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The Unfortunate State of the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console

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For those with a jones for retro gaming, the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console was supposed to be a dream come true. It was supposed to be the home of every old Nintendo game you could ask for. As time passed, the Virtual Console grew to include the Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, Sega Master System, Commodore 64 and arcade games. It’s been almost 5 years since the launch of Virtual Console, and we as consumers have access to over 300 games.

On the surface, that sounds decent. I’ve been able to buy a few favourites, try older games I’ve never played before and even grab a Japanese import game that never came out here (in my case, the very awesome Sin and Punishment). However, that number isn’t even close to representing the full catalogue of platforms represented in Virtual Console. Between the NES, SNES, SMS, Genesis, TG16, N64 and Neo Geo, the Virtual console has only made 10% of their combined catalogue available to consumers. It’s only going to get worse, as the once weekly updates have slowed to once a month, if we’re lucky.

What started out as an amazing idea is fizzling fast. How did Nintendo screw up what should have been a sure-fire win?

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Pick Up Post: Just Dance 2

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The first Just Dance was nothing short of a smash hit. It was a game that did a great job catering to the Wii audience, in spite of the gripes I had from a hardcore gamer perspective; which wouldn’t matter to the vast majority of people who would play or buy this game in the first place. To be fair, once I stopped thinking about the game as a hardcore game reviewer and started thinking about it as just someone wanting to play a dance game with others, the original was a lot of fun.

Yesterday evening, my girlfriend went to pick up her copy of Just Dance 2, which might be her most anticipated game of the year. After a long weekend of Just Dance 1 madness with her, my brother, my cousins and I, my brother and I decided to go half on our own copy as well.

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The ESRB and My Video Game Collection

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Last year, my 7 year-old cousin at the time discovered Modern Warfare 2 through my 12 year-old cousin. Ever since that day, my now 8 year-old cousin has become enamored with the Mature-rated Call of Duty series. For him, Modern Warfare 2 was his Mortal Kombat; it was his gateway drug to Mature-rated games. As of now, he owns Conflict: Denied Ops and Sniper: Ghost Warrior, which he brags about being M-rated all the time.

I didn’t bring this anecdote up to talk about parenting. I don’t approve of him playing content I would deem inappropriate for him and I do what I can to keep that stuff away. The reason I bring this up though, is because my 8 year-old cousin now views that M rating as a symbol of cool. He loves the fact that he owns games that he knows he’s too young to be playing. They’re his forbidden fruit and he’ll take anything he can get at this point.

All of this made me think about my video game collection and how it relates to the ESRB. Once upon a time, the Mortal Kombat series was my forbidden fruit. Did my catalogue of games evolve in relation to the ESRB guidelines or did I overdose on forbidden fruit? I do the math to answer these questions and highlight any insights regarding gaming as I grew up.

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Girlfriend Gaming: How Ubisoft Won Her Brand Loyalty

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Ever since she got a Wii for Christmas last year, I’ve noticed that my girlfriend looks at Ubisoft in a very positive light. She as built up quite a collection of Wii games for herself, many of them published by Ubisoft. Thanks to her positive experiences with Ubisoft games, she’s become a Ubisoft fan in the same way that I’m a fan of Capcom. When she sees that Ubisoft logo on the game box, she expects that game to be good. When we visited the Ubisoft booth at Fan Expo, she was hyped to receive a promo code on Ubisoft games and tried to cash it in the moment we got back to the hotel. To her disappointment, it didn’t work on pre-orders and she’d already bought every other Ubisoft game she wanted.

How did Ubisoft win her over to the point where she equates their brand with good games?

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Plastic Crap and Other Useless Video Game Accessories

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This current generation of consoles has opened the door to what I feel is are the absolute worst video game accessories ever. Sure, the Power Glove is ‘so bad‘ and the U-Force was equally broken, but at least their intentions were somewhat grounded in offering players a new, better or different experience.

Thanks to the Wii (and now PlayStation Move), accessory makers are having a field day selling consumers plastic controller attachments that add nothing to the gameplay experience other than more stuff to hold. Sure, it’ll look like you’re swinging a tennis racquet, but do you actually need the extra visual stimulation to add to the realism? I say no. Based on how well these controller attachments sell, it seems like I’m in the minority on this one, which irks me to no end.

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Trade Away Post: September 2010 Edition

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Trading games in is not a practice I regularly take part in. I generally like to keep my stuff and would like to think that I only buy games worth owning forever. However, sometimes I roll the dice on certain titles and it doesn’t always work out for any number of reasons.

I recently went to my local video game store to trade in a bunch of games. Here are the games I got rid of and the reasoning behind letting them go.

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Nintendo Going To Great Lengths To Fix Metroid: Other M Saves

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Not too long ago, it was discovered that Metroid: Other M had a game-breaking glitch. If you got the Ice Beam and killed the spiked enemy behind you instead of proceeding through the door in front of you, the door wouldn’t open, which would make it impossible for you to proceed any further.

Nintendo has a fix for this. Just don’t expect it to be that convenient.

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NBA Elite Delayed and NBA Jam Coming to 360 and PS3 Before Holidays

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It looks like EA Sports listened to the voice of the people after all. After an incredibly poor response to the NBA Elite 11 demo and the anger that ensued with the XBOX 360 and PS3 versions of NBA Jam, Peter Moore, President of EA Sports, announced that NBA Elite 11 will be delayed indefinitely and that XBOX 360 and PS3 versions of NBA Jam will be sold separately in time for the holidays. For full details, go here.

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Super Mario Collection Announced For Japan

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To celebrate Super Mario’s 25th anniversary in Japan, Nintendo is releasing Super Mario Collection, which includes a port of Super Mario All-Stars, a book about the history of Mario and a CD with classic and new Mario music. It’s set to come out on October 21 in Japan for the equivalent of $30 US.

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My ‘Do Want’ List of Q4 2010 Video Game Releases

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For gamers, the most wonderful time of the year starts right about now. Most of 2010’s biggest games are set to drop between September and December, including the likes of Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops. As a kid, this used to be the time of year when I would fawn over each hot new release as they hit stores and make sure come Christmas time, it would make it on my wish list. Ever since I grew up and started working though, Santa has had a horrible time trying to get me stuff, because I have a bad habit of buying every game I want the day it comes out.

While I don’t see myself grabbing Halo: Reach or Call of Duty: Black Ops, which will likely be the biggest games out during this time-frame, that doesn’t mean I won’t have anything to play. Off the top of my head, I listed a few games I’m looking forward to getting my hands on when they hit stores later this year.

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