Here is the final part of my "Best of 2010" post. Here's where you'll find the REALLY big awards - flame on!
BEST RPG
Mass Effect 2
This game is probably more accurately describe as a "best followup" to Mass Effect, but it's so damn well done that it more than deserves best RPG as far as I'm concerned. It takes everything that was fun, interesting, or awesome about the first game, removes all the stuff that was lame, tedious, or boring, and adds in some awesome new game mechanics and powers, streamlines everything into a terrifically concise package, and wraps the whole thing up in one of the most cinematic and engaging experiences I've seen in a game. Who cares that in condensing the power levelling and inventory management systems they've actually taken a slight step away from the "pure RPG" way of dealing with character building and inventory - this game is a crystalized representation of everything Mass Effect should be, without any of the extranneous trappings of the first game, and because of this game, my interest in the series as a whole was elevated tenfold.
Runners Up:
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 was a great game, and this game is no different. Literally - it's pretty much exactly the same. The inclusion of new weapons is nice, and the new game mechanics (like item and ammo crafting) make the game feel more like a classic stats-based RPG, but for the most part most of the updates are under the hood (like replacing the "damage resistance" stat with "damage threshold" - yes they're techincally different but I won't get into that here). It's a solid game that actually offers even more open-ended gameplay than its predecessor, but for some reason I can't look past the fact that this is a sequel bordering on mere update. That, and for some reason Fallout 3 did a better job of immersing me in what that world is like. Still definitely worth a play if you're itching for more wasteland.
MOST INNOVATIVE/BEST NEW IP
Alan Wake
Alan Wake seems to adopt the philosophy that "something old is new again", in that it is (in my opinion) a throwback to more "classic" survival horror games, and it is an incredibly refreshing and entertaining experience. It's a great mix of classic survival horror conventions (like the ignorant protagonist, inventory management, ammo scarcity, etc) and a truly creepy new world with enemies we haven't seen before (not technically zombies this time around), all tied together with creative and unique storytelling that fits the characters perfectly. The result is a game that's familiar enough at its core to be fun and playable, but at the same time new, exciting, and at times genuinely scary.
Runners Up:
Assassin's Creed II
Let's face it, after the first Assassin's Creed there was really nowhere to go but up. But still, this one definitely deserves a nod for innovation for taking a framework that had so much potential from the first game and really actualizing it into a game that delivered on those promises. The free-roaming, building-scaling city exploration is actually incorporated artfully into the core of the game itself (instead of being just something you could do on the side like it was in the first game). UbiSoft did a great job of paring down all the unnecessaries to leave us with what we really wanted in an Assassin's Creed game. I'm still not a fan of the "present" sequences with Desmond, and the story all kind of goes to hell at the end, but this game is definitely miles away from the first game, and that's a good thing.
Here it is, the big one..
Game of The Year 2010
Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar's tale of the redemption of former outlaw John Marston is nothing short of masterful. Every single thing about this game serves to immerse you in the game world fully, and it's so subtly done that it's a thing of beauty. The game world (which is huge, by the way) feels alive in its own right, and as you ride around you will constantly run into people and other random events that not only serve as as a backdrop to the world, but also your interactions with these people, regardless of how seemingly insignificant they are, all build towards your status in the world as either a hardened criminal or a man with a troubled past trying to redeem himself. The characters are as well developed as any movie characters, and through John's interaction with them you will genuinely come to like (or more often than not, dislike) them all. While they are not the shining western archetypes ripped from a Clint Eastwood movie, they are true tableaus of the West that John Marston inhabits - few of them are pretty, hardly any of them are "good", but they all live a hard life surrounded by hard people and harder decisions, and if you don't like them you at least come to feel for them in a very real way.
Also admirable is Rockstar's decision to break the 4th wall so to speak and include game mechanics that wouldn't necessarily fit into the world. For example, John Marston sports a state of the art GPS/minimap that includes route mapping to any user-set waypoint. This is clearly not canonical, but it makes the game so much more playable that it's easy to overlook this - and in fact praise Rockstar for adding it in.
The multiplayer boasted by this game is plentiful if not necessarily spectacular. Free roaming with your friends across the entire map is fun, but the experience is kind of ruined by scores of online douchebags who find it necessary to kill every person they come across (not really Rockstar's fault, I know). The deathmatch modes (called "shootouts") are not bad, but they certainly don't compete with the likes of Halo or Call of Duty in the shooter department, though I doubt it's meant to. At the end of the day, however, the story mode is just so incredible that the multiplayer will seem like a mere afterthought - the story itself more than justifies the price tag - it's just that good.
Runners Up:
Mass Effect 2
Bioware really stepped up their game for this sequel - they succeeded in singling out the elements that made the Mass Effect experience great, and then designing a game around that from the ground up. There are two pillars upon which this game is built - storytelling and tight gameplay mechanics - and both are strong and firmly established. The gameplay is beautifully concise, designed to highlight the updated action and combat this game features by incorporating short, self-contained missions that play almost like "levels", without all the messy in-between stuff of driving around empty planets or trying to manage your overcrowded inventory. They realized that the combat is where the game shines, and they made the game about the combat. Smart move.
The other pillar of Mass Effect is the storytelling and presentation, and again Bioware innovates. From the opening cinematic, the game is more like playing through a highly interactive movie. The dialogue, character animations and settings all look as though they could be implanted onto the set of a major hollywood sci-fi flick - one that I would actually watch. Bioware is also in the unique position of having planned this as a trilogy from the start, which means that every single decision you make is shaping the universe. Events in Mass Effect 2 have already been influenced by what I did in Mass Effect, and more of this ripple effect will occur in Mass Effect 3. The result is that each individual player will have their own personal galaxy that they've created based on how they play. I can't wait to see what the universe looks like in the third and final game.
Well that's about it, my thoughts on the best of what 2010 had to offer that I was lucky enough to experience. I'm sure some of you have played games this past year that I haven't, and thus have some unique input to offer so I'd love to hear it.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
My Personal Best-Of 2010
With 2010 drawing to a close and in the wake of Spike TV's own VGAs, I thought I'd add my 2 cents and compile a list of my own personal "best-of" for the year. Just a reminder to try and avoid any potential flaming, this is a list that I've made based on my own experience that I've had with various games; it may be true that there's a "better" game in a specific category, but if I didn't play it, I can't very well rate it, can I?
BEST ARCADE
Chime (XBLA)
Elegant in its simplicity and beautiful in its presentation, Chime is just a lot of fun to play. It follows the "easy to learn/hard to master" formula that when executed properly makes for a great game - while reading the instructions page may seem overwhelming, you can learn how to play in about 2 minutes by simply diving into a game. Great for both killing a few minutes or spending hours trying to beat your high score, Chime has that addictive old-school appeal of deriving satisfaction from outsmarting the game to get more points that you don't see very often anymore. The soundtrack is great - the dynamic way the music changes based on how you play makes for a different experience every time, and the choice of cool, relaxed themes (Moby, for God's sake) makes the game at once both mentally engaging and actually relaxing to play. Add to that the fact that it's only 400 points, AND the money you spend on the game goes to help charity, and all this game is really missing is a halo.
Runners Up:
NONE! I didn't really play that many arcade games this year, mainly because nothing really caught my fancy. That alone should tell you something. Scott Pilgrim was fun-ish, but I'm kind of sick of side-scrolling beat-'em-ups, and the lack of any online co-op really hurts a game that would otherwise be a fun game to play with frieds. But just to properly fill out this category I'm going to go ahead and list Marvel Vs Capcom 2 here. Because it still rocks.
BEST DLC/GAME ADD-ON
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Ok, so this is a bit tricky because I'm talking about the Undead Nightmare disc that you can buy, which contains all of the RDR DLC and is technically different from just the Undead Nightmare expansion. But I figured I would make an allowance because it's such an awesome package. For $30 you get a new single player mode which, although quite short is still a lot of fun (props for giving access to the entire map!). AND you get the new "undead overrun" multiplayer mode, because if there's 3 things gamers have shown mad love for recently it's horde-esque modes, zombies, and co-op and this is ALL 3 of those things - addictive cooperative zombie killing where you and your friends test your skills against wave after wave of zombies to see how long you can last. AND you get access to the ENTIRETY of RDR's multiplayer playground, complete with all the previously released DLC packs. So basically the only thing that you don't get with this package is the RDR single player campaign, which is a shame, but for $30 it's hard to complain too much.
Runners Up:
Dragon Age: Awakening
An incredible expansion that introduces a new full-length story, new characters, new armor/weapons and new levels of existing gear, fun new game mechanics (rune crafting is pretty sweet), awesome new skills, talents, and specializations, and bet of all, the ability to remap your character from the ground up! (Phew that's a lot of stuff). There's totally enough content here to justify the $40 price tag, since if you're a fan of the game it gives you a brand new way to play. If you import your Origins character it's a bit easy, since you start at such a high level, but that's alright. It's just too bad that your Awakening character can't be re-imported to your Origins file.
Super Street Fighter IV Tournament Mode
It's basically just a bracketed tournament-style online mode where up to 8 players fight in single elimination battles to determine the ultimate victor. While it doesn't offer any new mechanics, it is a neat new way to pit yourself against other fighters. Oh yeah - and it's FREE.
BEST ONLINE
Halo: Reach (Xbox 360)
This game is Halo actualized. It not only represents updated game mechanics and balance tweaks to improve the Halo experience that we're already familiar with, but it offers vastly more robust versions of Forge and the save film/file sharing system introduced in Halo 3. Gaming today, especially online gaming, is less about what's enclosed on the disc and more about the social community of gaming, playing online with friends, and sharing cool experiences that revolve around the game. Halo: Reach was built with this philosophy in mind, with an already abundant field of machinima and animated cartoons using the Halo engine, and a vast array of community-made Forge maps. One thing is clear - this game exists to give gamers the tools they need to flex their creative muscles and create their own unique, individual Halo experience. That's why this game by far represents the best online experience - not just because it's a solid, well made game (which it totally is), but because Reach is the very embodiment of the online gaming community.
Runners Up:
Blur
This game offers some addictively fun multiplayer racing that is easy for anyone to dive into, regardless of whether or not they've ever played a racing game before. The controls are simple, the visuals are fun and exciting, and it offers you the chance to "level up" to unlock new cars. This game shines in really big races of 12-20 people where things can get really chaotic with powerups flying everywhere, and admittedly can be a little dull in some of the smaller contests, but all in all a surprisingly satisfying mutliplayer outing.
Red Dead Redemption
This game seems to adopt the "quantity over quality" approach to online multiplayer. While the modes on offer may not be the greatest, there sure are a lot of them. Players can choose from standard deathmatch-style games to free roam sessions where you and a party ("posse") of friends can explore the entire map, or even jump into a game of Texas Hold 'Em poker or Liar's Dice (try figuring out what that is). Whatever yoru poison, RDR offers it to you in multiplayer - as long as it's a fixture of the old west, that is.
*That wraps up this half of my Best-of 2010 post. In the interest of avoiding a wall of text (thus encouraging people to actually READ this) I'm going to divide this topic into 2 posts. The next half will follow shortly...
BEST ARCADE
Chime (XBLA)
Elegant in its simplicity and beautiful in its presentation, Chime is just a lot of fun to play. It follows the "easy to learn/hard to master" formula that when executed properly makes for a great game - while reading the instructions page may seem overwhelming, you can learn how to play in about 2 minutes by simply diving into a game. Great for both killing a few minutes or spending hours trying to beat your high score, Chime has that addictive old-school appeal of deriving satisfaction from outsmarting the game to get more points that you don't see very often anymore. The soundtrack is great - the dynamic way the music changes based on how you play makes for a different experience every time, and the choice of cool, relaxed themes (Moby, for God's sake) makes the game at once both mentally engaging and actually relaxing to play. Add to that the fact that it's only 400 points, AND the money you spend on the game goes to help charity, and all this game is really missing is a halo.
Runners Up:
NONE! I didn't really play that many arcade games this year, mainly because nothing really caught my fancy. That alone should tell you something. Scott Pilgrim was fun-ish, but I'm kind of sick of side-scrolling beat-'em-ups, and the lack of any online co-op really hurts a game that would otherwise be a fun game to play with frieds. But just to properly fill out this category I'm going to go ahead and list Marvel Vs Capcom 2 here. Because it still rocks.
BEST DLC/GAME ADD-ON
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
Ok, so this is a bit tricky because I'm talking about the Undead Nightmare disc that you can buy, which contains all of the RDR DLC and is technically different from just the Undead Nightmare expansion. But I figured I would make an allowance because it's such an awesome package. For $30 you get a new single player mode which, although quite short is still a lot of fun (props for giving access to the entire map!). AND you get the new "undead overrun" multiplayer mode, because if there's 3 things gamers have shown mad love for recently it's horde-esque modes, zombies, and co-op and this is ALL 3 of those things - addictive cooperative zombie killing where you and your friends test your skills against wave after wave of zombies to see how long you can last. AND you get access to the ENTIRETY of RDR's multiplayer playground, complete with all the previously released DLC packs. So basically the only thing that you don't get with this package is the RDR single player campaign, which is a shame, but for $30 it's hard to complain too much.
Runners Up:
Dragon Age: Awakening
An incredible expansion that introduces a new full-length story, new characters, new armor/weapons and new levels of existing gear, fun new game mechanics (rune crafting is pretty sweet), awesome new skills, talents, and specializations, and bet of all, the ability to remap your character from the ground up! (Phew that's a lot of stuff). There's totally enough content here to justify the $40 price tag, since if you're a fan of the game it gives you a brand new way to play. If you import your Origins character it's a bit easy, since you start at such a high level, but that's alright. It's just too bad that your Awakening character can't be re-imported to your Origins file.
Super Street Fighter IV Tournament Mode
It's basically just a bracketed tournament-style online mode where up to 8 players fight in single elimination battles to determine the ultimate victor. While it doesn't offer any new mechanics, it is a neat new way to pit yourself against other fighters. Oh yeah - and it's FREE.
BEST ONLINE
Halo: Reach (Xbox 360)
This game is Halo actualized. It not only represents updated game mechanics and balance tweaks to improve the Halo experience that we're already familiar with, but it offers vastly more robust versions of Forge and the save film/file sharing system introduced in Halo 3. Gaming today, especially online gaming, is less about what's enclosed on the disc and more about the social community of gaming, playing online with friends, and sharing cool experiences that revolve around the game. Halo: Reach was built with this philosophy in mind, with an already abundant field of machinima and animated cartoons using the Halo engine, and a vast array of community-made Forge maps. One thing is clear - this game exists to give gamers the tools they need to flex their creative muscles and create their own unique, individual Halo experience. That's why this game by far represents the best online experience - not just because it's a solid, well made game (which it totally is), but because Reach is the very embodiment of the online gaming community.
Runners Up:
Blur
This game offers some addictively fun multiplayer racing that is easy for anyone to dive into, regardless of whether or not they've ever played a racing game before. The controls are simple, the visuals are fun and exciting, and it offers you the chance to "level up" to unlock new cars. This game shines in really big races of 12-20 people where things can get really chaotic with powerups flying everywhere, and admittedly can be a little dull in some of the smaller contests, but all in all a surprisingly satisfying mutliplayer outing.
Red Dead Redemption
This game seems to adopt the "quantity over quality" approach to online multiplayer. While the modes on offer may not be the greatest, there sure are a lot of them. Players can choose from standard deathmatch-style games to free roam sessions where you and a party ("posse") of friends can explore the entire map, or even jump into a game of Texas Hold 'Em poker or Liar's Dice (try figuring out what that is). Whatever yoru poison, RDR offers it to you in multiplayer - as long as it's a fixture of the old west, that is.
*That wraps up this half of my Best-of 2010 post. In the interest of avoiding a wall of text (thus encouraging people to actually READ this) I'm going to divide this topic into 2 posts. The next half will follow shortly...
Friday, December 3, 2010
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Zombies, But Were Afraid To Ask
When I heard a while back about the recently-released "Undead Nightmare" expansion for Red Dead Redemption I originally thought "hey that's pretty cool". Then I bought it (at $30 it's sort of hard to not recommend it by the way...but I digress) and started playing it and I thought "dude this is freakin sweet." This sort of made me wonder (as I tend to do), "hey, what's with all the zombie love lately?" And it's not just me - for some reason, zombies and zombie lore have enjoyed a surge in popularity in the past few years, especially within gaming/comic/"nerd" circles. I thought I'd posit (ooooh philosophy word) a few theories as to why this is.
I suppose the most obvious appeal zombies hold is their inherent gore-factor; after all, they are reanimated corpses, so while vampires are defined by fangs and sexiness, zombies are synonymous with decaying flesh and exposed internal organs. Add to this the fact that (at least in most popular zombie lore) they can only be killed by destroying the infected brain, you've got every Counterstrike player's wet dream wrapped up in an undead package (BOOM headshot).
One of the hallmarks of the 20th century has been the many advances in medicine that we have made. From penicillin to polio vaccines, we pride ourselves on using human ingenuity to overcome the worst that nature can throw at us. But recent outbreaks of things like Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu, H1N1, and not to mention the omnipresent AIDS virus serve as stark reminders that deadly viruses do still exist, and they're scary. Nowhere is this epitomized more than in zombie fiction. After all, zombies are themselves victims - mothers, fathers and friends who have all succumb to an exotic virus against which even the most advanced medical techniques are rendered useless. Zombie transformations are usually portrayed as being fairly quick, grisly, and always 100% guaranteed once a victim has been bitten, and in almost all zombie literature the only cure is a bullet to the infected brain - a crude technique that mirrors (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) bloodletting and amputation, techniques that we scoff at today for emphasizing brute force in place of acquired medical knowledge. I think that this fear is why zombies themselves have undergone a paradigm shift over the past decades - from being supernatural creatures of Hell to being wildly contagious victims of an unknown infection. The fact that in the days of CAT scans and chemotherapy we are baffled by what the zombie virus is, how it works, or how to even begin to cure it brings to light the fact that in matters of the microbe, perhaps we are not as omnipotent as we like to think.
It's hard to deny that zombies themselves are scary. But they are scary in a different way than say, vampires or werewolves are scary; a single zombie is not in itself all that terrifying. In fact, a human could most likely very easily dispatch a single zombie, where that same human would find it difficult (if not impossible) to destroy a single vampire or werewolf. Where zombies get their strength (and their terrifying aspect) is their numbers; you can kill a werewolf or a vampire. You can even kill a zombie. What you cannot kill is zombies plural, as in an entire horde, as in all of continental North America is now a mindless flesh eating monster. This is why is truly frightening about zombies is that they don't attack you per se, but instead they attack the very world in which we live. Once that vampire or werewolf is dead, you bury its victims and then the world returns back to the way it was. In a zombie outbreak, that's impossible - because zombies are so widespread, and because they assimilate their victims into part of the horde, the world gradually changes from a human world possessed by monsters to a zombie world with a couple of humans still alive in it. You may still be alive, but your way of life, everything that was familiar or comfortable to you, is gone and you will never ever get it back. In a zombie apocalypse we are instantly transported from a life of North American luxury and comfort into a life of barely eking out a survival, scrounging for the barest of essentials while trying not to end up on the menu. Through their sheer mass of numbers, one thing is true from the start in a zombie apocalypse - you may be able to defend yourself now, but you will eventually run out of bullets. You will eventually run out of food, and then you're dead - and you are absolutely powerless to prevent it. That is the terrifying reality of the zombie threat - from the start you are already dead, it's just a matter of when and how - and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies this realization is the greatest fear of our collective American ideal of ingenuity and individuality.
I started writing this entry because I found myself fascinated by zombie fiction as of late, and I wanted to try this exercise to see if I could understand that. What I found was that zombies represent, at least for me, all the fears of North American culture rolled into one ghoulish package. It may be the case that writers have recognized this and that increased zombie prevalence in books and film is an attempt to point the finger at our cultural way of life. It may also be the case that somebody just got the idea that they are both scary and fun to kill. Either way, whatever reason you choose for their surge in popularity, the fact remains that they make damn good video game cannon fodder. Keep 'em coming.
I suppose the most obvious appeal zombies hold is their inherent gore-factor; after all, they are reanimated corpses, so while vampires are defined by fangs and sexiness, zombies are synonymous with decaying flesh and exposed internal organs. Add to this the fact that (at least in most popular zombie lore) they can only be killed by destroying the infected brain, you've got every Counterstrike player's wet dream wrapped up in an undead package (BOOM headshot).
One of the hallmarks of the 20th century has been the many advances in medicine that we have made. From penicillin to polio vaccines, we pride ourselves on using human ingenuity to overcome the worst that nature can throw at us. But recent outbreaks of things like Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu, H1N1, and not to mention the omnipresent AIDS virus serve as stark reminders that deadly viruses do still exist, and they're scary. Nowhere is this epitomized more than in zombie fiction. After all, zombies are themselves victims - mothers, fathers and friends who have all succumb to an exotic virus against which even the most advanced medical techniques are rendered useless. Zombie transformations are usually portrayed as being fairly quick, grisly, and always 100% guaranteed once a victim has been bitten, and in almost all zombie literature the only cure is a bullet to the infected brain - a crude technique that mirrors (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) bloodletting and amputation, techniques that we scoff at today for emphasizing brute force in place of acquired medical knowledge. I think that this fear is why zombies themselves have undergone a paradigm shift over the past decades - from being supernatural creatures of Hell to being wildly contagious victims of an unknown infection. The fact that in the days of CAT scans and chemotherapy we are baffled by what the zombie virus is, how it works, or how to even begin to cure it brings to light the fact that in matters of the microbe, perhaps we are not as omnipotent as we like to think.
It's hard to deny that zombies themselves are scary. But they are scary in a different way than say, vampires or werewolves are scary; a single zombie is not in itself all that terrifying. In fact, a human could most likely very easily dispatch a single zombie, where that same human would find it difficult (if not impossible) to destroy a single vampire or werewolf. Where zombies get their strength (and their terrifying aspect) is their numbers; you can kill a werewolf or a vampire. You can even kill a zombie. What you cannot kill is zombies plural, as in an entire horde, as in all of continental North America is now a mindless flesh eating monster. This is why is truly frightening about zombies is that they don't attack you per se, but instead they attack the very world in which we live. Once that vampire or werewolf is dead, you bury its victims and then the world returns back to the way it was. In a zombie outbreak, that's impossible - because zombies are so widespread, and because they assimilate their victims into part of the horde, the world gradually changes from a human world possessed by monsters to a zombie world with a couple of humans still alive in it. You may still be alive, but your way of life, everything that was familiar or comfortable to you, is gone and you will never ever get it back. In a zombie apocalypse we are instantly transported from a life of North American luxury and comfort into a life of barely eking out a survival, scrounging for the barest of essentials while trying not to end up on the menu. Through their sheer mass of numbers, one thing is true from the start in a zombie apocalypse - you may be able to defend yourself now, but you will eventually run out of bullets. You will eventually run out of food, and then you're dead - and you are absolutely powerless to prevent it. That is the terrifying reality of the zombie threat - from the start you are already dead, it's just a matter of when and how - and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies this realization is the greatest fear of our collective American ideal of ingenuity and individuality.
I started writing this entry because I found myself fascinated by zombie fiction as of late, and I wanted to try this exercise to see if I could understand that. What I found was that zombies represent, at least for me, all the fears of North American culture rolled into one ghoulish package. It may be the case that writers have recognized this and that increased zombie prevalence in books and film is an attempt to point the finger at our cultural way of life. It may also be the case that somebody just got the idea that they are both scary and fun to kill. Either way, whatever reason you choose for their surge in popularity, the fact remains that they make damn good video game cannon fodder. Keep 'em coming.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
I'm currently playing, so no need for "Now Playing"
While on IGN yesterday, I came across a forum post talking about a Red Dead Redemption movie starring Brad Pitt as John Marston. At first I thought "Hey, that's pretty cool." But upon further reflection, my next thought was, "why?"
It seems to be almost a given that whenever a well-made, blockbuster game title is released, gamers inevitably seem to think "this would be an awesome movie". It is also pretty much a given that almost every video game film adaptation has been horrible. I think the evidence is with me on this one; from Doom to Street Fighter to Super Ma...., movies based on video games are at best merely entertaining and at worst cata-freaking-strophically horrible.
Why then, do we as gamers keep falling for the joke? What is it about movies based on games that, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, makes us want to watch them, to have them keep being made? I don't know if there really is "an" answer to this, but I have a couple of theories. One is that when we love a game so much, we literally can't get enough. In this way, a movie offers appeal simply because it offers us more of what we love, even if we know it's destined to suck. But I think what's more likely is when you play a game that you love, you become invested in its story and its characters, not as fixtures in a video game, but as characters that you come to care about - it becomes real for us in that small way. A movie would then be tempting because it is taking that one step further towards increased reality - by taking computer rendered characters and portraying them on the big screen with live-action actors, our beloved games, stories, and characters are presented to us in even greater true-to-life detail (after all, no graphics [yet] are more life-like than real life).
Unfortunately, video game movies are doomed to fail from the start, almost inherently, and there's a genuine reason for it. The average video game single player campaign runs anywhere from 8-15 hours. The average movie, on the other hand, runs 90-120 minutes. The result of this is when we play video games, we simply have more time to get invested. Character development can be much more in depth because the character is simply around much more than in a movie. But it's not just that the quantity of time is greater in a video game - the fact that you are controlling the character directly plays a big role as well. The fact that I tell my character where to go, who to talk to, when (and in many cases how) to fight, etc means that the on-screen struggles of my digital companion become my own struggles. My video game character is no longer a separate puppet-like entity for whom I merely pull the strings, but instead a representation of myself that has been transcribed into the digital world. On the other side of things, a movie character, no matter how well written or acted, simply cannot offer that level of engagement. Even portrayed by Brad Pitt, master thespian that he is (interpret that as you will), Pitt's John Marston will only ever be Pitt's John Marston that I just happen to be watching. I may cheer for him from my seat, but I will never achieve that same connection that I do with Rockstar's John Marston. And no matter how good an actor Brad Pitt may be, nobody is as good a John Marston as the one in my mind.
Video games are now and have always been fun in part because of the opportunity they allow for escapism. When I boot up my console, I am transported into whatever world it is my character happens to be exploring. This is where the fun in gaming comes from, at least in part - being able to explore and make your own choices as you see fit. This is the edge that games have over movies, and why the gaming industry is quickly overtaking the film industry as the entertainment of choice (at least in North America). Trying to force a great game into what could only ever be a mediocre movie is at best a category mistake that misunderstands how the two mediums operate, and at worst a perversion of the gaming media as a cash grab by big movie studios. As far as I'm concerned, games should be kept out of Hollywood, and stay in our living rooms - where they belong.
It seems to be almost a given that whenever a well-made, blockbuster game title is released, gamers inevitably seem to think "this would be an awesome movie". It is also pretty much a given that almost every video game film adaptation has been horrible. I think the evidence is with me on this one; from Doom to Street Fighter to Super Ma....
Why then, do we as gamers keep falling for the joke? What is it about movies based on games that, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, makes us want to watch them, to have them keep being made? I don't know if there really is "an" answer to this, but I have a couple of theories. One is that when we love a game so much, we literally can't get enough. In this way, a movie offers appeal simply because it offers us more of what we love, even if we know it's destined to suck. But I think what's more likely is when you play a game that you love, you become invested in its story and its characters, not as fixtures in a video game, but as characters that you come to care about - it becomes real for us in that small way. A movie would then be tempting because it is taking that one step further towards increased reality - by taking computer rendered characters and portraying them on the big screen with live-action actors, our beloved games, stories, and characters are presented to us in even greater true-to-life detail (after all, no graphics [yet] are more life-like than real life).
Unfortunately, video game movies are doomed to fail from the start, almost inherently, and there's a genuine reason for it. The average video game single player campaign runs anywhere from 8-15 hours. The average movie, on the other hand, runs 90-120 minutes. The result of this is when we play video games, we simply have more time to get invested. Character development can be much more in depth because the character is simply around much more than in a movie. But it's not just that the quantity of time is greater in a video game - the fact that you are controlling the character directly plays a big role as well. The fact that I tell my character where to go, who to talk to, when (and in many cases how) to fight, etc means that the on-screen struggles of my digital companion become my own struggles. My video game character is no longer a separate puppet-like entity for whom I merely pull the strings, but instead a representation of myself that has been transcribed into the digital world. On the other side of things, a movie character, no matter how well written or acted, simply cannot offer that level of engagement. Even portrayed by Brad Pitt, master thespian that he is (interpret that as you will), Pitt's John Marston will only ever be Pitt's John Marston that I just happen to be watching. I may cheer for him from my seat, but I will never achieve that same connection that I do with Rockstar's John Marston. And no matter how good an actor Brad Pitt may be, nobody is as good a John Marston as the one in my mind.
Video games are now and have always been fun in part because of the opportunity they allow for escapism. When I boot up my console, I am transported into whatever world it is my character happens to be exploring. This is where the fun in gaming comes from, at least in part - being able to explore and make your own choices as you see fit. This is the edge that games have over movies, and why the gaming industry is quickly overtaking the film industry as the entertainment of choice (at least in North America). Trying to force a great game into what could only ever be a mediocre movie is at best a category mistake that misunderstands how the two mediums operate, and at worst a perversion of the gaming media as a cash grab by big movie studios. As far as I'm concerned, games should be kept out of Hollywood, and stay in our living rooms - where they belong.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Nintendo thoughts, Part 2
I know it's been a long time, and no, I didn't forget. As promised, part 2 of my Nintendo rant from previously...
Last post, I focused on Nintendo's hardware and the Wii. This time around, my focus is going to be on their games and software. NOTE: to keep things simple, I'm just going to be talking about NINTENDO titles, not merely games that were available on Nintendo consoles. Thus, while MegaMan is arguably as influential as Zelda, it's technically a Capcom series and thus falls outside the scope of this discussion.
To try and talk about the history of Nintendo games seems redundant and unecessary. I mean, everybody knows the story; in the 8-bit era, games like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid (the "big 3", so to speak), not to mention the instant super-stardom of Super Mario Bros. 3 (thank you Fred Savage), delivered instant notoriety for the NES, making Nintendo a household name. The SNES carried the trend forward, with Super Mario World, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid effortlessly bringing Nintendo's AAA titles into the 16-bit world in a way that made the games new and fresh while simultaneously preserved the sense of familiarity that made them such beloved games previously. The gravy train kept rolling for Nintendo with the N-64, a system which was hugely competetive despite the fact that at the time of its launch, the PlayStation had a library almost 10 times that of Nintendo's, and Sony's games ran on 700 mb discs rather than 8 mb cartridges. How was this possible? Mario 64. Ocarina of Time. Super Smash Bros. Arguably some of the greatest games "of all time." Games that took everything we thought we knew about our favorites and blew us out of the water by introducing brand new innovations we could never have thought of.
These games have enamored us for so long that Nintendo has decided to keep making them. Exactly. Sure, some story elements may have changed, or a new game mechanic or two may get introduced, but for the most part, Nintendo's AAA titles seem to be just reskins of these original greats. Some people may not think this is a terrible thing since, after all, they were great games. But what people fail to see is the reason they were so great is because they were new and fresh and totally shattered our expectations; to keep this formula unchanged for a decade and a half (Mario 64 was released in 1996) is to adopt the very same stagnation that Nintendo strove to break free from in their earlier days. Maybe the novelty really hasn't worn off yet, but I think it's more likely that Nintendo is allowing itself to get fat and lazy on its throne, and they're afraid of rocking the boat too much under the thought process that "if it aint broke, don't fix it. Ever."
I may represent a minority of gamers out there, but frankly I'm ready for something new. As far as I'm concerned, if I can predict the story progression of the latest Zelda title before it even played out, that's a BAD THING. There's a fine line between comfortable self-referential humor and endearing familiarity on the one side, and sedentary complacency and unoriginal game design on the other, and from what I've seen, Nintendo is crossing over to the latter.
Take Zelda for example. Ocarina of Time could be seen as the peak (although I know some who would argue this). They tried something new with Majora's Mask and it was a technically brilliant game. But for some reason, they shied away from things different and with Wind Waker returned to the original 3D Zelda formula with the addition of a new game mechanic (the sailing). Twilight Princess, the first current-gen Zelda title, was actually a port of a game originally made for GameCube...nothing more need be said about that. Hope was on the horizon, as Miamoto (Mr. Nintendo himself) went on record saying that the next Zelda title would incorporate "big new unique ideas". What this worked out to was the incorporation of Wii motion plus into a Zelda formula that seems otherwise unchanged. Now maybe I'm just being nitpicky, but designing a major AAA title around a game mechanic that isn't even 100% actualized (refer to my previous Nintendo post for this) seems like a bad idea. I just think that it takes more than a new hardware feature that doesn't even really work the way it was conceptualized (just watch videos of the E3 demo to see what I'm talking about) to revive a franchise that's been singing the same old song for years now.
Mario is another title that seems to have peaked in the 64-bit era and has since been riding the same gravy train. Mario 64 was, by all accounts, THE game that brought us into the 3D world and, just like with Zelda, Nintendo seems reluctant to deviate from that path. Don't get me wrong - I understand that change for the sake of change isn't necessarily a good thing, but we're talking about recycling a formula that was new in 1996. Sunshine tried to add a few new game mechanics and was pretty much universally panned for it. Galaxy was visually novel with truly 3D worlds and new gravity mechanics, but was on the whole not a huge step forward, which is fine since, after all, it's a Mario game. But I think the most insulting offering was Mario Galaxy 2 - a game which actually began life as an expansion for Galaxy. The game featured the same level design, the same mechanics, and even recycled many of the same boss fights (blatantly, at that) and yet still was packaged as a separate, full-price game. Congratulations Nintendo fans - you just paid $50 for Yoshi.
Interestingly enough, Metroid is the only one of the "Big 3" that doesn't seem to follow this trend. This may be because the Metroid series did not have a 64-bit offering. Instead, the series experienced its peak on the SNES with Super Metroid. My guess (and this is purely speculation) is that Nintendo were reluctant to let slip away one of their most popular titles, but they hadn't released a new game since 1994 and they didn't know themselves how to up the ante with a new game. Their solution? Hand the series off to another developer. The result, oddly enough, was a resounding success. Retro did with the Metroid Prime games what Nintendo could never have done. In approaching the 20-year old series with a fresh set of eyes, they refused to be bound by the convention of Nintendo's "house style". Their's is the approach of those who had instead grown up playing the games, and then gone into the development process with ideas that they as players would want to see. The end result was, of course, one of the greatest Game Cube titles ever in Metroid Prime, (and Echoes), and an astoundingly well-made Wii title as well. Corruption doesn't play like a game that flaunts the Wii hardware around as a Gimmick (I'm looking at you, Zelda). Rather, it is a solid game in its own right that uses the unique strengths of the Wii hardware to make it even better. My question is why doesn't Nintendo do this with more of their franchises? Imagine what a Zelda game developed by a third party studio with a fresh set of eyes could be. This new, invigorated game design is, in my opinion just the sort of thing Nintendo could use to keep their titles legitimately at the forefront of the gaming world.
I've thought quite a bit about this lately, and I wondered if maybe I've just outgrown games like Mario and Zelda. Maybe the incredibly fond memories I have of Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and the others are more reflective of the nostalgia for my childhood gaming days than actually being indicative of their staying power. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it's not quite that simple. We're far from the end of the road for any of these games. The difference is that maybe Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time were more significant because they allowed us to get to the point in gaming where we are now, similar to how we wouldn't have hybrid cars if there never was a Model T. Maybe instead of trying to recreate these games time after time, we should just just recognize them as the important first step into the larger world of possibilities that they were, pay them due respect, and then build from that rather trying to simply build on that.
Unfortunately, Nintendo does not seem to want (or need) to change anything. In spite of everything I've been complaining about, the Wii still sells like hotcakes, and I have no doubt that we will continue to see Mario and Zelda rehashes, with the occasional Mario Party of Link's Crossbow Training thrown in, for years to come.
Last post, I focused on Nintendo's hardware and the Wii. This time around, my focus is going to be on their games and software. NOTE: to keep things simple, I'm just going to be talking about NINTENDO titles, not merely games that were available on Nintendo consoles. Thus, while MegaMan is arguably as influential as Zelda, it's technically a Capcom series and thus falls outside the scope of this discussion.
To try and talk about the history of Nintendo games seems redundant and unecessary. I mean, everybody knows the story; in the 8-bit era, games like Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid (the "big 3", so to speak), not to mention the instant super-stardom of Super Mario Bros. 3 (thank you Fred Savage), delivered instant notoriety for the NES, making Nintendo a household name. The SNES carried the trend forward, with Super Mario World, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid effortlessly bringing Nintendo's AAA titles into the 16-bit world in a way that made the games new and fresh while simultaneously preserved the sense of familiarity that made them such beloved games previously. The gravy train kept rolling for Nintendo with the N-64, a system which was hugely competetive despite the fact that at the time of its launch, the PlayStation had a library almost 10 times that of Nintendo's, and Sony's games ran on 700 mb discs rather than 8 mb cartridges. How was this possible? Mario 64. Ocarina of Time. Super Smash Bros. Arguably some of the greatest games "of all time." Games that took everything we thought we knew about our favorites and blew us out of the water by introducing brand new innovations we could never have thought of.
These games have enamored us for so long that Nintendo has decided to keep making them. Exactly. Sure, some story elements may have changed, or a new game mechanic or two may get introduced, but for the most part, Nintendo's AAA titles seem to be just reskins of these original greats. Some people may not think this is a terrible thing since, after all, they were great games. But what people fail to see is the reason they were so great is because they were new and fresh and totally shattered our expectations; to keep this formula unchanged for a decade and a half (Mario 64 was released in 1996) is to adopt the very same stagnation that Nintendo strove to break free from in their earlier days. Maybe the novelty really hasn't worn off yet, but I think it's more likely that Nintendo is allowing itself to get fat and lazy on its throne, and they're afraid of rocking the boat too much under the thought process that "if it aint broke, don't fix it. Ever."
I may represent a minority of gamers out there, but frankly I'm ready for something new. As far as I'm concerned, if I can predict the story progression of the latest Zelda title before it even played out, that's a BAD THING. There's a fine line between comfortable self-referential humor and endearing familiarity on the one side, and sedentary complacency and unoriginal game design on the other, and from what I've seen, Nintendo is crossing over to the latter.
Take Zelda for example. Ocarina of Time could be seen as the peak (although I know some who would argue this). They tried something new with Majora's Mask and it was a technically brilliant game. But for some reason, they shied away from things different and with Wind Waker returned to the original 3D Zelda formula with the addition of a new game mechanic (the sailing). Twilight Princess, the first current-gen Zelda title, was actually a port of a game originally made for GameCube...nothing more need be said about that. Hope was on the horizon, as Miamoto (Mr. Nintendo himself) went on record saying that the next Zelda title would incorporate "big new unique ideas". What this worked out to was the incorporation of Wii motion plus into a Zelda formula that seems otherwise unchanged. Now maybe I'm just being nitpicky, but designing a major AAA title around a game mechanic that isn't even 100% actualized (refer to my previous Nintendo post for this) seems like a bad idea. I just think that it takes more than a new hardware feature that doesn't even really work the way it was conceptualized (just watch videos of the E3 demo to see what I'm talking about) to revive a franchise that's been singing the same old song for years now.
Mario is another title that seems to have peaked in the 64-bit era and has since been riding the same gravy train. Mario 64 was, by all accounts, THE game that brought us into the 3D world and, just like with Zelda, Nintendo seems reluctant to deviate from that path. Don't get me wrong - I understand that change for the sake of change isn't necessarily a good thing, but we're talking about recycling a formula that was new in 1996. Sunshine tried to add a few new game mechanics and was pretty much universally panned for it. Galaxy was visually novel with truly 3D worlds and new gravity mechanics, but was on the whole not a huge step forward, which is fine since, after all, it's a Mario game. But I think the most insulting offering was Mario Galaxy 2 - a game which actually began life as an expansion for Galaxy. The game featured the same level design, the same mechanics, and even recycled many of the same boss fights (blatantly, at that) and yet still was packaged as a separate, full-price game. Congratulations Nintendo fans - you just paid $50 for Yoshi.
Interestingly enough, Metroid is the only one of the "Big 3" that doesn't seem to follow this trend. This may be because the Metroid series did not have a 64-bit offering. Instead, the series experienced its peak on the SNES with Super Metroid. My guess (and this is purely speculation) is that Nintendo were reluctant to let slip away one of their most popular titles, but they hadn't released a new game since 1994 and they didn't know themselves how to up the ante with a new game. Their solution? Hand the series off to another developer. The result, oddly enough, was a resounding success. Retro did with the Metroid Prime games what Nintendo could never have done. In approaching the 20-year old series with a fresh set of eyes, they refused to be bound by the convention of Nintendo's "house style". Their's is the approach of those who had instead grown up playing the games, and then gone into the development process with ideas that they as players would want to see. The end result was, of course, one of the greatest Game Cube titles ever in Metroid Prime, (and Echoes), and an astoundingly well-made Wii title as well. Corruption doesn't play like a game that flaunts the Wii hardware around as a Gimmick (I'm looking at you, Zelda). Rather, it is a solid game in its own right that uses the unique strengths of the Wii hardware to make it even better. My question is why doesn't Nintendo do this with more of their franchises? Imagine what a Zelda game developed by a third party studio with a fresh set of eyes could be. This new, invigorated game design is, in my opinion just the sort of thing Nintendo could use to keep their titles legitimately at the forefront of the gaming world.
I've thought quite a bit about this lately, and I wondered if maybe I've just outgrown games like Mario and Zelda. Maybe the incredibly fond memories I have of Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and the others are more reflective of the nostalgia for my childhood gaming days than actually being indicative of their staying power. However, the more I think about it, the more I think it's not quite that simple. We're far from the end of the road for any of these games. The difference is that maybe Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time were more significant because they allowed us to get to the point in gaming where we are now, similar to how we wouldn't have hybrid cars if there never was a Model T. Maybe instead of trying to recreate these games time after time, we should just just recognize them as the important first step into the larger world of possibilities that they were, pay them due respect, and then build from that rather trying to simply build on that.
Unfortunately, Nintendo does not seem to want (or need) to change anything. In spite of everything I've been complaining about, the Wii still sells like hotcakes, and I have no doubt that we will continue to see Mario and Zelda rehashes, with the occasional Mario Party of Link's Crossbow Training thrown in, for years to come.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
We interrupt this program...
I was going to post the second half of my Nintendo rant today. Honest, I was. But I've been playing Reach all day. It's a phenomenal game; I'm not even going to talk about it because you probably already know that it's a phenomenal game, and if you read some of my older posts you'll know why I think it's phenomenal.
So that's it...Reach today, Nintendo tomorrow. Now time for bed.
So that's it...Reach today, Nintendo tomorrow. Now time for bed.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
How Nintendo doing everything right is totally wrong
With Super Mario Galaxy 2 still visible in our rear-view, Metroid: Other M still fresh in people's Wiis, and Zelda: Skyward Sword coming up soon, I felt it appropriate to talk a little bit about Nintendo, their games, and the success they've been enjoying as of late.
And how it doesn't make any sense.
This may seem like a silly thing to say, with Nintendo being a huge (if not the biggest) name in video games, featuring their own in-house triple-A titles with arguably the longest running continuous history today. Mario is a more recognizable character to children than Abraham Lincoln is (that's a FACT, folks), and chances are, either your mom, your girlfriend, or maybe even both have played a Nintendo game at some point in their lives. So why then do I find it odd that they are currently enjoying the success that they are? Bear with me for a bit...
I guess a good starting point would be Nintendo's hardware itself. The Wii is a funny little machine that families everywhere love and gamers like me love to hate. Don't get me wrong, when I heard about it way back in 2006, I thought it was an awesome idea. I can specifically remember watching the tech demo for Twilight Princess at E3 thinking "this is going to rock." The issue is that Nintendo chose to focus on crazy tricked-out motion controls and "Wii-motes" at the expense of processing power and, you know, an actual system. The Wii is a little white box with last-gen graphics that can't even play DVD's (just for comparison, the PS3 comes with a built in BLU-RAY player). But I was never really a "graphics make the game" kind of guy, so I was willing to overlook this because - come on - freaking motion controls man. We'd never seen that before (yes I'm purposely omitting mention of the Power Glove).
The problem came in the execution. Nintendo did such a bad job of implementing the Wii's unique features into games in a way that really showcased what the system was capable of. Maybe the launch of Red Steel and its almost instantaneous bellyflop scared most developers (Nintendo included) away from the motion controls on the Wii, or maybe it just NEVER worked the way it was supposed to, but whatever the reason, there quickly arose two very distinct categories of Wii games: the games featuring motion and pointer control were the "pick up and play" party games like Cooking Mama and Mario Party, and the "hardcore" games (dare I say the REAL games) were relegated to the realm of simple Nunchuk + buttons control, occasionally with a waggle here or there substituting for a button press on a conventional controller.
This brings me to another major problem that the Wii faces. Nintendo is marketing their console to two very different crowds: the casual, "on the couch together as a family" crowd who have likely never played video games before in their lives (in fact I know people who had never played video games before who bought a Wii), and on the other end of the spectrum, the "hardcore" gamer who had been with Nintendo for 20 years. The "cashies" would love it because a Wii remote was simple and intuitive and didn't involve learning your way around a scary foreign object like a video game controller, and the hardcore crowd would love it because the new tech offered increased precision and an exciting new immersive way to play your favorite games. Except as I explained earlier, it didn't quite work out this way; the motion control was never tapped to its full potential, so the "party games" featured overly-simplified repetitive motions that quickly became unfun (except these people had never played video games before so they didn't even realize that they weren't having fun), and the triple-A titles nixed it completely so there WAS no new immersive gameplay - it was the same old analog stick and buttons, on a system with graphics that were only marginally improved from last gen.
Another shortcoming of the Wii's hardware is its criminally inadequate online system. I'm wary of beginning a rant that will take me so far off topic I'll forget what day it is, but suffice to say, gaming today IS an online medium. It's just the reality of the situation. And it seems to be a reality that Nintendo refuses to accept. Both Xbox360 and PS3 have online systems seamlessly integrated into their dashboards. They are effectively built around their online community, with an emphasis on maintaining your online profile, playing publicly with other people, and meeting maintaining groups of friends with whom you can play with at your leisure. To call the Wii's online system clunky by comparison would be to pay it an undue compliment. Nintendo has forsaken customizable, tradeable gamertags for random, 16-digit numbers that you are assigned when you plug in your console. Even if someone did take the effort to memorize their "friend code", you can't GIVE it to anyone since there is no way to communicate with anyone in-game, and you can only send messages to people who's code you already have. You can't even just punch in a random code and get a friend that way, since both parties have to add the other person's friend code in order for there to be any sort of communication between the two. In other words, unless you already know (and can talk to!) the person outside of Wii-world, you can't play with them online. I know that Nintendo had children (and more specifically web-paranoid parents) and their safety and anonymity in mind when they designed this system, but it seems so counter-intuitive to the notion of community that online gaming is striving for these days. I have met people over Xbox Live with whom I still maintain contact years later, and through these people met some of their online friends, and in this way I've met a bunch of really cool guys that I enjoy not only playing with, but just talking to in online parties. With my Wii, my online gaming is restricted to myself and local friends who give me their codes ahead of time. But as it turns out, with no live chat option, we always just end up logging on to Xbox Live to play anyways.
Thus Nintendo seemed to succeed at the very odd task of increasing their fanbase tenfold while simultaneously shafting the people who had been supporting them for the past two decades. Oddly enough, however, on paper the Wii has done everything right - it was the top selling system by far. In fact, as recently as July of this year (yes, that's almost 4 years after its release), the Wii was STILL the top selling current-gen home console, selling almost as much as the Xbox 360 and the PS3 COMBINED.
It seems that this rant has, despite my best efforts, run away from me and gotten out of hand. I'll wrap up my discussion in my next post, Part 2, where I'll talk about how Nintendo's management of their games makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Until then.
And how it doesn't make any sense.
This may seem like a silly thing to say, with Nintendo being a huge (if not the biggest) name in video games, featuring their own in-house triple-A titles with arguably the longest running continuous history today. Mario is a more recognizable character to children than Abraham Lincoln is (that's a FACT, folks), and chances are, either your mom, your girlfriend, or maybe even both have played a Nintendo game at some point in their lives. So why then do I find it odd that they are currently enjoying the success that they are? Bear with me for a bit...
I guess a good starting point would be Nintendo's hardware itself. The Wii is a funny little machine that families everywhere love and gamers like me love to hate. Don't get me wrong, when I heard about it way back in 2006, I thought it was an awesome idea. I can specifically remember watching the tech demo for Twilight Princess at E3 thinking "this is going to rock." The issue is that Nintendo chose to focus on crazy tricked-out motion controls and "Wii-motes" at the expense of processing power and, you know, an actual system. The Wii is a little white box with last-gen graphics that can't even play DVD's (just for comparison, the PS3 comes with a built in BLU-RAY player). But I was never really a "graphics make the game" kind of guy, so I was willing to overlook this because - come on - freaking motion controls man. We'd never seen that before (yes I'm purposely omitting mention of the Power Glove).
The problem came in the execution. Nintendo did such a bad job of implementing the Wii's unique features into games in a way that really showcased what the system was capable of. Maybe the launch of Red Steel and its almost instantaneous bellyflop scared most developers (Nintendo included) away from the motion controls on the Wii, or maybe it just NEVER worked the way it was supposed to, but whatever the reason, there quickly arose two very distinct categories of Wii games: the games featuring motion and pointer control were the "pick up and play" party games like Cooking Mama and Mario Party, and the "hardcore" games (dare I say the REAL games) were relegated to the realm of simple Nunchuk + buttons control, occasionally with a waggle here or there substituting for a button press on a conventional controller.
This brings me to another major problem that the Wii faces. Nintendo is marketing their console to two very different crowds: the casual, "on the couch together as a family" crowd who have likely never played video games before in their lives (in fact I know people who had never played video games before who bought a Wii), and on the other end of the spectrum, the "hardcore" gamer who had been with Nintendo for 20 years. The "cashies" would love it because a Wii remote was simple and intuitive and didn't involve learning your way around a scary foreign object like a video game controller, and the hardcore crowd would love it because the new tech offered increased precision and an exciting new immersive way to play your favorite games. Except as I explained earlier, it didn't quite work out this way; the motion control was never tapped to its full potential, so the "party games" featured overly-simplified repetitive motions that quickly became unfun (except these people had never played video games before so they didn't even realize that they weren't having fun), and the triple-A titles nixed it completely so there WAS no new immersive gameplay - it was the same old analog stick and buttons, on a system with graphics that were only marginally improved from last gen.
Another shortcoming of the Wii's hardware is its criminally inadequate online system. I'm wary of beginning a rant that will take me so far off topic I'll forget what day it is, but suffice to say, gaming today IS an online medium. It's just the reality of the situation. And it seems to be a reality that Nintendo refuses to accept. Both Xbox360 and PS3 have online systems seamlessly integrated into their dashboards. They are effectively built around their online community, with an emphasis on maintaining your online profile, playing publicly with other people, and meeting maintaining groups of friends with whom you can play with at your leisure. To call the Wii's online system clunky by comparison would be to pay it an undue compliment. Nintendo has forsaken customizable, tradeable gamertags for random, 16-digit numbers that you are assigned when you plug in your console. Even if someone did take the effort to memorize their "friend code", you can't GIVE it to anyone since there is no way to communicate with anyone in-game, and you can only send messages to people who's code you already have. You can't even just punch in a random code and get a friend that way, since both parties have to add the other person's friend code in order for there to be any sort of communication between the two. In other words, unless you already know (and can talk to!) the person outside of Wii-world, you can't play with them online. I know that Nintendo had children (and more specifically web-paranoid parents) and their safety and anonymity in mind when they designed this system, but it seems so counter-intuitive to the notion of community that online gaming is striving for these days. I have met people over Xbox Live with whom I still maintain contact years later, and through these people met some of their online friends, and in this way I've met a bunch of really cool guys that I enjoy not only playing with, but just talking to in online parties. With my Wii, my online gaming is restricted to myself and local friends who give me their codes ahead of time. But as it turns out, with no live chat option, we always just end up logging on to Xbox Live to play anyways.
Thus Nintendo seemed to succeed at the very odd task of increasing their fanbase tenfold while simultaneously shafting the people who had been supporting them for the past two decades. Oddly enough, however, on paper the Wii has done everything right - it was the top selling system by far. In fact, as recently as July of this year (yes, that's almost 4 years after its release), the Wii was STILL the top selling current-gen home console, selling almost as much as the Xbox 360 and the PS3 COMBINED.
It seems that this rant has, despite my best efforts, run away from me and gotten out of hand. I'll wrap up my discussion in my next post, Part 2, where I'll talk about how Nintendo's management of their games makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Until then.
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