Infendo has taken a snarky poke at the bevy of Marble Madness-y labyrinthine games gearing up for appearances on the Wii, and frankly, we too are surprised at the sheer number of such titles. Super Monkey Ball (obviously) already featured ball-rolling as one of the better parts of an uneven offering, and now three more upcoming games are centered around labyrinth puzzles. You know, we love rolling balls as much as the next guy, and certainly the gametype suits the console on many levels; the controller and the games-for-everyone theme are both well-supported here. But four games in the first year seems a little excessive. The Wiimote is also really well-suited to pointing and shooting, but we don't need four simple shooting gallery games, either. Sure, each game has different features. In Dewy's Adventure, the "marble" can go vaporous or crystallize into ice. Awesome. Except at the end of the day, it's still all about rolling around from here to there. This is really a pretty simple theme, and there are only so many variations on it. How many labyrinth games are we really going to buy? Does anyone expect to own all of these?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-13-2007 @ 5:24PM
boot said...
Who the fuck would want to buy this?
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3-13-2007 @ 6:04PM
Nick said...
I got my fill of these types of games in the two such mini-games in Rayman. That was enough for me.
I can see some folks wanting to pick up one of these titles, but you're right...this is excessive.
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3-13-2007 @ 6:12PM
Bruce Wicks said...
kororinpa is my favourite game on the Wii so far.
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3-13-2007 @ 7:22PM
Dopple Boppler said...
I loved the ball rolling game on Twilight Princess, and I think Dewy's Adventure looks like the bee's knees. Then again I loved Elebits so what do I know~
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3-13-2007 @ 7:52PM
Wes said...
Dewey's Adventure promises to be a bit more involed than a standard labrynth ball rolling game. But perhaps its fair to ignore the enemies, npcs and platforming gameplay elements.
That being said I look forward to getting Korrorinpa and mercury meltdown. And will get them both since they have entirely different level design aesthetics. And different takes on this genre.
its a drastic over simplication to say all of these games are essentially the same. No one ever says "How many first person shooters do we really need?" Even though first person shooters all contain similar types of gameplay, they all bring something new to the table. Which is why we enjoy variety in them. The same can be true for other genres.
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3-13-2007 @ 10:49PM
Zachary Hinchliffe said...
b-butttt.....
i liked Super Monkey Ball. ;-;
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3-14-2007 @ 1:08AM
dlynch said...
Marble Madness was the original. And the Wii Remote is made! for this type of game.
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http://sternclips.blogspot.com/2007/02/free-wii-points-via-amazon.html
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3-14-2007 @ 5:54AM
Sendoshi said...
Well, what do you think : there are like dozens of "car" games (which purpose is also to driver from point A to point B), millions of FPS (also get from point A to point B), and you complain about four "Marble Madness like" ? What if the Marble Madness like was a genre in itself ? I personnally don't like this kind of game, but I suppose that someone who really loves Monkey Ball will be very pleased to try Kororinpa, as much as a Halo 2 lover would be exstatic about playing in the Halo 3 beta, for example...
The "all these games look the same" rant seems pretty irrelevant to me : if any new game on the market was supposed to be entirely original, there would be only a dozen games or so, because from a certain point of view, all the games in a genre look exactly the same. You can say : "Well, all these car games are exactly the same : Need for Speed and Burnout are the same game." But if you've played the two games (and if you LIKED at least one of them), you can tell there is a BIG difference. I think the same goes for Monkey-ball and/or Kororinpa lovers... (Sorry for the bad english : I'm one of those garlic-breathed, frog-eating french people...)
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3-14-2007 @ 9:37AM
mr wisker said...
For the past couple of generations that one main complaint people had with Nintendo was the lack of any 3rd party titles. Now that it seems 3rd party developers are putting games out for a Nintendo console people are now complaining about there being too much of a certain type. While I agree to some extent I am not going to say that these games should not come out. I say bring them on.
Also we should realize that a lot of the people buying the Wii are, well, older people (I still cannot believe my Dad bought one) and frankly older people love these types of games (not too hard, easy to pick up etc....). If people buy a lot of these types of games I am sure we will also see developers putting out other types of games as well in order to cash in on the Wii's success.
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3-14-2007 @ 10:57AM
Rachel said...
I think it's a little too early to be dismissing all these types of games as the same. Each one has different features that make it unique.
I don't think they should sell this at full retail price, but I like the idea, and if they can all bring something new to the table, I'm for it.
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