Man, I loved the Gamecube. To me, it gave me a SNES vibe, though it never came close to touching the greatness of that console. I remember when everyone thought Metroid Prime was going to be terrible because of the first person perspective, but it ended up being glorious.

That, and my sister and I had loads of fun co-oping against the CPU at decently high levels in Super Mash Bros. Melee. Then there's the memory I have of watching my sister taking the fat pig on Outset Island to the highest cliff, throwing it off, and watching the pig wobble in a rhythmic circle as she made Link jump past the pig in mid fall. She played games in the family room back then, and even my father got a kick out of it.

There is also the Pikmin games, Tales of Symphonia (as other members have mentioned already), Rouge Squadron II, Super Mario Sunshine (people are way too hard on that one), and other titles I enjoyed a lot.

Also, I had no problems with the controller at all. Seemed natural to me the second I picked it up. Except for the d-pad. That d-pad was too small.