11. Super Smash Bros. Melee – GCN

The original Super Smash Bros. (for the N64) was the game every Nintendo fan had dreamed of since they were a kid. This Gamecube follow up uped the ante with more than double the amount of characters and stages, along with a richer battle system that didn’t betray the original aims or feel of the series. For those of us who picked up a Gamecube at its 2001 launch, few games other than Super Smash Bros. Melee ever made it into our systems for the next year or so. For some, not many other games ever made it into their systems.

Smash is one of the great equalizers in video games. You can take it to the hardest of cores, learning the nuances in each of the 25 characters, perfecting combos, learning to maximize the resources of every stage and every item. Or you can button mash the night away with your friends, delighting in seeing Pikachu get the best of Donkey Kong and Bowser. The brilliance of the concept is that it taps into something appealing to anyone who has ever played a video game. The game is extremely fast and action-packed, it’s funny, has a wonderful art design to it, and really works hard in look and sound to pay homage to the history of video games (as told by Nintendo, of course).

This game remained on the Gamecube best-seller list during the entire life of the console, and that reason alone would have made it worth consideration for this list. More than that though, is the sense of community this game brought. Just about anybody with interest in video games played and loved this game. It would be impossible to count the number of evenings spent between a group of friends, a stack of pizzas, and this game.

Extremely well made, as accessible as it is deep, and simply one of the best multiplayer experiences of all time, Super Smash Bros. Melee belongs in every Gamecube owner’s collection. Though to be honest, it probably already is.