Problems with SSB: Brawl online?

I’ll try to have more impressions up later, but is anyone else having major problems with getting into an online game of Brawl?  I’ve managed to get into a single game with only 1 other person, and that lasted all of 2 matches.  Most of the time, whenever I start up a game I end up spending a few minutes in the “practice area” while all 3 extra players are at “seeking”.  It eventually times out and I’m thrown back into either the main menu or the menu where you pick team or standard battle.

This is the first Wii game that I’ve tried an online component for, but I’ve never had a problem with any other kind of online multiplayer game, whether PS3, 360, PC, or even the DS.  Is the network just so overloaded that it can’t even match me with a single other person?  If this is what I have to look forward to for what should be one of Nintendo’s premiere online titles, you can count me out already.

The Difference Between Fads And Trends

The title of this post is slightly misleading, but I think that Microsoft and Sony may be on the verge of compounding a major strategic error with another strategic error.  The jumping-off point for this post is a New York Times article that reviews GDC speeches by the major manufacturers and developers, with the nominal topic being social gaming.

Naturally, there’s a hagiographic section on Nintendo’s prescience in identifying the gaming casual market, and highlighting how successful that strategy has been.  But I’d like to focus a bit more on the competition’s response.  Read the rest of this entry »

Mario Kart Wii won’t necessarily be an uncontrollable nightmare

I hope I’m not the only one that’s been skeptical about how well motion controls will work with the Mario Kart franchise. Unlike the “looser” feeling of Excitetruck, Mario Kart has always been more about precision steering, whether sliding perfectly around a tough corner, aiming a green shell with lethal accuracy, or lining yourself up properly for a shortcut.  Maybe Nintendo will prove me wrong, but trying to get this level of precision out of what seems to me like miming a steering wheel seems impossible.

However, like Super Smash Bros, Nintendo is apparently not being heavy-handed with forcing a motion-controlled setup on you.  According to 1up, there will be support for various control schemes, including a Nunchuk-Wii Remote setup, GCN controllers, and the classic controller as well.  I’ll be certain to try out each of the styles once the game is finally made available (which, I’m guessing won’t be until at least September despite what Nintendo says now), but I have a feeling that one of these alternative control methods will be my preference.

Now if they can just nail the online play…

RPG Statistics And Micromanagement

Next Gen has an interesting article on the future of RPGs, and more specifically the alleged obsolesence of translated pen-and-paper RPGs in favor of MMOs and visceral action-ized versions.  The piece doesn’t mention this, but I suspect that there are probably two key audiences for computer RPGs: first, PnP players who enjoy being able to see their game worlds translated into an interactive environment, and second, players who just like exploring a fantasy world and developing an ever more powerful character.

The use of pen and paper statistics is partly an artifact of the first group, who comprised a significant portion of the second for a great deal of the life of PC/console gaming.  If you really enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, I’d guess that you’ll really enjoy a computer version of it - and you need the stats and micromanagement to connect you to that D&D world.  But that’s not the whole story: another part of the use of micromanagement is that it lets you very effectively compare your progress against a baseline.   

At its core, much of the appeal of an RPG is that it lets you see how your character is evolving, gaining new abilities, and dispatching stronger foes.  A “sword that cuts an enemy in two” is all well and good, but how do you know if that sword is better than the “spear that impales enemies”?  If you can’t easily determine which is superior, you have no idea if you’re actually making progress within the context of the game.  In a similar vein, those menus that Ed Del Castillo reviles so much provide a far simpler means of feedback than attempting to communicate things like inventory space visually.

This isn’t to say that menus should be used exclusively, or that they’re even preferable in many situations.  But technology hasn’t yet reached a point where we can dispense with them.

Attack of the Imitators

Man, the amount of total crap on the Wii is truly amazing. Sure, you have publishers like Conspiracy Entertainment that release nearly a dozen shovelware products to turn a quick buck, but that’s not even the half of it.

Just now I searched for Endless Ocean on Amazon, and not only did it bring up that game, but just below it with similar cover art was “Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure”. Not only that, they were undercutting the price of Endless Ocean by $1 (at $28.99). I mean, why just go diving when you can BE a sea monster… and for a dollar less to boot!

Now, obviously the games are a bit different, as Sea Monsters (according to the description) lets you play as “Six different sea monsters”, but does this not seem like a cheap imitation to anyone else?

And the Wii (and DS for that matter) are just full of these kinds of imitations. Because of the success of Nintendogs, the Wii has both “Petz Dogz 2″ and “Puppy Luv”, as well as “Petz Catz 2″ and “Kitty Luv”, not to mention “Petz Horsez 2″ and “My Horse and Me.” The success of Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Mario Party have brought us such gems as Carnival Games, EA Playground, and perhaps the best name for a game ever, Game Party (it’s sequel, likely to be called “Party Game”, is also highly anticipated).

What is wrong with this picture? Suddenly the Wii library is looking like a PC bargain bins, where all you find is a bunch of second-rate hunting, card, and casino games, only the Wii also has pet simulators, party/mini game compilations, licensed crap, and other trash. Are people actually buying this stuff?

I guess in some ways, since I’ll never buy any of this stuff, I don’t really care that much except that it’s kind of scary to walk into the Wii aisle at Circuit City only to find a sea of trashy games you’ve never heard of. On the other hand, if people actually buy this crap, this will probably be mostly the kind of games we see on the Wii during its lifetime. If that’s the fate the Wii is doomed to I’m afraid it’ll receive less and less attention from me as time goes on. And if this is a trend that Nintendo is happy with, it’s quite possible that the Wii will be the last Nintendo console I own.

Does anyone else remember the Nintendo that promised “Quality over Quantity”? Maybe they really should consider this again.

Endless Ocean

I’m somewhat intrigued by Endless Ocean, but I share some of the same concerns as Jason Cipriano here.  Is there any point to playing a game that doesn’t end?  I think Cipriano’s conclusion is correct, but his diagnosis is somewhat flawed.

The problem with EO isn’t that it lacks conflict - games don’t need conflict per se to be fun, stories do (and we all know my feelings on the story front).  What games do need is an objective.  This is because a game, almost definitionally, requires motivation, a reason to play.  To the extent that you can artificially create objectives (see the penguin, see the eel, etc.), you can create a game out of the context of Endless Ocean… but without a meaningful amount of substance behind it, I can’t imagine it would hold people’s interest very long.

Oddly, I also don’t know that this is particularly well targeted for casual gamers, either.  Casual gamers don’t need complexity - but even more than hardcore gamers, they often revel in the objective.  In fact, games like Uno or Solitaire are in reality stripped of almost everything except it: “get rid of all your cards” is pretty thin gruel to someone playing GTA, but makes casual players quite happy.  So I’m unclear on who EO will really appeal to.

 Are you planning on getting the game?  Has anyone played it?

Square Pegs, Round Holes

I’ve definitely noticed that my gaming tastes have changed over the years.  For example, I no longer have the stomach for many RPGs; I can’t get into the Square-led art style in fashion these days, with its gender-indeterminate leads and angst-ridden plotlines, and reading that much repetitive text (or worse, watching twelve minute movies) just isn’t something I can really enjoy any longer. 

At the same time, I’m a little puzzled by the complaint that Lost Garden raises here.  The author notes up front that the problems he noted in Mario Galaxy are really the result of his own “defects” rather than those of the game.  But he then proceeds to criticize a number of elements of the game itself, from its difficulty to its genre.  Part of this complaint, I think, stems from his disappointment that he didn’t enjoy a game that so many people loved.  But that doesn’t really excuse the complaint.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ridiculous Wii Design Decision #800

I’d stop complaining about terrible Wii design decisions, but they just keep popping up.  My girlfriend got Elebits, one of her favorite Wii games, for the holidays, and spent quite some time playing around with it on my brother’s console.  No worries, we figure - we can just copy the save files onto our SD card and continue the game at home.  Lo and behold: for some insane and inexplicable reason, Elebits save files can’t be copied to an SD card!  For what possible reason?  Who knows!  I understand that random VC games have similar problems.  Ridiculous.

Gamestop Selling a REAL “Virtual” Console

Nintendo is desperately trying to meet the holiday demand for its Wii console, ramping up production to 1.8 Million Wii’s a month, double what they were producing at the same time last year during the same period.  The Wii is already selling a ridiculous amount of consoles (almost a million just in the U.S. in November) and they simply can’t keep enough in stock.  So what to do?

Well, perhaps spurred on by the kind of news showing that Nintendo is losing out on potentially over a BILLION dollars because of their hardware shortage, Nintendo has apparently authorized or approved Gamestop to sell a full-priced “raincheck” for a Wii to be picked up in January on December 20th and 21st while, get this, “supplies” (of the “raincheck” receipts, I suppose) last.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.)