Nintendo’s Wii - Loaded Hardcore Holiday Season
Posted by DarkWish
Before Wii, there was Revolution. Revolution was unveiled at E3 05 but its mystery controller wasn’t. Tokyo Game Show 05 came and the Controller was revealed. The fans went wild. Wild Game Speculation Began. In April 2006, Revolution became Wii. At E3 06, Nintendo showed us what Wii could do. And on November 19th, 2006, Wii launched. This was the moment of truth. A gaming revolution was unleashed and gamers everywhere desperately tried to get a part of the gaming action. But over the months, things changed. Wii became the #1 best selling console this gaming generation, beating out the PS3 and even the 360 in sales. But something else happened. Many gamers stopped their cry to be a part of the revolution.
Before the revolution, gamers dreamed of being able to play some hardcore games with Wii’s motion controls. But now that the revolution is here, the gamers aren’t satisfied. We got Zelda, Metroid, and other hardcore games, but we also got Wii Play, Super Monkey Ball, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, Cooking Mama: Cook Off, and countless other mass appeal games. The hardcore gamers are getting disappointed. Is Nintendo betraying the hardcore gamer kind? The answer lies in this week’s Dark Domain…
Nintendo has said right from the start that their goal is to reach out to new gamers as well as the hardcore veteran gamers. And they succeeding at their goal on launch day. The hardcore gamers got their dose of Zelda, Red Steel, and many other hardcore games. But as the months went by, things changed. It got rarer and rarer for a hardcore game to be released on Wii. Nintendo continued to say that they supported all kinds of gamers. But it seems they changed their focus. The casual audience has gotten countless more games than the veteran gamers have lately. Is Nintendo slowly transitioning from a company that provides some of the best, most intuitive games out there to a company that produces okay games that the family will love? There is nothing wrong with games that appeal to a mass audience, nothing at all. But what about the huge portion of their gaming community that is left unsatisfied?
Nintendo has a choice to make. They can do what they said they would and release hardcore games and casual games, or they can change their focus and set it completely on the casual gaming market. The holiday season is coming up and by looking at Nintendo’s Wii line-up, they have made their choice. While they are releasing more mass appeal Wii games, Nintendo has not forgotten the gaming community that it has had for a long time. These past few months have had barely
any hardcore games released, aside from one or two like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Nintendo is about to make up for all the time they missed. This holiday season, hardcore Nintendo gamers will not be disappointed. This holiday season, Nintendo is sending out a whole wave of new Wii games, and this time they’re loaded with hardcore gaming goodness.
In the next few months, Wii is getting what will probably be some of the best games ever. Battalion Wars 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Manhunt 2, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Ghost Squad, and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles are just a taste of what is coming this holiday season to Wii. Hardcore gamers everywhere will be rocking out on Wireless guitars, Shooting down some baddies, Brawling it out with their favorite characters, and more. But the thing about hardcore games is that they can’t just be normal games, they have to have special features that will satisfy a veteran gamer’s need. What kinds of things? Well, two things are the Wii Zapper and online gaming.
The Wii Zapper is built for FPS games, which don’t usually appeal to the casual market. Games like Ghost Squad and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles are built to work with the gun attachment. The Wii Zapper also comes with a title called Link’s Crossbow Training, which shows off the star of a huge Nintendo franchise in a way that incorporates the Wii Zapper. Another game that is designed for the Wii Zapper is Medal of Honor: Heroes 2. This game is every hardcore gamer’s dream. Not only is it built for the Wii Zapper, but it has great graphics. And what’s best of all? It has online play. But not just any online play, 32 multiplayer over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. And I am not joking.
You want to know what makes Wii’s online even better? Today, it was announced that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will have an online multiplayer mode. Getting to fight against others all over the world in a game that has all things Nintendo and more is one of the best moves that Nintendo could have possibly done. Also this holiday season, Mario fans get to take a ride in the galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy. This game looks to have all the fun of Super Mario 64 and more. And that’s not even all of the games coming out this holiday season. The beginning of 2008 also counts, and it’s very possible that Mario Kart Wii and Animal Crossing Wii may come out in the first few months of 08. Those two games may not totally be hardcore games, but they do have a huge following that consists of many hardcore gamers.
Nintendo told us a revolution was coming and when Wii came, we were amazed. It was all true… for a while. The months went by and gamers became disappointed at the lack of games that appeal to the hardcore audience. But this holiday season, Nintendo aims to change that. They’re unleashing gaming goodness at us like crazy and it’s about time. I don’t know about you, but I certainly won’t be able to get every game I want this holiday season. So whether you’re jumping on goombas out in space, running through a combat field while 31 others are shooting each other, or unleashing final smashes on some of the greatest video game characters of all time, remember that Nintendo does not disappoint.
Linear Mode
