The end of an era?
Then the redesigned slim PS2 came out and blew me away. I picked up Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank, and Jak & Daxter. Those 3 games opened up my eyes. I had nearly missed out on half a generation of games because of my blindness to Nintendo. I figured they provided me everything I needed, why bother with the rest? Rushing through all of those key titles and their sequels I realized that they picked up the slack where Nintendo left it. Whereas the GameCube had one Mario game, we were shafted otherwise for great platforming adventure titles. Wind Waker, while an okay title, was hardly ideal and not exactly what I'd call a finished product with the god damn Triforce hunts and picture taking.
From then on my foundation in Nintendo was secondary. Within a year my PS2 collection equalled my GameCube collection. Soon after it was double, then triple. By jumping ship my eyes were opened to dozens upon dozens of games Nintendo deemed inappropriate for the console or just never made it to the Cube, for being unprofitable.
But I maintained the respect for them. I camped out for the DS and Wii. I loved every minute of them initially, but slowly it faded. Sure, I got the key titles like Mega Man, Pokemon and Zelda, but I found myself spending more time playing on my PS3 and PSP. I'd look at my DS collection and see shit like Brain Training, Ridge Racer DS, and Animal Crossing, then look at the PSP with Pursuit Force, DJ Max Portable and Burnout Legends. It wasn't the same class of game anymore. While the DS gets random good titles (Contra 4, NSMB) the excitement isn't there.
And today ended it for me on the Wii. Iwata opened up talking about how important core gamers are, but failed to back it up. I mean, I own RE4, House of the Dead 2+3, Ghost Squad, and Twilight Princess, but looking to the future, what is there from Nintendo? Wii Sports 2 and Wii Music? God damn. Those are things I use to show my parents that games aren't all killing. What was more insulting was Reggie in an interview afterwards saying that the Wii has plenty of core titles like ANIMAL CROSSING AND GTA on the DS. Ignoring the fact that Animal Crossing is just a lazy port of the DS version, a retro-GTA and animal farming game are HARDLY what I'd call core titles.
Just pick ANYTHING from their old catalog. F-Zero, Punch-Out, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, but NOT fucking Animal Crossing. Go look on youtube for the 2004 reveal of Twilight Princess. Can you HEAR the audience there? Compare that today's. They don't give a SHIT anymore. The Wii is selling out no matter what they do and honestly, they're doing as little as possible. Hell, they don't even NEED to release more games. It sells on the fucking stupid premise of Wii Sports alone. The rest of the releases of Wii Play and Wii Fit just rub it in our noses.
But the finale hurt even more. The build up. The 'One More Thing' to parallel Steve Jobs and his famous touch (which even HE has lost). The lights dim. Spotlights pan around. Fog rolls in. A drum roll plays. Tensions mount. A fucking tweeker in a fauxhawk is pretending to bang away on the drums worse than a 4-year-old. Then, as if it can't get any worse, Miyamoto is revealed, visibily depressed as all hell, fellating a Wiimote, pretending to play it like a flute.
That was the big surprise? Wii Music? A game shown at the REVEAL of the Wii? You fucking waggle and push buttons and music plays? There's no game. There's no challenge, winning or losing. It's Push-Button=Music-Yay! That's insulting.
Granted, there are still the floor-show days of E3 to come, but I don't hold much faith. Yes, Brawl was announced 3 days in, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Come Friday, if there's not a big new title announced, I'm hanging up my shirt.
The years spent at Digipen. 5 years, driving past Nintendo HQ EVERY DAY, only to have them turn their back on me because I'm not a retarded consumer that would rather spend $250 to pretend to play tennis.
Fuck you, Nintendo. Fuck you.
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