He, For One, Does Not Welcome Our New Wii Overlords

June 10, 2007 10:18 AM

What does the Wii's success mean for traditional hard-core gamers? The brother of the Gears of War designer has a few thoughts about the Wii's potential dominance in the coming years. Personally, I agree with his analysis but I think it's a good thing, whereas he's a little concerned.
posted by jragon (84 comments total)

"It will be a great day when schools have all the funding they need, and the US military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

That's kind of how I feel about 'hard-core gaming', really.
posted by ziz at 10:25 AM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

Hey, overlords! That's pretty clever. That's a Family Guy quote, right?
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 10:25 AM on June 10, 2007 [8 favorites]

reads a little whiny, too much use of "hardore gamers", too much equivocation, perhaps a little too long for what he is trying to say. "I like old style video games, things are changing, I don't like change... maybe, unless I do".
posted by edgeways at 10:32 AM on June 10, 2007

I wonder what Cliffyb's second cousin thinks about "hard-core gamers"?
posted by basicchannel at 10:35 AM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Summary:
"If Nintendo has its way, young males will no longer be the dominant segment of the console audience . . . The other day I was in Target looking to pick up some games when I saw an older woman . . .waiting for the clerk's attention. . . I could barely stifle a groan. . . These mini-game collections and more casual games could wind up completely redefining the market. [And that would just be wrong.... somehow]"

Oh noes! What a crybaby.
Innovative game play > Graphically Cutting Edge.
posted by absalom at 10:42 AM on June 10, 2007 [6 favorites]

Lore, Thats Simpsons... When Kent Brockman, for one, welcomes "our new ant overlords"... I could see how you could easily be confused...
posted by subaruwrx at 10:42 AM on June 10, 2007

It is funny really. I've been a PC gamer for what, 15 years. My last console was a sega megadrive (genesis to yanks).

PC gamers have be decrying the ever greater console emphasis, with the piddly thumbsticks and dumbed down gameplay. Poor ports of games back to PC, when its capable of so much more. Deux Ex 2 being a good case in point, Oblivion's interface another.

And yet... great platform specific masterpieces still happen, like Half-life 2, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Civ etc - with an eye-wateringly pretty lineup coming soon like UT2007, Bioshock, Crysis.

Now the hardcore Xbox crowd are worried about the wii coming in and undercutting them, just as the cheap consoles undercut the rich experience available on the PC.

Gaming is not a zero sum game. There's money to be made at the cheap and fun games end, just as there is on the XBox360 and the hardest of the hardcore PC engine. Companies would be mad to stop making top end games, as they're throwing away money. Yes, there might be more people willing to buy the cheap end, but the hardcore gamers have more money per person - they buy a lot more games total.

Why only aim for one or the other, when you can have different business units going after them all?
posted by ArkhanJG at 10:42 AM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

Well he's completely right. Instead of allocating 40% or whatever of its resources to produce Halo 3/Half-Life 4 or whatever big, cool, immersion gaming title is next. They might better spend 20% of that budget on many games which reap high return on capital allocation.

Think more "Everybody Loves Raymond" and less "Sopranos". When something starts appealing to the widest audience available, it is the lovers of that medium that get hurt the most.
posted by geoff. at 10:43 AM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

I should also point out the other half is playing on her wii at the moment. I sometimes get to borrow it ;) The wii might be cheap and cheerful, but it really is great for pick up and play games when you want something simple. No doubt there will be more innovative games for the platform too. Pikmin, zelda, mario and metroid are not the only big games.
posted by ArkhanJG at 10:46 AM on June 10, 2007

I've played the Wii a little bit, and here's my take on it:

The Wii user interface takes consoles one logical step further away from the PC, towards a more visceral and social - and less language-oriented and private - experience. When you take away a keyboard, you start taking away language, and the ability to communicate with a game using the same interface you'd use to write a poem or a letter to a friend. Replace the keyboard with a motion sensor, and You're probably not going to get Infocom on the Wii, just like you're not going to get a Fallout, or a Civilization.

What you do get tends to resemble carnival games, games that eschew language, and rely on verbal interaction among the players rather than complex interactions between the player and the game. These games aren't about storytelling; they're about catching balls, filling cups, knocking over pins. And this I just don't understand. If you really want to catch a ball, why not just go outside and do it, and get the full experience?
posted by kid ichorous at 10:53 AM on June 10, 2007 [7 favorites]

I've got a friend who's a gamer, and he can't take the madness of Gears of War. Too intense, too much happening, and he gets confused. Obviously, he's not hardcore. I think there's room for both, but the author is right: if there's more, easier money to be made from campy Sims-like titles, the epic monster games are going to suffer even more than they already are (when a game costs $50 million to produce, it better be a sure thing (read: sequel to an incredibly popular series))

and the Wii is no sure bet thing for the longterm appeal.
the graphics aren't anything compared to the other consoles. I'm a little surprised they haven't released more games which use the Mii in the game. Nintendo's roping in new customers, which makes more sense, since the guy-in-his-30's target demographic is pretty well accounted for (not to say there isn't a ton of room for improvement. it's supposed to be about the FUN, people. 10 hours of gameplay for $50 doesn't sound fun to me. even with replayability, I'd feel cheated...)
posted by Busithoth at 10:53 AM on June 10, 2007

ArkhanJG, if past Nintendo consoles are any indication -- yeah there will only be a few big games.
posted by geoff. at 10:54 AM on June 10, 2007

Economics is not my forte, but it would seem that unless the number of "hardcore" gamers goes down, or if that segment starts spending more of their money on non-hardcore games, the market should support just as much activity in the hardcore segment as it does now. Companies might try to jump on the latest trend to get a foothold in the booming non-gamer segment, but in the long term things shouldn't change much. If everyone starts making softcore games, the hardcore segment will have less competition, thus becoming more profitable, thus encouraging more development.

The one area this could have a bigger impact is on consoles themselves. Games can be directed at one small segment of the market, but a console needs to have broader appeal. So you might see a shift towards lower-priced, casual-gamer-friendly consoles because the companies releasing them are afraid to alienate a major portion of the market.

Anyway, this guy just sounds like a paranoid, self-centered idiot. How dare elderly women start playing videogames! The entire multibilliondollar industry should be directed only at teenage and 20-something males!
posted by Wingy at 10:54 AM on June 10, 2007

If casual games become the industry's primary money-making vehicle, these mini-game collections and more casual games could wind up completely redefining the market. I don't think we're far off from the day when Hannah Montana Wii and Wii Sports 2 dominate the NPD charts.

Oh hell yes. Not that Hannah Montana games specifically would be a good direction for the industry, but really, it is SO tedious to have to choose between being some kind of post-apocalyptic astro-cyborg killing machine, or an axe-wielding, potion-quaffing medieval killing machine, in order to get decent gameplay. Bring me the next round of Mario Kart any day of the week.
posted by rkent at 10:55 AM on June 10, 2007 [8 favorites]

When I think of hardcore gamers (as used in his contexts), I don't think of consoles.

He seems worried that somehow the bloc of GTA/Counterstrike/etc-playing teens and college kids will be outweighed by the old (and implicitly dull) people who buy games. I don't see this happening for the sheer fact that younger gamers have and will continue to buy many more games-per-console than old people.

I've had the experience of aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents playing along in Wii Sports. It reminded me of playing Taboo, Apples to Apples, etc. While my folks were glad to play, it doesn't necessarily mean that they care about their performance; moreso they are usually just happy to be able to joke around with other people.

There's not as great of an incentive to continue buying games for the older generation, especially when the initial purchases are of open-ended games like Wii Play, Mario Party, etc. It will be interesting to see whether or not Nintendo will bring out some more games in time to counteract a possible slump in sales to old people.
posted by mezamashii at 10:57 AM on June 10, 2007

Or, instead of spending 40% on adding better textures to Halo 2, or whatever no-risk, completely obvious retread that only provides more of the same is next, they might better spend 20% of that budget on games that actually have new gameplay.

Think more "Everybody Loves Raymond" and less "Sopranos".

Except that the Halo series is Everybody Loves Raymond.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:57 AM on June 10, 2007 [14 favorites]

Innovative game play > Graphically Cutting Edge.

Well, I don't really see how playing "fetch" with my television constitutes innovation in any other respect than turning me into a canine.
posted by kid ichorous at 10:58 AM on June 10, 2007

To summarize: "boo hoo, the kind of huge ridiculous waste of time games I love won't get as many resources! boo hoo!" Suck it loser!

When I was a kid I LOVED videogames. Pacman, galaga, space ace - games that were all about picking them up and putting them back down. One of the things that's happened in the 20+ years since then is that the industry has dived right into its own navel thinking that a game is no good unless it takes 50+ hours to play it.

Who the hell has 50+ hours to devote to a video game? When I watch a DVD, it's 2 hours long and then I'm done. That's about how much time I'm willing to devote to an entertainment experience. I have a career and a wife. I don't live in my mom's basement. I got other shit to do.

But, for the longest time, the industry didn't care about me. If I couldn't play for 4 hours at a time (I'm looking at you, every MMO ever made!) then I couldn't enjoy the game. That's incredibly lame.

I'd rather take a break with a game (much like how Metafilter is a break for me) that I can play for 10 minutes and then get back to work.

For me, the Wii and the kind of casual gaming that it seems to be encouraging rocks so hard! That's exactly the kind of gaming I enjoy, and is, frankly, more similar to early videogaming than what happened in the '90s and the early '00s.

Plus, swinging around the wiimote is just fun.
posted by MythMaker at 10:58 AM on June 10, 2007 [9 favorites]

I wish "hardcore gamers" who love to "game hardcore" would shut up, stop whining about the Wii, the Wiimote, and its players, and just go back to doing whatever it is "hardcore gamers" do.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 AM on June 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Innovative game play > Graphically Cutting Edge.

but that's not what he's saying. He's saying that the wii represents shallow cutesy gameplaying, and that games with depth (which he for obvious reasons uses gears of war to represent, but which could also be represented by Oblivion or Dead Rising or any number of other games) may fall by the wayside. That would be a bad thing. I personally think he's an alarmist, though. The Wii didn't turn millions of non-game players into gamers. It turned millions of people into temporary wii-players because it's a fad. or rather, not JUST a fad. there's a lot to like there, but it's a fad in popular culture right now, nonetheless. in less than a year the people that own one will barely be playing it and they certainly won't be driving the market to abandon games like gears of war.
posted by shmegegge at 11:05 AM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Do they call it hardcore gaming because every time a new game comes out you're fucked and have to buy a new computer?

They keep making movies I don't want to see and music I don't want to hear. So I have adopted a deliberate strategy of not seeing those movies and not listening to that music. I know I could whine and complain and see if somehow I could make them go away but then it would be harder for me to feel better than other people. So instead I cherish those people who let me live my dream. I am a Viking.

On a reality based note.... I, being an old coot, am deliberately way behind the curve. I just got an original xbox last summer. I enjoy the games. Nice and cheap. I am sure the Xbox360 will also be available cheap with cheap games when I get around to it. The games don't seem vanish and I am patient.
posted by srboisvert at 11:08 AM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dude, I got my SNES from a woman in her late forties. She had a ton of rpgs. I think the gaming industry actually shifted away from it's original intent to appeal to a wide demographic (the nintendo was known as the Famicom in Japan, no? Family computer, huh?). It decided to chase after the hardcore and make uber complex games catering to the obsessive who would buy the same derivative tripe over and over again.

My clearest memories of the fun of gaming come from those that are not stereotypically seen as gamers. They liked stuff such as Mario Kart or Yoshi's Island. I feel that innovation in this kind of gaming has dried up. The last time my father touched a joystick was for Fury^3 for the PC. About as simplistic a shooter you can get. Hopefully the Wii will bring back the "gamers" who just play for the fun of it. There's been too much energy spent on (WARNING: can of worms) people who want their games to be some kind of drug that sucks up their brain and social life by providing some kind of life affirming game meth.


Woot. Yay for generalizations.
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:13 AM on June 10, 2007 [8 favorites]

If Nintendo has its way, young males will no longer be the dominant segment of the console audience

So what? Young males are not the dominant segment of the automotive industry, either, but they still make sports cars and aftermarket parts.

But ultimately, going more mainstream can have unintended consequences--ones that could negatively impact the breadth and depth of the kinds of games that I love, as do millions of others.

That's the "Jaws-and-Star-Wars-killed-the-artistic-movie" argument. It never held water, and in the age of digital cameras and YouTube (and digitally distributed games), it still doesn't.
posted by frogan at 11:19 AM on June 10, 2007

kid ichorous: Well, bowling is -expensive- in real life.

But the true promise of the Wii's control scheme isn't in simulating real-life actions, but by allowing developers to merge real-life actions with game-world objects.

What does this mean really? It is simple, the entire purpose of video games, ultimately, is the ability to experience fantasy. To participate in events that could not happen in real life.

For a long time developers have worked on making the fantasy more interesting. Usually they fail badly. Now they'll get the chance to fail at making the fantasy more compelling by improving the ways the player can interact with it.
posted by JHarris at 11:24 AM on June 10, 2007

shmegegge: That's not what he's saying, it's what I am saying, mostly because a significant part of his argument boils down to the Wii is not visually impressive. (I mean, when he says "cinematic," do you really think he means in depth storyline and rich, vibrant characters? Cos in every gaming magazine I read, every panel discussion, and every letter to the editor* focuses on how totally dreadful game writing is.)

*=hyperbole
posted by absalom at 11:38 AM on June 10, 2007

It seems to me like Nintendo has long had a long on casual, social gaming. What made games like World Track Meet, all the M(W)ario Karts/Parties/Wares so cool is that the learning curve is so flat that anyone could learn to play in five minutes.

???? is on point about comparing a lot of the Wii games to Taboo or Apples to Apples, but Nintendo has been making games that you could play at a party for years.

I think that a lot of hardcore gamers are concerned not only about resources being shifted away from development of immersion style games, but are also upset the same way hipsters get when one of their favorite bands shows up on MTV. When the members of an audience (especially one that regards itself as particularly elite or discerning like most music or video game geeks do) that was around "since the beginning" is excluded from the target market, there's always bound to be some measure of bitterness.

"It's like he wants us to be liked by everyone. I mean Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes everybody liked. They left that to the Bee Gees." That statement could very well apply to the Wii and its software lineup.

Bleszinski claims to be glad that the Wii opens new people up to gaming, but I don't think that his musical analogy is all that appropriate to the current situation. Rock n' Roll isn't going anywhere, and disco is long dead. Hyper-accessible video games aren't going to hurt the more in-depth ones.

"Disco sucks" never went out of style.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 11:39 AM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

err, Wayne's analogy, that is
posted by solipsophistocracy at 11:41 AM on June 10, 2007

absalom, writing for a game is incredibly hard. how do you write a multi-threaded, engaging story arc? MDK2 was the last game that had me admiring the writing...
posted by Busithoth at 11:46 AM on June 10, 2007

I wish "hardcore gamers" who love to "game hardcore" would shut up, stop whining about the Wii, the Wiimote, and its players, and just go back to doing whatever it is "hardcore gamers" do.

They mostly spend time posting Youtube comments forum posts listing scientific reasons why the nextgen console they don't own sucks, and browsing for anime tentacle porn.

Combative fanboys are horrifying, and I hate that the internet gives them such a loud voice.
posted by jake at 11:57 AM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

Think more "Everybody Loves Raymond" and less "Sopranos"

I think of the Wii as more like reality television. The games are cheap to produce and throw out in the market, just like reality shows. You can make good quick money churning out PS2 ports.

Wii Sports is like American Idol. People eat that shit up and its kinda fun, but ultimately very shallow. So far there are a few good games for the Wii, just like there are a few good reality shows(Mythbusters, or whatever your thing is), but most Wii games are about the quality of Celebrity Fit Club.

Innovative game play > Graphically Cutting Edge

Completely agreed. What does that have to do with the Wii? It currently isn't the superior system on either side of that equation.


Who the hell has 50+ hours to devote to a video game? When I watch a DVD, it's 2 hours long and then I'm done. That's about how much time I'm willing to devote to an entertainment experience. I have a career and a wife. I don't live in my mom's basement. I got other shit to do.

But, for the longest time, the industry didn't care about me. If I couldn't play for 4 hours at a time (I'm looking at you, every MMO ever made!) then I couldn't enjoy the game. That's incredibly lame.

I've never understood this line of thought. Who says you have to play any game 4 hours at a time? There is nothing stopping you from playing Resistance or Halo or Oblivion for 20-30 minutes at a time.
posted by Arch_Stanton at 11:59 AM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Er, Youtube comments ^and^ forum posts. Although I'm sure there are some fanboys whose sole emotional outpouring comes through Youtube comments.

.....

*shudder*
posted by jake at 12:01 PM on June 10, 2007

Innovative game play > Graphically Cutting Edge

What does that have to do with the Wii? It currently isn't the superior system on either side of that equation.

Bowling by actually swinging my arm, rather than holding the A button and rolling a silly little joystick, is absolutely innovative.

Natural movements in video games isn't exactly a new idea, but it's taken until now to make it happen. Nintendo is the only one to do it, and many traditional gamers still think it's just a gimmick.
posted by jragon at 12:18 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Those who posit that Apples to Apples is a casual gaming experience have never played it with a group catalogers, taxonomists, and various librarians. Those people are out for blood!
posted by stet at 12:29 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: you're fucked and have to buy a new computer
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:39 PM on June 10, 2007

Think more "Everybody Loves Raymond" and less "Sopranos". When something starts appealing to the widest audience available, it is the lovers of that medium that get hurt the most.

'Lovers of the Medium?' Jesus, I loved Half Life 2 as much as the next guy, but the whining in the article is just the sound of obsessive 25-year-olds going, 'fap fap fap.'

Two years ago the same crowd was all bitchy about how developers should focus on fundamentally interesting and enjoyable gameplay, like the old days, instead of jillion-dollar-Bruckheimer-wannabee crap. Someone does it, and does it well, and suddenly it's all "Oh noes, now old ladies like gaming, and companies might not spend all their jillions making explosion spooge-fests for me and my frat pals."

There's a difference between creating something with broad appeal and appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's like the cheeto-stained rejects who get angry that anyone would build a usable computer, because the 'lusers' will 'invade.'
posted by verb at 12:42 PM on June 10, 2007 [8 favorites]

Anyway, this guy just sounds like a paranoid, self-centered idiot. How dare elderly women start playing videogames! The entire multibilliondollar industry should be directed only at teenage and 20-something males!

Those were my thoughts exactly when I read this the other day. It was especially insulting as he chose to pick women as his representation of what's supposedly going wrong with the gaming industry. We can be just as enthusiastic and hardcore as any other segment of the gamer population.

While some of his arguments have potential to occur, it's too early to see that effect. And longer, more complex games aren't going away. The audience is there to keep such games, especially event titles, afloat. Just because there's a bit of competition from the growth of the casual games market doesn't mean core gamers are going to disappear or be left without anything to play.

There's also lots of room for a Wii in a hardcore gaming household.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:45 PM on June 10, 2007

Natural movements in video games isn't exactly a new idea, but it's taken until now to make it happen. Nintendo is the only one to do it, and many traditional gamers still think it's just a gimmick.

Natural movements like the way that I punch in the direction of my feet because it's the only reliable way to make Boxing punch my enemy in the gut? Or the way I can swing my wrist backwards to swing my tennis racket forward?

An accelerometer is not a grand new invention, it's something that's been around for a while and putting it in the controller is a gimmick. The IR pointing interface is much better, but Boxing and Zelda, the only games I've gotten to try, mostly or just use the sucky accelerometer. The flash games that use the pointer interface are much more fun for me than Sports.

One day someone will come out with a system that has real localization technology for the controllers, and then we'll get closer to natural movement. Right now, for anyone who doesn't know, all the controller can sense (without using the IR) is its orientation (the direction gravity is pulling it) and changes in speed. Localization technology on a room scale is not there yet, though.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 12:46 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

From the article:

Don't get me wrong; I think it's cute that someone who likely had no idea what a video game was would suddenly plunk down her Social Security money so she can cook virtual meals...

Let me translate.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's cute that someone who likely has never had a relationship with a peer that didn't involve shotgunning PBR or cheering at reruns of Predator would suddenly plunk down his college loan money to pretend he's a big tough Space Marine...

posted by verb at 12:47 PM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

I have a Wii, and I enjoy playing my Wii (although I *am* a bit worried that the selection of quality games will be a bit sparse, as it was for the GameCube), but what I get out of it is nothing compared to what my (60 year-old) parents get out of it. They haven't gotten excited about a videogame - any videogame - since Kaboom! for the Atari 2600, but they're getting together with a big group of friends, hooking two Wiis up to two different televisions and having bowling and tennis tournaments on Friday nights, whooping it up the whole time. I suppose you could complain that the Wii Sports experience is "shallow," but the bottom line is that I haven't seen anyone enjoy a videogame that much since I was a kid, and maybe not even then. Whether or not they'll still be playing it in a year remains to be seen, but it was still incredibly smart of Nintendo to offer potential customers something genuinely different instead of the same old games with SLIGHTLY BETTER GRAPHICS!!!!
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:56 PM on June 10, 2007 [5 favorites]

So what is a hardcore gamer? Really?

Well it depends on what era of gaming you're coming from. If it was the 80's it was all about simple fun, reaction time and strategy, if it was the 90's it was all about adventure and pushing past the 32-bit era, introducing 3D over sidescrollers and isometrics. From the late 90's till now it's been mostly the same stuff churned out year after year...with more emphasis on pushing technical specs than on just plain simple fun..

Then something like the Wii comes along...

..I dunno, maybe I'm just an oldschool hardcore gamer.
posted by samsara at 1:00 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

All of this interesting conversation aside; I don't think the Wii is anywhere NEAR "natural movement". I know that the controllers are quite sensitive, but I have yet to play a game where I said "Wow! It's like I'm really doing...."

My main problem is that everything is so easily done with simple wrist flicks you feel like a total dipshit throwing out your arm playing baseball or picking noses or shaving an elephant's vagina (sorry, Wario Ware just got sent back to GameFly).

Until they make it so you really HAVE to do the actual activity, I think its never going to appeal to the biggest (not only) demographic, 12 - 30 year old males.

Just my two cents......
posted by lattiboy at 1:10 PM on June 10, 2007

The Wii may be too family friendly at the moment but there are some serious titles in the pipes. Manhunt 2 is looking quite scandalous, but also Galaxy, Smash Bros and Metroid are all planned for 2007 and that'll add much depth to system. He mentions Twilight Princess as a good title, but -heck- I only got halfway through before I couldn't devote another weekend to it. I assumed only grandmas on Social Security have that kind of time to completing such epics.
posted by yeti at 1:17 PM on June 10, 2007

Umm...so I guess I'm a fanboy because I've had every Nintendo Console since the NES. That said, I don't get why people think Wii is limited to admittedly shallow games like Wii Sports, WarioWare, etc.

I think it's just the old saw about Nintendo being for kiddie gamers. There were plenty of innovative, engaging games on Gamecube: Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, Windwaker, Metal Gear Solid, etc. Ports like Prince of Persia, Nightfire and Timesplitters 2 held up just fine. There's no reason not to expect more of this from the Wii (Metroid 3, Super Mario Galaxy) I don't get what hardcore gamers are talking about. Is solitaire going to kill off the GTA franchise?

/end nerd
posted by Taargus Taargus at 1:18 PM on June 10, 2007

Summary:

hardcore gamer is to 14K'er
as
grandmother gamer is to 40K'er.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 1:21 PM on June 10, 2007

I hope this delusion snob will reg up and post to this thread. I've been playing video games for longer than he's been alive, and as one of those older women he dismisses, I would relish the chance to meet him and kick his ass in any video game he chooses.

It's on like Donkey Kong, fucker. How cute am I now?

(afterwards we'll have homemade chocolate chip cookies and lemonade, and you'll like it, you bastard)
posted by iconomy at 1:29 PM on June 10, 2007 [40 favorites]

grandmother gamer is to 40K'er.

I dunno about your grandmother, but my grandma built some mean Eldar armies.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:41 PM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

Most of the games available for the Wii are "shallow" because developers got caught with their pants down.

Given the awesome power of the 360 and PS3, many developers assumed Nintendo was going to fall even further behind than last generation. They simply weren't going to spend the development hours needed to make serious games for a failed system.

Now that they've discovered how wrong their assumptions had been, companies are scrambling to rush out titles. EA, I believe, has three due by the holiday season that weren't even in production until this year. When a "deep" game takes two to three years to develop, how "cinematic" do you think these games will be?
posted by Monk at 2:20 PM on June 10, 2007 [3 favorites]

iconomy is my hero. of all time forever.
posted by verb at 2:24 PM on June 10, 2007

Gosh, what a whiny bastard. I guess hardcore gamer means "I bought a PS3 and all I got was this lousy gameless system".

As soon as real games are released for the system, it'll sell. Hardcore gamers are out there, but most of them aren't dumb enough to buy a system without any games worth playing.

(I say this as one of the dumbasses who bought a Wii right away, and experienced the serious post-Zelda drought.)
posted by graventy at 3:08 PM on June 10, 2007

I'm not sure why I'm coming back for more punishment after last time, but I'll try to make my case a little better.

I don't like the duality of hardcore gamer vs. casual gamer, with the implication that "complex" games like Half-Life or whatever are for the hardcore gamer, and Wario Ware is for the casual gamer.*

I am, by any measure I can think of, a hardcore gamer. I've had every major game system since NES in my possession at some point or other, not to mention the various Pong, Atari, and Commodore variations crawling around in my basement. I spend many hours every week playing video games, and spend a lot of money at arcades and gaming conventions.

But given the choice between Halo and Wario (yes, I've played quite a bit of both), I'd choose Wario every time. Because it's more interesting.

There's a long history, going all the way back to Pong and up through games like Elektroplankton and Animal Crossing, of video game as design object. The reason why people crowded around Defender to watch people play it is that its graphics are extremely well designed. The special effects, the timing, etc., all fit together into a really bizarre and wonderful artistic vision. You can watch that thing on attract mode all day and never get bored.

And then one day, escapism started getting valued over design. The focus shifted from creating interesting, entertaining game designs to creating more and more immersive, escapist environments. Well I, for one, am not interested in being transported to another world, no matter how complex and realistic it is. Give me an idea as original as Joust or Tetris, and then we'll talk.

There's a reason why visual and video artists of my generation continue to borrow designs from games like Pong and Pac-Man in their art. Yeah, of course it's partly 80s nostalgia, but it's also something much simpler. Those designs and game mechanics are still very provocative and surprising. I don't see any of the current "hardcore" gaming titles having that sort of staying power.

*Incidentally, Wario Ware is a great demonstration of what I'm talking about. Only long-time gamers will even get all of the jokes in Wario Ware, the visual references and parodies of other video games.
posted by roll truck roll at 3:12 PM on June 10, 2007 [9 favorites]

(I say this as one of the dumbasses who bought a Wii right away, and experienced the serious post-Zelda drought.)

I don't know. I had a PS2 for quite a while and enjoyed it, then grabbed a Wii. I've got a handful of games for it -- Elebits and Rayman are the two standouts so far, and they're a lot of fun. There's definitely a drought of RPG/adventure games, but so far the party games selection for it has been pretty solid.
posted by verb at 3:15 PM on June 10, 2007

I think theres pretty much always going to be a market for games that appeal to 15 year old boys (and people who think like 15 year old boys) with graphics in the style of Todd McFarlane figurines or bad heavy metal covers, and so people will continue making them. This guy has nothing to worry about.
posted by Artw at 3:25 PM on June 10, 2007

Tyler Bleszinski is a pansy who wouldn't know hardcore gaming if it bit him in his candy ass. The same goes for all his little wanna-be space marine buddies, and it's jerks like them who made video games the bland, rubber-stamp, shoot-the-terrorists landcape they are today. Bring back the Infocom text adventures and the LucasArts and Sierra point-and-clickers. Those were the games with stories that made you think and puzzles that made you sweat. There's no way in hell Bleszinski could handle that kind of pressure.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:29 PM on June 10, 2007 [9 favorites]

Hmm... as someone who's clocked up fifty hours in the last week on FFXII, I'd consider myself in the 'hardcore' category, and I think this chap is vocalising through his rear end. There's ample room for multiple types of gaming experience, and as long as the heavy-users back up their use with heavy purchasing, the market for complex, innovative, involving games will continue to grow and thrive.

I guess it's a bit like the furore thrown up around the Oprah Book Club - to the old, grizzled custodians of this hitherto impenetrable world, a new wave of uninitiated middlebrow consumers feels like a violation. I can totally understand the knee-jerk desire to defend one's little bastion of pseudo-superiority - I work full-time as doing manuscript critiques, and I just spent a page and a half explaining to one writer that, in the arcade game Popeye, it's not Bluto that hurls bottles from the sides of the screen, but lesser-known nemesis the Sea Hag. Getting that detail right won't make her book any better, but it matters to me, goddammit!

Gaming is still relatively young, but it's getting to the point now where we can start to expect to see confrontations between traditionalists, dishing out tub-thumping tirades that call for a return to old values, and progressives, crying out for innovation and experimentation and a willingness to push boundaries.

But you know why I love gaming? (aside from the respite it gives me from confronting the temporary nature of all things and said realisation's concomittant existential terror) Gaming is one of the few areas in the world where things are constantly getting better. Sometimes, playing on my DS and using the stylus to move stuff, or linking up against friends, I can't wipe the grin off my face. If you'd explained the DS to me as a ten-year-old kid and told me some day I would have one, my skull would have literally exploded with joy. And no matter how banal or populist gaming gets in the future, retrogaming allows us to play the old games in an increasing variety of formats. Chronotrigger, Ghosts n' Goblins, frickin' Treasure Island Dizzy? Check, check and check. We get to play them all.

As our stupid universe chugs slowly towards heat death, games trend quietly in the opposite direction. That makes me genuinely happy.
posted by RokkitNite at 3:48 PM on June 10, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oprahs book club caused furore?
posted by Artw at 3:59 PM on June 10, 2007

What bizarre irony that he takes this "I was into gaming before it was popular" stance, and then reinforces that he's this old-school gamer badass by comparing it to Wayne's World and Led Zeppelin(!).

This guy really needn't worry - Halo is every bit as hip as Dave Matthews, and so long as fratboys walk the earth his hobby will live on.

(All the smugness in that article must be contagious...)
posted by mragreeable at 4:19 PM on June 10, 2007

From the article: "My story may be anecdotal, but the plural of anecdote is data"

I think he was trying to quote the well-known truism "The plural of anecdote is not data."

But was a little confused.
posted by churl at 4:19 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

He meant the Data from Star Trek.
posted by Artw at 4:24 PM on June 10, 2007

I guess by this guy's definition I'm a hardcore gamer.

I used to get upset when I would try to show Deus Ex or Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to a girlfriend, and she'd fall asleep long before she was able to appreciate the epic scope and sweeping drama of these wonderful, immersive adventures. I have friends whom I know would love Grand Turismo or GTA:3, but they don't have the hardware to run it and they don't care to invest.

But how did I get started with video games? Did I play World of Warcraft until my eyeballs fell out? No, I started with Pong and Space Invaders, around 1978, in a roadside diner where my mom and I used to stop and eat a lot. Those were great games. When Pac-Man came along I remember thinking "Fun gameplay, but is all this color really necessary to the experience?"

I'm not a Wii guy. The PS3 is the next exciting console, to me, and I'll probably pick one up at some point. But if Nintendo puts a Wii next to every TV in this country, and they really do some exploration about what kind of games regular people would like to play, I think the entire gaming world stands to benefit from this. Not just because the WarioWare kids will be subsidizing the production of my immersive 50-hour dystopic-future adventures (which have more in common with Hollywood feature films than with Donkey Kong), but because along the way they'll probably make some stuff that'll be fun for me too.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:48 PM on June 10, 2007

My main problem is that everything is so easily done with simple wrist flicks you feel like a total dipshit throwing out your arm playing baseball or picking noses or shaving an elephant's vagina (sorry, Wario Ware just got sent back to GameFly).


You can, but it makes you a fucking toolbox
posted by MrBobaFett at 6:35 PM on June 10, 2007

An accelerometer is ... something that's been around for a while and putting it in the controller is a gimmick.

No, it's not. But we can agree to disagree on that particular debate.

Yes, it is possible to trick the controller. No, it's not the best thing ever. No, it's not a 100% representation of reality. But show me a mainstream gaming system that lets you bowl as closely to the real thing as the Wii. It doesn't exist.

The Wii's attempt at allowing "natural movements", as much as people gnash their teeth, are a big step forward. They are innovative.
posted by jragon at 7:17 PM on June 10, 2007

I want a tee shirt that says, "It's on like Donkey Kong, fucker."
posted by ColdChef at 7:36 PM on June 10, 2007

I actually find it really frustrating that the Wii is being stereotyped as "non-hardcore" and that companies are churning out nothing but crap party games (although as someone mentioned up-thread this is largely because many companies thought it would flop and hadn't planned to release anything for it).

In my mind the Wii should be the hardcore console. It's the first console to get close to WASD+mouse for FPS control, the first console I'd consider playing an RTS on, it would be ideal for playing adventure games on if anyone made the damn things anymore, it is great for controlling driving games, it does the EA sports games better than anything. Sure it won't push the polygons that the 360 and the PS3 do, but if they can make RE4 on the gamecube look as good as it did they should be able to make pretty games for the Wii.
posted by markr at 8:58 PM on June 10, 2007

Ikkyu, why is the PS3 more exciting than the 360? The 360 is roughly comparable spec wise, is out now, is cheaper, and there don't seem to be any PS3 specific games which would make it worth purchasing over the 360?

(I'm curious - I work in games, and we're developing all of our titles for both, so I'm wondering why someone would be excited over one rather than the other)
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:19 PM on June 10, 2007

iconomy:, that was simultaneously one of the better comments I remember on MeFi and one of the most horrifying.

I hope you do indeed get to kick that guy's ass at the game of your choosing.

But chocolate chip cookies with lemonade? Ack.
posted by Malor at 9:27 PM on June 10, 2007 [1 favorite]

The Wii isn't going to kill the epic video game. The only thing it may do is kill the epic video game on the PS3 or the XBox360.

What a lot of Wii library critics are forgetting is that the system took the industry by storm -- nobody (not even Nintendo) knew it was going to be as successful as it was. Third party developers outside of the Nintendo circle didn't want to risk spending the 6+ months and millions of dollars it takes to develop the truly "epic" titles that people criticize the Wii for not having right now.

The developers like Square-Enix (Final Fantasy) and Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto) are still going to make the games that they're good at making, and those games are generally seen as the "epics" of the industry. They're just going to make them for the system with the largest installed userbase, which looks like it's going to be the Wii (if sales trends continue). We just haven't seen any of these titles on the Wii yet because nobody expected the Wii to be so successful. And we're seeing titles like Lair on the PS3 because its development started long before the PS3 was considered a flop. The epic titles will start showing up for the Wii by the holiday season, and I suspect that many of those titles will be announced at this year's E3.
posted by erstwhile at 9:47 PM on June 10, 2007

Jon, you'll laugh at me, but I'm excited for Metal Gear Solid 4. Heck, I'm a little embarrassed about it, but I'm still going to buy it and play it on the release date.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:16 AM on June 11, 2007

markr: In my mind the Wii should be the hardcore console. It's the first console to get close to WASD+mouse for FPS control, the first console I'd consider playing an RTS on, it would be ideal for playing adventure games on if anyone made the damn things anymore, it is great for controlling driving games, it does the EA sports games better than anything.

Actually, I spent some time trying to adapt the wiimote to controlling standard computer games (it's just a bluetooth device for which a driver has already been made) and this is what I found:

Driving games - this is probably what it does best. It is very good, although there is a problem with really dramatic turns (the kind of thing where you'd be turning a steering wheel hand over hand.) Generally it works great until you get past about 45 degrees, at which point it kinda-sorta works until you get near the vertical, at which point it completely goes to hell and usually doesn't think you're turning at all.

FPS - The wiimote is flat out useless for FPS games designed for other platforms. I know it doesn't feel like it should be, but it is. The pointing capability just doesn't work at all - it feels mouselike in some ways, but doesn't work for mouselook. For example, say you point the wiimote at the side of the screen - the wiimote is sideways now, but your character has turned and his perspective is still straight forward. Also, turning too far in any direction will make you lose tracking. The accelerometer controls are far too imprecise to work for aiming, so you'd probably be reduced to using them for moving and aiming via the nunchuk - worse than a gamepad, even.

You might be able to design a decent shooter for the Wii by using the wiimote pointer as an aiming reticule (rail shooter style), the D-pad to move, and the nunchuk for perspective control. Personally, I think it would probably be really, really awkward.

RTS - Well, it's like a mouse, except the accuracy sucks and you can't park it at the edge of the screen to move the viewpoint around (it's too easy to go past and lose tracking.) Both of these could be compensated for and it'll probably work fairly well if the game is designed for it, and maybe even if it isn't (specifically, if the game will let you bind the nunchuk joystick to camera control.)

MMORPG - No keyboard, no communication. Won't work unless you want to deal with headsets and voice comm., and who really wants to hear the typical people who play MMORPGs? Not to mention the number of people usually talking on the main channels.
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:39 AM on June 11, 2007

"MMORPG - No keyboard, no communication. Won't work unless you want to deal with headsets and voice comm., and who really wants to hear the typical people who play MMORPGs? Not to mention the number of people usually talking on the main channels." - Mitrovarr

You'd be surprised, a huge portion of players in MMOs that require coordination and teamwork use Ventrilo or TeamSpeak to communicate with one another -- many guilds for World of Warcraft and EverQuest require it.

Unless you're intentionally going for the isolationism thing, sitting at your computer for hours can be quite social when you do it with voicecom.

I think, once the Wii goes online in a larger scale than just quick minigame matchups, we'll see something more akin to the XBox Live network, with voice chat...and undoubtedly a keyboard peripheral as well.

They just need to get rid of the terrible Friend Code system.
posted by erstwhile at 1:38 AM on June 11, 2007

Are you hardcore? Am I hardcore? Tougher question to answer than you might think.

I am a hardcore gamer. When I get a game I spend tons of hours on that game until it's done. I live for long narratives and in-depth gameplay, even down to figuring out stuff in MMOGs like staring at Archimedean spirals on graph paper to fidn out the optimal placement of mines to reap the correct sorts of minerals, or reading lengthy guides about how to set your car up for drifting in Gran Turismo. I've built car models for Grand Theft Auto 3 and multiplayer maps for Descent 3. I've run gaming websites and used to be a volunteer webmaster for Gamespy. I just bought a joystick even though I'm not playing any games that currently need one, just because I needed a USB joystick on the off chance that space sims become popular again. I read Joystiq every day. I clearly love games.

I am not a hardcore gamer. I own a Wii, but not a PS3 or an XBox360. I don't even know the correct capitalization of XBox360. I don't want to pay for XBox Live, I hate Halo, and never, ever want to spend $700 for a gaming console, even if it comes with Talladega Nights. (Make that ESPECIALLY if it comes with Talladega Nights.) I've never bought more than 10 games for any console I've ever owned, and the number for most is closer to one or two. I spend months at a time only playing Flash games or shareware like Snood and Bejeweled because that's all I can be bothered to play. I spend months at a time not playing any games at all, not because I'm busy or because I can't afford to play games, but simply because I've got better things to do like bike or hopelessly chase a crush or party with my friends. I do not worship J Allard, Reggie Fils-Aimes (or whatever) or Cliffy B. I don't play Counterstrike or Halo online because I would get my ass whooped because I suck. I don't have the latest video card or flashing lights in my computer case, and I don't go to LAN parties. Clearly I'm not nearly as hardcore as the stereotype.

But the real reason I'm apparently not a hardcore gamer? Because when I bought that Wii, the one now gathering metaphorical dust in the living room (I say metaphorical because my brother absolutely loves the thing and still plays Wii Sports every day), I thought it might be the saviour of the game industry. I, too, was tired of the dominance of dumb sequels and big-budget games that did nothing to advance their respective genres. I didn't care about sports game franchises. I didn't care about Halo. I didn't want to play any game that involved orcs or kobolds. The game that most excited me in the past couple of years was Katamari Damacy, which is about as simple a game as you can make—roll up a bunch of stuff with your ball and make the ball as big as possible. But the execution was brilliant and innovative, and the result was pure joy in a DVD case.

When the Wii was announced and the videos came out with cute Japanese girls and older British couples playing with that magic controller for the first time, I saw Katamari Damacy all over again. And if there's a problem with the Wii, it's not that it will demolish the hardcore gaming scene as we know it, or that publishers will stop making games with rich narratives. It's that the central promise of the Wii—that it could also be a box full of pure gaming joy, with that controller as your magic wand—has yet to be fulfilled.

The Wii's potential, thus far, has translated into fairly poor results. Half the games out there interest me not at all. I'm sure Rayman or Mario Party are great games, but I don't care because I played Warioware and after the first two hours I was bored senseless, and I don't want to spend another $50 on a game that will just give me that same experience. Katamari is a simple game that continues to please after 20 hours, even though you're basically doing the same thing as hour 1 and there's no real narrative to speak of. That's what's missing from the Wii right now. Arguably it's also missing from the PS3, but since I don't have one I can't say. But the deficiency has nothing to do with casual vs. hardcore gaming. Katamari is not a hardcore game. Medal of Honor is not a casual game. The Wii needs more of the former and less of the latter.

There is no reason why a game with a rich narrative experience should be the realm of the hardcore, and no reason why a simple sandbox game should be the realm of the casual player. These distinctions don't make sense because gaming is now big enough that people's playing patterns don't fit the old categories. Am I hardcore or am I not? If I am, try to sell me on Gears of War. If I'm not, try to sell me on Warioware. Trust me when I say that I'll be a hard sell on both.
posted by chrominance at 2:04 AM on June 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

Anyone else pick up Shadowrun for the 360? I'm looking to get some practice before completely embarrassing myself online. Gamertag is Waitsing.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:29 AM on June 11, 2007

The problem with hardcore gamer games is they only run *well* on fairly new PCs with the latest graphics cards. For years I always envied folks I knew who were always playing the latest Quake or Halo on their hand-built oh so carefully optimized PCs while mine, when I tried to play one of those games, ran at about 2 fps. Why? because I didn't essentially overhaul my PC every 10 months or so. So I finally said "screw it" and bought at PS2, which I loved, and stopped screwing around with PCs and bought a (...but you can't play games on it!!) mac.

The one great thing about game consoles is... if you buy a game for one, it will run well on it. Period. No fiddling with graphics card settings, it just runs.

And I recently bought a Wii and quite like it. I've been playing Sonic and Zelda and have had friends over to play the bowling game in the Wii Sports disk that came with it and everyone had a lot of fun with it. In the end, that's what it's all about.
posted by lordrunningclam at 6:50 AM on June 11, 2007

Heh. He says "young men" drive the video game industry, but actually he's 35 years old (3 years older then Cliff Bleszinski). Not so young anymore, bub.
posted by delmoi at 6:56 AM on June 11, 2007

How cute am I now?

Pretty darn cute, actually. I love the way the blood in your teeth brings out your eyes.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:20 AM on June 11, 2007

This guy is like a cliff diver complaining about how trampolines suck, you know, BECAUSE. "Hardcore" gamers are finally realizing that they're the minority and not the vanguard of a new generation of humanity or whatever their egos think they are.
posted by GuyZero at 7:41 AM on June 11, 2007

"You might be able to design a decent shooter for the Wii by using the wiimote pointer as an aiming reticule (rail shooter style), the D-pad to move, and the nunchuk for perspective control. Personally, I think it would probably be really, really awkward."

Call of Duty's pretty fun, actually, though the look is a little clumsy. But because of the fluidity of motion, especially on a huge tv, it's immersive enough that the awkwardness melts away.

That may be the other secret of the Wii— My brother and my old roommate both had huge hi-def TVs, and they made a world of difference.

And ikkuyu2's comment upthread about FFXII made me think about "epic" games: FFXII was gorgeous and fun for a while, but the game's essentially on rails, and you end up by the end not scaling up gameplay difficulty, but rather the time it takes you to defeat any given enemy. You set up your gambits right, and then you essentially walk away. There's no tension, no excitement. It becomes a fucking grind.
Which is my beef with nearly all the "epic" games out there. Completing parts of GTA:SA or Kingdom of Hearts? Fucking grind. Totally not worthwhile in terms of fun:time. On one hunt in FFXII, I left the game for a fucking hour while my automatons beat the hell out of that fucking dragon in a cave, and came back and they were still at it. That's boring. I'd rather play a "shallow" Wii game that's FUN the whole way through. GTA's driving schools? Fucking boring. Driving for half an hour to get to some random-ass mission because it's inexplicably on the other side of the map? Fucking boring. That game becomes infinitely better when you have a jetpack or plane or something to avoid hearing the same songs on the radio again.
And MMORPGs seem about the same. I gave up on Runescape when I realized that most of my time was being spent on mining ore and transporting it back to a trade office. Who wants to be a virtual serf?
posted by klangklangston at 9:21 AM on June 11, 2007

I'm quite certain I didn't comment about FF XII, because I've never even seen it, let alone played it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:23 AM on June 11, 2007

Oh, whups, sorry ikkyu2. That was Rokkitnite.
posted by klangklangston at 11:00 AM on June 11, 2007

The brother of the Gears of War Jazz Jackrabbit designer has a few thoughts about the Wii's potential dominance in the coming years.

OK

I had refused to believe that grandmothers were buying these things as so many news reports have claimed until I saw it with my own eyes.

The NPD sales figures since November have been troubling to me as a hardcore gamer who loves new IPs and in-depth experiences.

What a disingenuous remark! Lets see... Unreal, Unreal Tournament, UT2K3, UT2K4, UT2007... so how about "original" IP and "in-depth experiences"?

Warcraft. Diablo. Quake. Countless derivative bullshit titles thereafter, two studios are top dogs and everyone else fights over scraps. Truly independent dev houses fold nearly immediately unless the can find alternate distribution (see Insomnia) much like what happened to Shiny. End of fucking story, there were no golden days. Ever.
posted by prostyle at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2007

FPS - The wiimote is flat out useless for FPS games designed for other platforms. I know it doesn't feel like it should be, but it is. The pointing capability just doesn't work at all - it feels mouselike in some ways, but doesn't work for mouselook.

As mentioned up-thread a little, CoD3 does this fairly well. I don't think people will get mouselook working, I think they just need to work on the CoD3 method of "it controls the aiming reticule on the screen, and when you get to the edge you start turning". What CoD3 did wrong was you couldn't independently adjust your cursor sensitivity and your turning speed. So either the aiming was too twitchy or the turning was too slow (for my preferences).

I think also allow the user to adjust how far to the side you need to aim before you start turning (and allow that boundary to be brought right in to mimic mouselook for people who want to try it) and you'd have it. Just make sensible defaults but then make it really adjustable.

As for driving all I can say is that it works in Excite Truck. Perhaps they only use the first 45deg of movement? This already gives you a bigger range of movement than a thumbstick.
posted by markr at 1:52 PM on June 11, 2007

About driving: Excite Truck works exceedingly well, with the only WTF moments coming when you turn the controller past a certain angle, at which point the controls don't really do anything. Need For Speed: Carbon, strangely enough, isn't too bad either, despite the bad reviews. The fatal flaws are that a) there are way too many control schemes, seemingly thrown in just because, and b) the standard "use the Wiimote like a wheel" config requires that the side of the Wiimote with the buttons face up, as opposed to towards you like in Excite Truck.

About FPSing: I actually kinda like Red Steel's control scheme. It takes a lot of getting used to but it's controllable, even in multiplayer when you've got a tiny screen to aim at. The real problem with Red Steel is the swordfighting is horrible and the gameplay is stale, but if you think of it as a Wii version of split-screen Goldeneye and invest some time into figuring out how to walk around and shoot things it becomes quite a bit more tolerable.
posted by chrominance at 10:51 PM on June 11, 2007

Hey, you, Van Gogh's brother! What are your opinions on Post-Impressionist art?

Pretty much exactly the same.
posted by Hexidecimal at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2007

there were no golden days. Ever.

Planescape Torment, Fallout I & II, Baldur's Gate II

Not sure about the dates on all those, but I certainly played them around the same time. Those days were plenty golden.
posted by juv3nal at 2:55 PM on June 13, 2007

I think it's a great idea. Kind of like the Nintendo DS, where everyone was thinking the PSP would mop it off the floor, but it turns out to actually boost creativity and immersion. Kudos to Nintendo for not being afraid to risk things. And trust me, I was worried when I first heard the announcement, but now think it's a great thing!
posted by macsigler at 8:05 PM on July 6, 2007