Isambard wrote:
I was expecting a Mario game, yes, but I was never expecting them to fiddle with something that people know and love from their childhood to the point where people are furious. Look at Mario 64. I know people who swore of Nintendo for that very reason.
Pandering to the expectations of the idiot masses is not an excuse for mediocrity. Maybe I'm being irrational in 'expecting' (or even hoping for) something more than a by-the-numbers Mario game, but that's unrelated to the point: it isn't as good as it should be.
And who the hell hated Mario 64? Every game has its detractors, but wasn't Mario 64 an early candidate for the Best Game Ever hyperbole? Either way, fuck anyone who rejects quality and innovation in favour of the status quo.
I just think they're getting used to a new style and the next installment will have alot more to offer the more "hardcore" gamers. But yea...that mini-mushroom blows.
There's nothing 'hardcore' about wanting good games.
Speaking of quality and innovation, I thought this little Unreal 2K4 mod looked really promising. I'd start a thread about it, but it didn't seem big enough to warrant a thread. Either way this coupled with XBL Arcade makes me happy to think there are still some room in the industry for small indie dev teams.
Judging by some earlier interviews, it seemed like the development team was ready to go Whole-Hog with this and create a unique Mario game but at some point they were told by someone(Miyamoto?) to scale it back and make it feel more like the original(likely to fit in line with the "non-gamer/bringing in gamers who quit" plan). I think Gibbon has a point, but I think the reason it comes off as a "trying too hard" scenario is because it was something they were told to do and not something they wanted to do. I did enjoy NSMB, but I can only hope that the inevitable sequel gives the team a chance to be more creative.
Drawn To Be Alive is looking great, but is really fair to call it a mod? I consider mods to be a modification of the original game and this looks like a different game altogether.
In a way, the problem with NSMB is that they DID screw with the popular formula. They made it less like Mario 3 & Mario World, and more like Mario 1. Seriously, who the hell wants another Mario 1? As wonderful as it was at the time, today it's simply the least interesting game in the series. And it certainly isn't the most popular entry... in North America at least.
If they'd given me "just another Mario World" I would have been all over that. Mario World had a rich enough formula to withstand a basic retread with a few new items.
