I adored the GameCube. I have games for that have a total value of around £500+ which is incredible.
Games like The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and the Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker, Wario Land, Mario Kart Double Dash, Pikmin and Pikmin 2, Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles, Pokemon Coliseum and Pokemon Channel, Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg, Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime Echoes, Metal Arms Glitch In The System, F-Zero AX/GX, Doshin The Giant, Super Smash Bros Melee and Super Mario Sunshine were among the little purple box's best titles in my opinion. The console had great controllers and had good graphics for it's generation.
It's successor, the Wii, may have been the most successful console of that generation to date, but it certainly was not the greatest console ever made. I'm sure a few of my friends would undoubtedly agree that the GameCube holds that category.
What about the Xbox 360?
Whilst to so many people out there, the Xbox 360 is the console of consoles, to me it most definitely was not that. Throughout the years of the 360's life, I managed to find just four games that I enjoyed, namely Halo 3, Halo Reach, Banjo Kazooie (I have this on my Nintendo 64 as well) and Metal Arms Glitch In The System (my brother also owns this on his PS2). I can hardly say I loved the 360, as my original purpose to buying it was specifically for system links and online play of Halo 3.
There is no doubt, I disliked the Xbox 360 as a console.
Ok then, PS3?
Well the PS3 had a bigger impact for me. I genuinely got it as a Blu Ray player with access to games at the same time. I originally got the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle and when I started to play MGS4, did not like it.
After trying to get into it, I really did fall in love with that game. In fact, it's one of the games on my list of games that I complete once a year. The game was fabulous and that continued on to my next favourite PS3 games, MotorStorm Apocalypse and then inFamous 2. I then downloaded the first three Spyro games, Mickey's Wild Adventure, C&C, C&C Red Alert and could continue to play my old PS1 games (Croc, Croc 2, James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies).
Overall, I liked the PS3 better than the Xbox 360, especially as a system, but still not over the GameCube.
To the point
Now, the point of this post was about the relationship between the GameCube and the Wii U. It's clear to me that the Wii U has a wide range of games, but there are some games focused more at the `serious` gamer (which I certainly had lost since 2003 until Halo 3 came out in 2007, the only serious games I played were PC games). However, there have never been so many brilliant games on the one console since I have become a serious gamer again. So far, after less than a year, I have a total of 8 games for my Wii U, I already own just under two thirds of my Xbox 360 library which had a total of 13 games. I also own 15 Virtual Console games for my Wii U.
Now, with the Wii U bringing back the serious gamers with the Pro Controller and the awesome new GamePad, I can see another GameCube.
To date, we have had some really awesome games such as Nintendo Land, ZombieU, Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros U, Game & Wario and Rayman Legends, all of which feel like, well, GameCube titles. There were countless titles for the GameCube with success. Third party games were good, and the GameCube was considered the Resident Evil player's console (just ask Greg Innes, one of my friends from back in school who holds Resident Evil time trial records), we had awesome games like Metal Arms Glitch In The System, James Bond NightFire and Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles but the GameCube relied on Nintendo to release the awesome games such as Sunshine and Wind Waker.
Now you may notice, all the third parties such as trashy EA and Bethesda have already announced a lack of support and interest in the Wii U. Also, so far the Wii U has been incredibly unpopular, just as the GameCube was. Could this mean Nintendo end up making the majority of the games to a very high quality standard just as they did with the GameCube to keep up and try and win back it's gamers?
The line up for the Wii U is incredibly Nintendo-published with loads of games like Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros 4 and the two new Zelda games (one being a remake of one of the greatest games to have ever existed, and one of the first to ever get 97% or above from GamesMaster magazine). We could even see a new Metroid game or F-Zero (both would be nice!).
So will the Wii U replicate the GameCube's brilliance?
