Living in a Post-Angry Birds World

I saw this little gem at the downtown Minneapolis Target after work today.  It's Angry Birds Trilogy, a compilation of three titles from the immensely popular iOS/Android Angry Birds series.  Can you see the crisis for Nintendo?  Any company executive who does not see it deserves to be fired immediately.

A paradigm shift in the video game world is rare, but the arrival of Apple's Apps store is one of them.  Five years ago, Angry Birds would have easily found a home as a $20 Nintendo DS cartridge.  Today, it's a 99-cent download for smartphones.  For Angry Birds Trilogy, that means $20-$30 on Nintendo 3DS, $40 on PS360...or $3 on the iPhone.  That's a paradigm shift, kids.

Nintendo gambled hard on stereoscopic 3D, hoping the Avatar phenom would usher in a new era of entertainment.  They're gambling and, outside of Japan, they're losing the bet.  Every week that goes by, store shelves of $40 3DS games look increasingly bloated and out-of-touch, while Apple and Google capture the "casual" market that was once in the palm of Nintendo's hands.

How can you sell a $40 video game in an age of $1-$5 apps?  You can't.  Sorry, Charlie, them's the brakes.

To Nintendo's credit, their situation isn't hopeless, at least, not yet.  Nobody can touch their quality when it comes to classic arcade games like Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart.  And iOS developers are struggling even to make a dime, as the smartphone market is over-saturated with free and Free-to-Play apps.  If the Big N was smart, they could navigate their way out of this minefield.  But they're going to have to make some radical decisions about their pricing, their online strategy, and their hardware/software.

My Cranky Grampa Complaints About the Nintendo 3DS

Nintendo's 3DS was released with great fanfare, but early sales returns have been disappointing.  Nintendo, unfortunately, can sometimes be their own worst enemy, and for every step forward (DS, Wii), they take one or two steps back (Virtual Boy, Gamecube).  It's a weird little cycle that I've seen many times over the past 20 years, and by now it's something I've just learned to live with.  I really enjoyed the DS, and I really enjoyed the Wii.  But right now, I am not enjoying the 3DS.  In fact, I don't much like it at all.

Let's take a look at my Cranky Grampa Complaints about the Nintendo 3DS, and you can either nod approvingly or chuckle under your breath.  Either way, here goes:

1)  The 3D effect is just a cheap gimmick.  Seriously, I had a 3-D Viewmaster when I was, like, five years old.  Seeing Herbie the Love Bug in 3D back in 1978 was pretty cool.  It's not cool in 2011.  The problem here is that Nintendo has bet everything on a novelty that was good for exactly one Hollywood picture (Avatar), and once the moment fades, it's gone for good.  Nintendo has yet to make the case why, exactly, any of us should care about stereoscopic 3D in video games.  They're treating the "wow" factor as a given, and that's a foolish mistake.

2)  The 3D effect hurts my eyes.  Let me repeat that again for the sake of padding out the Google search engine - The Nintendo 3DS Hurts My Eyes.  The whole 3-D effect is achieved by basically staring cross-eyed at the screen, much like those novelty "magic picture" books in the 1990s.  And it causes eye strain and headaches and completely messes my vision for hours afterward.  This is a very real problem.  I don't like things that hurt me, and I don't like the idea of my video games turning me into Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion.  And, no, the slider option does not help.  3D is pretty much the whole point to this system.  It's certainly the excuse for the outrageous retail price...

3)  $250 is way too expensive for a portable video game system.  The original Gameboy was sold for $99.  It came packaged with a set of headphones and Tetris.  The 3DS costs two-and-a-half times that much and comes packaged with nothing.  Meanwhile, the DS Lite sells for half the price, and has a library of over 5000 games.  An 8GB iPod Touch sells for $229.  A coloring book and box of crayons sell for $5.  Hiking through the woods and climbing trees is free.  We have plenty of options for our time and money.  Nintendo needs to shave $100 off the price of this immediately.  Stop chuckling.  I'm serious.

4)  $40 is way too expensive for cartridge games.  Gameboy games used to sell for twenty bucks.  
Heck, you can find a Gameboy Advance SP on Craigslist for $40 or less, and usually get some games included in the deal.  For the price of one 3DS game, I could be playing Tetris or Advance Wars or Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer or Final Fantasy I & II?  For that matter, how many iPod games could you download for that money?  There's no excuse for this sort of price-gouging.  Drop the retail prices in half.  Okay, you can chuckle at this one.  It ain't ever gonna happen.

5)  The 3DS battery life is abysmal.  Three hours?  We're talking Atari Lynx levels of power drainage, kids.  And let me tell ya, I loved the Atari Lynx, but I hated the battery life.  So did most kids, which is why they all ended up with Gameboys instead.  C'mon, people, we put twelve men on the moon with less technology.  Hmm, for that matter, why haven't we gone back to the moon, or moved on to Mars?  Instead of exploring the galaxy, we're melting the polar ice caps.  Progress!

6)  None of the 3DS games are any good.  Sorry.  In all fairness, I will say that Pilotwings Resort and Super Street Fighter 4 are the standout titles, but sequels of ripoffs of spinoffs don't work in the year 2011.  All this does is make me want to play Wii Sports Resort and the Capcom 4-MEG fighters on Sega Saturn.  There's nothing in the 3DS library that really sells the machine, or compels me to play.  Nothing is jumping out at me, so to speak.  Shouldn't that be the whole point of a 3D video game system?  At some point, you actually have to make some good games to sell your game machine.  That's kind of how it works.

7)  Repackaged sequels.  This kind of builds upon the previous point, but bears repeating.  People will not spend $250 for reruns.  Sorry.  Nintendo's DS and Wii were terrific systems because their innovative designs forced software developers to - gasp! - create new video games.  Yoshi: Touch & Go, Zoo Keeper, Meteos, Trauma Center, Brain Age, Nintendogs, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Just Dance...Very impressive!  Why aren't we seeing this on the 3DS?  Instead we get: another Street Fighter, another Ridge Racer, another Pilotwings, another Dead or Alive, another Metal Gear, another Star Fox, another Zelda.  Shrug.

8)  The packaging is terrible.  Seriously, who decided that video games should come in such dour, miserable packages?  Probably the same folks who are embarrassed to be making video games and want to be making movies, or something.  Whatever.  This drive to legitimize the medium as "high art" is foolish and misguided.  If you work in the videogame business, you're not a storyteller with a vision, and you're not an "artist."  You're a toymaker in Santa's Workshop.  You bring smiles to children of all ages and make everyone feel young and happy.  This is a very good thing. 

Just look at the package design for the original Game Boy from 1989.  Now this just screams, "Play with me!  I'm fun!  Whee!"  And then Nintendo included a pair of headphones and Tetris in the box - still the best video game ever made.  Yay!  In fact, I may just buy myself a Gameboy just so I have the box in my house.

9)  Where are the touchscreen games?  I hadn't quite realized it until I thought up that list of games, but all the best DS games were the early ones that relied on the touchscreen, and the best Wii games used motion controls to their fullest.  But game designers don't want to be bothered with the new control schemes, and they've all but disappeared now.  So what's the point of even having the damned thing if it's never going to be used?  What's the point?  Why should Nintendo add an analog thumb-pad to the 3DS when the touchscreen is already available?  Seems to work perfectly fine on an iPod Touch, so why not here?

10)  No pack-in game.  Super Mario Brothers made the NES.  Tetris made the Gameboy.  Sonic the Hedgehog made the Genesis.  Wii Sports made the Wii.  Why isn't there a pack-in game for the 3DS?  You know what I think the pack-in game for this portable should have been?  Minecraft.  Nintendo should have flown to Sweeden and handed Notch a blank check for the exclusive console rights.  Reggie could still do that if he really wanted, but it's probably too late by now.  Minecraft is headed for the iPod and iPad instead.  Ah, well, it's not like Apple's about to dethrone Nintendo and take over the portable-games market, right?  Right?  Bueller?

Bottom line: Nintendo's 3DS is a very expensive gimmick, and it's lumbering out the gate with a number of issues that could become serious problems.  Fortunately, Nintendo is already on the ball and they're planning for the future.  They're buying a ton of Apple stock.

Videogame Classics - Virtual Kasparov

Virtual Kasparov
Titus Interactive
Gameboy Advance
2001

April 14, 2003

Video chess is one of those novelty ideas that never really panned out. It reminds me of the Atari 2600 days, when designers experimented with video versions of Checkers, Backgammon, Tic-Tac-Toe, hide-and-seek (seriously), and chess. These games were needlessly awful, and functional at best. Pretty much the only chess program worth playing has been the Chessmaster series. There just isn't much point to playing against a computer when you can play against, well, real people. Maybe I'm still burned at how Atari's Video Chess cheated (it stole your pieces between moves).

If there's going to be a good video chess program, especially in this day and age, there has to be some pizzazz. Chess may be the greatest game ever invented, but, believe me, it does not have pizzazz. Watching people play chess is slightly more exciting than watching people sleep.

Thank goodness for Titus. I have to say, the Gameboy Advance has surprised me a lot so far, and among those pleasant surprises is Virtual Kasparov. Finally, here is a chess game that is actually geared towards gamers, without insulting their intelligence or boring them to death.

My favorite feature is the tutorial mode, which offers a wealth of knowledge about the game. Beginners start off by learning the rules, the pieces, and their functions. Then you progress to the opening game, various tactics and strategies, different mate schemes, and endings. For more advanced lessons, you study several games, learn about Queen Sacrifices, and even watch three famous grandmaster-level games.

The title is, of course, a giveaway, as Garry Kasparov walks players through each step; not only showing, but asking feedback as well. This approach works wonderfully; you learn better when you're asked to provide the answers, instead of just taking notes. It certainly helps to gain the insights of the greatest living chess player.

The meat and potatoes of Virtual Kasparov is Story Mode. Here, you square off against a succession of opponents around the world. Your first matches are embarrassingly easy, but as you travel across the globe, unlocking more continents to visit, the computer challengers become increasingly difficult. Unless you happen to be a master of the game already, you won't be finishing Story Mode anytime soon. Thank goodness chess isn't one of those games that need to be updated every year; you could be coming back and playing matches for years. The final challenger is, of course, Kasparov himself, and, no, I am nowhere near him yet. Ask me in 2008.

Titus Interactive Studio is the French software house responsible for this game, ad it ranks among their best. There is always a certain devotion to style in all the French gaming studios, and Virtual Kasparov is no exception. I enjoyed the many portraits of your different opponents, from housewives to school nerds to businessmen to world-weary travelers. There are also a dozen different chessboards to choose from: two boards in 3D, ten in 2D. The boards show a wide range of colors and styles, from the conventional to the abstract; a couple boards have an almost cubist feel to them. And yet, it is still easy to make out the pieces. Even the game's default black-and-white chessboard looks great, classical in its simplicity.

This is the perfect game for a handheld like the Advance. I can also see this as the perfect solution for anyone who wants to learn the game, from your friends or your spouse or your kids. Anything to get them off Fox News and start using their brain.

Videogame Classics - Motoracer Advance

Motoracer Advance
Delphine Software
Gameboy Advance
2002


April 21, 2003

Shortly after getting into Moto GP (and loving every minute of it), someone pointed me in the direction of Delphine Software's own Motoracer Advance. I can't remember how exactly the subject came up, but I'm glad it did. I have an affinity for anything that shows genuine creativity, that spark of fun, be it art or music or film or even videogames. Motoracer has sparks to spare.

The game is loosely based on a series of motorcycle racing games on the Playstation by Delphine, which featured different styles of racing fused together. I can't say I've ever seen the original games, but chances are that I've missed out. That's not to suggest this title is yet another port; not so. Everything has been built from the ground up.

Every game needs a hook. I found myself hooked once I started my first race and quickly discovered how wonderful everything looks. I wouldn't call it a "cartoon" look, but everything is drawn with a painterly approach, as though sketched with watercolors and stencils. There hasn't been anything on the Advance quite like this; "cartoon" games are usually covered with a saccharine gloss; Motoracer instead resembles an underground comic book. Smooth color, rich tones. Consider, for example, the Kenya course, with its rich browns, its animated locals waving from the side.

Then, of course, things start moving, and you realize how brilliant the game's graphics engine truly is. There are certain expectations with racing titles on Gameboy Advance, usually variations on the Super Nintendo "Mode 7," or the twists and turns of Sega's Hang-On and Outrun, or some attempt at 3D polygons (with mixed results). Adeline has achieved something different here. The game is entirely presented without polygons, and yet we have roads that buckle, heave, and twist in every direction. The first time you take a jump over a hill is a rush; sometimes, there are so many bumps and drops that one could feel dizzy. And everything is wonderfully smooth and very fast, even with a screen filled with trees, poles, buildings, animals, crowds, oncoming traffic. Motocross Advance has achieved something of a minor benchmark with old-school bitmaps. The question then remains: if this is what can be achieved on the Advance with sprites, why even bother with polygons?

That sense of speed is, of course, crucial to any great racing game. And the fact that this is achieved without sacrificing frames of animation only adds to my respect. I'm amazed at how far the horizon stretches. Perhaps that's just a benefit of all the hills and turns that I can see so far. The benefit to the player is that they can plan better for those upcoming turns. The game's camera is low to the ground, closer to a first-person view. Some may complain that their view is blocked because of this, but I've never had any trouble. Most driving games set the camera too high anyway.

Of the three different racing modes, the dirt bikes are my favorite, since they offer the most jumps and hills. In addition to dirt bikes are the GP and Traffic levels. GP includes the same high-speed motorbikes that made Moto GP so cool, with smoother curves and hills. One course takes place across a highway, where players must constantly drive across the narrow off-ramps. Traffic does just what it promises: you race against other drivers through city traffic. Trying to gain the lead while diving down the San Francisco hills is one thing; trying to avoid those trollies is another thing altogether. There are eighteen racetracks between the three modes, each similar in approach but noticeably unique in style.

Regardless of which bike you drive, the steering is impeccable. It's ironic that the motorcycle games on this handheld have turned out to be the best-playing. More often than not, bike games are throwaways after the cars have had their fun. Again, notice how your vehicles don't swerve recklessly every time you make a turn. There's a real sense of gravity at work here, between the traction and those insane drops. Even with the faster bikes (that you unlock as you progress), things never get out of control. Note that I don't crash to a complete stop if I touch one of the other bikers. Note how they actually put up a real fight, instead of letting me walk away with trophies.

There are more features to be discovered in Motoracer Advance. Suffice it to say, there's a lot of game here. Championships, crashes, squashing chickens, hitting fans, cheerleaders, and on and on. Up to four players can race against each other; which of course makes this title a must-have if you and your friends all have Gameboys. I'll be so bold as to say this is the best racer on Nintendo's portable. Alright, the best racer that isn't Super Mario Kart. Close enough.

Nintendo 3DS' Very Thin Lineup

The launch lineup for Nintendo's 3DS is surprisingly thin.  After all the hype, and after it became obvious that Wii software development was being curtailed, I assumed there would really be some bang-up games to show off their new handheld.  Instead, not much.  A new Pilotwings, a new Nintendogs, and some game involving a submarine.

20 years ago, I learned to be patient and generous when a new videogame console launched.  The first wave of titles were little more than tech demos or cheap knockoffs, and that's fine.  The real hits would arrive around six months later.  It's very rare that you see a "killer app" at launch, like Tetris or Super Mario Bros.  That said, I have far less patience in the year 2011.  The Sega Dreamcast tipped the scale for what was considered acceptable for a system launch, and I'm not willing to go back.

Add in the fact that the 3DS' display seriously messes with my vision, and...well, maybe I'm just getting too old for this stuff.  My heart lies in arcade video games, and those are a dying breed.  I'm pretty happy with the Genesis and Saturn that's sitting on my desk, and the temtation to grab another Dreamcast is always strong.  I'd much rather play around with a Gameboy Advance SP than a 3DS.  Maybe that says something about the 3DS, and maybe that says something about me.  I'll leave that mystery for you to solve.

Right now, I can't recommend the Nintendo 3DS, however reluctantly.  Maybe my eyes will adjust and that cross-eyed strain won't become an issue.  Maybe there will be some killer video games that really show off 3D as the Next Big Thing.  But I'm not so sure about that.  I certainly don't think yet another Zelda and Mario is going to do the trick.  I want something new.  Whatever happened to Nintendo's quirky, left-field mindset?  Remember the early DS games like Wario Ware: Twisted, Yoshi: Touch & Go, Meteos, Animal Crossing, and Brain Training?  Where did that indie spirit go?

E3 - Animal Crossing on Nintendo 3DS

Animal Crossing was my all-time favorite game on Nintendo DS, but even I have to admit the formula has become listless and stale.  The upcoming 3DS version promises new features and all-new graphics, so I'm hopeful that this simply isn't the exact same game recycled for the fourth time.

This time, you are the mayor of your town, and this may set up some interesting scenarios.  Hopefully, there are some new activities and new kinds of items and homes to collect.  The characters appear taller, and the layout.  Colors are lush and detailed and look wonderful.  This is another 3DS game I'll be watching closely.  I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

E3 - Pilotwings Resort on Nintendo 3DS

When I heard Nintendo had brought back Pilotwings for the 3DS, I wasn't sure what to expect.  To my pleasant surprise, this new installment is based heavily on the airplane portion of Wii Sports Resort.  Yeah!

The original SNES Pilotwings was a lot of fun at the time.  Pilotwings 64 was less enjoyable, but it did have a canyon drop in a hang glider that was spectacular.  Pilotwings Resort promises to perfect the formula.  This is a key title to watch.

Nintendo Reveals the 3DS - Let the Hype Begin

Nintendo revealed their eagerly-anticipated 3DS handheld today at E3.  This is the star of the show, surpassing even Microsoft's and Sony's new motion controllers, and it's looking very, very nice.  Nintendo promised a strong lineup of titles, including new sequels to Nintendogs, Pilotwings and Kid Icarus, and nearly all the major third-party players are on board.

Like most gamers, I'm excited and giddy at the sight of a new video game system, particularily one that promises cool new technology, in this case, 3D.

Thinking more rationally, I'm feeling a bit more ambivalent about Nintendo's new handheld.  It feels conservative, like Malibu Stacy with a new hat.  It looks almost identical to the existing DS models, only with a 3D display, analog controller, and two cameras for snapping 3D photos.  I'm sure the technology is an improvement as well, but it's in keeping with Nintendo's gameplay-over-graphics philosophy that titles like Kid Icarus looks like a Gamecube title.

I'm looking forward to seeing more details on the games and how they play, but what strikes out at me is that there is no original content.  Everything is a sequel to a sequel to a sequel.  Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Pilotwings, Star Fox, Nintendogs, Paper Mario, and Kid Icarus, which seems to be the star title of the lineup.  Third-party titles are, likewise, more of the same games we played over a decade ago.  Yet another Metal Gear Solid, yet another Ridge Racer, yet another Namco Museum, yet another Resident Evil, yet another Sims.

I feel like it's 1990, and Atari Corp is still selling Asteroids and Ms. Pac-Man and Robotron and Xevious.  I'm tired of being asked to play the exact same games over and over again, with no discernable differences.  I want new games....remember new games?  Remember when video games were driven by innovation?

Where is the 3DS' Wii Sports?  Where is the must-play hit game that shows me that 3D is the future?  I'll be the skeptic here, if only for the sake of argument.  I think "3D" is a gimmick, a cheap trick to make us pay double for the same rides at the amusement park.  I had a Viewmaster when I was five years old, and it was impressive then.  I'm not so easily impressed now.

3DS needs some killer apps.  It needs some new games and new ideas.  The original DS handheld was amazingly inventive.  It really was a risky move, and it paid off handsomely.  Now it just seems like Nintendo is playing it safe, protecting the franchise.  The novelty of "Viewmaster 3D" will wear off, as all novelties do.  It's our nature as a primate species.  What lies underneath will determine the system's future.

Nintendo is expected to release the 3DS by March 2011.  Let's hope they have the big hits.

Todd's Adventures in Slime World - Some Screenshots

 

 

Here are some screenshots from another one of my all-time favorite videogames, Todd's Adventures in Slime World, designed by Epyx for the Atari Lynx.  It's atmospheric, underground caverns were endlessly pulsing, gurgling, breathing.  There was nothing else like it before or since, and it's a smashing great time.

The gameplay of Slime World essentially beat Super Metroid to the punch by several years, yet the focus is squarely on exploration and survival.  The most legendary feature is multiplayer deathmatch for up to eight players.  There were a lot of deathmatch games on Lynx, and all of which predated Doom.  Too bad everyone else you knew had Gameboys.  Multiplayer Lynx remains of the lost Holy Grails of video games.

I can't remember if I posted these screenshots years ago, but I've always been proud of them.  They were snapped on the Handy emulator on my PC.

Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer (GBA) - Some Screenshots

 

 

 

 

 

I'm porting thsi review from my old arts website, DanielThomas.org.  I think I was playing around with Visualboy Advance here and there, and remembered how much I loved Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer on Gameboy Advance.  It was just about my favorite game for the handheld, and the only title in the "extreme sports" genre to really succeed on the Advance.

Isn't it strange how this genre just upped and died?  I'm not surprised to see the Tony Hawk series run into the ground (only the first two Pro Skaters were classic).  But why no other games in 2009?  What's the deal on that?   In any case, here is one of the greatest examples of the genre.  The animation of the surfers is impeccably smooth, and the rolling waves remain a dazzling visual feast.  This water on this Advance version is better than the Playstation 2 and XBox!  The console versions used smooth polygon graphics that felt wholly out of place, just flat and awful.  I suspect that's why Kelly Slater was overlooked as a game.

Meanwhile, Hot Gen Studios created a modern masterpiece on the Gameboy Advance, and I daresay barely anybody ever noticed.  It's a shame, a real shame.  This is one of the finest sports video games ever made.  Oh, how I wish a sequel could have been made, but the studio, like so many small studios at the time, went under for good.


Anyway, enjoy these screenshots that I snapped back in 2003.  I was so proud of myself for capturing such great action shots.  Feel free to steal whatever you want.

Videogame Classics - Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer

April 14, 2003

Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer

Hot Gen Studios

Gameboy Advance

2002

One of my favorite games from the late, great Atari Lynx was California Games. This was the best version of any of Epyx's sports games, offering extreme sports before they became "extreme" sports. The best of the lot was surfing, which allowed you to swim a surfboard across an ever-tumbling wave, cutting turns and performing stunts, all the while looking cool. The animation of the water was amazingly fluid, and the thrill of spinning 360's over the waves was untouched.

What the Gameboy Advance really needs are more of the fast arcade-style games that made the Lynx so cool. I was thinking of this as I started up Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer. I missed the game when it debuted on the consoles, so I can't say how accurately it captures the feel of surfing, or if its 3D environments recreate that old California Games thrill. But on the Advance, Kelly Slater delivers. It delivers magnificently.

I consider the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series to be among the finest videogames ever made, with its brilliant mix of action, sport, stunt work; the game was a witches brew of different genres, distilled into the perfect depiction of skate culture. This formula, for some reason, hasn't worked as well with other sports; other games may capture the control scheme or the scoring system, but not the spirit. You don't understand what its like to snowboard, or ride a bike. You only know you're playing Tony Hawk in a new suit.

That's fine, but where's the connection? Where's the spirit? Kelly Slater has that spirit, that spark that feels familiar and is yet unique. This may be the first game since Tony Hawk to get everything perfectly right.

Playing through the game, you are introduced to the wealth of tricks, turns, spins, and waves found in surfing. I have to admit that I expected the same wall of water, but I was wrong; the many different beaches carry their own feel and style. On some beaches, the waves are tall and wide, others shallow and swift. Waves crash left-to-right or right-to-left, in daytime and sunset. Surfing in each beach requires different skills; what works at Trestles won't work at Mundaka; if anything, your progress relies on the depth of your skills. You will only win championships if you keep learning.

The temptation is certainly there to dismiss Kelly Slater as one unending half-pipe, but this is just ignorance. Those willing to invest the time will discover a wealth of skills and techniques; how easy is it to dismiss those surfer bums without spending a minute in their shoes? These boys and girls are smarter than you think. Just like skateboarding, you have to learn a whole new vocabulary - carves, snaps, slides, arials, rotations, grabs, floaters. One of this game's absolutely essential functions is the tutorial mode, where you must learn how to perform all these wonderful maneuvers. And these skills will come into play as you progress. In addition to the tournaments, there are challenges on every beach: score a set amount of points, perform a series of tricks, pull off specific combos.

Hot Gen Studios was put in charge of the Advance version of Kelly Slater, and they have poured amazing results out of the hardware. Gameboy Advance is often derided as a portable Super Nintendo, but I think that's unfair. Its power to render 3D polygons is limited, but its ability to paint two-dimensional landscapes is arguably without peer. Observe the beautiful motion of the waves, the effect of sunlight reflecting on the oceans, the way the waves crash as they finally hit land (here, a time limit makes sense). As fluid as California Games on the Lynx was, those graphics suddenly seem outdated, terribly outdated by comparison. This may be the best depiction of water I've seen in a videogame. The modern consoles make much about their ability to render water, but it still isn't perfect; you still feel like you're looking at Jell-O instead of water. 3D worlds may be hip, but hip only goes so far.

Kelly Slater shows that, in the right hands, there is life in the two-dimensional videogame, and that polygons and sprites can mix (the surfers are smoothly rendered in polygons). It also shows the fun to be had in fast-paced, arcade thrills and the never-ending quest for that high score. This style didn't have to go away because the Playstation showed up. Great videogames don't have to be dictated by marketing; they can define for themselves what's hip.

Videogame Classics - Wario Ware Twisted

Wario Ware Twisted
Nintendo
Gameboy Advance2005

October 1, 2005

After absorbing the news of Nintendo's Revolution controller, I wanted to see the motion-sensing technology in action, so that meant a trip to Target for a copy of Wario Ware Twisted for Gameboy Advanced.

I'm a bit of a late bloomer to Wario Ware. I only spend a very short time playing with the original 2003 Advance game, but its novelty was mostly lost on me. Perhaps I just wasn't willing to give it a proper chance; perhaps my head just wasn't in the right place. Wario Ware is something like Frank Zappa albums: wonderfully ingenious but completely out of left field. You have to be a certain kind of individual to ever "get it."

So, thankfully, I'm far more appreciative with Wario Ware Twisted. The idea of the game is the "microgame" - simple reflex tests, mere fragments of games, spit out one after another at a dizzying clip. Most events are over in less than three seconds, and it's interesting how this approach gives the game such a wierd glow. It's the perfect collusion of channel surfing, classic Nintendo nostalgia, and Japanese wierdness. It's very much the spiritual successor to Panic on the Sega CD.

Twisted was released in the first half of 2005, and uses a motion sensor that is part of the cartridge. I'm aware that I'm playing this after Revolution was unveiled, but I'm somewhat surprised that most reviews in websites and the prozines never learned what they were getting. This gyroscope is clearly not a "gimmick" - it's a window into the future of games.

Almost immediately, I'm struck by how much more natural, how much more intuitive, this control scheme is. Instead of using the d-pad, you rotate the Advance or DS (yes, this works fine on a DS). Movement is so much more fun. Isn't that wierd? I feel like I'm eight again, and I'm seeing an Atari VCS for the first time.

I think that Twisted is easier to grasp than the original Wario Ware because of this. The microgames aren't necessarily easier, but the control is so much more natural. That "what do I do now?" time has been shortened dramatically. I haven't played Wario Ware Touched yet, but my experience with the DS - most notably Yoshi Touch and Go, Meteos, Zookeeper - reinforce this belief.

Nintendo is actively moving away from the traditional control scheme. The d-pad is headed for extinction, and their designers are discovering how to play games with the new technology. Twisted feels like a crazed collection of tech demos, 200 grand experiments.

There are a lot of excellent examples throughout the game, from the 200 microgames to the 140 or so bonus items, games, and oddball trinkets. Head over to the NES microgames. Included in this bunch is a faithful recreation of the first world of the original Super Mario Bros. This version of Super Mario is set on a giant sphere that rotates as you move left or right. Note how you turn the handheld to make Mario move; a slight tilt will make Mario walk, and a heavy turn will make him run.

It took me a couple quick tries to become accustomed to turning instead of pressing a d-pad, but I quickly caught on, and realized how brilliant a movement-based control is. Control is more intuitive, more precise, more nuanced than in the original game. In a way, I felt cheated that only three shortened levels were offered. I want a full version of Super Mario now, and I'll wager that quite a few gamers feel the same way.

If we want a clue into how Revolution games will play, Twisted is the perfect example. Remember that Revolution will allow for fully three dimensional movement; Twisted uses only one dimensional movement, and it's a wonderful innovation. And a title like this gives designers necessary experience, which only promises that next year's Revolution games will be that much more polished.

I haven't even gone into detail about Twisted's great variety of visual styles, its oddball Japanese sense of humor (even moreso than the first Wario Ware), or its endless challenges. Isn't this just the coolest thing ever? What matters most right now is the movement control, how perfectly natural it is, and how many new game ideas will arise from the new order. Clearly, there's going to be a DJ game - tell me you haven't killed a couple hours scratching discs and having a ball. If Nintendo's creativity can continue to hold, then anything is possible.

Yoshi Touch and Go (Nintendo DS)

Yoshi Touch and Go - Nintendo for Nintendo DS - 8/10

October 1, 2005

I think it's fair to say at this point that I have more games for my Nintendo DS than I know what to do with. A more sensible person would have played through these games, one at a time, before running off to the store for the next fix. But, then, "sensible" would mean my saving my hard-earned money instead of playing videogames well into my thirties.

In any case, I've been killing my bus time with Yoshi Touch and Go. Perhaps you need to be old enough to remember the golden age of video arcades to really appreciate this game. You have to be a fan of that short-burst, improvisational arcade game. Younger reader probably won't remember, but videogames used to be designed to be played for less than five minutes at a stretch. True, the aim was usually to steal quarters from your pockets, but we learned the ropes, and pretty soon we were making those Aladdin's Castle tokens really stretch.

A lot of reviews in print and online have complained that Touch and Go is shallow and "gimmicky" - little more than a demonstration of the DS' innovative touch screen, something you use to show off your new handheld. Essentially, they want a modern platform adventure, not an arcade game. In today's jargon, videogames are judged by the length of time it takes to slog through from beginning to end, the number of cheesy Hollywood cut-scenes, or the amount of hidden, unlockable material.

Do these critics even remember what videogames were like? You know, games. Not $20 million movie previews.

Yoshi's best trait is its randomness. While the game consists of two modes - Baby Mario in a vertical drop, the Yoshis in a side-scrolling stroll - each game is structured differently. Coins and obstacles are always placed differently, enemies may be sporadic or swarm in droves, and passing breezes will blow away all your carefully drawn clouds. Whoever cooked up that last idea was bloody brilliant...and a bit of a psycho, too.

Has this happened to you? Baby Mario is sliding down a cloud path, towards some prized coins, and then that breeze kicks in, and drops Mario into a patch of spikes. D'oh! Yoshi Touch and Go's randomizing is really the best feature of the game (aside from the stylus, of course); the game possesses a rare balance between classic arcade reflexes and platforming know-how. It's more than simply a gimmicky way to repackage all the best moments from Yoshi's Island.

And this Yoshi can be pretty tough, too. It may be a little hard for the average person to connect at first, but I've also found that Meteos shares the same learning curve, and it's an absolutely smashing game. You just need to learn the ropes, master the game's sense of pacing and rhythm, and be prepared for anything.

Finally, the stylus is just wonderful. This is clearly a signature title for the DS touch screen, and you'll probably need to spend some time with the game before it really clicks with you. I remember some old lightgun games for the NES like Gumshoe, in which a character moved on rails while you shot at incoming obstacles, but Yoshi Touch and Go is far more involving. It's more intuitive, too, thanks to the interface, and demonstrates Nintendo's endless innovation these days. I really don't mind not being able to manually move Mario and Yoshi. Really, what would I do differently if I could?

I'd like to see more designers experiment with this style of gameplay. It's just different enough to open up a new world of possibilities in the right hands. That pretty much sums up a lot of DS games, but Yoshi's has that classic arcade feel - the right mix of speed, tension, strategy, and imagination, all in the quest for that high score. Perhaps you have to be old enough to have lived through Pac-Man Fever; perhaps you need enough real-world distractions to not allow for more than a quick game here and there. Life has a funny way of intruding without knocking.

Perhaps, simply, you need only posess a sense of patience and wonder at what a well-designed game can offer. Nintendo's DS handheld has quickly built a reputation for quirky, innovative games that never lose their sense of fun. Playing Yoshi Touch and Go is like opening a box of warm sunshine, where for ten or twenty minutes you can smile and laugh with your inner child.

Space Invaders Revolution (Nintendo DS)

Space Invaders Revolution - Marvelous Interactive and Taito for Nintendo DS - 6/10

April 9, 2006

The latest Space Invaders on the DS arrived with little fanfare, which is to be expected, since the videogame press is more interested in state-of-the-art eye candy than another rendition of a game from 1978. For them, it came and went without much thought. Please don't be like them.

Despite its age (whatever that's supposed to mean), Space Invaders is among the true classic games, and certainly among the most important milestones. It was this game that pretty much birthed the whole "videogame craze," and there's something timeless about it that remains riviting and tense. There have been a number of attempts to "modernize" Space Invaders over the years, but they've only been moderately successful, except, of course, for that marvelous retro version on the Super Nintendo. Now that was a kick.

Well, cut to the present, and the original designer, Tomohiro Nishikado, has supervised the newest version, Space Invaders Revolution. It's a great game; nothing transcendent like Jeff Minter's Tempest 2000, but nothing cheap or gratituitous, like that SI knock-off that wound up on the PS2 a while ago. It's an update to the classic game, but it's a strictly faithful update, and that makes all the difference. It's even closer to the metal than most of the later arcade sequels; heck, even the original sound effects are used again.

SI Revolution offers a mission-based structure, spread across 20 different locations. Each location has a different mission, with different enemies to defeat. On one level, you have to defeat a single doppleganger that frantically bobs and weaves. On another level, you face a single giant Invader, whose individual pixels must be destroyed (that's the one on the box). Another mission involves a smaller playfield, and less time to defeat the aliens, while others stick to the classic formula.

You'll face against one or two rows of invaders who fire so many shots that your shields are obliterated in a single pass. You'll face attackers that must be destroyed in a specific order. You'll even face waves of invaders that disappear and reappear. This is great stuff.

Shooter fans will enjoy the various polygon cut-scenes of your spaceship blasting off; that's pretty much required for any shooter, right? Now here's something that will really trip your world. There are various new power-ups you can earn and use on the missions (via touch-screen, of course), which can be combined much like you could in Gunstar Heroes. But here's the kick: in order to access them, you need to earn points in Classic Space Invaders.

Now that's something I've never seen before: a classic game designer who requires you to spend some serious time with his original game before you get to use all the toys in the new versiion. It's pretty gutsy, and it shows just how much confidence Nishikado has in his child. Game publishers today just figure the kids wouldn't touch anything unless it involved swearing or hijacking cars or bashing hookers over the head with 2x4's.

The DS has a number of classic games in its roster, and the success ratio is pretty good. Frogger is a sloppy mess. Dig Dug is really good. That Atari Anthology (or whatever it's called) is a train wreck. Namco's Pac-Man games are either really cool or, at the least, interesting. And Tetris, despite that whole "infinite rotation" controversy, is still Tetris. Who says classic gamers are stuck in the past? We're the only ones who know what a real videogame still is.

SI Revolution should be seen by more people, if just to show how a cool retro game on the Nintendo handheld could be pulled off. Heck, any game that let's you use the stylus to put quarters into the arcade machine has to be good.

Sonic Rush (Nintendo DS)

Sonic Rush - Sonic Team for Nintendo DS - 3/10

April 9, 2006

Here's one question I've yet to find an answer to: what's the deal with Sonic the Hedgehog? Now here's one of the great videogame characters, arguably the most iconic character of the '90s, and star of four of the best platformers of the 16-bit era. Then he disappeared for a number of years, only to make a major comeback in 1999 with Sonic Adventure. Since then, Sega's mascot has appeared in a pile of console and handheld games, but the same nagging problem remains: the newer games just aren't very good. They're certainly nowhere near the level of Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and even the quality of the first SA has never been matched. What's the deal?

I've had Sonic Rush on my DS for a while now, and I've been willing to get my hopes up, since this is the first traditional Sonic game made by Sonic Team since the Genesis. They've stubbornly stuck to the 3D realm, while pawning the 2D Gameboy Advance titles to outside developers. So this is something of a homecoming of sorts, not unlike Nintendo's upcoming New Super Mario Brothers.

And, yet, I've found myself largely unimpressed with Rush, and I'm trying to understand just why that is. It's a game I want to enjoy, because I still have a lot of affection for the spikey blue spud, and like Sega, I want to see him somehow recapture that youthful glory. Instead, Sonic (and Sega, especially since the Dreamcast died) has just been going through the motions, lost in some primordial midlife crisis. Sonic is now just another middle ager wallowing in self-pity and tired stories about "the good old days."

Perhaps I should get down to specifics. Here's what I'm tired of. I'm tired of seeing the same layouts over and over. Every Sonic game, it seems, must have the following levels: the forest zone, the ancient ruins zone, the casino zone, the mechanized city zone, and the giant death-egg-that-looks-like-the-death-star zone. Also, don't forget the underwater zone, the winter zone, and all the other standard climates you've seen in ever other platformer.

Remember the crazy environments in Sonic CD? Remember how varied the different zones in S3K were? Why is it so difficult now to come up with any new ideas? What's the deal? Would it kill anyone to come up with a better plot for a Sonic game than the tired Eggman Conquest Scheme? If we're being asked to sit through another round of dull cut-scenes that have no business being there in the first place, the least the designers could do is come up with a decent story. Something different. It couldn't be that hard.

It's the paradox of today's videogame industry. Publishers want franchises, recognizable brand-name products that will continue to lure in the same suckers, year after year. In order to maintain that audience, you need consistency, predictibility. You need to condition the lemmings into shelling out for the same product again and again.

And then this same industry wonders why their market never expands anymore. They're just taking more money from the same small clique of game nerds and uneducated peasants.

Back to Sonic Rush. My biggest beef, it turns out, is the same as Matt Paprocki's from his Digital Press review: the bottomless pits. The whole game feels like it takes place in mid-air; there's hardly ever any ground floor, only three stories of bottomless pits. It's as if you're being punished every time you stray off the intended course; not that there's anything to be discovered by exploring. You're just set along the standard rollercoaster ride, and if you miss a jump or fail to notice that important platform switch...poof! Down you go.

Sonic has always been dedicated to the highs of speed, but much of the variety from, say, S3K, is missing. Now it's equal parts rushing and crashing. Sonic has an aging speed addict. The bottomless falling is pretty much the only danger in the game, which is pretty wierd.

I should probably mention a few things I like about Sonic Rush, including the vertical twin-screen layout, the new character Blaze (still too many cartoon characters in the series), and the number of stunt moves you can perform while flying through the air or grinding on pipes.

Now back to the beefs. See if you can spot your favorites:

- The boss fights are way, way, waaaaayy toooo loooong. Clearly meant as an attempt to put 2D Sonic into a 3D realm, but keeping it confined to a single gimmicky screen. Doesn't Sonic Team remember that they already created the perfect 2/3D Sonic? It's called NiGHTS, and it's probably the best game Yuji Naka and company have ever done. Just when are they going to realize that, and create the definitive 21st Century Sonic that we've all been asking for? From the flailing of the franchise, my guess is "not bloody likely."

What I will not tolerate is spending three minutes, four minutes on a boss fight. All I'm being asked to do is spot the simple pattern and hit Ivan or Eggman or whatever eight times. There's no excuse for dragging out something so elementary, so basic.

- I hate those stupid voices. Can I please use the stylus to stab Tails every time he speaks? Yuck.

- I'm not enamored with Sonic's polygon model. Doesn't he seem a bit too...lanky? He even looks like a strung-out addict, even down to the unkempt mass of hair. He used to have his act together during the Genesis days. He even had that attitude, which was the best thing about him. Now, he can't even bother to act impatient. Too busy scrambling for that next rush. You got a quarter, buddy? I need to catch the bus.

- Alright, this is just being mean, but it deserves to be said: Sonic can't dance. Please make him stop. Sonic's bad dancing make my feet sad.

You know, if this is all that's left of the blue hedgehog, then I don't see why Sega just doesn't follow Nintendo's lead, and reissue all the classic Sonic games on the handheld. Those are the ones we all loved, anyway. Seriously, tell me a DS port of Sonic CD (with the original Japanese soundtrack!) wouldn't be a hit. If they're only interested in sucking the gas fumes of nostalgia, then at least be honest with us and do it right.

Polarium

Polarium
Mitchell
Nintendo DS
Review Score: 3/10

November 2, 2005

Polarium is a good example of a game system's first generation of software. Here is a title that takes advantage of the Nintendo DS' touch screen (indeed, builds the whole game around it), but the whole experience remains sloppy and unfocused. The crusher is that this could have been an excellent little puzzler if the playtesters had bothered to show up.

The game is based around the idea of flipping squares - white to black, black to white - with the DS stylus. Horizontal lines of the same color are removed from the playfield and score points. Polarium offers two different game modes: a standard, Tetris-style arcade puzzler where groups of blocks drop down from above, and a challenge mode, where the player must solve 100 puzzles by removing all the blocks with one pen stroke.

Of these two modes, challenge is the better by far. Perhaps because there is no pressure to clear the playfield in a set time, it fosters a real sit-and-think approach. And the movement of the stylus is fairly smooth enough to allow you to doodle your way to a solution. The difficulty of these puzzles range from embarassingly easy to bafflingly hard. There are 100 puzzles to solve, and I suspect you have to be a bit of a sadist to actually work your way through all of them.

Perhaps this is the fatal flaw of the black/white design. There are so many patterns you can create before the puzzles become too difficult and abstract. The word "gimmick" comes to mind; but, then again, I'm reminded that puzzle games are very often difficult games. The great Chip's Challenge is a perfect example, as is the landmark Sokouban series (a puzzler whose influence is so far-reaching that nearly every modern game involves a crate-moving scene at some point).

No, of Polarium's two game modes, challenge gets a pass from me. A Gameboy Advance version will soon be arriving, and you may feel inclined to wait for that version.

Polarium's real crime comes from the arcade puzzler mode. I'm not sure if this mode was always part of the design, or if it was merely hobbled together at the last second. Clearly, what we see here is a breakdown in basic game design and play testing. The Bride of Zoo Keeper Quest Mode! In 3-D!

Here's the problem. When you want to flip a series of blocks, you simply draw a line with your stylus. But in order to finish the line and switch those blocks over, you need to tap the final block again. Then, as the white blocks switch over to black, or vice versa, you must wait for the animation to complete before you can begin another line.

In the casual challenge mode, this isn't an issue, because you're only making one movement. But you can imagine how many problems this presents for an arcade mode, when blocks relentlessly move downward from the top of the screen. Why, praytell, am I being handcuffed? This isn't some lowly computer that can barely draw the graphics.

Notice that blocks don't fall down randomly, or one at a time. They fall down in set patterns, usually three rows at a time. I think the idea is that you're supposed to eliminate each series of blocks before the next stack falls down. This has two main problems: first, the game devolves into a simple series of patterns to memorize, and two, if you ever fall behind, you're screwed. It's fiendishly difficult to catch up before the playfield fills up with blocks.

The great strength of Tetris, and all the best videogames, is its improvisational feel. You're not being forced to play the way the designers want you to. Polarium's designers are more interested in forcing your hand.

What good is this? You can just imagine how this game should properly play, allowing you to tap and draw blocks at your own pace, finding brilliant solutions to impossible situations, clearing the screen of blocks at the last possible moment.

None of that happens in puzzle mode. Instead, you're forced to click around and wait for the damn animations to finish so you can play again. Not that the game will bother to wait for you. Oh, no.

Can somebody tell the Quality Control department to step away from the foosball table and do their damned jobs? Is that too much to ask for? This for a game that retailed for $40 new? You've got to be kidding me.

Pac 'N Roll - Super Monkey Ball:Touch & Go

Pac 'B Roll
Namco
Nintendo DS
Review Score: 5/10

Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Go
Sega
Nintendo DS
Review Score: 4/10
August 8, 2006

Blah. Double Blah.

Two Nintendo DS games that use the stylus for controlling the main character. Pac 'N Roll involves rolling Pac through various N64-styled game worlds, through all the usual platform cliches. Super Monkey Ball is, well, another Super Monkey Ball.

Of the two, I'd say Pac is better. At least it's a new game, instead of the latest rehash. It's not a bad game, but am I wrong to feel that rolling Pac along with the stylus is a bit of a gimmick? It's also a little tiring. I feel like Sisyphus.

So I'm sure this could be a game that you would enjoy. To its credit, the polygon 3D graphics are solid and rendered nicely. But, for me, it's a little boring. I got tired of trying to roll poor Pac across one narrow ledge after another. If there was always some forward momentum, requiring you to only change direction (like, oh, I dunno, the original Pac-Man), things would have gone much easier.

For what it's worth, it's a decent effort. At least Namco has tried a lot of new ideas with its DS games, even if they've stuck with classic franchise names. I think I'm getting tired of all these cutsey-colored mascot platformers. Shouldn't we have evolved beyond that by now?

To be completely honest, the only reason I grabbed Pac 'N Roll is because the original Pac-Man is included as a dual-screen bonus. Too bad I have to play all the way through this game in order to get to it. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope the dual-screen Pac reappears on the inevitable future installment of Namco Arcade.

-------

Back to Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll. I mentioned that I picked this up along with Brain Age. Brain Age took away all my time, and Monkey Ball, after about eight or nine boards, just lost its luster for me.

I've finally come to a conclusion about this series. I've never really liked Monkey Ball. Perhaps if I sit down and play the GameCube original (and I just may do so on...doggonit...that new Nintendo console; I'm not using that name), I might connect with it, but I never really cared for the arcade game, and the Gameboy Advance version was sloppy.

The whole control scheme, moving the boards around like those old Tama boards, doesn't work for me. Anytime I want to turn around, or shift directions suddenly, and the camera doesn't keep up with me. Or maybe the stupid monkey-in-a-ball isn't steady enough. Or the controls are too touchy. Or whatever.

The DS version has roundly been critized for its control scheme, which uses the stylus (again, similar to Pac 'N Roll) to move the monkey ball. I don't really have a problem with this, to be honest. Much of the time, I found it to be a good use of analog controls, and whenever it became a real problem...well, let's just say that using the d-pad is a lost cause as well. When the controls screw you over, you're on your own.

What the bloody hell has happened to Sega?! I say this more and more, but they really lost their creative spirit after Dreamcast died. None of their DS games are any good, unless you could the latest version of Puyo Puyo. Even then, that's a pretty vanilla puzzler when faced with the likes of Zoo Keeper, Meteos, and Tetris. And besides, it's Compile's game, and it hasn't changed an ounce in ten years. Why is this game still around?

Somehow you wish Sega would just get back to its roots, and port over some of their classic arcade games like Afterburner, Hang On, Space Harrier, and pretty much anything from the Genesis. Heck, just pack together NiGHTS and Christmas NiGHTS and put that out on the DS. Give me that and I'll be happy.

But whatever Sega does, they need to stop relying on their remaining two or three franchise titles, none of which are really viable anymore. They need to find themselves again before they disappear forever.

New Super Mario Brothers (DS)

New Super Mario Brothers
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
Review Score: 9/10

May 27, 2006

Yay!!

It's been 11 years since Yoshi's Island, and 15 years since Super Mario World. Those were the last two traditional 2D Mario games. After that, only two proper Mario games, one of which (Super Mario 64) is just about the greatest videogame ever made; the other (Super Mario Sunshine) is unfairly maligned for not meeting players' unrealistic expectations. Then there are various spin-off titles, like Luigi's Mansion, Yoshi's Story, and Yoshi Touch and Go, which are loved by a few, but dismissed, waved away by the masses. The Mario Brothers have become the Orson Welles of the videogame world.

So you can understand why New Super Mario Bros. has been positioned as a return to greatness. It's a magnificent game, clearly among the finest for Nintendo's DS handheld. It may even be the best, right up there with Meteos and Animal Crossing and Yoshi. From a technical view, every visual trick is used, from smoothly animated polygons to pre-rendered characters to all those little sprites and sound effects that hark back to classic Mario. This is clearly meant as a grand nostalgia trip for aging 30-year-olds who grew up on Nintendo. It's also a triumph for that other old dinosaur, the 2D platform game. Remember those?

Nintendo's belief is that the games industry has lost its way, lost in a sea of corporate consolidation and exploding budgets and horribly overpriced consoles. It's all down to The Sports Game, The Driving Game, The Doom Game, and The Game Where You Shoot Hookers. Is that supposed to be fun? Perhaps, for the overweight, lazy, stupid children of America.

So Nintendo's out to either take us back to their youth, or ours. Either way, they're promising games that are actually games, not Comic Book Guy's latest lousy pitch to Hollywood with Ken and Barbie dolls. The DS has been a great success, and New Mario is a perfect capstone to that success.

A bit too much thinking, I suppose, for something that never was meant to be more than lighthearted, imaginitive entertainment. But I've always suspected that Shigeru Miyamoto and his collaborators had something of an agenda up their sleeve. Somewhere between the nostalgia trips and thinly veiled psychedelic imagery ("magic mushrooms" were perfectly legal in Japan until a few years ago, didn't you know), there's an optimism. A belief in the brightness and magic of everyday life. We just need to reconnect with that sense of magic we possessed as children, before the world of the grownups tried their best to pound it out of us. There's a reason most adults end up in lousy jobs, dispirited.

Again, I'm thinking too much. Current events are on my mind a lot - can you tell? Maybe that's why I'm eager to revisit the worlds of the Mario Brothers again, eager to stomp on those Koopa shells, eager to consume the magic shrooms and watch the colors bleed. There has to be a better world out there; we just have to look around hard enough and find it.

We need Flower Power more than ever, kids.