My Hardcore Gaming on Wii…

The Wii has been on the market now for about 2.5 years and like Nintendo consoles of the past, has been labeled as Kiddy. However this generation the battle has been more between Casual and Hardcore gaming. Nintendo has succeeded beyond expectations and I have enjoyed way too many games than I originally thought coming off the less than stellar performance of the Gamecube.

With all the games I have bought there has still been a lack of good Mature rated games. Most have been either cheap ports or lousy developed titles, minus the great No More Heroes. However last year I bought Call of Duty: World At War and the excitement continued to roll in when 2009 came around. MadWorld recently hit earlier this month and later the DS finally saw its first and long anticipated Grand Theft Auto. Lately I have been putting too many hours in to Chinatown Wars and it even overshadows many Nintendo 1st party games.

2009 will even get better when The Conduit hits in June, and Dead Space: Extraction later this fall. Having only time and money for one console and one handheld I am happy that 3rd parties are finally understanding the Nintendo systems and filling the void of games that the PS3 and 360 enjoy.

Guitar Hero Commercials

I am not buying Guitar Hero: Metallica anytime soon. But I love the commercials for the game. Not quite as good as this one but still very entertaining.

Storage Solution

Today at the GDC Nintendo announced and launched a storage solution for the Wii. The Wii's internal memory which stores save data, Wii channels, and downloadable games is only 512 MB. Needless to say, if you download many games, especially N64 games or larger WiiWare games this feels up quickly. For the last few months if I wanted to buy a new game I had to delete a number of games to make room. This was a large inconvenience.

The new storage solution allows games to be saved to an SD card (up to 32 GB in size) and played from the SD card with limited delay. Hopefully with this storage solution Nintendo will begin to release more N64 games (Majora's Mask and Excitebike 64 please) and increase the allowable size of WiiWare games. Check out the video below to see this system in action.



It is not the best possible solution,but I am more than happy with what Nintendo came up with. I am excited to see what are the other consequences of this update.

Confessions of a Pokemon Addict

Yesterday the latest iteration of the Pokemon series, Pokemon Platinum, was released. Even though I own Pokemon Pearl (Platinum is basically the same game as Pearl with a few minor (yet exciting) additions) I had to pick it up today. Ever since I bought Pokemon Pearl in April of 2007 I have become addicted to Pokemon. I have played Pokemon Pearl for over 220 hours and have put as many hours if not more playing the other Pokemon games I have (Platinum is my 9th Pokemon game).

Even though I love playing Pokemon games I am somewhat ashamed to admit it. I think it is safe to say that many people think that Pokemon games are for young children. Even my 11 year old nephew thinks he is too old for Pokemon games. Admittedly, on their face Pokemon are rather cute and childish looking. The games, unlike some other RPGs, are very simple to pick up and play.

Yet behind this simple and cute exterior lies a game that is very complex and difficult to master. My countless hours that I have spent playing the Pokemon games has gotten me very close to my initial goal of achieving the motto of Pokemon: Gotta Catch 'Em All. It has only been recently, as I neared what I initially envisioned would be the end of playing Pokemon, that I began to scratch the surface of a much deeper experience. I have begun to collect rare event Pokemon from other countries and raising Pokemon that can battle competitively. Understanding competitive battling requires and understanding of extremely complicated game mechanics that are largely hidden from view unless you seek them out. It also takes an extreme amount of patience and hard work to obtain a Pokemon with good stats and then to raise it the precise way to capitalize on those stats.

I think it is precisely this dichotomy of being easy to pick up and play while also be incredibly complicated if one chooses that makes Pokemon such a great game. Anyone from the casual player to the extremely competitive player can enjoy the same game. Pokemon is the quintessential Nintendo game for this very reason.

It's in the game

Recently EA announced their intentions to place a larger emphasis on developing games for the Wii from the ground up. To fulfill that promise EA has announced two games that will use Nintendo's Wii Motion Plus: Tiger Woods 10 and the new Grand Slam Tennis. With the details released this week about these games it seems that EA is taking this promise very seriously. Both of these games have jumped to the top of my wish list.

EA promises an all new realism that can be obtained only through Wii Motion Plus. They have obtained one-to-one motion control. Whatever you do in your living room, the on screen character will also do. Although the controls in Tiger Woods 09 were very good overall there were two main problems: first, the controller reading draws and fades was inconsistent; second, putting was unrealistic, you would choose a putter distance, for example a five foot putter, then you would have to swing full power for it to go five feet. Both of these issues have been remedied with the use of Wii Motion Plus (you can even push or pull putts now if you twist your wrists during the putts). Also added to the game this year is an actual crowd at tournaments; no longer will there be applause and jeers from an invisible audience. Also the weather conditions in the game will reflect the actual weather conditions at that location thanks to a link to the Wii Weather Channel.

EA has built also created a new franchise, Grand Slam Tennis, from the ground up for the Wii. It already has a lot of great things going for it besides Wii Motion Plus. It is the first tennis game to have Wimbledon in it. It also has many of the legendary players from days past such as Pete Sampras and John McEnroe. I also love the visual style of the game. Having more of a caricature style works much better with the Wii.

The early hands on with the game and Wii Motion Plus have been outstanding. Where the ball goes depends not only on the timing of the swing, but on the speed and position of the wiimote as well as the length of the backswing and follow through that you take.

I have expressed some concern before about Wii Motion Plus making games too realistic to the point that they are no longer fun to play. However, it seems that EA is walking this fine line. It seems like the games are still accesible. Hopefully these games will also provide a deep control experience that takes practice to fully master.

8-bit Hip-Hop

I really enjoyed this combination of two things I love. Check out the link below for some hip-hop tracks that have been remixed in the style of 8-bit games.

Hip-Hop 8-bit Remix

SSBB: One Year Later

Super Smash Bros. Brawl was probably Nintendo's biggest game release last year. The hype for the game was by far the biggest. From May 2007 until the games release on March 9, 2008 there were daily updates on the official website: Smash Bros. DOJO. The actual size of the game also makes it one of the largest ever released by Nintendo. There are 544 trophies, 700 stickers, 35 playable characters (including Sonic and Snake), 27 assist trophies, and 30 different Pokemon in Poke Balls. The game also includes probably the best soundtrack ever for a game. The number of game modes was also large; most notably, for the first time including a single player story mode: the Subspace Emissary. Brawl also added Wi-Fi play for the first time in the series.

All of this adds up to a tremendous game; the best iteration in the hugely successful franchise. However, one year later, looking back at the merits of the game, I think the game failed to be a great game. Despite being the largest game on the Wii, it doesn't have the replay value of other games. I play other games far more, and Brawl hasn't been turned on at my house for a long time.

The biggest problem for Brawl is the underwhelming online play. The quality of the online play was decent. I didn't have big problems with lag like others did. However, despite having robust options in the main game, the online aspect is limited to battles, home-run contests, and multi-man brawls. However, there is no stat tracking involved at all. If you beat up on your friends for hours the only record of it is in your memory. There are no online rankings, no stats, no replays. Mario Kart Wii, released one and a half months after Brawl features a much better online system with rankings, ghosts, and lag free play.

What Brawl really needs is an online ranking system. Tell me where I rank in the world, region, and against my friends. Tell me how many times I have beat my friend. Include rankings for the classic mode, home-run contest, Subspace Emissary. I spend hours racing around Luigi's Circuit in Mario Kart to try and beat my friends. Likewise rankings would make me replay the home-run derby and the classic mode over and over for bragging rights. Include online tournaments with different challenge objectives like Mario Kart and Tetris Party.

Brawl came half way to achieving this replayability with an awesome achievement system (one that I will likely never complete); but it would have been even better if I could compare my achievements with my friends. Unfortunately Wii Speak was also not implemented into the game. The lack of trash talking with friends also ruins the fun (Skype has served as a decent substitute though). Overall, Brawl is lacking a few characteristics that would have pushed the game over the top to be the game to play on the Wii.

Excitebots

Nintendo just announced a new game, Excitebots, that will be released in May. Excitebots is essentially a sequel to Excite Truck. It will provide racing like Excite Truck, but the trucks have been replaced with vehicles that look like insects and animals.
The official description reveals some wierd interesting gameplay mechanics:
"Get your friends together and grab your Wii Wheel (TM) accessories for action-packed raucous racing. ExciteBots: Trick Racing takes the big-air thrills and simple controls of Excite Truck (TM) and ramps up the fun with a non-stop barrage of funky challenges and mini-games performed at blinding speed. You won’t believe your eyes when you find yourself shooting goals, throwing pies and even playing poker in the middle of racing robotic animals and insects around off-road tracks."

Pies? Poker? I'm not too sure how those elements will be incorporated in the game. If it was anyone but Nintendo was making this game I would think this game was another piece of shovelware. No one would be excited about this game. Hopefully, it will be a great game.
I am most excited about a picture on the cover art for the game. A soccer ball is displayed. Hopefully this game will again have a take on the soccer game from Excitebike 64. Especially if the soccer game was online (the Wi-Fi logo is on the box, so some aspects of the game will be online). I could sink hundreds of hours into the soccer game alone. I think an online soccer game would make some of my friends buy a Wii.
This could be a very interesting release from Nintendo.