Succumbing to the pressure of a black and white society, I will be implementing a rating system in all the reviews I write from now on. This is not necessarily a system that will be enforced across all of Random Gamer but for the people who need a number to determine if they should buy a game, this will be helpful instrument when reading my reviews. To me this is an exercise in conformity. To fit into mainstream, sometimes you have to sacrifice certain artistic liberties. Damn the proverbial man.
The system will be the typical real valued 1-10.
1: Why the hell did I buy this buggy, choppy, broken piece of shit? I'm going to set it ablaze in a garbage can.
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5: Meh, not worth buying and sometimes not even worth renting.
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10: I might run out and buy another copy just in case I'm too lazy to walk across the room to get the copy I bought first.
I've never played a game that was a 1 and no games deserve a 10. The closest to a 1 I've bought and played is Spiderman 3, which is probably closer to a 5, and the closest to a 10 is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That should give you a good idea of my quality threshold. Remember, if a game is a 10, you wouldn't need to play anything else ever and if it's a 1, why didn't you do your research first and avoid wasting the money on it in the first place?
Random Video: Wii Sports + Hot Girl = Totally Busted
This is what most would refer to as getting caught in the act. After an intense game of Wii Sports, this smitten guy decides to take a bit of a "break." Hilarity ensues...
Some overly ambitious High School Choir took the time to arrange the most amazing medley of classic game themes ever assembled. All I can say is, that must have been one hell of a choir director. Great work to all involved. Check out the video below:
I know this video is as old as the hills, but I can't helping taking a trip down memory lane. Some many games, so little time.
Too kid friendly. First off, you can take the Resident Evil and Manhunt franchises and shove them up your ass. Their problems are a completely different can of worms.
There are a handful of good M rated games on Nintendo systems, emphasis necessary, but that doesn't mean they appeal to mature audiences. Look at their best selling and top rated games. They're mostly first party, rated E, sequels, and some are better on other consoles. I've owned most Nintendo consoles with the exception of the SNES, DS, Virtual Boy(shudders), and GB Advance.
Too casual. One of their bestsellers is the dog simulator Nintendogs. It's almost like having a real puppy but you can kill it with moral ambiguity and it doesn't require real food or you to get off your fat ass to exercise it. Nintendo isn't a stranger to requiring its gamers to exercise. It's not a bad thing getting brittle, fat, and lazy gamers like myself out of our recliners.
What is bad is the utter lack of immersion these games offer. Look at Wii Boxing, it's fun, takes some energy, but loses me when I remember I don't have fists floating a foot away from my body like Rayman. Their best games might be fun but take no real skill to play and win... I'm pointing at you Mario Kart with the fucking blue shell and lightening pieces of shit.
Franchisicide. No matter whether it's a handheld or a console, you better believe there will be at least one rendition of their flagship franchises. There will always be a Legend of Zelda: [Insert Subtitle Here], Metroid, and Super Mario Whatever. That's the case with most manufacturers. Microsoft has Master Chief and Sony has... let's just say Solid Snake and wash our hands of it. The difference between them is at least when Sony and Microsoft reinvent the wheel they do it with slight progression and say "we've got a mighty fine wheel here, yet again." Nintendo on the other hand just gives you the same wheel but claims that it can now roll forwards and backwards.
Mario. What a sell out. He has soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, fighting, and kart racing games as well as platformers in 2 and 3D and a fistful of others that I don't care about. No doubt he is the face of Nintendo. I'm Greek so naturally I have a general distrust of Italians. What I'd really like to see is the real Mario. A plumber with a chest full of hair seeping out his unbuttoned shirt collar, gold chains, a drinking problem, and an undeserved feeling of accomplishment every time he beats the princess for not making his cake properly. Now that's a game I'd play.
Fanboys. My name is Jimmy and I'm a recovering Nintendo fanboy. Altogether, "Hi Jimmy!" It's been one console generation since I tried to defend Nintendo for no good reason and... it gets easier to not do it all the time with all the puke faces out there willing to do it for me.
It seems whenever Nintendo releases a first party title there are slews of people willing to purchase and defend it with reckless abandon. Never mind it treks the same ground as every other game they have or that it lacks substance and the semblance of an original story. I hate fanboys!
Lack of real technology. A touch screen is hardly new technology, neither is a motion sensitive controller. Though it is innovative, it certainly isn't new. I don't like Sony, but at least they put a Bluray drive in their console and let's face it, the PSP should be the leading handheld if not for all the children and Japanese girls. Microsoft doesn't have anything as technologically advanced as Sony but Live is the benchmark that all online games must adhere to, including the snobbish better-than-you-console-playing-peasants PC games.
No widespread online support. Mentioning Live reminds me that there are some online Nintendo games, but there isn't a friends list nor any widespread support. Nor are there millions of players waiting to go into a game. They certainly don't have any extra content to milk more money out of my pocket, but I can point at Rock Band and say that's a game that deserves downloadable content.
Downloadable content was initially and is increasingly a rip off, also another can of worms, but it lets players have a reason to play old games again. I would be all over new courses for Mario Kart. This is an area that Nintendo has dropped the ball and is alienating players and developers.
ORLY? Nintendo's Wii successor
Word on the street is that Nintendo is hard at work developing its next console to follow-up the hugely popular money printing press they dubbed the Wii. While there are some that are excited about the Nintendo's next stab, I am rather hesitant about the Big N's next offering. Before you hate, allow me to explain.
The Wii is amazing! Who knew that such an innocent little white box would attract so much attention. Grandmas, aunts, uncles, schools, nursing homes, bars - everyone has swallowed the white pill and it's a blast! I bought a Wii the second week (I thought about using "wiik" but decided it was overplayed like a song on the radio) after it came out and had a great time with it. Friends and family would all gather around the glowing blue aura and we'd lose hours bowling or boxing, running around in a green elf suit or hunting Nazis in Call of Duty. Ah, those were the days.
Then, I returned back to work at a small, private liberal arts school in a small, remote town in the Midwest. Aside from the occasional gathering of college students at my house or taking the hallowed white box to a prearranged engagement at a friend's house, it sat unused in my entertainment center. It quickly went from a fun party type console to a cute novelty.
A few short months went by and I picked up an Xbox 360 on Ebay after giving in to the peer pressure from a few of my college buddies. This became the platform of choice for me to game on and I've wasted countless hours on the experience. Microsoft has focused on the core gamer and continues to do so while enhancing the Xbox with the recent announcement of Netflix and a new dashboard due out this fall. Enough about M$ and its devilish ways; back to Nintendo.
I may be putting words in to Nintendo's mouth, but it seems that the core market is not something they are going to focus on. This is the major flaw in Nintendo's marketing strategy. Gamers are always looking forward to the next hardware announcement. The general market (non-core gamers), the main consumer of the Wii, might not be waiting in the wings to drop another $250 on something that they don't perceive as necessary. Think about it - tech enthusiasts, regardless of the hobby, purchase the new thing because it is new. Consumers, on the other hand, are much more reluctant to stay on the cutting edge. That's why, I believe, the Wii is still in such short supply. The demand has persisted because general consumers are being coaxed over time to jump on the bandwagon even though the core-gamer fervor has died down.
Generating the kind of excitment Nintendo did with the Wii is going to be quite a challenge the next time around, and at least they are aware of it. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said, "But the hardware is a kind of box that consumers reluctantly buy in order to play our games." Too right, Mr. Iwata. Too right.
For what it's worth (nothing at all), my advice to Nintendo is this: Hold off on releasing your next console! After openly shunning the core market at E3, you've lost a lot of following (save for the fanboys). The general market will not be as quick to adopt a new console if you roll it out in the same time frame that console successors are released and your demand will not be as high. Regardless of how awesome your new console is, it will not generate the same demand as the Wii because consumers, while they may enjoy nursing home golf tournaments on the Wii, won't see the necessity for HD golf tournaments with more realistic Miis!
*Disclaimer: I sold my Wii to a coworker back in November 2007 so he could give it to his kids for Christmas. If the online component has gotten better (read: deployed), that's wonderful. I wouldn't know.
