Today's Gaming Rant: Wii-makes
Now, anyone who has read this site, listened to the podcast or has a fully functional cognitive center of their brain knows that I am a huge Nintendo fan. I genuinely believe that Nintendo consistantly produces the best quality first party games, and they are the company I always turn to first when I want to have video game related fun. If it were socially acceptable to wear green tights, I wouldn't be made fun of day in and day out for my fashion sense. Something has been cinching up my tights recently, and I wanted to share it with you in rant form. Nintendo is being retarded.
According to Matt Cassamassina from IGN the other day, there were rumors that Nintendo was going to announce a version of Kid Icarus for the Wii - Link.
The day came and went, and no announcement was made. Now, we all know that Nintendo is making a Kid Icarus game for the Wii. The be-winged Pit is in Smash Brothers Brawl, and Nintendo is always more than happy to continue franchises. People eat up new Mario, Zelda and Metroid games, so why not capitalize on that? They are in the business of making money, after all. I know I am going to be first in line to get the Wii, Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3 on release day. So why am I angry? Because of the pandering. I HATE BEING PANDERED TO.
As a child of the 80's, I feel my nostalgia is being exploited a wee bit too heavily these days. Sure, as a kid I loved watching Transformers and Ninja Turtles on TV while wearing my Super Mario 3 Underoos (they had sparkles!), and I am sure I would get a couple warm fuzzies from seeing a live action version of Optimus Prime rolling down the street. But from the Transformers movie being made by Michael "Explosions Give Me Erections" Bay, to the new CG Ninja Turtles that look like a cutscene from a PS1 game, to Hot Topic video game tees with stupid slogans on them to Family Guy disintegrating into a series of obscure 80's references, people have figured out that this kind of thing makes money. Gobs of money. Hats made of money. And we eat it up as if it were Mario shaped candy (which is probably delicious, by the way).
Nintendo is great at making original games, especially recently. Off the top of my head I can cite Pikmin, Nintendogs, and Drill Dozer. There are a couple of excellent new games for the Wii announced, like Project H.A.M.M.E.R., Elebits and the like. But Nintendo keeps bringing back franchises. Is this a bad thing? More often than not, I say yes.
The Metroid Prime series was really successful, so has been the Zelda series. But what about Star Fox? Once Nintendo let other companies grasp their beloved Furry Franchise, it went to crap. Mario Party is another franchise that just needs to die. Look at other companies, like Capcom and the Mega Man series. What the crap happened there?! Capitalizing on nostalgia is an easy way to get people to buy games. Us 80's kids will just look at a remake based on something we remember waking up early Saturday mornings to play and drool, slap down our money, and eventually be disappointed the majority of the time.
Nintendo could do a lot with the Kid Icarus franchise, sure. It could end up being a brilliant, mindblowing game, revitalizing the franchise much like Capcom did with Resident Evil 4. Or, it could also suck as hard as Star Fox Assault (ouch!). The development time being spent to make a crappy franchise game could be spent making a truly inspired new game that doesn't give us the nostalgia warm fuzzies, but gives us satisfaction in a wholly new way, like how new and fresh rolling stuff into a ball felt in Katamari, like how crazy fun shredding on a playskool guitar to Ziggy Stardust is in Guitar Hero. The Wii is inspiring game developers all over the world to think about games in a new way, and Nintendo is banking on old franchises? That just shows a lack of faith in their product to me.
What I am saying is that the Wii has a lot of potential. There is the potential for success, and potential for failure. I don't think that Nintendo should rely so much on rehashes of franchises using the Wii controller. Make something incredible and new, and quit banking on my childhood. That's the easy way out. I'll buy it, but I won't be happy about it.
