of the game, Nova. It does sound like something I'd enjoy, but I'm not a big racer fan, which is why I wanted to rent it: I'm a little leery. But with that kind of ringing endorsement, and the fact that it's only $30 at FutureShop, I'll probably just go grab it. I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

[Bruenor]

I found the game (F-Zero GX) to be pretty frustratingly hard and the music and voice-overs to be beyond irritating. Beyond that, it's a good racer but most definitely not my thing. I was entirely thankful I rented first and went with my intuition, instead of listening to some obviously glowing user reviews.

The sense of speed is definitely apparent, but tread carefully if you've never been a racing fan (or a fan of high-speed, high reaction twitch gaming) or you might start thinking pretty quick of other things you might have wanted to blow that $30 on.