In 2001, Parents Of Gamers Faced A Tough Choice At Christmas

Maybe it’s because I’m old and jaded, but it doesn’t seem like Christmas is a very fun time to be a gamer right now. In our mostly digital future, actually getting to hold a physical game in your hands is a rarity these days. Assuming Santa does bring you one, and assuming he also checks that your console even uses discs, you’re still in for a long wait as the game downloads, then installs numerous patches, before you can sit down to play. No sitting in your jimmy jams on Christmas morning beating the first level before you have to go to see the cousins for you.

I’m sure kids these days with their skibidis and their rapidly declining attention spans are still happy, but it doesn’t seem like a card with a string of numbers that unlocks V-Bucks holds the same mystique as actually getting a new video game. Most games that kids are into now are actually free, yet cost a fortune to keep up with. It’s a far cry from the days of getting a complete and affordable experience that your parents (sorry, Santa) could have gotten preowned for half the price and you’d be none the wiser.

But things weren’t always this way. Let me take you back to the dawn of the new Millennium. The year is 2001. The Simpsons is the greatest TV show ever made (some things never change). Franchises dominate the box office (some things never change). A blonde pop star who slowly ditched her country bumpkin accent to become the most famous woman in the world dominates the charts (you see where I’m going with this, right?). And most importantly, you’re about to have the greatest Christmas of your life.

GameCube

After Santa brought you what turned out to be a pretty useless Dreamcast two Christmases ago, you heard Santa shouting at your mom that this whole Xbox thing is just another expensive fad, and you’d be much better off with a Nintendo just like he had when he was a kid. Weird that Santa both had a Nintendo Entertainment System and sounds a lot like your dad, right?

In any case, while your friends all got the cutting edge console that would transform the future of gaming for a decade before PlayStation finally decided enough was enough, you got a purple box with these weird small discs. But can your friends play Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door? Pfft, probably not for like… 23 years, I bet.

Crazy Taxi 2

Look kid, you asked for that Dreamcast. I don’t care if your friends all have a PS2, your friends probably go to their guitar lessons instead of letting their second hand Stratocaster gather dust in the back of the closet because ‘the strings hurt their fingers’. The guy in the store told Santa it was either this or Culdcept Second for the Dreamcast and the other one looked too complicated for you.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Sure, your PlayStation and friends got GTA 3, Final Fantasy 10, Devil May Cry, and Jak and Daxter, but those are all solo games. Gaming always has been and always will be about a few friends gathering in the same room around a small TV. What’s that? Ricky just called on your extremely futuristic cordless landline to ask if you want to play Halo on his new Xbox? Like anyone’s gonna care when they could punch Pikachu in the face. Now that’s the bomb dot com.

Cranium, The Board Game

Here’s a fun fact – in 2001 The Toy Association had an award for Game of the Year. It featured no video games, but did feature three consoles in the Game Boy Advance, Ricky’s Xbox, and your shiny new GameCube. You know what won? Cranium. Can you imagine how annoyed you’d be if you’d asked for an Xbox and got Cranium instead? At least with all the great grades you’d get, you’d have saved up enough money to buy an Xbox One with a funky new Kinect in a little over a decade’s time. Then you’d be annoyed all over again.

Bionicle & Beyblade

Not video games, but still extremely cool. The amount of people who got these for presents and knew how either of them were actually supposed to work was extremely small, but one way or another they both encouraged you to break things. Better yet, Beyblade encouraged you to break other peoples’ things. Let’s smash Ricky’s stuff!

A GameCube RF Modulator

Santa could have brought you a better TV for your bedroom, but that was too big to fit down the chimney. Wait, you don’t have a chimney… and yet Santa can just walk into the house. And he sees you while you’re sleeping? Maybe someone should run a background check on this guy. In any case, this ugly and fairly easy to lose piece of plastic is the only way to play the GameCube on your TV. Told you things were better before the digital age.

A Sign For Your Bedroom That Says ‘Girl-Free Zone’

Some things never change, gamer.