Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Contrasting Opinions.

Sorry about the hiatus between posts, I seem to go through waves of desire when it comes to writing. Luckily this wave length of lethargy ended quickly and I'm back into the zone.

Today's post will bring us back a little bit, into my high school years. I loved High School, it was a lot of fun, I had great friends, went to a great school, and had a great time. But as we know from looking back at our actions from our High School days, we tend to look at ourselves and think, 'man, I was immature,' or 'why did I ever do that?' I'm sure all of this only gets worse with time (if however you have never experienced that, pat yourself on the back).

I was a nerd, and wear my nerd badge with honor. I like my nintendo shirts, and my chucks, my retro video games, and lack of athletic ability. All of that is a part of who I am, I'm not ashamed of it, and I wasn't then either, even if I am a little more confident in my nerd-dom than I was back then. Something I always remember though, was sophomore year, it was about the time of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. This was the year that the Wii was unveiled, and we didn't know much about it, we only knew it had a remote instead of the usual controller. I thought this was epic, and I looked forward to swinging a wii remote in emulation of Link's sword, and pointing it at the screen in emulation of a gun. It seemed promising.

What I didn't expect was what happened when I brought this news to school. People scoffed at the idea, and made fun of me for being excited about it. See at the time, the X-Box had come out on top during the internet flame-war about which console was best, Gamecube, Xbox, or PS2. At the time, and to this day, I've been a nintendo nerd. Some of the earliest memories are playing Duck Hunt with a bright Orange Pistol Controller, and Playing Super Mario Bros. 3. My next major gaming experience was Ocarina of Time on the N64. I was sold, nintendo was the Video Game producer for me.

Of course other options were available, every so often I would play Sega Genesis in my best friend's basement, but Sonic just couldn't give me the high that Mario would give me on the NES. When the PS2 unveiled it looked amazing graphic's wise...but none of the games held my interest. I still remember when Halo came out, and the Xbox that only a few token people played because of its terrible controller finally got popular (keep in mind this commentary is from my own observations in my life, and not from any actual facts on Xbox sales post-Halo release).

Through all of this, I saw the flame war begin, the war that in many ways left Nintendo in the dust. The gamecube just didn't pack the punch that the Xbox or the PS2 could, it wasn't capable of the graphics. But I was okay with that. I've never been one for graphics or else I would've preferred the Sega Dreamcast we owned for a brief period over our Nintendo 64. I found during this time, playing different PS2 and Xbox games that I just thought Nintendo was more fun.

I'm not a fan of sports games, which are always better on the Sony or Microsoft platforms. The only racing game I like is Mario kart, because it isn't just racing. I am not a fan of really gory or violent games. Grand theft auto was fun for about 5 minutes, Resident Evil and other Zombie games just made me feel gross, and most other games were too intense for me. Those are the types of games that you get with Sony or Microsoft, granted they have High Definition graphics, and some of the details in the games are amazing. But the games I really enjoy are games like Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Fire Emblem. All are games that you can pick up and play for five minutes and have a lot of fun and feel satisfied, or play for 4 hours and not get bored with them.

To get back to the topic at hand, these are the reasons why I prefer Nintendo over the Sony or Microsoft game systems. Not because Nintendo is more powerful, or has better graphics, but because I think they are fun. I know a lot of my buddies think those games are dumb, or kiddy, but I'm okay with that. If they get as much satisfaction out of their Xbox or PS3 as I do out of my Nintendo Wii, I am really happy for them.

What I don't understand is when people on the internet get into these huge arguments about which is better. I went on IGN to see a trailer for the new Zelda game coming out. I thought it looked awesome, and should be a lot of fun. I went down to the comments area (my first mistake), and all I could see were people doling out unwarranted criticism for the game. I've gotten very tired of looking at these articles and seeing people who for some reason, hate Nintendo, spend all their times on these article's comments section calling people names for enjoying something. I just sincerely hope that these people aren't the same guys who made fun of me being excited about the Wii. Of course I'm sure this is a problem on most sites. But I just wonder at the types of people out there, looking to build their self-confidence by putting down something instead of enjoying what they claim to love so much.

But for clarification's sake. I just want to point out to all the kids who made fun of me for being excited about the wii remote by saying, "why would anyone want to move around when they play video games? That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard of for video games." I would like to refer you to the success of the Wii, and also Sony and Microsoft's products that are their response to the Wii Remote, both of which require much more movement than the wii remote. So there.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. While I'm on your side as far as Nintendo, graphics, and gory games go, I think I'm one of the people who is willing to 'flame' another. Perhaps the reason we do this, beyond the 'what I have is best' syndrome, is because it will improve our own situation. If more people buy and play games made by Nintendo for the Wii, there would be more selection, developer commitment, and maybe even online play capabilities. Anyway, can't wait to see how the Wii U turns out... and I definitely won't mock you for being excited either!

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