This week marked the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, and boy do I feel old. I still have vivid memories of the GameCube’s North American launch (which came a few months after Japan, in November 2001), because it was the first video game console that was truly mine, rather than one I shared with my brother. For some reason, I also still have the console’s launch lineup burned into my brain. I can see every single piece of box art in my mind, right down to Disney’s Tarzan: Untamed.
To celebrate the GameCube’s anniversary, and to test that my noggin still works, let’s take a walk down memory lane and reminisce about the console’s best launch games. Though the GameCube had several day one games in North America thanks to an influx of sports titles, there were five standouts that were must-own games right out the gate.
5
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Wave Race: Blue Storm is one of those Nintendo launch games that’s easy to underappreciate. A jet ski racing game was certainly less exciting on paper than a totally new franchise starring a beloved Mario character. It was the console’s second banana at the time, but it deserves its flowers in retrospect. It was a rock solid racing game that successfully showed off what was possible on new hardware. Speedy races and impressive water effects make for the kind of GameCube pioneer that you have to respect.
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