Still the Apex of the Cube...?

[marcus]

The beauty of SMB is that the gameplay is timeless, there is always the challenge and draw of going back to better your previous times. Its a classic case of a brilliantly simple concept being superbly executed. I loved SMB, Im not particularly good at it, Ill never see Master modes, but it doesnt stop the game being as addicitive as hell.

The Apex of the Cube? Quite possibly.

[Durham Red]

All I know is that I ****ing hate Packattack's guts and want to boot him repeatedly in the monkey balls.

But yes, Luigi's Mansion, Waverace, Sunshine, Prime have all come and gone and gather dust on my shelf but Monkey Ball still gets played every now and then. It's got a sense of joy and a purity the vast majority of the stuff out there lack. Pure, concentrated aceness.

Even though I am Lv 7's eternal bitch.

[InsideOutBoy]

I agree that Super Monkey Ball is the greatest game on the Gamecube. I?m not a huge fan of it, but I can easily admire its qualities. It slaps you in the face with pure undiluted gameplay and charm. It is the only game my videogame loathing family will play alongside my videogame-obsessed mates. It?s a such a... game. There's no other way to describe it!

Arguably it is too simplistic to be considered an all time console classic, but regardless, it's still great.

Apart from it, Mario Sunshine and Eternal Darkness are my personal favourite Gamecube picks.

[mid]

I'm predictable, really.

Fave arcade machine: Marble Madness
Fave Speccy game: Spindizzy
Fave Amiga game: Spindizzy Worlds
Fave Gamecube game: SMB.

At the end of the day, its all in the control - everything works just how you'd expect it to; you build up your momentum and let the physics work for you.

[badgerpie]

Arguably it is too simplistic to be considered an all time console classic, but regardless, it's still great.

Interesting, I always thought that becuase of it's control simplicity it could be considered an all time classic. The beauty about it is that due to the simple nature of the control and the precision of the gamecube analogue stick it's always your fault when you die.

[dc-arena]

I remember back at Japanese launch, almost 2 years ago to the day, I first played and indeed owned Super Monkey Ball.

Today, its still as special and as fantasticly brilliant as it was back in the day. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Other exceptionally good games have been released on GC, and they are all up there with the Monkeys. I'll never forget the hours I spent in Metroid Prime, amp pumped up through my headphones in a dark dark room til 4am on many occasions. I'll never forget the hours spent just chilling in Animal Crossing, more often than not getting told off for not visiting one of the residents - oh how I loved the game. Then came Zelda, how I cried at the music and the atmosphere: anyone who doesnt get a chill on their back at the start when his sister is calling out for Link simply doesnt have a heart or soul. Magical.

The two other launch games, Luigi Mansion and Blue Storm are both fantastic games. I enjoy Luigi much more than I did with Mario Sunshine. Theres no camera issues in the game for a start, and it was a nice fresh game to boot with some great moments. But I guess they are different games at the end of the day - oh well.. Bluestorm was great, and devishly hard later on, but how I enjoyed it..

The games all have passion and soul, and you know the developers enjoyed making them, and it shows.

But there is another group of games that are equally amazing on GC: F-Zero, Biohazard Rebirth, Pikmin, Driller, Viewtiful and PN03 to name a few.

Its a toughie to name the best of the lot, but Monkey Ball would definetly be up there with a strong chance of winning my fav GC game.

I'll never forget the GC Japanese launch; that knock at the door from the UPS bloke, the delivery, the opening, the tiny discs and the incredible packaging the console game in, the games themselves and the moments of zero load times and some of the most beautiful looking games in history.

Come the 19th, I'll be playing them again to remember that morning

[Max M]

I'm predictable, really.

Fave arcade machine: Marble Madness
Fave Speccy game: Spindizzy
Fave Amiga game: Spindizzy Worlds
Fave Gamecube game: SMB.

At the end of the day, its all in the control - everything works just how you'd expect it to; you build up your momentum and let the physics work for you.

Spindizzy... ft: I remember when I was about 9 or 10 I ordered that on the C64 thinking it was proper 'Dizzy' game like this one:



Boy was I disappointed! I grew to like it though.

[mid]

Conversely, I hated the Dizzy games, as they weren't like Spindizzy. There you go...