Wi-Philes

Because I am poor and behind the times, I've been playing Assassin's Creed lately on loan from a friend. It's probably the best game I've ever played and got bored of within a single week.

Everything about the game is very "YES!!!! but..." Example: Is this the most beautiful game I've ever played? I think so. The depiction of Crusade-era Mediterranean landscape is something to behold. I'd recommend seeing the game to pretty much anyone. Riding horseback through the overworld, past cypruses and palm trees is incredibly immersive and imposes a stinging desire for time travel every time I play it. I just want to be there, which is an effect video games haven't had on me since pre-puberty. There are small thinly-manned camps along the valleys and hills, and the attention to detail in both the soldiers' crudley constructed camps and authentic-looking wardrobe gives a definite sense of place. It has a very wilderness feeling to it, and not an American frontiersman kind of wilderness, but a blurring of the lines between civilization and the natural world, before history was stamped indellibly with the rule of law. Out there, whoever has the most soldiers makes the rules. Foreign soldiers are inately mistrustful of you and will kill you simply for being the "Other", and it feels so right that it's easy to forget that that's just how video games work.

The flipside of the coin is that the game doesn't take place in the 11th Century Mediterranean. It takes place somewhere in the future, where a machine scans a man's "genetic memory" so he can relive the Crusades as his ancestorial assassin. So in the midst of one of the most gorgeous and immersive game worlds I've seen, there's all this Matrix looking shit popping up all over the place. When you lock onto an enemy, weird glyphs and percentages start flying around him. The effect is decently rendered, but I mean... save that shit for a boring looking game to give it some spice. This is already great, and it's the kind of great that's lessened by exact-opposite genre standbys poking their head in.

The cities look like something out of a period piece, and are bustling with competently-voiced citizens. Running along the rooftops, often from guards, is a very Aladdin Meets Batman experience. Or maybe just Aladdin If He Killed People. You break up some police brutality and save a citizen, or get caught pick-pocketing, or just run into the wrong guard in the wrong place, and they'll chase you damn well all over the place. And it's fucking great. The music swells, Altair hops from rooftop to crossbeam to balcony like a methed out Jackie Chan, and now and again the guards corner you and you bust out some badass swordplay and cut a few bitches before dipping out to continue the chase. I couldn't get enough of it. Or, I guess I could, but not until about 10 hours later.

The thing is, the developers put together a really well-crafted game of tag in a gorgeous backdrop. But that's all it is. You complete a mission, the guards chase you, and you kill them or run away and hide. Again and again.

The laddering element is that after each assassination, you get more weapons and techniques, but after you try them a few times it's almost as if they dilute the game. And this is where I wade into the realm of "what makes video games fun" but here's my point: If the fun of the game is to run from guards, then why can I so effectively take on as many as 20 armed guards at once? And if the point is to fight the guards, why would I want to run away? The Grand Theft Auto solution to this problem is that you can't just fight police to a surrender. Sure, you can blow away a few squad cars' worth of pigs, but any act of aggression only upscales their pursuit of you. And since shooting it out with the cops ends badly very quickly, you have to run.

Also, your health continually recharges, even in the thick of battle. So it's not like you hit a low health point where you really have to get away; you just stand around holding block for awhile and eventually you're okay. Enter the Matrix used this idea, but any of the Agents that you fought in that game were practically unkillable, so once again you had an actual reason to run away, fight aggressively, and feel suspense any time one of them pursued you. In Assassin's Creed the hero is too good for the world he's pitted in, and it's like watching Superman being chased by a guy with a bat.

I might keep playing it to see if the plot goes anywhere, but it looks like it's going to a predictable and unexciting place, so it's not really a draw. I'll probably just give it back when I head home this weekend, maybe see if I can trade for Ninja Gaiden II.

The last year is over! And what better way to cap off a year and start fresh than by looking backward and obsessing over the past rather than looking forward. In that spirit, I've undertaken the gigantic task of reviewing every single game released in 2006 for any system, everywhere. Reviews will be around 1-2 sentences to make sure I get them all done before 2008, the 3 month delay was to make sure nothing was missed. That makes this the only 2006 wrap-up article you'll ever have to read, so I hope you didn't read like 40 in the frenzied excitement of not attending any New Years parties.

Brain Age (DS)

It had its moments but overall it just made me feel stupid, not because it gave me a low score but because I spent $20 on competitive arithmetic.


Chibi-Robo (GCN)

Like Banjo-Kazooie (N64) mixed with Toy Story 2 (N64). Okay!


Gears of War (360)
I like the parts with the CHAIN SAWS.


Guitar Hero (PS2)

I should have taken the $300 I spent on guitar lessons and bought a PS2 and this game instead. (this is not a joke that i'm making this is me being real)


The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GCN/Wii)

GOTY. Game of the YAWN. But everyone loves Zelda.


Madden 07 (Xbox360)

NOT VERY INNOVATIVE. Nice try, Xbox, maybe next time don't use an ancient controller from the Stone Age.


NEW Super Mario Bros. (DS)

Mario Sunshine taught us that if it's Mario and there's no flight and it's not 1986 it sucks. Among probably seven other DS games that were stolen out of my car in 2006 that I never mourned.


Resident Evil 4 (GCN)

This didn't come out in 2006 but as a Nintendo fansite I think it's supposed to be included in all our lists. Wins two consecutive perfect scores for each year running.


Sonic the Hedgehog (360)

Reading of this game's ground-breaking shittiness was more entertaining than any Sonic game I've played in the past five years. I really like the direction they're taking the series.


Spartan: Total Warrior (GCN)

So great I felt bad that I never wrote an MIA File for it. I still might. Kind of God of War Lite but entirely different.


Super Princess Peach (DS)

Actually pretty good for an unabashed PMS simulator. I never solved the mystery of the talking umbrella because Jasper deleted my file and I didn't care enough to play it again.


Wii Sports (Wii)

Murder Simulator of the Year. Also earns bonus points for breaking people's TVs, especially if it was an HDTV that didn't work with the game anyway.


OTHER AWARDS

Best Console: Wii, for breaking from the norm and truly realizing the future of gaming with 40 ports of childrens' licensed games, football, and WW2 1st person shooting.

Best Game No One Played: I was going to say Elite Beat Agents but according to IGN.com it's GTR2. I guess I was wrong.

Best Game to Talk About Instead of Play: I've found that no matter what year it is it's always Zelda, even if there's no Zelda out that year. N-Philes even added a new forum so more people could talk about it instead of playing the game.

Biggest Waste of Time Ever, Nobody's Impressed: Surprise, it's the PS3! I guess at the time it made sense for Sony to wait until a year after the 360 was released to launch a $600 Special Edition Black Xbox360 that comes equipped without Live or interesting games and that also plays movies in a format nobody wants to own.

Best Joke of 2006 That Will Never Get Old: Tie between Wii puns and MASSIVE DAMAGE.
Runner-up: Rogue's alcohol-induced barfing at a swanky E3 party, which started with a small spit up on the carpet somewhere and eventually snowballed into Rogue projectile vomiting on a high-ranking industry player who was very likely not at the event at all.

Best Zune Killer: iPod Nano.

Most Scathing N-Philes Review of a Game The Probably Deserved It: Tie between Konductra and Strawberry Shortcake: Strawberryland Games, which both nearly got us in trouble with less-than-amused publishers.
Runners up: Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, Midway Arcade Treasures 3, and SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab

Well that's it, 2006 just as you remembered it! What a year for games, and for gaming enthusiasts who are either paid to write about them on the internet or not paid to write about them on the forums of the very same internet. God willing, 2007 will bring us even more giant enemy crabs to reference every 4 minutes and greater graphical nightmares on Wii to fuel internet argument on our precious forums. See you then!

It's been 85 days since the Wii launched in America. I've had a Wii for every day of that timespan of over two months, and I can honestly say that I play the system every single day. Out of Nintendo's fairly large launch library, I've experienced nine games with mixed feelings overall: Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Twilight Princess, Trauma Center, Super Monkey Ball, Rampage, Dragonball Z, Elebits, and Wario Ware.

I've used the internet channel, and I guess if I were the kind of person who stole information from the internet by simply viewing it, as opposed to contributing information to it like what you're reading here, I might at one point repeat that action. News and Forecast channels made similar non-impressions on me, and for my uses they serve me best by making my Wii channels screen look less empty. I almost used the Photo Channel to e-mail myself images of a PS3 I was eBaying, but for a format problem with my camera's memory stick. The Mii channel was brimming with excited activity long into my second week of owning a Wii, which I can only assume is about par given how little activity the messaging and parade portion of the channel sees these days.

As if my lack of interest in Wii's multifaceted applications weren't stale enough, the game I dominate the system's time with is Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2, a PlayStation 2 port that I don't even bother to play with the wonder-wand Wii Remote. There is almost nothing about Wii, nothing that separates it from other game consoles, that has so far made me say "Wow!"

So what has me coming back? What's kept me excited about a system that currently has only one game on its horizon that I'm terribly interested in (Smash Bros Brawl, another fighter that allegedly won't use motion controls)? The Virtual Console.

The VC is Nintendo's ace in the hole for all those early adopters that were well-enough disposed to video games that a novelty like Wii Sports isn't enough to carry them on until the A-list games start rolling in. It's one of the earliest-known aspects of the "Revolution" console, certainly well-known long enough for us all to become disaffected and cynical about the idea of paying Nintendo for Super Mario Bros. over again, in an abstract format that can't ever be re-sold. And yet, as of now you can find that Super Mario Bros. -- in it's what, 5th rendition? -- is once again owned by me to play over and over again instead of the DS cashcow New Super Mario Bros..

I paid for this game again. A game I already own twice over. A game I've beaten more times than I can count. Playing Super Mario Bros. itself at this point is living half in the present and half in the watery world of memory, with each action and reaction preceded by the recognition of thousands of previous attempts at the same obstacle. And yet booting up a Wii, and finding a group of different games from different generations that I can play at the click of a button with a real controller on a real Nintendo, an antique like Super Mario Bros. is almost irresistable.

So yes, I'm a Nintendophile. Sure, it just means someone who enjoys Nintendo games, but in recent years it's come to imply so much more. It's impossible to actually be just a Nintendo fan anymore. Living the life of Nintendo fandom means literally (metaphorically) letting Nintendo take a shit in your mouth, making a big fuss about it, and still thanking them at the end of the day for being so courteous as to give you that experience.

I know it's wrong. Half of the VC library is available easily, sometimes cheaper, in hard, real, cartridge form, many others available handheld. Most of the games I really want are games I already own; some are stored in the same TV stand as the Wii itself. And although if asked point-blank about the whole thing I'd deliver some scathing remark about the sheer sliminess about this apparently charitable act of delivering to fans effortless emulations of incredibly popular titles, my paychecks are already spent in my mind as I add up the sum of Wii Points required to gather the increasingly large number of VC games I need -- not want, but need -- to own.

The worst part is that I know that if I didn't cave, Nintendo wouldn't take advantage of me like this. If I didn't buy Mario Kart DS three times in order to playing on its horrible online structure, steps might be taken to fix the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection into something closer to what works with online gaming, past this stage where Nintendo is content to remain merely dipping its toe in the waters. After all, why bother diving in when this is enough? Is it possible anyone at Nintendo regrets launching without DVD-playback when nearly three months in the Wii refuses to remain on store shelves? I revel in Wii's success over the PS3, even though I know that success is built on, and is likely to be expanded on, gimmicky appeals to the kind of people who haven't been interested in video games until they allowed them to bowl using real bowling arm motions.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop supporting Nintendo's boneheaded moves or borderline-voodoo strategies to suck every last dime from chumps like me with the same franchises, or even that I should. If I had the slightest inkling that a lack of response to Virtual Console would mean Nintendo packaging in free downloads with new Wii titles, the thought might cross my mind, but Nintendo seems entirely comfortable with the idea of letting issues drop once they realize they're unpopular, or unprofitable. And even then I doubt I'd have the will to resist.

I know better. I do. I can't rightly blame Nintendo for selling games five times over if I'm still eager to buy them. And now and again, Nintendo still finds a way to give me a reason to believe they're the kindly gents in this otherwise cold and ruthless console war, the "good guys" who really believe in the hokey dream of uniting the world under a "fun for everyone" crusade. But at the end of the day, I have to admit to myself: I would forgive Nintendo if they treated me like Sony. I would take them back in a heartbeat as soon as they dished out new gameplay footage of Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I'd cave, I'd crumble, I'd invite them over and tell them how handsome Metroid Prime III looks and let it all be forgotten. And that's a lot to live down.

 

I'm interested in how this is all affecting the kind of people who read this website, folk who might read this blog. I'd like to see what people like about the Wii, people who have no use for Forecast Channels but still love the damn thing. I'll run a poll soon, and try to figure out where Nintendo did right by its fanbase, and I'd be interested in hearing any mail on the subject, any subject covered in this long and meandering post. Fire one off and watch us put your opinions on the front page after probably making fun of them or hiding behind off-color jokes.

Note: This isn't a review, a step-by-step walkthrough, or anything like that. It's just my thoughts on the latest Zelda chronicled as they come to me, day-by-day.

 

November 26th, 2006: Day One

I finally decide to start my Zelda adventure after a week of putting it off due to fear of it taking over my life. As the chorus erupts out of the Wii gaming channel, my jaw drops and remains in place throughout the starting intro. At this point I remember that this was essentially made as an Ocarina tribute game. The emotion I feel at finally playing this game after so long could be equated to the final "It's a boy!" after months of knowing that a baby was on its way.

A half hour into the journey I note with some dismay that the game has a very hokey-adventure-title beginning, a sharp contrast to most Zelda games' near-instant drop into danger and questing. It doesn't help that I spent nearly an hour fishing because despite all the obvious parts that the game walks you through, the instructions on how to fish are unclear at best and more accurately are just misleading. I sat there bobbing the hook up and down waiting for a bite, not realizing that I had to forcefully snap the line out of the water to actually catch a fish. This is embarrassing and marks by far the earliest into a game that I've requested help from the internet.

Just as I complete the first fairly boring chapter and prepare for heading out to Hyrule, I quit earlier than I'd like to because my roommates come over and it's uncomfortable to play a game like Zelda around substance abusers. I pine for 1998 when I was in a new high school with almost no friends and very little to distract me from playing Ocarina nearly every available hour.

Finishing point: Ordon Villiage

 

November 27th: Day Two

I begin my second try at Zelda at Desiré's house rather than mine for privacy. I'm eager for the game to pick up the pace and so getting my horse stolen and the neighborhood children kidnapped is a very welcome sight. Sorry, kids.

Even though Wolf Link is nearly as versatile as Human Link, he feels very limiting due to clever psychological slants like starting me off in prison and having Midna treat me as a helpless clod. I decide I don't care for her demeanor. (But she is very pretty. Like she's made of like a million fucking polygons).

Desiré mentions that when Wolf Link dashes, Midna's abrupt gasp of turbulence sounds like the sharp sexual moan of a young Asian woman being penetrated. I dismiss this notion as ridiculous and resolve to use the dash whenever it's even remotely applicable.

I die for the first time in the game which is actually almost a relief seeing as I didn't come close to dying even once in Wind Waker. I didn't realize at the time that the sound and light effect that follows a second after completing a Spin Attack is the move resetting, to prevent you from using it over and over again. It must have been really funny for those shadow beasts to watch me just stand there stupidly as they beat me senseless.

Green tunic. Huzzah! Desiré makes her triumphant 50th comment about whether I need to change my pants at this point. Or maybe something about be getting a boner.

I'm only a few hours into the game, but I'm already wondering what this jackass meant when he claimed that Zelda is all brown. Inevitably, it's less saturated with color than Wind Waker, but muted through they may be I swear I'm seeing colors I've never seen before, especially in the LSD-laced Faron Woods and whenever I use Wolf Link's super-sense. It's crazy. Maybe he forgot about these parts of the game and was only focusing on whatever town he was in at the moment, or maybe Vladamir Cole is just a mock character joystiq keeps around as a kind of round-the-year April Fools for people who check their website expecting intelligent opinions by people who know what they're talking about.

The Forest Temple's design is reminding me of its namesake in Ocarina: one central room where you gather four entities from branching areas to gain access to the final area. And seeing as these entities (ghosts in Ocarina) are Majora's Mask's monkeys, and the item that aids your rescue of them is Wind Waker's multi-hit boomerang, I realize that my long-held hopes that this game is an amalgam of the three biggest adventures is looking to be true. The template – Link himself, the music, the world he lives in – are reminiscient of Ocarina, the Twilight Realm is creepy and ominous in a way that only Majora's Mask has conveyed to me, and the finesse, cel-shading, and many of the more unassuming sounds like the jingle of a collected rupee all hark back to Wind Waker. I feel like Willie Wonka forged an ambitious new confectionary out of all my favorite sweets and made a candy forest out of it, all for me.

Finishing point: Faron Woods, Forest Temple complete

November 30: Day Three

The calendar is lying. I can tell because it says its only been two days since I've played Zelda but my remission says different.

I'm urged to go "West" by Midna but I have no idea what she's talking about because I don't know of any outlets in any area I've been in that I haven't taken already. I note that I'm having to check the map a lot, but I can't decide if it's because the game is new and I'm unfamiliar with it or because it's just designed weirdly and complexly. Eventually I find my way to Hyrule Field, and apparently that's where Happiness has been waiting for me all along. I love this game dearly.

I decide that I really like being a wolf. He moves so much like a real dog that I wouldn't mind playing a game when I'm a dog the whole time. He moves so much like a real dog that I don't think I'd mind actually being a dog. I'm having a lot of fun spotting a group of shadow beasts in the foreground, holding Z to widen the screen and lock my view, and slowly stalking up to them just for the visual effect it creates. Zelda games are the only games that look cinematic enough to me to reward the patience of walking rather than running. I walk a lot in Zelda games.

Kakariko is disappointing with its three inhabitants and Western/Native American look. I should mention now that in all respect to Native Americans I really don't care for their culture in terms of aesthetics. I'm glad they tried to take a new direction rather than rehash, but I miss my happy Japanese pseudo-Medieval villiage. Maybe this is the town Cole was talking about when he blanketed the entire game with his idiotic sentiment.

I realize that Hyrule Field is much larger than I'd thought and now that I'm trucking it horseback-style I decide I just want to play Zelda for the rest of my life. Also: shooting away flying monsters while riding horseback is more fun with a Wiimote than Z-targeting, according to me.

Link walks like a pimp in Iron Boots.

Somewhere in the Goron Mines, probably because I reach a point that's heavily-referenced in E3 media and trailers, I remember that this isn't a Wii title. Up until now I've been thinking almost constantly about how much smoother and "smarter" the control is than in past 3D Zeldas, especially with aiming long-distance items. Any gaming journalist who harped on how the controls feel "tacked on" can go fuck themselves. Not because I love this game and hate bad things being said about it, but because I very literally forgot that this wasn't built from the ground up for Wii.

Magnetic Iron Boots remind me heavily of Stone Tower from Majora's Mask and I'm thankful that I live in a time when I can experience this game.

Finishing point: Kakariko, Goron Mines complete

 

I might bundle days together like this in the future to avoid monopolizing the blogs. Or I might not make any further entries if it turns out nobody feels like reading this stuff. It's mostly written for people who already have Zelda and are further than me in the game (probably everyone who has it) and can identify with any of the weirdness that occurs to me when I play this game.

I feel that our generation has so entirely worn down, torn apart, and in all other ways reamed the concept of irony to the point where I'm often at a loss as to when to classify something as "ironic" or "fitting". So to avoid an argument, affix whichever adjective you wish to the situation I'm in now, where during the Cataclysm's Eve that is Wii launch anticipation month, I'm wholly engrossed in Nintendo's daring failed attempt to bring innovative control to their heartwarming red-headed stepchild, the GameCube. I am of course talking bongo drums here.

Strike any ideas you may have about Donkey Konga. The only reason bongo drums need ever be mentioned in the realm of gaming is in reference to Jungle Beat, one of the most overlooked gems of the GameCube era that I was lucky enough to spot in my local gamery for $20 this past moon, complete with said bongos.

There is probably no better answer to the quandary cited in my past blog than Jungle Beat. If you've ever longed for a game that leaves you sweating and breathless in the vein of shadow boxing and/or tantric sex, this game needs to be in your collection. While the game's 50-odd levels could probably be bested in a focused night of gaming, I found myself hard pressed to move through an entire set of kingdoms before throwing in the towel. The theme of the game overall, actually, is that it can typically be completed with a moderate amount of effort, but will require you to pant to truly beat. I rarely finish a session of Jungle Beat without having to resort to taking my shirt off (that's right ladies).

Nights on end I've spent playing and replaying levels in an attempt to string together more combos, discover new ways to make each tap of the bongo drum count towards my end score, and absorb more of the game's toe-tapping music. Why the game never caught on is beyond me, other than perhaps the fact that you had to buy a seemingly retarded peripheral to play it, because this is most certainly one of the more admirable works of creativity and fine-tuned gaming to be found on the Cube. The music and graphics are agreeable in a way that enhances the entire experience, and in nearly every way the game is the superior to the old Donkey Kong Country series that people still can't seem to shut up about. God willing, this is the version of DK that we'll see in Brawl.

Jungle Beat succeeds as an experiment in alternative controls and an earnest attempt to create a beautiful, enjoyable, and utterly addictive arcade experience on the GameCube in a day when very few developers understand the difference between a rewarding challenge and a piss-poor collectathon attempt to increase gameplay hours. Both awesome, so good thing I nabbed it before the Wii took over my life completely. I can only assume that bongos can work in the Wii just like any other Cube controller, so when you whine about sore wrists a month from now from Wii Tennis or something, hook up those drums and jam a few rounds in DK's new country and talk to me then.