Remember Wii Sports? You couldn't get away from the damn game in 2006... it was the talk of the town. Okay, maybe not in the gaming forums... it was all about Gears of War and Zelda, but Wii Sports propelled the Wii to Tickle Me Elmo status in 2006 and even 2007. The Wii was this intriguing little white box that was going to be either the downfall of Nintendo or the downfall of gaming. Either way, there would have been a downfall of some sort. So I assume the majority of you have tried out Wii Sports at some point, but have you gone through the stages of Wii Sports?
Wait... there are stages?
In a way, yes. There are 5 stages a gamer goes through when playing Wii Sports over a period of several weeks or months. It's nothing like the stages of grief, but there might be similarities that you can find out on your own. And here they are.
Curiosity
Addiction
Boredom
Apathy
Acceptance
Oh wait, you want details? Okay then.
The 1st stage is curiosity and the name say it all. Face it, you wanted to see what the fuss was about and you either spent the $250 for the Wii and a little more for the many accessories or you visited a friend who happened to own a Wii... and hijacked it for a while. You probably started with a little tennis since it is the first game on the list and you liked it. It was simple, fun, and you might have even laughed at your misfortunes. And yes, you actually went through the full motion of swinging the Wii Remote and nearly knocking out your friend or TV or both. Your curiosity expanded across all the sports and you quickly picked out your favorites (bowling, tennis) and your least favorites (boxing, golf) and your addiciton began.
This is so awesome! It feels so... hey, get off my fucking couch!The next stage is addiction and it can last either a week, two weeks, maybe even a month or two. If you didn't own a Wii, you do now. You try out the training modes and even the fitness mode. All of your free time is spent playing Wii Sports... it could range from 2 hours to 6 hours a day depending on your personality. You strive for those medals and you sweat through several hours achieving pro status in every sport. Then after a week or two, the Wii elbow sets in, the wrist starts throbbing, and you begin to lose weight. Wii Sports becomes your new temporary vice, but you don't care until... the next stage.
The next is boredom, a stage Nintendo doesn't want you to know about. At some point, you start to figure out the actual controls of the games and you realize it's all in the wrist, not in the arm motion. Sure, bowling is still bowling, but tennis, baseball, and golf are ultimately ruined with this newfound scheme. Now you feel a bit ticked off, but you're not mad... but you soon lose the momentum to play. You've probably reached pro status in all the sports by now and maybe you have a few platinum medals around your neck, but now you have no reason to go any further. Those same 9 holes in golf get stale and you've got your bowling style down to a dull science. You're bored! Live with it! Your daily 3 hour sessions are down to maybe a weekly hour session.
You've now reached apathy, a state of mehness that is hard to overcome. You've now stopped playing Wii Sports all together and you've moved on to other games like Super Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's now been a good month or two since you've bought Wii Sports and chances are you won't be playing it for a long time. You might pop it in for family members or drunk friends, but you won't want any part of it. Several months will go by until one day, you reach the final stage.
Acceptance makes an appearance as the final stage. You come to the conclusion that Wii Sports is indeed a fun game and that playing it in moderation is a healthy thing. Gone are the 4 hour marathons with your buddies, but you'll have a good time for 15 minutes every so often. Sure, the waggle you've grown accustomed to doesn't feel that immersive, but you shrug it off. Wii Sports is fun again, albeit for a short time... but that's what Wii Sports is supposed to be. It's a mild distraction, not a major one.
So that's a basic history of most Wii Sports players. By now, most of us are either at the apathy or acceptance stage... I've only reached the apathetic stage myself, but I know there will come a time when I'll browse through my Wii catalog and see Wii Sports and remember the good times. I shall play Wii Sports again, but it will come at a time of my choosing.
And so, your thoughts? Are the stages accurate? What stage are you at today? Am I mad? Alright, I am mad, but who isn't these days?
1 Comments
A well-groomed mullet can be quite civilized.Another day, another phase. So far, Spore has been quite a treat and the 4th stage, the Sid Meier stage as I like to call it, is quite good. Finally I get to creating my own buildings and pimp my own rides. The best part, obviously, is the building and vehicle editor... and like the creature creator, is pretty easy to use and gives you a number of pieces to construct some amazing things. As for the gameplay, it's pure real-time strategy similar to the tribal stage... and Civilization immediately comes to mind. Your species has taken over the world and it's now up to you to conquer the entire world. I could have convert the other cities by force, but as I've been doing, I'm going for a more peaceful solution. And the easiest way to make people happy? Cold hard cash, of course. You could convert them by force or simply crush their entertainment complexes until they crack, but that would be cruel.
So that's the basics of my Spore exploits yesterday. I've still got work to do before I venture into space, but at least it won't be boring.
1 Comments
Well, technically I played through the tribal stage in day 2, but who really gives a shit? Apparently me?
Sorry Moses, but I can't let your people go at this time.Anyway, I did blaze through the 3rd stage of evolution, which is the point where your character starts experimenting with fashion. After creating fire and being treated to a whack in the noggin by my own stick, I started building and adding additional accessories all around... ah! While you're making babies and keeping wild animals away from your apples, you can either make music or make war. Once again, I decided to play peacemaker and swoon over the neighboring tribes by going all Rock Band on their ass... well, Rock Band with horns and maracas. There was a hint of Samba de Amigo and Wii Music in that part. Buildings enter the fray, but the types of buildings are limited and there's no customization of these.
I give the tribal stage a partial thumbs-up... dressing up your creature like a gay Roman gladiator is fun, but I just want to fly around in my spaceship and explore.
One last tidbit... I did spend yesterday on just the editing tools and I found myself hooked for a good 3 hours late at night just making the strangest, most elaborate creations I've conceived in a while. And yes, I tried to make some explicit creatures, too.
1 Comments
So the cell stage was a neat distraction. You swim, eat, and avoid the bigger monsters and your reward is a pair of legs and a puny brain. However, here's where things get more interesting. You've got your default monster plus legs, and you start sculpting your creation. The creature editor is pretty simple, but there's a lot of flexibility. I decided to stick with an animal with something slightly human-like... 2 legs, 2 arms, 2 eyes, and a mouth. However, the toucan beak, monster paws, and tail kind of throws the human playbook out the window. After fiddling with the editing tool for a good half-hour, I decided to take my herbivore and start making friends with the neighboring inhabitants. Yeah, I went pacifist with my first creature, but I'll likely go with a raving meat-eating lunatic next time around. So I started walking around eating fruit, checking out some glowing bones, and singing and dancing for the other species. I started to become quite popular with the people of Dalaiwood... that would be my home planet.
So that's the basics, but it was pretty fun while it lasted. You get a kick out of seeing your little guy dancing and running around, and the occasional mating... or woo-hoo as the Sim folk call it. Besides that, you basically go killing or charming your way around gathering DNA points in order to bling out your critter. I went from having a big-headed bird-faced thing and ended up ultimately with a muscular 2-legged horse with big paws and some weird growths.
God has a weird sense of humor.By the end of the creature stage, I was ready for more and I did venture into tribal territory yesterday as well. I'll get into that tomorrow, however. Overall, the creature stage was nice... however the best feature was the creature editor. For some reason, this stage has this Black & White vibe to it... but Black & White can't hold a candle to Spore. I didn't quite like the minor inconveniences like those giant Godzilla-inspired monsters that are blood-thirsty for no good reason... I didn't like being sacked while posing for some bug-eyed monkeys. I did get a sign of things to come when I saw an aircraft flying overhead just doing laps... and the wreckage of a spaceship some time later. It's a bit of a tease, really.
So at this point, Spore is a 4-star game on the Giant Bomb scale and I haven't gotten to the good stuff.
Oh, why did Maxis implement achievements in Spore? Oh yeah, we're all a bunch of whores... myself included. I guess that's one way for me to keep playing forever.
1 Comments
So yesterday was Spore day for me and I spent a few hours just getting acquainted with the game. I spent the few hours I had experimenting and checking out some of the creation tools and going cellular with my little guy.
No love for paramecium. I messed around with the cellular stage which is the simplest of them all... there's little strategy to it, really. You start off as some weird sperm-like critter and eventually grow as you eat gobs of green or red chunks... I decided to go green and become one of those herbivores. You swim around just eating stuff... that's about it. It's reminiscent of several games... flOw comes to mind as well as Pac-Man. It's not really deep, but you can evolve and start attaching various defense mechanisms and other parts right away. This stage is fun to mess with for a while, but you didn't buy Spore to swim around in some dirty puddle... you bought it for the creature creating and spaceship building.
I eventually grew a pair... of legs and walked out of the pond for some fresh air. But that is for another day, tomorrow to be precise. I'm not completely amazed yet, but I have a feeling my impressions will get exceedingly more positive over the next few days.
2 Comments
Today was the beginning of my return to PC gaming thanks to Will Wright and Spore, the game in which you play God... on a galactic scale. Sure, we've played God on an urban planning scale and a neighborhood scale, but now we've got a universe to create? Don't be surprised if the next few blog entries are as short as last Friday's Google Chrome doggie niceness.
So now I'm off to unleash a race of unsavory monsters throughout the galaxy.
The time has come, ladies and gentlemen. Spore is just hours away from being released and I'm getting that tingly feeling in my special area... but it's safe to say that I overestimated the review scores throughout the gaming site community. Here's a rundown of the current scores via Gamerankings: 8/10, 8.8/10, 4.5/5, 9/10, 91/100, and 4/5. Overall, Gamerankings is at a robust 87% while Metacritic has Spore at 88% overall. To be honest, I was expecting Spore to be in the 90-95% range overall... perhaps even rivaling the praise of Grand Theft Auto IV, Metal Gear Solid 4, or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now it's still very early and only a handful of sites have critiqued it, but it's underperforming among the reviewers.
But, who cares? Fans of Will Wright's work have made up their mind 3 years ago when they first caught a glimpse of Spore. The Spore Creature Creator is a huge success and we're expecting big sales and a large online community to form in the Spore universe. It's got a replay value that is virtually endless and it will be the most addictive PC game this side of World of Warcraft.
In the forum world, shit might be hitting the many fans spread out across the internets because it's not a perfect 10 everywhere or it's not technically an AAA title... but we can be assured that Spore is a great game despite some of its imperfections.
I know I won't care when I'm glued to my screen for hours creating my race of penis monsters, finally.
There was a brief period in PC gaming history where tycoon games were all the rage. I guess the craze started after the release of RollerCoaster Tycoon back in 1999, but they've been around for many years. Will Wright should be considered the founder of tycoon games thanks to his creation, SimCity... but Sid Meier and Chris Sawyer also pushed the simulation genre into several new directions. Sid Meier took the city simulation genre and expanded it across civilizations and the railroad industry. Chris Sawyer took on choo-choo trains, but also improved on the amusement park sim... although the Bullfrog joint, Theme Park, preceded it by several years. I guess I shouldn't forget about Populous, a very important game in its own right, but I don't like giving Peter Molyneux any more praise than he deserves.
RollerCoaster Tycoon, an existential, isometric experience.While SimCity, Populous, and Civilization were the big names in the neighborhood, they centered on something on a grand scale. Running a city or civilization is one thing, but running a business is completely different. Transportation sims had their chance in the spotlight, but it wasn't until RollerCoaster Tycoon that the "tycoon" stuck. It's no secret that RollerCoaster Tycoon was a success... and millions of people like me bought into the capitalistic view of gaming and drooled over the keyboard for hours building the perfect ride or sculpting the ideal park for my guests. However, soon after the success of the game leaked out, the imitators rushed the stage... and many of them had no reason to be even near the stage.
Oh I bought into the tycoon craze for a while... I stayed loyal to the RCT franchise, even into the Atari days... critics be damned! I even bought some... "other" tycoon games. I tested out Airport Tycoon and found it to be rather boring and broken, Zoo Tycoon wasn't my cup of tea, and Fast Food Tycoon was fun for a little while, but it was clear to me that not every business or establishment should be duplicated in tycoon form.
Over the next few years, we saw prisons, malls, lemonade stands, casinos, schools, skateboard parks, zoos, cruise ships, underwater colonies, hospitals, and even trailer parks tycooned. Wait... trailer parks? You're shitting me.
Mall of America Tycoon, just another nail in the tycoon coffin.So what happened to these tycoon games? Most of them were released between 2000 and 2004, sometime around the peak of RollerCoaster Tycoon's popularity. Like all good things (8-bit 2D platformers, 90s fighting games, Wii minigames), oversaturation came into play and once they stopped printing money, they stopped making them. Sure, there are a few leftovers hanging around and some establishments left untapped... I'm crossing my fingers for Mental Asylum Tycoon. I can't say business simulations are dead, but the tycoon name surely is.
So, what are your thoughts on tycoon games? Did you have a brief obsession with tycoon games like me or did you skip this little blip in PC gaming history?
2 Comments
A week or two ago, I had begun to worry about a little game by Monolith Soft called Disaster: Day of Crisis. Here was a Wii game that core gamers should enjoy, but we've heard very little about it... until yesterday. We've got a ton of screenshots and a release date in Europe, which happens to be sometime next month.
So it's time to rejoice, Wii owners. We have a hardcore game to last us a while.
Log in to comment