Unlocking What Was Cool

The Matrix & Movie Tie-Ins 2003-2004

To celebrate the release of Matrix Resurrections Neil & Mike are looking back at Enter the Matrix, an extremely ambitious 2003 game based on the second movie with tons of new footage that acted as a companion piece to the films. They also cover 8 other movie tie-ins from the 2003-2004 era including Terminator 3: Redemption, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma, and the greatest gangster film of all time, Shark Tale. Tune in for some memories, laughs, and even some fun facts before the year wraps up.

Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit

It's been exactly 20 years since Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of this great series hit screens and the movies still hold up so well. Of course there were also four games that came out to go along with these movies, two of them, The Two Towers and Return of the King being direct movie tie-ins. EA who owned the film video game rights also created their own LOTR RPG titled The Third Age which is a favourite of both Mike & Neil. Sierra Entertainment who had the book rights for the video games published The Hobbit, an early take on the book that definitely missed the mark but is still interesting to discuss nonetheless. Join the boys as they journey to Middle Earth to find the one game to rule them all.

Pikmin 2

Gather up your Pikmin! This week on The GameCube Was Cool Podcast, the topic is all about Pikmin 2, the fantastic sequel to the knockout GameCube launch window title Pikmin. 

It has been a long time since Mike and Neil sat down to talk about Olimar and his adventures on a planet that is definitely NOT Earth. Was the elimination of the 30 day time limit a good idea?(No). Was the introduction of the white and purple Pikmin a welcome one?(Of course it was). Was Olimar's boss violating the employee protection act of Hocotate?(Probably).  

Neil is passionate about a lot of things, his Spotify wrapped stats, Seinfeld trivia, and Godzilla Destroys All Monsters Melee, but nothing will ever get him more fired up than the hope of a Pikmin 4 release date. 

Bionicle & Lego Games on The GameCube

United in duty. Bound in destiny. This is the way of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast! In episode 75 Mike and Neil sit down and look back at a time when Lego was giving us some great sets like Star Wars, Lego Racers and even throwing out their own properties at our 8 year old brains which were ready for fighting robots we could collect, build and play with on the schoolyard, see them in movies and play the games on our consoles. The Bionicle games were not as special as the toys we had on our shelves, but they were all we had of a series that was arguably way ahead of its time. One that we would love to see come back to our modern consoles so we can join the Toa in their adventures once again. Mike and Neil also sit down and discuss Christmas trees, Knights of the Old Republic, and more in this diamond jubilee episode.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

The GameCube was blessed with not one but two groundbreaking Metroid games. Prime which took the series on its head and introduced the world to a 3D Samus, and then it's sequel Echoes, which threw away the standard formula for the Metroid series instead replacing it with a much darker, difficult game that matched the original's critical success but failed to find the same audience in terms of sales. Mike & Neil are joined by three guests today, Jason G, a huge fan of the series who dicusses his earliest memories with the world's greatest bounty hunter, Marcello of GameCube Galaxy who talks about his love for the game and the GameCube in general, and enemy of the pod Ramon who's only touchstone with the franchise was Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and he has some hot takes for everyone. No Ridley, no Metroids, but Dark Samus and the dark world make this game one of the most interesting and polarizing on the GameCube.

The GameCube Turns 20! Live on Twitch

Happy 20th birthday to everyone's favourite cubed console! Neil & Mike mark this very special anniversary with their first ever live episode. Recorded on the couch in front of the TV playing classics like 007: Nightfire, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Mario Power Tennis just like old times. This unedited episode went live on twitch.tv/bortandernie so check out the full video there!

Mario Power Tennis

Tennis games have been at the core of video games since the industry's inception. You can find them on basically any console ever created. Yet for Mike & Neil, Mario Power Tennis serves up the ultimate experience in a tennis game. The perfect balance between slight realism and wacky arcade fun. Join the boys as the bring on friends of the show Matt and Harrison to discuss this absolute gem of a sports title along with the Mario Tennis franchise as a whole. After 17 years the game still holds up incredibly well with great courts, characters and modes and will ultimately go down as one of the greatest multiplayer experiences the GameCube has to offer. Get ready to play with power and learn all about why Wiggler is the GOAT of the Mario Tennis world.

Call of Duty

COD! Those three letters have become a phenomenon in the almost two decades since the original Call of Duty was released. What started as a World War II PC only game eventually found its way to basically every console (except the Switch!) and has become the third best selling video game franchise of all time. Mike & Neil take a deep dive into the two GameCube games we got from Activision in this series: Call of Duty Finest Hour, a remade port of the original game, and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, what many people thought was an expansion pack or side entry to the wildly successful COD2 but actually was a fantastic one player experience akin to the acclaimed Medal of Honor games of the day. Friend of the show Spenny joins us to recount how his history buff father loved playing this game, sometimes even on a stationary bike. The boys also cover one more game, Dead to Rights, a neo-noir shooter than didn't see to fit anywhere else except with it's COD cousins. Keep fighting the good fight soldier.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Halloween Games

After you have played Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness and Luigis Mansion you may be thinking that there are no more spooky games on the GameCube and THAT IS NONSENSE!! Hidden in the depths of the GameCube library are gems like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hunter: The Reckoning to keep your spine chilled while you nibble on leftover pumpkin pie and stitch together your DIY Halloween costume. Friends of the show Matt & Robin join to discuss this very interesting Buffy game and tell some hilarious stories about Buffy actor cameos. The boys also touch on movie tie in games like Monster House, and Disney's the Haunted Mansion (based on the ride apparently, not the Eddie Murphy flop). And of course who could forget the halloween specific platformer, Castleween aka Spirits & Spells. It's all here in a jam packed, spooky episode of The GameCube Was Cool. Celebrate Halloween and take a haunted ride back to the early 2000s.

Resident Evil 4

WHAT ARE YA BUYING? One of the greatest games ever made and a watershed moment for the survival horror genre, RE4 boldly went where no Resident Evil game had gone before. Combining over the shoulder gameplay with tense action and amazing sound design it became the most accessible game in the series and one of the best games ever released for the GameCube. Part of the CAPCOM 5 (see last week's episode) Resident Evil 4 was exclusive for a very short period in 2005 before being ported to basically every console imaginable. Yet the GameCube version is still often cited as the proper way to play. Mike & Neil are joined by four guests of the show to discuss this masterpiece; Brian is back from the CAPCOM 5 episode to give his thoughts on the game and what he'd love to see improved in a future remake while newcomers Luke (Resident Evil Collector), Kira (Toonietwirls) and Tristan join the show to talk about some of their favourite memories of the game and why it still has such a huge audience 16 years later. The boys start the episode off by trying to think of great fourth instalments to a series (spoiler alert, there aren't many). Sit back and enjoy the ride, stranger.

Viewtiful Joe & The CAPCOM 5

A landmark in the video game industry and ultimately, a massive disappointment for Capcom and Nintendo fans alike. What started as a promise for 5 exclusive game to come to the GameCube (Dead Phoenix, Killer 7, PN03, Viewtiful Joe, and Resident Evil 4) turned into Capcom flipping these franchises to other consoles and ultimately the demise of these extremely original IPs (other than RE4 of course). In this week's episode Mike & Neil do a deep dive into this unique moment in video game history and bring on some friends of the show Ali and Brian to help them in their journey. They also cover Viewtiful Joe 2 and Red Hot Rumble, and wonder if we'll ever see a proper final entry into this trilogy.  

007: James Bond

Bond, James Bond. To celebrate the release of No Time To Die Mike & Neil look back on the 007 games that defined an era. Agent Under Fire, Everything or Nothing, Golden Eye Rogue Agent and From Russia With Love are all discussed in length on this nearly two hour spy extravaganza. The boys are joined by friends of the show Spenny G, as well as Josh from the Still Loading Podcast to discuss their memories of these games. Of course NightFire is not discussed in length here (there's a whole two hour episode dedicated to just that!) but SpyHunter and it's series is lumped in with these four games because of its historic ties to the Bond franchise and to have another excuse to talk about The Rock.

Let‘s Save the GameCube

Where we're going we dont need.. ROADS. Ever wish you could go back in time and save the GameCube from getting beat by the Playstation 2 and the Xbox? We do it everyday, and on this Side Mission of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast Mike and Neil sit down to share their ideas to go back in time to the year 2001 and make the GameCube a commercial success. The GameCube is a beloved console, but with just 22 million units sold, the console had lots of room for improvement and we are here to fix them! 

Video Game Box Art

Remember when the front of the game was all you had to go by when deciding how to use your $20 gift card and reading your video game cases as your mom drove you home from EB games only to get home and realize you bought the worst game of 2003 and now you need to wait until Christmas to play something good? Well in this Side Mission of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast, Mike and Neil sit down to talk about the best and the worst box art in the GameCube's library!   

GameCube Classic Wishlist

The 'Classic' console Nintendo hype of 2016-2018 was a good time, and left a lot of Nintendo fans dreaming of what games would be on the mini GameBoy, N64 and of course the GameCube! This week, Mike and Neil are on vacation so they decided to sit down and list 15 games each that they would like to see on a dream GameCube Classic console that will probably never see the light of day! 

Spyro The Dragon

Enter the Dragon. It's been 23 years to the day that Spyro first graced the PS1 and Mike & Neil are here dive head first into the purple dragon's history, games (the good and bad) and his future. The episode starts off with the boys welcoming friend of the show Andy to talk about the original trilogy and then transitioning to the 3 GameCube games. Friend of the show Quinn joins the pod for the first time to discuss terribly disappointing Enter the Dragonfly and the show moves along to talk about A Hero's Tail as well as the second Spyro trilogy starting with Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (featuring the voices of Elijah Wood, Gary Oldman and Mark Hamill?!?!). It's a jam-packed, nostalgia-filled trip that will hopefully leave you with some knowledge bombs and thinking just a little more highly of Spyro and the Insomniac team who gave him life. 

Jimmy Neutron

Brain Blast!!! One of the best Nickelodeon franchises of the 2000s also dipped its toe in the video game market with 3 Jimmy Neutron games on the GameCube. The movie started the series with a bang and continued with a really cool show we all loved to watch after school. The games...were OK. Jimmy and all his friends' adventures in video games were alright cartoon tie-ins that were probably only on your Christmas list if you were in-between waiting for other big Cube games. We await for the Hugh Neutron game on Switch to this day. 

F-Zero GX

You've got boost power! Welcome to fastest show on earth where the boys sit down to discuss one of their most beloved games, F-Zero GX and the series that spawned it. Mike & Neil go into the super challenging gameplay that makes this game so different from any other Nintendo property as well as why we haven't seen a new F-Zero entry since F-Zero GX hit the shelves exactly 18 years ago in 2003. With animation sequences that look stunning for the time yet are totally disjointed story wise, it has the boys craving for more "F-Universe" content than having Captain Falcon in Smash or Mute City in Mario Kart. Rev up those engines and hit speeds of over 1000km in the latest episode from The GameCube Was Cool.

Yu-Gi-Oh!, Beyblade & Other Cartoons

It's time to DUEL! On episode 63 of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast, Mike and Neil sit down to talk about Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade and a bunch of other animes/fads we loved when we were in school (and we kinda still do!). Joining us on the show is enemy of the pod Ramon to talk about how Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom isn't a card dueling game but actually an RPG/RTS that he became extremely fond of growing up.
The boys start the episode off with some talk about Arthur, back to school memories and their favourite Pokemon. 
All this and more in this episode of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast!

Rampage & King Kong

Bring the tripod and all of the film! On this episode of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast, Mike and Neil sit down to talk about King Kong and Rampage! Both giant monkey games on the cube are terrific hidden gems which have been somewhat lost to history. 
The boys start the episode off with thinking about where they would live if they could not longer live in Canada, and whether or not Neil remembers the places he has been to. All this and more in episode 62 of The GameCube Was Cool Podcast!