Meet the Mob: Mike Minotti – Part 3 of the Epic Trilogy

When we last left our hero, he was preparing for the coming of a new generation, that was to be heralded by the almighty Dreamcast. You can still read Part 1 and Part 2!

I can still remember so many firsts associated with the Dreamcast. The first Dreamcast game I ever got to play was Power Stone, which was on display at my local Software Etc (now a GameStop) well before the system’s release. The graphical leap that generation presented really was staggering at the time. Everything ran so much smoother, it was hard to get adjusted to it.

Hollywood Video allowed early rentals of the whole system. This was documented in a still hilarious Penny-Arcade comic. This gave us a chance to play Sonic Adventure early. Of course, they didn’t give us a VMU with our rental system, so we had to keep the poor little box on at all times. We were worried that our house would burn down anytime we left that Dreamcast unattended, but it was worth it to play through as much of Sonic Adventure as possible.

 

It goes without saying that we bought the thing proper when it was officially released on what must be the most recognizable console release date in gaming history: 9/9/99. I loved that system. At a time when it seemed like gaming was going far too realistic and becoming predictable, the Dreamcast reminded everyone that games were supposed to be, above all else, fun.

Of course, the PS2 was already well on its way. Thinking back on its launch, I really remember the most talked about thing being the system’s ability to play DVD’s. This was, of course, at a time when that technology was still relatively new, and the idea of a gaming machine playing movies was a pretty novel idea. At least to all of us who never bought a CDi.

Just like with the original PlayStation, I was immediately resentful towards the PS2. As far as I was concerned the new generation had already started with the Dreamcast, and the PS2 was going to be a pretender to Sega’s recaptured throne.  If only I could have warned myself.

Almost immediately after the PS2’s launch, things went downhill for the Dreamcast. Despite innovations that were ahead of its time, the most notable being online gaming, it seemed that the Dreamcast couldn’t match the powerhouse that had become the PlayStation brand. It wasn’t  much longer before Sega announced that they would be abandoning the Dreamcast in favor of becoming a 3rd party developer. The Dreamcast’s star burned away as quickly as it flared up.

At this point in my life, I was still in the mindset that I needed to have a favorite system. I needed a horse in the race, and with Sega out, I needed a new stallion. The PS2 was out of the question, it being, in my eyes, the very thing that killed the Dreamcast. I looked instead to the upcoming GameCube and Xbox.

I still didn’t really know what to make of the Xbox. Before its launch, there was a lot of confusion over what exactly it was. A lot of people thought it was a console that would play PC games, seemingly unable to associate Microsoft with anything else but a computer. But what really turned me off was that, in a lot of ways, the Xbox reminded me of the PS2. It looked edgy, and spent too much time trying to convince people that it did more than play games, as if there was something wrong with a game playing machine.

The GameCube was tricky. I still harbored some ill feelings toward Nintendo from the SNES/Genesis war, and I was largely indifferent towards the Nintendo 64. But Nintendo was no longer the snooty king of gaming. They had been humbled by Sony, and now found themselves in last place. I was always a sucker for the lovable loser. Besides, the GameCube’s flamboyant, colorful look, the same thing that so many people criticized it for at the time, really appealed to me. Finally, a game system that’s not afraid to admit it is a game console.

And so this once proud Sega loyalist turned into a Nintendo fanboy overnight. I needed a new online HQ, so I turned to Planet Gamecube (now Nintendo World Report) for all of my GameCube news, and as a place to speculate the system’s future.

I had actually become so overcome with excitement that I somehow talked my dad into importing a Japanese GameCube, some months before the US release. This is probably one of the most impractical things I had ever done.  Still, it was incredibly exciting when our Japanese GameCube came in the mail, along with Luigi’s Mansion and Super Monkey Ball. Of course, I didn’t think to order a memory card, so just like with Sonic Adventure before, I had to play through Luigi’s Mansion without turning the system off.

I told myself I would be able to mod that GameCube to play US games, but I didn’t have anywhere close to the technical know-how, and having someone else do it for me was almost as expensive as just buying a US Gamecube. So I eventually bought a second GameCube. The Japanese GamCube only ever came into play again when I imported Super Mario Sunshine about a month before its US release, which almost made the whole thing worth it.

The Xbox’s launch was of course defined by Halo. It’s hard to imagine what that system’s launch would have been like without that game. I was as impressed as anyone. I never really bought into GoldenEye or Perfect Dark as great FPS experiences, especially when compared to their PC counterparts. Halo was a console FPS that really seemed to play as well as a PC one, and it was damned impressive to look at too.

The wheels were in motion, and the generation began to play itself out. I spent much of it playing games like Super Smash Bros. Melee and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on my GameCube. I never really did find very many Xbox games that appealed to me. It took some time for my hatred of the PS2 to cool. In fact, because of it, I missed out on a lot of incredible games. Looking back on it now, I can quite confidentially say that the PS2 had the best software line-up in history.

It was a fun generation, but it was also a time where the future of gaming was less clear than ever. At this point, just another graphical leap would seem underwhelming. We started to see some experiments of where we could be heading with things like the PlayStation Eye and Xbox Live.

Nintendo had a big hit with the Nintendo DS, a system that when first unveiled had everyone scratching their heads. It took myself some time to come around on the thing. It was actually Kirby Canvas Curse, a game which was controlled entirely with the stylus, that convinced me of the system’s potential.

Sony decided to enter the handheld market itself with the PSP. Unlike the DS, the PSP was a graphical powerhouse, an entertainment hub, much more expensive, and much less popular. This should have clued us all in on the Wii/PS3 dynamic that was still too come.

One of the biggest things to happen around this time was the release of World of Warcraft. While MMO’s had been around, none gained the popularity that WoW quickly garnered. I played the game extensively, probably more than I ever played any other game before, and I still was nowhere near ready to access the game’s higher level content.

Despite the staggering success of game’s like WoW and the Sims, it was clear that the PC gaming scene was losing some of the luster it once had in the late 90’s. With the advent of Halo, gamers and developers alike were now comfortable with the thought of console FPS’s, an idea that was once sacrilege. Maintaining a top-of-line PC was becoming more and more expensive, and so more and more people were deciding to end their graphics card buying cycles in favor of playing games like WoW, which could be played on less powerful PC’s. If not that, then they were abandoning PC gaming in general in favor of consoles.

Still, despite everyone calling for it, the death of PC gaming never did come, and doesn’t look like it will any time soon. I give a lot of the credit to online distribution systems like Steam, which also happened to launch with what is in my opinion the greatest FPS ever made, Half-Life 2.

Everything  was still heavily dictated by the five year console cycle at this point, and sure enough, rumblings of what was coming next were starting. It was clear that this time Microsoft was going to strike first, while Sony seemed intent on having the most powerful console of the next generation.  Nintendo, meanwhile,  was unusually cryptic about their next system. After the third place run of the GameCube, some even thought that, like Sega before them, they may be thinking of opting out of console development.

At this point, I didn’t really know what to expect. I’m sure if I were to have guessed, I would have said that Sony was going to stay on top, Nintendo was going to fade into obscurity, and Microsoft was going to stay firmly in second place. Two out of three ain’t bad.

To be continued… in Part 4 of the Epic Trilogy!

– Mike Minotti (still jobless, but look how far I’ve come)

See this post and more on my site: Give Mike Minotti A Gaming Journalism Job.