The majority of the comics that I write end up coming from real world experiences. This week’s comic is no exception. I have indeed used my FX lightsaber as a back-up flashlight. Definitely a source of humor for the neighbors seeing red, green, and blue hues gasping forth from my house.
Listen closely, and you can hear it in the air. It’s the sound of the masses getting crazy over the Wii again. This time it will be courtesy of Wii Fit. My neighbors and co-workers are once again lighting my phone up trying to track down copies of the game available for pre-purchase. Most places are already sold out and taking deposits for the second shipment. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it is May and not November, right? Once again, Nintendo is looking to prove that the game industry is not what it once was.
Another interesting highlight is the Wii Ware service going live today. As I see it, Lost Winds looks to be the best of the bunch shown so far. The Final Fantasy game doesn’t appeal to me, especially with all of the microtransaction purchases heaped atop the fifteen dollar base cost. I’ve never been a fan of microtransactions with the only exception being downloadable music in Rock Band. I’ll try and squeeze Lost Winds in between unlocking tracks/karts in Mario Kart and restoring the world to its lush state in Okami.
- Dover
Since the twilight of the N64 era, the Nintendo company has made itself comfortable running tangentially to my own experiences. For every new and exciting scrap of potential they offer up for my consumption, they also scoop overwhelming mounds of hash, rehash and rerehash (if that is such a thing) in a mad scramble to bury their own innovation. When I was younger, I was unburdened by this obvious franchise subjugation. I think this is normal. Most four-year olds don’t proffer complaints after receiving a Tickle-Me Elmo since, after all, those were so last decade. The majority of kids are happy to play with the friendly television creature. This synergy is essential business - I get it. Where do we draw the line?
By nature, sequels are continuations of their predecessors in both spirit and practicality. The traditional summer movie slate is rife with series sequels. For example, Indiana Jones has an new entry upcoming and without any prior knowledge of the flick, I’m willing to bet that it will feature an exaggerated but loveable archaeologist thrown into larger than life situations, some of which are only solved with a whip. Just hazarding a guess here. That said, I don’t actually know the plot, the characters (except the namesake, obviously), or any other particulars. This movie offers me a potential value.
What does any of this have to do with anything? Mario Kart saw release a little while ago on Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii console. This game marked the sixth non-arcade entry for the sixteen-year old series, and managed to do very little remarkable or new. By itself, this is not a terrible crime. I can be down with sequels that don’t try to rock the proverbial boat. In Mario Kart’s case, Nintendo established a fantastic multiplayer formula that works and has worked in all previous iterations. The Wii version manages to expand on that addictive bit through the advent of solid online play. How could I possibly find fault in what is clearly a well-developed product? One evil, evil word: unlockable. Many of the game’s tracks, characters, and features are locked at the initial boot and have to be "unlocked" by completing tasks in the wretched single-player mode. Unlockables are not unusual in the videogame world, but I do think that they represent a particularly sinister oddity. How many other media hide critical elements of their constructs behind tiny padlock icons? I am an avid reader, but I would likely read far less were I required to read one shitty book before a decent one.
Unlockables are idiotic. From a developer’s standpoint, if a game is fun to play then why withhold prime cuts of content? Personally I don’t need more incentive to play fun games, and the prospect of unearthing hidden away treasures won’t entice me into spending time or money on games I don’t like. The wheel is neat, the Mario Kart channel shit-hot; clearly, somebody will have to be paid to play the game for me.
As an aside, MMORPG’s are geared almost exclusively around this concept of unlocking in some form or fashion, and this could well stand as a principal reason for my adversity to that genre. I should also mention linear unlocking, in which I would include a chronological story, items or weapons that depend upon earlier acquisitions, or concepts of gameplay that stack atop concepts introduced at some time previous, are all okay. I would be interested to hear what anyone else has to offer regarding unlockables in games. E-mail me with thoughts!
- Irving