With games that are in the same series as ones that came out a long time ago, such as Punch Out and Mega Man 9 and 10, many gamers have started obsessing about ideas of which direct sequels they want to see, such as Star Fox Wii or Pilot Wings Wii. And I have a few ideas of my own.
Even though they seem to dislike the Wii, fans of classic series' such as Star Fox and Pilot Wings have been obsessing about new sequels, and have started creating many ideas for them. Here is one of my ideas: Star Fox 2 on Virtual Console! I was not a big fan of Star Fox 64, but every aspect of Star Fox 2 looks awesome and right up my alley. As you already know, Star Fox 2 is a real game that was going to be released in 1995, but it was not. Nobody knows exactly why, but it seems to be because the N64 was coming up. To me, it is pretty silly how game companies think that games that are not for newer consoles will not sell well. Do they seriously think nobody liked the older console anymore?
Here is another one: Mario Golf 64 2! Same graphics, same gameplay, but completely different courses! Except no more cheating with save and quits. Combining the exclusive characters, graphics and gameplay with Mario Golf 64 with the content from later games in the series is a winning idea! And it would be played with only the classic controller, not the Game Cube controller or motion controls.
Upon completing all of the first eight worlds in Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels, which is my favorite 2D Mario platformer, I think that instead of a Super Mario Brothers 4, I think there should be a Super Mario Brothers 3: The Lost Levels. And no, I do not want it to be like the other Super Mario Brothers 3, which is a very fanboy-oriented game that I did not enjoy. I want this to have the same graphics, gameplay, and music as Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2: The Lost Levels. Even though I do not like the music, the game would not be the same with different music. And of course, I want it to be hard, just like Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels. Give the sequel of the Mario Brothers' alternate sequel some support!
People have a lot of ideas for Star Fox Wii, such as having cooperative play and counting high scores again. People who want a Pilot Wings Wii have barely created any ideas, and I understand, I do not have any ideas for it either. I was thinking that a Pilot Wings 2, which uses the Super FX 1 chip or Super FX 2 chip would be a good idea, since it would at least fix the problem of everything on the ground being flat. Some basic ideas would be combining the events from the two games and of course having big environments and new types of tests. I just hope that it will not be dumbed down in any way and there would still be music. I tend to be more agreeable with Pilot Wings fans, since they are not very fanatical. If they were, they would have created their own ideas rather than just left it up to the company that is more experienced in creating them.
I pitched in some ideas. Three of them were completely original and unconventional, and two of them were going along with other ideas that I liked. We can only hope- or can we?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Pilot Wings Experience
I have played both of the Pilot Wings games, which has its usual panel of fans who moan about nostalgia, think the games are perfect, and demand more. Usually, I would be slamming games for this, but I liked both of Pilot Wings games. The primary reason I liked them was because I was not collecting stuff. Rather, I was accomplishing stuff. It was all main game, there were no side-quests, there were only tests and levels that had to be completed. Sure, it is irritating to have to watch your hang-glider fly for three minutes just because you did not land correctly, but I found the games to be enjoyable because they were based on skill and had a good difficulty curve. There was also a good sense of going from novice to expert. And yes, they were pretty relaxing.
Pilot Wings 1 was much smaller and shorter than Pilot Wings 64. I mean it, I did everything there was to do in that game in three days. The graphics showed their age, but they were not bad, and I do not have any ideas on how to improve them. In the Sky Diving events on levels 2, 5, and 6, the white spheres/snow gets bigger as you go upwards, then gets smaller again as you go down. Despite being one of the first games on the N64, Pilot Wings 64 had some of the hugest environments on the console.
So far, I have not been very disagreeable. This does slightly have to do with the fact that the two Pilot Wings games are not nearly as hyped as some other games. There was nothing glaringly bad about Pilot Wings 1, except for the helicopter levels. They were a good attempt at a level idea, but they seem to be luck based. Helicopter Level 1 went from taking me lots of tries, to taking a few tries, to taking me lots of tries again. And I beat Helicopter Level 2 on my first try, proving once and for all that they are luck based. There is at least one place where I seriously disagree with fans of this game. My least favorite mode was Bird Man. It was way too slow paced, and it was pointless. The player is destined to either quit or crash. I totally support a Pilot Wings for the Wii.
By the way, it is ironic how the first two games for Nintendo's first console with four built-in controller ports were single-player games.
Pilot Wings 1 was much smaller and shorter than Pilot Wings 64. I mean it, I did everything there was to do in that game in three days. The graphics showed their age, but they were not bad, and I do not have any ideas on how to improve them. In the Sky Diving events on levels 2, 5, and 6, the white spheres/snow gets bigger as you go upwards, then gets smaller again as you go down. Despite being one of the first games on the N64, Pilot Wings 64 had some of the hugest environments on the console.
So far, I have not been very disagreeable. This does slightly have to do with the fact that the two Pilot Wings games are not nearly as hyped as some other games. There was nothing glaringly bad about Pilot Wings 1, except for the helicopter levels. They were a good attempt at a level idea, but they seem to be luck based. Helicopter Level 1 went from taking me lots of tries, to taking a few tries, to taking me lots of tries again. And I beat Helicopter Level 2 on my first try, proving once and for all that they are luck based. There is at least one place where I seriously disagree with fans of this game. My least favorite mode was Bird Man. It was way too slow paced, and it was pointless. The player is destined to either quit or crash. I totally support a Pilot Wings for the Wii.
By the way, it is ironic how the first two games for Nintendo's first console with four built-in controller ports were single-player games.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Predictable Gamers at Nintendo Power
This is my fifteenth blog-post! And that is somehow significant. Because it is a multiple of five, right? So I will celebrate the same way Nintendo Power did in their 250th issue- re-establishing facts I have already hammered home many times before.
In Nintendo Power's 250th issue, they did what I, the Controversial Gamer, abhor. They basically rehashed every bit of popular information they have drilled home in previous issues (Shigeru Miyamoto created these original NES games, which have memorable songs! The N64 controller was the first controller to have a control stick! Mario is a platforming hero, and he saves Peach a lot! Mega Man can absorb weapons from defeated Robot Masters! "Do A Barrel Roll" is a famous quote!, etcetera). When people read anything, they expect to discover new, surprising information. Tell them something they do not know! We get it, Earth Bound is a classic, and Metal Blades are powerful. What a waste of an opportunity that comes once every fifty issues.
And one more thing: in this issue, and most other Nintendo Power issues, there was not a single mention of Mario Golf. Mario Golf is a very underrated series, and it deserves fanatics and hype, as well as a huge section that takes up half an anniversary issue.
In Nintendo Power's 250th issue, they did what I, the Controversial Gamer, abhor. They basically rehashed every bit of popular information they have drilled home in previous issues (Shigeru Miyamoto created these original NES games, which have memorable songs! The N64 controller was the first controller to have a control stick! Mario is a platforming hero, and he saves Peach a lot! Mega Man can absorb weapons from defeated Robot Masters! "Do A Barrel Roll" is a famous quote!, etcetera). When people read anything, they expect to discover new, surprising information. Tell them something they do not know! We get it, Earth Bound is a classic, and Metal Blades are powerful. What a waste of an opportunity that comes once every fifty issues.
And one more thing: in this issue, and most other Nintendo Power issues, there was not a single mention of Mario Golf. Mario Golf is a very underrated series, and it deserves fanatics and hype, as well as a huge section that takes up half an anniversary issue.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Beginning of Sonic
Instead of explaining why I downloaded Sonic The Hedgehog 1 and 2, I will just skip ahead to the part where I play them.
Let me make this clear: I have absolutely no bias towards Mario, and I was more than willing to try Sonic. Every "good" (popular) video game series or franchise had humble beginnings, and Sonic The Hedgehog 1 is no exception. To be honest, I did not like it very much. The game had cheesy graphics, repetitive, screechy music, and what is with all of this waiting around in a game where the main character's defining attribute is his speed? Come on, I just want to zoom through zones! Other people who played my Wii liked it though, so I bought Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with them in mind. I enjoyed it a lot more, it was better in every way (except for bonus levels, but those are optional). The zones were big and showed the huge areas that the Genesis was capable of. The music and graphics were better too, they were very high-quality, unlike those in Sonic 1. The levels also had more creative enemies and obstacles. And plus, there was a new move: the Spin Dash. I love this move and I am glad it became a staple of the franchise! Whenever you stand still, you can press down, then one of the three buttons and your character will start spinning rapidly. If you let go, it is like pressing down while running, except you get to go fast while doing it, and not slow down to a stop, where you are a sitting duck. You can still press down while running though, but it will not have the same effect as spin-dashing. The bosses are more creative too, but they are still pretty easy. You have to be patient on bosses, but those take place in one screen, so I do not mind, and patience is a winning strategy. Even on the Metropolis Zone boss, said to be one of the hardest bosses in Sonic history, I found that the pattern is wait in the corner, jump when he floats to the side, jump again when he floats to the other side, wait in the corner for the balloons to go crazy, and when they form a stable circle, get in one hit. If you are impatient and try to hit him at any other time, you will get hit and become frustrated. When he does a laser attack, stand under him and jump. You win! That was not so hard, was it? If you want to get into Sonic, I suggest you start with Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
Let me make this clear: I have absolutely no bias towards Mario, and I was more than willing to try Sonic. Every "good" (popular) video game series or franchise had humble beginnings, and Sonic The Hedgehog 1 is no exception. To be honest, I did not like it very much. The game had cheesy graphics, repetitive, screechy music, and what is with all of this waiting around in a game where the main character's defining attribute is his speed? Come on, I just want to zoom through zones! Other people who played my Wii liked it though, so I bought Sonic The Hedgehog 2 with them in mind. I enjoyed it a lot more, it was better in every way (except for bonus levels, but those are optional). The zones were big and showed the huge areas that the Genesis was capable of. The music and graphics were better too, they were very high-quality, unlike those in Sonic 1. The levels also had more creative enemies and obstacles. And plus, there was a new move: the Spin Dash. I love this move and I am glad it became a staple of the franchise! Whenever you stand still, you can press down, then one of the three buttons and your character will start spinning rapidly. If you let go, it is like pressing down while running, except you get to go fast while doing it, and not slow down to a stop, where you are a sitting duck. You can still press down while running though, but it will not have the same effect as spin-dashing. The bosses are more creative too, but they are still pretty easy. You have to be patient on bosses, but those take place in one screen, so I do not mind, and patience is a winning strategy. Even on the Metropolis Zone boss, said to be one of the hardest bosses in Sonic history, I found that the pattern is wait in the corner, jump when he floats to the side, jump again when he floats to the other side, wait in the corner for the balloons to go crazy, and when they form a stable circle, get in one hit. If you are impatient and try to hit him at any other time, you will get hit and become frustrated. When he does a laser attack, stand under him and jump. You win! That was not so hard, was it? If you want to get into Sonic, I suggest you start with Sonic The Hedgehog 2.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The NES days experience
Note: NES and SNES are pronounced "Ness" and "S-Ness" rather than "N.E.S." and "S.N.E.S." "Super N.E.S." is also a corny pronunciation. Just pronounce it how the acronym would be phonetically pronounced if it were one word, or say all the full words. For example, do not say "Super Nintendo".
After I got my Wii Shop Channel set up, I was very excited. Many people annoyingly moan about how great the days with older video games were, but for me, they had just begun. I was born in 1993, so I had missed out on the NES and SNES days. The first NES game I downloaded was NES Open Tournament Golf, the first game in one of my favorite series. And I have to say, I was very disappointed. The game was way too hard, in a bad way. I was obsessed with the next one I downloaded, Mega Man 1. I thought Mega Man 2 was pretty lame. I found Mega Man 3 to be better than them both. It fixed every single one of 1 and 2's problems. Mega Man 3 did not feel primitive, and it was fast paced. The colors were brighter and there were a lot less glitches and sprite flickering. The game even sacrificed artificial longevity for actual longevity! The next one I downloaded was Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels. The game was still built around the same limited engine that 1 was, but it far surpassed 1 in every way. I tried 2 and it was not very engaging, and 3 was such a huge letdown for me, I cried. That is why I did not buy 1, 2, or 3 for Virtual Console, I just bought Lost Levels. The next one, The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy, was loved to death by many, but I do not have the slightest clue why. It was devoid of action, or any sense of direction, and it had a body count that felt alien for a Nintendo game that was sold to kids. Many people love it, but I do not have any idea how anyone could tolerate it.
Maybe the NES days were not so hot. It seems like people have a bias towards games they played when they were younger, and condone their problems because they were older. To be honest, I would have hated to grow up during the years where the NES was the dominant console. It had no standards because Nintendo had no competition or previous consoles to compare it to. Challenges are good, but during the NES days, hard games were the norm, so young children barely had anything to be good at. Some games required guides just to figure out where to go next, taking a lot of the fun away and making them cash-ins for the companies. Most of the games on Virtual Console are NES games, and so are most of the games I downloaded (In that previous wall of text, I did not mention games I bought for other consoles). I would like to experience the SNES days that I missed out on. Some SNES games I would like to play are SNES Pilot Wings, Mega Man and Bass (Not the GBA version, the SNES version is way better) and hopefully an unreleased game, Star Fox 2.
After I got my Wii Shop Channel set up, I was very excited. Many people annoyingly moan about how great the days with older video games were, but for me, they had just begun. I was born in 1993, so I had missed out on the NES and SNES days. The first NES game I downloaded was NES Open Tournament Golf, the first game in one of my favorite series. And I have to say, I was very disappointed. The game was way too hard, in a bad way. I was obsessed with the next one I downloaded, Mega Man 1. I thought Mega Man 2 was pretty lame. I found Mega Man 3 to be better than them both. It fixed every single one of 1 and 2's problems. Mega Man 3 did not feel primitive, and it was fast paced. The colors were brighter and there were a lot less glitches and sprite flickering. The game even sacrificed artificial longevity for actual longevity! The next one I downloaded was Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels. The game was still built around the same limited engine that 1 was, but it far surpassed 1 in every way. I tried 2 and it was not very engaging, and 3 was such a huge letdown for me, I cried. That is why I did not buy 1, 2, or 3 for Virtual Console, I just bought Lost Levels. The next one, The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy, was loved to death by many, but I do not have the slightest clue why. It was devoid of action, or any sense of direction, and it had a body count that felt alien for a Nintendo game that was sold to kids. Many people love it, but I do not have any idea how anyone could tolerate it.
Maybe the NES days were not so hot. It seems like people have a bias towards games they played when they were younger, and condone their problems because they were older. To be honest, I would have hated to grow up during the years where the NES was the dominant console. It had no standards because Nintendo had no competition or previous consoles to compare it to. Challenges are good, but during the NES days, hard games were the norm, so young children barely had anything to be good at. Some games required guides just to figure out where to go next, taking a lot of the fun away and making them cash-ins for the companies. Most of the games on Virtual Console are NES games, and so are most of the games I downloaded (In that previous wall of text, I did not mention games I bought for other consoles). I would like to experience the SNES days that I missed out on. Some SNES games I would like to play are SNES Pilot Wings, Mega Man and Bass (Not the GBA version, the SNES version is way better) and hopefully an unreleased game, Star Fox 2.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Items and Power Ups
Many people, even those who enjoy the series, are aware of Mario Kart's notoriously unbalanced items. They have suggested getting rid of the really cheap ones, but I think it would be an even better idea to also slash the not-so-cheap items, or even to remove them altogether. When creators put items in their games- especially when they put them in games made for multiplayer rather than single player- there will always be at least one unbalanced item. Also, putting invincibility items in games or modes where the goal is to attack each other with items is a very abhorrent idea. Part of what makes items cheap are their randomness. Items are not to be confused with power ups, which are always in the same places and are not picked up by players, but rather enhance your character until they touch a certain thing or get hit or run out of time. Cheap items are also found in Super Smash Brothers games. The complete removal of items from most serieses, especially multiplayer serieses, would not hinder it at all.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Newest Video Game Fantasy
A big part of the appeal of video games are the virtual fulfillment of fantasies and imaginings. Common ones are being someone who is really brave or strong, or being a legendary sports professional who wins a lot, or going really high speeds in cars or jets without concern of speeding penalties, or hanging out with attractive-looking people, sometimes girls who wear clothes that are sometimes not suited for their activity in the game (such as participating in a war or flying in space). One of the more recent ones has actually been out for a while- being someone who gets to participate in luxury that someone else paid for, like "the government" which people gripe about a lot and are the scapegoat these people use to make themselves look good. Again, this is not new, it started in the 1990s, and was even found in a lot of SNES and N64 games. Some good examples are Pilot Wings 64, Wii Sports Resort, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the Star Fox series, and the Mario Kart series. Again, those are some examples.
Factors like over consumption and pollution are virtually nonexistent. There seems to be unlimited supplies, fuel, and for that matter, money. I know that cubes that mysteriously make items appear in your hands and fans and bats that teleport into stages- which are suspended in midair by massive jets on the bottom are common parts of game logic that gamers just accept, but it seems that all the money spent on bananas, bumpers, balloons, and floating intangible rings could have been used to rule the universe- or at least a solar system or a planet. Someone is paying lots of money just so Nintendo characters can mess around and hit each other. And part of the appeal to this particular fantasy is not knowing- or caring- who it is. I am not saying that you are a supporter of wasteful spending if you play a game that has these elements a lot, I am just making a point that many people desire to live in luxury at the expense of others, and become resentful when other people get those benefits. That is a theory I have about a part of the appeal of video games.
Factors like over consumption and pollution are virtually nonexistent. There seems to be unlimited supplies, fuel, and for that matter, money. I know that cubes that mysteriously make items appear in your hands and fans and bats that teleport into stages- which are suspended in midair by massive jets on the bottom are common parts of game logic that gamers just accept, but it seems that all the money spent on bananas, bumpers, balloons, and floating intangible rings could have been used to rule the universe- or at least a solar system or a planet. Someone is paying lots of money just so Nintendo characters can mess around and hit each other. And part of the appeal to this particular fantasy is not knowing- or caring- who it is. I am not saying that you are a supporter of wasteful spending if you play a game that has these elements a lot, I am just making a point that many people desire to live in luxury at the expense of others, and become resentful when other people get those benefits. That is a theory I have about a part of the appeal of video games.
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