Mr. T's Blog

The gaming decade that was

In line with continuing our review of the past ten years in gaming, I'm going to share with you all some of my thrilling and oft tedious memories of the last decade in the world of videogaming.

Chatting today with Jorge, the general overlord of all things Cubed3, he pointed out that this little site will soon be celebrating its 7th birthday (we came into being on the 4th Jan 2003). That's a long old time. And moreover, that encompasses most of the time I'm going to be talking about in this blog.

I think the first game I reviewed for Cubed3 was either Eternal Darkness or Super Mario Sunshine, scoring them both 9/10. The latter is certainly not a score that passes the test of time. The life of the GameCube was one that I spent playing a lot of games. And a lot of the games I played I ended up reviewing. On the N64 I had been an occasional gamer, only picking up the titles I really wanted; keep in mind that I paid something like 50 quid for Pilotwings 64 from Woolworths (RIP). The GameCube however provided something very different: quantity.



When the Wii was close to release, I went through my various boxes-o-games and did a mass cull. I was confronted by a shedload of titles. Some of them were utter tat (Asterix and Obelix springs to mind immediately, as does some Digimon related fighting dross), but amongst the pap were some absolute sexy monsters of games. Sadly due to the fact I had no storage space for them at the time, I had to part company with some titles I really loved. There were so many great things about the GameCube. For one, it looked great. I don't think a games console has ever been so well designed. I think the Wii looks mildly tatty; heck, mine certainly hasn't worn well. Its all scuffed and grubby looking and no amount of cleaning quite makes it gleam. My black GameCube however still looks great. All dinky and cute...

So yeah, the 'Cube certainly did it for me looks wise and because it was a mild failure sales wise on Nintendo's part (ie: it got merrily trounced by the PS2) it retained that plucky underdog sort of feel. This was a proper gamers console with a bucket-load of proper gamers games. Not to get all nostalgic, but this was a time when games were games and men were men and...well, it was bloody good. What the GameCube meant was epic titles, proper 'genre games' and a full roster of the best gaming franchises.



For me, gaming has always been something to enjoy with friends, so a lot of my favourite moments and memories of the past decade have been from multiplayer titles. No other series has ever done this quite like Super Smash Bros, although a decent mention needs to go to Mario Kart too. I've developed far too many nasty little calluses on my thumb from over-playing both games. The term 'Smash-headache' is now part of my vocabulary. This is a mildly depressing fact but also the sign of an utterly addictive game.

Which brings me to the Wii, and the start of my general disenchantment with all things waggly and motion sensitive. My most played games on Wii are by far Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Super Mario Galaxy and on the Virtual Console The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. What you might notice there is a lack of motion controls and the dreaded 'waggling'. I just don't like it and I don't like the gimmicky feel of so many Wii games and neither do my friends. We like to get around the TV, have a beer or two and play proper games that don't require us to live in some Ikea-a-like house in white linen trousers smiling all the time playing sodding shovelware. Mild rant over.



But I still love games, and I still love gaming and I still love writing about them. This past gaming decade has encompassed some truly great titles and I'm still going through the rather painful and irritating process of picking out my favourite game. You'll get to see my decision and disagree wildly with it when we publish our round-up coverage in the coming week or so. And beyond that we'll be feeling all teary and nostalgic and old as Cubed3 turns seven. Seems like only yesterday, time flies, my haven't you grown, etc.

Oh, and be sure to keep on sharing your thoughts in the other blog on this topic over here.