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Wii Warm Up: Wii Sports revisited
So, we've had both dry weeks and deluges -- overall, a fair number of offerings to distract us from Wii Sports over the past few months. And yet, it remains in the news as a media darling. But let's not worry about the rest of the world at the moment; let's talk serious, f'real gamers. Are we still playing Wii Sports? For fun, for profit exercise, or just out of sheer boredom -- if you're still whacking the racket or throwing punches, we want to know. And if you are still playing, we want to hear about those crazy, off-the-chart scores.
Wii Warm Up: The slowing of a torrent?
Nintendo has certainly been delivering the Virtual Console goods in these first few months, hitting us with wave after wave of iconic video games such as Super Mario Bros, Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Mario Kart 64. Nigh a hundred games now grace the Virtual Console, but as the Wii rolls onward, presumably for many years to come, how can they keep up the pace?Nintendo's systems obviously have a ridiculously large back catalog of games, but that list is greatly reduced by legal issues and the fact that many of these games actually, believe or not, sucked. If Nintendo continues to push out three or four quality games a week, they're going to run out of gold to mine. Perhaps this was evidenced by this week's one-game-only stance, but more and more, Nintendo is going to have to rely on original content to win the day. (Where's that channel, Nintendo?)Can they keep it up, and if so, for how long? Should they change anything about their approach to the matter? Any other thoughts on the matter?
Wii Warm Up: Wii humor
When it comes to the Wii, two things are pretty much undisputed: it's hard to find, and people make a lot of jokes about it. Everything from Wiimote-as-killing-machine to the name has been spoofed, and a dozen other things besides. But it's okay, because we love the Wii humor as well! We'd love to know about some of your favorites. Obviously, we've loved some of the comics, but there are videos and parodies and more. What's made you laugh? And more importantly, what do you wish would just go away? All jokes get old eventually, after all ....
Wii Warm Up: Virtual Console on HDTV
Of the download services for the new consoles, Nintendo's Virtual Console provides the most faithful representation of older games. ToeJam & Earl on the Wii looks like ToeJam & Earl on the Genesis-- no borders, no filters, no "enhancements." We appreciate Nintendo's decision not to try to improve on the resolution or anything, since we see the VC as a form of preservation.It is especially maddening, then, to hear that VC games default to widescreen when played on HDTV's. This seems to fly in the face of what the VC is about. We're sure some of you are HDTV owners, and we want to know: does this bother you as much in practice as it bothers us in theory (no HDTV here)? Or have you gotten used to switching the aspect ratio every time you want to play Vigilante? Or ... are you playing in a non-archival resolution? Don't tell us if you are. We don't think we could take it.[Thanks for the idea, RD!]
Wii Warm Up: Toward satisfaction
So how goes the ongoing question for Wii-ification? For those of you who've been stuck in a land without Wii, have you finally realized the dream? From time to time, we like to check in on the ongoing Wii shortage to see how many of our fellow fanboys are still shaking their fists at the skies on Sundays. If you haven't managed to get your hands on one, what's the situation in your area? For the rest of you: how's the situation with games and controllers? Have you found enough accessories to meet your needs? With the recent increase in games, has there been enough to keep you satisfied? Tell us all about it.
Wii Warm Up: PC games
Every week, the Virtually Overlooked column seems to lead naturally into a topic of discussion. This week, since we talked about a delightful freeware game, we're thinking about PC games in general. Let's say our wishes come true and Cave Story becomes a Virtual Console download. The floodgates would be open for classic PC games to make their way to the Wii. It's not that far fetched-- Japan's getting MSX computer games. What would you want to play? We'll give everyone Doom as a freebie. That'll be ported to the Wii somehow, by someone. Doom on any piece of electronics is an inevitability.
Wii Warm Up: More consoles
We love the Virtual Console. In the (completely mythical) drought periods between flagship Wii titles, the Virtual Console gives us a steady diet of excellent, cheap games. More than that, it serves as a history lesson for all the new gamers flooding into the hobby, and those too young to remember the 8-bit era. Also it gives you all a second chance to buy some Turbografx-16 games. Obviously, we want more. We love the available consoles, but they aren't enough. We salivated over the Saturn rumors, and we'd like to see that. In fact, we have a great deal of affection for all Sega consoles. We'd like to see some Master System games show up on the VC soon. What consoles would you like to see added to the lineup? Any answer is the right answer, as long as it's not the ActionMax!
Wii Warm Up: Seriously, where are the VC demos?
You know, we try our best to cover the Virtual Console downloads for you all every week (see: VC Monday Madness), but the state of things on the VC really aren't fair to consumers right now. Nintendo asks us all to pay a lot of money for these games (which was the general consensus determined by you, the awesome reader), so is it not fair to allow us to download a demo of said game before contributing our precious money for the product?So Nintendo, you want to make these retro classics available to a new audience, this same audience who's probably never even heard of these games before? How are they to be interested at all if they can't even try before buying? Nintendo expects us to just toss away $5 bucks for the chance of a good Virtual Console game? Sounds like highway robbery to us ...Also, take into account the folks who have been faithful to Nintendo all their lives, never owned a Sega Genesis or TurboGraphx16. Hudson and Sega are making their libraries of older games available to a new audience, but if they've never heard of or played these games before, what's to make them spend money on, again, the chance of a good retro game?What do you guys think? Obviously this change needs to happen and with Nintendo being so secretive about the figures (number of games downloaded, total revenue earned from the service, etc.), we're thinking they might not be selling so many VC games. So could we expect this necessary change (or new Channel) to come in the near future?We'd suggest starting an online petition, but we know how effective those things are ...
Wii Warm Up: Professional Use
The Wiimote is a fabulous piece of technology, having conceivable uses not only in gaming but also in the clandestine world of business. Beyond the simple Powerpoint presentation wand, any task requiring pixel-precise control from a non-desked location would be greatly aided by the device; we can see it in Wall Street, sports commentary, and even as a replacement for the tried-and-true blackboard in classrooms. But such utility comes at a cost: you're still, you know, holding a game controller.Would any of you, in a professional environment, abandon the Wiimote's utility due to gaming's current stigma in the world today? Its uses are certainly numerous, but those whispers in the back are enough to unnerve any public speaker. What other professions could benefit from the magic, and can any of you see a time in which holding a Wiimote will seem perfectly normal?
Wii Warm Up: Sega Saturn, shiro!
"Sega Saturn, shiro!" means "Play Sega Saturn!" and is the catchphrase of the Saturn's Japanese mascot, the very burly and heroic Segata Sanshiro. It's also what we've been daydreaming about since we heard all the Saturn-related rumors. We love that Sega and Nintendo are pals now, but we wish we could get a little bit more of the good Sega, and a little bit less of the Shadow the Hedgehog era Sega. The Saturn is chock full of classic Sega awesomeness, and we want to know what part of that ... uh, full, uh, chock of awesomeness you'd plop your Wii Points down for first. We're in total speculation land here, so Japanese games are okay to suggest. Our pick? Segata Sanshiro Shinken Yuugi, which we are desperate to play despite hearing that it's not very good. Listen to that theme song!
Wii Warm Up: Reusing assets
The unreleased Gamecube Kirby looked to be running on the Super Smash Bros. Melee engine. Most of the character art in Super Paper Mario Iooks a whole lot like that of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and we don't think that's just consistency in style. Nintendo seems to be reusing art and code from previous games. The advantages of such a practice are obvious: reduced cost, quicker development cycles, and less need for debugging.But does it bother you to have a new game that isn't entirely new? Should Intelligent Systems have redrawn Mario for their new game? Or is there no reason to redo perfectly good work? What do you all think about the reuse of assets in new games?
Wii Warm Up: Do you miss cartridges?
Sure, discs are the complete end-all, be-all in a lot of ways. Games have gotten bigger since graduating from cartridges, and that's all well and fine. But there's just one thing we miss: the freedom to be completely unconcerned about how we treated our games. Don't worry -- most of the time, we're really careful. Games are sacred, after all. But it was nice when, in a moment of frustration, you could pop out a game and literally toss it aside. Also, scratches can cripple a disc, but the worst that ever happened with most of our original NES games was that we had to blow 'em out every now and then. It was a simpler time.Do you ever miss it?
Wii Warm Up: What's next?
So what's the next thing you expect to buy for your Wii? An extra controller or nunchuk? Some of you may be planning for a nifty accessory or a game from the list of upcoming releases. On the other hand, some of you could be holding out for the Next Big Thing -- nothing short of Mario, Samus, or both is good enough for you. So tell us... what's next?
Wii Warm Up: So just what do we want?
GoNintendo's Kevin Cassidy (perhaps better known as Rawmeat Cowboy) had some interesting things to say about attitudes in the Nintendo fanboy community. Cassidy believes that we refuse to be pleased; we moan about a lack of third party titles, but decry those we have as being too kiddie, or old ports that are late to the party, or just crap. Essentially, he seems to say that while we love Nintendo and Nintendo's games, for the rest, we would maybe rather have a library that more resembles that of other consoles. And we don't want them a year later.It's an interesting point, and over at big daddy Joystiq, Ross Miller countered with the notion that while "they" talk a lot, sales figures don't necessarily reflect this side of popular opinion. Still, Nintendo's uneven history with third party developers is a matter of record, and it's established that many people do think of Nintendo as the "kiddie" console. It's a lot to consider this early in the morning, but it does leave us with a few questions. Are we, as a fanbase, too demanding? Are we asking too much of Nintendo ... or has the bar merely been set so high over the years that we expect nothing less than the best? Are we right to snub most third party offerings? Like any form of media, only a small percentage of releases actually shine, after all.[Via Joystiq; image here.]
Wii Warm Up: Your sites of choice
In our happy pastel-colored dreamworld, every one of our devoted readers checks naught but our RSS feed every seven minutes and twenty seconds. No other site even enters your minds! But alas, such may not be the case. We're tough enough to accept it.With that in mind, where do you guys head for the rest of your news? Our mother-site Joystiq covers the breadth of gaming for most, but there are also rival blogs: Kotaku, Destructoid, and the lot. Or do you prefer more professional, down-to-Earth sites like Gamespot or IGN? Where do we rank on your list of awesomeness? We'd also like to take this opportunity to remind you about tips. We comb the intertron (and on occasion, the real world!) every single day, looking for the finest filet mignon of news stories to bring to you, our readers. Alas, our paltry few bloggers are nothing compared to your vast legions.The link is small and sadly difficult to find; many readers have no idea it even exists. But check it out: in the column directly to the right of the main posts, under "Resources", is a small "Send us news tips" link. Use it! If you send us a hot story or interesting article, we'll bake you cookies credit you with the tip in the post and you'll be totally famous.
Wii Warm Up: How many channels?
How many channels do you have on your Wii menu, including downloaded VC games, and how many of those channels do you actually use? We're guilty of downloading games and letting them sit there for a while before we replay them (talking to you, Super Castlevania IV), and there are others that we rarely use at all. It's probably also fair to say that the latest channel news has been pretty unexpected. We got a channel out of nowhere, and now we're slated to get another channel, the mysterious Popularity Channel. The Wii's only been out six months, and those menu screens are filling up. How many channels do you think will be added by the end of the Wii's first full year?
Wii Warm Up: Comics and games
For some crazy reason, the Wii has come up quite a bit in webcomics since the name was officially announced. Part of that is simply due to the fact that gaming is such a popular subject in online comics, and the rest ... well, we think it may have something to do with the name. Just a guess. What are some of your favorite gaming comics? How've you felt about some of the Wii comics so far? Do you have any favorites to share?[Image from Penny Arcade (of course).]
Wii Warm Up: Disappointment
Yesterday was a busy day. We had tons of news from GDC and we talked about the best and the worst of what the Wii had to offer so far. It's a lot to think about ... and of course, it's not all sunshine and roses. While we love Nintendo, no one's perfect, and sometimes, we end up disappointed. Maybe it's a matter of really looking forward to a game that doesn't deliver, or maybe you're among those frustrated by Nintendo's choice of channel fodder. No matter what it is, what's Nintendo done lately that you found disappointing? The key to getting over your pain is sharing it ... and remember, around here, you're among friends.
Wii Warm Up: Wii as exercise machine
The idea of using the Wii as a workout is becoming pretty common, but do you really think it will work? Can something as simple as Wii Sports transform the lifestyles of a generation of gamers? Well, no, probably not. But can the Wii provide the seed of motivation? A long session with the Wii remote can definitely inject a little energy into a sedentary lifestyle, but should it be the lynchpin of weight loss program? Or is the inspiration unimportant so long as people are getting on their feet?
Wii Warm Up: The state of reviews
This question has come up a lot in the past few years, and for a variety of reasons. Do we need game reviews? Are they worthwhile? Like many others, we tend to think they do serve a purpose -- and you told us that yourselves. And still the argument persists. This time it's a blogger at Three Speech, arguing that with the rise of blogs and forums, combined with easy access to game videos and trailers, the review may become obsolete. Here at the Fanboy, we tend to think that the widening of the reporting pool would actually create better reviews, or at least the chance of reviews that are more meaningful to individual readers. After all, with more people reviewing, there's a greater chance of finding a pool of writers with similar tastes to your own. But we want your opinion -- is the game review still important?
