Resident Evil 4
Leon Kennedy, a rural Spanish village that wants him dead, and a camera perched over his shoulder — the 2005 GameCube masterpiece that rewired the action game. Resident Evil 4 scored a 96 on Metacritic, swept Game of the Year awards, and handed its camera angle to nearly every shooter that followed.
Resident Evil 4 had a famously tortured birth. Capcom scrapped four versions before settling on the final design — the first attempt, directed by Hideki Kamiya, drifted so far from the series that Capcom released it as a different game entirely: Devil May Cry (2001). Series creator Shinji Mikami took the director's chair himself, and the finished game arrived on GameCube on January 11, 2005, one of the "Capcom Five" titles pledged to Nintendo's console.
The premise sent U.S. agent Leon S. Kennedy to rural Spain to rescue the president's daughter, Ashley Graham, from a cult. The enemies weren't shambling zombies but Los Ganados — infected villagers who were cunning, coordinated, and horribly fast. And the camera did something games hadn't done: it sat over Leon's shoulder, letting you aim precisely, making every shot feel earned. One quirk of the design became beloved on mystery alone: a trench-coated merchant who pops up in impossible places to sell you upgrades, purring "What're ya buyin'?"
The GameCube version scored 96/100 on Metacritic and swept Game of the Year awards; a PlayStation 2 port followed on October 25, 2005, and the game went on to sell 15.2 million copies across all its platforms by 2025, with a full remake arriving in 2023. The deeper legacy is the camera: Gears of War built on it, Dead Space built on it, The Last of Us built on it. What began as a survival-horror sequel became the blueprint for the modern third-person action game — the rare game that transcended its own franchise.
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Resident Evil
The PlayStation shocker that dropped you inside a zombie-infested mansion with too few bullets and a save ribbon to ration. It didn't just scare a generation — it named the whole survival-horror genre.
Gears of War
A third-person shooter where you crouch behind waist-high walls and leapfrog between them, firing a gun with a chainsaw bayonet at an underground species called the Locust Horde. Gears of War was the killer app that proved the Xbox 360 had arrived.
Nintendo GameCube
The small cube-shaped Nintendo console with a built-in carry handle, released November 2001. Indigo or purple exterior, proprietary MINI-DVD discs, and an oversized green A button that defined its controller. Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Metroid Prime, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker were system-defining hits.
Animal Crossing
Nintendo's gentle life-simulation game that reached the US on the GameCube in 2002. You move to a village of animal neighbors, pay off a mortgage to raccoon shopkeeper Tom Nook, and fish, catch bugs, decorate your house, and run errands—all on a real-time clock synced to the console, so the game's day and night and seasons matched real life. No winning, no losing—just a cozy daily routine.