Monday, June 17, 2013

 

What Do We Own?

Well.  Here we are.

The thought on everyone's mind right now is the XBox One and its potential impact on what we own when we pay for a video game.  This has been an evolving idea for a while now, but the One seems to be the boldest step toward a new paradigm.

I can't say I have any real, concrete feelings about the matter.  The XBox has always been this sort of abstract thing to me.  My mind blots it out when I see it in a store.  I played Halo once and do not wish to play it again.  I understand that it's a very popular platform; I have some vague idea that the concepts it embodies are the ones that gamers seek out in particular, but its impact on my life is secondary at best.

Still.  It gives me pause, because it's a sign of things to come.  It gives me an opportunity to sort of feel this thing out before I'm pushed over the edge.  Here's what I'm wondering.  Is it really that bad?

Tycho gave me something to think about the other day:

Nintendo’s embrace of digital delivery is the biggest story about the company at the moment, but it’s rarely given stage.  I was downloading, playing, and deleting games I’d purchased from my 3DS until I realized that, no; this wasn’t a temporary change.  I wasn’t going to buy some carts and some digital.  I will always by digital and I will never buy carts.  Even as someone who occasionally makes his living hurling jeremiads about the coming retail apocalypse, even I was terrified by the swiftness with which this change occurred.  I bought a twenty dollar SD card with 32 gigs of space, and that’s it.  I’ll never purchase a game at retail for any Nintendo system ever again.

When the Kindle first came out, a lot of folks got nervous.  Download a book?  But... then you don't have it.  What if there's an error with your account?  Your ability to access the things you've purchased depends on the existence of this whole infrastructure to back up your content and send it to you.  It depends on having access to electricity.  In the event of societal collapse, hard copies will survive, but digital certainly will not.  And what about the physical, tactile pleasure of holding a book in your hands, turning the pages?  You simply cannot relate to a digital copy the same way you do a physical one.

It was with these fears that I took my first hesitant steps into the world of e-books.  At first I only downloaded the free books -- the classics, free of copyright, so no investment risk there.  But I liked the platform so much -- something about the device really makes reading easier, and the option to zap a pocket edition of any book to my iPod is handy -- that I started purchasing digital copies of books I already owned.  Okay, I was paying for it again, but I didn't have the worry of losing it because I had the hard copy.  Finally, I got where I am today.  I've come to prefer the digital copy over the hard copy.

Digital content has a number of advantages.  You don't need physical space to store them.  You can carry an enormous amount of content around with you.  There's the pleasure of instant gratification, being able to hear about something and having it a minute later.  And there's no scarcity.  Content is never "sold out", and it has the potential to stay in circulation forever.  Yes, used content is generally cheaper, but every now and then there's a premium to pay for an especially rare piece of content -- none of that with digital.

Okay, but what about the long term?  Say Amazon or Nintendo goes out of business and suddenly you can't access what you bought anymore.  When it comes down to it, any digital content really amounts to a long-term rental, with no way of knowing when your access will be revoked.  What happens then?

Well....

I think about the way I relate to books.  There are some really good ones that I can read again and again.  But the way I relate to most books is that I'll read them once and then put them on the bookshelf.  Then they sit there and gather dust until I decide I need the space back, and then I have to haul them off to Half Price Books for basically no return on my investment.  I don't actually need, or even want, lifetime access to most books.

And what about video games?  I used to be -- and to some degree, still am -- a hoarder.  I clung to my NES and SNES for years, with their libraries of classic games, knowing that I would want to play them again and again forever.  That is, until the day I didn't.  Sure, there were the classics... which I now own on Virtual Console.  But I think that most content -- movies, books, video games -- tend to be one-shot deals for a lot of people.  You experience it once or twice or a hundred times, and then you don't need it anymore.  Our brains need new experiences.  Newer and better games often replace older ones in our minds.

How do I relate to video games?  I buy new whenever possible to avoid the possibility of defects.  I only resort to buying used when a new copy is no longer available.  When I trade in games, it's never because I need the money; it's usually just because I've got tired of that particular game and I don't want it taking up space anymore.  Doesn't digital delivery work out well for me then?  I can always be assured that I'm buying a pristine copy of a game, and when I don't like it anymore, poof!  Into the ether with it.  And if I regret evicting a game, as I often have in the past, I can just download it again.  Add to that the obvious advantage of having my library with me wherever I go -- no more lugging around cases full of DS cards because I can't decide which games to take with me.

After all, I've been buying games this way on my iPad, haven't I?  It's kind of disappointing to come back to my 3DS from my iPad and not having EVERYTHING right there on the screen, available at a touch.  Suddenly, that changeout -- going over to the desk, finding the game I want, and swapping the cards -- feels like an avoidable chore.

I've complained in the past about the price.  Nintendo is asking the same price for a game whether you buy it at retail and download it.  But the more I think about it, the less of an issue this seems to be to me.  Yes, digital delivery should, in theory, drive down the price of games as it drives down Nintendo's costs, but hey.  You're getting the same game either way.  The only differences are the particular advantages and disadvantages of the format you chose.  If I want a game badly enough to spend $35 on it, then shouldn't I just get it in the format I prefer?  Shouldn't I save my complaints about price for whether or not the software itself is worth it?

So I've taken the plunge.  I downloaded the new Animal Crossing game rather than buying it at retail.  It's the kind of game I would never trade in or loan to anybody, so it seems like a safe first step.  Yes, I have my misgivings about the idea, but seeing the way Nintendo handled the transition from Wii to Wii U, I'm cautiously optimistic about their ability to give consumers security in their digital purchases.  I have a feeling this won't be the last game I download.  Maybe I should get one of those $20 memory cards.

Oh brave new world.

Labels:


Saturday, June 15, 2013

 

Thoughts From the E3

Super Smash Brothers

While I liked Super Smash Brothers Brawl, my final word on it was:


Anything they add at this point could only serve to make the game unwieldy and bloated. Any characters they add could only serve to water the roster down with unnecessary fluff.


Ha ha!  Yeeeeah...


Mega Man.  Fuckin' awesome.


The Villager.  Fuckin' awesome.


Wii Fit Trainer?  FUCKIN'.  AWESOME.


My opinion of a Smash Brothers character is inversely proportional to how appropriate they are for a fighting game.  I thought it had to be a joke until I saw that trailer.  How can you not love this?


Of course, questions arise:


It looks like Mega Man will be able to use a number of abilities he's acquired from bosses over the years.  Will there be some way to change between abilities mid-fight?  Or will there be something else at play?  (For further speculation, see below.)


The copyright notices in all of the trailers -- even the ones that don't feature Mega Man particularly -- acknowledge characters from Nintendo and Capcom... but not Sega or Konami.  Are Sonic and/or Snake returning?  Even if I didn't particularly care for them, it'd be a shame to see them go.


Will the Villager and Wii Fit Trainer come in both male and female as they do in their native games?  Wario had two skins in Brawl, so the precedent is there.


What's this business about making a custom character in the 3DS version and using them in the Wii U version?  We've specifically heard that this isn't a costume change or some sort of "level up" mechanic. The least likely (but maybe the coolest) idea I can think of is some sort of custom move list.  I mean, a lot of these characters have a lot of special powers, and I'm sure it's hard for the developers to narrow it down to just three moves per character.  And it's not always easy to please the players; look how much people hated Mario's FLUDD move in Brawl.  What if there were a way to pick which moves you wanted?  Unlikely, seeing as the focus this time is on balance rather than adding features, and that would make the job so much more difficult.  But a man can dream.


Is there any chance of getting Simon Belmont on board?  I kinda want to complete the Captain N cast.


What does happen to Kirby when he eats the Wii Fit Trainer?!


Super Mario 3D World


I was sort of meh about Super Mario 3D Land, and this new game doesn't seem to be much different to me.  But who knows?  Where 3D Land felt like it was rushed to prove the 3DS for the holiday season, it seems like they've really taken their time with 3D World.  And the difference between New Super Mario Brothers and New Super Mario Brothers Wii was considerable.


And I like that they're bringing in four-player simultaneous play.  Characters with different abilities.  Peach as a playable character.  The new cat suit.  I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for this one, but I'll probably end up checking it out when it comes out.


Playstation 4


Yeah, I don't care about Playstation, and I didn't really pay attention to what anyone actually said about the system.  But that How to Share Games on PS4 video was funny.


iOS7 Introduces a Controller Standard

Well it's ABOUT FUCKING TIME.

Labels:


Thursday, June 13, 2013

 

Walk It Out

Go Vacation has rekindled my love of active Wii games, so I've been poking around to see what else I missed by eschewing third party casual titles for all these years.  And that led me to Walk It Out.

The first surprise is what a following this game has.  Apparently there was more demand than supply upon its initial release, and now it sells for a premium.  As of this writing, the cheapest used copies on Amazon hover around $50, and new go for over $100.  It's like the Earthbound of exercise games or something.  (Sure, you could get it for $20 used at Gamestop -- if you could find one that carries it.)  

And the fan base is solid.  There's over 500 customer reviews, most of them glowing, and the product message board on Amazon still sees a bit of chatter some two years after its release.  I read review after review and message after message, and the thing I kept hearing was how addictive this game was, but no one really seemed to be able to communicate just what it was that was so addictive about it.

Now that I've had some time, I feel like I can make the attempt.

Better Living Through Brain Hacks

Let's start with the bare bones description.  It is an exercise game with a focus on walking.  Actually, more than a focus -- that's all there is.  (Well, there's mini games, but that's like saying DDR: Mario Mix has minigames.  They are invisible.)  It's the jogging game from Wii Fit expanded into a stand-alone product.  As you walk in place, your character moves through an environment.  The major change from Wii Fit is that you determine your own walking path; as you walk along, you can use the D-Pad on the remote to choose different forks in the road.  There are no time limits and no real direction.  It keeps stats for you.  There you go.

Doesn't sound like something you can get addicted to, right?  I mean, it got me interested; I liked the Wii Fit jogging, and a choice of paths was a feature I really would have liked to see implemented.

Okay.  Let's add the fact that it's a rhythm action game.  This game was made by Konami, so of course it's more than just walking in place; you're walking to a beat.  Music plays in the background, one track after the next, in a playlist specified by either you or the computer, and a little beat track shows you where the beat is.  As you walk in place, your controller detects your steps, and you have to try and hit the beats; you're judged by Miss, Great, or Perfect, as you would in DDR.  In fact, one of the supported control schemes is a DDR pad.

So, okay, maybe that's the appeal.  I mean, rhythm games are fun.  Even if it's not as complex as DDR, maybe it's still fun just tapping to that beat.  But no, that's not the whole story.

Whenever you hit a beat -- Great or Perfect -- you earn a "chip".  Chips are the game's currency, and you spend them on unlocking things for the island -- songs, new paths, and landmarks.  But instead of having a shop or something, Konami have put all of the items you can buy in little bubbles scattered all throughout the paths.  As you walk along, you point the Wii Remote at the screen and zap these bubbles to unlock things.  If you zap a bubble that you can't afford, it pops up to the top of the screen in a sort of "queue".  When you get enough chips, the bubble automatically unlocks.  You can continue zapping bubbles while working on one; bubbles you can afford unlock, and bubbles you can't go into the queue.  Your queue holds a maximum of three bubbles, and if you try to add another, the top one comes off the stack and goes back where it was.  So far so hoopy.

But here's the thing.  The bubbles are EVERYWHERE.

When you first start the game, it seems like there's never fewer than a dozen on the screen at once.  You open up the map and look at the size of the island and all of the places where these unpopped bubbles are, and it starts to dawn on you just what you're in for here.

You begin the game with fifteen songs and this tiny little circle that you can walk around in.  The songs are great, but if you're going to be exercising for an extended period of time, you're not going to want to hear the same songs on an infinite loop, right?  So my first order of business was to ignore the landmarks and try to unlock songs, alternate paths, and suspension bridges that lead to new areas.

Oh, hello, a suspension bridge costs 1000 chips?  Well, that's not too bad, I mean, I'm used to walking. It might take a few minutes, but it's not insurmountable.  So I'm walking around, and my chip count is around 600, so I'm nearly there, and oh look!  A CD!  POP.  Oh.  That cost 100 chips, I'm back down to 500.  Well, I'll just have to walk 100 extra steps, that's not too -- look!  Another CD!  POP.  Well, all right, another 200 steps.  Oh hang on, there's only one path open at this next intersection and it leads back to the beginning.  I'd better open one of the paths that leads out further, POP.  Oh.  That cost 300 steps, I'm back down to 100.  Well, you know, it's not like it took me that long to get up to 600, I can just -- look!  Another CD!  POP.

So there are all of these expensive projects that you're trying to walk toward, but as you're walking around trying to earn enough chips, you keep seeing all of these NEW projects that you also want to unlock.  My sessions are usually spent with a suspension bridge and two alternate routes sitting in the queue while I'm wasting my bank taking shots at new CDs.  And the hell of it is, you don't even open up a song every time you get a CD!  Every song is split into five pieces or something and scattered all over the island, so it's a hunt and hundreds of chips just to open a new song.  Suddenly a message pops up to inform me that I've taken 7500 steps this session, and I still don't have that damned suspension bridge!  Just another 1000 steps, I tell myself.  I put the Wii remote in my pocket so that I won't be tempted to blow my bank on every CD I pass, but of course, I have to take it out again because that's how you choose paths as you walk.  And then it's in my hand as I pass by a CD.  Maybe this one will open a new song.  Another 100 steps isn't that much, right?  POP.

And here's the thing.  You can't bank chips between sessions.  So if you are only 200 steps into buying that suspension bridge, you can't just save and finish it next time.  It's all or nothing.  If you really want all those things you've stuck in your queue, you're stuck on this treadmill until you get there.

So it's not addictive like Portal is addictive, where you're exercising your brain and rewarded for your cleverness.  It's not addictive like an adventure game where you're exploring and rewarded for your persistence.  It's addictive like a freemium game, where you take on a monotonous task to earn game currency and you're rewarded for making numbers go up.  But where a freemium game uses a brain hack to keep you addicted in the hope that you'll buy into it with real money, Walk It Out uses a brain hack to keep you exercising.  You're keeping at it because you're exercising the hunter/gatherer aspect of your reptile brain so that you don't notice how long you've been doing it until you've sweat straight through your T-shirt and a little note pops up to tell you your step count has hit five digits.

This is a really neat idea!  I've always thought that there must be a way to take that part of your brain that's happy to wander around leveling up your Pokémon for hours on end and apply it to improving yourself.  And that's the edge Walk It Out has over Wii Fit or a regular exercise routine -- you persist for the Skinner box rewards that it doles out.  And since the game doesn't impose any time limits or tell you when you've had enough, you just keep going.  And going.  And going.

But Is It A Good Workout?

Your mileage may, of course, vary, but I've heard some success stories on Amazon.  My own anecdotal contribution is, like I said, that I get to the end of a 10,000 step session and I've sweat straight through my clothes.  The tempo changes depending on what songs are playing, and there are a couple that you can jog to.  You can even make a playlist of just the fastest songs if that's what you're looking for.

It's walking/jogging in place.  Better minds than mine can tell you how effective that is.

The question, of course, is whether I'll stick with it in the long run.  Will there be any reason to wander around this island when there's no more bubbles to pop?  Will I get to the end and decide to start a new file to do it all over again?  And sure, it's addictive enough once I get started, but it doesn't really persist in my thoughts when I'm away from it.  I may just lose interest down the line.

If the game stays interesting in the long run, I plan to check in again to explain my lasting impressions.  If this is the last thing I say about it, well, it's possible that the magic just wore off.  So there's something to look forward to.

Labels:


Tuesday, June 04, 2013

 

Go Vacation

Go Vacation is kind of a big deal for me.  Like, this may just be the one I've been waiting for.

A Long Time Coming

Back in the 90s, everyone was expecting that the next big thing for video games was going to be Virtual Reality.  There'll be these artificial worlds, and you'll explore them and interact with them the same way you explore and interact with things in real life -- moving your head to look around, moving your body to do things and get to new places.  And gosh, was I ever ready for it.

I was one of the few who bought the Virtual Boy.  I was even one of the fewer who actually enjoyed it.  As a Game Boy fan, the lack of colors were never an issue for me.  The lineup of games was small and, let's face it, forgettable.  But this was what we were waiting for.  Virtual Reality!  Digital worlds made solid!  Sure, we were still pressing buttons to do things, but this was the first step into the future.

Of course, the huge disappointment was that so few games were made for the system and none of them fulfilled the promise of a fully immersive virtual world.  I remember playing the Golf game, not because I was really into video golf or because it was any good, but because it was one of the few Virtual Boy games that rendered what approached a 3D environment.  It was just cool enough for me that you could move to different places in this landscape and look at it from different points of view.  But of course, the thing I really wanted was to break free of the game and just wander around.

Then came the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64.  Now this was a bit more like it.  Still using buttons, and the first-person point of view was dropped in favor of the standard television output, but here were those huge digital worlds I'd dreamed of, fully explorable.  One of my favorite things to do was still to just stop here and there, put the camera into first-person, and just look around at everything.

As time passed and game hardware became more sophisticated, the idea of Virtual Reality sort of dropped off.  Games would be the same things they had always been -- you sit on the couch, detached, and push buttons to make the guy move on the screen.  You'll still be playing the same old RPGs, adventure games, sports games, and so on; they'll just look different.

But as I sat there, playing Mario Golf on my Gamecube -- a radical improvement over that Virtual Boy game that had so intrigued me -- I couldn't help stopping from time to time, looking out over that gorgeous landscape, and thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a mode where you could just wander around that?  Grab a golf cart or something and just have a look around?"

And then came the Wii.

Suddenly, the idea of Virtual Reality -- controlling a game the same way you control the real world -- seemed more attainable than ever, and for cheaper than we ever could have hoped.  Wasn't it interesting, those first few years?  Nintendo built their system bit by bit.  Some pieces were just props to enhance the outward appearance of things -- the Zapper and Wheel were never strictly necessary, but they looked and felt cool -- while others were more functional.  The Balance Board to track large movements of your body.  The Motion Plus to... do whatever it is that does, I dunno.  But as much as the hardware, there were also the software bits.  Miis.  It's not just the same character that everyone else plays, it's you there on the screen.  Or another character of your own design and choosing.  It's who you are or who you want to be.

And, of course, there was Wuhu Island.

The island had first appeared in a Wii tech demo, where it had just been an environment where you could fly a little airplane around.  It first appeared in a video game in Wii Fit, where it didn't even have a proper name; the instruction manual just called it "Wii Fit Island".  But I fell in love with it immediately.  Partly because this was Virtual Reality -- you jog in place, and your character jogs around.  But partly just because it was such a cool place.  Like, this was somewhere I wanted to go.  And wouldn't it be cool if you could make your own jogging route instead of following the ones they give you, and you could go around and see something else every day?

When the island returned for Wii Sports Resort, my infatuation was complete.  The thing is, video game settings tend to be pretty malleable.  It kind of breaks the "reality" when Princess Peach's castle looks totally different from one game to the next.  Bringing back Wuhu Island and having games that take place in recognizable locations around the island kind of cemented it as a more "real" place.  Shigeru Miyamoto spoke about how he wanted the island to be a recurring "character" in Nintendo games, so that people would get that sense of familiarity of seeing a place and thinking, "Oh, I remember being there before!"  And sure enough, Wuhu keeps popping up.  Wii Fit Plus, Pilotwings Resort, Mario Kart 7 -- and if there isn't a Wuhu stage in the next Smash Brothers game, then I just don't know.

So for the first few years of the Wii's life, Nintendo's been building and building this thing, and I keep getting little glimpses of the potential.  All these little minigames and experiments feel like they're leading up to something, and I'm always thinking, "Okay.  You've proven you can do these things.  Now tie a bow on it.  Bring it all together.  You've got this setting, you've got these gameplay mechanics, you've got these awesome motion inputs -- it's like you're right on the cusp of something amazing.  Now what are you going to do?"

And then they just fell silent.

For years, it felt like there was this crescendo, where Nintendo was coming up with all of these ideas and learning how to use them and teaching players how to use them, and then it just stops.  There's no denouement.  There's no huge rock ending.  One day they announce that they're making a new system with a tablet controller.  We're going back to normal games and normal controls.  The end.

The Wii -- at least as the bearer of the ideas that it launched with -- has been on a steady decline basically since Wii Music.  In classic Nintendo fashion, they did the one or two ideas they had for this cool little peripheral they introduced, and now they're moving on.  It seemed to me like the Wii was just going to fold up and vanish into obscurity, and its potential to hit that one magic thing would be lost.

But as it turns out, in 2011, Namco did this little number called Go Vacation.

Took Me A While, But I Got to the Game I'm Reviewing

The problem with Go Vacation is... well, look at it.  The front cover looks exactly like all of the slush that's come out for the Wii over its lifetime -- big-eyed cartoon characters engaged in dozens of minigamey activities.  The title screams "You've already played this game."  It just looks like a game that was destined to be lost in the oversaturation of the Wii living room sports market.  It's not like the enthusiast press is going to shine a light on yet another of those dumb Wii minigame packs.

So I have no idea how long it's been on the store shelf and my eyes have just slid straight past it.  But the other day, it gave me pause.  Vacation, eh?  I like vacations.  I took a look at the back.  "Go anywhere you want!  Play as much as you want!"  Wait.  Go... anywhere?

Anywhere?

I didn't believe them.  I did some research online.  Imagine my surprise when the game culled a 7 on IGN -- possibly the highest distinction a Wii game could earn from them.  What is this -- an open world?  So you could just, like... wander around?  Look at things?  What, you get a little house?  And a dog?  What the... What the hell is this?!

Go Vacation is a mishmash.  A glorious, glorious mishmash.  It is the casual Omega Game.  It is the Wii's capstone.  It's as if someone sat down with every casual game on the Wii, and as they played, they jotted down all of those "Wouldn't it be great if...?" ideas, then put them all together into one game.

I don't even know where to begin.

Yes, it is minigames.  And honestly, they're the sorts of things you've seen on the Wii before.  Sports, racing, arcade amusements -- no individual game is much of a surprise.  What is surprising is the sheer number and variety of them.  Even if you've seen these games before, it's unlikely that you've seen them all together in one package.  There's a musical wine glass game that recalls the handbell minigame from Wii Music.  There's a pie-throwing game that recalls the soccer ball dodging in Wii Fit.  There's racing -- ATVs, jetskis, cars, you name it.  There's stunt games.  There's a dancing game.  Whack-a-Mole.  Watergun fights.  Fifty games all together, many of which come with different skill variations that can be unlocked.

But the important thing, to me at least, is the open world.

There are four huge resort "worlds" with nooks and crannies to explore and things to find.  You can spend hours just looking for treasure chests or photo ops or just exploring for the sheer, unbridled hell of it.  And you don't have to do it all on foot.  Those vehicles that you use in the mini games -- the ATVs, the roller blades -- can be taken out and used to explore the world.  You can hit jumps and grind rails -- whatever you like.  There are tours you can go on -- ride an airplane or a cable car and just see the sights.  There are NPCs you can talk to.  It's like an adventure game.  You even get this little "mission" list -- basically just a stampbook to keep track of which games you've tried.  The really interesting part is that the exploration bits allow four players simultaneously on a split-screen, so everyone can explore at once, and you can come up with little impromptu games, like suddenly having your own jetski race around the bay.

And there's all sorts of extraneous stuff that you can fiddle around with.  You get a villa that you can decorate and wander around in.  You can play dressup with your character.  You can set a dog and friends that follow you around.  There's a real "kitchen sink" mentality to this game.  It feels like they crammed in every idea they could, whether there was a gamey "point" to it or not, just because it seemed like it would be an interesting decoration to their game.  It seriously feels like you can get lost for hours just exploring the little details at your command.

And the controls!

Look on the back of the box, and you'll see the icons for every controller the Wii supports.  I mean, it's nice to see Wheel and Zapper support; even if they're just shells, they're fun to use, and it's great to see games that use the way they work.  But then there's Balance Board support!  It's strictly optional, and yeah, some games control a lot more easily with just the nunchuk and remote, but I find something compelling about it.  I'm standing up in my living room, exploring this virtual world.  My avatar is skating around this city while I control him by leaning left and right.  This isn't a part of a strictly sanctioned game; I'm just exploring a digital space with my body.

My Virtual Reality is finally here.

Mileage, And Its Variability

I'm a little worried that I'm overselling this thing.  To a lot of people, this will not be a big deal.  I've read lots of reviews from people on Amazon who don't get it.  They don't like the Wii's trademark waggle controls in the exploration bits and wish they could just jump from game to game in a menu like you do in Wii Sports.  (This is in fact an option!  But it just goes to show that what I'm getting all excited about isn't for everyone.)

But I'm the only person who reads this blog, so who cares?  HEY CPFACE GO BUY GO VACATION YOULL REALLY LOVE IT OH YOU ALREADY DID OKAY GOOD.  With Nintendo changing gears and trying to win back the hardcore crowd with HD graphics and PS3 controls, it's nice to have this little last hurrah to celebrate the spirit of the Wii and to bring all of its ideas together into one ambitious package.

Labels:


This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?