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TalkBack / RE:Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 26, 2004, 04:19:48 PM »

I think that everyone is taking the cultural impact of Nintendo too lightly. The Nintendo entertainment system was the first major console, and has one of the best selling games of all time in the original Super Mario Bros.; also if you asked a common person to name a video game character, you'd get Mario, he's an icon in his own right.
Also, as a few people have said, Nintendo may not have done it with the best marketing, but they took the leap, they were the First Penguin; we would not have the games we do today with out Mario, Zelda or Metroid. Let's examine Mario, this series is one filling every nook of the industry due to it's staying power and constant originallity. Mario is able to do more then run and jump, and the hardcore players know that, it's just your GTA and Madden college dorm kids that have forgotten it, and they are really who PS2 and Xbox aim for. Nintendo needs to do that more, they need to become rated M, but with Nintendo's typical class, not going to "just kill 'em all with what ever ya want".
Let's examine the Legend of Zelda series. Believe it or not, this series is why you have your GTAs and other free roaming games, and you massive worlds. Back when we had Legend of Zelda: Occarina of Time, yes, we all complained about the tedium of crossing Hyrule Field, but really think about the significance of that, and the ability to go where ever you want from the get go; the first place I visited other than Kokiri village was Lake Hylilia. But we forget that that world is why developers realized there was something to that massive area.
Now onto Metroid, in America, that was a killer app for the Nintendo, in Japan it wasn't as much, but Nintendo stuck to it, and it's payed off, since the Metroids (from Fusion to now) have been good selling games, with high acclaim from American gamers.
It is my belief, and you may correct me if I'm wrong, that Nintendo is bound to the industry, since we will lose the games we first played (for my generation, at least). Nintendo was really what started the industry we have now, all thanks to a plummer named Mario, and I think, personally, that Nintendo will be there when it ends, since they provide the most original gaming (Halo isn't that original, it's a mesh of all FPS's, but Metroid Prime is), and they are always among the best games, with high critical acclaim. But NCL must also let NOA regulate it's marketting alone, and allow them to put some appeal to the low-brow cassual gamers that polls like this are geared to; as well as make their own Live, it's not like they couldn't use one of the many Nintendo catch phrases for something interconnecting to give it the Nintendo glow.
Anyway, this is my opininon, agree or disagree.

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TalkBack / RE:BloodRayne to Sing Evanescence Song on MTV2

« on: August 24, 2004, 10:52:37 PM »

I really hate this. Video games are going to begin to become like pop culture; meaning they'll be majoritally horrible. Sense video games first showed up on the market, they were scoffed, but sense they have become seen as able to make money, they've been embraced. But we aren't embracing the great games, we're embracing Blood Rayne, Grand Theft Auto, anything with the letters "EA" and other games that are comercially successful, even if the game itself sucks, like anything with the letters "EA", save for a few games like Battlefield and the Sims.

Majesco, Rockstar and EA are companies I considder heavy offenders in causing video games to lose the meaning they had when I got my hands on a Nintendo for the first time, they make games into pop culture and thussly drag them down the path of moral decay and overall decandance. I hate playing a game and hearing some promminant actors voice, I mute the television if I going to play anything I rent that may have it, some are worse then the voice acting in Bubsy 3-D. Before all of this, video games were much more atleast interesting. I miss the days when I could pick up a game and only hope it's good (Nintendo is an offender here as well, save for Pikmin and Animal Crossing, everythings a sequel). We're losing the innocence; yes it was inevitable, but it's being forced. The people have memories of putting coin after coin into an arcade and continued to play, even trying to buy a Neo-Geo and a game, are being dragged by their tongues to the pits of video game hell.

It's bad enough we have license games in the first place (like Spider-man, Lord of the Rings and many others) that take those icons from thier original meaning; but the very notion of video games in movies makes me cringe even worse then the fact an Evangelion movie is in the works. Will I see the Metroid movie? Yes, I will. Will I need to vommit after words? Yes, I will, Metroid isn't meant to have much human interaction, you're Samus on a planet with some framiliar enemies, enjoy. I saw the Mario movie, and everytime I even glimpse it on television I feel sick because it's that horrible. Mortal Kombat is the only video game movie I can stand, because it's actually better then that craptacular series; which is so bad I had to use a fake word to only slightly get my point across.

I like video games like books. Not so much that the plot must be good, but I want to still be in that world even when I the power's off. When I first read Lord of the Rings, I was still in Middle-earth after I was done reading. When I first played the Legend of Zelda, I was still in Hyrule. But when I first played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I had temporary fun, not really having it stay ingrained on my mind. Video games are failing to make me feel anymore, with a few exceptions like Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy XI and the Legend of Zelda, to name ones I've played or replayed recently. All of those were part of my library, and I love revisiting them, I don't care about revisiting some faux 80's city, the football stadium, or even WWII, sense I'm a vet of that 50 times over each year. Vana'diel, Vigoor, Hyrule, Halo, Isle Delfino, Talon IV, Pikmin Planet these are places I want to return to, and I will in my mind, like Middle-earth or Counter Earth or the Battle Academy and the streets of Rotterdam, if a video game can do that it's good, not if it has commercial success and the heroine is a playboy centerfold.

I thank you for indulging me, even if I may have strayed from the topic at times, but that's my ten cents, think of it what you will.