Celebrate the Release of Super Smash Bros Brawl by Honouring a Rare Gem

March 6th, 2008

smash bros rare gems

As of writing it is only a couple of short days until the release of the hotly anticipated, fan-service title; Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii. Among the Nintendo crowd this is huge news as it as a celebration of all things Nintendo and then some. Unfortunately I must admit my own interest in this title has been dampened considerably by what has been an almost uncontrollable fan fare, infact it is something which as a Nintendo fan I am very concerned about.

You see even though I am, have and probably always will be a fan of the big N, the fan following that this game has garnered is beyond fanatical. Now don’t read me wrong here, this series is a strong, respectable franchise in itself and just like everyone else I will undoubtedly enjoy it to it’s fullest. Smash Bros definetly deserves a large fan fare but it is the side effects of this fan fare that have me quite worried.

I recently posted an article for the Retro Gaming with RacketBoy blog where I looked at key forgotten Nintendo franchises. The reason why I chose to write about that particular subject matter was to push a stronger message out to a larger readership. Too many great games are dying at the expense of other games. All of the games that I listed have sacrificed themselves to other, sometimes better sometimes worse but overall much more hyped games.

This is where Super Smash Bros Brawl fits in. Ironically, desite being essentially a celebration of everything Nintendo, the Smash Bros. fan base in a way destroys this spirit.

You see game publishers love hype and they want people to get carried away with the hype so that their game will see more exposure. For consumers I think that this is quite dangerous because it removes what I call ‘level headed’ thinking. It ensures that consumers make choices based on preconcieved ideas instead of product research or through sampling the game before purchase. In all in what this means is that not all games are created equal hence, as a result we have a selection of forgotten, niche titles which are great games crying out for a purchase.

smash bros anticipation levels

This is a problem within all mediums I think. Unfortunately by nature as long as we have some preconcieved ideas or experiences with games then we will always be biased in our selective choices. We trust franchises (read: brands) that have earnt our trust, we buy a game which we was on the side of a bus or on TV or the game that our friends told us is cool. This is natural and this is fine. It is okay to anticipate a new game. It is only when this hype clouds our judgement that we have a problem, something which I feel Smash Bros has done for a lot of people.

I do want to stress that Smash Bros is not alone here, it is one of many, many titles under the same umbrella. I chose Super Smash Bros Brawl though obviously because of it’s relevance but also because it is probably most guilty for creating such an uncontrollable degree of hype. It was also a fitting choice for Nintendo in particular, to quote myself from the guest written article;

“This is truly a frustrating and sad situation. Nintendo has built up three of their strongest properties so much so that these other great titles simply can’t stay afloat.”

There is simply too much irony, isn’t there? Nintendos franchise heavy fighter killing off other franchises.

To further expand upon this concept I want to use the recent example of Endless Ocean (more here). Despite this game’s unique, meditative perspective on our medium and despite all of it’s unique qualities, how many Smash Bros fans do you think will buy or even care about this game. I suspect very few and this is the unfortunate problem. I suspect that Endless Ocean will sell well enough due to Nintendo’s Blue Ocean marketing stratergy so to provide perhaps a better example think of Pilotwings 64 and Super Mario 64 at the time of the Nintendo 64’s launch. Yes, case in point. I am sure that you can think of other examples so please share them in the comments.

This is just the way it is though, it is just simple gaming economics. Nintendo as a publisher puts all of it’s releases for a certain release window aside and portions out the advertising budget according to what they believe will sell.

Conclusion

I have for a long time been concerned about this issue, it is not going to go away. Aligning ourselves with a brand is natural, it is human nature. We have all been a fanboy at one time or another and are probably in some ways biased even once we do get out of fanboy territory (for example myself and Metal Gear Solid). As long as we are aware that this is occuring and maintain a ‘level headed’ perspective then there is no reason for concern. As gamers, maintaining this ‘level headed’ perspective is important as it allows us to be more open to new play experiences.

So I want to set a challenge for you readers. I want you to celebrate the release of this game which in itself is a celebration of all things Nintendo by either: researching, honouring or even buying a forgotten, niche game from the past. It doesn’t even have to be Nintendo, thats fine. Do some research, look past the hype and tell me what you have learnt or what games you remember below.

That guest post might be a good start on some ideas, there are more games listed at the end of the article.

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DP’s Gaming Videos #1

March 5th, 2008

game video film

Ever since I started working on some video content for the site last December, I’ve had a couple of ideas floating around about what I could offer beyond the video retro reviews. So far I have a few, very ambitious ideas for upcoming posts which you’ll probably see a long way down the track.

What I also plan on doing is capturing anything that I find interesting while I am playing a game and then share it with you readers. So with this in mind I have four videos which I have recently uploaded which are worth discussing.

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams PAL Options

This is a quick snippet from Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams for the Playstation 2. The video is of the frequency and language select screens (PAL regulations) with some fantastic localization.

GameBoy Camera – Run! Run! Run! Speed Run

Remember the GameBoy Camera? It was that dodgy, first party camera peripheral for the Gameboy Pocket. If you have used one of these before then you’ll know that the camera cart comes with a surprising number of extras such as some primitive photo editing tools, slide shows and mini games. The mini games are notorious for having insanely high scores, this video displays me hitting the 15 second mark for the impossible, button mashing mini game; Run! Run! Run!

I hooked my camera up to my Super GameBoy and then used a SNES turbo pad to cheat my way to this high score. By past memory, I reckon that the set high score to beat is 15 seconds which I could have beaten depending on the timing of my jumps.

Today Tonight – Red Ring of Death Article

Today Tonight is a current affair program which plays weekdays in Australia. They ran this segment about the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death problem. In typical Today Tonight fashion there is plenty of cringe worthy mistakes, I think that the worst one is how the guy in the clip states that EB Games pay for his replacement consoles which I found quite hilarious. My apologies on the out of sync voices and meh quality.

Mario Kart 64 – Awesome Finish

I played a surprising amount of Mario Kart 64 multiplayer last holidays, this 3 second snap is of one of our great finishes. I (Toad) was about to hit a bomb (another friend) while my brother (Luigi) was floating in mid air.

I’ll be keeping a close eye out for any other unique video ideas that come my way over the coming weeks.

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Metal Gear Solid 4 Pushing 50GB, What is Really Going On?

March 3rd, 2008

metal gear solid 4 big boss

There I was preparing to post some article that I had written last week when a feed from IGN came in stating some mind boggling news. Something which I needed to share my feelings about.

In a recent issue of Famitsu famed game developer Hideo Kojima stated that they had to exclude some content from Metal Gear Solid 4 in order to keep the game’s file size under 50gb.

If you know me outside of the blog then you will know that I am no tech head, infact when it comes to technology I am quite the traditionalist. But ever since I have heard about it I have always been intrigued by the massive size of a Blu-ray disc. Its simply mind bending that two dual layer discs (50gb per disc, I am pretty sure that it is dual layered) are larger than your average computer harddrive.

50 giga bites is as IGN put it quite a terrifying size for a game, I want to just put this into perspective for a second.

Xbox 360 game disc/HD DVD

Single Layer – 15gb
Dual Layer – 30gb

Playstation 3 game disc/ Blu-Ray Disc

Single Layer – 25gb
Dual Layer – 50gb

Xbox 360 launch title examples:

Condemned: 3.9 GB
Madden 06 NFL: 3.3 GB
Dead or Alive 4: 5 GB
NBA 06: 4.5 GB

Source

DP’s Estimated range of Xbox 360 game sizes: 3-14+gb

Okay, so essentially the average next generation game for either console is roughly 10gb of data. So essentially that means that MGS4 is about 5x that of the average next generation game. Keeping in mind that they had to work within that 50gb limit.

Forget the Tech Talk, What Does All of This Mean?

Technical marvel aside, MGS4 is a large game so I want to share some of my suspected reasonings behind the massively large fill size.

Full 1080p Graphics

Its surprising that with the buzzword 1080p being thrown around like its quickly going out of fashion that so few video games actually run at that resolution. In another recent interview with Hideo Kojima he stated that they were still unsure on deciding a final resolution for the game. They were still in the optimizing stages. The outputted 1080p graphics obviously would have a strong effect on the game’s file size hence this could be a hint towards the game running in ‘true high definition’.

Plenty of Video, Cutscenes and Voice

This reason comes as no surprise, every Metal Gear Solid title has featured lengthy cinemas and plenty of voice work. Even though Metal Gear Solid 3 was toned down considerably I suspect that MGS4 may be the title to boast the most video and voice yet in the series. After all Konami need to tie together all of the loose ends and finally lift the lid on the Patriots and in my mind that is going to take a lot of context to support.

On the topic of context MGS4 will also feature flashbacks to prior games to help new players piece the saga together. There are also the supposively insane intro and outro movies in the game. More of that can be found here. Both would contribute to file size.

Extensive Bonus Material

The Metal Gear series is known for it’s bonus material, infact all MGS games have been available with at least some sort of bonus disc. For MGS4 there is likely to be the return of a movie previewer, bonus costumes but most importantly additional missions. MGS2 Substance had Snakes Tales, MGS3 had the monkey catching mini game and boss rush modes so it is likely that MGS4 will see a mix of these.

My selections are:

Conclusion

This is really the crux of what I wanted to say with this post. Ryan Payton from Konami has stated that MGS4 will be of roughly the same length if not longer than MGS3. This is why I included the ‘What is Really Going On?‘ in the header because even with all of my points included MGS4 should be less than 30gb, surely. It is almost as suspect as that suspicious drawing of Big Boss released in early artwork. Hmmmm….

I can’t help but think that Konami are once again hiding something from the gaming public. Much like MGS2, MGS4’s information stream has been carefully maintained. As always there are plenty of secrets which we simply won’t know until the game ships. So, its got me questioning the game’s massively large size. Am I the only one who doesn’t find this incredibly suspect?

Leave me a comment with your thoughts.

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