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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A Few Fixes

February 6th, 2008

metal gear rex

Hey guys, I’ve made a few quick site fixes in the past few days that I want to quickly point out. If you want you can try and seek them out yourself otherwise here is the list below:

I’m sure a lot of you will e pleased about the darkened font colour. If its still not dark eough for the brighter monitors thenlet me know.

I decided to change the name of the blog as ‘the gaming blog of Daniel Primed’ sounds pretty anal actually. Where as Daniel Primed’s Gamer Blog has more punch to it and the gamer part also stresses that I write for you guys; the gamers.

I’m not sure about my current tagline: “Video Gaming Awesomeness”. Its cool but will probably be changed once I can think of something that sounds better. I’d like to include a Monkey Island quote but I don’t think that everyone would get it. So I’m looking for suggestions, if you have any then leave me a comment and I’ll use my favourite one.

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Star Wars in Soul Calibur 4, 16gb Pro Duo and More MGS4 News

January 11th, 2008

Theres been some fairly significant news to hit the streets of the gaming industry in the last few days. So I have sifted through and selected some articles that I wanted to share my thoughts about.

Yoda and Darth Vader in Soul Calibur IV
Source

Namco has recently announced that it will be continuing the trend of cameo characters in their Soul series. But unlike Soul Calibur II which featured (mostly) video game cameos this time Star Wars is the theme of the show. With Darth Vader (PS3) and Yoda (Xbox 360) coming in as new additions to the series.

darth vader soul calibur 4 playstation 3

Unfortunately I see this as a big oversight by Namco. Yes, playing as Star Wars in the Soul franchise is indeed awesome but why not stick to video game cameos? Because video game cameos are much more appealling to video game players than Star Wars characters, surely. Theres also a lack of justification for choosing Star Wars characters over game characters, there hasn’t been a new movie or anything to back this up. I guess we can forget about the rumour of Kratos and Master Chief as playable characters then.

16gb Memory Sitck Pro Duo
Source

Although its a little off topic, Sony have recently confirmed a new 16gb Memory Sitck Pro Duo. The Pro Duo is the stick used for the PSP as well as Vaio notebooks, Sony digital cameras and other Sony branded products.

This article grabbed my attention because this size of memory card is almost unheard of. Although it will definetly be a costly item its a real trump for the PSP mod and homebrew scene. I don’t think that I would need a card that size for the PSP and I wouldn’t use it over my 2gb compact flash card for my Sony Alpha A100 SLR (Pro Duos write too slowly and require an shell to fit inside the card slot) but its awesome in anycase.

MGS4 on the Home Stretch

2 new articles have come in from IGN about my most anticipated game of 2008; MGS4. The articles weren’t ground breaking but the following quote pricked my ears:

on CES ‘Dual Shock’ Demo

“Another thing that we noticed is that the game looks absolutely stunning. Everything is rendered in fine detail from the war-torn middle-eastern city that the level took place in, right down to the individual hairs on Snake’s ‘stache. When we asked whether or not the game will be able to run at 60 fps at 1080p, Konami said that the resolution and framerate were still being optimized and they can’t promise anything, but things were on the right track.”

This is very reassuring as I’ve been a litte worried about the game’s graphics. Obviously they look brilliant but it didn’t look like there was much variance in the colour schemes used judging by the video I’ve seen. Strangely when I look at the sceenshots it looks much more colourful than the video.

I’m not too fussed if it is run in 720p because my monitor is only fairly small so the difference between 720p and 1080p isn’t as significant than say on a 42” plasma. I would much prefer it to run at 60fps even if it was in 720p. There really shouldn’t be any games that run at 30fps anymore.

metal gear rex mgs4

See the screenshots looks vibrant

These facts suggest that MGS4 is indeed taking advantage of the Playstation 3’s to quite an extent so I guess this decreases the chance of that Xbox 360 port.

The second article summarises some more information about the release of the game. Stating that they are basically on the home stretch, that all of the content is finished and they are just squeezing out the last few bugs. More importantly though its been restated that MGS4 will launch almost simultanesous in all territories. Which is fantastic news. ^_^

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