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I will never understand the Gamecube

Started by Retinend, June 18, 2011, 03:25:20 PM

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Big Jack McBastard

#60
Quote from: Famous Mortimer on June 22, 2011, 06:14:43 PM
Er, Wipeout 2097 you bitches

I bloody loved it, I do wonder how rose-tinted my vision is though.

Shortly before that I was one of those misguided souls who swallowed the Mega CD and got to that holy grail, full of poo, the 32X. I kind of liked Virtua Fighter though, I kicked ass on the arcade version. I also remember liking the Star Wars game but that's hardly surprising as I is fanboi.

Yeah, that's the ugly bugger, reminds me of a Wraith from Halo.

I believe I rented a Saturn briefly (Blockbuster thing), I have vague memories of some dragon based game that worked quite well but scant else. I do remember being faintly jealous of Street Fighter on the SNES which was a game I always enjoyed in arcades but I missed the entirety of the N64, Dreamcast and Gamecube spree. I think the hideous kid-toy looking controllers contributed to me wanting nothing to do with them more than anything else, that and Mario when he's not 2D or at least in a kart is in my opinion, a bit gash.

I gave consoles a rest after the PS1[nb]Though I did have a rather extended loan of a PS2[/nb], next one I owned was t'Xbox.

Quote from: Treguard of Dunshelm on June 22, 2011, 04:15:12 PM
As you would expect (from a technical standpoint anyway) - PS1 & N64 being 5th generation consoles and Dreamcast 6th generation.

Well if you want to put it that way, yes, but for more than a year your options were a PS1, an N64 or a Dreamcast. Dreamcast should have been able to get a market stronghold in that period as the first next gen console, just like the 360 did, but because we were at the end of a cycle everyone had already invested in one of the previous 3 (the aforementioned Sony & Nintendo offerings + the Saturn). No doubt the Saturn's unpopularity even at the time put a lot of people off the Dreamcast, especially when Sony were touting the PS2 having full backwards compatibility with the PS1 library.

Shame though, because Dreamcast were doing what the Wii U does over a decade ago (video screen on the controller). Hell, it was better than the Wii U because you could pop the screen out and play mini-games while you were out and about that affected your main game. Admittedly this technology was never utilised correctly, but they certainly had the idea first. If they'd had another generation or two I think we'd be looking at a very different console market.

Honourable mention has to go the N64's wrestling games. I mean the THQ series that included WCW Revenge and WWF No Mercy. A simple to use (compared to WWf Warzone) grappling system that allowed for heaps and heaps of moves. Such a shame that the inferior Smackdown series continued to the next gen and not this.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: The Region Legion on June 23, 2011, 04:25:05 AM
No doubt the Saturn's unpopularity even at the time put a lot of people off the Dreamcast, especially when Sony were touting the PS2 having full backwards compatibility with the PS1 library.
The Mega CD, 32X and such probably didn't help either. By that point people may have just thought Sega were no good at making hardware.

Quote from: The Region Legion on June 23, 2011, 04:25:05 AMShame though, because Dreamcast were doing what the Wii U does over a decade ago (video screen on the controller). Hell, it was better than the Wii U because you could pop the screen out and play mini-games while you were out and about that affected your main game. Admittedly this technology was never utilised correctly, but they certainly had the idea first. If they'd had another generation or two I think we'd be looking at a very different console market.
Well, Nintendo had already come up with the Tranfer Pak, a peripheral that let you share data between the 64 and Game Boy. I'm not sure if it ever even got released over here, but the idea was similar. Sony had also come up with the Pocketstation, which was pretty much the same as the VMU, although, given that the memory card slot was on the PS1 itself, you couldn't use it while playing the main console. The VMU did actually seem like a pretty cool idea at the time, although the execution looked a bit half arsed. It seemed to fall between two camps - a bit crap looking as it was, but if they'd made it too advanced then people would have balked at having to buy a fully fledged handheld system just to get the most out of their Dreamcast.

The WiiU actually looks kind of nifty to me. Nintendo's luck could run out with it, of course, but they have been extremely successful with innovative/gimmicky hardware over the last decade.

mcbpete

Quote from: Treguard of Dunshelm on June 21, 2011, 04:48:44 PM
Containing such games as?
LSD - The Dream Emulator:


Bishi Bashi Special:


Vib Ribbon:


To name but three ....

EDIT: Oops, didn't see there was two pages in the way !

mook

Quote from: mcbpete on June 23, 2011, 12:57:54 PM


Bishi Bashi Special:




what the hell is this? a bill hicks juggle-em-up?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: mikeyg27 on June 22, 2011, 11:06:19 AM
Re: the earlier comments about Sega - I think it's telling that nobody's brought up the Saturn into this N64/PS1 debate. It's not because it was a bad console, it's because no one had one - I think it's literally possible that I didn't know anyone with a Saturn at school (certainly none of my close friends did). That's probably where all the damage was done and was too much ground for Sega to make up.
That's a good point – financially, it was a disaster for Sega. However, I think it was a case of the Dreamcast's lack of success compounding the problems, rather than the company being screwed no matter what.

One thing I think that's easy to overlook, particularly (as you say very rightly) no one seemed to own the Saturn over here, is that it did much in Japan – at one point (and this might have been the case right at the end of its life) Japan sales were three times the size as everywhere else combined in the world.

Over here, I knew a few people that were interested in the Saturn, but Sega then announced the Dreamcast would be coming, so they put off purchasing a new system. I don't how representative this folk were, but it's something that gets said quite a bit about why Saturn sales tailed off.

In America, Sega really shot itself in the foot as it went with only a few (2?) chains to distribute Saturns as a exclusive deal – not only did it limit distribution, but other firms like WalMart were so angry, that they really pushed out promoting Sony.

Quote from: The Region Legion on June 22, 2011, 04:10:57 PM
... The problem is they took so fucking long to release it after the abortion of the Saturn that it was up against the PS2 (or rather, the rumours of it), as well as Sony's limitless promotional funds....
The Dreamcast was launched four years after the Saturn – not very long in console terms.

Sega spent plenty of money on advertising and marketing – the issue wasn't what resources they had, but how they were squandered.

Cinema featuring army barbers shaving heads may have seemed a good wheeze, but they weren't very effective. One result of the marketing campaign (in the UK, at least) was that the demographic of Dreamcast owners had a relatively low percentage of children – the type of console owner who usually are heavy games buyers. Sega in the UK was admitting privately that the marketing had been disastrous – I knew one high-up marketing/promotion suit in the gaming division at one large magazine publisher, who began working on a PR blitz after Sega had approached them for help, just before Sega pulled the plug on the console. It deserved far better.

Quote from: madhair60 on June 22, 2011, 06:41:07 PM
... The Gamecube was all about games - smooth, fast, excellent ones...
Some really good titles you picked. One of my favourites was Eternal Darkness – a cracking survival horror with a narrative that spanned centuries.


AsparagusTrevor


mcbpete

ATTENTION !

(I could never work out what they said when you chose the players - something like "E-Shass ", but I'm guessing it wasn't that ....)

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quotethe Gamecube especially showed no intent to advance computer games whatsoever, which for a new release of hardware is fucking criminal.

Quotewhy?

Because traditionally when a hardware manufacturer releases a games console it is accompanied by a creative rush and some forward momentum in what consoles could achieve. All the Gamecube is is a 'Oh shit Sony have the PS2 and Microsoft are releasing a console now' bit of dull arsecovering. Granted, they needed to replace the N64 but they had enough time and had nothing different to offer once they finally brought it out.

The N64 was at least a bit ambitious in certain areas, and the Wii has the disappointing but still adventurous controller. The Gamecube is just nothing, a little plasticky dinky piece of nothing for the next sequels, that didn't even offer an online gaming service, something the Dreamcast was already doing successfully.

The Dreamcast was so much better than these 3. It was adventurous, very well built for its time, was powerful, and despite poor support from publishers it had an array of interesting and different titles. The controller was also a step forward with the analogue stick in the right place, very good shoulder triggers and it ultimately set the template for the controller S and the xbox 360 control pad which are the two best controllers in gaming. The Virtual Memory Unit was a great idea but a bit underpowered and the idea of making it a games console in itself was hilariously overreaching, but it almost bloody worked. The DreamOn online service was really good and it completely transformed the idea of console use and pushed consoles towards multiplayer gaming. The console itself was also quite petite and good looking, if you're into that sort of thing. Shagging games consoles, I mean.

If you look at what Sega gave gaming with the Dreamcast, it surpasses the collective achievements of the N64, Gamecube and Wii. It felt like something special, owning a Dreamcast, even after the PS2 was released, because the PS2 took so long to do anything interesting with the hardware which was a bit retrogressive and lazy in comparison anyway.

madhair60

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on June 23, 2011, 03:47:59 PMIf you look at what Sega gave gaming with the Dreamcast, it surpasses the collective achievements of the N64, Gamecube and Wii.

If only it had some games, eh?

To date, the DC controller is the only pad ever to draw blood from my hands.

The Dreamcast would have won if it weren't for the ridiculous position of the wire. They effed up and got everything they deserved.

weirdbeard

The Nintendo 64 was dead in this country the day those "You can't buy this yet" adverts went to print after the release date was postponed for 9 months or however long it was.  I really must see if I can find that advert here somewhere, I can't find it online.  Talk about trying to put a positive spin on bad news.  Everyone who read it laughed, then went straight to GAME to buy a PlayStation.

Quote from: The Boston Crab on June 23, 2011, 05:00:48 PM
The Dreamcast would have won if it weren't for the ridiculous position of the wire. They effed up and got everything they deserved.

OH HERE COME THE WIRE NAZIS

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

That one joke has made the whole sorry history of Sega worthwhile.

vrailaine

Gamecube games I loved:
Animal Crossing (really, mightn't count as it was a N64 game first)
Metroid Prime 1&2 (a pretty damn distinct game, in my opinion)
Zelda: Wind Waker (the best looking Zelda game by a considerable level, I'm one of those people who actually loved all the sailing stuff too)
Pikmin (surely counts as innovative?)
Mario Sunshine (which has gotta be pretty underrated by now)
Double Dash (the best Mario Kart, in my opinion, actually)

Other Gamecube games I really wanted but couldn't get my hands on:
Twilight Princess
Paper Mario 2
Tales of Symphonia
Baten Kaitos 1&2
Four Swords Adventures

So yeah, not a whole lot of games there at all. Especially if you consider the amount of great games that were coming out on the GBA
Doesn't have as many as Dreamcast, but the playstation 2 had a absolute ton of games I wanted (mainly Atlus type RPG things, I guess).


PlayStation had a crazy large number of games I liked, even if you exclude the ones which didn't get released over here.

VegaLA

The GameCube's remake of the Resident Evil games was almost tempting enough for me to grab this console, did anyone play through those on the GC?

Consignia

Quote from: VegaLA on June 24, 2011, 09:38:34 PM
The GameCube's remake of the Resident Evil games was almost tempting enough for me to grab this console, did anyone play through those on the GC?

The only what that was any different was the first one. And, yeah it was excellent. Graphics were amazing for the time. The others were just ports, excepting 0 and 4, obviously.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: madhair60 on June 23, 2011, 03:57:12 PM
If only it had some games, eh?

To date, the DC controller is the only pad ever to draw blood from my hands.

After the 80 person fight on Shenmue it took me about ten minutes to retract my fingers from the contorted position they had taken on and hurt for days afterwards.

The problem was that it was very comfortable indeed for shorter periods, but it became uncomfortable over longer periods and it wasn't versatile enough- certain games involved switches from different buttons that were simply painful to carry on doing.

It makes more fundamental sense than the N64 controller, and is more of a leap forward than anything Sony have ever done with theirs.

As for shit marketing, Sony's PlayStation adverts were infamously weird and rubbish. The one that really worked was the blanket marketing of the £149.99 pricing and the Circle, Square, Cross, Triangle thing which was quite iconic. They also made a load of rubbish ones.

SavageHedgehog

I never got a Gamecube but I'm catching up on some of the games (mostly Mario-related) I always wanted via the Wii, and I recently bought Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for £30, which is way more than I'd usually pay for a game from a defunct console but it was worth every penny as it is terrific fun and its visual style is delightful and genuinely haven't aged a day. Visually it is easily the equal of anything on the Wii, possibly even unmatched. If you ever wanted it you should definitely try and get your hands on it.

Consignia

I have some very fond memories of the Dreamcast, as it was the system that got plenty of use around the time of my GCSEs, because it just simple to pull 4 people together for a quick game of Powerstone 2 after an exam. I thought it had quite a strong catalogue of games, but thinking about it they were mostly arcade-style games. That suits me, but it's not the broadest range. Also, it was damn easy to pirate for, which was very appealing to my young teenage self[nb]not these days of course, I'm complete saint[/nb]. I had it hooked up until recently, and even bought a couple of games for it last year.

AsparagusTrevor

What the hell happened to Power Stone anyway? It was brilliant, surely it's itching for a HD XBLA or PSN re-release?

Consignia

They had a PSP version of it which put both the games together, so you could all characters in both. It was a bit of disappointment, as it didn't translate all that well, if I recall.

I totally agree though, it's itching for a budget HD release on Live and PSN. I don't why Capcom are sitting on it.