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Techtite's GameCube Reviews! |
----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------ Sidebar:: ----------------- The long, stubborn history of Nintendo. What's with the miniature discs? Good question. No sooner does Nintendo finally take the plunge and go disc-based (no more cartidges!), then they suddenly decide to start small. Why? Beats me; the smaller discs may fit better on smaller hands, though they mean less space, too, as well as no DVD capabilities, which the two other major game systems have. What a shame. |
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Nintendo GameCube
Click graphic, above, for Amazon.com's official GameCube page (order links, etc.) A Techtite ReviewIn their latest foray into the video game world, once again, Nintendo makes some bold risks. In the process, you're offered the Nintendo Game Cube; the mongoose of the video game system world. In a den of snakes, this tiny system is more than ready to tackle even the most formidable opponent, when it's not looking. It may have the Achilles' heel of being released too soon to the X-Box, though it's still a superb system. If it wasn't for the lack of any "wowser" type game upon launch, few could find very many complaints.. Admittedly, when taken out of its box --which itself is quite small!-- you may be in for a shock. True, "size doesn't matter," though it's rough measurements are 5 3/4" by 4 1/4" by 6" (rounded to the nearest quarter-inch). Forget wowing your math teachers by admitting this is not a "cube" per se. The point is, this is pretty tiny, by video game system standards! Put the "handheld" Game Boy Advance next to the unit, and they're almost the same length! For kids, that's just great; you can take this anywhere, including your neighbor's house, your vacation hotel room, or even your grandma's house in Florida. So portable is the system that third-party developers are releasing a rechargeable battery and LCD screen attachment, so you can play it anywhere, anyhow (there's even an adaptor to plug neatly into a car cigarette lighter). So, yes, when it comes to portability, score one for the Cube.
Because of the unit's size, game discs are similarly small, making them equivalent to the 3-inch mini CDs used for more expensive digital cameras. This reduced game disc size means no DVD compatibility for the Cube; more on that gripe later. The real bad news is that smaller discs does mean smaller game size. The truth here is, few games released on DVD-compatible game systems use half the space of the discs they're stored on. It still may scare some game designers from even trying to fit their games on a GameCube mini disc, even if they most probably could. On the plus side of things, such small disc sizes makes the discs far easier for younger hands to handle without smudging them. Of course, the real kick to any system is its "wow" factor in games. Nintendo's prior game system, the Nintendo 64, wowed people with Super Mario 64 graphics that were beyond even what most PCs showed at the time. Such graphics muscle is best seen in a game like Star Wars Rogue Leader 2, where some in-game cutscenes look like exact replicas of the same scenes from the film. In fact, when reduced to thumbnail size, it's hard to tell the difference between the game and the actual movie. Sure, some cool graphics FX like reflective water and HDTV compatibility are not present here as they are with the X-box, though as you'll often hear, this system for kids will leave few kids complaining. There are more little features to consider about this little system. For one thing, while it doesn't have the snazzy internal hard drive of the X-box, this does allow it to be sold for much less. More good news is that this system means Nintendo has finally made the jump from simple game cartridges to game discs; get ready to see Mario, Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie, Zelda, and all your favorites, in the types of games that cartidges just could not provide. Meanwhile, that ability to link Game Boy Advance units to the system is promising; this means no way an opponent could see you type in private game data, like in a four-player RPG or strategy game. Then, there's the no-DVD factor. Small discs are nice, though if their compact size is their best feature, why put them in gigantic, DVD-case size packaging? For that matter, while these discs hold a nice amount of data --far more than a N64 cartridge, I'll tell you that!-- DVD sized discs would've been nicer. Ditto for the major sales muscle this could've led to; an oh-so-portable system that's a DVD player as well. Sure, DVDs can be played on PS2's and X-boxes, though how cool would it be to have this little, totally portable, practically-featherweight game system, allow you to play DVDs anywhere, at any time? You could've added one of those portable screens and you're all set to watch DVDs on the road. Well, forget all that could have been; this system uses dainty 3-inch mini discs instead. What a shame.
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Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
However, when it comes to not looking like a
toy...well, it does. However, this toy has a lot
of power. The graphics chip used is by ATI Tech, well
known in PC computers for its superior Radeon and All-In-Wonder graphics card
series. This isn't the only impressive hardware feature, however. For one
thing, a simple cable links a kid's Game Boy Advance to the unit, allowing
gamers to use it as an alternate gamepad (and providing a mini color
screen for added game potential). Ventilation
is to the side, which should please many people who want to play the
system on the bed of their bedroom, or the family room sofa. Most
impressive of all --particularly when considering how small the casing
is-- is when you turn the unit upside-down to see no less
than three expansion ports, including two serial ports and a
"high-speed port." That's three more expansion ports than the
X-box, which (unless you incorrectly call the Ethernet socket an
"expansion port") has none.