My History with Video Games: A Personal Timeline - Part 3

In the early 2000s, I still had not been won over by Sony yet. I had a few friends who were hardcore PS2 heads and I was starting to contemplate getting one but when the GameCube and Xbox launched I had a big decision to make. Grand Theft Auto III was huge at the time and I really wanted to play it but I also knew Metroid Prime was coming out in the near future. I remember reading on some random forum that a GTA III port was in the works for the GameCube (which obviously turned out not to be true) and that was the only push I really needed to stick with my beloved Nintendo.

Looking back at the list of GameCube launch titles now, I can't remember buying too many of them. I think I had Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 to start and I bought Eternal Darkness when that came out (I had to support the local talent, of course, and then maybe figure out how to land a job at Silicon Knights). By the time Metroid Prime released in November 2002, I was feeling like my purchase was fully justified. If I'm being honest though, some of the other Nintendo first party titles that came after that disappointed me, like Super Mario Sunshine and even The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker at the time. Resident Evil 4 and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance come to mind as other GameCube games I loved.

I did not own an original Game Boy Advance but I seem to remember downloading an emulator and checking out some of the early GBA games that way. When they released the SP a few years later, I was sold based on the backlight and the foldable form factor. What's interesting to me is that at this point in time, video games were still all about pushing the most realistic graphics possible, particularly now in 3D, and the GBA didn't seem all that cool by comparison. But once I started playing some GBA games I realized that 2D gaming was alive and well and they were still iterating on well-worn genres in exciting new ways.

The Castlevania games really hooked me at the time, particularly Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. As much I loved Metroid Prime, I started to realize that Metroidvanias were still at their best in 2D. Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, WarioWare Inc: Mega Micro Games, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics are all games I remember enjoying a great deal. I also played through Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (okay so I did beat another Final Fantasy game) with a few people at Silicon Knights using the stupid GBA / GameCube link cable. What a pain that was.

By now I had actually started working at Silicon Knights and I was living the dream. Video games were everywhere around me at all times. You could walk around the office at SK and there would always be some new game that had just come out that other people would be playing. I ended up buying a lot of games during this period of time just because everything looked so cool but I did not have as much time to play them because I was working long hours on and off.

A lot of AAA games were coming out on both Xbox and PS2 but not GameCube because it wasn't powerful enough (or if it was powerful enough, it was still the inferior version). So I knew I was going to have to invest in another console and around this time Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had just been released. That was probably the thing that pushed me to buy an Xbox. (I'm really not sure what I had against Sony at this time... I think they just never had that one must-play exclusive game that pulled me in.)

I was also excited to play Halo and the GTA III / Vice City two-pack came out for Xbox later that year too. I remember the hype for Halo 2 and the excitement of going to a midnight launch for the game (I'm sure it wasn't the first to do it but they became a lot more common after that). This was also when I joined Xbox Live and had my first online gaming experiences with a console. Microsoft felt like they were innovating in a lot of ways and they were really embracing their "outsider" status in the industry at the time.

Nintendo unveiled the DS at E3 2004 and I remember being somewhat puzzled by it at the time. They claimed that it was not an official successor to the GBA (although it did end up basically being that) and it seemed like such a strange idea. Why would we ever need two screens? But in classic Nintendo fashion they ended up delivering something new and unique and they put out a lot of cool games that made use of the hardware.

I did not buy this system at launch, probably because I was somewhat skeptical but eventually I was won over. The real killer feature for the DS was the addition of a touch screen. That being said, sometimes they went overboard with it (I still haven't finished either of the Zelda DS games because of the forced touch controls... I need to try out the d-pad mods one of these days). The Igavania games continued to be great on this system and Nintendo rediscovered the joy of 2D Mario with New Super Mario Bros. I did upgrade to a DSi years later so I could get into the downnloadable DSiware games but there weren't a ton of standout titles.

One of the coolest perks of working at Silicon Knights in 2005 was that we all got our very own Xbox 360 when it launched that year. It was an exciting time and Microsoft seemed to be bringing a lot of cool new ideas to the table. The new UI and dashboard was a huge step forward, the addition of achievements was inspired and, of course, Xbox Live Arcade introduced the concept of indie games on console. I was excited to see smaller 2D games finding a home on a next-gen console alongside big budget AAA games. The Xbox 360 controller is also arguably the peak design for a video game controller.

The Xbox 360 was my main gaming system for the rest of the decade and beyond. Halo and Gears of War continued to be essential single player and multiplayer experiences and this is also where I chose to play games like Red Dead Redemption, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Rock Band. Shadow Complex, Limbo and Super Meat Boy are among the Xbox Live Arcade Games that I still have fond memories of. It was a great system and, unfortunately for Microsoft, the only time they were really king of the hill.

Wii-mania hit a year after the Xbox 360 was released and it was absolutely massive. The PlayStation 3 also released within days of the Wii, which seems crazy now, but once again I was not a Sony early adopter so I wasn't paying that much attention. The Wii was selling out everywhere but one day at work we got a tip that Best Buy had just received a stock of Nintendo Wiis so we jumped in our car and headed over there just in time to get the last ones. What a rush.

For weeks on end we would have friends and family over to play Wii Sports and it was a blast. It is well-documented at this point just how much Wii Sports brought casual gamers into the Nintendo ecosystem. At the time it seemed like Nintendo might be shooting themselves in the foot with this motion control gimmick but clearly they made out like bandits. I was also very excited for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess at the time but it ended up mostly collecting dust on my shelf.

In a way, that kind of sums up the Wii for me. I continued to buy a lot of Nintendo's first party games but I can't think of too many that I actually finished during this time. I'm not sure if the novelty wore off or if there were just other games on other consoles I was more interested in. There are definitely still a handful of Wii classics that I need to go back to eventually (ie. Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2).