Sam's video game collection essentials

For the first two generations of Pokémon, we got the “Pokémon Stadium” titles. These cool games let us play with our monsters in full 3D, providing a bunch of challenging content, useful tools for organizing and managing our Pokémon, and even throwing in bonus multiplayer minigames. Fans like me figured they would make a game like that on the GameCube for the third generation. For better or worse, they only “sort of” did. We actually got…not one, but two 3D connect-to-Game-Boy GameCube Pokémon games for the third generation. The first one, Colosseum, came out in early 2004 in America. You would think from the name that it is a Stadium successor, but it’s apparent very quickly that this game is doing its own thing. It does allow you to connect your Game Boy Advance titles and has some tournaments to enter with your own Pokémon similar to those found in the Stadium titles. However, there’s much less of that sort of thing on offer here, and no longer any “rental” Pokémon to play with, and...