Gamecube has already seen it's fair share of Nintendo franchies - from Mario to Zelda to F-Zero and more. But how do these incarnations compare with previous ones?

Are Nintendo's Gamecube franchise games as good as the previous installments?

Iun: Is anything as good as we remember it? Hmm...

I think yes and no. As the hardware has progressed, so in some ways has the methodology behind games development. Some of Nintendos franchise have fared better than others.

An example of a franchise that has suffered because of the advance in hardware is Mario Kart: Double Dash!! In an attempt to inject a new gameplay feature int the franchise, they tried to fix something that wasn't broken. GBA Mario Kart was fantastic because it didn't try to be flash.

However, I'm going to get myself shot to pieces and say I absolutely hated Mario 64. It just wasn't that much fun for me. Too fiddly and not enough buzz about it. Mario Sunshine was a graphical splendour but ore importantly it was a lot more fun than its predecessor.

The Wind Waker -after the quirky highs of Majoras Mask and the epitomy of gaming in Ocarina of Time, left me with a slack jawed "What the hell was that?" expression on my face. I just couldn't believe what a big waste the game was compared to the others. Still, it remains streets ahead of most games on other platforms.

However, I went back and played OoT the other day and got a nasty reminder of things that I'd forgotten. That too-long section in Jabu-Jabu, the painful progression in the Water Temple? All the faults were there exactly where I had left them.

So I think that each generation of games has its merits and they should really be judged on them at the time. Not through rose-tinted nostalgia-flavoured spectacles, because too often we confuse nostalgia with greatness and that's a bad mistake to make.

James: I also give a 'yes and no' answer to this one, because there are both plus and minus points when you compare the two.

I'd say yes because I believe that while the older games (ah, Mario Bros. 3....) are truly fantastic, the introduction of 3D platforming in 1996 (Mario 64)revolutionised the way we play videogames forever. Yes, we all love those old classics, but there's only so much you can do in 2D. 3D gaming opened up new possibilities, new ideas, and new challenges for all sorts of videogames.

As for comparing older 3D games to the newer ones, I believe the newer incarnations are many times better. Like Iun, I never particularly liked Mario 64 (which might have been to do with my age) but Sunshine was a huge improvement. SM64 wasn't broke but they fixed it anyway, adding bells and whistles, gave the graphics a huge overhaul, added new challenges, and made it, in my opinion, a much more enjoyable game.

The same goes for Zelda - most probably due to the fact I was about ten years old at the time, I never liked Ocarina of Time that much, but I think that was because I was useless at it - I much preferred Majora's Mask (and did much better at it). The Wind Waker may have been easy compared to its predeccessors (only took me one month to complete) but I thought it was a fantastic game. And after I completed the final boss battle (which admittedly was slightly disappointing, as was the final fight in SMS) I didn't get up to remove the disc. Instead, I started it up again on a new file, with the intention of unlocking every last unlockable.

I was useless at the SNES games, but I loved them all the same. And now that I'm older and able to actually complete videogames, I feel that while the 2D games were excellent in their own right, their 3D counterparts are much better.

But having said that, let's not forget - without the old 2D games, where would we be?

er-no: Considering how wrong they could have been, and how enjoyable they have turned out. I am very pleased with the results of Nintendo's transition for each of the questioned games.

Most of all from Metroid Prime, which is an epic and sublime game. I can't fault its construction nor style. Brilliantly made, and something I've come to expect from Nintendo.

Wind Waker was a really fun game. It wasn't what I wanted the GameCube Zelda to be about and wasn't all that I had hoped for, but combining the overlooked cel-shading with the flooded Hyrule was a great idea and just through playing Ocarina you'll want to complete Wind Waker for the fact you go and see Link as a statue. The black and white moment in Wind Waker will hold dear as a great gaming memory for myself. Not on the record or anything, but I think I giggled.

Well well well.. we move onto Nintendo's main man. The videogaming character of all time. Mario... how did his Gamecube experdition fair? Well... Super Mario Sunshine was a really great platformer. However the lack of Mario elements really added a sense of wanting throughout the game. I did enjoy it. I enjoyed completing it and playing it all, yet I felt I wanted to be buttbashing and losing my hat more than trying to work out a very un-typical Mario puzzle. They shoulda called it Super Sunshine, and put Baby Mario as the main character

All in all, I look forward to the next installment of each series, especially the Metroid one. This time, I want a planet with people. Samus on Earth. Yes please?

Space: Firstly let me state that I was a huge N64 fan. Some of the games really did set new levels in gaming standards. Such games were Super Mario 64, GoldenEye, Diddy Kong Racing, Mario Kart 64, F-Zero X and Ocarina of Time.

For those of us who have gone through the N64, and perhaps even the SNES years, these games are remembered with such affection. The GameCube incarnations have a lot to live up to, and in my opinion do not move the series' forward in any serious way, something which is surprising considering Nintendo's long history is innovation.

Zelda took the wrong graphical option and although features tweaked Ocarina gameplay, it has some seriously tedious elements; most obvious is the sailing. Mario Sunshine lost the atmosphere that made the N64 version a classic - no Mushroom Kingdom was a big letdown for me as it just did not seem as good. Mario Kart too felt like a simple rehash with some of the magic missing. Nintendo have just released updates to games that deserve more time and effort put into them to move them forward. WaveRace again is another such example of updated graphics whilst the core game remains unchanged.

The current crop of Nintendo made games will be fine for the younger gamers, but for those of us who have been around for a while there is little new on offer, which is a great pity. Lets hope Nintendo can turn things around.

jayseven: I think rose-tinted spectacles are certainly involved here..

If you directly compare the latest installments to the first batch you'll see a huge difference in pretty much every aspect of the game; graphics, sound, lifespan, storyline... When people say "oh this isn't as good as the old one" I feel like giving them a slap sometimes -- If the latest one had come out in place of the original game nobody would be complaining! If Super Mario Sunshine came out in place of Mario 64 we'd all be in agreement that SMS is the best platformer ever!!!1!11elevenoneone1!

I don't think it's a question of "better" or "worse" at all, it's a question of fans wanting the next step in the series to be ground-breaking and new each time, but even when nintendo try to do this the fans begin to question their game-making abilities - which has happened in each of their latest installments... Cel-shading, water-pack, first-person perspective, two-manned 'karts'... each game has been given a new twist to breathe new life into the genre, to give the player something new to contend with, and each time the gamer goes "i wish nintendo had stuck with the old formula" and never once actually thought about what would happen if the game was actually the same as last time! If mario had not water pack people would be saying it was a cheap add-on to Mario64, if wind waker was not cel-shaded people would question Nintendo's innovation ability..

I think we should be happy that Nintendo are still doing their franchise games! If we didn't have Metroid, Zelda, Mario then the Gamecube's field of games would be looking pretty bare, I think you'll agree. Nintendo's "lacklustre" franchise games are actually the highlight of teh console, beating off most multi-platform games, which is a good thing, right?

Bas: I feel that many of the Cube instalments seem to be not much more than remakes of Nintendo 64 versions. Sometimes they're a bit worse, like Wave Race and Mario Kart, and sometimes they're a bit better, like 1080, Smash Bros. and the Mario Party games. The overall quality is still good, but a lot of the GC incarnations seem to be developed because the fan base is expecting sequels, not because the makers have many fresh ideas and a clear vision of where the franchise should go.

Some may argue that above also applies to F-Zero, because it stays very close to the N64 version, but I think it's more than a remake. Though it's clearly based on F-Zero X, the Cube's power made the game much faster and intense. Though F-Zero was invented on the SNES over ten years ago, I think the GC version is the first to really do the idea justice. In my opinion, it's by far the best in the series.

Another franchise that excels on the Cube is Metroid. I'm not sure if it's better than Super Metroid, because the two titles are quite different. This makes it hard to make a comparison, but the fact that both are brilliant is enough for me.

Nintendo's flagship titles, Mario and Zelda, are both represented very well on the Cube, but also both seem to suffer from the same problem: among their predecessors are some of the finest games of all time. Mario Sunshine is a great game, but not as quite as special as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, or as revolutionary as Super Mario 64. This causes public opinion to be moderate, but judged on its own merits, Sunshine is better than many think it is.

The same goes for Zelda, really. Though The Wind Waker is more of a mixed bag, with some brilliant parts alternated with really frustrating sections, it's still one of this year's finest games. But for the same reasons as Mario Sunshine's relative unpopularity, it'll probably not be remembered as fondly as A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time.

Overall, the Cube's incarnations hold up pretty good to their predecessors. The fact that successful formulas are often repeated doesn't even bother me that much. I do worry about the introduction of new franchises, in which area the GameCube scores much lower. But that's for another roundtable...

Conor: What I really hate is when someone criticises the new Nintendo games and is immediately shouted down with accusations of being a complainer, or a whiner, or someone drunk of nostalgia. Could it perhaps be that the person has a credible argument about the flawed nature of the games? And I'm not someone who thinks less of a game because it isn't as good as previous ones, just someone who thinks it is worth comparing them.

EAD's franchise games on the Gamecube have, generally, been very lacking. From the Roundtable Special last week you'll know my dislike of Double Dash. While Mario Kart and Mario Kart Super Curcuit demanded skill and precision, DD just watered the whole formula down, resulting in a disheartingly dumbed down addition to the series. For the record I have no problem with lack of evolution in the franchise, only the lack of refinement.

As for Mario Sunshine, I actually quite like it. There is a lot of good ideas in it, like the water pack and the tight control of Mario, but there are equally as many bad ideas. That hotel level should never have made it into the final product, and the sheer amount of blue coins you had to collect was ridiculous. It was like a seesaw, which games like Super Mario 64, Bros 3 and the Worlds never were. Not that I expected Sunshine to match up to the series' previous greatness, it was just the damage done to it by circumstances was pretty surprising. Overall, it was good fun to play, but I'm not going to blast Nintendo for not making it was good as their previous masterpieces.

As for Wind Waker, I accepted that very few games will ever be as good as Coarina of Time, so I wasn't expecting it to be. Still, I was expecting something more fulfilling than what I got; a half-complete game. With Oot and MM, you had a game world which was living, breathing, stuffed with people and sub-quests and things to do. In comparison, WW felt rather...empty. Sigh. Again, I felt Wind Waker was more of a victim of circumstances than anything else, but will have to answer 'no' in relation to the question.

Metroid Prime, now there is another matter entirely. A stonking example of how to do an adventure game, it impressed in every area and is undoubtedly the king of Gamecube games. I haven't played any other Metroid game, it has to be said, besides Fusion, which I suppose doesn't really count in this Roundtable. Although I'm willing to hazard a guess that Prime is as good as previous Metroids.

Ignoring the main Nintendo franchise games for a second, I can't really comment on 1080 or Wave Race, as I haven't played them. The Gamecube Mario Party games are really taking the piss though.