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There were few highlights at Nintendo's 2003 conference - its lasting contribution to the annals of history is perhaps how it provided the dour set-up to the popular gaijin 4koma meme - but there were some flashes of inspiration. One of the more interesting announcements was Pac-Man Vs, Nintendo EAD's own take on Namco's long-running series that embraced the tangle of wires that was the system link, whereby Game Boy Advances could be tethered to a GameCube for a new kind of multiplayer. Well, it was a new kind of multiplayer back then. The asymmetrical multiplayer (now there's a term you likely haven't heard in some time) was famously resurrected for the Wii U in what would end up being one of Nintendo's less successful consoles. For all its failings commercially, I had a huge soft spot for Nintendo's Wii U and its parade of eccentric games - things like Nintendo Land, which to this day still gets dusted off whenever friends assemble at mine.
So I've always been kind of curious to see where it all began, and rewind back to 2003 when Nintendo first started exploring the idea. But it's been a bit difficult to - Pac-Man Versus, despite taking centre stage at Nintendo's 2003 conference, never enjoyed a full release. It was instead bundled somewhat unceremoniously with R: Racing Evolution, and came out with such little fanfare that it passed me by. That, and conjuring up enough Game Boy Advances and link cables for the unholy tangle that was a system link session has always been a massive pain in the arse.
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