The Wii. Quite the interesting little machine would you not say? Although one could say that of all of the video game consoles that ever were. Yet there are some things that the Wii has accomplished, that quite plain and simply, no other systems have done. Never in my life have I been able to have a range of hardcore gamers, casual gamers, and non-gamers get together and have an extremely good time playing a video game. Something that everyone could enjoy.
However, the Wii has delivered that. So it seems that the Wii has truly achieved its dream of “Wii”, what the system’s name is based off of. Its philosophy of being the console that brings people together can be considered achieved.
Or has it?
Over these past two years, Wii has garnered the reputation as the “family fun” console. It’s the one that you go to for a simple, fun game. It’s also the one that you go to for a fun party “everyone” game, something that non-gamers can pick up as well.
There are very few people that will legitimately attempt to defend the Wii’s ever-failing reputation for “hardcore” gamers anymore. I tried for quite some time, before coming to the conclusion that the business and economics of the matter had finally driven the final nail in the coffin, forever sealing away more “hardcore” games from third-party developers. Nintendo would obviously continue to make such games as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, however there would be no more new, completely radical hardcore games. It had been decided that doing so would be financially ruinous.
Sure, I loved many of these party-style games. I cannot get over how ridiculous Raving Rabbids is. I like Mario Kart Wii’s real-style controlling with the wii-mote. But these are generally only good for multiple people, back to Wii’s philosophy of bringing people together.
So reluctantly, my opinion of Nintendo has gone down. True, I still love Nintendo. I shall forever be a Nintendo fanboy, as it’s been part of me for my entire life. However I was beginning to realize that Nintendo alone would simply no longer be enough to quell my thirst for video games.
The main problem with games for the Wii I have found is that I am always finding myself waiting. Games such as “Sword of Legendia” have kept me hoping, hanging on to the desperate trust that one or two games will come out, and they will revolutionize the Wii’s hard-core status. I keep hoping, and being disappointed by games that fall of the radar, or games that do in fact make it out, yet are poorly made.
Which is something I have often been very annoyed about. A more mature game will come out for the Wii, yet it is poorly made, and as such, I decide to not buy it. And pretty soon I am hearing developers saying that they are not surprised that the game did poorly, as it was a mature game, which just does not work for the Wii.
This just burns me up. Poor games will almost always have poor sales, due that simple fact: they are not well made. Yet developers instead place the blame on the Wii’s demographic, and such, Wii’s hard-core hopes fade even further.
And then there are those lovely, lovely games that decide to abuse the Wii-mote. Sure, they may have a good idea overall for a game, but then they decide that every single function in the game MUST be controlled by some sort of random waggling movement of the Wii-mote. Just because something is there, doesn’t mean you have to use it, especially when there is pretty well no gain to be had by doing so.
And so it stands that the Wii is typecasted into these party and “kiddie” games. So it seems that I should just give up hope.
However, I shall continue to hope, and believe in the future of the Wii. Right now, I am highly anticipating the action game MadWorld, the point-and-click puzzle/adventure game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, the first person shooter The Conduit, and the RPG Arc Rise Fantasia. I have finally come to a conclusion about these games as well: and that is that I shall buy them, regardless of my liking for them. I have the hope and belief that I will highly enjoy them, but in any case, I shall buy them. As it seems that developers will only listen to numbers, and so, I shall give them just that.
For these games represent the dream of a Wii with new games for any genre and player. These games represent the current future of mature, “hardcore” games that currently the Wii is lacking. They represent the final step that the Wii must take to achieve its dream, its philosophy, of being for everyone.
And I, for one, would like to be one of those that help the Wii achieve this.
