Steaming Wii
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Team Mecha
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I think a major point is being overlooked: what the actual revolution even is. The revolution has nothing to do with us. Its about getting "normal people" to play video games. To that end yes, the controller itself is revolutionary, but it doesn't have anything to do with the pre-existing consumer base whatsoever.
Well I agree more with that. Personally I think wiggling the remote is more fun than pressing a button, but that is totally up to opinion.Green Gibbon! wrote:If Link's actions on screen actually corresponded to the way you physically wave the wand, it would've made more sense, but as it is it's just a cumbersome alternative to pressing "A".
I love the game, mind, but the slashing interface is stupid.
Also, on the subject of Wii FPS games, I think the "cross-hair is always centered" idea used in pretty much every PC FPS ever is what is needed for the Wii. "Dragging" the screen around with the pointer is just stupid, Red Steel proved that. But by permanently centering the crosshair they can pretty much nail the control.
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Delphine
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Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe they mean "revolution" as in "a full 360 degree turn". Perhaps they mean that gamers are meant to revolve around the Wii, as the Earth revolved around the sun. When you take that into account, it changes <i>everything</i>.
Edit-- this is a long post and I rewrote it a little after posting it. Apologies to anyone who caught it before the edit, as I think Zeta did.
This is the same difference between, say, Tetris and Shenmue, which is, I think, an important disctinction to acknowledge, if not define. One is little more than a challenging activity, a 'game' in the traditional sense, where the other is actually a linear, story-driven entity in its own right, with a clear beginning, middle and end. I'm not saying that Shenmue-like games are necessarily 'better' than Tetris-like games (although I certainly have a preference these days)-- and it's not always possible to say what games fit in which category, or if these two supposed 'categories' are really that separate at all. But I do think it's fair to say that games like Shenmue have transcended Tetris' dimensions to the extent that calling them 'games' at all is a little misleading. Shenmue is not a toy any more than a book is. But Tetris really is a toy.
When the EyeToy came out for PS2 a few years ago, I borrowed a copy from work (along with the camera, natch) to take home and play with. And that's exactly what I did: I played with it. It was fun for a couple of hours, novel, but hardly substantial, and before long I felt I had exhausted its every novelty. A week later my three cousins visited, each in their early teens at the time, and I decided to show them the EyeToy. They loved it and spent much of their visit in my room dancing in front of my television set. A couple of months later, after someone's birthday, I saw that they had acquired a PS2 and an EyeToy of their own. I asked how much it had been played-- apparently very little. I think the Wii's like that. It's very easy to seduce new players by offering them a very simple, intuitive game with an obvious novelty involved. People come along and treat it like a new distraction, a toy, not particularly different from a chess set or a yo-yo or some other trinket, and get a few hours' worth of fun out of it or whatever. That's not an achievement. That's merely reinforcing the popular notion that video games are trivial distractions, nothing worth getting excited about, best left for the boys in their bedrooms.
Interestingly, what stuff like the EyeToy and now the Wii seems to have discovered is that there appears to be something of a fear, for non-gamers, of the control pad itself. I mean, as experienced players of video games, there are all kinds of things we just take for granted in games without thinking about it. If a particular variation or deviation does occur, we tend to be able to otherwise reason it out without too much frustration; because, ultimately speaking, GTA isn't really that different, ultimately, than Zelda. I'm talking about things like HUDs, mission objectives, holding a button longer to jump further, pushing the analogue stick harder to run faster-- every unconscious cliche in almost any game of any genre ever made. All these kinds of things have naturally evolved in games as we've been playing them, and as a result even the slightest variation in one of them can make a profound difference to the trained eye. But to someone who is more or less completely unaccustomed to video games, the current state of the 'substantial' video game-- that is, something more like Shenmue than Tetris-- must be utterly bewildering. It must appear to be a series of almost random and frequently contradictory occurrences. Moreover, every game must, when you think about it, look pretty much the same. My (tenative) ex-girlfriend once declared that she would "never let her kids play computer games"; as there seemed to a vague possibility at the time that those kids might turn out to be my own, I immediately sat her down with a PS2. I thought Ico, being a relatively low-key, largely non-threatening, simple and really quite beautiful example of the medium, might have been a good start. But the poor thing couldn't even walk in a straight line. (Actually, the first thing she said was "Which one's the shoot button?", which says a lot-- but that's a different story.) For the first time ever, I had some fleeting conception of how video games must look to my mother: that all these conventions that seem so logical and obvious to me, like how you have to press a button to pull the switch, must appear impenetrably nonsensical to anyone who didn't grow up with Sonic the Hedghehog and Mario as his best friends.
I don't know what the solution to all this is. But it seems to me that Nintendo is actually achieving very little in getting senior citizens to play Wii Sports. They're providing them with a novelty, a toy, but nothing more. I've played as much Tetris as the next guy, but in my old age I have less and less time for anything that isn't a sustained and substantial and engaging 'experience' of some kind-- anything that isn't Shenmue or Ico or even Mario World. What I really want to see is the world playing games like Shenmue more. It's easy to demonstrate that a toy can be diverting fun-- assuming your grandmother isn't frightened of television screens, getting her to play Wii Sports should be just as easy as getting her to play a board game, physical handicaps nonwithstanding. But convincing her to take games like Ico, Shenmue et al seriously as-- yes-- legitimate and engaging forms of art is another question entirely. Until then we just have an awful lot of shit like this on our hands, and a 'Nintendini cocktail' is nothing to be proud of:
Putting aside, for a moment, that this misses the point enitrely, I'd like to now explain why what you're saying is actually another issue I have with the Wii. It's widely praised for (allegedly) getting 'non-gamers' to play games, which seems superficially admirable, but I can't help but find the whole achievement pretty shallow. The only games you ever hear these game-phobic grandmas and weak-wristed girls playing are things like Wii Sports and its ilk: you know, the sort of throw-away mini-game with a shelf life of 45 minutes I complained about in the first post. Is it really that much of an achievement to get people to play with what are essenitally electronic toys?Team Mecha wrote:I think a major point is being overlooked: what the actual revolution even is. The revolution has nothing to do with us. Its about getting "normal people" to play video games. To that end yes, the controller itself is revolutionary, but it doesn't have anything to do with the pre-existing consumer base whatsoever.
This is the same difference between, say, Tetris and Shenmue, which is, I think, an important disctinction to acknowledge, if not define. One is little more than a challenging activity, a 'game' in the traditional sense, where the other is actually a linear, story-driven entity in its own right, with a clear beginning, middle and end. I'm not saying that Shenmue-like games are necessarily 'better' than Tetris-like games (although I certainly have a preference these days)-- and it's not always possible to say what games fit in which category, or if these two supposed 'categories' are really that separate at all. But I do think it's fair to say that games like Shenmue have transcended Tetris' dimensions to the extent that calling them 'games' at all is a little misleading. Shenmue is not a toy any more than a book is. But Tetris really is a toy.
When the EyeToy came out for PS2 a few years ago, I borrowed a copy from work (along with the camera, natch) to take home and play with. And that's exactly what I did: I played with it. It was fun for a couple of hours, novel, but hardly substantial, and before long I felt I had exhausted its every novelty. A week later my three cousins visited, each in their early teens at the time, and I decided to show them the EyeToy. They loved it and spent much of their visit in my room dancing in front of my television set. A couple of months later, after someone's birthday, I saw that they had acquired a PS2 and an EyeToy of their own. I asked how much it had been played-- apparently very little. I think the Wii's like that. It's very easy to seduce new players by offering them a very simple, intuitive game with an obvious novelty involved. People come along and treat it like a new distraction, a toy, not particularly different from a chess set or a yo-yo or some other trinket, and get a few hours' worth of fun out of it or whatever. That's not an achievement. That's merely reinforcing the popular notion that video games are trivial distractions, nothing worth getting excited about, best left for the boys in their bedrooms.
Interestingly, what stuff like the EyeToy and now the Wii seems to have discovered is that there appears to be something of a fear, for non-gamers, of the control pad itself. I mean, as experienced players of video games, there are all kinds of things we just take for granted in games without thinking about it. If a particular variation or deviation does occur, we tend to be able to otherwise reason it out without too much frustration; because, ultimately speaking, GTA isn't really that different, ultimately, than Zelda. I'm talking about things like HUDs, mission objectives, holding a button longer to jump further, pushing the analogue stick harder to run faster-- every unconscious cliche in almost any game of any genre ever made. All these kinds of things have naturally evolved in games as we've been playing them, and as a result even the slightest variation in one of them can make a profound difference to the trained eye. But to someone who is more or less completely unaccustomed to video games, the current state of the 'substantial' video game-- that is, something more like Shenmue than Tetris-- must be utterly bewildering. It must appear to be a series of almost random and frequently contradictory occurrences. Moreover, every game must, when you think about it, look pretty much the same. My (tenative) ex-girlfriend once declared that she would "never let her kids play computer games"; as there seemed to a vague possibility at the time that those kids might turn out to be my own, I immediately sat her down with a PS2. I thought Ico, being a relatively low-key, largely non-threatening, simple and really quite beautiful example of the medium, might have been a good start. But the poor thing couldn't even walk in a straight line. (Actually, the first thing she said was "Which one's the shoot button?", which says a lot-- but that's a different story.) For the first time ever, I had some fleeting conception of how video games must look to my mother: that all these conventions that seem so logical and obvious to me, like how you have to press a button to pull the switch, must appear impenetrably nonsensical to anyone who didn't grow up with Sonic the Hedghehog and Mario as his best friends.
I don't know what the solution to all this is. But it seems to me that Nintendo is actually achieving very little in getting senior citizens to play Wii Sports. They're providing them with a novelty, a toy, but nothing more. I've played as much Tetris as the next guy, but in my old age I have less and less time for anything that isn't a sustained and substantial and engaging 'experience' of some kind-- anything that isn't Shenmue or Ico or even Mario World. What I really want to see is the world playing games like Shenmue more. It's easy to demonstrate that a toy can be diverting fun-- assuming your grandmother isn't frightened of television screens, getting her to play Wii Sports should be just as easy as getting her to play a board game, physical handicaps nonwithstanding. But convincing her to take games like Ico, Shenmue et al seriously as-- yes-- legitimate and engaging forms of art is another question entirely. Until then we just have an awful lot of shit like this on our hands, and a 'Nintendini cocktail' is nothing to be proud of:
Last edited by Popcorn on Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
It's like the Harry Potter/Goosebumps connundrum. People praised both series for getting kids to read. Unfortunately, many kids were only reading those series because they were popular, and not because of any legitimate interest in books in general sparked by those series and once the fads for both fell out, they immediately stop reading for the rest of their lives and never appear interested in any other books ever.
I don't know about that. I consider Harry Potter at least to be genuine bona-fide literature, even if I'm not the biggest fan, and it seems to me that getting non-readers to enjoy it is as significant as getting a non-gamer to enjoy Zelda or whatever. The thing about what I'm saying is that the 'toy'-like games like Tetris and Wii Sports and the 'experience' (for want of a better term)-like games like Zelda are almost two different media entirely, as different as novels from, I don't know, comic strips in newspapers. That's an analogy I'm little uncomfortable with because I don't want to demean comic strips-- but then, I don't want to demean Tetris, either. It's just that what Nintendo appear to have 'succeeded' in doing is getting non-readers to like comic strips, not read novels. Everyone likes comic strips.Zeta wrote:It's like the Harry Potter/Goosebumps connundrum. People praised both series for getting kids to read. Unfortunately, many kids were only reading those series because they were popular, and not because of any legitimate interest in books in general sparked by those series and once the fads for both fell out, they immediately stop reading for the rest of their lives and never appear interested in any other books ever.
I've just noticed, incidentally, that the Wii promotion in Glamour Magazine so dutifully reported by UK Resistance completely neglects to mention Zelda. It promotes the hell out of Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wario Ware, but that's it. No mention of Red Steel or whatever the fuck that was, or any coming titles-- it's nothin' but mini-games for you damnable wimmin.
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Frieza2000
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I suspect that the only reason these people have picked up the Wii in the first place is because they saw someone else playing with it and it looked, as you said, novel. It will not be changing the lifestyles of the vast majority of grandmas.
I've given this a passing thought before. Learning the conventions of video games is comparable to learning the conventions of Windows applications, or kitchen appliances, or programming. It's something that takes time and it's something you need to want to do. But learning to use a computer or a microwave has a reward that justifies the effort. People who aren't into games probably have another leisure activity they already enjoy. Most, certainly the elderly, won't bother with the time and probable frustration of getting another one if the one they have fulfills their needs. And those who are looking for a new hobby have easier, less costly, and likely more familiar ones to choose from like fantasy sports and celebrity idolization.
I've given this a passing thought before. Learning the conventions of video games is comparable to learning the conventions of Windows applications, or kitchen appliances, or programming. It's something that takes time and it's something you need to want to do. But learning to use a computer or a microwave has a reward that justifies the effort. People who aren't into games probably have another leisure activity they already enjoy. Most, certainly the elderly, won't bother with the time and probable frustration of getting another one if the one they have fulfills their needs. And those who are looking for a new hobby have easier, less costly, and likely more familiar ones to choose from like fantasy sports and celebrity idolization.
It seems the biggest problem is that developers and designers are unable to think outside the box of the control pad that they have been working in for so many years. The industry needs people with truly unusual ideas such as Esrever's to make the Wii really unique. The time will come, but how long we will have to wait before it does is yet to be seen.
I love Popcorn's story about trying to teach his then-girlfriend to play Ico. It reminds me of countless other attempts I've made to get non-gamers into something "amazing" like Psychonauts or Shadow of the Colussus.
It seems ridiculous sometimes, but then we all got OUR starts playing "gamey" games like Tetris and Ice Climbers before moving on to bigger, more ambitious story-driven titles like Shenmue or Beyond Good and Evil. Like Pop said, why WOULD a non-gamer understand how to play a title like that?
You've got to ease people into these things. Games like Tetris or Wii Sports are very basic, but they're also unintimidating and easy to understand. For someone who has never played a video game in their life, they're an introduction to the basic structure and iconography of video games, not to mention a way of getting comfortable with the controller.
And unlike the Eyetoy games, Wii Sports is training people to use a device that can support deeper, more complex titles. If Nintendo can provide a chain of progressively more robust titles, they can ease people into the hardcore stuff, playing off the things they've already learned with each step up. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what their strategy is. Wii Sports is a bit more basic than Wario Ware, which is a bit more basic that Mario Party, which is a bit more basic that Mario Galaxy, which is a bit more basic than Smash Bros. They'll probably chuck a Kirby title in there somewhere, too.
No one reads War and Peace as their first novel. People have to be trained to understand how video games work with simpler titles... just like we all were... before they'll ever have a hope of "getting" games like Ico or Shenmue. Wii Sports is the gateway drug to the heroin and cocaine of hardcore titles.
It seems ridiculous sometimes, but then we all got OUR starts playing "gamey" games like Tetris and Ice Climbers before moving on to bigger, more ambitious story-driven titles like Shenmue or Beyond Good and Evil. Like Pop said, why WOULD a non-gamer understand how to play a title like that?
You've got to ease people into these things. Games like Tetris or Wii Sports are very basic, but they're also unintimidating and easy to understand. For someone who has never played a video game in their life, they're an introduction to the basic structure and iconography of video games, not to mention a way of getting comfortable with the controller.
And unlike the Eyetoy games, Wii Sports is training people to use a device that can support deeper, more complex titles. If Nintendo can provide a chain of progressively more robust titles, they can ease people into the hardcore stuff, playing off the things they've already learned with each step up. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what their strategy is. Wii Sports is a bit more basic than Wario Ware, which is a bit more basic that Mario Party, which is a bit more basic that Mario Galaxy, which is a bit more basic than Smash Bros. They'll probably chuck a Kirby title in there somewhere, too.
No one reads War and Peace as their first novel. People have to be trained to understand how video games work with simpler titles... just like we all were... before they'll ever have a hope of "getting" games like Ico or Shenmue. Wii Sports is the gateway drug to the heroin and cocaine of hardcore titles.
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Tsuyoshi-kun
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Total agreement here. I'm confused as to why we should pay $8 for emulated games from 15 to 20 years ago. The only games I've seen so far worth buying to me are Toejam and Earl, the original NES Kirby's Adventure (I'm not a big fan of the Game Boy Advance remake, but it's still good), and maybe Gunstar Heroes, since I never played that game on the Genesis. But I doubt I'll pay $40 to get my Wii to play those games right now (I also never bothered to go online with my Dreamcast).Green Gibbon! wrote:Also, the Virtual Console is stupid and the games are overpriced.
I get the idea that if you want to introduce someone to "real" games, the best way to do it is to start with a game with a simple, understandable, goal. Not necessarily a simple game, but something where it's immediately apparent what everything represents and what you are supposed to be doing.
Now, I have no experience with getting new people to play video games; I always recommend the same thing to people new to video games, and that's Sonic 1 - it's the best introduction I can think of - but as it's a 1-player game, I mean, and it's not very likely any of these people are ever going to sit down one day and think, "I'm bored... hey! I could go play Sonic 1!". I suppose I should really think of something 2-player to recommend so that we could play it immediately... which would probably be Smash. Now I'm a college student, I live in a dorm, Smash kind of dominates, and even a bunch of the people who don't play Smash, play Smash ocassionally. Although it's kind of disappointing because they tend to just play among themselves, and of course they're not going to get much better that way. But regardless, I think it helps that it's at leas familiar to everyone. I suppose something like Bomberman might be better as an introduction for being simpler, but first of all, we don't have that, and second of all, I'm about to claim that simplicity may not matter so much.
...where was I? Anyway, I *do* have some experience getting new people to play [recent/complex/not-something-they-already-knew] board games. Now I once tried to do this by suggesting the well-known "gateway games", Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, etc. Which, after all, are not only simple and short, but actually good games. But nobody wanted to play. Then I brought out A Game of Thrones - the rules take half an hour to explain; it's supposed to play in under 3 hours but in my experience tends to run more like 5; and during our first play there were tons of rules mistakes. But, I got players. And I think the reason is that while the exact rules may be a bit complex, it's pretty clear what's basically going on - I have this much territory; I want more; I'm going to attack my neighbor and try to take it from him. Maybe I'll talk to his neighbor and conspire against him. Etc.
And isn't that how we all got into video games? Not based on the controls or anything, but based on a simple understanding of what we're trying to do, which, at that level, was generally, get to the end of the level, kill anything that stands in your way. I think the good introductory games are the same ones that they always were. The one time I saw any of the non-gamers here pick up a video game by themselves and start playing it - other than Smash, which is going to attract people by the sheer number of people that play it - it was Twilight Princess. Admittedly this hasn't really led to her playing other games - she never even finished TP - but it's better prepared her for them than Wii Sports would have, I would think. The only thing is that if we want to actively introduce new people, we probably have to emphasize multiplayer games so that, you know, we can actually play them with them. I have yet to really try this, though, as it only really occurred to me while I was writing this post what the probable problem was with always recommending Sonic 1.
Now, I have no experience with getting new people to play video games; I always recommend the same thing to people new to video games, and that's Sonic 1 - it's the best introduction I can think of - but as it's a 1-player game, I mean, and it's not very likely any of these people are ever going to sit down one day and think, "I'm bored... hey! I could go play Sonic 1!". I suppose I should really think of something 2-player to recommend so that we could play it immediately... which would probably be Smash. Now I'm a college student, I live in a dorm, Smash kind of dominates, and even a bunch of the people who don't play Smash, play Smash ocassionally. Although it's kind of disappointing because they tend to just play among themselves, and of course they're not going to get much better that way. But regardless, I think it helps that it's at leas familiar to everyone. I suppose something like Bomberman might be better as an introduction for being simpler, but first of all, we don't have that, and second of all, I'm about to claim that simplicity may not matter so much.
...where was I? Anyway, I *do* have some experience getting new people to play [recent/complex/not-something-they-already-knew] board games. Now I once tried to do this by suggesting the well-known "gateway games", Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, etc. Which, after all, are not only simple and short, but actually good games. But nobody wanted to play. Then I brought out A Game of Thrones - the rules take half an hour to explain; it's supposed to play in under 3 hours but in my experience tends to run more like 5; and during our first play there were tons of rules mistakes. But, I got players. And I think the reason is that while the exact rules may be a bit complex, it's pretty clear what's basically going on - I have this much territory; I want more; I'm going to attack my neighbor and try to take it from him. Maybe I'll talk to his neighbor and conspire against him. Etc.
And isn't that how we all got into video games? Not based on the controls or anything, but based on a simple understanding of what we're trying to do, which, at that level, was generally, get to the end of the level, kill anything that stands in your way. I think the good introductory games are the same ones that they always were. The one time I saw any of the non-gamers here pick up a video game by themselves and start playing it - other than Smash, which is going to attract people by the sheer number of people that play it - it was Twilight Princess. Admittedly this hasn't really led to her playing other games - she never even finished TP - but it's better prepared her for them than Wii Sports would have, I would think. The only thing is that if we want to actively introduce new people, we probably have to emphasize multiplayer games so that, you know, we can actually play them with them. I have yet to really try this, though, as it only really occurred to me while I was writing this post what the probable problem was with always recommending Sonic 1.
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Green Gibbon!
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Baba O'Reily
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I think that some people would rather just have the instant gratification of fundamentally simpler games. In Grand Theft Auto, you get to drive around, shoot people, pick up prostitutes, do drug runs, and all of that is more or less exciting stuff designed to hook someone with thrills. The end pay-off is disappointing, but eh.
Not everyone wants to be immersed in a larger-than-life experience. Some just want to be entertained. My sister actually plays Trauma Center more than I do (On a side note, she has all of the things S ranked, whereas I'm stuck at B), and while it's a fairly simple concept, it's still pretty engrossing. On the other hand, Shadow of the Colossus is even simpler, but it totally consumes you in its environment. Some people would rather keep a tentative foot in reality when playing games.
Not everyone wants to be immersed in a larger-than-life experience. Some just want to be entertained. My sister actually plays Trauma Center more than I do (On a side note, she has all of the things S ranked, whereas I'm stuck at B), and while it's a fairly simple concept, it's still pretty engrossing. On the other hand, Shadow of the Colossus is even simpler, but it totally consumes you in its environment. Some people would rather keep a tentative foot in reality when playing games.
First game I played was Pac-Man. Easiest shit to control there is. Then those games where you could jump like Frost Bite and Pitfall. Then in the Master System we had 2 buttons, then 3 and 6 on the Genesis, then 8 on PSX and now there's like, 135 on the PS2.
Thing is, it's getting harder to explain someone how to play a game for the first time, since we are using each direction on the digital pad as a button now. Stuff is confusing. So I think it's a great thing Nintendo is trying to make things simple again. That's what got people into games in the first place.
I tried to make my nephew play any PS2 game until I gave up and put the Sega Genesis Collection for him to play Ecco. I ended up hooked on it and now I'm playing Defender of the Future, after beating the first two on the SGC.
Thing is, it's getting harder to explain someone how to play a game for the first time, since we are using each direction on the digital pad as a button now. Stuff is confusing. So I think it's a great thing Nintendo is trying to make things simple again. That's what got people into games in the first place.
I tried to make my nephew play any PS2 game until I gave up and put the Sega Genesis Collection for him to play Ecco. I ended up hooked on it and now I'm playing Defender of the Future, after beating the first two on the SGC.
This pretty much cuts to the heart of the discussion. Hard core video gamers (such as most of the crowd here) are clashing with casual entertainment seekers. Being annoyed at non-gamers only playing the Wii for Wii Sports is akin to jazz aficionados being annoyed at pop fans for not properly appreciating music. Or Tolstoy experts being exasperated by John Grisham readers. Or football lovers being unable to understand how others don't get into sports.Esrever wrote: No one reads War and Peace as their first novel.
Wanting to introduce neophytes to a medium you appreciate is admirable, but don't get carried away - they might try to get you to listen to obscure music, read Russian literature, or watch baseball. If the casual gamers annoy you, just pretend not to see them in the video game store.
Incidentally, one game I've seen that unites some pretty serious gamers and non-gamers is Guitar Hero. I haven't regularly played games for years, but lately I've had some entertaining gos at Guitar Hero.
Guitar Hero seems to be pretty effective at getting nongamers into gaming simply because it's main focus doesn't appear to be gaming, but rock music. Its approach really boils down to getting people to feel like they're rock stars without the years of work and toil and practice, and to a degree, it works. Like Bo said, it's a very different matter indeed to try and get someone to appreciate, say, Ico or another example of a zenith in gaming if whatever you're showing them isn't appealing. Nongamers don't go into a game thinking of it as anything but a game, and for many people giving them exactly that is what's going to help lead them into more "hardcore" experiences. The first game I got my ex-girlfriend into was incredibly casual: Animal Crossing. But it worked. From there I was able to eventually get her into more serious games, and she ended up playing and beating Wind Waker with relative ease. I don't know how successful I'd have been if I'd tried Ico.
I think Guitar Hero attracts people for the same reason the Wii does... the controller's are modeled after things that most people already understand how to use. (At least on a basic level, that is. Most people can't play the guitar, but they know how to hold it and they know you strum it to make sounds come out.)
Anyhow, this whole business of attracting new gamers is somewhat interesting, but ultimately... so what? I'm already a gamer, and I know how to use a controller. I want games made for me because I am selfish. Let's see some more Wii titles that use the remote in a more robust, more challenging way, huh?
Not that Trauma Center and Sonic aren't already scratching that itch... at least in the brutal difficulty department. But Sonic doesn't use the remote to do anything that couldn't have been done just as well with a joystick. Trauma Center, on the other hand, totally would not work with a traditional controller... but you can only get so excited about a remake.
Anyhow, this whole business of attracting new gamers is somewhat interesting, but ultimately... so what? I'm already a gamer, and I know how to use a controller. I want games made for me because I am selfish. Let's see some more Wii titles that use the remote in a more robust, more challenging way, huh?
Not that Trauma Center and Sonic aren't already scratching that itch... at least in the brutal difficulty department. But Sonic doesn't use the remote to do anything that couldn't have been done just as well with a joystick. Trauma Center, on the other hand, totally would not work with a traditional controller... but you can only get so excited about a remake.
Guitar Hero. My girlfriend loves it, I have to beg her to play in multiplayer with me.
Mario Party. But she hates losing.
Space Channel 5. Maybe a bit.
Shadow of the Colossus? She thinks it's the worst game ever.
Funny enough, I don't have the guitar, so we play with the controllers, which is actually a lot better than I thought it would be.
But my mom loves Metal Gear Solid 3.
Mario Party. But she hates losing.
Space Channel 5. Maybe a bit.
Shadow of the Colossus? She thinks it's the worst game ever.
Funny enough, I don't have the guitar, so we play with the controllers, which is actually a lot better than I thought it would be.
But my mom loves Metal Gear Solid 3.
I'm always dumbfounded by what games nongamers actually like. My sister is a good example. Sonic 1, Tetris, Animal Crossing, and Shenmue I. She's dismissed Sonic 2, Sonic 3&K, Sonic Adventure, Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball, Chu Chu Rocket, and other games I would think she would like.
I know another non-gamer who plays nothing but Sonic 1 and PC Flash games.
And then there are those who only own a PS2 for the newest edition of Madden.
I don't think there's any one game that every person is going to enjoy. There's no individual game that every non-gamer is going to take interest in.
I was horribly confused when someone I knew bought a PlayStation over a N64 only due to the PSX having less buttons on its controllers.
And it still makes my head hurt trying to figure out how people can get into non-StarCraft RTS games. Or PC games in general.
As for the Wii controller, it has potential to be used for something great. The problem is that the developers need to work backwards from the ground up while still trying to provide a game compariable to today's games. They don't have the option to make a Balloon Flight, Pac-Man, or Donkey Kong. They need to make something great and make it now. I bet it's going to take more than the standard 5-year lifespan of systems for developers to catch up compeltely to what's been done with the d-pad/analog stick.
The other issue with a lack of revolution is that developers won't innovate in their games. Sequeals sell and that's all they can get funding for. I bet the average developer has some insane, original ideas they just don't have the means to make.
I know another non-gamer who plays nothing but Sonic 1 and PC Flash games.
And then there are those who only own a PS2 for the newest edition of Madden.
I don't think there's any one game that every person is going to enjoy. There's no individual game that every non-gamer is going to take interest in.
I was horribly confused when someone I knew bought a PlayStation over a N64 only due to the PSX having less buttons on its controllers.
And it still makes my head hurt trying to figure out how people can get into non-StarCraft RTS games. Or PC games in general.
As for the Wii controller, it has potential to be used for something great. The problem is that the developers need to work backwards from the ground up while still trying to provide a game compariable to today's games. They don't have the option to make a Balloon Flight, Pac-Man, or Donkey Kong. They need to make something great and make it now. I bet it's going to take more than the standard 5-year lifespan of systems for developers to catch up compeltely to what's been done with the d-pad/analog stick.
The other issue with a lack of revolution is that developers won't innovate in their games. Sequeals sell and that's all they can get funding for. I bet the average developer has some insane, original ideas they just don't have the means to make.
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Segaholic2
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Tsuyoshi-kun
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