Adam In Texas

freespeech

"Xtreme?" Fighting evil? If anything, you've demonstrated your rabid lunatic devotion to Nintendo and your inability to see the line between fantasy and reality by claiming to defend a noble cause such as theirs in white silver armor.

BTW, did you manage to kick someone in the balls today to dispel negative energy? Don't let us down!!! The crusade needs you!!!

jinpei05

Don't get all "xtreme" on me. Again, you, as so many before you, fucking neglect to realize i haven't ever called Nintendo perfect. Nobody on the scene is perfect.

Also you seem to forget that it's awesome to fight evil. Games have taught us this time and time again. I'll happily fight the good fight. White silver armor and everything

Sunjammer

I applaud you for attempting to raise the level of discourse of this discussion and this very blog by calling for my dismissal for calling you a fanboy and the fact I have an opinion that differs so sharply from yours.

However, let me refresh your memory to a message on your profile page, typed by you:

Sunjammer on Jan 13, 2008
I'd like to announce for everyone that i am now officially "a trolling fanboy". I know it's been a long time coming, and now the day's finally here. Thanks for all your support in attaining this goal.

Piece of advice, friend. Don't give yourself a label and then get upset when someone else uses it, especially when it applies so aptly. Not unless you don't mind looking foolish when someone calls you on it.

Contrary to other comments you made, I am more than capable of forming my own opinions based on my experiences and not on so-called "generic and outdated sterotypes."

But still you get, honestly, ingrate pricks who feel justified in their need to simply be pricks on the basis that something exists that they personally don't enjoy.

So I guess I'm a prick because I feel that everything that Nintendo has done isn't perfect. If YOU would take the time to read my previous comments, I praised both Legend of Zelda Games on GameCube as the best GameCube experiences I've had, as well as Metroid Prime. And I also stated that I will enjoy any game on any platform and publisher, as long as it's challenging, innovative, and/or just plain fun. Just because I'm not giving Nintendo a free pass doesn't mean I hate them. They should earn my respect with each game they release, each advancement they make for their hardware, and each direction they take their vision, just as Sony and Microsoft should. No one gets a free pass in my book.

The last thing we need is more unfounded negative energy, so please, if you don't mind, i'd like to keep trying to kick any selfrighteous fool evangelizing their own negative opinoin square in the balls.

Right, because as everyone knows, kicking selfrighteous fools evangelizing their own negative opinoin square in the balls disperses unfounded negative energy just like that.

Be sure to kick some selfrighteous fool sqare in the balls today to ensure world peace!!!

jinpei05

Shukaku

escopr

Seriously though, if you work six days a week and go to college and still have time to have friends over to play video games on a regular basis, then I'm impressed. I don't have time for that, though, and a lot of my friends' schedules don't permit it either, so why shouldn't I be given the option to play the game online (and have it not suck?)

Dag

Demonbird

Shukaku

Shukaku

@cybereality: Your posts suck harder, I fear.

Foxstar Sixtail

cybereality

MetaKz

This is not even considering the singing, screaming, phone conversations, conversations with other people in the room, conversations with other people in OTHER rooms so they have to yell, death threats, insults, swearing, mic feedback, loud music....Do you see where I'm going with this?

I personally applaud Nintendo for not including mic or speaking capabilities in this game. While their online functionality can certainly be improved, you have to consider that appealing to the "Live crowd" wasn't exactly their mission statement in the design and function of the Wii. It's family/socially oriented based upon physical interaction by playing in the same room.

As a side note, I kind of miss the good old days of gaming that you kids are too young to remember. Games that never had multiplayer. Where well written plots were explored through characters in a singleplayer setting. Where story, character development and writing weren't sacrificed for developing multiplayer death match maps. You don't really find those being made anymore. :(

PathRifter

And regardless of whether or not it deserves an update, I've yet to see proof that the Wii is even capable of an update like that, let alone one that would require changing games in addition to the console itself. Given the way Nintendo's got it set up, I guess it maybe MIGHT be possible to do it through the game's save file (since Brawl doesn't seem to rely on any of the preexisting Wii channels), but that would've required advance planning. If they didn't do something like that, then there won't be patches or upgrades coming because the game wouldn't be capable of finding or using them. End of story.

spiderweb1986

durka360durka

NOA people can't do anything about Nintendo's online decisions. It all comes from Japan, and apparently Japan doesn't know anything about online functionality judging from decisions Nintendo has made. So far Xbox Live offers the best online experience despite all it's faults.

kirstpo

Bowserfire

I don't think whining ever solved anything. The thing is, and you know this as well as me, is that Nintendo are about as likely to "fix" the issues we have with the Wii as i am to grow space dumbo ears and go flying around jupiter. They don't exactly have a long history of giving a shit after they deploy their product.

To me, Nintendo blew their load on launch day. Any improvements beyond that product are going to be minute at best. I'm already waiting for their next system to fix their current fuckups. Until then, i'll just try to make the best of what is on offer.

It's far easier for us to rail on MS for their 360 OS, because their system is basically designed to be patched up as it fucks up. The 360 was a wild shot, and they've been adjusting their aim ever since. It's MS, and we know they got this shit DOWN. The Wii though? I don't count on Nintendo to retroactively magicalize their system and make it unbelievably rad through system updates considering how massive those updates would have to be, and how those updates would have to alter how existing fundamentals, that have had their time to dig in deep, would work. In a sense, Nintendo launch Brawl with this kind of service is a nail in the coffin of every hope they'll make it radically better. I don't think they'll ever have a better opportunity for an online game with this system.

What it kind of boils down to is we're all out in the snow with our noses pressed against the windowpane, trying to catch a glimpse of that system we really really want. It's right there in front of us but it's oh so far away, and all we can really do is cry about it. I just don't think it's worth crying about so avidly.

Sunjammer

I'm a consumer and I have the right to be dissatisfied with a purchase and voice my opinion on it. The fact that I care enough to talk about how the product can be improved rather than run around screaming "Wii sux" shows that I care about the product and would like to see Nintendo do better in the future.

If no one ever voiced an opinion on a purchase because it would make them seem ungrateful we would have tons of shitty dangerous products all over the place.

Wanting something to get better doesn't mean you are an ingrate. It means you aren't a complacent drone.

Demonbird

2) Even if Nintendo sticks with friend codes instead of something more intuitive, WHY must each game have its own code instead of picking up friends from your console's contact list automatically? Using friend codes instead of a nickname or email address certainly has its advantages when trying to protect children online, but what possible advantage could there be in requiring a different friend code for each and every game?

Personally, I think Nintendo's "online service" (if you can even call it that) is the biggest hypocrisy in the entire company. They constantly boast about how intuitive and user friendly the Wiimote is, yet their online service is the complete polar opposite of that philosophy and they refuse to believe that it deserves an update.

phor11

"I don't think wanting an improved or better product makes me an ingrate prick.". I think that's sort of exactly what it makes you. You are not happy with your purchase, ergo you are not grateful for it. You are an ingrate. What you want from the product is not what it delivers, hence you dislike it. The manner in which you choose to broadcast your disapproval is the prick part.

Wii bashing smells of mob rage as people struggle to come to terms with what Nintendo has done, and it just highlights, not just for me, how fucking indoctrinated gamers have become over the past 10 years of technology armsrace. I totally 100% agree the Wii's online service is crap (read my earlier posts kthxlol), and i lament that. But the bullshit people throw over the graphics makes my skin crawl.

It's the Wii. It is how it is. It's likely to stay that way. Deal with it. Don't buy it if you don't want it. If you did buy it and enjoy it, stop fucking whining like a little bitch, grow up and take your medicine. This is what you bought. Sell if if you don't like it.

Some people's incapability of understanding they have options is a strange thing.

@Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.: I'm done with you.

Sunjammer

"The last thing we need is more unfounded negative energy,"

I laughed because that's all your post is made of.

"But still you get, honestly, ingrate pricks who feel justified in their need to simply be pricks on the basis that something exists that they personally don't enjoy."

I like my wii, but I don't have my head so far up its ass to not notice a lot of glaring flaws that the system has. I don't think wanting an improved or better product makes me an ingrate prick.

"If you've followed my comments at all you'd know i try to debunk bashers more than anything else."

You didn't like that he classified you as a fanboy and then you try to classify everyone who hasn't agreed with you as a basher. Did you ever realize that the wii is not perfect? If you did then you really shouldn't have any problem with "bashers" because in every one of those complaints seen in this thread there must lie at least a small kernel of truth.

Demonbird

darthmatt

Gadgetron

People in here really do need to calm down a bit, there is no need for this kind of fighting. I think the objections to Nintendo's online have been voiced and noted, and NOT ONE PERSON on this entire post has said anything equivalent to: "Everything Nintendo does is awesome and I think SSBB has the best implemented online ever", while I've seen extremely negative (and unqualified by actual arguments) statements against The Wii, Nintendo, SSBB, and many other random games that have nothing to do with the topic (I couldn't even help myself, see I had to note that PN03 was garbage? :P).

The intelligent comments here, whatever position they have taken, have all acknowledged that Nintendo screwed up on not having the online component of Smash work better, making configuring networking easier, etc. Part of the problem is Nintendo's go it alone attitude (plenty of corps they could subcontract this to and get it fixed), but then you have to remember their history, for the most part aligning themselves with other gaming entities, western and Japanese, has not worked well for them, Phillips and Sony being the most glaring examples.

So while I agree they are in the wrong in some ways, there is no need for this to get either personal between people here or for Nintendo to be endlessly bashed, not just for past mistakes but for their attempts to redress them. Slate isn't even a qualified outlet on this topic as far as I'm concerned, if Ladies Home Journal runs a negative MGS4 review will the post comments be flooded by complaints from people who didn't like every single thing in that game? I'm sure it will contain at least one or two flaws/omissions in the minds of some of its fans, no matter how well they nail 99% of the game.

This is really starting to remind me of SNES/Genesis in just one facet: I got really tired of hearing about how the Genny, especially with 32X/CD/etc (back in the heady days right after they released when people thought that was the future) was a better system than the SNES. In some ways yes, it definitely was, but there were still amazing games on the SNES, and that has to be acknowledged. I get if you don't like the Wii, or Nintendo, but there is just no need for all this hate and hostility...which is all Sunjammer really wanted to get across, beneath his own hostility after personal insults were lobbed his way by those who should know better.

It does nothing for your point to resort to ad hominem attacks, it only lessens the impact of your words on those who read them for the most part.

DaiMacculate

Rebochan

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

also considering my other gripes with wii, lackluster library, terrible graphics capability overall minus the exceptions , lack of real infrastructure support, etc... i still don't understand how you think those are superficial and thin concerns.

oh wait, was that the douchebaggery clause coming into play?

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Slate's just parroting the same thing most people have already said.

@Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.: Your ass hurts, Nintendo has murdered your wife and children and can not be forgiven for it. We get it.

Foxstar Sixtail

and doesn't matter how many were multi-platform your point that nearly all third party gamecube titles suck is pretty near-sighted. Just because the Nintendo games are generally the best doesn't mean all the other games are

excel_excel

excel_excel

DaiMacculate

I won't pretend to know all the inner workings of the Wii's network layer or the code behind Smash, but I seriously doubt there is no way at all to accomplish an update to an online-enabled Wii game. Say what you will about Nintendo, I just don't think they're that short-sighted.

I could easily turn out to be wrong ;)

DaiMacculate

Dag

Plus if you leave kotaku I'll miss seeing your Avatar, and will likely have to rant and rave more than I already do about how awesome Marathon was...and nobody wants that ;)

@Mink_Car: I'm not sure where you got the impression its not possible to patch Wii games; System Update, anyone? Now I think you may have a point that there are limitations on this that don't exist with other consoles, primarily related to the low system memory of the Wii, but since we're talking about basically just updating netcode ( to my knowledge thats the only really major problem with the game), I'd be really surprised if that was more than a few MB.

DaiMacculate

If it were up to me that word would be cause for insta-ban, possibly with public humiliation involved as well. It's the bottom line for people incapable of fighting their own god damn fight, instead trusting some generic and outdated stereotype to do it for them.

People are such wankers. Either you're a populist or you're a tremendous cad apparently, and standing up for one guy means you can't have a beer with the other.

Screw this "debate". I love games, i've got every major system since the NES from Sony, Nintendo and MS. I'll stand up and fight for any of the parts of this ridiculous "battle" because they're all doing shit that's awesome and great for the industry. MS are revolutionizing community building, Sony are revolutionizing the bridge between consoles and pcs, and Nintendo are revolutionizing casual games and how we separate the interface from the system and make the interface more tightly interwoven with the gameplay. All these moves are important in the grand scheme of things.

But still you get, honestly, ingrate pricks who feel justified in their need to simply be pricks on the basis that something exists that they personally don't enjoy.

If you've followed my comments at all you'd know i try to debunk bashers more than anything else. The last thing we need is more unfounded negative energy, so please, if you don't mind, i'd like to keep trying to kick any selfrighteous fool evangelizing their own negative opinoin square in the balls.

This is the most fruitless thread i've tried to put any spirit into in a long time. What a waste.

Sunjammer

Captain Impulse

Dag

jinpei05

On a more serious note though, Brawl is the only game in my current wii collection that has any type of online support, and I did not know what to expect. I was quite disappointed. But as for now, I study, and live in a...whatsitcalled, dorm? anyway, I have lots of friends within shouting distance, so I can enjoy Brawl multiplayer. But what about in a few months time when I am done studying,move away, and may not have alot of friends with gaming interests close by, and want to play brawl multiplayer? I can look past the friend codes, but one of the best things about the online for the 360 or even ps3 is that if i want to play game X right now, i can. hassle free. just boot it up and go. random strangers abound.

For now I'll guess I just have to use the 360 or ps3 as my "online" consoles, and the wii for the singleplayerexperience.

Too bad games like Brawl is so much more fun when you play against a human opponent.

For now I think the online offerings on the wii are horrible, but I live in hope. Future games will hopefully feature such things as voicechat, leaderboards and whatnot. Since this is the standard.

Also, future games will hopefully let me connect to people that i have not exchanged friendcodes with.

Cactuar

I can understand your stance on Nintendo draining money out of companies more deserving of the money. But I can't really agree that motion-sensitivity is a gimmick. It can be used in a gimmicky fashion, but the fact is that many developers haven't even tried to find a creative use for it (albeit they have no reason to as good games sell just as poorly as bad ones (Zack and Wiki)). And although Motion controls have been around for a long time they've never been as widely used as they have for the Wii.

Now I'm not saying the Wii is innovative, because it's not really. But I think things like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are more than marketing. They appeal to people who would otherwise see nothing appealing about video games. Now this might tie back in to your comment about Nintendo taking money away from the industry, but to be fair the majority of people who bought the Wii because it was a "hot" item and was "innovative" probably wouldn't have ended up buying a 360 or PS3. Wii = $250. 360 = minimum $350 and PS3 = minimum $400. I don't think those people would be willing to pay $100-150 more for a system that uses your standard controller. Now putting aside those people who bought a Wii purely on hype, we would have gamers who bought the Wii as their video game systems. From what I've heard on this forum, most people seem to have either a 360 or PS3 or both in addition to the Wii. And the fact that it's attach rate is low means that people are buying more games for other systems, which in turn means that it's not really taking away that much revenue from the industry. Sure it's taking away some, but not so significant that it's having a negative impact. I mean look at the total revenue for the video game industry for 2007. The highest ever, in history. So you can't tell me all that extra revenue is going to Nintendo, it's getting spread all around as I see it. Plus Wii games are cheaper to develop for than PS3 or 360 so even if a game doesn't do too well I'm sure many developers can recuperate their losses.

Now while many people dislike Nintendo's online system (as I do) there are still some aspects of it that I enjoy. For instance, a very small amount of memory on the Wii coupled with bad online infrastructure means no DLC for Wii games. I'm fine with that, as it forces developers to put all the content they can on the disc and not end up charging me for crap later; but this does have a downside as it stops me from using DLC usefully like with GH3 (Fuck rock band for the Wii!).

Now you make a good point. The PS3 is creating more advanced hardware/software integration with their video game system, the 360 is creating a more versatile online infrastructure, what is the Wii doing? I would say that in those two categories it's doing nothing. But I would still care to argue that it's expanding the audience for video games more than the other two. Yes the Wii has a low attach rate, but a large amount of the people buying it are newbies to gaming; they aren't gonna buy more than 2-3 games a year and that's fine by me. The point isn't that the people who bought the Wii as their first console begin playing video games fanatically. The point is that they realize "hey, perhaps video games are more than just a violence-inducing, child-like activity...perhaps it's a medium of entertainment that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike."

Shows like Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres displaying the Wii for their brainless audiences to observe as being an exception to the violent video game stereotype is a positive push for the industry. The Wii is like GH for casual gamers who don't want to play musical video games.

And for the record I agree with you about Eye of Judgment. That's actual innovation, but I believe that the Wiimote creates an opportunity for innovation even if the idea of motion-sensitivity isn't innovative itself.

NeoAkira

Viewtiful Joe: Also on PS2 with a bonus character
Resident Evil 4: Also on PS2 with additional content and modes
Soul Calibur 2: Also on PS2 and XBox, with better controllers and graphics (although I will concede that fighting as Link is more fun that Heihachi or Spawn!)

Monkey Ball was entertaining, as were both Harvest Moons and
Rogue Leader. The rest are mediocre on a good day. And yes, I did actually play all the titles you mentioned, mostly because I was starved for content.

@Sunjammer: Yeah, because the third party outings on a console define how good the actual system is.

Um, actually, all a console's titles contribute to a consoles legacy, as well as other lesser factors, such as price, non-gaming capabilites, graphics, online program etc. But seeing as how any console's number of third party titles outweigh their first party's, your sarcastic statement is true. Do you think that the NES or SNES would have had as strong a legacy without games from Capcom, Konami, SquareEnix, etc?

Personally the Cube next to the Dreamcast was all the gaming i ever needed until the 360.

Oh, really? So we can conclude from that statement that you didn't play any titles on PS2, a system that boasts one of the best gaming libraries eight years into it's life cycle with at least another year before it's dead? And for that matter the original XBox? Wow, that makes you so informed to speak on the quality of titles on any non-Nintendo console. All without playing Metal Gear Solid 3, Psychonauts, Final Fantasy XII, or Halo2.

You seem to forget that the first-party games that shone on the cube were like fucking supernovas.

I'll admit that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were some of the best gaming experinces I had on GameCube, with the Metroid Prime series, flawed as they were with its backtracking and doo-dad hunting, making a solid impression. However, Super Mario Sunshine was a polished Super Mario 64 with a water cannon gimmick, while Mario Cart: Double Dash, while fun and entertaining, IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME FUCKING GAME SINCE SUPER MARIO KART ON SNES!

3+ fucking amazing games a year was great justification of the system for me.

Well, I kinda like playing more than just 3+ games for any one system a year, but seeing as how much you love sucking Iwata and Miyamoto's Wiimote so much, I guess you're pretty justified in purchasing your GameCube2.0 with waggle with Smash Bros alone.

Every other" is a pretty good ratio for third party games on any system.

If you think so. Continue on your merry way to Nintendo oblivion where you can go without playing other awesome non-Nintendo titles. As for me, I'll play anything that's challenging and fascinating, regardless of the platform and if it's first party published or otherwise.

jinpei05

Insomnia Bob

In the end, the reasons for the disparity matter little. XBL kicks some pretty serious ass. It's not perfect (microtransactions! yay!), I know. Hell, the library of titles on the XBL Arcade have about a 5 to 1 crap to awesome ratio. But still, I'll take it over the other guys stuff any day of the week.

Here's hoping the next gen consoles will feature better online offerings... or at least as good as Live. One request... no more bullshit psudo currencies. Let us pay in freaking DOLLARS. I know your finance guys LOVE XB Points or Sony Bux or whatever like it was cocaine, but that shit is just not going to fly forever, and you don't want to be there when it crashes.

Insomnia Bob

So I'd been playing team 'with anybody' for a little while, and this one match at Shadow Moses shows up with particularly bad lag. Like, 2 second delay for button imputs bad. On the enemy's side is a Marth and a Lucas. My partner is a Snake who seemed honestly a bit of a noob.

So basically I'm getting knocked around a little bit by the Marth, but honestly still doing pretty well. Then all of a sudden Marth gets a final smash, and he's chasing me down. "Oh shit!!!", right? I bet he was all excited. But I was calm, I knew what I was doing. Calmly, I stood my ground, and pushed up + B, and waited the two seconds for my attack to activate and for Marth to unleash his Final Smash.

BOOM! Critical Hit to my face! 'cept no, Ike's got super armour after his up + B (yeah, I'm that guy who's always knocking you around as Ike, heh, though not the one who's spreading lag, mind you). I come out perfectly fine. But that's not the end...

We're knocking each other around a bit in the upper right corner, when all of a sudden another Smash Ball shows up. We were all over the place trying to get it, and I'm landing a few nice thwacks in the mayhem. Finally, with another up + B, I snatch it, and roll back over to the right corner.

Now I've got Marth up in the air coming after me, and Lucas standing a bit further away, with Snake at the back hedging them in. What can I do? Nothing for it but to push B and get it over with.

Ike unleashes his Final Smash in slow motion, catching both Marth and Lucas in the arc of his swing. They fly up to the top of the screen, where for a good twenty seconds Ike is just whaling on them in slow motion, while Snake is being his cute little noob self trying to launch a couple up smashes up towards us. Finally Ike crushes them into the ground with a mighty last swing, and they go flying into the sky.

Now I've been talking down on my then teammate throughout this post, but honestly, he wasn't that clueless. Probably just hadn't gotten a good grasp of the way Snake plays yet. Nonetheless, he at least had the good sense to know that the other team had been well and truly pwned, so Ike and Snake, standing next to each other in the middle of an empty stage, sent them off with two perfectly timed taunts.

That, my friends, was the one match I've played which truly suffered from lag, and a match to be remembered.

SolFalling

Dag

zanzibarlegend

The Wii is bad for the games industry in the same way that World of Warcraft is, and I say that as an avid WoW player. With WoW's popularity, some estimates indicate that it now produces more revenue per month than the remainder of the PC games industry does per year. If that isn't damaging the PC games industry, I don't know what is.

The Wii is doing the same thing to the console industry. Despite incredible worldwide sales of over 20 million units, its attach rate is average at best ([www.nextgenthinktank.com]), and sales records indicate that a very large percentage of games sold are first party Nintendo titles. So for Nintendo, the Wii is obviously great finanically, but as far as I'm concerned it's essentially sucking money out of the rest of the industry and depositing it squarely into Nintendo's already bulging pockets.

Now, even that might not be such a bad thing if the Wii itself weren't such a joke. The near-complete lack of online support, the lackluster selection of third party titles, and the fact that nearly all (if not all) of the first-party titles are sequels really makes me wonder why people bother with the console at all. If your definition of the word "innovation" is yet another Mario title ([en.wikipedia.org]) but with gimmicky motion controls, then... well, you're certainly entitled to that opinion, but I'm equally entitled to the opinion that the games industry would be better off if more people were spending their titles on actual innovation rather than gimmicks with excellent marketing.

You might be wondering what I mean by actual innovation. Well, the Xbox 360 continues to console online play by incorporating more and more connectivity features. Microsoft is attempting to (albeit doing a terrible job at) bridge the gap between PC and console games. Sony is starting to open up their platform by allowing the user to replace specific components (the hard drive) with standard PC components rather than overpriced first-party hardware, as well as offering support for a number of PC-standard accessories (keyboards and mice, Bluetooth headsets, etc.) They're also allowing - nay, supporting - the installation of Linux on the PS3, and their support for open standards is leading to advancements such as true user-created content on consoles for the first time (Unreal Tournament 3.)

And then there are the games: games like Command and Conquer 3, Universe at War, and EndWar are attempting to bring full-featured RTS experiences to the console, something that has only been attempted a handful of times in the past, and has not been largely successful thus far. Eye of Judgment on the PS3 is an example of true, legitimate use of a camera as a game accessory rather than just an expensive gimmick (unlike most of those PS2 EyeToy games.) Half-Life 2 introduced (or at least popularized) the inclusion of extensive real-time physics in videogames, and it's now become a practical industry standard. And Portal? Portal.

Dag

nintendo's attitude of "well we have casual gamers" is moot. you want hardcore audience too? fix your broken online offering.

zanzibarlegend

*BLARRRRRGHHHHHH!

argh

Thirded. Though I learned my lesson from the GC, not a bad console, not a great one either. Nintendo really dropped the ball since their SNES days.

jello44

Brill

Raziel

Yes, the online experience could be better, but if Nintendo were to allow voice chat, I'd only want it in friend matches anyway.

And honestly, a lot of the people above me have already said it, but the game is definitely better played with friends in the same room.

Raziel

GodPlus1

Aflack: Likes slushies

Are you kidding me? You might not like Nintendo's online strategies or the plethora of games available on the Wii, but to say it's bad for the gaming industry is ignorance at its best.

Perhaps you don't realize, but no matter how much video games have grown graphically and technically over the decades they've still been infantile in the eyes of the masses. Many people wouldn't even think about playing video games and look at it very negatively. The Wii has opened a gate for these people to play video games. Motion controls that simulate real-life movement so people don't feel so alienated from the medium have helped introduce many video-game-ignorant people into the medium. Not only that but it helps to show that video games aren't just for "kids"; mom, dad and the grandparents can all enjoy the system just as equally as their children can.

Now putting the advantages of the Wii for the industry aside, I can't think of a single negative impact the Wii has had on the gaming industry. Casual games? those have been around long before the Wii. Crappy online infrastructure? doesn't stop the 360 or PS3 from doing it right. Slim graphical progression from one gen to another? look at the PS2->PS3 metamorphosis.

Nothing the Wii has done I can call "bad" for the industry. Perhaps not appreciated or welcomed by some "hardcore" or avid gamers, sure. But the Wii's advantages to the industry greatly exceed it's disadvantages. And so your comment might have been a slip-of-tongue that wasn't meant, but you should think about such comments in the future.

NeoAkira

Demonbird

D Mitsuki

Changing controller shapes isn't breaking rules. Sega made a much greater effort in the 16-bit days to push technology forward but didn't have the business model or resources to stay with Nintendo. Sony made a much greater effort in the 32/64-bit generation to push core console technologies - graphics, storage, audio - forward. Microsoft made a much greater effort with the Xbox to push online gameplay to the same level as PCs.

While Sega's bundling modems and Web browsers with their console, Sony's adding FMV on cheap media and Microsoft's mastering online gaming networks, what does Nintendo do with the Gamecube? Shit all over their own modem and broadband adapters by making no effort to sell them, and shit all over third-party demands for a high-storage format by going with the smallest disc capacity possible. Why? They thought load times were more important than rich content. They thought there was no market - and in Japan, there wasn't - for online gaming to justify the expense.

And what rules has Nintendo broken? They kept such strict prohibitions on blood and gore through the N64 era that they cemented themselves as a "kiddie console" in the West, and they rode the cartridge format so far into the ground that they entered the disc era with no experience and few third-party friends.

So Nintendo makes a console that finally supports the Internet, and what do they do? Ride inadequate storage into the dirt and cement themselves as a "kiddie console" with inane friend codes built to save the children. So long as each unit sells for a profit, Nintendo doesn't care. They give you a big-bang interface "innovation" - shoulder buttons, analog joysticks on a gamepad, a light gun without the gun stock - and sit on everything else hardware-related.

Obviously Nintendo cares about the world outside of Japan. But they won't ever let anything top the Japanese market as their key to a steady profit. If that means irrationally half-assing features that are low priorities to Japanese gamers - online functionality, graphics, platform inclusion in multi-platform third-party releases - so be it.

obo

LedRush

1) You can't tell if one of your friends is seeking to play with his frinds online unless you go to the friends' list. Mario Kart DS did not have this problem.

2) And if you do see him online (playing against anyone or whaetever) there's no means to communicate, to tell him/her that you want to play with him/her. Same problem did exist in the DS.

3) No voice chat...DS online games had voice chat! (Pokemon + Metroid.) I don't mind if the voice chat will be only be available outside matches (like metroid ds)

4) Why do you have to use the online mode to actually be online? Why can't we have the option to passively be online (like in Xbox 360.) I for one, do not want to be online and wait in a room for minutes/hours, or play with random people I don't know, hoping someone I know comes online to play with me. Being passively online will let your friends see you online and invite you to a game at any time.

smashfanDS

LizardMan

Dag

Demonbird

@Aethyr: Is Nintendo some kind of God to you? I ask this in all seriousness, because a lot of people seem to have this attitude. "We should be thankful for whatever meager scraps the glorious Nintendo is willing to present unto us, the unworthy masses." Ditch that bullshit; you paid for the system and the games, so perhaps you should expect some industry-standard features.

@Krondonian: Everyone seems to assume Nintendo doesn't do online because they're worried about "preadtors" or whatever. I would argue that it's because they're incompetent with regards to online services in general.

@Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.: I agree 100%. The Wii console is bad for the games industry.

@lifeinthefridge: Perhaps if Nintendo had put an ethernet port in the Wii instead of making it wifi-only, this wouldn't be a problem. Then again, I am willing to bet that terrible network code is at fault to at least the same extent that poor connections are.

@Leanid: NEW FEATURES ARE BAD, HURR! If you don't expect anything above and beyond SSB 1 and 2 from this game, then why did you bother buying it? Apparently the first two are "good enough," so why waste your money?

@Lstormy10: Actually, you are wrong. Smash using a P2P system is no excuse for lag. Despite the service fee for live, Microsoft does not host game servers; all hosting of that nature is done by players. Most games do not even offer the option to create dedicated servers. The same goes for the PS3.

@Leanid: Uh, what? It's our fault if Nintendo lies to us? Please refer to my response to Aethyr above.

@Tizlor: Actually, yes. I've been a Live subscriber since the 3rd wave of the beta on the original Xbox, and even then - when the only game available was the beta version of MotoGP - it worked damn near perfectly. It didn't have all of the features Live has today, but it had voice chat, friends lists, gamertags, cross-game invites, and there were very, very few issues with lag or disconnections.

@DaiMacculate: Keep on hoping, buddy.

@ajay42: Okay, that's four games, three of which are first-party Nintendo games (meaning the chances that you'll see sequels, or even similar titles this generation are slim to none.) Can you think of any more? Because I can name a lot more than four for the 360, PS3 or PC.

@Hazzy: Yeah, except that some of us are adults with jobs and family lives. We can't all have our friends come over after school to play with us.

@Demonbird: Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only person who realizes this.

@Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.: QFT again. You get a cookie, good sir.

@Shukaku: Refer to my comment to Hazzy.

Dag

Allen750

Sunjammer

I didn't misunderstand you. You're just plain wrong.

@Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.: Shocker; i DID read your post, with great interest i might add, which is why i dignify it with a response in the first place. You make a great target because you're such a firm proponent of the PS3 and 360 while trying to float neutral with the Wii, though your negative slant means you're obviously not.

And that's fair! You're fully entitled to think the system is sub par. The thing is, the complaints you have about every Wii game you list are so fucking superficial and thin it makes me itch just to read them. You want bounding box control of the MP3 aim? That makes you the first dude i've ever heard make that complaint. It doesn't invalidate your personal complaint, but it invalidates it completely as one i should give a shit about, or anyone for that matter. You want a COURSE EDITOR for Excite truck? That's another new one for me. Online functionality for SSX Blur, meh, maybe, but i strongly doubt that would fix any issues that game had in the first place.

I know Iwata put his foot in his mouth when he promised Brawl would be online and all awesome and whatnot, but everyone that freaking plays SSB knows that kind of gameplay is designed ground up for same-screen multiplayer where you can punch your opponent physically if you want. That's an enormous part of the gameplay.

Your complaints about the Wii are almost entirely moot, which is discouraging because there is so much wrong with the system and its titles and you're not even close to touching on the issues that would have a global effect. Instead you're picking apart individual titles and their individual solutions like they're part of the global problem.

You know why the 360 had such a monumental increase in experience quality over its predecessor? Rules. Games on the 360 have to abide by minute details like what button jumps to qualify, and that's the tip of the iceberg. Nintendo impose no such totalitarian rules on their system, neither do Sony, and as such the game experiences vary. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're godawful.

On the Wii you MAY see voice comms. You MAY see unified friendslist from a certain publisher. In a sense, the Wii is the kind of system where third party services like EA online might actually flourish (though that's a stretch).

What you want are games that deliver on Nintendo's promise, which was usability and a fresh experience. The thing that sucks is that you've got just that. It's just that Nintendo sucks at online, that motion controls weren't fucking VR or some other revelation, and developers needed Nintendo to anally fist them with SMG to realize the system could actually produce work that looked better than what you could get on the Cube.

It's a fresh system still, and it's already got some unique titles you won't find elsewhere. You've already got the PS3 and the 360; what exactly are you complaining about?

Sunjammer

Dag

LowNemesis

There is hope in the world.

Frank

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Shukaku

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Virtua Fighter and Tekken have rankings for online mode. Tekken even has 'rank punishment' for leaving a match. Fighting games online are bullshit to begin with -- you're always going to be lagged compared to 2 player on the same console. I was comparing Smash to other games where generally 'no one cares' about someone dropping a match. If someone drops I don't want AI filling in at all. It's even worse if they don't tell you.

Mongoosekun

Demonbird

"Okay, when people say shit like this, they automatically declare that the Wii is already inferior to the other two console offerings." Offer... To me at least the Wii can offer better RPG's, Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Primarily that is why I got a Wii. The benefits of playing single player RPG's online... gee let me think. Also I don't think the other two console offerings can really offer me good RPG's and how does that make the Wii inferior? Offer, that is a good word.

Shukaku

Shukaku

Sunjammer

Sunjammer

I never said IR or motion control was possible on the gamecube. It wasn't built for it.
I never said the motion controls didn't work.
I never actually said I hate the wii. I own one and a decent sized Library of games for it.

But when you get right down to it, the Wii is a gamecube with motion controls.

Demonbird

In full blind honesty, judging by the titles you pull out as comparisons, you should've have picked up a Wii in the first place. If you expected anything comparable from a Nintendo console you haven't been paying attention the past 8 years or so.

Nintendo isn't going to turn into MS or Sony anyday soon, and thank god for that. I can go to MS for MS or Sony for Sony. I still want to be able to go to Nintendo for Nintendo.

Sunjammer

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

smackthenun

I have a PS3, I have a 360, and I love the online capabilities for both! I also love my Wii because it is different from both the PS3 and 360. It offers me fun offline! I know it sounds insane to have REAL friends come over your house and play games with you; its a crazy concept, but it actually is fun.

"If someone wants to be able to play online with friends, then they should be able to."

Now that is great and all, but think for a little. If you've played the original Smash or Melee you would know how fun it is to play with your friends in person. Take the whole sabotage route, where your kicking ass and then your friends unplug your controller and you get your ass handed to you. That kind of shit is 1)funny and 2)not going to happen online. "Play the game how it is supposed to be played."

"Actually, the wii is just meant to play games."
...great insight, you're witty let me tell you!

Shukaku

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

No reviews seemed to mention this, though. I'd rather reviews become more technical. Example: Halo 3 has 4 player co-op (up to 2 per console), and 16 multiplayer (up to 4 people per console) with any combination thereof. Easy and customizable. MOST games aren't like that though, and I'd want a review to mention that. CoD4's splitscreen is...interesting with only 4 people. And you can't bring any of them online. Yet, I don't remember this being a big bullet point anywhere. Not bashing CoD4's choice of MP (does have its PC origins after all), just the lack of info and clarity on the issue.

Phokal

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

mruler360

im sending this from my ps3 and it just told me two of my friends logged on. why can't i get that on wii? wii has been a colossal disappointment. even when i get a great game for it there's a fuck up somewhere. metroid prime 3 was great but Retro wouldn't let us adjust the bounding box like in metal of honor 2. zelda was awesome except it turned into ocarina of time when you find out Zant was Ganondorf's bitch and was no real threat. that totally killed the game for me and proves nintendo has no concept of advancing a damn story. SSXBlur should have been kick ass but it was a watered down rehash that desperately needed an online mode and leaderboards. No More heroes is a blurry foggy mess. excitetruck could have had legs if it had an online mode and track editor. i can't even get into Galaxy for long periods because it feels like a fetch quest i've already done at least 3 times before. then there's brawl's pathetic online mode.

i just need a great wii game that delivers what nintendo or any developer says it will. ps3 got warhawk, drake, resistance and ut3. 360 has mass effect, bioshock, forza2, gotham and halo. wii has what? zak and wik? which is awesome in its own right, but even capcom didn't care enough about it to market it. another RE4 port? another RE rehash with UC. Okami ANOTHER port, Rygar, yet another port, House of the Dead 2 &3...more ports. wii is the biggest fraud of the generation and nintendo /3rd parties are doing little to change my perspective

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

@Mongoosekun: "I think the AI control when a player drops online is a serious design flaw. Can you imagine playing Halo or GT like that?"
Smash Bros is a fighting game, would you rather the fight just end straight away?? its not a design flaw its good design

excel_excel

I just don't care at this point.

2NinjasTapedTogether

The result is 200+ comments of people a) railing on Nintendo as a whole, eventually stepping on the toes of b) people who love Nintendo games and systems and will feel personally insulted. Then it's all down to Twilight Princess having shit graphics and Mario being overused and the Gamecube sucked and yada yada yada. It's so fucking old.

Sunjammer

"YOU ARE NOT A PERSON YOU ARE A FRIEND CODE."

I think the AI control when a player drops online is a serious design flaw. Can you imagine playing Halo or GT like that?

Mongoosekun

Personally the Cube next to the Dreamcast was all the gaming i ever needed until the 360. You seem to forget that the first-party games that shone on the cube were like fucking supernovas. 3+ fucking amazing games a year was great justification of the system for me.

"every other third party game sucked ass".
"Every other" is a pretty good ratio for third party games on any system.

Sunjammer

excel_excel

1. Friend codes are pure unadulterated crap. Ditch this system, adopt a gamertag-like system.

2. No way to chat with anyone beyond a few pre-selected phrases. Seriously, we need to be able to say more than four things to other people in Brawl.

Zero_Beat

weeoo

Apparently, you and I are using very different definitions of suck...

jinpei05

Quine

All in all makes me believe the Wii is very fortunate to have all those reviewers and press guys not asking it anything close what they consider the minimum for the PS3 and 360.

Wii may not have an online service as good as Live but seeing as PSN is free too we should demand Nintendo something of that caliber and not just 20 year old games ,stupids miis ,lackluster game modes and an absolute absence of features ...

Iberianpower

EmeraldDragon

KM91

ajay42

I'd also argue that online gaming for consoles in general isn't anywhere near where it could be. Lest we forget, Xbox Live had at least two weeks of downtime around Christmas, and Sony's online system is still in its infancy. I'm hoping that Nintendo's issues are due to the fact that they've never really done this before (none of the DS games are anywhere near the complexity of what it takes for Brawl to work like it should), and that they'll get it right eventually. I'm hoping that "eventually" is sooner rather than later, but given that it's been less than a month, I still think it's too early to write it off entirely.

spiderweb1986

I used to always hear from you or your friends how Nintendo wasn't making another system after N64,or they weren't making one after Gamecube,etc. They only problem with that is they keep making money!

And why is it that the person who makes the match lag is always Ike? That's so true.

kidnicky

KirbyMorph