So rich with honey was the promise of playing the Nintendo GameCube game Mario Kart: Double Dash with eight players via system link that gamers went through extraordinary lengths to make it happen. Because the negligent company failed to include online play, gamers had to buy the otherwise completely useless GameCube Broadband Adapter, which would allow you to link multiple systems together for LAN play. Each GameCube owner had to fork over the cash for a copy of the game as well as the stupid undercarriage-plugging adapter. (Owners of the Xbox console, which came standard with an Ethernet port, could insert laughter here.)

This also required multiple televisions and for Nintendo players to learn the difference between a network cable and a crossover cable. It wasn’t exactly the easy-of-play experience the Wii would later bring. Then again, it’s 2008 and the Wii’s online play is still practically nil.

So why would any self-respecting gamer go through the trouble? Because Double Dash played in this configuration (with up to 8 consoles and 16 players of two-person kart teams each possible) was awesome. It was a mindblowingly fun experience, one of the best out-of-arcade gaming hardware situations ever concocted. Before Wii Play, before Rock Band, this was perhaps the best party video game. One round would bleed into the next, and before you knew it, it was 4 a.m. and everybody still wanted to keep playing.

Yes. It was that good. You should have been there.