@Fillet: hsrob beat me to it, but really? Not much geometry? They were both the highest polygon games on any console when they released. 20 million a second in III.

And sparse environments with not much going on? The were often huge numbers of fighters and other vehicles in play at once. And didn't you play the Endor walker level in III? It was filled with destructible trees, swaying undergrowth, ewoks and stormtroopers running around on the ground, AT-STs attacking you, etc.

The Dreamcast was maxed out with Shenmue

The Saturn was technically also maxed out with Shenmue as far as its polygonated games were

The Xbox was maxed with Ninja Gaiden Black, Riddick, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3

The problem is that most third parties didn't try to max out the Wii. Many times they settled for PS2-quality with "waggle" added.

Mike from Morgantown

People need to understand the difference between graphics as technical facts and graphics as design and appeal.

There is no Wii game that has done what Rebel Strike on the GC did. No other game last gen did for that matter. It used every last drop of the GC's T.E.V. Everything was normal mapped, there were dynamic shadows on everything. full use of bloom lighting, special effects, destructive environmental objects while pushing 20 million polygons at 60 FPS. The most gotten out of the Xbox in an actual game was 12 mil at 30 FPS with no where near as many texture effects. 10 mil at 60 was the max reached on the PS2 in a real game.

The Wii has never been brought close to its technical max. The devs have yet to bring it past the level of the top GC game.

I think my problem might be that I'm more familiar with Conduit 2 than the first game.   And Conduit 2 most certainly had dynamic lighting.   But if you really want dynamic lighting, go play Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. 

You do know the resolution in the Gamecube is fixed and that is doesn't have an internal scalar, right?

Rogue Leader

Rebel Strike

You're so right, the Rogue Squadron games always stood out on the GC as graphical powerhouses. Helps that they played very well too.

You can't really compare Rouge Leader with Mario Galaxy, it's apples vs oranges.
On Gamecube both Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 don't have bump mapping, but on the other hand they have a more complex geometry imo.
Jungle Beat, made by the former galaxy team, is one of the best looking Gamecube games, it has a great graphic design and excellent animations.
Wii probably was almost maxed out, it's just that Wii's best games are made to look quite good even on today's lcd TVs, while Gamecube games were made to look good on smaller, interlaced, cathodic TVs.
Resident Evil 4 is a very good example imo, if you play it on an old TV it's almost perfect, play it on a 32" lcd, and it wll turn into a scalesfest. On the other hand I've tried Galaxy on 50" lcd and it still looks good, despite low def.
Also lighting and shadows effects on Wii are clearly superior (just look at galaxy) and I don't know how much they are demanding on hardware.

To avoid such a waste happen again, Wii U will be LESS powerful than Wii!!!