Game Cube

j a m e s e v e r e t t

Sony decided they wanted to rule your life. Soon after, Playstation 2 was released. The good people at Sony would cringe to hear their prized next-gen gaming system called a gaming system. This small black rectangle came with DVD drive, the ability to network for online gaming, and an empty expansion slot still wrapped in mystery as to what exactly it can do. This hole in the back of the machine is about the size of a Hot Pocket. Personally, I'm pushing for some weird next-gen food synthesizer / reheater (microwave), but I'm not holding my breath.

Nintendo, however, has gone the opposite direction. They want merely to increase you gaming experience until you can come with both hands on the controller and your pants buttoned. They've put their energy into making an ergonomic, small cube that pushes your gaming enjoyment to new heights by, hopefully, making you scarcely aware of the gaming system. They do this in three ways: friendly design (the thing has a handle, you can't get more friendly); almost unnoticable load times; and by creating a better controller (the goal here is to make something comfortable that the gamer can easily get used to, therefore not even thinking about pushing buttons on a controller). They seem to have succeeded, reviews have been very favorable. However, all of these systems have shared a common complaint: the games (at least the early ones) aren't as long, making the gamers's sojurn to away-from-here-ville so much shorter. For instance: Metal Gear 2 on a moderate difficulty lasted a rough twenty-plus hours. Tsk, tsk.

Next-gen game systems appeared with the rebel yell of "I want to bring the world to you!" So far, they've done a good job of removing a vast populace further away from reality (your dear reporter included).