By sjj_admin 
Originally published on GameOnAus.com in Sept 2021
There are two things I remember vividly around the launch of the GameCube. The first is the demo disk that showed up in stores – the last one I can remember ever seeing. I think there were three games on it but I can only remember Luigi’s Mansion and Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader. If you were good enough you could finish the first boss in Luigi’s Mansion and finish the Death Star run in Rogue Leader. FYI, I was good enough.
The second thing I remember is being in Year 11 when it came out. Sadly, I didn’t get a GameCube on launch, but a friend was getting it and we spent all day teasing him that the GameCube had been out for X hours and he hadn’t played it yet! The next day he was relentless in his teasing of us for not having one yet.
Eventually I did get one and loved it. For a long time, it was Nintendo’s worst selling home console (thank you Wii U for taking that title) but I’ve always felt that its sales didn’t accurately reflect how amazing it was. It had some cracker games. Here’s some highlights for me:
- Rogue Leader was an amazing title. I still maintain it has the best version of The Battle Of Endor ever put into a video game and replaying levels to unlock bonus missions like attacking World Devastators on Mon Calamari from the Dark Empire series of comics was a blast.
- While I admit I was one of the people that hated the look of The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker when it was announced (mainly because of the amazing Spaceworld 2000 demo of a realistic Link and Gannon fighting), I was sold on the cel-shaded graphics the minute I faced off against the first dungeon boss.
- My love of rhythm games like Rock Band was born on the GameCube with Donkey Konga and its adorable plastic bongo drums. My friends and I had many a good time laughing along to the songs on this wonderful peripheral.
- Speaking of multiplayer mayhem, many hours were spent in Mario Kart: Double Dash working out the best combination of characters to get the best items and crush your opponent! And I just have to mention Super Smash Bros: Melee that is still played in competitive circles to this day.
- Even back in the early 2000s Nintendo were thinking of a second screen via the Game Boy Advanced Link Cable which connected a Game Boy Advanced handheld console to the controller port of your GameCube. Multiplayer games of The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure were epic with this feature!
- Special shoutouts to titles with a special place in my heart like Pikmin, Viewtiful Joe, Eternal Darkness and Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door.