Is the Wii a bad system? Let's Think Deep.

At this moment in time, the Nintendo Wii is set up to be known as the “winner” of the current console cycle due to the unexpected amount of sales and complete reversal from the previous console cycle. I for one couldn’t be happier for reasons I’ll get to eventually. Regardless of sales numbers, the Wii is nearly universally panned by gamers due to the high amount of shovelware populating the system. But does that make it a bad system? It got me thinking. What exactly makes a system good? Sounds to me like this would be a good opportunity for us to Think Deep. So Let’s, hmm?

“But The System Has So Many Bad Games”

The complaint I hear most often regarding the Wii has to do with the controls. Specifically, they don’t work. Publishers constantly release games that force the player to use either the Wiimote motion controls or even worse the Balance Board from Wii Fit that “works” about 25% of the time. This results in games that would otherwise end up being decent games turned into broken messes. It was a Godsend when Nintendo decided that Smash Bros Brawl would support GameCube controllers in addition to just about every other controller type they had. The complaint about controls is a valid one, but that doesn’t instantly mean the system is bad.

Right now we have the luxury of living in an age where there are three perfectly excellent systems to choose from. Even better is the effect the Internet has had on everything since reviews can come out before a game is even released, meaning that you know whether a game will be good or not. Think back to the time of the NES when the only system you could choose from was the NES. It wasn’t very simple to get reviews or news about specific games, so when you went to buy or rent a game, you did so almost entirely on the artwork and the description on the back of the box. How many NES games do you think were great? The NES was full of shovelware titles, as someone like the Angry Video Game Nerd can attest to, but I doubt anyone would ever call it a “bad system.”

Are you going to be the one to say the NES sucked? I don't think so.

Now we have the ability to know everything about a game before we even play it, plus there is an excess of reviewers out there contributing to the overall rating of a game (thankfully my silly little summaries aren’t counted in a game’s Metascore). The bad games get more press than they used to and the numbers we’re dealing with are heavily skewed. Simply put, the rating system isn’t perfect right now, but it does give us the ability to know more about our games in a way we didn’t have 20 years ago.

The Hardships of Luxury

So what does this mean for our friend the Wii? It means that everyone knows when a bad game comes out and gives the gaming community an opportunity to see the system’s shortcomings. The question remains though, “What makes a system good or bad?” Do bad games make a system bad? No, otherwise every system would be considered awful. As of now, all systems are roughly within the same general average game rating area between 65 and 75%, and that number is constantly shifting as new games come out. While the Wii may not be at the top of the list, it doesn’t mean it’s a crummy system.

The is the counter-argument for any Xbot speaking ill of the Wii.

Here’s the thing: People believe their favorite system is the best because it’s their favorite. What are your favorite games? If you love God of War and Metal Gear Solid, you probably believe that the PS3 is the best system and the other two are inferior. Huge on Halo and Gears of War? The 360 is clearly the best. Are you like me and love Mario and Zelda? How could the Wii not be the best system out right now? It’s all relative to what you like playing most.

To answer why I’m happy to see the Wii in first place right now, it all has to do with my favorite games. No, I don’t think the Wii is the best system out there, but I do consistently prefer it’s biggest and best games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, and especially Smash Bros Brawl. I’m ecstatic to hear that Nintendo’s doing so well because it means my favorite franchises will be around for a long time to come.

This is very much like the Console Wars of the early 90’s where it was either SNES or Genesis for the win. It didn’t matter what people said one way or the other about graphics or sound; it came down to whether you liked Sonic or Mario better and that was the decider. After the Genesis, Sega sort of lost its mind and ran everything that’s considered good about it into the ground. Sure, the Dreamcast was a nice glimmer, but it still failed due to Sega’s poor tactics in regards to marketing and just plain doing their fanbase justice. It’s only just now that they’ve announced Sonic 4, a game that fans have been telling them to make for over 10 years. I just can’t imagine the amount of agony a Sonic fan must have endured for over a decade, watching Mario fans get more or less exactly what they want while Sonic turns into a Werehog (which would mean “Man-hog” by the way).

Like him or not, this guy has ridiculous staying power.

The Year of The Usual Promises

2010 is promising to be a big one once again as Microsoft is releasing Project Natal and Sony is releasing whatever the heck its motion controller is called. If the Wii’s controls make it a bad system, why are its competitors, companies run by intelligent people, rushing to match the same “gimmick” that defines the system? Money, of course. The Wii has managed to bring in a share of the market that was previously untapped and created new gamers from the casual sector. If this means I have to deal with a few dozen shovelware titles so that I get a new Metroid this year, so be it.

It’s becoming very tiresome to hear every company or analyst decide that “2010 is the Year of the PS3” or the “Age of the Xbox” or whatever. Do systems ever have a year that is undeniably its year? Other than the Atari or the NES? And even if it has a good year, does it instantly make up for the previous years or any years to come? No, it’s just a gage for fans to based judgment off so that they can argue that their system is winning or losing or what have you. I love the Wii, but I’m currently playing tons of great games on the 360, and in a month I plan to spend an epic weekend with one of my best friends beating God of War III on the PS3. In the meantime, I still spend my nights playing my DS before bed.

So which system do I think is best? I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even decide which I enjoy playing the most. It comes down to my tastes at the time. I am plowing through game after game on the 360 because I missed out on a lot at the beginning of the console cycle, but I keep going back to my Wii to play Brawl every so often. Both systems have a valued place in my home, but I couldn’t tell you which is the better system. I think both have too many faults for me to consider either of them “the best,” but they’re nowhere close to “the worst.”

When Project Natal is released and has the typical smattering of titles built to demonstrate its capabilities and titles built to get money, will it ultimately decide the 360’s fate? No way. Fans will stick around and haters will claim the system is falling apart. It’s a cycle that will never end.

Has there ever been a system that you feel is perfect? For me, I was always happy with my GameCube. It was one of my favorite systems despite its lack of first-placeness. But what are your favorite systems and why? I loved my GameCube because I was addicted to the games and felt its titles were best suited for the sort of games I play. Still, that’s just me. I don’t think we’ll ever have a perfect system, but we can have systems that do what their fans need them to. Now it’s time to hear from the fans, so leave a comment about what makes a system good for you. Represent!

More of these, please!

I just finished playing one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen. Earlier this year my wife bought me Earthbound for the Super Nintendo and now that I beat the game I can safely say that I’ll never play a game that crazy again. Why? Because no one will ever make a game quit like Earthbound.

One of The Best Games Ever

For those of you unaware what Earthbound is, it is an RPG on the SNES that stars Ness, a young boy chosen to save the earth from a space alien named Giygas and his hoard of baddies. During the game he’ll get the help of Paula, a psychic, Jeff, a genius inventor, and Poo, a prince from a mystic village. When the game first came out, Nintendo did all it could to push for a successful US launch, hyping the game with incentives such as a free players guide with the game and scratch and sniff stickers to entice fans with the weird factor. And few people bought the game.

Just the game will run upwards of $75 online.

Why was this? Well, the game is crazy. It’s an RPG but it isn’t like any RPG you’ve likely played. It gets cited numerous times for replacing the usual swords and spears as weapons with baseball bats and frying pans, but that’s not the big difference I saw. No, the game constantly does things that make you go, “Huh? Did they really say that?” Characters will point out that they’re in a game all the time, even referencing you as the player, asking for your name specifically every so often. You can expect a whole lot of crazy to befall you on your journey around Eagleland.

Focus On the Story, Not the Graphics

The problem with the game then and even more now is its lack of high-quality graphics. Earthbound didn’t attempt to push the SNES anywhere near its limits in ways that Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI had done, so people brushed the strange game aside as an inferior example of a game. Honestly, if you take a quick look at screens you may think the game was made as a class assignment.

I wish I could find a meteor outside my house some day.

But what the game doesn’t do with graphics it does ten times over with story, pacing, music, and innovations. In a typical RPG battle your health bar will instantly go up or down when hit by an enemy or recovered by an ally. However, Earthbound has a different take on this with a counter system. If an enemy does a huge hit to you that’d normally kill you, your health points rapidly count down, but if an ally heals you before you die then your health goes back up. It makes for a very quick-paced situation every now and then but it sure helps to keep the game from being monotonous. Plus, this game can get tough if you aren’t careful.

Still, the game is forgiving by allowing you to keep all your progress when you die. I was so happy to discover that all experience and money and everything I did before I was killed remained even when I went back to my last save point. This is a huge relief compared to what happens in Final Fantasy games where you could be a few hours from your last save, die, and lose it all. Kudos for that.

Fans This Great Don’t Come Along Every Generation

Can we please have this Nintendo, please?

The best thing about Earthbound, by far, is its community. Go to www.starmen.net and check out the amount of devotion fans have for the Earthbound property. They love this game. The soundtrack has been remixed more than once with a special remix album given only to fans that truly prove their love of the Earthbound genre (like, maybe, posting an article about how great Earthbound is). Also, check out their deal on the Ness shirt, hat, yo-yo, and buttons. That’s sweet and I want them.

I told you all this to explain that Earthbound isn’t the only game in the series. Earthbound is actually the second game of three from the series known as Mother in Japan. The US got Mother 2 but never got the prequel or the sequel. Ever. Why the heck not?

Well, far as I can tell, Nintendo is extremely weary about making a risky venture such as localizing a property so random as Mother. They took the chance once, it didn’t pan out, and now they won’t do it again. We haven’t even received a re-release of Earthbound on the Game Boy Advance, DS, or the Virtual Console. Once again, why the heck not?

Here’s the problem: the soundtrack and tons of the references in the game come from copyrighted sources. The Runaway Five, a band that pops up a few times in Earthbound, is obviously a parody of the Blues Brothers. Also, you’ll swear you see Mr. T walking around every town. Even better, the soundtrack was inspired by The Beatles in a number of places (I can’t particularly point these places out), which leads to massive problems with what can and can’t be included in the game anymore.

Forget all that! The game is a parody through and through, which means all of these things fall under the coverage of the fair-use copyright law which states that you can pretty much use anything without worry of being sued as long as you’re doing so as a spoof, parody, or review (which, as a review writer, I love oh so much). It’s why Weird Al is able to make songs that sound exactly like other songs since he’s making parodies. The problem with copyright laws is still why Nintendo typically says they’ll never bring the Mother series back to the US, even in a re-released form.

Oh, but they tease us all the time. Ness has appeared in all three Super Smash Bros games, with Lucas, one of the main characters from Mother 3, appearing in Brawl. Jeff appears as an Assist Trophy in Brawl as well with multiple locations from the Mother series littering the stages such as Onett, Fourside, and New Pork City. Japan has seen both Mother 3 and a Mother 1+2 release for the Game Boy Advance, but since Earthbound, the US has got nothing.

Dinosaurs! Just...arg! Nintendo, come on!

Why is Nintendo still so scared of releasing these games stateside? Fans have been emphatic about wanting more Earthbound. Starmen.net has a full English translation for Mother 3 waiting for anyone that wishes to play it but doesn’t speak Japanese. Fans have already done the localization work! C’mon already! What more do you want?!