iPad

Yesterday Apple announced their long leaked and highly anticipated tablet, the iPad. I understand the hype, the last big thing Apple announced was the iPhone and despite not having one or even a remotely high tech phone, I think it’s a pretty cool little device. I’m not sure it changed the face of the world or whatever the hell the Apple marketing machine said it would, but that’s beside the point.

What I want to know is why do gamers care?

I get that the app store gave rise to a huge amount of games in an incredibly short period of time, but I personally don’t have any desire to play any of them. By the sounds of it, which I’m basing on the almost absurd amount of reading I do on video games, not many other gamers do either. I hate the separation of casual versus hardcore discussion so I’ll just say it like this; of all the news sites and pretentious analytical blogs I read about video games, rarely do I hear anything noteworthy about iPhone games. I hear a lot about their potential, but nothing on the platform has resonated with me enough to buy an iPod Touch.

It’s clear the gaming community that I subscribe too, and you too probably if you are reading this doesn’t really care about these games. So why then are gamers freaking out about the IPad? It’s basically a bigger iPhone with a few added gaming related features. Since its announcement yesterday though, Joystiq has had half a dozen posts and updates about what it is capable of gaming wise. Yet, unless the few announced games (most of which are dumb downed ports of console games) churn out something major, we’ll probably be back to ignoring it quite soon.

Honestly, the only cool and useful thing I can think of that the iPhone has done is the app store. It’s definitely a better setup than the Xbox Indie games store and something Microsoft might want to look into emulating. I suppose the iPad also fixes the problem of user input horribly conflicting with your ability to see the screen, but that’s just because they made the screen bigger. Your grubby gigantic thumbs are still going to be all over the screen that you need to see to play.

Well, I’ve ranted enough. I’m probably making a bigger deal out of this than is actually the case, but based on the current state of affairs gamers don’t really care about games on Apple platforms and I don’t see that changing any time soon because of the iPad. Seems kind of strange how much coverage it is getting. Maybe if the oft rumored Apple gaming console ever comes out we’ll have something to care about, but for now I’ll stick with the major consoles and on occasion use my PSP… probably not though.

Hating Friends and Family, but in a Good Way

I’m just about done with my first playthrough of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and I think I fully understand the mixed feelings I’ve heard about this game. I totally get why this game is tearing people apart. I pretty much can’t play some of the more difficult levels without killing or getting killed by my partner once every minute or so. Still, it hasn’t bothered me much at all, in fact I often find it quite hilarious. There are a few things working in favor of me liking this game though that I find interesting.

First of all, due to a certain someone, my third Wiimote is God only knows where. This limited us to only two people rather than three, or Heaven forbid four. I played with four people at PAX and what should have been a fairly easy level for anyone well versed in Mario (which I think should be just about everyone at PAX) turned into a horrible clusterfuck of Italian and fungal death. If all my friends tried to play this game together I imagine it would be a nightmare. The simplest tasks would result in deaths which we could never have planned for. I still want to try it out of morbid curiosity, but it’ll be awhile before I acquire a fourth Wiimote (the third is on its way from Amazon as we speak.)

The second and most important part of my resounding enjoyment rather than utter hatred and frustration of all things mushroom is who I have been playing the game with. My friend and I are both quite laid back and find stupid humor in everything, so generally when one of us gets totally boned by the other we just end up laughing or making some faux angry comment and then laughing. We also both tend to think the levels that screw us over the most are also the most creative and fun ones to play. If you were playing with the wrong person I could definitely see a potentially fun time blowing up in your face. Hell, I’ve already been threatened with physical violence while briefly playing with another friend. In his defense I did throw him into a bottomless pit because he didn’t know about the bubble system yet. :)

Which leads me to my next topic, Nintendo did quite a bit on their own to alleviate cheap deaths by turning the A button into an “Oh shit” button. By pressing A at any time your character will be encased in a bubble and will start floating toward the other player characters if you shake the Wiimote. You are impervious to everything while in the bubble, in fact you are pretty much in a plane that is in front of the level and only your teammates can free you. It has a few problems, such as being freed directly above a lava pit, and if everyone is either dead or in a bubble then you’re still starting the level over, but overall it has come in handy at least half a dozen times per difficult level. Besides, if you’re quick you can rebubble before hitting the lava which solves that problem nicely.

Nintendo also must have known about the difficulty spike starting around world 7 or 8 because just before it gets hard you get the opportunity to acquire a ridiculous amount of lives. Going into world 8 I had over 50 lives and I believe my friend had over 60. I have since lost 30 of those in World 8, but it’s hard to care when you still have 20 and unlimited continues.

Anyway, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is an excellent synthesis of classic Mario sidescrolling and its direction it’s trying to take the Wii as a social living room device. It might be a little too hard for the average non gamer, but the beauty of Mario is in his simple mechanics that take forever to master. Besides, I think everyone on earth has at least some experience with the Mario’s of yesteryear, even if it was 20 years ago. Check it out, just be prepared to never talk to your loved ones again. It’ll be an interesting test to see how close you really are. ;)