Nintendo

I really, really suck at New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

So I’ve never beaten the first dungeon / castle in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. That’s right, I’ve never seen anything beyond the first world. I find it frustratingly difficult, and to date it (and Super Mario Bros 3 in which I’ve also never passed the first world) is the only game that makes me want to toss controllers around the room. After the first couple of lives I waste in the dungeon my palms start to sweat and I start to make the same mistakes over and over again. What frustrates me is the most important part of the game is jumping, something that should be so simple and yet I can’t master it. Again and again I plunge Mario into the lava. I haven’t played New Super Mario Bros. Wii in about 4 months and tonight I thought I’d give it another shot. As you can see in the video below I made it no further than I ever have. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to master Mario.

A NES Birthday Surprise!

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

 

 

 

 

 

So yesterday for my birthday I received a case of my favorite beer from back home (not available anywhere but the East Coast) and to my surprise, a restored and completely functioning NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). I haven’t touched an actual NES since mine stopped working sometime in the early 90’s. I, like many, have relived old NES games via emulators, but there’s just something special about putting a cartridge into a NES and seeing it in all its 8-bit glory on your TV. Surprisingly it manages to look pretty good on an HDTV when hooked up via A/V cables (though it’s slightly distorted since the TV I tried it on last night scaled it to widescreen. Using the coax hookup keeps the 4:3 ratio but gets fuzzy here and there).

I picked up a handful of games last night at a mom and pop video game store, and they were surprisingly cheap (Zelda being the most expensive of the bunch at $15). I’m going to check out the other store in town today to see if I can add anything more to my new collection.

 

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Also, I thought I’d share two anomalies from last night:

At P.F. Changs I mixed up our fortune cookies before opening them….It turns out we got the exact same fortune…Creepy!

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and then this:

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How Wii U owners must feel

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

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When my friend first decided he was going to buy a Wii U I tried everything to encourage him not to. The Wii was successful, but most gamers who owned Wii’s quickly tired of them and went back to their Xbox, Playstation or PC as their go to gaming device. No one was playing cross platform games on the Wii, and no one in the right mind is doing the same on the Wii U (unless for some strange reason a person’s only console is the Wii U, then they’re just screwed).

This video is how I imagine most Wii U owner’s are feeling right now. They keep saying “When the games come so will the gamers” but the games aren’t coming. Unless Mario and Zelda excite you more than anything else in the world the Wii U should not be a console you are excited to own. It most likely is something you regret owning and even if you wanted to sell it no one’s buying.

What if Nintendo made iPhone games?

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I was reading an article in Edge about how Apple has revolutionized mobile gaming and is gaining more and more of the market that used to belong to Nintendo, and it got me thinking…What if Nintendo made iPhone games? Wouldn’t that be awesome? There are plenty of incredibly designed games out there in the iTunes market, but Nintendo still has the ability to create some of the best games on the mobile platform. So is the solution just to buy a DS? Not for me. I don’t want to have to carry a DS around with me at all times and even if I did I doubt I’d find the pocket room.

To me mobile gaming is about having quick access in times of need, say on a bus ride or in line at the store. I don’t want to make the conscious decision, ‘Hey I need to bring my DS in case I end up with some free time’, rather I want my games readily accessible in a way that doesn’t create any unnecessary burden. Therefore having a phone double as a gaming device is the perfect solution. I always have my phone and it has plenty of practical uses other than gaming.

The iPhone is as capable (well I’m no technical expert, but from what I’ve seen) as a Nintendo DS. There are some games with pretty decent 3D graphics that run and play well on the device. Grand Theft Auto III is a great example, it’s a PS2 game that looks nice on the iPhone. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is actually a DS game that is ported to the iPhone, and again it works just as well as it did on the DS.

So why can’t I have New Super Mario Bros. on my iPhone? We all know the answer, Nintendo wouldn’t do this because they want you to buy a Nintendo DS to play their games. The problem is there are thousands of gamers out there who would gladly shell out for quality Nintendo titles on the iPhone who have absolutely no interest in purchasing a Nintendo DS. Is there any middle ground here?

Microsoft has announced it plans to bring its Xbox Live marketplace to the iPhone and Android devices which had previously been exclusive to Windows phones. They realize there’s plenty of money to be earned selling games to those who have no interest in the Windows phone platform.

Nintendo is losing its hold on the mobile gaming market faster than ever, and I think the solution is to sell its games on other devices. Maybe they could release a DS app for the iPhone for say an initial price of $50 that would earn them some money to make up for people not buying the DS hardware, and then inside that app sell the DS games for let’s say $15-30 a piece. They’d easily dominate the top 10 charts which have been dominated by the $0.99 Angry Birds for what seems like forever. It’d be win-win, we as gamers would get access to some of the best mobile games out there, while Nintendo would earn some money in what is becoming one of the largest markets in video games. That’s right, not just in mobile gaming, but in video games period.

I know this will likely never happen, but a guy can dream can’t he? What do you think?