From gonintendo.com, yesterday (yesterday, and it’s already 9 pages back because they update so often):

Channels:
-Digital Clock added to the Wii Menu right under the channel bar
-Forecast Channel now displays the current condition (cloudy, raining, etc.) directly in the Wii Menu in the Forecast Channel box
-News Channel can now show 2 scrolling headlines at a time in the Wii Menu, 3 when you click on the button
-Message Board now has the “Today’s Accomplishments” message as a white message which allows it to stand out from other messages
-Address Book entries can now be shifted around using A+B but only to empty spaces. Not too convenient.
-Calendar in Message Board no longer shows “Today’s Accomplishment” only days as having messages
-Scrolling messages in the Message Board now uses a different sound

Wii Shop Channel Overhauled (Visual aesthetic is the same, changes made to organization and browsing methods mostly)
-New Welcome screen detailing 4 Recommended Titles and the points they cost (gone is the title screen bar that had linkable games). The title bar can be clicked on to bring up a list of 20 recommended games.
-Titles You’ve Downloaded was moved to the main shop menu
-New ways to browse
-Popular Titles (2 pages of 10 and includes launch games so not only based on recent info)
-Newest Additions remains the same
-Search for a title which can use partial names
-Search by Category
-System shows the different systems and how many titles have been released under each
-Publisher showing different publishers and amount of titles released
-Genre (different genres listed and amount of titles under each)

Settings
-Warning added pre-system update detailing that technically modified consoles may cease to function upon being updated. Also the only way to not accept an update is to power down the console by holding the button for 4 seconds (the user can’t back out of hitting I Accept w/o powering down)

Maybe they should focus on keeping the forecast channel up-to-date before they focus on moving it around. One time it was snowing in the middle of June and my Wii forecast channel said it was like 100 degrees Kelvin. It also said the data was from like 3 weeks in the past. Maybe I’ll trust my windows instead of my Wii.

I guess also there’s support for usb wired and wireless keyboards in the wii shop and wii internet channels now. Good, but it reportedly doesn’t work with all keyboards, so we’ll just have to wait until nintendo releases one for $940.

Instead of changing the Wii shop around, maybe they should just add a feature that tells me when I can buy Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for N64 so I don’t have to keep checking every 30 minutes. What if they release it while I’m sleeping? I gotta get to the end game first.

Also, like many people have probably already said, there’s no new word on Miis or why Nintendo continues to make them suck. There’s also no word on why it takes an act of God to enter a friend code, or why it takes another act of God to even find your friend code in the first place.

Will someone just email me when Majora’s Mask releases for Virtual Console? Seriously.

To go with my recent theme of talking about single players games on an overwhelmingly MMO-centric site, this article focuses on what happens after the end of single player games. What does that even mean? I don’t know, but let me try to explain. You might be thinking: “well, the reason it’s a single player/console game is because it has a definite end, so what’s the point of talking about what comes after that?”. Well, even traditionally, this isn’t even correct.

Single player/console games are known to have some of the most engaging end-game content in the gaming industry. The ability to unlock new modes of play (Chrono Trigger, anyone?) and experience the same content again from a new standpoint (Half-life: Opposing Force) differs from the MMO end-game lineup. In an MMO, you play the same content over and over again. In a single player, you play the same content, but there’s an entirely new twist to it. Whether you’re playing at warp speed, playing from the beginning with all of the weapons you had when you beat it, or playing from a completely different perspective, single player is able to deliver fresh gameplay by barely lifting its metaphorical hand. In addition to this, there is even “MMO”-style end game content in some games out today.

Super Paper Mario. A seemingly simple game, which turns out to be quite long and engaging. A very well-planned and perfectly-paced RPG that doesn’t seem like an RPG. Attack power, health points, experience, item upgrades, and the like; all of the components of a traditional RPG are there, but the gameplay is so well-meshed with the Mario universe that even seasoned RPG veterans might not care to notice. In addition, this game also boasts and impressive end-game itself. Players patient enough to let the credits roll without turning off their Wii are rewarded with a save point at the end of the credits, and an open-ended plot stem as they step back into the starting town, Flipside. From here, the game is totally open. Visits to all of the worlds previously visited for any number of reasons: grinding points (experience), finding new items and powerups, finding ingredients for cooking, finding recipes, engaging in any number of the end-game minigames (mini is sort of a misnomer here, as some of them are quite long). In fact, there’s even a way to go back and fight amped-up versions of most of the bosses encountered throughout the game itself! At the end of the story-based game, the recipe book is left unfilled, and the key-card index is far from complete. The end game consists of completing all of these tasks, a pursuit which would likely take longer than beating the game itself.

So what’s the point in all of this? Well, as yesterday’s article mentioned, I believe that the same euphoric feelings of accomplishment achieved in MMOs can be had in single player games, as well. In that article, I didn’t even acknowledge the existence of any sort of end-game in the single player games, though. Adding this fact into the mix makes the case even clearer: I believe that, even socially, just as much fun and reward can be had from a single player game in all of it’s forms (story and after-story, that is, end-game) as in an MMO.

I’ve been on something of a wii-frenzy lately. It’s the only current-gen console I own (and the only 4th-gen console I will ever own) and I’m trying to “keep up” with the console by playing through all of the headliner games. So far I’ve played through several, the most notable being Super Paper Mario and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. These two games are very well placed on the wii, their controls complement the capabilities of the wiimote (and in the case of Zelda, the nunchuck) very well, and the story and gameplay are most excellent. Another thing I’ve noticed, independent of the console itself, is that these two games (in particular) are very long.

Super Paper Mario, when it was all said and done, took about 17 hours to beat. Of course 17 hours isn’t really too great a time investment for someone with hundreds of days locked up in MMOs, but I don’t think anyone would disagree that for a console game aimed at a younger audience, 17 hours is about the threshold, at least as far as attention-span is concerned. The game was engaging, witty, and oh-so-loveable for the entire 17 hours, to the point where I didn’t even realize how long I’d been sitting in my chair playing. That, in my opinion, is a good measure of a game’s quality.

In Twilight Princess, however, I’ve already spent a good 35+ hours adventuring non-stop (my gameplay says 44 hours, but I’m not sure if it counts up while the game is paused, etc, so this is adjusted a bit) with the strategy guide. I mention the guide just because I’ll finish the game with every heart piece, poe, bug, and special item, so this may be a fairly bloated number. Just running through the temples and everything may be fairly shorter. Sitting down and playing for 5-6 hour sessions in Twilight Princess doesn’t seem weird at all. The game is so fluid and continuous that I hardly flinch when presented with a new series of temples to grind through at 2-3 hours each.

My conclusion, and the point of this article, doesn’t really have anything to do with these two games in particular. The reason I wrote this article is because I’m high on that feeling, the one you get after you beat a really long game. To me, it also feels a bit like the feeling you get when you loot a really freakin’ sick item in an MMO that you’ve been playing 40+ hours just to get. The thing that intrigues me, though, is which feeling is stronger? Which feeling has a more lasting effect? Maybe the answer to this seems obvious to a lot of people reading this. I wonder, however, how many people would continue raiding and playing MMO games full time if they realized that the feeling that comes from multiple days of raiding and the feeling that comes from playing through a single-player game are similar?

In an MMO, you are rewarded with a permanent upgrade to your character (permanent, at least, until the next expansion comes out). In a single-player game, you’re rewarded by being “released” from the game itself. You probably no longer have the urge to play as much. In addition, you’re rewarded socially to, in my opinion, a greater extent than you are in an MMO.

Think about it this way: when you hear people talk about EverQuest, or any MMO they’ve played in the past, there are many people who can relate, because there are many people who played. At the same time, even people who never breached level 20 in EverQuest are still able to talk nostalgically about the game, simply because playing and getting somewhere was an achievement in and of itself. Even if the person talking spent years raiding, they can still level with you on some topics: “omg jboots quest”. Here, so many years later, the newb is on the same level as the pro raider in terms of their endearment toward the game. In a single player, game, however, people can talk about their experiences with beating the game. It seems like there’s a far greater difference between someone who’s beat a game talking about it and someone who hasn’t. “dude, ocarina of time was so awesome, remember how hard the ganondorf fight was when we were little?”

Maybe part of it is that the likelihood of a person beating 10 single-player games is higher relative to the likelihood of a person playing an MMO for 10 times as long as it takes to beat a single-player game.

So, and this is the essence of this article, why would you spend the same amount of time achieving a marginal upgrade for your character when you can get the same social feeling from beating a game on your own? I wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that everyone shouldn’t. I’ve done both, and don’t regret either choice. It does give an interesting, new interpretation of time, though.

So my girlfriend bought me Super Paper Mario yesterday, after listening to me talk about it for the past 2 months. Her first attempt to silence me, arsenic, didn’t work, so the option buying this for me must have been a close second. Of course, I was ecstatic: girls, video games, girls giving me video games. What could be better, right? I didn’t actually know that Super Paper Mario (SPM before my fingers go numb from typing it out again) was an RPG, but that’s simply icing on the cake. You play as Mario, you level up, you gain experience (points). This game is incredible. I’ve seen that it’s gotten great reviews from most of the game sites out there, but I didn’t really know what to expect; this game has the kind of stuff that you can’t really explain in words.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re Mario, living in a boring, quiet world with your butt buddy best friend Luigi. One day, the two of you decide that it’s boring, decide to visit Princess Peach in her castle only to find out that she’s been kidnapped. Comedy ensues. Much later, after the comedy has ensued, you find out that Count Bleck (and not Bowser) has kidnapped PP (Princess Peach, or Poon, whichever the reader prefers) for his evils ends. Being the great guy he is and having the bold moustache he has, Mario decides it’s his job to get “shit” back on track.

It’s actually very complicated plot considering the audience, but it’s engaging and it gives you at least 10 minutes worth of excitement to thrive on until you’re given the ability to warp between 2- and 3-D. This is really the selling point of the game (well, for anything besides a Mario game, this would be the selling point), and it’s introduced with uncomfortable amounts of subtle humour and sweltering irony.

From here, the point of the game is to collect 8 pure hearts, which can be recombined into 1 massive, throbbing purity heart, allowing the legendary hero to defeat Bleck and close the dark portal that’s consuming all worlds. You’re given one heart for free, just to get the game going, and after about 1 hour of play, the second can be retreived. It’ll be interesting to see how long a game this one actually is.

Between her and me, we’ve gotten to the second chapter (of 8, I presume: 7 to collect the hearts and 1 for Bleck’s temple) and it’s looking to be a roaring ride to the finish. I’ll probably write a review on it after I’m done playing, even though the game isn’t new at all.

I found this video earlier today, and figured that it needed to be shared. I’m excited for the next game in the Super Mario series and from the looks of this video, I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed.

It looks like there’s heavy emphasis on moving around on non-flat surfaces, which is totally cool. Plus, if anyone knows how to get the most out of the Wii controller, it’s these guys.

Enjoy!

To start this one off, I’d like to just apologize for the lack of updates this week, as I was at a friend’s house at Flathead Lake celebrating the fourth of July! There should be more continuity in the articles to come.

I’ve been thinking about cross-system gaming lately after seeing some perky advertisements for games for PC that you can play against people on consoles. The whole idea of playing on a computer with a keyboard and mouse against someone with only a controller has been bugging me all week; I’ve come up with a couple points I’d like to share, as well as a couple of questions I’d like to get feedback on.

First of all: Is playing a game with a keyboard and mouse versus someone with only a controller fair?

I think this is one of the most important things about this question is the hidden one which lies underneath: which genre of game are we talking about? For example:

Playing an RPG without a keyboard isn’t really as “unfair” as it is “inconvenient”; you can move the similarly (if not more naturally) with a typical current-generation controller than with a mouse, but your communication options are severely limited. Since a big part (the biggest, if you ask me) of the online RPG experience is the community and your place within it, not being able to express your thoughts and ideas to others in an efficient way is a big deterrent. To give an example of the console/computer contrast, consider this: I used to love playing Phantasy Star Online for my Dreamcast. Before I bought a keyboard to go with it, communication was barely in real-time (canned phrases and a completely horrendous keyboard “thing” were available). Politeness, courtesy, and casual conversation were generally not possible, as they were regarded as a waste of precious play time. Getting a keyboard changed the entire game in this respect; it took the game to a whole new level socially.

To compare, playing a first-person shooter without a keyboard and mouse against others with them, in my opinion, could never really be fair or convenient. There are so many different key combinations on the keyboard for hot keys and the mouse is so conducive to aiming that even newer players could take out skilled console-FPS players with relative ease. Maybe adding things like auto-aim and the ability to adjust the sensitivity on the control stick can bring the playing field to a more equitable equilibrium, but I think the overarching benefits of keyboard and mouse FPS gaming outweigh any that the console could dish out. Anyone who’s played an FPS with a tightly-tuned sensitivity setting on their mouse will tell you about how fast they can spin 180 degrees by flicking their mouse, a luxury not really possible on the stiff control stick of the console.

Having said all of that, I realize that there are keyboard and mouse controllers available for many of today’s consoles. Going back to the Dreamcast: if I remember correctly, Quake III included the ability to play on non-Dreamcast servers, meaning that Dreamcast players could play against people with keyboards and mice on PCs. Of course, Dreamcast had a special mouse and keyboard which could be bought, and after that the game was bearable and even fun at times.

To be sure, there are many other genres to be considered here, but since I have a preference for the two listed above, I’ll keep the discussion focused there for now (in the interest of time!).

Second: Even if both parties have access to the equipment, are there any benefits to playing on a specific system?

This is where the issue hits home: if you own both a decent gaming computer and a current-gen console and the game is available for both systems, which one do you buy, assuming you’ve got the keyboard, mouse, and any other relevant peripherals? If there were no obvious benefits either way, it seems like we could expect a 50/50 split between what people buy. For 100 people in this situation, the company will sell 50 games for the console, and 50 games for the PC.

So what’s the result? What are the differences, if any, that would change it from a 50/50 split? Apart from the “I’ve already bought the keyboard, mouse, and all of these other relevant peripherals, so I may as well buy the console version” logic, what drives this decision? The longevity of the console versus the PC? What do you think?

Most importantly: what does the convergence of gaming equipment between the console and the PC mean for the future of each? (That is, if we all have keyboards, mice, and everything else on our computers and our consoles, what does it mean to be playing on a console versus playing on a PC?)

Many of my favorite memories from my Nintendo 64-playing days come from that land of Hyrule made so masterfully into 3-D in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I remember stepping into Hyrule field for the first time, thinking how amazingly vast the plain before me was. It was the first time that Hyrule had been cast into the third dimension, and the result was stunning. I still remember how “realistic” I thought everything was back then (and, really, compared to all that had come before, it was realistic). Many gamers can probably relate to all of the possible nostalgic sensations I could describe when I talk about this game, but that’s not the point of this discussion. The fact that Ocarina of Time was such a break-away hit and left such a good taste in so many gamer’s mouths was what I had in mind when I recently sat down and bought all of the Zelda games for sale in my Wii’s virtual console. Reality, however, had other plans.

I ended up buying The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: Adventure of Link, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. When I first sat down with Zelda and Zelda II, I had forgotten how hideous the games on NES really were. The Wiimote bears a striking resemblance to the old NES squared-off controller once you turn it sideways, which was a nice treat for the eyes, but actually playing the games was a different story. I was quickly reminded why all of the old Nintendo consoles had “select” as a button on their controllers: you had to use it, and often. I’ll admit my attention span only lasted for about 30 minutes on each of the two NES games, but that was all I needed to remind myself that sometimes it’s better to let the past be past, and realize that the reason people play games on consoles like the Wii and the PS2 is because they’ve made so many improvements along the way. People don’t like pressing select, they’d rather use the arrow keys: thus, newer games use the arrow keys. OK, fine, $10 is an acceptable loss in this case. At least the logo channels will look good on my Wii’s dashboard.

Before I began playing Ocarina, I wondered if I would have a similar experience: maybe after having played Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time wouldn’t be very fun. With this in mind, I clicked the OoT channel with the Wiimote and began to play. Of course, with all Nintendo 64 games on the Virtual Console, you’ve got to use the “Classic” controller as they’ve labeled it; some kind of bastard child cross-breed of a nintendo 64 controller and a gamecube controller. It fits in the hand well, yes, but the controls are different enough from the original game to merit 10 to 20 minutes just to retrain your brain. It was amazingly hard to adjust to the new buttons, but the real test came with the movement of the character using the Classic Controller’s left thumbstick. The right thumbstick replaces the yellow ‘c’ buttons on the Nintendo 64 controller, and the change is nice. It makes it very easy to slide between any two of the yellow buttons, which is useful in some situations for the game.

The left thumbstick, the one which controls the movement of Link, is way too fast compared to the Nintendo 64 version. I don’t know what they did, or what they were thinking, but there is a subtle change here (I plugged in my Nintendo 64 and popped OoT into the cartridge slot just to be sure) and the stick is far more sensitive than the N64’s ever was. I suppose, if I had to, I would attribute the new sensitivity to the fact that the technology in the controller mechanism itself has greatly improve, and the controller I used to play OoT 10 years ago was probably a little worn out itself (not to mention that I’d spent so many hours playing on that thing that it seemed like second nature).

The game itself is exactly the same (so are the original NES versions), but this time we have a wireless controller (the classic controller plugs into the bottom of the Wiimote, and the Wiimote is wireless), some extra buttons on the classic controller itself, and the benefit of a “Home” button that we can use to get back to the Wii dashboard (N64 didn’t have a dashboard, so turning the console off after saving was the next best thing).

To be sure, I’m still making my way through the vast expanses of Hyrule to defeat Ganondorf (if only so I can then play Majora’s when it comes out on the console, and then wind waker, and then twilight princess with some continuity), but it’s going a touch slower than it went when I played the first time through. The magic is still there, but it’s harder to get into the game when the graphics aren’t so cutting-edge. For $10 (1000 Wii points), the game is a worthwhile investment, since it’s held to be one of the best games ever made by many authorities.

So, while Nintendo has done an excellent job recapturing the Ocarina in this case (the smoothness of play on the Wii is notable) with their new controller, they’ve missed something in terms of capturing the time that the game first came out. That exact magic felt when first entering the game may be elusive, but playing the game through once more on your Wii will feel a hell of a lot better than simply dwelling on it.

All of the current-generation consoles (with the exception of the Wii, but that’s no surprise) are capable of producing an HDTV-quality video signal, helping to promote High-def in all of it’s un-standardized glory. This means bleeding-edge corpse explosions, pixel-by-pixel cleavage, and of course, extremely realistic terrain of a caliber previously unavailable. Or, at least that’s what they hope you’ll think so you go out and buy that $2,000 HDTV you’ve “had your eye on” for the last 7 minutes at Best Buy. Of course the image quality will be better on a High-definition TV; there’s no question that a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will look better with twice (or higher) the resolution of your standard TV. The question is: With a $600 gaming console, and at 50% or higher prices on these High-definition DVDs, is the amount of extra money you’re paying for those pixels really giving you any advantage or status? Further, how much of the demand for High-definition entertainment equipment comes from “your buds” who need to see those extra pixels with their NFL Sunday-Ticket package versus gamers who want some illustrious “competitive edge” supposedly offered by being able to see an opponent from farther away?

Clearly this is a blog article and not an academic paper, so I don’t have the necessary data to back up my claims, but most people reading this article can likely understand where I’m coming from. We all know people who’ve gone out and dropped ridiculous amounts of money in order to make their games look better, to make their gaming experience more immersive. Everyone has a friend who found a “great deal” on some multiple-thousand dollar piece of equipment which still cost multiple-thousands of dollars. The tech industry must be loving it. If they aren’t already, there are a ton of ways these industries could capitalize off of the fleeting needs of the average gamer.

First: Re-release a High-def TV with one new feature and label it the “ultimate Halo 3 experience”. Mom’s basement would love another one of these, and there must be millions of kids nationwide who’d do anything for that new LCD screen with the 1ms-lower refresh rate.

Second: Re-release all of your old, poorly-rated (are there even any good movies that have been released on Blu-Ray/HDDVD? I think maybe the closest I’ve seen was Blue Crush or X-Men 12) movies with slightly higher quality and charge 50% more for them. This is the perfect match to step number 1, and will be highly complemented by the audio equipment you can get from step number 3.

Third: Take out some features from your $20,000 theater-quality speakers and audio subsystem and sell them in a premium audio store (since they’ve still got the brand name) for a large discount. For some reason, hearing Dolby 5.1 from five-thousand dollar speakers in 2007 sounds better than listening to Dolby 5.1 from five-hundred dollar speakers in 2000 when they introduced it. Has audio recording technology improved much since then?

While it’s hard to be sure what the actual percent of demand for these new technologies is, it’s a safe bet to say that a non-negligible portion of it is coming from today’s up-and-coming gamer generation. As long as you can make someone think that a technology will make them a little bit better playing their video games, or if you can convince them that going way past the marginal optimal spending levels for these technologies is a good then, then, well, I guess there’s no new information here.