The Test of Multiplayer

Attention all game creators and advertisers! If you want to showcase the true power of your latest game's multiplayer, the way to do it is with not two, not four, but three players. Games are usually made for duels and four-player battles, and there can also be two-against-two matches. These games might feel akward when played with three players, as it is hard to balance the one computer in a 2 vs 2 match, and the features of the game (arenas, courses, items, etc) are usually made to fit 2 to 4 players, rather than three. I also find three-player matches to be more fun than two or four player ones. And please, include more cooperative play in your games; there are not enough of those compared to competitive modes.

Fix Mario platformers for the Wii

Nintendo, I have a problem with your newly localized edition of Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels. This is not the problem yet. I love this game and I think this was Nintendo's greatest effort with limited hardware. The game accomplishes its purpose of being very challenging and fun. There is no going back and grinding for power-ups or lives, and there is also no enhancing yourself, which means the player has to change and improve themselves instead of making the game easier for themselves. I also get to play it with my two favorite controllers in all of gaming. Now it is the problem. The game is already hard and unforgiving, and that is a bad combination with some of the glitches that have occurred. When I use the Classic Controller, I sometimes get paralyzed and become unable to move for a short period of time, as if it were unplugged. Even with just the Wiimote, the game sometimes slows down, which causes me to sometimes miss jumps I would have otherwise cleared. Also, the game even tweaks its own physics, which is very maverick of it. The speeds of my jumps can randomly change, causing me to be too short or overshoot jumps. This, combined with the game's small room for error and the consequence of going back to the beginning of the world make the game all the more frustrating (not fun) and unfair.

Every eleven years, Nintendo creates a Mario platformer that revolutionizes the genre. Even if they are not good, they will still have a strong influence on platformers, or any game for the entire system. Super Mario Galaxy 1 was the third in the line, netting the usual buildup of excitement and hype months before it was released. Sadly, I found it to be just as easy as the two previous ones, and also very linear and even condescending (For example, a bunny tells you that you can press the A button to jump, and the tutorials go well into the second dome). The Star Bits served almost no other purpose than to extend the play-time in an already long game. I liked the prankster comets. My favorite one is the Daredevil comet. I think there should have been more of those rather than purple comets. Some of the purple comets were challenging, but most of them had no other challenge in them than searching for coins for ten minutes with no danger of enemies. I also liked the three Star Ball levels. Hopefully, Super Mario Galaxy 2 will have less linearity, more prankster comet missions, more Star Ball missions, more Find Luigi missions, more ray surfing and bubble blowing and everything else that was a break from standard platforming in Super Mario Galaxy 1. I believe that game, with its automatic influential power, is responsible for the Wii being regarded by many as a dumbed-down non-gamer console. The Wii has almost unimaginable potential, and I would like to see you make the most of it. It takes the torque of two new Mario platformers to steer the future of the Wii in the right direction. New Super Mario Brothers Wii was a step in the right direction, and hopefully, gamers will not have to wait until Super Mario Universe 1 gets released in 2018 for a stellar platforming experience.

Stop whining about nostalgia

Gamers are so predictable. Whenever they listen to songs from games they played when they were younger, they go through their predictable routine of talking or typing how good games used to be and how bad they are now, and state the obvious by saying that gameplay is more important than graphics. We get it already: companies should just stop making new consoles, and video games should never change. Change happens all the time, get used to it. Besides, your dwelling on the past and bias towards games you played when you were younger is (hopefully) getting on the nerves of many. As you might already know, I do not have less potential favor for video games I own more recently. Not being biased is your first step towards being a credible reviewer. Also, stop comparing your favorite Nintendo games to the Halo series. I am not for Halo, but it just sounds childish.

The Wii gets a lot of negative criticism from nostalgia-obsessed gamers. It is not a bad system at all. In fact, it is an excellent idea that has not been living up to near its full potential. The console has everything it needs, from a wide variety of settings to neat controllers, but the console is in trouble because the download titles are more popular than the discs. That is how you know a console is in trouble. There is nothing wrong with good graphics or motion controls. To me, the execution of games matters. If the game is not well executed, the gimmicks and extras do not matter. But if the game is good, nifty features give it even more of a boost. Nintendo knows that if they keep playing the nostalgia card, gamers are going to get angry and go on their "this is rehashed and rushed" rants. Unfortunately, most reviewers think whatever they say is right, period (this is one of those things where people go "that applies to other people, not me and my friends" without even checking). Nintendo knows that in order to win and prevent those rants, they have no other direction to go than forward, so that is what they are going to do.

Just Another Mario Game

This statement will probably totally rock your world, but it contains a lot of truth: Super Mario Brothers 1 is "just another Mario game" by today's standards. I am not saying Mario games have gotten better, I am saying that they do offer more new content. For example, Super Mario Galaxy 1 was easy and shallow, but it did offer some unique gimmicks and content. Unless it was one of your first Mario games, Super Mario Brothers 1 is completely skippable because it offers nothing new. It is short and simple, with uninspired level design and overly repetitive graphics and music.

Super Mario 64 is definitely not "just another Mario game". It is likely the most replayable game ever. There are many glitches and unintended ways to get stars, and the game is very fast-paced. The music is beautiful. It offers a lot of variety, including moves. I hope the B button moves get implemented in future 3-D Mario platforming games, rather than getting knocked out by the spin move or something as near-useless as Star Bit-shooting. Super Mario Galaxy 1 cannot be called the true sequel to Super Mario 64 because it was too linear, and there were not enough moves and coins to collect.

With its long title, New Super Mario Brothers Wii sounds like just another Mario game, but it is not at all. When it was first announced, nobody got excited about it because they thought it would be a shallow, easy, condescending stereotype of a Wii game. Unlike New Super Mario Brothers DS, which rehashed elements form past Mario platforming games, the Wii edition offers lots of new content, not just the multiplayer mode. The game is also made to be one of the more difficult Mario platformers. Nintendo knows they have turned off many of their fans, and is trying hard to make it up and break the stereotype of the Wii being non-gamer bait. Hopefully, New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2 will offer a higher difficulty level, more replay value, and more replayability. One thing I have to add though. If Nintendo wants players to cooperate, they should fix the multiplayer mode in N.S.M.B.W. because players always get ranked after, so there is not enough motivation to cooperate.

The most unique game

Usually, for whatever video game is your favorite, you will praise it in every category, including "most unique". If you pick the same game for every category, you are a fangirl/fanboy, especially if you think your favorite game deserves to be in the category of "most unique". Here is a perfect example: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

If you think that game is the most unique game ever just because you like it a lot, you are dead wrong! That game is as unoriginal as it gets. And I am not saying that the game is bad or sub-par, because it is decent if you can get past the fact that Link still cannot run very fast or jump, but the game has no original ideas whatsoever. Anyone who thinks this game has lots of original ideas needs to research (and maybe play) more adventure games that were invented before O.O.T., because every element from the main story, except for the throwaway gimmick that the game is titled after, was pretty much copied and pasted from something else.

Now I will be specific, and mark everything that was copied from another game with an *. So here goes: Link starts the game as a kid with humble beginnings*, who lives in a forest/rural, off-track, peaceful area* and is called to be a hero by someone he has never met*, so he gets his basic starter weapons (a generic sword and shield)*, and his adventures take him through a big tree*, a cave* a sea creature's innards*, time travel*, a forest*, a volcanic mountain*, an ice cavern*, a water area* (where he fights a clone of himself*), a creepy underground dungeon*, a desert*, a fortress where he has to use stealth*, a sand temple*, and the big final evil castle*, where he fights someone much older than he is*, then there is an escape-before-the-building-self-destructs sequence*, and then there is a second phase of the final boss where the really old antagonists turns into a huge beast*. There are also bosses that live in lava*, simple mini games*, a consumerist town with people who are not very friendly*, typical weapons (arrows, bombs, etc)* and throughout the game, you save like four princesses****.

If you want a unique game with completely original ideas, Mario Golf 64 is as radical as you can get. It is a product of when Nintendo thought backward. Instead of creating vast environments, realistic graphics, and epic, loud soundtracks, the game featured blocky characters, simple textures with translucent obstacles, and a peaceful soundtrack that quietly plays when you make your moves. The game features normal humans, which are fully dressed in simple clothes (in video games?!). None of their personalities qualify as annoying. It may look kiddy, but it is actually sophisticated, mature, and deep. The game also does not push you to do everything and waste your time on modes that you do not like to get everything complete. There really is no point where you have done everything in the game. There are always charts, records, and data to fill and improve. I recommend Mario Golf 64 to any fan of any series, period.