Into every gamer’s life a little handheld system must fall. If you’ve never played a video game while simultaneously taking a shit, you’re a liar, or much too sophisticated to be reading this column. Here’s my recollections of a little grey beast, along with a side of cube. Not ice, or even Ice, nope, the GameCube. Yeah, I may have defended it to the death once. But I also wore mismatched socks for the first 27 years of my life. So, yeah.
Game Boy Advance (2001)
In the grand scheme of things, the Game Boy Advance was just a small blip on my gaming radar. Fresh out of high school and into the work force, I didn’t have much time for Nintendo’s latest and greatest. The only two games that stand out to me for the Game Boy Advance are Super Mario World and Metroid Fusion.
Just as an aside, the entirety of Metroid Fusion was played laying belly down on the carpet in the bathroom. For whatever reason it seemed like the most sensible place to play the game, and a natural extension of the toilet, where a good percentage of my portable gaming was completed at the time.
One very strong memory – after much practice and hullabaloo in Mario World, the excitement roared amongst the audience in attendance. For once we would get to see what the next chapter in this spinach green land would be.
For years I had been frustrated with this damn game, never being able to beat a very specific level that I can’t recall at this time. We gathered around the screen in anticipation to get past the specific section, when all of a sudden the asshole of the group decided it would be an inspired decision to flip the power switch just as we stepped into the great unknown. Everyone laughed but me, as I successfully kept back the tears of frustration.
Since that day I have never picked up the game, but subsequent YouTube videos let me in on the secrets that it was a Kung Fu level that I had been missing all these years.
Not much else interested me in regards to the Game Boy Advance in any of its iterations. It eventually slimmed down and clammed up, but the sheer amount of junk-ware that filtered its way down, along with the lack of interest in any game with the word Pokemon in it, allowed me to let the battery dry up on this one without regrets.
GameCube (2001)
When I worked at WalMart, I remember talking trash about the PS2 and Xbox 360, trying to convince co-workers that despite its inability to play DVDs or have any games that would interest anyone older than 12, the GameCube was King Shit of the consoles. I made a point to show that the two more expensive entries in the battle for your living room entertainment were labeled “Computer System” and the little purple wonder that couldn’t was labeled a “Game System.” Why wouldn’t you want one under your TV?
Down the road my GameCube essentially became exclusively a Mario Kart / Super Smash Bros. machine, toted around in a metal box from house to house as we killed time waiting for Halo 2 to come out. [More on that magnificent time muncher in two weeks...]
Next week, the time of every young man’s life where he wavers. And almost gives up games for girls…
– The Jolly Gamesman
