XBox 360

Donning the Rant Pants

Lately I’ve been a frustrated individual and it’s not because of the raging writer’s block I’ve been having. No, my frustrations are the result of feeling like I’ve picked the wrong gaming system. You heard me correctly. I may have picked the wrong console. All my life I’ve been a loyal customer to the Nintendo brand and have displayed my love of said brand openly, nay saying the various competitors every chance I got. I even (gasp) defended the Gamecube back in the day as a viable console in the gaming world.

But now I think I might have to rescind my love of Nintendo. Sorry, guys. I’m going to don the rant pants for a bit and just go off on a few reasons why I’m not going to be singing the Wii’s praises any time soon.

  • Third Party “Garbage Ware.” When you go to any electronics store and peruse the Wii aisle, you’ll find that at least 90% of the titles on the shelf are junk. These are the games that are based on films or TV shows and all lack anything resembling fun gameplay. Go into a Gamestop or Best Buy and find a compelling game for the Wii that isn’t produced by Nintendo itself. I dare you.
  • Stagnant Online Presence. Remember when Wii friend codes were easy to share and didn’t take a bajillion steps to add? Remember when there was a way to integrate your Wii experience with any various social networking site if you so wished? Yeah. I don’t either…because THAT’S NEVER EXISTED! If there’s one thing that could push the Wii ahead, it’s developing a social presence of some kind. I know the whole “being social” isn’t Nintendo’s aim necessarily, but when you can share your gaming experience with other people around the world automatically you find that it’s so much more fulfilling. If I had more online “social” options for my games, I’d probably play them more.
  • The biggest games coming out are sequels! Seriously, another Zelda game? Another Mario Galaxy? They look great, but I feel like there’s some degree of re-hash here. How about we make something new that can be franchised and beaten to death…
  • Wii-Ware. This is the big mamma of my irritations with the Wii console. When I first heard that there was going to be a store for independently created games for the Wii, I got insanely stoked. So much potential! In essence, indie games could thrive. Boy was I wrong. I think the only games that I’ve played from Wii-Ware worth the money can be counted on one hand. I certainly haven’t bought any more outside of Dr. Mario, Mega-man 9 and World of Goo. I might get Tetris Party, but I’m a little puzzle game’d out.

Sigh.

This isn’t a complete dismissal of the Wii as a console, especially since there’s so much that’s right about it. For example, it has one of the cutest menu interfaces in existence, and you can jump into a majority of the games and just “get it.” All first party games rock 110% and are perhaps some of the better games out there. Nintendo understands nostalgia and they can deliver that feeling in spades. They also changed the way we view controllers and have in essence shifted the paradigm of console gaming. However, the part of me that’s not a completely casual gamer is consistently left wanting more from this system.

I dunno. Does anyone else think about this shit or am I just weird?