Welcome to the latest installment of my, for lack of a better word, "anemic" blog. I really should get more into this considering how much I can talk and usally have to say. So, without further adieu...
In considering what to write about for this new blog entry, I thought about a great many things. We have a great political debate going on with the democrats that is rife with double-talk, back-stabbing, lies, corruption. Wow, it sounds like bad reality television to be honest with you, which I usually refrain from, but it's like watching a wreck in the sense you just can't turn your eyes away from it. Very intriguing...but not the subject of this blog.
No...in fact, this blog post covers what many of us as gamers love dearly and simply take for granted. It's not graphics. Graphics have almost become equal to real life and honestly...how much more can be improved? Sound is also not what I am talking about, but that too has improved to the point that realism is simply boring. Physics...the same. No, what I am about to talk about is so simple that it's likely your friends will still see the lightbulb over your head long after this screen has been shut down and you have moved on through your day.
It should come as no surprise to you that I'm an absolute fan of Nintendo consoles and games. I have been for 20+ years now and there is no shame in that. I don't consider myself a fanboy, especially since I also own an Xbox360, PS1 and PS2. I simply love good games and many of them are not the most popular titles on their respective systems, but I love games that push art and make the player think.
I have been a fan of Nintendo for so long that I have forgotten what actually drew me to their games in the first place, but fortunately, while responding to a post on the Nintendo Players Union, I had a "eureka" moment while responding to a thread showing off new pics of Mario Kart Wii. Let me preface what my point is with an analogy.
McDonald's is one of the largest corporations on the face of the planet. Almost everyone on the planet has at some point in time eaten a McDonald's hamburger or had McDonald's french fries or...gasp...have had both, in which case you should check your cholesterol levels. Ok, getting back on track here...McDonald's hamburgers and fries are in no way considered the "best". I have eaten better burgers...I have eaten better fries...I have bought both for less and have even paid more for burgers and fries than those McDonald's offer. So, what is it that McDonald's has that brings people back over and over again?
The simple answer is consistency! Yep...simple, effective consistency. This is also the driving force behind your money working for you. Consistency is the basis of all greatness. If you don't believe me, look at any athlete...any band...an actor...anything at all and you will see that everything that is considered good has a basis of consistency. The simple fact of the matter is, when someone goes to McDonald's, no matter where they are on the planet, a McDonald's hamburger will be exactly what they expect and that is exactly what they will get.
The same holds true for my beloved Nintendo. Nintendo has managed to craft games that may seem formulaic, but the games are consistent. Very little has changed in the 20+ years since Mario jumped on that first Goomba's head. You can still control him in mid air, you can still see him wearing his overalls and signature red cap, you still get the happy-go-lucky tunes that drive you to the finish. Not much has changed outside of the graphics and even that is pretty standard across the board for Nintendo games.
Look back at any franchise created by Nintendo and you can see that the quality is consistent throughout all of the games. Feature sets have been improved over time, but the core gameplay mechanics have remained largely unaltered. This is something many others have emulated with some degree of success, but not everyone gets it right as often as Nintendo has.
So, after all of these years, what makes Nintendo the powerhouse it has become is not that the games are the best. Metroid is not the best FPS game around, and no one would say that Mario Kart is the absolute best racing game ever made, but the simple fact is, you know when you open up the case for that new Nintendo game, you know what you are getting yourself into. It's as comfortable as putting on an old worn in pair of blue jeans and looks just as good to everyone. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that it was so easy to see this all along but maybe we have forgotten what it was that made Nintendo games so appealing.
You can keep your fancy multiple core processing, physics processors and HD graphics, but those things are like wearing a $5000 Italian suit...eventually, you will shed that suit to slip into a pair of comfortable jeans so that you can relax and have some fun!