12 Best GameCube Open World Games

Bush Rescue is the sequel to Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, and this time the game progresses by completing missions, which range from helping town citizens to delivering items from one point to another. After a handful of normal jobs you get a story mission, and that one unlocks new areas upon completion. So the map keeps opening up as you go, a little like a mascot platformer that read a Grand Theft Auto manual.

It is the least recommended game on this list, but it refused to stay forgotten. Krome Studios started a Kickstarter to fund remastered versions, reached its target goal in less than 24 hours, and the game came out on the Nintendo Switch on March 30, 2021.

Cars is based on the Pixar film and set shortly after it. You drive Lightning McQueen around, and you compete in 19 road races, eight mini-games and five Piston Cup races on the way to his first Piston Cup. The story moves forward through big events, but due to the open-world nature players can complete minor events in any order. Between races there is tractor tipping with Mater, which is exactly what it sounds like.

All versions of Cars received mixed reviews, and nobody is pretending it is a masterpiece. Players who grew up with the film still bring it up, though, and they mean it fondly. For a lot of kids it was the first open world they ever drove around in.

Ultimate Destruction showcases an open world with destructible environments, and that is the whole pitch. Radical Entertainment built it from the reactions to its earlier Hulk game, which resulted in free-roaming gameplay that emphasized environmental destruction while omitting stealth elements. Good call. Fill the bar by fighting and the Hulk enters a "critical mass" state, where his strongest moves come out until the bar runs dry.

Reviewers loved wielding the Hulk's powers in an open and destructible environment, while the missions and story received mixed responses. Players who still recommend it say much the same thing: the fun is in ignoring the missions and wrecking the city. It has been ranked among the best Marvel-based video games, and it served as an influence on the Hulk game that came out in 2008.

Streets of LA tells the story of Nicholas Kang, an uncompromising LAPD detective sent to investigate a series of bombings in Chinatown. The developers promised to recreate 400 square miles of Los Angeles, and they used commercial satellite imaging to build it. It was one of the first open world action-adventure games released after Grand Theft Auto III that was not Grand Theft Auto. It was first announced as an action racing game inspired by Hong Kong action films, and you can tell.

It received generally positive reviews and sold over 3,000,000 units worldwide across all platforms. For GameCube owners it mattered more than that. Players still name it when someone new to the console asks what to play, and it was the closest thing to a Los Angeles crime sandbox you could put in a GameCube.

Gun is a Western, and many of its characters have names taken from real American frontier figures. The story sends you after Quivira, the mythical city of gold. Killing enemies fills a Quickdraw gauge that slows down time like bullet time, switches to a first-person view and gives you unlimited ammunition for a short while. It is the closest thing the GameCube got to a cowboy Grand Theft Auto.

It sold over 1.4 million units in the United States as of October 2008, which is a lot for a game few people talk about now. Players keep naming it, and when they explain the pick it is usually with a note that it is better than people expect.

Warzones is the GameCube version of Smuggler's Run 2, and the job is in the name: you deliver illegal cargo across three large maps, against the clock, in several different types of vehicles. The game was originally supposed to take place in Afghanistan, but after the attacks on the World Trade Center the developers changed the setting to the desert regions of the Caucasus. The police can drive the same cars as you, only with much greater max speeds.

The inflexible time limits often leave no room for mistakes, so expect to restart a few deliveries. That is part of the charm, if you squint. As one player put it, "Smuggler's Run on Gamecube is fun as heck!"

Ultimate Spider-Man was developed by Treyarch, the studio behind Spider-Man 2, and it lets you freely explore fictitious representations of Manhattan and Queens between missions. Its big addition is the ability to play as both Spider-Man and Venom, and the two control very differently. Venom pulls himself along with his tentacles and throws cars, and since his health drains over time, he must replenish his health by feeding on people. It is a lot darker than the comic-book look suggests.

You still have to aim each web at an actual building to swing, just like in Spider-Man 2. The game is retrospectively regarded as one of the best Spider-Man games ever made. Spider-Man fans still recommend it, and some players rank it among their favourite games on the console.

Doshin the Giant was originally released in Japan in December 1999 as a launch title for the 64DD. The GameCube port came out in Japan on March 14, 2002, and in Europe on September 20, 2002, but it was never released in North America. You are a giant who walks around an island full of villagers. Help them and they release love, stomp on them and they release hate, and if Doshin gets enough of one type, he will grow in size. The GameCube version adds an extra stretch after the ending, where new islanders build a large rocket that blasts them up into space.

It was a hit in Japan, peaking at #1. Players who have played it agree it is criminally overlooked, a fun little god game that Americans never got the chance to buy.

Spider-Man 2 is the sequel to 2002's Spider-Man, and it was released on June 29, 2004, for the PlayStation 2, the GameCube and more. It is set in an open world based on New York City, and critics praised the realistic Manhattan setting and web-swinging mechanics. Two years after the first game, Peter Parker is struggling to balance his civilian life with his duties as Spider-Man, and Otto Octavius is about to make that a lot harder.

Players call it a must-play, and the ones who explain why point to the city. You can just swing around it instead of doing the missions, and plenty of people did exactly that for hours.

Twilight Princess was originally planned for release exclusively on the GameCube in November 2005, and Nintendo delayed it to refine the game, add more content and port it to the Wii. The game runs on a modified The Wind Waker engine, but the look is far more realistic. Miyamoto explained that the style was chosen to satisfy demand and that it better fit an older Link. Twilight covers whole regions of Hyrule, and Link and Midna have to win the light back one region at a time.

It received numerous game of the year awards and has been called one of the greatest video games ever made. Players still recommend the GameCube version, especially to anyone who never got it on the Wii.

Hit & Run was heavily inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series, and Radical Entertainment took that open world design and filled it with Springfield. It started as a spiritual successor to The Simpsons: Road Rage, but the team felt only the driving part of Road Rage was worth keeping. The story starts small, with Bart trying to get a copy of the video game Bonestorm 2, and ends with aliens who have released cola throughout Springfield's water supply. At one point the undead invade Springfield on Halloween night.

Often considered to be the best Simpsons tie-in game, it was also a commercial success, with sales of over 3 million worldwide by June 2007. When players are asked for third-party GameCube games, it is the one they recommend again and again.

The Wind Waker came out in Japan on December 13, 2002, and in North America on March 23, 2003. It was directed by Eiji Aonuma, and it gave us Toon Link. A significant portion of the game is spent sailing between islands on Link's boat, the King of Red Lions. The wind blows across the world in one of eight directions, and the first melody, the "Wind's Requiem", lets Link change the wind's direction, allowing him to sail anywhere. That open sea is the whole map, and nothing stops you from heading for any island you can see.

The art direction proved divisive, and the game sold 4.6 million copies, far below the 7.6 million sold by Ocarina of Time. Those people were wrong. It received critical acclaim for its visuals, gameplay, level design, music, and story, and players recommend it more than any other GameCube open world game.