Mega Man 9 Interview and Talks of more DLC– Capcom really IS getting back to their roots. We all know Mega Man 4, 5, 6 are pretty much cash grabs. Now, Capcom continues the tradition with DLC. Mega Man 10 simply isn’t coming out. Not until Capcom is unable to sell any more DLC for Mega Man 9. They will keep milking this for as long as possible. How hard is it to make a new 8 bit level? My advice to Capcom would be to replicate the Doc Robot stages of Mega Man 3. Let me fight the previous Mega Man bosses again and thist time… take their weapons as well. And let me use their weapons in the game. Come to think of it, why doesn’t anyone use DLC in the way of ‘expansion packs’ as in many new additions all bundled as you would in a computer game expansion pack? I would be far more likely to pay more for a complete package than bits and pieces of an uncomplete package.
10 Reasons Why All Games Should be 2d– Unknowingly, the author validates the reasons why the Expansion Market exists. All the reasons he lists why games should be 2d is what the Expanded Market is all about. Current 2d gaming is part of the expanded market.
What has Nintendo done for us latley?– An intellectual tour-de-force assaulting Nintendo’s current strategy. *snicker*
State of Play With Wii-Ware– The best summary of WiiWare would be ‘Wii’s Game Laboratory’. Iwata stated that it was supposed to test out new concepts. But more to the point, Iwata just wants to make a new Tetris phenomenon. One thing I grow annoyed when people judge game libraries is that they only do so in a limited time frame (such as a period of a month). What customers consider ‘quality’ games differ wildly. Some people think Pokemon Farm is awesome. Others think Mega Man 9 is awesome. Yet, others think Dr. Mario RX is awesome. A good library are games that appeal to everyone. A bad library are games that appeal to only one type of customer. It is common to ‘condemn’ the ‘casual games’ that appear in Wii’s library. But that is the reason why Wii’s library is superior than, say, the Xbox 360’s library. It is more diverse and has more titles. It is why Wii keeps on selling. Games appeal differently to different people. But not in Hardcore Land where every game must be tagged with a number ‘rating’. When was the last time a children’s game rated highly? Never. Even though I see kids play a game like Mario Party 8 or Lego Indiana Jones like crack, there are apparently no ‘good’ children’s games in Hardcore Land. All children’s games, for example, might get up to 80% at the highest. While the bias against the Expanded Market games is new this cycle, the bias against games for children, for example, is not. “But Malstrom, kids aren’t going to read a website to find rating on a game!” No, but their parents will.
Nintendo Should Have Made Little Big Planet– Nintendo will be focusing on using Wii Connect 24/7 more very soon. A new Legend of Zelda game, done in 16-bit graphics, and included an editor where players can make their own maps and dungeons and trade them over the internet, would not be improbable. But the WiiConnect24 should be thought of in new gameplay terms than simply trading custom stages. I expect Nintendo’s new WiiWare games to tinker with this more.
Commentary on Wii Music reviews– 1up had the right approach. A better approach would have been letting many others play the game and see their responses to it. Of course, in ‘review world’ with its contracts and all, that wouldn’t be a possibility. As for IGN Matt, if I was head of IGN, I would have taken back the IGN review, gave it to someone who is interested in reviewing it instead of holding a grudge against Nintendo, and I would have suspended Matt. Ever since E3, he has had an attitude problem. In the podcast after E3, he referred to going to Nintendo’s press conference as going to church but not hearing anything about God. I guess to some, ‘hardcore gaming’ can be compared to God.
Are Gamers Being Forgotten?– This article is resonating with many people out there because the author is wondering why he is feeling the entire game industry is declining in quality. He isn’t complaining about ‘casual games’ (as many articles did), but he is complaining about the seemingly lack of quality on all the consoles. What the author is really trying to say is that the customer is no longer what games are crafted around. Instead, games are crafted around business models, quarterly earnings, marketing, and large install bases. While he doesn’t articulate this, I suspect he wants games to be designed around the customer again. So say we all!
Gaming With Strangers– This author writes that he enjoyed playing with strangers once voice chat became common. But he doesn’t like ‘those’ people that are annoying (who does?). My experience has been the opposite. Almost all of my online gaming is exclusive to strangers or strangers that have turned into friends. I never, ever, play with real life people. The reason why is that people are very different on the Internet then they are in real life. Most real life people I know sound like noobs on the Internet. Also, I have the personality of ‘trying to win’. When I play a RTS or MMORPG, my focus is on winning. If I lose, I watch replays on how I died. When I win, I watch replays of my glorious victory and try to guess what the opponent was thinking as I slaughtered him. I *love* team games in RTS. However, I demand the same consistent dedication from my teammates. My real life friends don’t have that dedication. They simply are surprised how fast they are blown away on the Internet, and I am shaking my head. Gaming skills decline when you are older and have a life. However, gaming skills take a severe drop downward once you get married. Once you have a kid, your gaming skills go into ‘retard mode’. All my real life friends have kids so they lack that competitive drive. In MMORPGs, I have tried both real life and strangers through various servers and characters in WoW. Real life people were better to do RAIDs but I realized that I never liked playing online with real life people. I prefer the more spontaneous stranger approach. It is really fun to just meet someone and become friends when your game personalities match. When WoW came out, I ended up being a buddy to a player in Russia (even though Russia didn’t get the game until much, much later). However, my online playing was before voice chat became popular. I *despise* voice chat as I despise telephones. Voice chat, to me, seems girly as if I have somehow become a fourteen year old girl chatting over the phone for hours about something irrelevant (which is what MMORPG is). I prefer text perhaps due to my ultra-fast typing skills. In all cases, I choose text over voice chat and this, hilariously, annoys some people. Voice chat in a MMORPG makes me feel I am in some bizzarro hotline that has a video game. This might be why I like the Wii Chat speaker. It doesn’t remind me of a stupid telephone but more of a room to room communication.
I hate phones. Thank God for Email and Instant Messenging.