2001...
On the 2000 thread I mentioned that at first I liked Kirby 64 but didn't think it was that great. In hopes of not sounding corny or emotional, on Sept.11 2001 the news did nothing but cover the disaster, from the morning it happened till very late in the night. It was so strong and so tiring that I decided to rent a game and try to forget what had happened. I decided to rent "Kirby 64" because its bright and cheery content made is a tad easier to forget reality. I played the game on that day for so long I became fond of it. To this day its the only game I have used to escape real world events.
But moving on from the emo fest...
2001 was great for gaming. While the DC was slowly dying both the XBOX and PS2 were strutting their stuff. MGS 2 was about to be released and it was the game everybody kept talking about. Jak and Daxter proved to be a worthy platformer, one that I played for quite a while. Finally, there was "Final Fantasy X", which received a very sudden late December release.
Because of the GC hype the N64 was almost a blur for me that year. I played "Paper Mario" and while I thought it was cute it just didn't please me as well as I expected. I was still infatuated with "Super Mario RPG" and refused to accept it as part of the RPG series.
Believe or not, I never fully played "Conker" till the XBOX remake in 2005. That's because video stores were still focusing on the PSone and the PS2 in order to care for the N64.
But I remember the hype. It was amazing how one game that started as yet another cute platformer ended up being South Park as interpreted by the furries at Rare.
E3 2001 was epic for Nintendo. I remember laughing and cheering at the major game announcements, including Luigi's Mansion and Smash Brothers Melee.
I picked up my GC at a Wal-mart during black friday 2001. It was the ONLY instance this could be done (try doing this with the Wii :p). I also picked up a memory card and Luigi's Mansion.
Luigi's Mansion...
Its perhaps one of the most underrated Nintendo titles yet. Sure it was a tech demo for lighting and texture effects, but the simple gameplay was engrossing and the game had great atmosphere. The music and graphics were fantastic and the ghost catching mechanic was fantastic. It definitely made me appreciate Luigi far more. I liked this game so much that I wish Nintendo would make it part of their "Play on Wii" series, or even better a sequel using Motion Plus for deep control.
Pikmin was a title that I didn't care for when announced, but ended up loving it when I finally got it alongside Melee on Christmas Morning.
The game won me over with its charm. The minute I used the C-stick to move my guys around I had a big smile on my face and couldn't put the game down.
SUPER SMASH BROS. MELEE
Man oh man...This game made me love people, hate people and thanks to it I ended up gaining a friend in a very unexpected place.
At this time while I was browsing PGC for news I was an IGN regular, especially the Melee forum. The hype was huge and we did nothing but discuss the game till it came out. We even had a guy who knew Japanese and translated every post Sakurai made on Tuesdays and Thursdays to see if any new info was leaked.
Remember the rumor of a Perfect Dark stage being in Melee? Remember the trophies being hints at secret characters?
November rolled around. The game was already out in Japan and we were set for both hype and disappointment. When news of the final roster was leaked people went nuts, myself included. It simply sucked. The only ones promising enough were Marth and Mr. Game and Watch, simply because they were very obscure.
But no one was more mad than this jerk named Smash_Brother. See, he was the mod of the SSB forum and a HUGE fan of the original. When Melee came out he was so, so disappointed by it that he made several threads explaining his discontent with the game. I kept bashing him in both threads and a chat room we had outside the forums.
I was too hyped for Melee and refused to see it as being a failure. In the end I liked the game, but I had to swallow my pride and admit S_B was right. When IGN closed and went Insider only many of us had to find other sites to hang. I discover this small site, and find out that S_B was not only a mod there, HE WAS AN ADMIN!
I was too angry, but was bored so I stuck around.
In the end, we ended up being best friends both online and real life.
Moral of the story; You'll find alliances in the weirdest of places.
But enough about me.
I completely avoided Super Monkey Ball at launch. Once more, I was too hyped for Melee in order to care for any other game. I finally played it in 2005 and I kick myself in the balls for being a dumb **** and avoiding this great game at launch.
Wave Race Blue Storm was an OK game. I still liked the N64 game better but it was good.
2001 was also the launch of the GBA. I actually got it for my Birthday from my dad. I got the handheld along with "Super Mario Advance" and "Konami Krazy Racers". It was the best summer of my life...OK not really but the GBA did make it memorable.
Later in the year I played "Mario Kart Super Circuit". It was a good game, but it ranks very low in my list of favorite MK games.
Wario Land 4 was all kinds of awesome. The music, the graphics, the gameplay, fantastic... Best of all, I got it as a present for doing so great on my first year of college!
But I rambled long enough, carry on.
Topic: A Decade of PGC/NWR: 2001 (Read 8987 times)
