What the Nintendo Wii is missing: violent video games
Fortunately, Sega is stepping up with a new game that brings a comic-book sense of ultra-violence to the Wii's motion control functionality. Madworld is a new game scheduled for 2009 that brings blood and gore into your Wii-world.
Why is this cool? Because the Wii offers a whole new way to engage with games and other humans, unlike traditional console games. The notion of grabbing things in the virtual world and using them as part of the game is really cool as you can literally control the action of the game.
Often times, brutality is expressed in a spiteful nature. There are already plenty of games out there that hit this mark; however, we decided that MADWORLD's brutality should be aimed at providing the user with a sense of exhilaration during play.
To give you an example from gameplay, we have a scene where you can pull a street sign from the ground and shove it into a enemy's head. However, I thought that it is much more fun to stab someone with a sign that actually has some sort of meaning as opposed to a knife. We tried the idea out, and the reaction amongst the team was so positive, I knew this was the way to proceed.
While one type of action is already fun, one of MadWorld's most innovative points is the ability to link and layer these actions together. For instance, you can grab that enemy with the street sign through his head and throw him against a spiked wall.
I've gone up and down on video games as both a consumer and as someone who wonders how they really work. In general my big complaint is that video games are such an incredible walled garden that it's next to impossible to step outside the big studio domination.
The Wii has been a surprising success for Nintendo and all signs point to future innovation, all of it hidden from plain sight, even going as far as banning their creative leader from talking about his hobbies.
It would be great to see the big console makers open up to more (any?) third parties vendors to get content onto their machines.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom. 
I think the last thing that's needed in gaming, particularly in a system that has expanded playability to new users, are games with ever-increasingly realistic ways to kill people, zombies or 'enemies.'
For the average gamer, who does not have an HD TV, the Wii's graphics are quite nice. Also, at the $250 price range, there's a lot in that little box - it's basically a flash-based PPC minicomputer, running proprietary linux software.
When all the new- gen consoles came out, I personally would have only bought the PS3. But now I have a Wii in the house because my girlfriend bought it for us, and I have come to see its greatness in simplicity. Add to that a Homebrew Channel and customizable software installs, and it's pretty sweet.
So basically, the Wii is better than most Wii-bashers realize. That's why it dominates the market, not simply price alone.
How soon until I can buy a Wiimachete?
...seriously, was the world really pining for this?
I will not become a lemming to companies that choose to make violence a commodity and our children the target audience of their efforts.
He should never have children and, if he already has spawned, they should be removed from his influence immediately.
No, he is not a moron. He is neo-liberalism gone disturbingly awry.
- by NoVista August 19, 2008 12:42 AM PDT
- Looks like many people have never heard of 'catharsis' ... if you get aggro from violent games, you should certainly steer clear -- you're in that minority group, according to a recent study on gaming. A larger set of the subjects found the activity relaxing.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(22 Comments)I remember back in the 50s, some wowser wrote a book on how comics were the ruination of youth. And, on a slight tangent, there's an inscription in an Egyptian tomb that roughly translates, "The youth of today are going to the dogs."