Nostalgic Mood

I never really liked the Wii’s game selection as much as the Gamecube’s. There were too many kid friendly games. I’m okay with kid friendly games, as long as they actually sound good. But most don’t. So I’ve only bought a couple of games, and I’ve mostly missed the Gamecube. I knew that you could play Gamecube games on the Wii, but that wasn’t really working for me, even if I did have the memory card and everything ready.

But this Sunday, I tried again, and it worked! Although the memory card stuff got wiped, I could play them again! This means I could go back to Mario Party 7 and Pokemon Coliseum again. :D

So three/four years isn’t nothing to be nostalgic about, but hey. This post was short.

TV Show King 2

A while back, I complained about the lack of good games for the Nintendo Wii. Mike suggested getting some Wii Ware games, like TV Show King. After researching it, I found out there was a sequel for it and decided to get that later. When my brother bought me 2000 Wii Points for Christmas, I decided to get it. Surprisingly, it was great.
The game has a lot of different elements from game shows, like the wheel (Wheel of Fortune), suitcases (Deal or No Deal). It also has a traditional question/answer format, like almost every other game show imaginable which has categories from general knowledge to sports, to science, and to literature.
The questions are good, and eclectic (I never thought I’d use that word in my blog). There are some easy questions, but there are some hard ones, too. It depends on what you know, though. If you keep up with movies and TV shows and stuff, those categories (probably) will be a breeze for you. There’s also a math section, which has pretty easy questions. If you’re a sports fanatic, then you’re in luck for those parts. Anyway, the questions are mixed. Unless you’re experts in all those areas, you probably won’t get all the questions right, which is good, because being in the lead all the time isn’t always fun. You could also make your own questions.
The wheel could change the entire game. That goes both ways, though. Most of the time, it will result to yelling at the game in a way similar to Mario Kart cursing, or cheering.
The graphics are pretty good, especially for a Wii game. There are lots of colors, and the Miis are well drawn, too.
Overall, this is a fun game. The only thing is that I couldn’t play on Wi-fi, but I’m not sure if it’s a technical problem, or if nobody else was playing at the time. It’s a fun party game, and it’s only for 800 Wii Points.

Nintendo Rant

WARNING: This is not a ‘Console Wars' rant. If you’re going to comment telling me to buy a ‘PS3 or Xbox 360’, then close the tab. If you’re going to tell me something along the lines of ‘Real gamers don’t play Nintendo’, close the tab.

Today I went to the (somewhat) local mall since I didn’t go yesterday, and I was hoping there would still be good sales (There weren’t any, but oh well). I went to the Gamestop, even though I hate the company, just in case there was anything worth getting. I went to the Nintendo Wii section, since that’s the console I have, and I was annoyed at the game selection.

No, I don’t care that everything is rated E. In fact, I prefer seeing rated E stuff than video games which make soccer moms think video games are killing teens.

It’s the quality of the games which bug me. A lot.

Most of these games have good cover art. Not necessarily the best, but it gets the job done. And then they show screenshots on the back, and it’s horrible in comparison to the front.

For example, Wipe Out: The Game. The cover is nice, with realistic-ish drawings of people, and nice text. Then, the screen shot looks horrible. The water is mostly one shade, and the people aren’t detailed well. This wouldn’t be so bad if Nintendo just said they were Miis (Which are supposed to be simplistic), but for copyright reasons, they can’t, and the players look like botched up stick figures.

Some games don’t even try to have good covers, like Wheel of Fortune.

Seriously? Again, it looks like they’re trying to copy Miis without copyright infringement. And while the front cover is bad, at least Pat’s and Vanna’s features are recognizable. It looks like two out of the three contestants don’t have noses!

(All pictures from Gamestop.com)

I get that Nintendo has a budget, and there’s a recession going on, but these games were relatively expensive for bad graphics. If they’re going to charge so much, can’t they at least get better graphic artists? Especially if Microsoft and Sony are having games with better graphics?

I’m not going to get a new console because of this, and I don’t want to hear “LOL you’re not a real gamer because you play Nintendo”. I guess I’m just saying that I’m going to stick to Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii.

P.S. Are the bad graphics just game company stuff? Like are Activision and THQ (The developers for the two examples) bad at graphics, or is it with other companies, too? And was The Sims 3 for the Wii any good?

Wii, the Simmers, are Angry

Or at least I am.

Today, I went on the Sims 3 Website, and I saw this:

Yeah. The Sims 3. On consoles. While they still need to fix games. And improve their forum.

I would just shrug it off, but some stuff didn’t make sense.

WHY were they even thinking of giving the Console Versions some exclusive features? Did they consider that the PC game fans wanted these, and they’re just going to get even madder at EA? Aliens and controlling weather. If they added pets, most fans would be going rabid. And why couldn’t they add these traits into the PC game?

How are they going to pull this off for the Wii? The Sims 3 is a “teen game”, and we all know how Sims 2 Pets for the Wii got the T rating(Guess what? No woo hoo/babies, and no death). Will they cut out most features?

Also, on a Console Wars note, it annoys me how the Wii still got the short end of the stick. No uploading stuff, even though the PS3 and Xbox 360 equivalent’s have an “Exchange” of some sort. Oh sure, the “uploading and downloading” stuff are probably going to be prone to culling, and they probably will have a Store equivalent, too, but still, Nintendo’s too loyal to the “E” demographics.

Heck, even the Nintendo DS version seems to have new features!

I probably won’t get it, though I still know next to nothing about it.