10 Great GameCube Games That Are Fun from the Start

I received a Nintendo GameCube for some unspecified special occasion right around when the console launched in 2001. I was about eight years old at the time, and as you’d probably expect from an eight-year-old, my attention span was basically nonexistent. I was still coming to understand how games were supposed to work, so if they weren’t immediately fun, I’d quickly lose interest. Luckily, Nintendo understood its audience’s needs pretty well, including both eight-year-olds and older, and offered a healthy variety of quick-to-start games.

While the GameCube wasn’t the winner of its console generation in terms of game scope or complexity, it was quite good when it came to offering games that you could get right into with minimal tutorializing, plot-dumping, and menu finagling. I think that’s what really helped instill a love for video games in my young heart; that this cubical console knew how to provide me the instant gratification I sought, which gradually warmed me up to more complicated titles later down the line.

10 Cel Damage

Prime Time Wastes No Time

For a school-aged child, there are few simpler pleasures in this world than grabbing two of your favorite plastic toy cars, and repeatedly smashing them against each other as hard as you can. Toys weren’t nearly as complicated as they are today, so no one minded. It’s that kind of gleeful barbarism that makes Cel Damage such a good time.

Cel Damage is a destruction derby driving game, in which up to four players control various cartoony whackos and spend a few minutes utterly destroying each other in the silliest ways possible. Tommy guns, pirate cannons, shredders, portable holes; nothing was off the table, and it made for some truly gleeful chaos. Even if you didn’t win the actual contest, just getting to wreak so much mayhem was reward enough.

Cel Damage doesn’t have any more advanced controls than “hold R to drive, press A to use stuff,” so it’s a very accessible party game. It also revels in the classic logic of “cartoons can’t be killed,” so there are no concerns about blood or gore or anything like that for younger players.

9 Crazy Taxi

Two Minutes or Your Ride is Free

The sixth console generation would see Sega’s departure from the console market and refocusing on software. Sad for the old guard of Sega faithful, but arguably a net positive for the industry, as it meant many of Sega’s formerly-exclusive games would find new homes on one or more consoles. I was certainly thankful to be able to play games like Crazy Taxi on the GameCube.

Originally released for arcades in 1999, Crazy Taxi takes the simple concept of taxi transport and boils it down to its most irresponsible form: pick up a passenger and get them to their destination as quickly as possible, disregarding both traffic laws and the laws of physics in the process. Since it’s an arcade game, it’s designed to be played in short bursts with minimal instruction, which made it a nice addition to the GameCube’s early days.

Crazy Taxi did technically have some advanced tech you could learn via the Crazy Box minigames, which would help improve your times in the main game, though I never really bothered to learn any of it. I guess that explains why my sister’s runs were usually better than mine, actually…

8 Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee

You Smash Stuff, You Shoot Lasers, Just Roll with It

Compared to the other consoles of the sixth generation, the GameCube didn’t really dabble much in the realm of traditional 2D fighting games. That was more the PS2’s scene. What it lacked in traditional fighters, though, the GameCube made up for with a surprising array of simpler, party-centric fighting games, including Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee.

Destroy All Monsters Melee is a fairly straightforward 3D fighting game in which up to four players beat the absolute snot out of each other as Godzilla or one of his many kaiju contemporaries. The game doesn’t really do things like combos or tech; you got punches and kicks, you can pick up and throw stuff, and best of all, every monster has its own signature beam attack.

There’s an arcade mode with a token story if you want to play solo, but there are also basic multiplayer battle modes, including one where you’re encouraged to wreck as much of the city map as possible. It’s good ol’ fashioned chaotic fun that anyone can appreciate.

7 Super Monkey Ball

Tilt the Monkey, Win a Prize

Did you ever have one of those little marble puzzle board games like Screwball Scramble (or “Snafu,” as it was also known)? It’s a simple, clever application of physics, using various gadgets and surfaces to guide a marble to its goal. I loved that game as a kid, so I guess it wasn’t particularly surprising that I also liked Super Monkey Ball, since it’s basically the same thing.

Super Monkey Ball is a physics puzzle game in which you tilt a stage to roll the titular monkey-filled capsule around, guiding it past hazards and toward the goal post. As long as you understand the concept of “tilt make thing move,” you can play this game as well as anyone. Of course, subsequent levels do ramp up the difficulty, adding more complex physics gadgets into the mix to keep you on your toes.

In addition to its base game, Super Monkey Ball also includes a small array of multiplayer minigames, including races, battles, and everyone’s favorite oversized game of darts, Monkey Target. Seriously, Sega. Give me standalone Monkey Target. I will pay money for it.

6 Mario Power Tennis

It’s Tennis, It’s Not That Complicated

There were actually a lot of sports games on the GameCube, which I guess helped to broaden its overall industry appeal. Even if you didn’t find regular sports stuff interesting, there were also plenty of weirder, wackier sports games you could sink your teeth into, such as Mario Power Tennis.

A sequel to the original Mario Tennis on the N64, which also came courtesy of Camelot Software, Mario Power Tennis is the same basic concept as that game, i.e. tennis. You can play solo, against a friend, or with friends in doubles; if you can hit the ball, you can play tennis. You could learn the more advanced techniques like drop shots, but that could come after you already had a few matches under your belt.

The big differentiating factor between the first Mario Tennis and Mario Power Tennis is the addition of offensive and defensive special moves, which allow you to put wacky effects on the ball and return a shot from anywhere on the court, respectively. It’s a fun way to make rallies longer and more interesting, and lessens that aforementioned need for traditional tennis tech.

5 Mario Kart: Double Dash!

If You’re Dragging Your Feet, You’re Doing it Wrong

It wouldn’t be a Nintendo console without a Mario Kart game, and the GameCube’s patron title is one of the most distinct in the series: Mario Kart: Double Dash. Even with two characters in the driver’s seat, though, Double Dash maintains the series’ signature simple mechanics and fun gameplay, which means it’s immediately enjoyable.

The obvious difference between Double Dash and the rest of the series is that you control two characters per kart, one behind the wheel and one on the little rear platform thing. The characters you pick, along with the kart you select in a departure from Mario Kart 64, affect how you handle on the road, as well as which special items you can get from boxes.

Compared to subsequent generations, Double Dash has some mildly obtuse mechanics like driver switching and running starts, but nothing that would prevent an overall positive experience. It’s a game that will immediately have you saying, “yep, I’m glad I bought this.”

4 Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Put Those Bongos to Work

The Donkey Kong Bongos peripheral for the GameCube was originally created as an exclusive companion for the Donkey Konga rhythm game. Of course, those bongos weren’t cheap, so only getting to use them for a single rhythm game wouldn’t have been a great idea. Thankfully, alongside Donkey Konga, there was also Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a unique platformer that used the bongos in a novel way.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is controlled by slapping on the bongos, either individually or simultaneously, as well as clapping your hands to activate the sound sensor. It plays on the natural inclination most folk have when presented with a set of bongos to mindlessly slap on them; you slap the right bongo to run right, clap your hands wildly to activate environmental effects, and pound both of them rapidly for the game’s slugfest boss fights.

The extra oomph that goes into controlling this game is what really helps to get you engaged with it. That’s the power of a good peripheral, the ability to turn what would probably be a pretty average platformer into a far more distinctive experience.

3 Super Smash Bros. Melee

“Fast” is This Game’s Bread and Butter

If you’re a relative newcomer to the world of Super Smash Bros., you might wonder why so many people are still head over heels for the series’ second entry, Super Smash Bros. Melee. I think I can sum it up in one word: “speed.” Super Smash Bros. Melee is, without question, the fastest game in the series, which is part of what made it such an excellent GameCube launch title.

Just like its N64 predecessor, Melee is a platforming party fighting game. Up to four players spawn into a stage and try to knock each other out of bounds, either shaving off lives or scoring points in a time limit. Compared to the first game, there are not only far more playable characters and stages, but there’s a lot more content immediately available. From the Adventure mode to the many Event matches, there are any number of game modes to throw yourself into.

Melee preserves the original game’s relatively simple, accessible formula that anyone can understand, especially compared to traditional fighting games. However, what keeps it in the public consciousness is its ridiculous skill ceiling, to the point that high-level play feels less like gaming and more like some kind of terrible Eldritch ritual. It’s fun!

2 Resident Evil 4

These Villagers have a Hair Trigger

The original version of Resident Evil 4 came out in 2005, when I was 13 years old and technically a teenager. I probably shouldn’t have been playing M-rated games, but as with any eager young lad, that didn’t stop me, and thank goodness it didn’t. If it had, I wouldn’t have gotten to experience one of the greatest action-horror games of all time.

Compared to its more puzzle-y predecessors, Resident Evil 4’s pace is positively breakneck. After just a couple of minutes of cutscenes, you meet and subsequently kill your first Ganado, and just a couple more minutes after that, you experience one of the game’s most legendary setpieces, the village attack. As the first mainline game to ditch the fixed cameras and most of the tank controls, Resident Evil 4 felt smooth as silk, which played much better with the faster pace of action.

I still go back and play the 2005 original every now and then, even with the remake out and about. The original’s slightly cheesier presentation gives it more of a popcorn action movie vibe, and sometimes, you just want to get right into the bullets and roundhouse kicking instead of hearing Leon monologue about his horrible life.

1 Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

We’ve Got a City that Needs Escaping From

Sonic Adventure 2 was originally released for the Sega Dreamcast, but when Sega decided to start going multiplatform with its titles, it received an updated version for the GameCube. Remarkably, this version, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, would go on to become one of the most beloved games on the console, not to mention a benchmark for Sonic games as a whole.

Assuming you pick the Hero story before the Dark story, Sonic Adventure 2 starts off extremely strong with its first Sonic level, City Escape, which is a perfect encapsulation of everything people like about this game: it’s fast-paced, it has lots of cool jumps and grinds, it has an absolute banger of a soundtrack, and it knows how to really hit you with an unexpected end-of-level setpiece in the form of the giant truck chase.

Immediately following Sonic’s first level, you also get the game’s first boss, your first Tails level, and your first Knuckles level, so you pick up everything the game is putting down in short order. You’ll know very quickly whether this is a game you’ll like, and at least by my recollection, everyone liked it.