GRcade Retro Club Weekender 2.0 - Every Friday to Monday!

The chainsaw controller was definitely in "so bad it's good" territory, which is a happy place for all things Resident Evil really!

So I teased you all with the backside so now it's time for some full frontal action

Nintendo GameCube Box - Front!

Yeah, it's not in great condition! I just worked out that this thing has gone through 11 house moves in its lifetime so I'm not surprised it has taken a bit of a battering in that time!

I remember picking the black version of the machine because even though I liked the default purple there was just something sleek about the black variety and I also wanted it to match with my PS2 and N64 which were both black units as well. I find the "IBM microprocessor technology" label interesting, this era was definitely where it seemed that the inner workings of the machines became more of a visible factor that was actually discussed amongst gamers in a way that it hadn't really been before - or at least not in the same way. I recall the Dreamcast having a logo about running on "Windows CE" as well which was another interesting thing you wouldn't have seen in earlier generations.

Overall I really liked the Gamecube, it was such a nice piece of kit to use and looked great on the shelf. The form factor was perfect when you compare it to the odd shape of the PS2 and the absolute beast that was the original Xbox. That said for whatever reason it is possibly the machine which I owned the fewest games for. Outside of some of the "big" titles like Sunshine, Wind Waker and Metroid Prime I didn't really explore much of what it had to offer. This was mainly down to me being at uni for most of the life of the machine and so not really having much cash to throw at it. I do have incredibly fond memories of late night drunken sessions of Super Monkey Ball with uni friends though, probably the best times of my GameCube experience!

And to complete the experience, here's a peek at the side of the box. Exciting!

Nintendo GameCube Box - Side!

Phwoar, get a load of those exciting accessories!

I do find the mention of the RGB cable being required for 60Hz output interesting as I don't remember that actually being the case?

Jenuall wrote:So I teased you all with the backside so now it's time for some full frontal action ...

Jen, you sure know how to give us exactly what we want .

Jenuall wrote:Yeah, it's not in great condition! I just worked out that this thing has gone through 11 house moves in its lifetime so I'm not surprised it has taken a bit of a battering in that time! ...

Eleven house moves in under twenty years... blimey, you must love having a change of scenery, man!

Jenuall wrote:...Overall I really liked the Gamecube... This was mainly down to me being at uni for most of the life of the machine... I do have incredibly fond memories of late night drunken sessions of Super Monkey Ball with uni friends though, probably the best times of my GameCube experience!...

It's always great when you can associate a console with an enjoyable period in your life; good times .

Jenuall wrote:...I do find the mention of the RGB cable being required for 60Hz output interesting as I don't remember that actually being the case?

IIRC the official RGB scart cable now sells for crazy money; I think relatively few were made available.

Always give the people what they want jawa, that's my motto!

Yeah the house moves were mainly because I got the Cube just before starting uni so there was a lot of moving going on in that period - I did 6 years across undergrad and PhD and was in at least one different property for each of those years - in my last year I went through 3 different places in about 6 months!

My uni years were great times for gaming and I have really strong associations with a few multiplayer games from around that time - the aforementioned Monkey Ball being one standout. We used to stay up for hours playing Monkey Golf and Monkey Target. Great times!

jawaX wrote:

Jenuall wrote:So I teased you all with the backside so now it's time for some full frontal action ...

Jen, you sure know how to give us exactly what we want .

Jenuall wrote:Yeah, it's not in great condition! I just worked out that this thing has gone through 11 house moves in its lifetime so I'm not surprised it has taken a bit of a battering in that time! ...

Eleven house moves in under twenty years... blimey, you must love having a change of scenery, man!

Jenuall wrote:...Overall I really liked the Gamecube... This was mainly down to me being at uni for most of the life of the machine... I do have incredibly fond memories of late night drunken sessions of Super Monkey Ball with uni friends though, probably the best times of my GameCube experience!...

It's always great when you can associate a console with an enjoyable period in your life; good times .

Jenuall wrote:...I do find the mention of the RGB cable being required for 60Hz output interesting as I don't remember that actually being the case?

IIRC the official RGB scart cable now sells for crazy money; I think relatively few were made available.

Is this not a fairly normal amount for being in one's twenties and thirties? A quick count gives me 8 house moves between the ages of 19 and 30.

My trusty N64 has been through eleven house moves as well, since 1997. Still works like a charm, too.

I "lost" my N64 in one of the moves during uni. I say lost, I'm 99% certain that one of my former house mates stole it along with all my games as well.

I'm still cheesed off about it 15 years later. I had a bloody expansion pack in there as well!

Jenuall wrote:...My uni years were great times for gaming and I have really strong associations with a few multiplayer games from around that time - the aforementioned Monkey Ball being one standout. We used to stay up for hours playing Monkey Golf and Monkey Target. Great times!

Super Monkey Ball has such a good rep and looks to be a lot of fun but I've never played it. I know it released on the OG Xbox so maybe I'll try it one day.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

jawaX wrote:...Eleven house moves in under twenty years... blimey, you must love having a change of scenery, man!...

Is this not a fairly normal amount for being in one's twenties and thirties? A quick count gives me 8 house moves between the ages of 19 and 30. ...

Fair play, Cora. I've only ever had two home moves!

Corazon de Leon wrote:...My trusty N64... Still works like a charm, too.

It'd be really neat to see a few titles from your N64 collection in future Weekenders, dude!

Jenuall wrote:I "lost" my N64 in one of the moves during uni. I say lost, I'm 99% certain that one of my former house mates stole it along with all my games as well.

I'm still cheesed off about it 15 years later. I had a bloody expansion pack in there as well!

Yeah, it's such a bad break to lose a console and/or games. N64 expansion packs are now quite sought-after, I believe.

Not massively sought after, they tend to go for about £30 unboxed on eBay. Boxed ones go for a bit more, but they're not uncommon so it's a bit like the Conker's BFD scenario - there're loads of the buggers but the price has managed to artificially rise somehow.

jawaX wrote:

Jenuall wrote:...My uni years were great times for gaming and I have really strong associations with a few multiplayer games from around that time - the aforementioned Monkey Ball being one standout. We used to stay up for hours playing Monkey Golf and Monkey Target. Great times!

Super Monkey Ball has such a good rep and looks to be a lot of fun but I've never played it. I know it released on the OG Xbox so maybe I'll try it one day.

Get the Switch remaster

Corazon de Leon wrote:Not massively sought after, they tend to go for about £30 unboxed on eBay. Boxed ones go for a bit more, but they're not uncommon so it's a bit like the Conker's BFD scenario - there're loads of the buggers but the price has managed to artificially rise somehow.

Yeah, looking at prices (sold; UK) on eBay the cheapest official expansion was £33 with most going for £40 to £50; a few boxed ones went for circa £50 to £60. You're spot on about demand rather than rarity; as collectors get a few N64 consoles they often want an expansion for each of 'em.

Drumstick wrote:

jawaX wrote:Super Monkey Ball has such a good rep and looks to be a lot of fun but I've never played it. I know it released on the OG Xbox so maybe I'll try it one day.

Get the Switch remaster

Thanks, Drum, I was considering that - although I think the Switch version got a pretty mediocre reception? Will go check!

jawaX wrote:

Drumstick wrote:

jawaX wrote:Super Monkey Ball has such a good rep and looks to be a lot of fun but I've never played it. I know it released on the OG Xbox so maybe I'll try it one day.

Get the Switch remaster

Thanks, Drum, I was considering that - although I think the Switch version got a pretty mediocre reception? Will go check!

Banana Mania is not out until October

It's been so poorly received that it has messed with the space time continuum!

OK, so no idea if this is the kind of thing you're looking for. I've got a retro club update that'll challenge you a little bit, but that is also quite a personal journey through almost fifteen years of gaming history. It's a bit weird because a lot of the screenshots are from a six-year-old game, so maybe you'll question how retro we're really going here. Loads of posts are coming from the GameCube era or before, but I'm going to go one generation ahead of that to start us off.

With that in mind, let's go back to the heady days of the XBox 360. I was a fresh-faced 18 year old, yet to face the great embaldening and completely unable to grow a beard. Rhythm action was still all the rage after three wildly successful Guitar Hero games and Harmonix/EA released a literal game-changing title - the first Rock Band game. It kickstarted a series that is still just about on life support to this very day, and instilled a lifelong appreciation of music in me at the very least. Here's a selection of the disc-based X360 games:



Not pictured - The Beatles: Rock Band, or Rock Band: Green Day, for reasons which will become apparent as we go through the rest of this weird-as-fuck journey. Also not pictured is Rock Band: Blitz as I unfortunately wasn't able to get the 360 out of storage this weekend. The original RB is not my original disc version, but that's a story for another time!

Now, Rock Band is a series that uniquely lends itself to the idea of downloadable content, and has constantly updated its music library for almost a decade and a half - the main library is approaching 3,000 available songs and will hit that milestone sometime next year. As a game with a very simple, difficult-to-change hook, the core gameplay of the series has not changed throughout it's run and allowed for the ability to transfer most of the content from previous games across to new titles, including downloadable content! The upshot of this is that I can show you the vast majority of the series' gameplay and music just by booting up the latest game, Rock Band 4/The Rivals. So here we go:



Content is locked to whichever console you bought the game on, and the ability to transfer songs from Rock Band 1, 2 and 3, as well as LEGO: Rock Band and Rock Band: Green Day is now no longer available for anyone who is new to the series. I was burned quite badly by this, initially missing out on the LEGO: Rock Band DLC. But thanks to the kindness of a top forumite, the content is now available again for us to have a wee look at! So here we go, briefly seeing how each game in the series is represented by RB4:



These represent a small selection of all of the main series games available within Rock Band 4 - almost complete versions of the first three games, LEGO: Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band.* Funnily enough, Green Day is the one regular series game I do not own on disc - all of the songs were released separately as downloadable content over the years and I have been able to pick them up over time!

The last thing we need to point out, I think, is an excellent wee feature that was introduced by Rock Band 3 in 2010 - the Rock Band Network. The RBN gave bands, low-level record labels and others the opportunity to develop and release their own music via the DLC service, and over 1000 songs were released in around four years between 2010 and 2014. Some big-name acts participated in the service, including Evanescence, A Day to Remember, err, Creed and Eiffel 65.

Along with a lot of RB3's innovations(a keyboard peripheral! Actual guitar lessons!), the RBN was discontinued and lost to the sands of time for the release of Rock Band 4, but Harmonix have resurrected some of the most popular songs and re-released them for a new audience. I've picked up almost fifty of the songs, and there are quite a few more available now. Still a drop in the ocean compared to the original Network, but it's still nice to see some of the biggest songs make a comeback!



So, I'm gonna show you now a couple of cool things I found while I was going through the library earlier today. I have almost 1700 songs, bought throughout the console's lifetime. One of the songs that will always be special to me is this one:



This is ...And Justice For All by Metallica. It came out as DLC on the day Rock Band 1 came out in the EU(it had already been out for a few months in the US, I believe). I lugged home the massive band in a box and immediately downloaded the Metallica track pack, featuring this song, Blackened and Ride the Lightning for £4.39.

Metallica are notoriously difficult when it comes to song rights, and ultimately chose to release their own game via Activision's Guitar Hero series, so these songs were pulled from sale at the earliest opportunity. The fact that it's remained with me through three console generations and fourteen years, multiple house moves, broken plastic instruments and all manner of other bizarre events is, I think, pretty cool.

Next up is the first song I ever managed a "full combo" on.



Little Sister by Queens of the Stone Age! I had no confidence in myself playing the game, and after getting 100% on medium mode singing this song decided to ramp the difficulty up to expert for a laugh...and managed 100% again. Never looked back, and earlier today was able to manage this, a top-of-the-leaderboard score!



Here's the latest addition to the collection, bought yesterday!



A Soundgarden pack, originally released to celebrate the band going on tour ten years ago today, in fact! 19 July 2011. I think that says a lot about the longevity of the series - keeping hold of licensing rights to music is very difficult, so it never ceases to amaze me that DLC released over a decade ago is still available. Harmonix made the effort to keep as much DLC available as they possibly can, and it is very much appreciated from the core of loyal fans.

Last but not least, something I found recently that is really cool! At the risk of slightly doxxing myself, a band named after the town I grew up in are now featured in the Rock Band soundtrack!



So this is a retro story, as told through an XBox Series X. I'd argue that the series has had a genuine influence on my life like nothing else I've ever played, from doing something as simple as introducing me to a few bands it has led to an academic project that I recently handed in that I'd never have had the knowledge or ability to write if it weren't for Rock Band. I've made friends with similar tastes that I'd never have developed if it weren't for the series.

A game I bought on a whim as a first-year uni student, and continue to play almost every day even as I get close to my 32nd birthday. A series I've sunk about £100 into every year, and have no intention of slowing down. The last true holdover of the guitar-game craze of the early 2000s, and a bridge from then to now. Basically, it's strawberry floating retro to me alright?

*Only Enter Sandman - Metallica, Paranoid - Black Sabbath from RB1 and Any Way You Want It - Journey, Battery - Metallica from Rock Band 2 are completely unavailable in any form on Rock Band 4.

Great to hear this Rock Band reminiscing. I loved that game so much, and actually bought a PS3 just to play the first one (i imported all the kit from the US and the PS3 was reigon free whilst the 360 was not if i remember correctly? There was some reason i did not buy it for the 360 i already owned and loved. I also remember having to set up an entropay account so i could download tracks from the US store without a US credit card. Good times.

So yeah, great to see all this love for a fantastic co op game.

Corazon de Leon wrote:OK, so no idea if this is the kind of thing you're looking for. I've got a retro club update that'll challenge you a little bit, but that is also quite a personal journey through almost fifteen years of gaming history...

It's all cool, Cora - the Weekender is all about gaming stuff and telling stories; and your post is a cracker!

Corazon de Leon wrote:...Last but not least, something I found recently that is really cool! At the risk of slightly doxxing myself, a band named after the town I grew up in are now featured in the Rock Band soundtrack!...

You grew up in Hollywood?!? .

Corazon de Leon wrote:So this is a retro story, as told through an XBox Series X. I'd argue that the series has had a genuine influence on my life like nothing else I've ever played, from doing something as simple as introducing me to a few bands it has led to an academic project that I recently handed in that I'd never have had the knowledge or ability to write if it weren't for Rock Band. I've made friends with similar tastes that I'd never have developed if it weren't for the series.

A game I bought on a whim as a first-year uni student, and continue to play almost every day even as I get close to my 32nd birthday. A series I've sunk about £100 into every year, and have no intention of slowing down. The last true holdover of the guitar-game craze of the early 2000s, and a bridge from then to now. Basically, it's strawberry floating retro to me alright? ...

I loved this post, dude. It's always cool to see folk sharing pics of their gaming stuff but when there is a story behind it, all the better. I knew very little about Rock Band but it still made for a great read!

That's an impressive Rock Band collection Cora!

I only ever flirted with these kinds of music games myself, I played plenty of Guitar Hero 2 at a friends and had Guitar Hero 3 myself for a while but I never stuck with it for the arrival of Rock Band. I think it came out just as I was getting married and I don't think the wife would have appreciated me dropping £150 on it or however much it costed (plus then spending all of my time playing it! )

How come you didn't/haven't got the Beatles edition of Rock Band then?

I've always had a soft spot for Harmonix, a bunch of people from the greatest dev studio ever Looking Glass Studios moved over there after they closed so I've always followed along with their fortunes out of loyalty!

In fact I'm from Black Beach

Corazon de Leon wrote:...

tl;dr

That was a really good post, and the 360 is definitely retro enough for me! The closest I've got to Guitar Hero and Rockband is Taiko no Tatsujin. I had no idea there was a lego version either!

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

jawaX wrote:

Jenuall and Corazon, thank you so much for your great contributions! What a way to round off a fantastic start to the Retro Club Weekender 2.0!

I apologise for not being more active on this thread this week, (thank you to Jawa for holding down the fort), but since also launching the Weekender on Twitter, it exploded out of nowhere! We've had so many positive reactions to it over there and was great to see others take part too!

I think myself and Jawa are on to something special here! I'm considering taking it over to TikTok too, I've loved seeing Kerrs videos and I watch them regularly, plus like Twitter, it seems that you're able to connect with people of similar interests fairly easily!

I can not wait to see what everyone has planned for the next one, see you all Friday for the start of week 2!

Jenuall wrote:That's an impressive Rock Band collection Cora!

I only ever flirted with these kinds of music games myself, I played plenty of Guitar Hero 2 at a friends and had Guitar Hero 3 myself for a while but I never stuck with it for the arrival of Rock Band. I think it came out just as I was getting married and I don't think the wife would have appreciated me dropping £150 on it or however much it costed (plus then spending all of my time playing it! )

How come you didn't/haven't got the Beatles edition of Rock Band then?

I've always had a soft spot for Harmonix, a bunch of people from the greatest dev studio ever Looking Glass Studios moved over there after they closed so I've always followed along with their fortunes out of loyalty!

Ah I forgot to say didn't I!

I actually do have the game, and simply couldn't find it when I was looking out the disc copies of my games. Part of the licensing deal meant the music was completely non-transferable, so that's why it doesn't show up in any of the RB4 screenshots. It's the only completely self-contained Rock Band!

However, one other cool thing from The Beatles: Rock Band is that the instruments are still totally compatible with the mainline games, so I still use this bad boy whenever I try and get my broken hands across the frets: