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edgehopper last night, and he actually keeps up with new games and systems, so I got a chance to try out some games that have been interesting me for a while.
On one hand, New Super Mario Brother Wii is a fun waste of a couple of hours. Like the DS New SMB, they started with SMB3, added the most popular bits of Super Mario World, threw in a lot of "Look what we can do now!" technical tricks, and ran with it. If I was 20 years younger, and this had been my first Mario Brothers sidescroller, I suspect I’d think it was awesome—it hits all of the same buttons the original NES and SNES games did.
Unfortunately, I’m not the kid who was mesmerized by SMB3 and SMW anymore. The lack of edge gravity is maddening, and the Mario Brothers seem to have even less traction than in previous installments (and certainly slide around a lot more than Soma Cruz or Samus Aran ever do). The simultaneous multiplayer mode feels a lot like Smash Brothers, but that’s an issue when the object is not to knock each other into pits. (Though I’ll admit that the "bubble" feature is cute—when you die or press A, your character becomes invincible and floats in a bubble until the other player pops you. If they die, you’re back to the beginning of the stage, but it also means you can let them deal with a hard section and rejoin afterwards.) Try to get through with two players was difficult and required a lot of coordination—and Edgehopper and I both have pretty good platformer reflexes; I think this would have been nearly impossible with four players, especially if some of them weren’t already good at Mario games.
All in all, it struck me like a lot of Wii games have so far: Fun to play for a couple of hours, but then I’m done. I have yet to find a Wii game that I’d want to play 20-40 hours of (though I haven’t tried the Wii Paper Mario, and I’m not sure how much longer I could have spent on the campaign mode of Smash Brothers, it might have been worth it). The Wii is great for party/hanging-out games, but it’s not for long-term, hard-core play. And honestly, the NES was kinda like that, too, and I think that’s why they both appeal to the casual player demographic.
Lego Batman is a worthy successor to the Lego Star Wars line of games. Two player co-op, the same forgiving infinite-lives style of play, some cute puzzles based around the various suits (glider suit, magnet boots suit, etc) and really adorable Lego versions of Batman villains. I honestly think the entertainment value of Lego Star Wars was better, because it was following along the plot of the movies (rather than making up a trite NES-era game plot) and because blasters and lightsabers work better with the combat system/art style than punches and kicks. But this was amusing, and the sort of thing I’d happily pull out of the bargain bin to play with Jethrien and try to unlock all of the secrets in.
edgehopper last night, and he actually keeps up with new games and systems, so I got a chance to try out some games that have been interesting me for a while.On one hand, New Super Mario Brother Wii is a fun waste of a couple of hours. Like the DS New SMB, they started with SMB3, added the most popular bits of Super Mario World, threw in a lot of "Look what we can do now!" technical tricks, and ran with it. If I was 20 years younger, and this had been my first Mario Brothers sidescroller, I suspect I’d think it was awesome—it hits all of the same buttons the original NES and SNES games did.
Unfortunately, I’m not the kid who was mesmerized by SMB3 and SMW anymore. The lack of edge gravity is maddening, and the Mario Brothers seem to have even less traction than in previous installments (and certainly slide around a lot more than Soma Cruz or Samus Aran ever do). The simultaneous multiplayer mode feels a lot like Smash Brothers, but that’s an issue when the object is not to knock each other into pits. (Though I’ll admit that the "bubble" feature is cute—when you die or press A, your character becomes invincible and floats in a bubble until the other player pops you. If they die, you’re back to the beginning of the stage, but it also means you can let them deal with a hard section and rejoin afterwards.) Try to get through with two players was difficult and required a lot of coordination—and Edgehopper and I both have pretty good platformer reflexes; I think this would have been nearly impossible with four players, especially if some of them weren’t already good at Mario games.
All in all, it struck me like a lot of Wii games have so far: Fun to play for a couple of hours, but then I’m done. I have yet to find a Wii game that I’d want to play 20-40 hours of (though I haven’t tried the Wii Paper Mario, and I’m not sure how much longer I could have spent on the campaign mode of Smash Brothers, it might have been worth it). The Wii is great for party/hanging-out games, but it’s not for long-term, hard-core play. And honestly, the NES was kinda like that, too, and I think that’s why they both appeal to the casual player demographic.
Lego Batman is a worthy successor to the Lego Star Wars line of games. Two player co-op, the same forgiving infinite-lives style of play, some cute puzzles based around the various suits (glider suit, magnet boots suit, etc) and really adorable Lego versions of Batman villains. I honestly think the entertainment value of Lego Star Wars was better, because it was following along the plot of the movies (rather than making up a trite NES-era game plot) and because blasters and lightsabers work better with the combat system/art style than punches and kicks. But this was amusing, and the sort of thing I’d happily pull out of the bargain bin to play with Jethrien and try to unlock all of the secrets in.
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Date: 2009-12-23 02:41 am (UTC)I'm curious though -- what do you mean by "lack of edge gravity"?
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Date: 2009-12-23 03:19 am (UTC)I think my issue was that Mario and Luigi have serious friction-related issues in NSMBW--that is, a complete lack thereof. There wasn't any edge gravity in earlier Mario games either, but SMB3 and SMW had significantly less slip-sliding, and I think that's what was making the game seem more difficult to me. I thought NSMB DS had similar problems, but not quite to the same degree.