The Nintendo Wii's arrival this fall will mark a shift in Nintendo's hardware market, eventually closing the doors on the current-generation competitor that was the Nintendo GameCube. And while the market will live on for a little longer with a few forthcoming releases that look promising and backwards compatibility with the Wii that allows gamers to relive their GameCube days at any time, one can't help but wonder what kind of legacy the little cube-shaped system has left behind. Nintendo deemed it a bit of a "failure" if only because the system was against larger, more robust systems like the PS2 and Xbox, but, really, in the long look of things, was it? This article is out to look at the high points and low points of Nintendo's console, and see if it was worthwhile overall.

It seems that whenever a multi-console version of a game managed to hit across the board, the GameCube versions either managed to be overlooked by superior programming on other machines or a delay that forced the release to come out around a month later. Major League Baseball 2K6 from 2K Sports proved to be the heavy example of this, coming out a great period after the initial release and still managing to fail due to a few crucial flaws in its development. The Rainbow Six titles didn't seem to have any sort of appeal to them either, especially with the lack of the online play that made the other versions shine.

There are some exceptions to the rule. Turok Evolution from Acclaim managed to run circles around the piss-poor Xbox and PS2 editions, even though the game itself still couldn't live up to the N64 endeavors, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers actually moved faster than the other console editions, while still retaining a great deal of detail to make it look like you were controlling characters from the film. But these were just minor stand-outs, aside from Nintendo's stellar first-party line-up. Past that, most third-party releases never got a fair shake when compared to other console versions.

And even games that were promised to be exclusives for the Nintendo GameCube ended up going elsewhere. Remember the Capcom "Megaton" announcement to bring big, exclusive games to the Cube in order to bump up its Japanese and American markets? Hogwash. One of the biggest titles that was considered an exclusive GameCube game for all time, Resident Evil 4, showed up on the PS2 a year later, complete with extra missions not included in the original game. Viewtiful Joe and Killer 7 also failed to stay exclusive, showing up on the PS2 as well. So much for big deals like that, huh?

Worst of all, the GameCube just saw a number of not-so-great releases from third parties, who insisted on flooding it with lackluster games that didn't go anywhere else. Ubisoft's The Sum of All Fears still stands as one of the worst Tom Clancy games ever produced; MC Groovz Dance Craze is a poor variation of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution efforts; Monsters Inc. was reduced to rubble in a terribly lame dodgeball game; and let's not even get started with BMX XXX. Despite the fact that the GameCube edition was the only one to give you topless riders unlocked from the get-go, it still didn't change the fact that the game was a piece of garbage.

But aside from these flaws and goings-on with gaming releases, Nintendo still excelled greatly with their first-party releases, as well as a few third party ones that lent a hand, even though they were on other systems. Some of Nintendo's offerings seemed to be revamps of previous series releases, like F-Zero GX and Super Smash Bros. Melee, but the games ended up being brilliant pieces of work. Originality also came into the picture with several releases, though, including Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, a surprisingly adult Nintendo title from the camp at Silicon Knights (now moved on to Microsoft); the glorious first person shooter series that was Metroid Prime, now preparing to hit the Wii; and the cel-shaded Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, a game that remained surprisingly addictive despite its kiddie looks. (And for those sick of it, not to worry- Twilight Princess is headed your way later this year.)

Nintendo also found some strengths in using its characters in a number of multiplayer efforts. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! turned out to be a terrific hit thanks to system linkage that allowed up to eight players to race at once; the Mario sports games weren't too shabby, and better than the Mario Party offerings; Metroid Prime 2: Echoes had a great multiplayer angle that finally gave gamers an FPS effort for the Cube that rivaled the good ol' days of Goldeneye on the N64 (of course, Timesplitters 2 wasn't too shabby either); and EA had the opportunity to tag team with Nintendo, including Mario and a few friends in their games, such as NBA Street V3 and SSX On Tour.

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