Infantilizing Gamers

Level Up points to what it essentially refers to as a hit-whoring hit piece on Mario Galaxy.  It’s undeniable that Tim Rogers’s review has more bile than his complaints warrant.  But at the same time, he hits on something that’s increasingly irritated me about new games.

Is it really necessary to remind me - every single time - that I got an [item X], or to describe how to use it (see Zelda, from Ocarina of Time to Phantom Hourglass)?  Is it really essential to have a three-part cinematic sequence whose function is to inform me that I got a star, or a new high score (see Mario Galaxy… which, even worse, does the high score thing without actually using the score concept in the game itself)?  I doubt it. 

Nintendo is perhaps worse than other companies at this, but not appreciably so.  All games seem to be extending their training sequences out into the game as a whole.  They confuse help, which should be available when requested, with coddling, which shouldn’t be available in titles targeted at the over-six set.  I’d like to see this made into at a minimum some sort of toggleable option.

Linearity Hypocrisy?

GameLife raises an interesting point that occurred to me while I was playing Super Mario Galaxy: the game is far more linear than its Nintendo 64 predecessor.  But people don’t seem to care (especially considering the success of NSMB for the DS).  Is it indicative of hypocrisy when people laud non-linear games for their inventive story-telling and the player’s control over the narrative?

My suspicion is that the answer is “sort of.”  I suspect that people overestimate the importance of narrative in the first place and that what really matters is just whether the game is fun.  Naturally, that’s a subjective assessment that can be helped or hurt by the story-telling choices that the designer makes - but it’s not necessarily a one-fits-all requirement.  I wish people would remember that more.

(By the way, is it just me or is it odd that Chris Kohler is confused by the relative outperformance of NSMB vs. Galaxy?  Sure, the latter has sold only 10% as much as the former.  But the DS has 53M consoles sold, while the Wii is still under 15M, and some of those sales are necessarily to casual gamers.  It’s a question of basic math.)

Double-Facing Kotaku On The PSP

I’m going to both agree and disagree with Kotaku (or more specifically, with Mark Wilson) simultaneously.  Jason Chen of Gizmodo wrote a column entitled “Why the PSP Might Overtake the DS.”  It was, as Wilson points out, an interesting variation of Xeno’s Paradox - well-reasoned, articulate, and deeply flawed.  I’ll provide an overview of the article, then discuss why the entire conversation is off-base.

Chen’s post contains 8 pieces of evidence for the PSP’s ultimate domination.  I’ll let you read them in detail or yourself, but they all fall into one of three categories:

• Sales momentum: The PSP has sold 1M units in Japan in two months, sales for the PSP are up while the DS’s are down, and the PSP has sold as many units as the PS2.
• Product quality: The PSP has more highly-rated games, as well as more add-ons and media interactivity.

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SMG = SMB3+

Some intriguing thoughts from Press the Buttons linking Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Bros. 3… in more than the obvious ways,

Mario Brings in a Happy Birthday

What better way to start off my birthday than to spend some quality time with Super Mario Galaxy (don’t answer that Megan)?  The game simply drips in sheer joy and may be one of the happiest, most fun games ever made (perhaps actually giving increased meaning to the “UR MR GAY” ridiculousness).  There have certainly been several amazing games already this year, and even more to come, but there are so few that so confidently revel in the sheer joy of gaming like Mario Galaxy has (perhaps the last game that I can recall is the original Katamari Damacy, a fun and innovative, but still far inferior game).

With the industry trend towards more realism, seriousness, and storytelling that supposedly is bringing “maturity” to the medium, Mario Galaxy simply bucks the trend and reminds us all why we ever started playing games in the first place.  Bioshock may have been an important step forward this year for games as a medium to explore serious themes, but Mario Galaxy, with it’s effortless controls, gorgeous visuals, fantastic music, and outstanding level design, is as much a work of art as Bioshock is.  Bravo, Nintendo.

Mockery Via Proxy

Gawker mocks a column on The Lost Levels so I don’t have to.  Admittedly, they’re more concerned about the writing style than the content, but how has a self-professed gaming journalist managed to remain ignorant of The Lost Levels (NES), Super Mario All-Stars (SNES remake), and Super Mario Deluxe (GBC remake)?  And that’s not even dealing with its rather tortured prose.

Mario Goes Multiplayer?

Continuing my apparent love affair with linking to Stephen Totilo, I give you Totilo’s prognostication on the Wii’s multiplayer strategy.  In short, Totilo thinks that, rather than simply being a party console, the Wii may actually mark a defined attempt for Nintendo to break with solo single-player entirely.

His evidence is fourfold: the multiplayer elements in Super Mario Galaxy, marketing that emphasizes communal gameplay even when the games in question lack multiplayer (e.g., Battalion Wars), recent development that favors quirky multiplayer games like Brain Age, Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing, and sales that recently favor multiplayer games (I know, I know, it gives you a remote… but still).

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Whither Link?

N’Gai Croal sends word* of a recent conversation he had with Stephen Totilo on the subject of Phantom Hourglass.  Interestingly enough, neither of them were particularly taken with the game, which surprised me considerably considering how much I was enjoying it. 

Their complaints seem to be somewhat distinct.  Croal will no doubt shock many by noting that he’s never actually played a Zelda game before PH, with the exception of some early tests on Twilight Princess.  During his play-through, Croal found himself enjoying the controls a lot, but says that he “admires” PH more than he really enjoys playing it: the difference is attributed to the fact that he prefers linear games, rather than those that require exploration, backtracking, and all the other core elements of a Zelda title.  In other words, God of War is more up his alley than Zelda. 

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Next Up, The Eggplant Wizard?

Super Smash Bros Brawl continues to add to its roster of playable characters with the inclusion of King Dedede.  Who’s that you say?  Apparently, according to Joystiq, he’s “Kirby’s recurring nemesis going all the way back to the original Kirby’s Dream Land on the Game Boy.”

I’ll admit that I’m not exactly the biggest Kirby fan, but I do like most of his 2d games and have played through many of them from beginning to end and I can only very vaguely remember this character.  I’m not exactly opposed to his inclusion, but they’re really digging pretty deep into their franchises just to include a few more characters. Couldn’t they have scratched him and just released the game this December as originally planned?

Ah, who am I kidding.  We love this kind of fan service.  Bring on the Eggplant Wizard!

What Makes A Zelda Game A Zelda Game?

I’m just about finished with Phantom Hourglass, and I was surprised both by how much content the game dropped from previous iterations as well as how much was familiar and even expected.  So I started thinking a bit more about “what makes a Zelda game a Zelda game?”  That is, if you stripped a modern entrant in the series down to its bare structure, what would you find?

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