I went to my local video game store on Friday to pick up a copy of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, and I walk out with an entire generation’s worth of Nintendo console goodness. Thanks, random game store guy.
No, I didn’t get his name. I want to say Dave, but I want to say everyone is named Dave. He’d come to this particular establishment to trade in what he could of his older gaming collection. He’s been offered a job across the country at the last minute, and had to move in a hurry.
Yeah, the thought that the stuff was stolen did briefly cross my mind, but the game store employees knew this guy, and what he could trade in was used towards the purchase of a New 3DS XL and a copy of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. At least I remembered that.
What he couldn’t trade in is in a box in my living room, awaiting a crappy thrift store television so it can be set up in my children’s room to teach them about one of the best generations of Nintendo gaming.
At first I thought he was trying to sell the contents of the box and I passed. I had to print out coupons to justify the Animal Crossing purchase. There was no way my wife wouldn’t kill me for adding a box of magic beans to the shopping list.
But no. He just wanted to give his stuff a good home. We tried to convince him to take it with him, but he had no room and had already decided to get rid of the collection. We suggested he go to eBay, he countered he had no time. The game store employees would be fired for taking it. So I did.
So what’s in the box? There are a couple PlayStation 2 and original Xbox games. He had Soul Calibur II — the one with the system-specific guest stars — for all three consoles. There’s also a random Beck CD, a Professor Layton title for 3DS, a couple of PC adventures and a PlayStation 2 network adaptor setup disc.
But it’s mainly a dusty purple Game Cube, two controllers, a memory card and some of the best games the system had to offer, including:
- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
- Super Mario Sunshine
- Mario Superstar Baseball
- Mario Gold Toadstool Tour
- Mario Power Tennis
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
- The Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition (with the first four games)
- Super Monkey Ball 2
- Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
- Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
- Resident Evil 4
- Spider-Man 2
Judging by the dust on the console, it’s been a long time since these games got any love, and I’ve got a pair of young boys who have way too much to give. Seems like the perfect fit. I’ll have to explain discs to them — as far as they are concerned they are shiny things to throw. I’ll also need to reinforce their understanding of wired controllers, as they are prone to running down the hall excitedly grasping their tablets, USB cable and charger plug bouncing after them.
But I’m up to the task, and look forward to introducing my children to one of Nintendo’s best generations. Plus I’ve never finished Super Mario Sunshine. I am a monster.
So thanks again, random game store gguy who might be but probably isn’t Dave. Your games are in good hands, or at least will go towards making memories that will last a lifetime before the kids accidentally blow it all up.
Comments
9 responses to “Thank You For The Amazing Game Cube Collection, Random Game Store Guy”
I’d love to see impression videos of some of these, since the opportunity has presented itself. Could be sorta like a weekly look into the next title in the magic dream box XD
Remember to drag the old Wii out of storage as it was backwards compatible.
Why is this important? Because the wiiu and Wii are also backward compatible, and the console will naturally upscale any Wii games for modern TV’s. With minimal work you can rip you GameCube games onto the Wii then system transfer it to a Wii u’s hard drive and play all those classics at better resolutions then the originals.
If your game you could also checkout running them legitimately on dolphin emulator
You can rip GC games to the Wii? A system with 512 mb memory? Without a hack? Nah.
And then transfer that to a WiiU? And play them at a higher resolution? Without a hack? Or magic?
Yeah, nah.
Who said anything about without a hack? Using hacks is absurdly easy. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by ripping it onto the Wii (been a while since I poked around with any of this) but from what I understand all the Wii homebrew stuff still works on the vWii of the Wii U, and does get sent across with a system transfer. Ripping games to a hard drive or even via the network to your PC is pretty easy on the Wii.
You do realise the Wii has 2 USB slots and a SD Card slot right?
so you didn’t ask for his name, or even offer to buy him a beer?
but you go home and write an article about him which you get paid for…
priorities ikr?
Fantastic collection. What a great piece of luck – and what a generous fellow!
I recently shifted house and, unearthing my Gamecube collection from beneath the previous house, I spent two months or so playing around with a number of the games, in particular Eternal Darkness (which I hadn’t finished first time around). What a brilliant console during a golden era for console gaming.
That’s kind of how I’m playing at the moment.
No joke I have a PS4 for about a year but only played games on it for about two weeks (not in a row) on the thing.
It’s now packed up and after the drive in my PS2 died, I got the 360 out to play games on that.
In what can only be described as putting the cart before the horse, the current generation of consoles have a lot to learn even from the past gen (Wii, 360 and PS3).
There’s a disturbing lack of Metroid on that list.
No GC collection is complete without Metroid.
I should post a pic of my gamecube collection, I have about 65 games from memory including just about every exclusive Nintendo game, plus the bongos for donkey konga and jungle beat, plus Mario dance mat, plus official Logitech racing wheel and pedals for double dash, 2 wavebird controllers as well.
Make me sad that I’m not home playing it right now, countless hours during Uni devouring gamecube games…