GameStop has announced that it’s no longer taking in Gamecube consoles, games, or accessory trade-ins. So if you’re looking to trade-in your Gamecube for a ridiculously cheap price at GameStop, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. We all know you would be better off putting your games and console’s on eBay though.

It has been revealed by a poster over at the Assembler Games forums that the fantastic Metroid Prime for the Gamecube ran on Epic’s Unreal Engine 2. Apparently the game that was developed by Retro Studios ran on a very heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2.

Metroid Prime runs on a very heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2. You can certify this to yourself by looking at the text box next to Asset_CMDL_EditorModel. Notice the word “/cooked/” in there.

For those of you who have worked with the Unreal Engine, you’ll know what this is, else, you might wanna read. Cooking is a term for compiling all of the maps, scripts, materials, etc. you’ve made into one usable executable, or “game”. It was used primarily for consoles, although now support has come out for PC cooking, resulting in faster loading times.

They also used Unreal’s level streaming feature. This is highly detailed in Unreal Engine 3, but was also present in 2. It’s funny how Retro got a private license for this stuff yet never sought to bring it out.

I also can confirm some UnrealScript source files exist on disk, which I am attempting to extract. Will probably branch this off into a separate thread for loads of fun and wackiness.

During Nintendo World Reports Live Podcast for Child’s Play one of the participants who was privy to Nintendo’s inner workings during the Gamecube era revealed that DICE originally approached Nintendo with Battlefield and proposed it as a Nintendo exclusive. Nintendo were apparently very excited about the game but it never came into existence because of the Gamecube’s basically non-existent online infrastructure.

The latest edition of Nintendo Power has a feature celebrating that the fact that the Gamecube is ten years old. To celebrate this, Nintendo Power has revealed its top twenty games for the system. Do you agree with their choices?

1. Resident Evil 4
2. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
3. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
4. Super Smash Bros. Melee
5. Metroid Prime
6. SoulCalibur II
7. Super Mario Sunshine
8. Pikmin
9. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
10. Resident Evil
11. Viewtiful Joe
12. Beyond Good & Evil
13. Mario Kart Double Dash
14. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
15. Luigi’s Mansion
16. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
17. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
18. Skies of Arcadia Legends
19. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
20. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
21. Tales of Symphonia
22. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure
23. F-Zero GX
24. Animal Crossing
25. Ikaruga

Unseen64 has posted a Gamecube tech demo showcasing exactly how Peaches Castle from Super Mario 64 would look like running on the Nintendo Gamecube. The footage is actually playable and was provided to developers to give them a taste of what the Gamecube was actually capable of in the graphical department.

It appears as though the huge library of Gamecube titles could be coming to Wii U as downloadable titles on WiiWare according to Nintendo of America executive Amber McCollom. I’m not too sure if McCollom simply misspoke, or if she got slightly mixed up. Either way it would be fantastic if Gamecube titles did make it to WiiWare on Wii U. Hopefully Nintendo will see fit to confirm something in the not too distant future.

“GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare.”

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Tip: Yemi Keji

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An ingenious individual over at Technabob has turned Nintendo’s defunct Gamecube console into fully fledged desktop organiser for those looking to create a unique desktop environment.

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Masahiro Sakurai, the creator behind the classic Super Smash Brothers Melee has claimed that the game was “too difficult”, and that any future Smash Brothers games will not be aimed at the same hardcore crowd.

“I had created Smash Bros. to be my response to how hardcore-exclusive the fighting game genre had become over the years. But why did I target it so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then?

“That’s why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl’s play balance.”

“There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we’ll ever see one that’s as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was.

“Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult.”

“If we want new people from this generation of gamers to come in, then we need it accessible, simple, and playable by anyone. You can’t let yourself get preoccupied with nothing but gameplay and balance details.

“That’s where the core of the Smash Bros. concept lies, not on doggedly keeping the game the way it was before.”

- Masahiro Sakurai

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Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, has revealed that the Nintendo Gamecube had hidden 3D capability’s build into the hardware that were never utilized.

“To tell you the truth, GameCube is secretly designed to load graphical circuits which display graphics for right and left eyes respectively, for a future possibility of realizing 3D gaming experience. So actually we have had interest on this technology, but I have some doubt about everyone needing glasses to play.”

- Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata

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