A while ago a friend introduced me to the Nintendo GameCube system, I used to be a Nintendo fan but I drifted away from gaming in my teens, due to the imitation 3D available of the release of the PlayStation (which my parents bought me). While playing on the system I was treated to a spell on Soul Calibur 2 - the controls were excellent and, unlike the PlayStation2 controllers, they didn’t make my arms ache.

The speed of the GameCube title and the crispness of the resolution are far superior to that seen on Sony’s PlayStation2. There’s also little to no loading times - I started wondering how much of your life (game playing time) a PlayStation 2 owner wastes sitting there waiting for the game to load, and then realised how easy it would be to escape the realms of reality whilst deciding on some ludicrously high figure… and decided against working it out…

I arrived home a couple of days later to discover my girlfriend bought me Soul Calibur 2 for the PlayStation2 (she owned). I could not believe how different the game was compared to the GameCube version. It was a lot slower, those annoying life consuming loading times stuck out a mile and the controls were sloppy and unresponsive - and this seems to be the general opinion within the industry. Many note worthy journalists have accredited higher scores to the GameCube version based purely on these facts. Although the title was a multi-format release, each system had their own version built independently by the same development team at Namco. Why was it that the developers were able to create a more solid control system for the GameCube? There are only two ideas at the front of my mind. Firstly, more effort may have been put into the GameCube version and secondly, that the little purple box of tricks is simply easier to develop for.

Although such a striking difference between the versions may not be common place with the majority of multi-format releases, with Soul Calibur 2 being such a highly acclaimed title the simple differences become very prominent. But impressive multi-formats are obviously not the be-all-and-end-all of system choice, an array of Nintendo franchises come exclusive to the system (Mario, Zelda, F-Zero and Metroid to name a few) and although the PlayStation2 does have a vast array of exclusives, the majority are of questionable quality.

The PlayStation2 is unsightly and appears to be a mismatch of multimedia components, and yet doesn’t have 5.1 surround sound hardware onboard. Unlike the attractive and stylish look of the superb GameCube, which has 5.1 surround sound as standard. Since the launch of the PlayStation2 Sony seem to have created the aspiration to utilise the PlayStation as a home entertainment system, as opposed to a games console. However gamers such as myself have found Nintendo’s GAMES ONLY approach to the GameCube more desirable. Most of the GameCube’s critics are missing out on so much, I cannot se how it is possible to criticise Nintendo within the industry they practically single-handedly made. A vast amount of the spare time within our lives has been made great by the gifted people who have worked over the years designing, producing, inventing games, game systems and a lot of modern technology.