Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Coming off perhaps the longest election of all eternity, one aspect that stands out for me is the relentless demand for voting. Particularly for young people, the act of voting transcended the realm of obligation and became more of a societal requirement. 2004's "Vote or Die" campaign resurrected itself as "Don't Vote": a series of videos where celebrities tell us to be apathetic about voting ... and then hit us with a psych! You just got sarcasm'd! In reality, the "Don't Vote" videos are giving the viewer a wink which nonverbally says "we're messin' around; go vote, you moron!"

Inarguably, such campaigns have been successful. The youth turnout was very large in 2004 and even larger this year. 24 million of them, in fact, aged 18 to 29 showed up, which is an increase of 2.2 million from 2004. While it's great to see participation in our political process, one wonders about the old newspaper to voting question, which goes something like this: "About half the population vote and about half read the newspaper. Let's hope it's the same half." Indeed, I question who is the better person: an uninformed voter, or an informed abstainer. On the other hand, perhaps pressuring us into the voting booth is justified: by voting for or against a candidate, we're investing ourselves in those individuals. Thus, we follow their progress and learn as we go. Whether the ends justify the means is for someone wiser than me to decide.

Which leads me to gaming. Gaming is both entertainment and an art-form. It's evolved from an experiment by college researchers to a hobby for electronic enthusiasts to a distraction for bar patrons to a culture for children before finally reaching its final stage of metamorphosis: a global juggernaut larger than film and music which appeals to an incredibly diverse group of folks. And as it becomes more relevant in our society, those of us who follow it closely should feel a responsibility to stay informed and take action when appropriate and/or necessary. Last week I presented a list of items that divides gamers. Here's the Top 5 issues that should leave you standing shoulder to shoulder with your gaming comrades.

"To each their own." It's a simple rule that, if universally followed, could result in world peace. On the other hand, if people didn't go online to bitch at each other about video games, then many bloggers would be collecting unemployment. I can't speak for every other hobby that exists, but I imagine that fly-fishing and glass-blowing message boards are considerably more pleasant than gaming forums.

So as it is, the gaming world is chock full of debate. Hrmm, scratch that. The word "debate" conjures impressions of two well-groomed individuals standing behind podiums and taking turns eloquently addressing issues presented to them by a moderator. For every one of these moments, you get a couple thousand boring ones. But when the forum is switched to the Internet, the dialogue transforms into a partisan torrent of vitriol. While political campaigning may be viewed as a chess match between experts, an appropriate metaphor for gaming and Internet debate in general can be found in the gigantic brawl at the end of 1977's Slap Shot.

In particular, Nintendo fanboys seem to simultaneously be a large source of and recipients to such slander. Perhaps it's due to Nintendo's extensive gaming history (especially when compared to Sony and Microsoft). Similarly, many of these Fanboys grew up with Nintendo, with the NES and SNES occasionally acting as a babysitter. For some, an attack on Nintendo is equal to or worse than an attack on one's family. To such individuals, I say take it easy. I'm certainly not above the label of "Nintendo Fanboy" (look at the name of this site for crying out loud), but I do try my best to apply sound reason and understanding to such hostility. I now present to you a look at 5 common weapons used in battle against Nintendo, an analysis of each argument, and how best a supporter of Nintendo should respond.

This week marks the release of the highly anticipated Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Poised to be more than the usual Metroidvania-romp, Ecclesia's glyph system coupled with great diversity in environments and level layout (we're apparently not stuck inside the castle anymore) has all of us whip-enthusiasts drooling with anticipation. To be honest, Konami could slap the word "Castlevania" on a box of assorted animal feces and we'd still pre-order. Here's the part where I'm supposed take a cheap shot at Castlevania Judgment, but admit it: no matter how many times we all spit on the brawler, we never seem to stop checking out movies or screenshots. Castlevania has us whipped; pardon the hideous pun.

Assuming I haven't lost all credibility after the Mega Man list, here's another stab at ranking the best of a legendary franchise. Unlike most other Top 5's, this list is not necessarily Nintendo-specific. Take a gander, and try to pretend that you don't know what number one is.

The video games as art debate is a ridiculous sham. It seems that many who fall on the "games are not art" side have rarely or never played a video game, often a product of an older generation. If your only experience with video games is hearing news reports about 7 year olds beating up hookers in Grand Theft Auto, then of course your view will be ignorant and bigoted. But that doesn't give critical validity to start creating arguments against that with which you are very unfamiliar. I know surprisingly little about Somalian Islamic Literature, which is why I don't make inflammatory statements about it. To suggest that any video game is incapable of being art is remarkably narrow-minded.

Television and movies choreograph all characters' actions and responses, leaving the viewer as a mere canvas on which the creator's views and reactions are imprinted. Though it's often that a viewer connects with a character and draws individual interpretations, their failures and triumphs can always be placed on the choices of the individual. With gaming, however, the connection can be just as deep, and to some, deeper. When our character fails, we grumble. When our character succeeds, we rejoice. Don't like the outcome? Well, then, you should've done things differently, dummy. While I'm not suggesting that games are better than film, they are simply different and arguably just as valid as high art. At a primitive level, it's not uncommon to punch the sofa in anger after failing a gaming objective. Just the same, it's nearly expected to vocalize with triumph after conquering the same obstacle. Emotional response does not automatically equal art, but creating something which vents one's senses and emotions and appeals to those of others certainly is. Different than stubbing your toe or finding 20 bucks in the street, gaming situations were carefully orchestrated to provide an experience which is dependent on the gamer to interpret. Why should emotions such as fear, love, and sadness be excluded from gaming?

Making my way down from my soapbox, I'll say that perhaps the most intimate display of emotion is crying. Here's the Top 5 moments in gaming that seem to get me every time. SPOILER ALERT: I hate having something ruined just as much as you do, so I'm giving a fair warning right now. This list contains spoilers for several high profile Nintendo titles. None are from the Wii (excluding the Virtual Console), but I will say that the fifth item refers to the WiiWare-bound Cave Story. If you haven't played the game and plan on purchasing it (which you definitely should!), please skip to number four.

Ugh, I'm so sick with the obsession over Mega Man 9. WE GET IT, IT'S A RETRO GAME. WHOOPEE. No, seriously, I'm sick of my own obsession with it. I still haven't picked up Wario Land: Shake It!, de Blob, or NHL 2K9. That's mainly because I've spent every waking moment enjoying the blue bomber's latest outing. My Wii Fit board is scolding me for its lack of use, my girlfriend is feeling neglected, and apparently my judgment is slipping. But there's something about the game that just won't let go of me. The thing should be illegal for its extremely addictive nature, right next to heroin and Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips.

I usually fall behind on discussing recent games, as I like to take awhile to fully absorb and process the arts and entertainment before I comment on it. But I think my Wii's play log will testify that I've made myself quite familiar with the title. The main quest is conquered, the event challenges are being slowly but steadily checked off the list, and I'm trying my best to climb the leaderboards of the time attack levels. Without any further ego-stroking, here's the top five things we love about Mega Man 9. Then we won't talk about it for a few weeks. Promise! ... maybe.

As the release of Mega Man 9 looms closer, the so-called "old school gamers" are about 17 pixels away from exploding out of their skin with anticipation. This is the retro gamer equivalent of a "Phan" witnessing a Phish reunion. The kid inside all of us, having been smothered behind flabby beer guts for years, is beginning to crawl towards the surface. I imagine there's quite a few younger gamers who scratch their heads at all of the love for comparatively prehistoric graphics and gameplay. However, if one were to wipe off the thick coat of nostalgia emblazoned onto the games of long ago, they'd often find enjoyable and satisfying titles. They're not definitively better or worse; just different from much of what is released today. Some prefer that, and they're hungry for more.

The biggest hurdle for those folks is commercial success. Not too long ago, retro revivals were rarely considered serious. After all, it would be silly to have Mega Man 9 released on a retail DVD disc. Yet with the success of downloadable services, the floodgates are now blown wide open. The slightly less hyped but similarly retro-themed Gradius: Rebirth was just released in Japan, and cowboy hat-clad developer Igarashi has stated that he's "very much looking into [WiiWare]." Perhaps the style of retro gaming is seeping into the bloodstream of major retail releases. Despite the beautiful hand-drawn graphics and cutscenes of Wario Land: Shake It!, the gameplay is heavily grounded in 2D. Perhaps we're experiencing a retro-renaissance, if I may quote Mr. Greenhough.

With this in mind, here's a few more dusty franchises we're nominating to be reborn through the birth canal of Nintendo's online service (wow, gross). These range from the unexpected to painfully obscure, so don't be offended if your favorite was not included. A small note: I excluded some IPs due to either a retro-esque presence on the GBA/DS or because they are likely destined for WiiWare. These include Mario, Castlevania, Contra and Metroid.

Rejoice, Wii-owners. You posses the only (un-modded) home console capable of hosting the greatest gaming catalogue of all-time. The Virtual Console's ability to provide an extensive back catalog coupled with the retail and WiiWare releases of Nintendo's latest instant-classics makes your system the inarguable flagship of Nintendo gaming. It's quite an amazing accomplishment: stuffing such immense gaming potency inside one little white box (save for disk space, you freakin' otaku).

Yet it'd be foolish and utterly fanboy-ish to act as if Nintendo were the all-powerful supreme chancellor of gaming. They are considered the best by many, but Nintendo is not the only company that creates amazing titles. Many of these come from third parties. Despite claims to the contrary, third party relations appear to be proceeding very well on the Wii. However, through a combination of first party titles on other systems as well as numerous issues which affect third party efforts, we must face the truth: good games sometimes go to non-Nintendo systems. Madness, right?! Here's our Top Five games that we wish Wii had.

Musicians have Vienna. Catholics have the Vatican. And gamers have Japan. While many significant contributions to the world of gaming have come from outside the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan is the unassailable fountainhead of modern video gaming. It's the birth and workplace of gaming giants such as Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, Yuji Naka, and probably others. To say that Japan is a place that hardcore gamers need to check out is an understatement at best.

Recently, I took a week to visit my brother who teaches English at a Japanese university near Nagoya. Hundreds of thousands of words could be used to describe the wonderful food, the beautiful temples, and the unique culture of the country. But being a life-long gamer, I paid special attention to the distinct connection between the country and the gaming scene we all know and love. For the Top 5, I usually come up with a topic, then list the top five items for that topic in order. For this edition, it was truly difficult to narrow it down to only five. With that in mind, here's my best attempt at listing the Top 5 gaming elements of my time in Japan.

Man, there are those who really love to complain. After viewing Zero Punctuation's latest video, I've decided that the old phrase distributed liberally by parents and teachers is indeed very true: "you can't please everyone." Nintendo themselves must have felt this pretty hard after their E3 showing was widely perceived as sub-par. On the gamers' side, even those who were most disappointed usually turned to any of the numerous third party efforts for hope. Understanding that Zero Punctuation is mostly intended as farce, it's difficult to call them out. Yet one glaring assertion must be rebutted: E3 2008 was most definitely not the year of the sequel. In fact, on the Nintendo side, the exact opposite was true.

For the first time in a long while, I'm much more excited about upcoming third party releases than Nintendo titles as a whole (save for Wario Land: Shake It!). As those of us who braved the GameCube generation quickly learned, a console cannot survive on first party titles alone -- even those of the highest quality. Here are the top five original third party games that we are excited about.

Hardcore gamers sure do hate tacked-on waggle. Indeed, no one likes to flail their arms around like they're trying to signal aircraft when a simple button press will do. And the guys on the other sides seem to be under the impression that the Wii is nothing but a PS2 that replaces thumb pressing with wrist flicking. So when a new title or an iteration of an existing franchise gets announced for the Wii, the non-believers tend to thumb their snooty noses and prattle amongst themselves with ingenious statements like "Dead Rising on the Wii? More like Waggle Rising. YEAH! HIGH FIVE, BRAH!" All right, maybe they're not quite as neanderthalic, but the sentiment remains: the use of waggle is often met with skepticism from the core.

To ignore the importance of waggle would be to forget what makes the Wii so awesome. Sure, some games have no real need for motion-based controls, but let us not forget the joy and immersion experienced by the non-gamer who first picked up a Wiimote and found themselves instantly engaged in a lively tennis match. To downplay motion controls would be to forget what made the Wii so successful in the first place. Without it, the Wii would be just a beefed-up GameCube. (THERE, I said it!) Just for a moment, let us forget about why Super Mario RPG has yet to be released on the North American Virtual Console and go back to the flood of imagination we felt when the Wiimote was first unveiled. Here are the activities we wish were made into games on the Wii.

When describing people like us, the media tends to churn out some pretty hideous labels. One of the more sickening terms is "the YouTube Generation." As though our entire existence revolves around Miss Teen South Carolina and Rickrolling. Though the generalization is annoying, one does have to concede that the video-hosting website has a fairly large effect on our society. Coupled with the fact that many people carry phones with the ability to record video, the public is now a walking telescreen whose surveillance potential would make Big Brother blush. Particularly in the heat of a presidential election, Senators Obama and McCain have to keep on constant alert for that all-powerful snafu. One slip of the tongue and they may find themselves having their own macaca moment.

Privacy issues aside, YouTube is a great place to take the pulse of a culture. Just type in a subject, and instantly you're provided with news stories, film and television references, artistic responses, editorial presentations, and individual observations. Given the gaming community's incredibly strong presence online, YouTube is packed with videos of/for/about gamers. As to be expected, there are hundreds of thousands of videos inspired by or based on Nintendo's history. Indeed, a simple search for the word "Nintendo" yields about a half a million results. Aside from the usual dead horse-beating of people acting out "Mario in the real world!" (OH WOW LOOK HE WENT DOWN A PIPE JUST LIKE MARIO DOES), there's a wealth of quality Nintendo-related videos that all should experience. Here is our top five.

5. Zelda Rap - There are embarrassing memories that, despite all best efforts to forget, will replay in one's mind until the brain isn't supplied with oxygen anymore. Eventually, however, the awful moments can desensitize the public such that the original matter loses its acidity. It's similar to a hot fudge sundae-induced brain freeze. At first, it's shocking and awful. But then you start to grow used to it, and before long you're dying for one due to its association with ice cream heaven. This basic principle applies to Nintendo's 1986 "Zelda Rap" commercial. As a couple of kids are sitting on a couch, the nerdier of the two asks, "Did you see the latest Nintendo newsletter?" (I've always loved how commercials choose to ignore the way people actually talk) While one might expect an immediate wincing reaction to the crispy freestyle that follows, the more common response is similar to a post-Jim Norton joke: "wow, he really went there ... like, all the way there without looking back." A week after viewing, you may find yourself reciting your own NES-influenced rhymes.

As the fallout of E3 rests upon the public, Nintendo finds themselves pelted by fierce criticism. Forum posts and blog comments have been predicting the assassination of the Wii core gamer. Not surprisingly, the most ominous declarations have been coming from within Nintendo's ranks. A civil war has been declared, and the fanboys are ready to revolt against the casuals. Though this core gamer is not ready to take sides, I will admit that Nintendo's press conference was quite underwhelming. It wasn't a complete and utter failure; the bigwigs at Nintendo made no bones about their intentions. Additionally, one can argue that the financial foundation of the casual gamer endows Nintendo with more capital to support first party efforts. And by having the most successful console, third parties are likely to focus resources on Nintendo's magnificent machine. Certainly, all parties had impressive titles associated with E3, such as Dead Rising, The Conduit, NHL 2K9, Wario Land: Shake It!, Mega Man 9, and plenty to be excited about on the DS.

Though Nintendo didn't close with a Jobs-esque "one more thing" slobberknocker, they accomplished what they set out to do. Yet dissatisfaction remains: the definitive description of Nintendo's E3 presence is a resounding meh. Here is a look at some of the most famous "mehs" in Nintendo history. Not utter failures, mind you. Rather, items that were simply met with indifference.

5. The Super Scope - The Nintendo Entertainment System was offered in several different "bundles," with the most successful bundle containing the successful NES Zapper. The light gun was a relatively new concept and simple to use. Plus, my cousin's friend said you can totally shoot the dog if you get to the 50th level in Duck Hunt and enter the Konami code on the second controller. Like many successes of the NES, Nintendo tried to transfer the idea of gun play to the SNES. Thus, the Super Scope was created. While the Zapper was similar in appearance to a revolver, the Super Scope was shaped more like a bazooka. This proved to be uncomfortable and not nearly as cool as the original. Plus, the device relied on infrared instead of light flashes, which was found to be less precise. The nail in the coffin was that the Super Scope went through AA batteries like I go through cheesesteaks: in ridiculous numbers.

This week sees the commencement of E3, the Super Bowl for gamers. On Tuesday, Nintendo will announce all of its big plans for the rest of the year, sending fanboys and fangirls alike into a frenzy. And while others choose to give us predictions of what we will see, here is the much more important information: things that we won't be seeing.

5. The Game Boy Ultra - Around the time that the DS was first announced, Nintendo made a point to clarify that the new dual-screened portable was more of a "third pillar" than the next installment in the Game Boy line. But then the DS started printing money ... lots and lots of it. Regardless, in an effort to stay true to their word (as they always do), Nintendo will unveil the Game Boy Ultra. The sleek handheld will feature a small but crisp widescreen display showcasing wonderful GameCube-esque graphics. In fact, it will be backwards-compatible with all GameCube games, using the same 8cm discs as Nintendo's last-gen console. Also, similar to the PSP's remote play, the Game Boy Ultra will connect to the Wii and allow data transfers to an SD card. This will allow Virtual Console and select WiiWare games to be played on the go. And since Nintendo plans to keep DS owners in agony by not announcing New Super Mario Bros. 2, they will reveal that the Game Boy Ultra will ship packaged with a free copy of Super Mario Bros. Ultra.

Survey Says: Not necessary; Contra 4 removes the need for any other portable game or system.

Every Monday, Wii Fanboy brings you the Top 5. Inspired by sages such as David Letterman and John Cusack, the Top 5 will give us a chance to share our opinions on the numerous facets of a vast video game culture. And after all, who doesn't like reading these kinds of lists (and then bitching about them afterwards)? So jump right in, agree or disagree, and maybe leave a comment with your own personal Top 5.

The first batch of WiiWare was released awhile ago, and there have been high-profile releases, as well as a few future cult-classics. Despite the plentiful start, there are still many more titles on the horizon. Here's a look at what we are anticipating the most.

5. Bomberman - Since 1983, not much has changed in the Bomberman universe. This has its pros and cons. It's good because the basic Bomberman formula is not one that needs tinkering with. It's bad because, well, it's a little ridiculous to shell out full retail price for the same game generation after generation. Then along comes Bomberman for WiiWare. Nintendo's downloadable service is the perfect platform for a game such as this. With online multiplayer for 2 - 8 players, this release should be everything we need out of Bomberman: simple, classic gameplay for a reasonable price. The reduced cost should be wonderful news for wallets that were unfortunate enough to weather Bomberman, Super Bomberman, Bomberman 64, and Bomberman Generation.