@gamevixxen I want to see Nintendo get their head on straight and make a system that I would want to buy again. I've owned every system up thru the Wii but I look back and the system I feel like I honestly last got the most use out of was the SNES. Most of their efforts since have just been increasingly leaning back harder and harder onto nostalgia or the gimmick factor of their latest hardware. They need to focus more on just making great games and moving their IPs into unfamiliar places.
@dannyodwyer @endorbr I don't disagree that Mario has done some different things with platforming over the years. I'm not really trying to argue the mechanics or the gameplay so much as the reliance on the same old weak sauce story, tropes and virtually no character development. I see that a lot of what we get from Big N only really appears cosmetically different in the end because they lean too hard on nostalgia and familiarity even while they do innovative things like move from 2D to 3D. For every Super Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime we get another dozen Super Mario Wii, Super Mario Wii U, Super Luigi U, Mario Kart 9,000, etc, etc. I don't mind iteration but there's iteration and then after a while there's just slapping a new name on basically the same game with minimal changes. That's fine if you're new coming in but when you've been playing what feels like basically the same game since 1985 it wears a little thin. I also feel like a lot of Nintendo's games on each new system end up feeling like they were designed to support the hardware rather than having hardware that just supports good games.
@Bread_or_Decide @endorbr That's relative. The N64 still sold 33 million units and the Gamecube 22 million. Those are definitely low compared to the competition from the era but the software sales were good. I question whether the Wii U will even be able to get close to Gamecube numbers by the time they move on. Wii U is seeming more like a Dreamcast story.
Nintendo is a company that suffers from its own success. They've never truly failed at anything (and no I haven't forgotten about the Virtual Boy or the Super Scope). By that I mean that in previous generations even when they haven't had the most successful consoles they've still sold well enough. The Wii U is kind of a first for them. It's a perfect example of how Nintendo has never had to learn from mistakes and adapt their business model. It showcases how they no longer have touch with the people who play their games and don't understand how to attract new customers. They've been riding too long on the success of their brand name and a reputation for being kid friendly alone and with the saturated games market of today that just isn't enough. Their IPs haven't grown in productive ways in 25 years. Each new generation sees cosmetic alterations but they're still leaning on the same old tropes: our princess is still in another castle, the tri-force still needs collecting, and Samus can't seem to figure out how not to break her suit 5 minutes in. There is too much focus each gen on reinventing the hardware wheel and nowhere near enough focus on developing games that move their franchises forward or developing new IPs. The massive success of the Wii was more fluke than any kind of reasonable sales expectation. They trapped lightning in a bottle that appealed to the mass market consumer and not just people into video games or people with young kids. Unfortunately they seem to have entered into the idea of the Wii U thinking they could just coast right into it on that brand recognition with consumers and they found that people are largely uninterested. Nintendo fans feel like the system isn't being supported enough, hardcore gamers still feel burned by the Wii, and the mass market consumer doesn't feel the need to upgrade as they're either happy with what they already have or have already moved on to other things.
@bunchanumbers @darkljolly I wouldn't say anything about that review was "nailed." We could argue the score all day long since its completely subjective but that review was just a poorly written mess.
@Llama345 A game score is supposed to provide a numerical representation of a reviewers impressions of a game on a scale that can be used to determine whether a game is a must own, buy it if you can afford it, buy it in the bargain bin, or avoid at all cost. So in a sense it IS supposed to help you determine whether a game will be fun or not by applying a value that can be linked to purchasing. Unfortunately GS scoring doesn't apply very well to the reviews to which it is attached. It seems far to arbitrary and based too much on the opinions of individual reviewers rather than any sort of professionally established metrics.
Still put off by Tom's TLOU review even now. Not really the score but just the overall poor quality of the review itself. It was one of the biggest most anticipated releases of the year and the review was ridiculously short, didn't tell you hardly anything about the game itself, focused way too much on minor issues and annoyances, and generally just showed off McShea's inability to convey his thoughts in a coherent manner. That review was an embarrassment for someone who is supposed to be a professional reviewer. The quality of the writing, the inattention to detail, and his inability to comprehend the material he was given to review (just watch the GS spoilercast video) are the kinds of things that people tend to get fired for in most jobs.
Nice that the Internet is so full of people with MDs to lend their esteemed medical knowledge to discussions on video game websites about the "truth" behind cancer research. *eyeroll*
@cameronrobinson @srtfrostbite @Camfrazrob So you majored in Biology but became a video game journalist... Funny how life works out sometimes isn't it.
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