Many years ago there was a good book written by Bram Stoker about unholy blood sucking undead demons called vampires. Many years later there was a less good movie called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Some people deemed this good enough to create a less good television series by the same name. Writer Joss Whedon, in his efforts to drive some new creativity into the show, created a character to be Buffy's love interest. His name was Angel. He was a vampire with a soul. This character was so popular that he and Buffy broke up so that Angel could have his own less good spin-off show. Well this concept (a handsome vampire with a soul who doesn't want to hurt people but rather would love them while being tortured by his vampire instincts and brooding drive for redemption and love) was so popular that when a less good book came along it was received with open arms. This book was called "Twilight". It was about a girl who falls in love with a sparkling handsome vampire with a soul who doesn't want to hurt people but rather would love them while being tortured by his vampire instincts and brooding drive for redemption and love. These books were so popular that they made a less good movie based on the books. The movie was so popular that there are now two, that's right two, less good television shows about the secret lives of vampires. It turns out that these undead creatures of the night that once were feared lest they lay claim to your soul are just like you and me. They love, stay up late, go out during the day, gossip, etc. They are in essence human with a penchant for the occasional drink of blood which they are more than happy to obtain from blood banks or cattle or some other source.
Do you see how watered down the evil vampire has become through this process of regurgitated creativity? And that's what brings me to my next point: the Nintendo Wii.
The Wii was released packaged with a game called Wii Sports. It was five mini games built as an exhibition tool for the new technology. "Look at what this machine can do. Look at how intuitive the controls are. Think of the possibilities for creative control schemata," they seemed to be saying. During a war between XBox 360 and Playstation 3 over features and power and processors and graphics, Nintendo went for creativity. This creativity has been recieved well, but a majority of designers cannot look past the success of Wii Sports. So they regurgitate the mini game model. How many different games do you need in which you can bowl? The worst offenders have to be "Our House Party" and "MLB Baseball Blast".
"Our House Party" gives you such original ideas as go paint your room, hammer, saw, mow the lawn. In reality they are saying, "See how fun your chores can be." Basically you are painting a virtual room to escape the drudgery of painting your real room? Making chores fun may have worked for Tom Sawyer and Mary Poppins, but it doesn't work for me.
"MLB Baseball Blast" hosts Major League Baseball licensed teams and players. But guess what you can't do. You can't play baseball! You can do every thing but. You can play dodgeball, you can blast baseballs as canon balls at a pirate ship, but you cannot play baseball.
I get it. You can make a mini game for the Wii. Why can't you use some of that creativity and make a fully realized concept for a complete full length game. Why is it that Nintendo can do it with their licensed products (Mario, Zelda, Metroid), but all you can do is reproduce the same point and click mini games? I would rather there be fewer good games than a mountain of junk. So stop it. It's embarrassing all of us, especially those of us who wanted to be vampires for halloween and got sprinkles and an Edward Cullen wig instead.
