Agreed. I don’t even know what “hardcore” is supposed to mean. I haven’t played Metroid Prime.
I honestly think, as I alluded to before, “hardcore” or “mature,” as used by most people, generally refers to shooters or anything with excessive violence. Wii’s Mad World was considered by many to be a “hardcore” title, as is the upcoming Conduit. One is pure violence, the other a shooter.
Many “hardcore” gamers (at least the vocal ones) apparently don’t believe anything that doesn’t fit those two criteria simply isn’t “hardcore” or “mature.” Why this retarded definition came to be, I have no idea.
[Hijack]
It follows a new main character Emil who is in the running for being one of the most indecisive, needy little girl-boys in the history of Japanese RPGs (a very deep field). The story was serviceable but mostly existed to revisit all of the characters and places from the first game. Emil is chosen to be a Knight of Ratatosk because of a girl that has a crush on him. They travel the world to awaken centurions that will ultimately revive Lord Ratatosk. They are trying to beat Lloyd to these places and some rebels as well. Characters from the first game join and leave at a moments notice (and don’t level up either).
[/Hijack]
I think it’s the newest step to draw the difference between people that play solitaire and Bejeweled and Mario Brothers and Unreal Tournament. Mad World looks interesting, but I don’t know if I’m going to make the plunge. Any gameplay I’ve seen of it looks very repetitive, and, therefore, boring.
I think it’s the newest step to draw the difference between people that play solitaire and Bejeweled and Mario Brothers and Unreal Tournament. Mad World looks interesting, but I don’t know if I’m going to make the plunge. Any gameplay I’ve seen of it looks very repetitive, and, therefore, boring.
I dunno, I feel like the people in the new Microsoft ads. To paraphrase them: I’m just not a Wii guy.
Nothing wrong with that. YMMV and all that. As long as you don’t denigrate others who are “Wii guys,” it’s all good.
They’re all gay.
I kid, of course.
I think Red Barchetta might be onto something in saying that this is a wonky console generation. In a lot of ways, I think the industry is still dealing with the transition from being the hobby of a core group of enthusiasts to being something more ubiquitous. As time goes on we’ll hopefully see better ways of handling this than thee dozen first person shooters for group A and a giant bucket of shovelware for group B, which is what we’re seeing a lot of this gen.
In any event, yeah, the Wii’s library is obviously not as bad as some people claim. The problem is that its stengths lie in types of games that the self-proclaimed “hardcore” seem to have given up. Apparently rail shooters like Ghost Squad, RE: Umbrella Chronicles, and House of the Dead aren’t sufficiently “hardcore,” for instance, but the Wii has brought about a very welcome renaissance of the genre.
And that’s just an example. Likewise, people tend to dismiss the Virtual Console as some kind of big nostalgia-based swindle on the part of Nintendo, when it’s one of the primary reasons I got the Wii in the first place (I’ve bought tons of VC games; hardly any of which I had ever played before). But that’s not going to sway anybody whose opinion of the Wii’s library is based on its lack of Bioshock or whatever.
I think that since we’re used to generation after generation of consoles that were largely interchangeable except for slight differences in computer power, people aren’t used to consoles that vary way more in the audience than, say, the SNES did from the Genesis. So they come to the conclusion that the Wii’s library is just obviously bad, which I think was also a component of the “The Wii is a fad” stuff that was going on shortly after its launch.
That said, I don’t think the Wii’s library is as robust as it should be at this point. To an extent, developers have gotten lazy since they really can just put a little bit of effort into a party game or tack motion control onto an old game (even Nintendo does this). Stuff like No More Heroes, House of the Dead: Overkill, and Mad World is what we should have seen more of on the Wii at this point. Not because of content, but because of aesthetics that play to the Wii’s lesser graphical power with solid gameplay and good uses of motion control.
It’s also worth noting that the Wii’s library looks a little anemic because it can’t count on its own version of cross-platform games that wind up on the 360 and the PS3. Imagine what the PS3’s library would look like now without all the titles that are also on the 360. Imagine the Saturn’s library without all of the PSX ports.
Honestly, I’ve always bought Nintendo consoles on the strength of first party games and have yet to be disappointed. I always know I’ll enjoy the next Mario Game, the next Zelda game, and the next Mario Kart game. Hell, Smash Bros. alone would have justified the N64 and Gamecube for me and Brawl is great, too. The rest of the game library is just gravy.
And really, I know that the 360 games I actually want to play are also on or will eventually make it to PC. Mass Effect, Bioshock, GTAIV, and Fallout 3 are all happily installed on my computer.
I can sort of understand why people are disappointed with the Wii library, but I am content.
I also think that gamers have been conditioned to always want the best and most realistic graphics, over and over with each new console gen. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when something like the Wii comes around that doesn’t have the most powerful possible processor or graphics card or memory or whatnot, it seems obvious that it would be inferior, and have inferior games. Doesn’t make it true, but it “stands to reason” in the gaming world. It it did, anyway 
Jesus christ, we’re doing this again?
I hope you don’t use your Wiimotes to beat this putrefying horse, Justin.
Courtesy of Metacritic - there are 45 games released in for the Wii scoring 80 or better:
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Super Mario Galaxy 2007 97
2 Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, The 2006 95
3 World of Goo 2008 94
4 Super Smash Bros. Brawl 2008 93
5 Rock Band 2 2008 92
6 Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition 2007 91
7 Okami 2008 90
8 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption 2007 90
9 Guitar Hero: Metallica 2009 88
10 Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure 2007 87
11 Bomberman Blast 2008 86
12 Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 2009 86
13 Guitar Hero World Tour 2008 86
14 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 2007 86
15 Tetris Party 2008 86
16 Super Paper Mario 2007 85
17 MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade 2008 85
18 Boom Blox 2008 85
19 No More Heroes 2008 83
20 MLB Power Pros 2007 83
21 Mega Man 9 2008 83
22 WarioWare: Smooth Moves 2007 83
23 Bully: Scholarship Edition 2008 83
24 Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 2008 83
25 Call of Duty: World at War 2008 83
26 Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough 2008 83
27 Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection 2008 82
28 Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 2: Strong Badia the Free 2008 82
29 Mario Kart Wii 2008 82
30 Art Style: ORBIENT 2008 82
31 MadWorld 2009 82
32 Madden NFL 09 All-Play 2008 82
33 de Blob 2008 82
34 Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective 2008 81
35 Madden NFL 07 2006 81
36 LostWinds 2008 80
37 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play 2008 80
38 LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga 2007 80
39 Trauma Center: Second Opinion 2006 80
40 FIFA Soccer 09 All-Play 2008 80
41 Rock Band 2008 80
42 Rune Factory: Frontier 2009 80
43 Geometry Wars: Galaxies 2007 80
44 Wii Fit 2008 80
45 Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King 2008 80
And another 30 scoring over 75:
46 Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands 2008 79
47 BlastWorks: Build, Trade, Destroy 2008 79
48 Toki Tori 2008 79
49 WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 2008 79
50 Bit.Trip Beat 2009 79
51 MLB Power Pros 2008 2008 79
52 House of the Dead: Overkill, The 2009 79
53 Mario Strikers Charged 2007 79
54 Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip 2008 78
55 Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn 2007 78
56 New Play Control! Pikmin 2009 78
57 Wario Land: Shake It! 2008 78
58 LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures 2008 78
59 Godfather: Blackhand Edition, The 2007 77
60 Groovin’ Blocks 2008 77
61 Mercury Meltdown Revolution 2007 77
62 Rayman Raving Rabbids 2006 76
63 Madden NFL 08 2007 76
64 MySims Kingdom 2008 76
65 Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner 2008 76
66 Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon 2008 76
67 Trauma Center: New Blood 2007 76
68 Order Up! 2008 76
69 Wii Sports 2006 76
70 Marble Saga: Kororinpa 2009 76
71 Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles 2007 75
72 Battalion Wars 2 2007 75
73 We Love Golf! 2008 75
74 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Director’s Cut 2009 75
75 Guilty Gear XX Accent Core 2007 75
76 Elebits 2006 75
That’s just the North American list. There’s stuff being published in Japan that never makes it here. I’m not sure when it was last updated.
I don’t recognize a few of those titles but very few games on that list strike me as being obviously casual or party games.
And one or two that are count as innovative. (See: Raving Rabbids, Boom Blox) Enough so to buy on their own strength.
Raving Rabbids is a fun little party game, but I wouldn’t call it “innovative” by any means.
Well, here’sYahtzee’s review of MadWorld. It sounds like he finds it as repetitive as I feared it’d be.
For a third-party launch-game to get how the Wii works so well, I consider it innovative.
Waggle the Wiimote? Now hold down the B button and move it in a circle? That’s innovative?
On that list I would consider World of Goo & Trauma Center to be innovative. And Okami sort of. It was a PS2 game originally but the controls are so right for the Wii.
I love Yahtzee. I look forward to his stuff every week. One of the best things about buying a new game is going back to Yahtzee’s review and seeing all the things he hated about it. Yeah, he didn’t like Mad World. This Wednesday he’s going to not like some other game.
Exactly. He’s funny, well…used to be. It’s ironic, I now find him about as repetitive as the very games he often berates.
Nintendo’s method of incorporating gestures as a means of interfacing with a video game is innovative, yes. It’s something that video games have been aiming for for fifteen years. Nintendo developed a method that works well enough to be attractive to a mass audience. That’s nothing to sneer at. If you could go back in time and tell Sony & Microsoft that a console like the Wii - cheap to make, easy to use - would be a roaring success, both companies would have built their own Wiis too.
I like the new split controller a lot too. I think it makes a lot of sense ergonomically. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more controllers designed with the split.