A New Way to Play (Part 1)

We could trace the origin of the video game gimmick controller back pretty far. The first that comes to mind is the Nintendo Power Glove, which totally lived up to the hype as being so bad. You could argue that the original Nintendo light gun was a part of this trope too, but.... shut up. The Nintendo light gun was rad!

The point of this series is to examine gimmicks and my opinions on how they have effected the video gaming industry.

Chapter 1. The Destroyer of Immersion

The Nintendo Wii was a curse on gaming. Despite the Nintendo DS coming out two years before, at very least they had their share of core games that mostly overlooked the crappy stylus touch screen. If this is seeming like a huge hatefest on the house that Mario built, it kinda is. For a gamer who grew up in the late 80s and early 90s, nothing could be considered more of a betrayal than having the people who introduced my young mind to that awesome little grey box and showed me what video gaming is, tell me that they didn't want my money any more. They only wanted cool-people-who-don't-play-game's money. It's like having your childhood best friend, stop hanging out with you, because he wants to hang out with the cool kids who smoke out behind the school because they want to catch a girls attention. Seriously Nintendo, whatever happened to bros before hoes!

As much as Nintendo's actions hurt me, it didn't seem to hurt them. They were rewarded for substituting controlling the character you are playing as with trying to make the character do the damn attack that he did last time you swung your arm that way. This was good, because those cool kids that they wanted to win over didn't want immersion anyway, and the game developers knew it. Thus came the age of shovel-ware. For those of you who aren't in the gaming know, shovel-ware means exactly what it sounds like. These big game companies just kept shovelling out the most effortless, terrible games you could ever find. Carnival Games is NOT gonna stand the test of time. Nintendo also tried to appeal to people who wanted to get in better shape with the Wii fit. This was a great idea, as every grandmother wants to use the Wii fit, until they have it and have used it for a month. Then it sits and collects dust.

This was the trend for the Wii. Play it for a month, at most, and then leave it sitting there. I have turned my Wii on once in the last year and a half. The experience played out by me first looking on my shelf and noticing a Zelda game up there. Then I took a mental nostalgia trip and remembered the great Zelda music and experiences that I've had during my life. Next, I grabbed the case, extracted the disc and inserted it into the Wii. Then I got my TV ready to play the Wii again (not difficult, just switched it to component 2). Finally I picked up the Wiimote and pressed the button to turn it on. The batteries were dead again. They are dead every time I try to play it, even though I put brand new batteries in it every time I try to play it, which I did yet again. Great, I finally am ready to play, so I grab my Wiimote and Nunchuk and go to start the game when I realize, I don't feel like swinging my arms around with this stupid controller. So  I shut it off, and play Darksiders instead, as it's very close to a Zelda game, but with good controls.

Finally, in recent years, the Wii has begun to burn out badly. All of the shovel-ware pushed the gamers away, and the casual gamers that they recruited, weren't interested in buying lots of games. They just wanted a few to play with their friends. Nintendo has alienated all of the people with money to spend and now they want to win it back. Seeing the big fat man from Nintendo come out on stage and say something to the effect of, ok, the Wii wasn't for you, but our next system is. In fact, to show you how serious we are about you, we are calling it the Wii U. Face-palms were heard around the world and their stocks fell in a remarkable way. Sorry Nintendo, we aren't being fooled this time, with your new, even more gimmicky controller.