Nintendo made me love video games again
Posted by Skrud at Saturday, August 19th 2006 at 4:55pm
I used to love video games many, many years ago. I have huge archives of PC Gamer and Gamepro and Electronic Gamer Monthly magazines from various parts of the 1990s lining my dresser.
When I was between 14 and 15 I became heavily involved in particular in the Star Wars gaming communnity and participated in building a number of fan sites for upcoming games. I was a member of The Force Commander Network, XWAlliance.com and even started my own fan site The Rogue Squadron Network – which, I’m still proud to say, reached over 300,000 unique visitors (including a number of people from LucasArts and Factor5) before going defunct. I went by the (very unoriginal) nick “JediNite”. Shut up. It was eight years ago, and I was 14. (On a completely unrelated aside, I stumbled into an old IRC hangout of mine from back then and there are still some of the same people that ran those sites with me around.)
Eventually I started to lose interest in video games. They all started to blend together and nothing really offered me a unique gaming experience. Most games were nothing but variations on tried and tired genres, and it seemed that games started trying to differentiate themselves primarily by their graphics than by gameplay. That trend still continues. I see more and more games that are nothing but another shooter, albeit looking better and with maybe some twist or another (“it’s a shooter – WITH CARS!”). And I just stopped caring.
Until I went to Arcadia last November, I figured that there was virtually nothing left in games for me. (So why did I go? Because The Minibosses were playing). After years of not playing anything but some old favourites I found myself in the Nintendo booth and was nearly blown away by their simple and fun approach to games. I still wasn’t entirely convinced though, until I saw the previews for The New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. The prospect of playing multiplayer competitive Mario and fireballing each-other was too much to pass up.
I bought a Nintendo DS Lite during Fantasia along with Mario, Brain Age and MarioKart DS. I’ve been playing virtually every day since. These games are all simple and fun, and remind me of everything I loved about video games when I was 6 years old playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time on my brand new NES.
But it’s not just the nostalgia that’s got me hooked, it’s the fact that these games are simple, fun, creative, and therefore addictive. The Nintendo DS has two screens, one of which is a touch screen with a stylus. Gameplay happens on both screens simultaneously. Depending on the game you might have to interact with the touch screen in addition to the now-standard D-Pad. What’s surprising and innovative and new is just how the games take advantage of the new kind of input. The mini-games in Mario are a perfect example: they’re varied and interesting and addictive and, most importantly of all, FUN.
All this makes me extremely excited for Nintendo’s upcoming home console, the Wii. Nintendo has decided that it’s not going to compete directly with Microsoft’s XBox 360 or Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 by providing what is essentially a supercomputer in a pretty box. Instead Nintendo is focusing on new, innovative gameplay. In the same way a touch screen re-invented gaming for the Nintendo DS, the Wii introduces a gyroscopic remote that you can control by moving. In driving games, you steer by turning the entire remote. In a tennis game, you swing the racket by swinging the remote. The possibilities and potential for a whole new world of gameplay are too great to pass up. In short, I’m excited. And on top of all that, the Wii will feature emulation for all the old Nintendo systems dating back to the original NES and even the Sega Genesis – both of which I’ve long since regretfully parted with.
Nintendo’s target demographic isn’t the hardcore gamer who will shell out ridiculous amounts of cash to have the best graphics, sound and multimedia ever, it’s the casual gamer who likes the occasional fun gaming experience – the very people that used to love video games when they kids but have since lost their way in the sea of hardcore gamer culture.
In other words, Nintendo is seeking me, and I intend to welcome them back into my life with open arms and a grin from ear to ear.
I, for one, welcome our new Wii overlord with open arms.