The Way We See It

Was up nice and late last night playing some Crackdown (you know, that game that came with the Halo 3 beta) with my friend 'Bob' when we got on topic about the state of the nation for gaming. I found it to be an interesting conversation and figured I'd share some of our thoughts to get the opinions of you all.

With regard to Nintendo, the Wii is kicking loads of ass, but is it necessarily doing well? It may be purchased by a much more broad demographic than the 360 or PS3 are, but the 360 is leading the way with the most games sold per console. Considering that the Wii is much cheaper (disregarding the Core, which, does anybody regard it to begin with?) and the games are $10 cheaper each, why would this be? Likely because the games that are available for the Wii at the moment are largely minigames and shoddy ports. Kids and grandparents who want their grandkids to have things to play when they visit are getting these minigames but are only playing when family is over, those of us in the middle age bracket are getting them but they start collecting dust until we have a party and are looking for some amusement, or with kids who like playing it. To us, the Wii has some good titles, it's not a bad system, but it just lacks games that give it real longevity, that you want to pick up and play frequently. A lot of that has to do with the lack of online-enabled games. I was planning to get a Wii at one point, but backed out at the last moment because the novelty of Wii Sports had worn off, I took at look at what was out there and saw nothing really compelling. All that I could see were minigames that I'd bust out for parties or games that were on the horizon, should they come out at all. I don't have many parties, I usually go to them instead so that leaves a white Wii becoming gray with the mounting unuse.

Right now, where are we at? Wii Fit? Um, yay? If I want to exercise, I'll ride my bike. Having a screen with some cartoony characters doing some stuff isn't much encouragement to me to get any more physically fit than I already am. Announcing Wii Fit at E3 basically gave Nintendo the title of best press conference in the eyes of investors. They see a new product that will sell really well, perhaps move a number of consoles, so they have $$ flashing in their eyes. That's great, but what about games that I want to play? Haven't heard anything about them for awhile. Mario Kart was announced with a steering wheel that I care nothing about, and from the brief footage, I wasn't terribly enticed. Honestly, the only Mario Kart game I've really, really liked since the original is Mario Kart DS, but Mario Kart Wii looks like more Double Dash kind of stuff. The track designs are becoming a little too bizarre for their own good and they seem to have lost track of what gave the original its magic of a straight-up fun kart racing game with a mario theme and some creative elements but nothing tremendously over the top. There was no mention of Smash Bros Brawl, either, and we're still left wondering if it's going to have online play. If it doesn't, there will be a lot of Wiis up on Amazon and eBay for resale. Kids and to an extent college students don't need online, they have people all around them to play with, but what of me? I don't want to play it by myself, that's not that fun. Nintendo has demonstrated that they don't care about online play, both in the games that have been released, and the games that haven't been released but have lost the online it once had, such as Metroid Prime 3.

Ok, so now for the real kick in the head. When the Wiimote was first announced, there were many different reactions to it, spanning the whole spectrum. Eventually, everything calmed and it seemed as though the concept was accepted as being a good thing. Here we are approaching a year of Wiis in the Wild and it's time to ask: is it a good thing? Lots of games use the motion sensing to a very tacked-on end, some bring some creative things to the table but really doesn't depend on proper use of it.... I think that the big disappointment of the Wiimote has to do with how reality has set in. A game like Red Steel seems like it could be nothing but gold, but in reality it was anything but. Where this rude awakening is kicking down our door is how the Wiimote isn't a motion-tracking gateway into the games, but a different input method for the same standard stuff. For instance, a common complaint I read about with Red Steel was how there were only certain motions you could do with the sword play. I, like many others, wanted a game you could swing that sword all around, slashing the crap out of guys, but you can only do a few types of swings and it really takes you a step back to realize that it's no different from pressing left mouse to do a left attack, right mouse to do a right attack. One thing the Wiimote lends itself perfectly to is a fanboy's wet dream: Lightsaber game. And one is coming! But.... is it going to just be Red Steel with so many attack types you can do and not the full Jedi virtual experience that we all hope for? Whether we know it or not, we're hyping the game up to more than it could possibly be and it could just lead to disappointment. I know that I've already skipped to that stage and don't really feel a Wii is for me anymore.

Microsoft is bringing with with the 360 and a full hand of games, something the other systems can't claim at this point. But after this holiday season with Halo 3 and GTA IV, et al, what's coming up? Personally I can't really think of anything coming out next year that's an exclusive that I'm particularly excited for. Not that it's such a bad thing that there are likely a great deal of multiplatform games that will be good, but I can't think of many of those that I'm very excited for either. Hopefully we'll hear more about 360 games soon.

Sony, to me, had the best press conference this year. They showed off some of the big guns they have coming (which are almost all next year, but we're only now getting into the second wave of games for the system so it's to be expected), including Killzone 2 which looks very promising at this point. Graphics aren't up to the prerendered video, of course, but reports from people who were there claim that at times you really couldn't tell. That is very impressive. The character movements are some of the best I've ever seen in a game and I have a good deal of anticipation to see if the game itself lives up to the hype. Warhawk looks really awesome too, a good fun multiplayer game that has some really nice features, such as up to 4 players can play in a drop-in, drop-out fashion on a single console while the 1st player is playing online against others. Before it's even out, Warhawk is doing what many 360 titles (including Crackdown) claim to be able to do but ultimately fall short of true drop-in, drop-out gameplay. Home.... pass. LittleBigPlanet looks like it's just damn good fun and has a great creative outlet for those who want to design some levels but not really get too deep into things and with the recent announcement of there being enemies and bosses, it should have a good deal of longevity to the title. Lair looks really good, despite mixed reviews, Heavenly Sword appears to be impressive, Wipeout has something like 3 games coming out, 2 on PSN and 1 full scale title, and I am a TOTAL wipeout junky..... There's a lot to love coming up with PS3. Now they just need to make them affordable.

I have a 360, love my 360, hope my 360 doesn't die on me before those 65nm chips get integrated, and I want a PS3. Sorry, Nintendo, but by spreading your focus out to such a broad audience I really feel that you're losing your scope on my demographic. I fear that 5 years from now we're going to look back and see a tremendous amount of minigames spread all overtop the rare, more adult, more hardcore titles, many of which will be without any real good online multiplayer integration. That's not something I'm terribly thrilled about seeing firsthand.