The Scary Success of Super Mario Maker

Super Mario Maker is a fantastic product, and a sure-fire example of a gift that keeps on giving. You can make levels, upload levels, and play random levels made by random people all over the world. As long as it sells its cool few million (the Mario/Nintendo Console attach rate is always extremely strong), there will be an endless supply of new content rolling around in the internet long after you’ve exhausted your creativity. You will find your fun levels, your challenging levels, your confusing levels, and levels that will make you scream bloody mary. Essentially, it’s your typical Super Mario Bros. game on an endless supply of Bane steroids.

Four art styles and gameplay styles to choose from (Each game will indeed play differently depending on which version you have chosen), you can construct any crazy level your heart desires to make. You can have Bowser riding on a wiggler in the very beginning of a level. You can have 7 koopas piled high while lakitus toss flying piranha plants at you. You can have a level in which you have to avoid getting bigger in order to advance to the end. Whatever your mind makes up, there’s a good chance it’s feasible on the WiiU.

And this is awesome for the gamers and the Nintendo fans---this is potentially tough news for the actual company. Nintendo may have created a monster, they may have created a scenario in which the students are about to excel and trample over the teacher. Halfway through the production, Nintendo must have noticed that handing the keys of the franchise to a rabid, dedicated, and quite clever fanbase may yield some consequences down the road. What happens when the aspiring chef starts making better recipes than the head chef? You wouldn’t see Major League Baseball allowing the fans to make major decisions, right? (It would explain all the unanswered letters)

I am deathly serious when I mention that some of the levels I have experienced online contain some of the best level design since Super Mario Galaxy 2 back in the Wii days. I am also serious when mentioning that this is the most excited the gaming community is towards a game since Super Mario Galaxy provided Mario with a fresh new look and feel back in 2007.

What is making the gaming world giddy about Super Mario Maker is that with the ability to randomly play other people’s levels there is no consistency, no rhyme or reason, no formula that has been done to death by Nintendo in recent years with their decent-yet-limited New Super Mario Bros. series. We are seeing creativity that we had been desperately craving in the past decade from Mario games---being truly satisfied in the Super Mario Galaxy franchise but not much noise since. Even the highly rated Super Mario 3D World lacked the hype pop that we used to experience in other platforming games.

Nintendo is about to lose control of the Mario franchise, and it has already noticed the dramatic shift as they have been banning YouTube videos left and right concerning speedruns and the notoriously cruel and clever modded levels in recent days (stupid decision I must add). It has even reached a point in which Miyamoto recently talked about having to move the Mario franchise in another direction. He knows just as well as anybody that the nostalgia and the appeal of Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World is far bigger and more extensive than all the recent Mario platformers. The 2-D Mario games for the WiiU have combined for 10 million copies---which is only half of what Super Mario World sold, and still can’t match the numbers of Super Mario Bros. 3 (17 million)---and both games came out during a time in which the gaming industry was much much smaller.

It’s strange for this article to transform from praise towards a revolutionary and ballsy (especially by Nintendo standards) game to become a cautionary piece about the potential upcoming gloom in a franchise that consistently sells millions, I understand your current confusion. However Super Mario Bros. doesn’t move consoles like it used to. Mario Bros., Mario Bros. 3, Mario World, and ultimately Super Mario 64 looked and played well enough that it convinced you to purchase the console. These were hardware movers. And then there’s the big transitions: Mario Bros. Lost Levels to Mario Bros. 3, Mario Bros. 3 to Mario World, and then Mario World to Yoshi’s Island. Nowadays your rookies into the gaming industry know of Mario, might play Mario, but aren’t really purchasing Mario. A change is indeed needed, and Super Mario Maker’s resounding initial success is evidence of that.

Success is sometimes dangerous. Seeing the cash flow sometimes shields the fact that a change is needed. Major League Baseball needed a few changes, and it took years before finally applying some improvements, even though it was already a multi-billion dollar industry that’s always a few yards away from becoming the most lucrative sports league in the planet. The Super Mario franchise has seen over 200 million copies sold, but it does need a refresher, or better yet, a break. Look at what’s happened to Zelda---running on nostalgia fumes.

Perhaps it’s time for Super Mario to take a slight break, with Super Mario Maker providing the platforming thrills until the next installment rolls in. With its easy accessibility, DLC potential, and (hopefully, DON’T MESS THIS UP) easy transition to the next franchise via remake or spiritual sequel, Super Mario Maker can bring in new gamers, new creators, and tons of ideas for years to come. As long as Nintendo doesn’t pull the plug on this potentially budding spin-off, Super Mario Bros. can live off of Mario Maker while it seeks its next renaissance moment.

Whether it’s a change in lineup, gameplay additions, new power-ups, new storylines, new visuals, new spin-offs (Super Mario RPG 2 would be greatly appreciated by the way) or just absolutely revving up the quantity on the next Mario game (aim for the gold Nintendo, gun for 100 levels), we have reached a point in which the only excitement we truly felt about an upcoming Mario game was one that WE were allowed to design. That’s not exactly a good sign of confidence to the company that usually dishes out the experiences. Hopefully Super Mario Maker will serve as a wake-up call as well to Nintendo about the fanbase, about our commitment to the craft, and about the fact that they might need to step its game up. Until then, we have our official Mario level editor, and it’s definitely a dream come true---and probably Nintendo’s worst nightmare.

Mario Kart 8 and Nintendo's All-Hands-On-Deck Approach

May 30th, 2014 can be known as Nintendo’s Last Stand.


May 30th, 2014 can also be known as The Day That Saved the WiiU.


Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: Nintendo has everything banking on Mario Kart 8 owning and conquering the summer.


Nintendo’s lineup of this year is extremely thin, and with its deficit against the PS4 rapidly increasing and its lead over the XBox One rapidly decreasing, they need to place all their wild cards on the few bright spots remaining. Mario Kart 8 is that humongous bright spot that Nintendo has recently been throwing everything at to make sure it remains in the spotlight.

Mario Kart 8 has now a bundle in multiple regions around the world, as it’s now packaged with WiiUs and also a few extra goodies (with the Europeans getting the nicer package since Sony and Microsoft have pretty much dominated the area in the past several years). The $330 price tag is extremely good, considering that $70 less than a PS4 you get a system and a game that just might be the best in the franchise (More on that in a second).

Not only that, but now Nintendo is practically, literally giving you a free game by just purchasing this one! Register the game online and before you know it, you can have your hands on Wind Waker or Pikmin or Wonderful 101 (Well, if you are in Europe). So at $330, you can get a new system, two video games, and more goodies? This is definitely the all-hands-on-deck deal we have been anticipating from Nintendo as we are seeing the continually dismal sales of the WiiU. According to VGCharts, even the XBox 360 has been outselling it in recent times.



Let’s discuss the game itself: the biggest online game ever released by Nintendo, as you can compete in tournaments, customize races with friends and strangers, and even upload gameplay footage directly online. This is arguably the most hardcore-accessible Mario Kart since the original SNES version. The Koopalings are all in the game to increase the marketing of the other Mario games out and about that gamers aren’t noticing (Super Mario 3D World and New Super Mario Bros. U are far off the usual whopping Super Mario sales numbers). This is the largest lineup of racers ever assembled in a Mario Kart game.



Nintendo is banking everything on Mario Kart to save the WiiU, everything.



The 2-D and the 2.5-D Mario franchises couldn’t do the trick, but Mario Kart just might be that savior. The SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, and 3DS each have their Mario Kart installments that are among the best-selling games in their generation and in the history of the system itself. Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS are two of among the 20 best-selling video games in history. If there is something that sells, its plumbers in go-karts. Easy game to learn, easy game to master. Kids, parents, grandparents can play it.

But Mario Kart 8 needs to win. Smash Brothers U is too far away if this game doesn’t produce the noise.

Even the release date was meticulously planned to attempt to create the wave of success it desperately needs. It was originally slated for the spring but got moved after the disappointing 2013 holiday season. Summertime, right as schools and universities ends and free time actually exists. Although game companies prefer the September-December months to release the heavy-hitters, the summer has been kind to Nintendo. The infamous price cut of 2011 for the 3DS occurred in July, and hits like Mario Galaxy 2 and Mario Kart Wii came out in summer/close to summer.

Mario Kart 8 has the marketing, the online components that we had been begging for, the extremely diverse grouping of characters, the perfect release date, the inclusion to a bundle that doesn’t suck (Nintendo Land was a mistake and a half), and the focus and care that Nintendo should place on their hardcore fans. This is the 2014 version of Ocarina of Time, minus the epic commercial. The difference is Nintendo knew Ocarina of Time was potentially going to be the biggest and best game in history. With Mario Kart 8, it could be the biggest-seller of 2014 and finally thrust Nintendo into the as-of-now two-sided Eighth Generation console war.

And just that potential is why Nintendo is rolling out all its features, specials, and attention towards this one game. Can’t discredit them on lack of effort, that’s for sure. One thing is certain:



Mario Kart 8 is huge-success-or-bust.

The Hindering Success of the Nintendo 3DS

There was a recent interview of Koichi Hayashida on IGN talking about why the NES Remix games have not been released on the 3DS. In short words, he basically said that the 3DS doesn’t really have the technical capabilities to be able to run NES Remix. Of course reading the interview I found the answer interesting and would like to add one extra word:


Nonsense.


Total, unadulterated nonsense. The Nintendo 3DS will be running Super Smash Brothers (P.S., why is it lacking a true title?!?) on 60 FPS with no issue---and this fighter needs some major processing power to be able to replicate the Smash experience. You telling me that you can’t run a game that takes NES games (all of them 20+ years old by the way) and gives them little twists? Absolute lie. I don’t believe it in the slightest bit, sorry.

This is the truth: NES Remix would work perfectly fine on the 3DS, and to an extent should have been a strictly 3DS game with GBA or even SNES Remix occurring in the Nintendo WiiU. But the success of the 3DS is starting to directly affect the sales of the WiiU and Nintendo is beginning to see the problem.

Part of the WiiU’s failures (Trust me, there are dozens of reasons) includes the fact that it looks like the Nintendo DS on pure steroids. And while in hindsight it is a good idea since the original DS sold over 150 million copies worldwide during its epic run, it diminishes the value of the WiiU altogether. Why spend the $300 on a big DS when you can fork over half that cash and buy a system that is easy to move around with, and has a killer library of games?

Why get a WiiU that features Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Brothers WiiU, New Super Mario Bros. U, and the Virtual Console feature when you can get the cheaper 3DS with games like: Super Mario 3D Land, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Mario Kart 7, Super Smash Brothers 3DS, New Super Mario Bros. 1 & 2, Virtual Console, and a much bigger assortment of games?

Nintendo is making fantastic money, but it’s all coming from the 3DS. The 3DS nearly has 85% market share in the handheld field, and is steadily being able to hold off advances from the smartphones and Apple products to continue making good money---and this is without a major 3DS release currently making waves---until Smash Brothers and the inevitable Pokemon X/Y spin-off that is. The WiiU on the other hand is getting obliterated by the PS4 and has not taken off a.n.y.w.h.e.r.e., not even in the usually-reliably Japanese region.

Nintendo is not going the Sega path, since Sega failed in every field at the same time in the late 90s. Nintendo is still raking in cash, its still going to be fine in the long run even if the WiiU fails harder than the notorious Gamecube. But in order for the WiiU to have any sort of chance, it needs to distance itself from the 3DS as much as humanely possible. And NES Remix (And potentially SNES Remix, GBA Remix, N64 Remix) is part of that solution—becoming exclusive for the struggling machine.

This is why any idea that seems better-suited for the 3DS is winding up on the WiiU: GBA Virtual Console, DS Virtual Console, The Remix Games, and the long-overdue influx of indie games. Although it seems like giving more Nintendo gamers options to play these types of games, if the 3DS owners have their hands on any of these properties, they will be much less inclined to transition to the WiiU in the eighth generation of gaming.

Nintendo has totally dropped the ball in terms of upgrading the looks of their main franchises, still sticking with the 2-D, not-as-hardcore installments to their heavy-hitters like Mario and Donkey Kong—resulting in the WiiU versions feeling like mere Windows-like upgrades to the 3DS gems. Am I really going to fork over the $60 for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze when it looks like a game that can handle itself on the 3DS?


Side Note: One of the worst things Nintendo did in the past few years is manage to condense a first-party Nintendo Wii game to the 3DS and display how behind the Wii-series of systems is compared to the PS4 and XBox One.


So it may look strange, it may look downright bizarre that all these incredible ideas that seem perfect for the forever-improving 3DS wind up on the WiiU, but it’s mainly because the console is struggling to find its footing and momentum—and it is leading to the transferring of handheld ideas to the larger machine. The 3DS is a successful piece of hardware that is all but eliminating its own best friend, Nintendo’s own WiiU. Nintendo’s shift of focus is smart and understandable, for the console market is bigger and more successful than ever (Grand Theft Auto V anyone?) and it is time to take advantage of this.




That being said, in the field of transferring handheld ideas to consoles, why is Pokemon STILL not on the radar?

The Unfortunate Timing of an Excellent Nintendo Game Trailer

Nintendo’s marketing campaign needs some help.



Their latest trailer that came out on a random October morning propelled Super Mario 3D World from potential mere cash cow into a potentially incredible game. All it took was two minutes of pure mayhem gameplay and ridiculous depth of level design to display this Mario game as not just another adventure---which was the financial and critical reaction that followed the launch game New Super Mario Bros. U.


But it begs the question, why on earth did Nintendo not unveil any of this in the E3 trailer? Why did they disallow us to get excited for this holiday release? I mean, look at the trailers:









Notice the newer one makes the older trailer (which was surrounded by far, far more press) look like pure garbage. I will even go as far as to say that Nintendo could have gotten some major momentum if they had featured all the insanity that surrounds the upcoming Mario game. All those power-ups, all those unique features, and those interesting twists to the usual platforming that is associated with the Super Mario brand. Peach isn’t even the one kidnapped this time. All these little changes would have allowed for Mario to stand out and take some of the limelight.




Remember the ridiculous amount of attention that the trailers of Cloverfield and Inception (with the latter having the best teaser in the history of film) received? All it takes for a game or a movie is one trailer to get you excited. Get you hyped. Get you pumped. And to move sales. I can honestly say if they had combined the price cut with that second Super Mario 3D World trailer during E3 then the WiiU would be doing far far better leading up to the holiday season.


Instead, we have an excellent trailer muddled in the GTAV hype train receiving little attention and not contributing much to Nintendo’s plea that the WiiU is the system to buy during the upcoming insane month of Nintendo.




Ill timing Nintendo.

The Backwards Progression of Quantity in Gaming

When Super Mario World first came out way back in 1991, it boasted 96 levels. A number of levels that high had never even been an afterthought in the early 90s, as gaming was just beginning to develop a personality and an image in the world of entertainment. In the NES days, 20 stages was considered an excellent amount. Super Mario World however broke the mold in a fathom of ways. Not only did it nearly hit the 100-level plateau, but did it without having to sacrifice any other aspects of the game---the background art, the pacing, the design, the music, and the overall quality of the game. It was a hands-down masterpiece, and from an early stage tested the limits of the Super Nintendo with its quantity as well as its quality.

Fast-forward to today. We barely can find video games that can hit past 90 levels, and some of the biggest video gamers out there can be beaten in just a couple hours. Halo 3’s campaign mode can be beaten in a fast 2-3 hours. The newer Call of Duty games focus so much on the multi-player that they cut back on the single-player mode by a substantial amount. Remember the endless days you worked on Super Metroid? Well, Metroid: Other M barely checks in at past 15 hours. Kirby Super Star for the SNES has 7 games embedded in it, including an updated version of Kirby’s Adventure. The latest Kirby game can be beat in 5-6 hours. Worst of all even the RPGs are becoming notoriously smaller. Pokemon Gold/Silver contained 16 badges, an Elite Four, and so much to do the game pack was barely able to contain it. The latest Pokemon game is still at a meager 8 badges, and still doesn’t have the badly-needed tournaments that we always see on the anime.


Now, before you mention that it’s Nintendo and only Nintendo lacking the progression, the other companies are not off the hook. The Final Fantasies of the 90s have far more gameplay and storyline to cover than the ones of today. The Gran Taurismo franchise seems to spin its wheels often after the second installment, which boasted over 100 cars to collect. The fourth one? Not even close....just 50 more cars and a dirty dozen more tracks--which are mostly retreads of previous installments. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 could have been beaten in one afternoon, while the Genesis Sonic games contained longer levels, and more of them. We still don’t have an action/adventure game from any non-Nintendo company that comes even close to hitting the amount of gameplay hours required to beat Ocarina of Time, and that game has been around for over a decade.

What the heck is going on? The games are still being sold at massive prices, similar to that of back in the 90s, but the amount of gameplay contained in the games have diminished. We have seen gameplay being shelled out and replaced with cinematic scenes, higher-quality graphics, and more multi-player goodies that occupy most of the space of the disk. Remember when the Playstation won the gaming war because the CDs were cheaper and can fit much more content? What is the excuse of the gaming industry for still not progressing in terms of amount of actual gameplay content in their video games? Picture this: when Super Mario World came out, the IPod had not been invented, and the game had over 70 stages (The 96 levels boasting was a mild lie, it actually has 96 different ways of beating a level). New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the best-selling platform game of the past generation, only has 70-80 levels. And New Mario Bros. was by no means a graphical achievement.

Some may argue that the graphics and difficulty of 3-D game production has led to shorter games. And to this, I bid bull. Check out the games that pushed the limits of the SNES graphics: Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Star Fox, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. They did not just provide top-notch graphics at its time; they were also all lengthy games (with Star Fox slightly being the exception). Hell, let’s go to a Game Boy game called Wario Land 2. That game has over 50 stages for crying out loud!! We still have 2-D games nowadays, as they’ve made a recent surge in popularity, but they still don’t hit the quantity amount of Mario World. We still don’t have a racing game that is fearless enough to give us more than 40 tracks to race in.

With the technology we possess in our hands, seeing that televisions look better than movie screens and we can communicate with someone and visually see them (even though they might be thousands of miles away) with a small computer, why in the heck are we not at a point in which games take ions to beat? Why are we not at a point in which we see 2-D games with 200 levels, or racing games banking in 75 levels?

This is because gamers are not only a crazy supportive breed, but we tend to look past the shortcomings just because we are so hungry for the next game. Gamers are some of the best consumers in the American economy, which is why video games make more money than movies, and is why more and more second/third-party companies are jumping ship to the industry. Everyone wants a piece of this pie. But we gamers just fork over $50 bucks no questions asked despite the fact that they are giving us less but maintaining the same price. 25 million gamers around the world bought Mario Kart Wii, even though it has 32 stages—the same exact number of stages as Mario Kart: Super Circuit---a Game Boy Advance game released 10 years ago. 20 million gamers bought Modern Warfare 2, even though it can be beaten in just 4-6 hours. Now gaming companies are relying on the Blockbuster effect: hype up the games to holy hell, so everyone buys them immediately before realizing that the game is eerily short.

Why is this lack of quantity thing an issue? Because video game sales are dying because of the resale market. The issue isn’t big now, but in the coming future we might have problems as the smaller companies might succumb to sluggish sales and have to stop competing. Now, if you create a game that requires months to beat, and then unload extra downloadable content on top of that, then the lasting appeal of your game will prevent you from trading in the game a mere month after you originally bought it (unless the game sucks, but that’s a totally different article). We have been blessed with arguably the greatest generation of video games in history, as all three competitors gave us a multitude of excellent games on a consistent basis. The war of the seventh generation had started way back in 2006, and just now we finally saw the market slow down a bit. That being said, how can the industry progress any further seeing all they accomplished in just 5 years? By increasing the value of the games, by infusing some more gameplay hours.


I want the next 2-D Mario to truly test my patience and endurance by flipping the script and doubling the amount of levels contained in Super Mario World---a video game that is turning 20 this year. I want the next Fable to keep me on my toes for months to come. I want the next Call of Duty to stretch to the length of a Tom Clancy novel as well as give us many more places to go and more places to engage in combat. I want the next big racing game to give us so many tracks it will take me months to master them all. I want an RPG that just explodes in storyline, similar to what we gamers experienced with Final Fantasy VI way back in 1994. I think we very supportive gamers deserve bigger, badder, lengthier games. Or at least not make it such a cinch to beat. Or at least give us multiple endings to gun for. Chrono Trigger back in 1995 had a dozen endings. Grand Theft Auto IV? Two. And that game is a freakin’ modern-day sandbox game.

Bottom Line: Video games need to be longer, there are no excuses for any video game that can be beaten in less than 10 hours. Yes I know there are some excellent games that can be beaten in less than 5, but those are very far and few when compared to the amount of games that are decent, slightly entertaining, but already beaten three days after you bought the thing. Back in the 80s and 90s we bled for those games, spent weeks mastering them and finally trying to beat the last level, the last boss. Games have gotten much easier and I will let that one slide, but if you are going to minimize difficulty, at least maximize the length. All companies are guilty of this, as they are all adopting the blockbuster technique of maximizing sales within the first week before anybody catches on (Nintendo is the lone exception as they rely on word-of-mouth to improve the sales).

For this next generation of gaming, I want more companies to truly test the limits of not the hardware, but its software and just how much they can fit inside their disks. Give me back my quantity. Quality doesn’t have to be sacrificed for quantity, just look at all the amazingly lengthy games from the SNES and Playstation back in the 90s.

We need a change.

I want to lose my social life to these upcoming video games, not have them continuously become a mere one-weekend activity.

WiiU Controller's potential for Success/Disaster

The WiiU controller was unveiled a couple months ago and we still are quite confused as to what its going to do alongside the WiiU system. The controller showcased its technological capabilities, but didn’t really dab into what it will do to our video games, our favorite franchises, and our favorite genres of games. And while I don’t have the answer to any of those questions, I can pretty much give opinions and predictions.

First off, the specs:
• Built-in accelerometer, gyroscope, speakers, front-facing camera, sensor strip, microphone and a 6.2 inch (15.7 cm) 16:9 resistive touchscreen
• Two Circle Pads and one D-pad
• Stylus
• Select, Start, Home and Power buttons
• A/B/X/Y face buttons, L/R bumper buttons and ZL/ZR trigger buttons
• Controller sync button

Let’s look at a few more images of the WiiU controller.




And now, let’s predict whether the controller will help/hurt certain games, franchises, genres of gaming.


Category #1: Mario
Predicted Verdict: Hurts

This controller is a bit too mighty for Super Mario, as he is a simple plumber engaged in forever-simple games that can usually be learned in a few minutes. Our fondest memories with older Nintendo systems usually involve Super Mario, and jumping and running your way through colorful levels. With that massive screen in the middle, it makes the controller a lot wider. Mario’s appeal was its simplicity. Platform games never need an extra screen, don’t let anybody else tell you different. Look at the Mario Bros. games, they are among the best is history and needed just a couple buttons. That screen? Waste of space—if you plan on playing as Mario.


Category #2: Zelda
Predicted Verdict: Helps

Zelda has always been more of an adventure game and less a combat game. While Zelda combines action and adventure with usually flawless precision, this game is far more exploration/adventure based to nearly a point of it being an RPG. As a matter of fact, some gamers out there do classify this as an RPG. That extra screen gives plenty of potential to the Zelda franchise, as you can use this screen for maps, for configuring items, for searching for hints, for fun interaction with people you meet along the way, and much more. You may think we’ve exhausted all the ideas for this franchise—this controller can honestly open the door to some new and clever ideas.


Category #3: Metroid
Predicted Verdict: Hurts

The new controller can help Samus and the Metroid brand, but this all depends on whether Samus will be 2-D or 3-D. If Samus is going to eventually hit her 2-D stride (this idea was dabbed upon with Metroid: Other M) then this new controller will not help in the least bit. The only potential I see is for maps—and its not enough of a reason to made the controller wide enough to toughen the fast reflexes sometimes required for 2-D Metroid games. If Metroid reverts back to full-fledged 3-D like in the Prime days, then it can definitely help with maps, weapon selection, and moving the fangled thing around searching for clues and details about her environment. That might justify the screen—but Metroid to me works best with simple controllers, and a simple adventure into a vastly unknown atmosphere.


Category #4: Pokemon
Predicted Verdict: Helps

This controller and Pokemon were meant to be together. Pokemon was never a fast-paced franchise, but instead a franchise built on strong and very lengthy RPG adventures full of items to collect, monsters to find, and quests and adventures to fulfill. With the extra screen, you can modify your Pokemon team without displaying what you have on the screen—making for some awesome 2-player action. You can use the screen for maps, the Pokedex, organizing items, gambling at the casinos, trading with others, altering the looks of your Pokemon, sending/receiving messages from other trainers, making phone calls, and just too much more for me to place in this already-long paragraph.

Category #5: Kirby, Donkey Kong
Predicted Verdict: Hurts

See category #1. These are simple franchises that only need simple, small controllers for fast-paced action, fast-paced reaction, and a simple pick-up-and-play experience.


Category #6: First-person shooters
Predicted Verdict: Hurts

None of the XBox 360 gamers want to hear this, but I speak the truth: The Wiimote is hands-down the best controller configuration for shooters in the history of gaming. If you could work the sensitivity within the movements of the Wiimote, you could have made an assortment of shooters that feels better and plays better than shooters done with regular controllers. But, only ONE Wii game got the configuration correct: Metroid Prime 3. This vastly underrated game amped up the action and proved to the world that the Wii can make great shooters given the right amount of effort. WiiU’s controller will obliterate everything they got right the past generation by giving us a fat controller that removes all realism and freedom of movement offered by the Wiimote. Thank goodness the WiiU is backwards-compatible.


Category #7: Star Fox
Predicted Verdict: Helps

Imagine controlling your airwing with the WiiU controller, making it like the wheel of the ship, and then using the back buttons to launch your fire. Then use the touch screen to check up on your friends and use the extra buttons for more heavy artillery. Then use the circle pads to alter the camera of the game and get a good look of the environment around you. Star Fox can definitely benefit from this.


Category #8: Mario Kart
Predicted Verdict: Helps

While I am a racing purist, preferring the classic controllers to race against others, the WiiU controller can instantly be turned into a driving wheel, and all you need are the back-shoulder buttons to drive and apply the brakes. As long as it can fix the small glitches that the WiiWheel experienced, then Mario Kart will be a heck of a good time on the WiiU. Potentially.

Category #9: Fighting Games
Predicted Verdict: Disastrous Hurt

Look at the controller. Now try to picture yourself creating a 7-button combo while holding that controller. That's all the evidence you need.


Bottom Line: The WiiU controller is definitely a hit-or-miss piece of hardware that can make the upcoming Nintendo system or completely destroy it. On one hand, you have to hand it to Nintendo for trying to introduce different ways to play the game, but at the same time some already-awesome ideas are sacrificed and risked. It was a pure miracle that the Mario Galaxy games were borderline-flawless, because the revolutionary Wiimote was not meant to interact well with platformers. Maybe all we gamers want is a simple SNES-like controller? Maybe the focus should be on improving the software?

Either way though, this controller isn’t all bad news. While some genres might be reckoned and tarnished (with fighting games suffering the most), some classic franchises like Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, and especially Pokemon can enter a new realm of quality if the controller and all the new features are utilized correctly. Only time will tell if this indeed happens, but one thing is certain: the WiiU controller is about to turn the Nintendo universe topsy-turvy.

P.S. One sequel that NEEDS to happen with this new controller:







Pokemon Snap 2.

Nuff said.

Why Nintendo Needs to Mario Kart 64ify its next Mario Kart

Pre-Article Note: This is a retread of an old 2010 article that still holds true today as we see the next Mario Kart coming out in the coming months for the 3DS, and eventually the next Mario Kart on the WiiU sometimes next year (pure predicting). While critics will never admit it after giving the N64 version the weaker scores in the franchise, Mario Kart 64 remains the best of the Mario Karts, and if we honestly were to polish some of the gameplay, A.I., graphics, and glitches, we would have a solid-solid racer. Mario Kart 64 has the best tracks, the best items, and hands-down the best Battle Mode in the history of video games.







The Mario Kart franchise has become a major success story, which each installment outselling the previous entry in both the handheld and in the console department (with the exception of Double Dash, but let’s all pretend that didn’t happen). Mario Kart Wii has now become one of the top-selling games of all-time, and the top racing game in history. Mario Kart DS has been on the best-seller list for over 230 weeks, raking in over 18 million in sales. So yea, Nintendo will not be going bankrupt anytime soon. However, I am still keen on my Mario Kart 64. To this day, I still prefer this version to all the other ones, with Mario Kart DS literally inches away at second place. The only reason Mario Kart 64 still wins is because of the superior battle mode and track design. This article is now dedicated to all the reasons why I personally (despite all the critics disagreeing from second one) prefer the N64 installment, and how the Mario Kart saga can improve by taking notes from this article (and from the amazing racing game of 1997).



The very first and ultimate reason for Mario Kart 64’s surprise success back in the day was the simple, yet engrossing Battle Mode. Revolutionizing multi-player for years to come, Mario Kart 64 showed the world that four players can play at the same time and indeed have an excellent time. All it took was four stages, items, and a decent frame rate, and our Friday nights were set. But starting from Mario Kart Double Dash and on, they complicated things, they slowed things down, and tried expanding upon perfection. Mario Kart DS required for you to blow on the balloons, and allowed you to steal balloons (limiting the suspense and turning it into a big game of tag). Then there is Mario Kart Wii and it requiring for you to work on teams. Really? Just make a bunch of stages, allow a bunch of items, don’t expand the options, and we are set. Mario Kart 64 was simple, which made it is accessible to beginners and veterans. The Battle Mode should be the same way. There is yet to be a single battle mode in any game that can top the infamous Block Fort---and that stage was simplistic brilliance.



An interesting aspect about Mario Kart Wii is that none of their courses were that lengthy. In Mario Kart 64, we had Wario’s Stadium, Royal Raceway, Rainbow Road, and DK’s Jungle Course. These four levels were not only entertaining, but they were an amazing test of your endurance. These courses also guaranteed that if you are last at the halfway mark, you can still manage to catch up to the top (without the use of infinite cheap items, but that’s another tale). The next Mario Kart should benefit from more of these nice long courses. While a race that takes 24-hours would be exaggeration (Gran Taurismo 4 anyone?) I’d love to see more Wario Stadium-like levels.



Continuing in the conversation about courses, we need more levels that does not contain any actual silly obstacles (like baddies, pipes, moles, etc), instead be courses that test your true abilities as a driver. Yes, Mario Kart is about the items, but I propose that some levels (the tougher ones) mix things up a bit by not offering items; just offer some nasty curves, crazy turns, and tricky routines. Mario Kart 64 did not contain item-free levels, but did contain some nice obstacle-free-it-requires-true-racing-skill-to-conquer tracks like Mario’s Raceway, which used to be the basis of a time trial contest back in the day. Sometimes, we just want a nice race, similar to how Mario Golf sometimes offered actual golf courses as opposed to those that are obstacle-ridden. Finally, the Yoshi’s Valley course design should be used much more often. While it was frustrating, the fact that you don’t know who is leading the race until the finish line is actually crossed was quite a clever maneuver by the producing team, and it’s a shame we don’t see it occur in Mario Kart Wii.




The biggest current issue we have is the item chaos that has occurred in the later installments. No longer does skill win races, a major dosage of luck has overwhelmed the franchise. Back in Mario Kart 64, the AI was faster than you, but didn’t have the overhaul of items that the AI in the Wii version have. In Mario Kart 64, you never saw the purple shell, and never saw the top 4 opponents with super stars or red shells up the wazoo. In the Wii however, you can be first and second place suddenly has a lightning bolt. You can be in first and for some odd reason everyone behind you has a red shell or a blue shell, ready for usage. You can drop from first to last in a matter of seconds, and it makes things extremely frustrating. Mario Kart 64 did rely on some luck, but you needed skill to muscle past the 150cc class. And what about Super Mario Kart? Even harder, and the opponents used nothing more than bananas, feathers, and green shells.



Mario Kart 64 was the most balanced in terms of items and what you can receive. This balance needs to be restored. The first four positions should be limited to the smaller and weaker items, and this should apply to the AI. And then we should remove some of the totally unfair items, like the bullet bill and the blue shell. The purple shell back in the Mario Kart 64 days was indeed avoidable with luck and pure skill---the blue shell offers you no hope, and then blows you up. You lose five to seven seconds of driving thanks to the item that you can never avoid. And for goodness sakes, can we please bring back the disguise bombs? The red bombs are too obvious and stand out like a sore thumb. I missed the Mario Kart 64 block bombs, in which anyone can secretly plant in a cluster of item blocks.

As a matter of fact, I missed the effects of the items in Mario Kart 64. Mario Kart 64 was the only MK version in which when a person gets hit with a red shell, they don’t do the nearly pointless flip over; they blow up. Games with more explosions are more exciting, this is a hypothesis away from being scientific fact. The green shells used to be more devastating too, with you flipping over multiple times rather than once. The purple shell dethrones the blue shell because it can take out more than one racer on its way to first place, adding some more mayhem. Finally, block bombs are BOMBS and should be treated as such. The super star used to allow you to mow through people. Not so much now, its limited to mere flipping over. The lightning used to cause more havoc back then, because you can run over people, turning them into Warner Brothers-like caricatures.



In the chaos that is Mario Kart 64, one of the most essential skills you can develop is when to hold items, and when to throw those items. However, in Mario Kart Wii, you can no longer hold green shells, or red shells, or bananas for that matter (unless it’s a bunch---and the bunch is a smaller number than it used to be). The next Mario Kart needs to come back with this. Part of the unfair cheapness of Mario Kart Wii is that there’s no way you can defend an incoming red shell attack. Back then, holding your green shell or banana saves you for just a little bit longer. All of this may seem trivial, but if it were all pointless banter, than I wouldn’t be preferring to play from the 1992-2000 Mario Kart saga (Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, Super Circuit) over the 2001-Now Mario Kart generation (Mario Kart: Double Dash, Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart Wii).

Bottom Line: Mario Kart is a huge success, but can be so much better if they bring back all the little whimsical fun details that made Mario Kart 64 a runaway smash hit and a part of Multi-player Hall of Fame. I miss the longer courses, I miss the insane explosions, and I miss the simplicity of it all. All these extra vehicles, extra statistics is peeling away at the arcade appeal of the entire franchise. Nintendo in my opinion should go back to the basics, before they tried adding depth to a series that will never be as deep as your modern-day racers. Yes Mario Kart Wii and (especially) Mario Kart DS have their high points and qualities, but (in my humble opinion) they still lack when compared to the N64 version. Remove the cheapness, being back the devastation of our items, and up the ante on the course design, then I am sure the next Mario Kart will be a great one as well as become a successful entry.