Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The essence of a good game


When it comes to entertainment platforms, my kidz have a fairly wide choice, including laptop computers and a range of gaming consoles. The latest of these is the Nintendo Wii, which is yet another example of Nintendo creating something that redefines the gaming genre.

Brook spent a good part of Saturday playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on it. However, toward the end of the afternoon I noticed that he had plugged a couple of GameCube controllers into it, and was playing Super Smash Bros Melee.

SSBM is a bizarre game in which various Nintendo characters kick 9 levels of pixels out of one another. Of all the games we've bought for the GameCube (and we've bought a LOT!) it is the most played.

I asked Brook why he liked it so much. "I don't know really" was his characteristically verbose reply, "I guess, it's just fun".

Yep. Not Hi-Def. Not 60 frames per second. Not 'cutting-edge'. Just fun.
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8 comments:

soraneko said...

Eh heh, I thought the photo was of Zak... not used to Brook having the shorter hair

SSBM is awesome because there's nothing too complex about it all, you're just hitting buttons and beating brightly coloured characters up - even us girlies can do it!

Awww, I wanna play now :(

Anonymous said...

Lol, how could that be Zak there? Look at the position the person is sitting, it's Brook without a doubt.

As for SSBM, I never found myself to be much of a fan. I can play it, and I will play it most times I'm given the chance, but I can't play it at the same rate as Brook or Zak. To me, it just gets boring and repetitive after a while.

Major Look said...

Is Pong still available for the Nintendo?

Brett Jordan said...

Well Major

You're spoiled for choice really...

There is a hack available for the PC which allows you to play Pong with Wii controllers

http://zedomax.com/blog/2006/12/26/wii-hack-wii-pong/

If you've got a Nintendo DS, then there's always Atari Retro Classics (Centipede, Missile Command, Asteroids, Pong, Breakout, Sprint, Tempest, Warlords, Gravitar and Lunar Lander)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atari-Retro-Classics-Nintendo-DS/dp/B00080438M

And the Wii does offer a wealth of 'old-school' NES, SNES and Megadrive games for download, including the original Donkey Kong and Sonic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Virtual_Console_games_%28Europe%29

hope that helps :-)

(NB: for the benefit, edification and education of our younger readers, Pong was the 'daddy' of all computer games)

http://www.pong-story.com/arcade.htm

Brett Jordan said...

Oh, and for an interestingly minimalist take on another 'retro-classic'

http://www.tetris1d.org/

Major Look said...

"yes" would have done.

soraneko said...

Hahahahaha, don't be so ridiculous ;)

Brett Jordan said...

"Don't know why I bother... kids of today... thankless task... when I was a lad... don't know they're born... why I oughta..." etc, etc...

 
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