Initial Gamecube Impressions

              On Friday, I had the opportunity to attend the Gamecube Club in my area.  For any of you who may be doubting Gamecube, it's time to stop.  The system is great!  It has a lot of excellent games, and the system itself is extremely powerful and well designed.

            First off, the graphics are amazing.  Madden 2002 and Rogue Leader each look almost real, and run with a perfect framerate and no slowdown whatsoever, even when there are tons of enemies on the screen.  In Starfox: Dinozaur Planet, I played this level where I had to fight a giant T-Rex and I could tell when it was approaching from behind because a slight shadow of the beast could be seen.  Details like this will make games more realistic and fun to play.  Again, even fighting a foe that takes up the entire screen, there was no slowdown at all.  The graphics alone make Gamecube worth buying, but there are other reasons to buy the system.

            The controller is pure perfection.  For any of you thinking that it will be uncomfortable because of the odd shape, this is the most comfortable controller I've ever held.  Yes, it's even better than the N64 controller.  The A, X, Y buttons, and the C-stick are all easily accessible, and the L, R, and Z buttons are easy to use as well.  The L and R buttons are analog, meaning that you can press them in slightly so that in games that use this feature, you can do several things.  For example, in a racing game, the R button could be acceleration and L could be the brake.  If you wanted to accelerate slightly, you would simply press the button in slightly, and then press it all the way when you wanted to accelerate to full speed.  You'll feel the button snap into place when it's pressed in all the way.  The built in rumble feature is nice as well.  During the fight with the T-Rex in the level I mentioned earlier, it was easy to tell when the T-Rex was approaching from a nearby corridor because the controller would start to shake slightly harder and the shakes would become more frequent.  Another advantage is that batteries are not needed for this, so it will prove to be much better than the rumble pack.

            The games themselves are quite a bit of fun.  I had the opportunity to play Super Smash Bros: Melee, A demo of the still in progress Starfox Adventures: Dinozaur Planet, Luigi's Mansion, and NBA Basketball.  Each of the games was quite a bit of fun and the controller seemed to fit their respective styles of gameplay perfectly.  Other games, such as Rogue Leader, Waverace, Madden 2002, and Pikmn were on display as well, and although I didn't have an opportunity to play them, they looked like quite a bit of fun.

            Some of you may be wondering about load time, since this is Nintendo's first system to use discs instead of cartridges.  Load time is not bad at all on this system.  Unlike other systems that use discs, Nintendo managed to find a way to keep Gamecube from having excessive load times in games.  There would be a short wait of maybe 5-10 seconds before starting a new level, but once the level had already began, there was no load time at all, you would think the game was on a cartridge by the lack of load time during the game itself.

            To conclude, for any of you who are still unsure on whether or not to buy a Gamecube, the system exceeds expectations in every possible way.  You will not be disappointed with Gamecube.  This system has a great chance to come out on top in this generation's console wars!