Sales of the Nintendo Wii have been flagging lately, and the number of quality titles coming out for this generation's best-selling system seems to be getting thinner every month. What better to fix everything than Mario? New Super Mario Bros. sold over 19 million copies for the DS, and now the Wii sequel has arrived just in time to give a breath of life into the little white box. We've been quite bullish about this new game after multiplayer hands-on and single-player sessions earlier this year. Now, after playing the final boxed version all weekend, did it live up to our lofty expectations? Our takes are below.
Scott:
Nintendo wisely chose to make its headlining release this holiday a marquee game for its most popular mascot. The surprising part was putting the whole game in 2D.
After the success of 3D Mario games, including Super Mario Galaxy, dating back to 1996, the decision to make New Super Mario Bros. Wii a 2D game could be considered baffling. But it's actually a somewhat brilliant move: for all of Galaxy's incredible visuals, it's not instantly accessible to older casual gamers. SNES-era Super Mario is, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a better-rendered, 16x9 wide-screen retro-update to the classic series that effectively ended with Super Mario World. The game's all-new levels and clever updates to the game mechanics make this an excellent sequel for the Mario ultrafans.
Much like the DS game New Super Mario Bros., Mario and much of his environment are composed of 3D graphics moving in 2D, lending a much smoother look than sprite-based retro gaming. For single-player fans, the eight-plus worlds and many secrets are actually pretty difficult, and offer plenty of value. Throwing in four-player co-op through the whole game transforms Mario into an experience more like Super Smash Bros. as players compete for power-ups in ways that are often downright mean.
Two other multiplayer modes offer different ways to play the single-player courses, and, sadly, none of the multiplayer is online. Still, the 2D arena offers some of the best multiplayer play that the Wii has ever seen, and that, combined with the mainstream family-friendly feel, could catapult New Super Mario Bros. Wii to the very top of the Wii's best-sellers' list. ... Read more
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In one of Apple's latest TV ads featuring the omnipresent Mac (Justin Long) and PC (John Hodgman), we see PC going retro. It's actually a cute ad as PC regresses back in time with various incarnations of himself through the years, each time promising that a particular version of Windows won't suck. "Trust me," he says. Sure thing, PC. And nice wig.
But since we're going retro, maybe we should look at a few of Apple's ads from around the time PC and Mac apparently met (according to the ad): the '90s.
For those who don't remember Apple's advertisements from then, I offer a collection of some of the most sucktastic ads Apple has ever had (remember Think Different? Yeah, me too). Enjoy them. You can thank me later.
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It's retro right down to the box art.
(Credit: Nintendo)This holiday season, amid an economy that's still in the tank, game companies are stingier with their first-party release schedule. In fact, each of the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) are only targeting one or two games for their systems before Christmas. Nintendo has one single title that's prominent for the Nintendo Wii, and that's New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
We got a chance to play one or two of the side-scrolling title's multiplayer modes a while back, but we didn't know whether Mario's home console return to 2D platforming would also feature a single-player mode that had as much going for it as old-school favorites like Super Mario World.
After last night's playthrough and a discussion with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (translated via Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen), the answer to that question is undoubtedly yes.
Mr. Miyamoto answered questions regarding his new game, in particular why it's a 2D game when Super Mario Galaxy achieved such great success both critically and financially as a 3D Wii title.
According to Miyamoto, who participated in a reporter's roundtable Thursday night in New York City, what makes a Mario game is being "simple to control and easy to understand." The multiplayer modes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii include both four-player competitive Smash Bros.-inspired modes such as Coin Battle, as well as hop-in four-player co-op throughout the entire single-player story mode of the game.
"We wanted the game to appeal to and be accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and because we wanted to make it multiplayer, we felt that the original concept for Mario Bros. was the one best suited to multiplayer gameplay," Miyamoto added. "Multiplayer platforming is much better suited to a 2-D environment versus a 3-D one." He was referring specifically to same-room gaming as opposed to online gaming, raising a point that we've often thought about with the Wii--namely, other than Wii Sports, that there just aren't a great number of multiplayer games for the console.
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Few things are as universally awesome as a cheap keyboard or drum machine. As a child of the '80s, I can vividly remember the first time I got my hands on a toy Casio keyboard and spent the afternoon sampling obscenities into the built-in microphone and playing through all the different preset sounds (I can still hear the Casio demo song in my head).
The Stylophone Beatbox ($25) is a retro music toy of a slightly different breed than my Casio, fusing together the design of a 1967 Stylophone pocket synthesizer with the sampled percussion layout of a modern day Akai MPC or Roland HandSonic.
However you choose to categorize it, the Stylophone Beatbox is exactly the sort of weird, noisy, cheap piece of tech I go nuts for. It's surprisingly sophisticated, too, allowing you to record loops of sounds, route in an MP3 player, and even adjust pitch and tempo. Check out some clever demo videos after the break.... Read more
Sony, please make this your next PS3 re-release.
Sony's announcement this week of a PS3 edition of the first two PS2 God of War games, called God of War Collection, was exciting--unless you already own both games.
With 720p HD support added in, however, it raises a serious question: will backward-compatibility be a relic of video game days gone by? With the PS3 no longer able to play PS2 games, fans will be ever more reliant on re-releases and virtual console titles to resell them the greatest hits of the last generation.
As long as the old re-releases are lovingly upscaled to HD and given some extra bells and whistles, however, we could be a little more forgiving. There are plenty of other memorable franchises from the PS2 glory years that Sony would be wise to re-release and package with HD-compatible upgrades. Here's our short list. And we'll give you a hint: one of them involves giant rock formations.
Any we left off?
Runte's take on real-world Pac-Man. The photographer designed and made the costumes for the series.
(Credit: Patrick Runte)While we wait for the big-screen adaptation of Halo to hopefully come out in the next couple of years, we must wonder about the real-life looks video games of yore may have taken. Modern games already look like awesome high-definition movies, but what about their heavily pixelated predecessors?
German photographer Patrick Runte has taken on the idea and has come up with some fairly funny recreations of old 4-bit video games as they would have looked in real life. The games adapted include Tetris, Pac-Man, and of course Pong. He even goes off the grid just a tad to bring us a pinball recreation. Rad.
Runte's a good photographer and there are many more (not so geeky) images on his site. In the meantime, check out a couple more of his game shots after the jump.
Runte's friends dress in costume to represent Pong in the real world.
(Credit: Patrick Runte)... Read more
This week has been a hot one here in Seattle and a fun one at Crave. We've covered Blu-ray players that cost more than laptops as well as cheap laptops with Blu-ray players included. We don't have any idea what's going on either.
There have been a few interesting developments in the e-book reader department with Samsung announcing it's joining the fray and Barnes and Noble re-entering the e-book market.
Technically speaking, the iPhone is a popular e-book reader, but it still has its flaws. Case in point, a vulnerability in iPhone software could allow hackers to take control of the device via a text message. Thankfully there's a patch out now.
And Dan Ackerman looks back at some of the console games of yore he thinks deserve another shot as downloadable content. I agree with him on these choices completely.
Grim Fandango's suave hero, Manuel "Manny" Calavera.
It used to be that playing classic, out-of-print PC games required you to find shady download sites or old dusty retail boxes on eBay, then hope that your ancient Windows 3.1 game would work under XP or Vista.
One of the most welcome recent developments in gaming is the relatively sudden availability of a huge back catalog of classic games, across multiple platforms.
Like classic films finally being released on DVD, you can now play great (and not-so-great) games from the '80s and '90s via the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii, as well as on your PC via download platforms such as Steam, GameTap, and Good Old Games (which is especially notable for offering DRM-free versions of classic games for $5-10).
Recent examples include LucasArts' The Secret of Monkey Island (available on Xbox Live and the iPhone), and the classic Fallout and Tex Murphy games on GOG.com.
While the future of PC gaming may be in question, many of our fondest video game memories are not of console games played on a living room TV, but of classic PC adventure games -- a genre virtually ignored today.
Sadly, many of our favorites are not yet available on any of these retro gaming platforms, so we present for you, in handy gallery form, our list of five classic adventure games that need to be re-released as digital downloads, pronto. Disagree with our choices? Let us know what classic games (adventure of otherwise) deserve a second chance in the comments section below.
[Note: We fully admit to not playing any of these games since their original release, so our fond memories may be more nostalgia than reality.]
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I am currently writing this on my second MacBook Pro. I'm also waiting for a call on my third iPhone while watching "Star Trek" on my second HDTV from my third Xbox 360. Technology today seems to fizzle out or become redundant quickly. But it wasn't always like that.
In fact, the BBC recently tracked down a 73-year-old TV set that still works and is believed to be the oldest working television in Britain. It's tuned to but one built-in channel--the BBC, as it was the only channel available in England when the set was built. The extent of its controls are for vertical hold and volume.
The TV has a 12-inch screen that's reflected to the viewer via an angled mirror at the top. While the previous owner has wired it to work with an external tuner--much like the DTV boxes millions of us picked up last year--the current owner is on a mission to restore the box to its fully original state, something we find to be quite cool.
We're wondering if in 70 years time collectors will do the same for modern HDTVs or iPods. If there are any still around, that is. But it's not only TVs from the '30s that outlive their expectations; the BBC article about the television has some great comments from users around the world who are sharing stories of their favorite devices that still work long after the warranties are expired.
The start of point-and-click adventure games to go?
(Credit: LucasArts)As a gaming system, the iPhone has had its share of praises and attacks, but it's hard to challenge the appeal of retro titles on the system. With a perfect version of Myst under its belt, the iPhone's gone one better with a release of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition that launched last night on iTunes.
For those who don't remember, The Secret of Monkey Island is perhaps one of the most celebrated graphic adventures in the once-popular genre. Originally released in 1990, there were three other sequels released, the last in 2000. LucasArts once had that genre all locked up with titles like Full Throttle, The Dig, and Sam & Max Hit The Road. In graphic adventures, generally, the main character wanders around a series of landscapes, interacting with the environment and picking up items as the story unfolds. The various rooms and spaces of the game are displayed like giant panoramas, static but full of areas to explore. Being point-and-click based instead of control pad-focused, it's probably the perfect genre to make a new splash on the iPhone and iPod Touch formats. First off, the original graphics resolutions match what the iPhone can output. Secondly, there's a ton of good, cheap content just waiting to be rereleased. Monkey Island is $7.99 on the iTunes store, several dollars cheaper than the recent Xbox Live Arcade release.
By swiping fingers, you get a revamped graphics mode or the original, more pixelated but authentic version. The music and gameplay are all retained.
We hope other former classics get released in short order. Space Quest, the Gabriel Knight series, Maniac Mansion, or our personal favorite blast from the past, Tass Times in Tonetown.
Any others you'd like to see?
