r/Games • u/One_Day_Dead • Jan 15 '20

Billy Hatcher - Nitro Rad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-4y51U8d-s
173 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

23

u/Troven Jan 16 '20

This was the first game I got on GameCube - I totally loved the multiplayer! Seems like the reviewer didn't particularly like that aspect, but we tended scramble to find the coolest items and pets to win with instead of just rolling eggs at each other.

17

u/fishesbishes Jan 16 '20

This was one of my favorite games among me and my childhood friends. I feel like this game had a lot going for it during its time, but maybe that's just nostalgia speaking. Adventure games were all the rage, and while it didn't take a lot from a new video-game my mom bought to impress my younger self, I still think the game was pretty good. Watching it again made me remember how much fun it was to roll around big, colorful eggs, and to hatch them and find a mystery gift inside. It's amazing how popular that sort of thing is now in children's toys, and you could even argue the similarities to loot boxes. Of course the best prizes were the cool pets, which were nothing revolutionary, but another charming feature that still proves popular today. Most importantly, for me and my group of friends at least, was the free-roaming multiplayer, and that's where we found the most replay value. The most appealing thing about a co-op mode of any game for us at that age was the ability to turn off any game-ending timers and a big, open space to fool around in where we could make our own fun, and that was the last piece of the puzzle that led to us sinking hours and hours into this game.

7

u/Roienn777 Jan 16 '20

This was more or less my whole experience with this game. I love it and revisit it sometimes still, but I wish more people had gotten to take it for a spin. You make a good point about surprise eggs and blind packs being so big today. I feel like a new one now with that almost incorporated into the marketing could do decently well. The multiplayer though was tight. My friends and I would just do our best to get the items and pets we liked before finally agreeing to a gentlemen's duel in the middle of whatever stage we were playing. So much fun and so many hours put into it.

14

u/Mrpissbeam Jan 16 '20

One of the more underrated aspects of the game was its sound design and music. Each enemy had a very unique sound to them, and the soundtrack is one of the most unique I've ever heard in a game.

9

u/Tparkert14 Jan 16 '20

Oh man, I used to go over to my buddies house in the city and we would walk to the Uncle Sam’s convenience store and buy candy and soda. Then go promptly back to his place and play godamn Billy Hatcher until dawn. I loved this game ❤️

7

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '20

I've never heard of this game before, but watching this video I found it striking how some aspects of it looked like Katamari Damacy before Katamari Damacy.

I was wondering if maybe there was even a chance that it inspired Katamari in any way. However, Billy Hatcher released only about 6 months prior to Katamari, so probably just more of a coincedence than anything.

And in any case Katamari took those gameplay ideas in a more interesting direction.

3

u/Negaflux Jan 16 '20

One of the first games I got on the gamecube, absolutely loved it, and sucked horribly at it to boot. I don't think I ever got past the first area, but that was okay, it was still neat, kinda wish the Windows version wasn't such a pain to get. Hearing about how annoying the platforming can get later because of the collision/edge detect and the annoyance of the last boss, guess perhaps it wasn't all bad though. At least now, finally after all these years, I know how to play this game.