F-Zero series came before WipeOut
and actually..F-Zero is more fun to play

no weapons...but that's what makes it fun: pure speed
insane speed..and it's your only weapon pretty much..

I highly recommend F-Zero GX

and a gamecube game?

TALES OF SYMPHONIA

if you call yourself an RPG fan you BETTER get TOS
it's THE BEST Tales game ever..go get the GC version
enjoy playing with upto 4 party members..co-op! yes..go get it..-.-
ignorant man xDD

Not sure if anyone answered you about wanting to know what Animal Crossing was. Animal Crossing is like The Sims where you collect furniture and upgrade your house. You can also fish, catch bugs, dig up fossils, and collect paintings. Each bug, fish, and fossil (of course the fossils are now extinct) are real life animals which when you donate it to the museum the character Blathers tells you a little info about each one (fossils you have to collect the entire fossil for him to give info). So it is a little educational in that regard. Since you have kids and if they have never played Animal Crossing then you should probably get it. I am sure you can probably find a cheap used copy of this game if you wish to save some money. I wrote a review on it on here. A lot of people dissed the game because it is very similar to the DS/GCN versions, but if you have never played those nor your kids then you should check this version out.  I have probably put at least 100+ hours into this game since it came out.  Also, if you like NES games then you should maybe check out Animal Crossing on GCN.  It has at least 10-15 NES games that you can get on it.  Most of them you can get through codes on sites such as gamefaqs or other sites.  It has Balloon Fight (I love that game), Punch-Out!! (have to create a town with a special name and character to get this one, unless you have a GBA hookup cable which takes longer to get from the island), Golf, Baseball, Donkey Kong, etc.....  Some of the NES games on AC for GCN kind of suck but most are decent.   They were going to release Zelda 1 for it but I think they didn't since they were about to release NES classics for GBA.  Anyways, you would have to have 2 GCN memory cards (in order to get Punch-Out!!).  If you bought the games from VC then it would be about 50-60 dollars at least. 

There's Secret of Mana on the VC. It's a squaresoft action RPG with multiplayer. Definitely a classic.

Also, about Mario RPGs, they're all good. Super Mario RPG (SNES) and Paper Mario (N64) are both great choices.

On Wiiware I would recommend World of Goo. As some people said before, there's a demo available for pc for you to try it before taking the plunge.

Cool, thanks for the recommendation. I reckon I'll look those babies up.

I fully intend to pick up all three of those at some point. However, at the moment, I'm more interested in retro gaming from Game Cube and the Virtual Console, and any potential must-buys from WiiWare. Thanks for the recommendation, nonetheless.

I reckon I'm petty much sold on Paper Mario in its various incarnations now. However, F-Zero is still to convince me, especially as I've never been the biggest racing fan. Is it really that good?

Ah... Tales... yes, I must buy that. Thanks for highlighting it.

:D

Actually, that sounds fairly awesome. However, and excuse the ignorance, why would I need two memory cards to unlock Punch-Out!!?

The Paper Mario games, as I mentioned above are on the list now. Secret of Mana I know little about; is it worth playing even now?

As for World of Goo, I'm holding off on that just now (I'll get it for someone's birthday, methinks).

Did anyone recommand pikmin yet? Buy that game. Also buy some games on Virtual console. You'll have fun playing old games