Clarification: Compensations for going Nintendo
Last time, I mentioned that, although GoldenEye Wii is not, on its own, worth buying a Wii console for, that there are definite compensations in owning one. Perhaps I should clarify this point, yes? Just what are the benefits of going Nintendo?
"Wait. Why do you always talk about Nintendo, Spiny? 360's the way to go!"
It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. I started gaming in 1994, playing the Super NES... specifically, Super Mario World (though, it could have been Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World, I can't recall exactly). The character animations, the colours, the backgrounds, the music, all of this led me to realise that Nintendo is a company that is devoted to making not only games, not only really good games, but really good games with an almost OCD-like attention to detail. If this pixel's colour doesn't go with background in this level, Miyamoto shouts "No way, man! Do this instead." Which leads us to...
Benefit #1: Quality. If Nintendo makes a game in-house, you'll be hard-pressed to find any glitching. Even in such an old game as Super Mario Bros., when it was only Miyamoto-san, Tezuka-san, and maybe 15 other people on the entire staff, there weren't blatantly glitchy things like floors that don't clip right, frozen animations leading to "skating" characters, stuff like that. Of course, there is "Minus World" to consider (World "space, hyphen, one")... I can't explain that. Easter Egg? Programming glitch? Hidden beta test level? No one really knows.
Benefit #2: Mario. Who doesn't love Mario? You want to know who doesn't love Mario? Al-Qaida.
Mario games are the quintessential videogame stereotype. In fact, the only videogame stereotype that existed before Mario was that games had little stick-figures with, like, a sword or something and if you got past the last level, your Amiga's sound-chip would shout "Congraturation!" at you before the game crashed. Which leads us to...
Benefit #3: The Saviour of Videogames. Before the NES was released, the game market was saturated with mercifully-released abberations. Half the games had insurmountable obstacles that the level programmers forgot to take out and you could only pass by hacking your way to the next level -- the other half were so poorly made (by a staff of three blokes in one of their parents' basement) that, if you made a bad keystroke, you risked bricking the computer. Only a small fraction of a percentage of a decimal to the hundredth power of games actually did what they were meant to do: provide entertainment and actually work in the process. Because of this, the game market crashed into more pieces than an Atari 2600 dropped from the roof of a 16-story building. Everyone assumed that games were just a passing fad that had its day.
Then, along comes the NES, which had to convince people of its legitimacy by first introducing itself as an accessory required to use a toy called the Robotic Operating Buddy (or "ROB" for short). It was only after people bought ROB, they discovered that the NES vastly undersold itself. From Japan came wave after wave of the best games since Table Tennis for Two -- Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Balloon Fight, Kid Icarus, Castlevania. No home computer or dedicated game console up to this point had such an excellent reception as the NES.
Benefit #4: Wii Virtual Console. Now, I don't live in a cave, surrounded by brainwashing Nintendo stuff. I know about Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Store (though I know more about the former than the latter, mostly from researching GoldenEye 007 for TMRB). Of course, Wii Virtual Console is a collection of classic games from a host of classic consoles. On XBLA, at least, Microsoft have a nasty habit of meddling with classic games -- updating them to bring them more in line with the Seventh Generation. Nintendo have issued an outright refusal to follow them in this way. For that reason, everything you see on Wii Virtual Console is largely unchanged from their original releases. Whilst Microsoft insists on "hot-rodding" their XBLA releases, Nintendo prefers to leave the games intact, as they were in the '80s and '90s. This way, if you were unfortunate enough to have been born during the Fourth or Fifth Generation (SNES or N64), you can go back to the Third Generation (NES) and see precisely what you missed, then rectifying the situation by downloading (for a small fee, usually 5 quid) and playing what you missed, being born in 1999 and all.
Benefit #5: Be an U83R64M3X0R! Huh? "Ubergamexor?" Yes. Be one. Nintendo has the highest quantity of L337633K 64M3RN3RD (leetgeek gamernerd) series than any other console on the market today. The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros., Fire Emblem, and, occasionally, Final Fantasy (though SquareEnix seems to prefer these be released on PlayStation, God knows why).
I'm sure you know at least two people who talk ad nauseam about Zelda or Pokemon... haven't you ever had even the slightest desire to interject with something? Maybe to contradict something they say about Zelda canon, then prove that you're right and they're wrong? There's no better joy in life than to pwn a 64M3RN3RD! And I am one!
Benefit #6: WiiWare and DSiWare. These are games which are made exclusively for Wii and Nintendo DSi (and soon-to-be Nintendo 3DS, too). Don't bother looking for these games anywhere else, 'cos they're only available for Wii or DSi... or both. Nothing else. Certainly XBLA and PSN have exclusive games, too... but, you haven't lived until you've built a sandcastle with a Wii Remote (and not as a spade, either).
Benefit #7: GoldenEye 007. Both of them: N64 and Wii. 'Cos, let's face it, people, XBLA ain't getting it and VC ain't getting it. The only way you can play classic GoldenEye (within the bounds of the law, that is) is to play it on N64.
"Can I still find an N64 in playable condition?" Yes. I speak from experience. I've had my N64 since early 1997 and I played GoldenEye on it yesterday. It's a durable piece of equipment, the N64. The Super NES was sort of sketchy, but during and after the Fifth Generation, Nintendo set higher quality standards for all their products.
Benefit #8: GameShark. I know, hacking is sort of outside the law, but hackers have managed to do some really zany stuff with Nintendo games, particularly on the N64 (many hackers use N64 games as practise ground for greater hacks or even an eventual career in the game industry). There are millions of lines of code that people have come up with to alter their Nintendo gaming experience in some way (like you can improve on perfection), and, granted, most of them are crap. But, occasionally, you stumble upon a code which surpasses your expectations. For example, plug this one into Super Mario 64 and see what you get:
8107EC40 0099
8107EC42 0000
8107EC38 0033
8107EC3A 0000
8107EC20 0000
8107EC22 3300
8107EC28 0000
8107EC2A 9900
Benefit #9: Glasses-free 3D gaming. The Nintendo 3DS is releasing to the world in late March. If you blew your entire paycheque going to Avatar for the 3D effects, you'll love the 3DS. Of course, if artificial 3D gives you a headache, just turn the depth-slider all the way down to completely disable 3D and play like it's a normal game. Does PSP give you that freedom? Pfft... no. PSP doesn't even have 3D (though it probably will by Q4... and guess who they'll have stolen it from).
Benefit #10: Perpetual reliability. I guess this sort of goes along with Benefit #1, in that it concerns the quality of Nintendo's console hardware. But, I think it needs to be said that Nintendo consoles have the highest degree of reliability of any other console on the market since the Fourth Generation. You can rest assured that, when you turn a Nintendo console on, it will turn on. None of this "Red Ring of Death" crap. However, on the offhand chance that something doesn't work, chances are, you can send it off to Nintendo for repair or replacement free of charge. But, hardware failures on Nintendo consoles are uber infrequent, like less than half of one per cent (that's like one console out of 400 billion). In fact, I don't think anyone's ever actually seen a Wii console's "Blinking Red Light of Death". Nintendo claims that this is how the console tells you that it's bricked, but, thus far, it's only a myth.
There. Ten benefits of going Nintendo. Now, am I going to have to come to your house and spell it out for you? Nintendo is the videogame industry!
Buy a 3DS,
Spiny McSpleen.
Posted by theniftyperson
at 1:37 AM CST