A significant chunk of the money I earned at my stint testing on-site down south was funnelled right back into the game industry. I think I've spent more money on games in the past month than in the entire year previous, as I mentioned before. I may as well use them to generate some content. SO ehre is the first in a series of quickie reviews of the things I've bought:

GameCube: Nintendo's next-gen console is stilla toy, not an entertainment center like their competitor's consoles. However, it is a very fun toy. I have it set up in the living room as the multi-player system, since it has 4-player capability right out of the box, and the dog won't knock the damn thing off the shelf by tripping over controller wires since I have WaveBirds connected to it. My roomie bought a DVD player, and the PS2 (which served as a (pretty crappy) DVD player) has been moved to my room for single-player gaming.

The GameCube does, of course, have first-party games for it which blow almost everything else out of the water. Shigeru Miyamoto can't seem to design a controller that doesn't end up looking like the prototype was crafted out of Play-Doh by a 6-year old, but the man can really make an excellent Mario or Zelda game. Which is why I bought a GameCube. Plus, it's sooo cuuuuute!