I’ve been putting off putting this part of this series together purely because of its length.  The amount of GameCube stuff in my friend Joe’s game collection stretches into over 100 games with a ton of different accessories.  It took a very long time to get everything for this blog post photographed and edited, so hopefully you enjoy what will be one of the last posts about this topic.

As usual, I’ll start with the console itself!  The silver GameCube came complete in its box with lots of manuals and inserts, and barely looked used at all.  We actually received a second, empty box for a silver GameCube, so I will be looking for a cheap one to put into that box to sell at some point.  Interestingly, we got two Game Boy Players as wel.  One is the usual North American black one you might expect, but the other is silver!  In North America the GBPs were only released in black but in Japan, a variety of colours were available to purchase.  This other boxed one is a Japanese version, and from what I understand, though the player itself isn’t region-locked, you need to have a region-specific disc for your region-specific player for it to work properly.  I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet since I have a North American GBP set up and ready to go, but one of these days I’ll hook that up and give it a go.

Along with the console came a variety of accessories.  Logitech released a racing wheel controller with its respective pedals, and we’ll be able to give this a spin with the bunch of racing games we also received in this lot.  If there was ever any paperwork included in these boxes, it’s long gone, though the box for the pedals did come with its cardboard insert.

Speaking of interesting controllers, we have the pleasure of owning a chainsaw controller for the GC release of Resident Evil 4.  You’d be right if you’re thinking we got other chainsaw controllers in this game lot purchase, and they’re for the PS2.  The chainsaw controllers for the GC are rarer and were released in limited quantities.  I’d like to play Resident Evil 4 at some point down the road, and though I’ve heard this controller is bulky and difficult to use for the most part, I’d be interested to see for myself.

The DK Bongos were also here with two games to go along with them: Donkey Konga, and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.  I had only ever seen the bongos in the flesh at hock shops with heinous price tags attached, so they were never something I thought I’d pick up for myself at all.  I’ve heard they’re an absolute hoot to play with though, but my percussion rhythm skills are abysmal.  I haven’t looked much into how the bongos work or what is required to play games using them, but if it has to do with rhythm, I might be out of luck.  They game boxed with a bit of the paperwork, but the  box is a little crushed.  It’s hard to see in the photo, but the top panel is smooshed, making the box difficult to open.

Another accessory is the Dance Dance Revolution mat for the Mario Mix game.  This is a pretty fun thing to have, though my lack rhythm skills and non-compliant 31-year-old body might not enjoy a jaunt with this particular game.  There was a second mat for some two-player fun, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince my other half to play this one with me.

And now for the games.  As you’ve likely come to expect if you’ve been following this post series, there are lots of shooter and stealth games here.  I’ve heard many praises sung for Killer 7, Serious Sam and Time Splitters, and though these are not games I’d usually pick up, I’m going to try them out at some point.  Oddly enough, I’ve amassed a substantial Metal Gear Solid collection from this big game lot.  Funny how that happens, eh?

There were a whole pile of games here based on television and movies.  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at this bunch, wondering if they’ll be at all better than licensed games on other consoles.  My guess is no, but considering I haven’t seen at least half of the media related to these games, I might have some catching up to do before I can accurately judge these ones.

Among the many, many sports games, there was a true gem: NCAA College Basketball 2K3.  This is shockingly the rarest game for the GameCube and at this point in time is selling for well over $100 in many different places online.  There are lots of titles here that I have very little interest in playing through, but I might try out a few.  I surprisingly had some great times playing NBA Jam with my boyfriend, so who knows if I’ll fall a little in love with sports games?

Fighting, horror, and action games were plentiful here as well.  I got to “upgrade” my Super Smash Bros. Melee from a Player’s Choice to a regular label here, and the rest of the games were new to me.  I especially love that there are several robot fighter games.  I’m becoming mildly obsessed with robot stuff for no good reason, and these games (Custom Robo and Metal Arms) look to be loads of fun.  I don’t know much about some of the other games here.  Maybe tell me your favourite of this bunch so I have a place to start!

I’m not sure how many Star Wars games were produced for the GameCube, but we landed in a pile of five of them.  Though some of them have to do with the prequels which I am mainly unfamiliar with (I’ve only seen them once), I still love the Star Wars universe and want to dive into these.

I dipped my big toe into real time strategy games recently, and I am really enjoying that sort of gameplay.  Of all the GameCube games here, there were only a few RTSes.  I’m generally not a big fan of games that take place in real war history, but these games look far removed enough that I might enjoy them.  I was intrigued to see that Odama comes with a mic and wonder how that’ll integrate into the gameplay.

Lots of puzzle-based and arcade games were here as well.  I’m not sure why I lumped Mega Man’s Anniversary Collection and Luigi’s Mansion in with this particular group of games, but I’m awfully excited about them both (specially Mega Man.)  I only have 2 and 3 for NES, and X for SNES.  I’m excited to try out the other games in this particular collection.  It’s so funny that people are currently getting the Mega Man Legacy Collection, and I’m just now getting my hands on long-ago remakes of the originals.  It sounds like that’s par for the course for me! Chibi-Robo is a game I know nothing about but have always wanted to play.  See my above commentary on robot love.  It looks awfully cute.

Among the spoils were more adventure games with a cartoon-y style rather than the more serious bunch I’ve already mentioned.  Of obvious interest to me here are the Phantasy Star Online games which I do not own for the Dreamcast, as well as the Viewtiful Joe games.  Star Fox Adventures is supposed to be a mediocre RPG-ish adventure game, but I’ve only dabbled a tiny bit in the earlier games in the franchise.  Maybe I’ll actually like that one since I don’t have much of a comparison or nostalgia attached to the earlier installments.  I’ll also have to practice my French a little to partake in the Rayman games, which seems to be a French language copy of the game.  I’m by no means even close to being fluent in French, but I can order a hamburger with a questionable Canadian French accent.  Hopefully there are lots of hamburgers in those games!

I’m also excited about Wario World.  I just received a copy of Wario Blast in the mail not long ago, so my affinity for that character is growing a little.  He’s becoming far more to me than the Mario Kart character with a fart horn.

Racing games were abundant!  There were two copies of Kirby Air Ride, one of which I was able to use in a trade at a swap a few months ago to get some other games.  Lots of these racing games look absolutely awesome, and I am particularly intrigued by Tube Slider.  It might be a case of misleading cover art, but I don’t know that I’ve ever played anything involving what appears to be luges, racing or otherwise!  Mario Kart Double Dash is also a nice addition.  I found a copy of the game at the thrift store a few months ago so this is now a double Double Dash, but it’ll make for a good trade down the line.

When I mentioned a few posts ago that I am now really close to having a complete Metroid collection, I wasn’t kidding.  I ended up with several copies of Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Echoes, and even a compilation with Prime and what might be a demo of the latter.  I’m shocked that this game, being as well-loved and highly praised as it is online, doesn’t cost more money like others that have become subject to the strange retro game inflation problem sweeping the world.  Either way, I’ll likely start the Metroid series from the beginning and work my way up to these eventually.

RPGs were a-plenty here as well, with the Baten Kaitos games, a Tales game, as well as a few others that I’m not entirely familiar with.  This is another case of games being “too new” for me to have much knowledge about, and given how many games are here, my research to find out what is worth starting out with has barely begun.

I also received a collector’s edition of Robotech Battlecry, but the t-shirt was long, long gone by now.  I don’t know if I like the cut of boy t-shirts anyway, but the rest of the stuff was there in the box. Though I haven’t played or even heard of the game before, I’m sure the art, dog tag and lithographic art will feel more personal to me when I do get around to it.  More robots!

There were also a few Japanese games in the mix.  It’s interesting to me how different the packaging is between North American and Japanese GameCube games.  The boxes are so tiny and small compared to the DVD cases!  The games are Castle Shikigami 2, Radirgy, and the Nintendo Puzzle Collection.  We also conveniently received a copy of Free Loader, a region unlocking disc.  I’m not entirely sure how it works, but I’m glad that I’ll be able to try these Japanese games out without having to jump through too many hoops.

I wanted to keep the Zelda games for last because it’s one of my favourite franchises.  If you read my post about completing my Zelda collection up to and excluding 3DS some time ago, you might be scratching your head and wondering why I’m so excited about these.  In truth, there were a few variants I didn’t have yet, but getting my hands on these doesn’t make my collection any more complete in terms of new games.   It just means I have more variants of games I already owned.  It was really neat to find a cardboard box copy of Four Swords Adventures with the DVD case and a GBA link cable included.  I don’t know how many of those types of packages were released for other games, but it was neat to see something different than the plastic snap cases!  Of the games here, the only ones I was missing were the Ocarina of Time Master Quest, and the Windwaker variant that also has a disc for the OoT Master Quest.  I didn’t even know that variant existed, but it’s neat to have!

In addition to all of these games, we got a few extra goodies.  The first bunch of things I wanted to mention were some demo/preview discs.  Each disc has a few demos on it that were meant for in-store play.  Though I never played a demo disc for the GameCube specifically during its run in stores, I do remember trying out some demo kiosks in my youth.  The specifics are pretty fuzzy.  These are really neat to have since they’re not something you run across every day!  I know that you can search versions online to see what they contain, but I’m curious to just pop some of them in and see what happens.

Another thing that absolutely blew my mind in this lot was a development tool consisting of a hard drive called an NR Writer, and a Memory Card Emulator.  I’m not entirely sure how this stuff works, but I was told that it gives you the ability to burn GameCube game discs, as well as write different game states to a memory card to do testing.  We have a little bit of research to do.  I’m pretty sure this sort of thing was not meant to be available to the public, so I’m not sure where to start.  Hopefully I can find some information!  More on this when I have a better idea of what it’s all about.

If you’re still with me here at the end, thanks for sticking it out.  This post was certainly a lengthy one, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my tour through all this GameCube Goodness.  Considering I had only about 10-15 GC games prior to picking this game lot up, I can certainly say that it was quite shocking to receive more than 10x that many games here.

I have one more post planned, so stay tuned for that one.  Thanks for reading!

-GG