Ramblage: “Train Kept a Rambling” Edition
It’s happened to most everyone at some point or another; you had a hobby/favorite band/television show that perfectly characterized your lot in life – you were the master of that domain. But then, something strange happened: As you sat in your walled-off castle of a niche, other people started scaling your walls. And before long, the walls began to crumble. Strangers flocked to your domain in droves; you didn’t know what to think anymore. Your cushy, comfortable space no longer belonged solely to you; and worst of all, it – seemingly uncaring about your plight – allowed itself to become deformed by outside influence.
Those who are “in the know” about videogames will undoubtedly agree that gamers are currently experiencing such a situation. Now, that’s not to say that gaming’s sudden boost in popularity and accessibility – thanks in great part to the successes of the Wii and Guitar Hero – is a detriment to our hobby. Quite the contrary, in fact – I believe that the influx of money into the industry will allow creativity to flourish. Sure, we’ll have to suffer through “Imagine: Ponies” and many of its ilk, but we’ll have future Bioshocks and Portals – titles that push game design forward – to anticipate, and in greater numbers to boot.
Nevertheless, there will be a few collisions on the two-sided road that gaming has now become, and while every collision doesn’t necessarily result in the totaling of all cars/videogames involved, neither does every collision result in a happy, non-lethal, “This’ll be a great story to tell the kids, one day” meeting between two future lovers. Obviously, there’s a grab-bag of possibilities, and unfortunately, the flaming fireballs tend to outnumber the make-out sessions, so to speak. But in gaming’s case, while the above metaphor will hold true, so many excellent titles will emerge – again, Portal is a great example of casual simplicity combined with hardcore conventions – that hardcore gamers won’t have time to notice the cavalcade of casual shovelware being released all around them.
Occurrences during the past couple of weeks characterize this trend beautifully. Most noticeably, the Wii, while dwarfed in physical size when compared to its competitors, has been rampaging around Japan in a suitably Godzilla-esque fashion. But then again, it’s been doing the same in America — although surely choosing to instead imitate the Cloverfield monster (gotta change with the times) – so that’s not so surprising. What is at least somewhat surprising, however, are the brisk sales of Wii Fit. On the very day of its announcement at E3 2007, many were heralding it as the next Wii Sports, but others – myself included – remained a wee bit skeptical. I mean, the game’s dependant on a tiny, plastic balance board that looks more like it should be in your bathroom measuring your weight than in your living room, well, measuring your weight. And quite frankly, leaning back-and-forth isn’t gonna make those six slices of pizza a non-factor, no matter how much you may wish it. But somehow, Wii Fit has managed to sell nearly 1.5 million units in Japan alone. Will it be the next Wii Sports? It certainly appears so, and the game’s American release in a couple months looks to solidify that claim.
It seems that titles like Wii Fit and Wii Sports are Nintendo’s future. Somewhat ironically, however, Super Smash Bros. Brawl – as vivid a reminder of Nintendo’s past as any – has also managed to make its own impact in Nihon, and let’s just say the crater’s already nearly the same size as that of its more health-minded cousin. So far, anyway, it would appear that Nintendo’s living up to their promise of placing lemonade stands on both sides of the street. Kudos to Miyamoto and company – keep it up.
Meanwhile, back in America, Electronic Arts – former King Soulless Corporation of the videogame hill, having now ceded that title to Activison – is also attempting to appeal to both sides of the great videogame divide. And to their credit, they have some good ideas, but their methods leave a little bit to be desired. Good idea: Imitate Team Fortress 2; Bad method: Steal only TF2’s art style, as its cartoon-aesthetics will surely appeal to a wide range of audiences! Good idea: Simplify gameplay to attract gaming neophytes; Bad method: Under-simplification and subsequent application of that idea to franchises that hardcore gamers greatly admire. End result: Alienation of hardcores, casuals, and most everyone in-between. Granted, much of this is speculation on my part, but here are some things I can (almost) guarantee: Fans of Fight Night: Round 3 and Battlefield 2 don’t want to see their virtual avatars sporting googly eyes and comically over-sized jaw-lines. Similarly, hardcore fans of both series want perfectly-tuned gameplay, not dumbed-down bastardizations of what they’ve come to know and love.
Am I jumping the gun on this judgment? Yeah, no doubt. So, free of charge, I’m going to point out the flaws in my argument. Most crucially, for all anyone knows, EA could have small armies – almost literally, in Battlefield’s case – working on “real” titles in their respective series; “Fight Night: Round 4” and “Battlefield: Now with 100% Fewer Mechs” could very well be announced in a few days, weeks, or months – we have no way of knowing. Another flaw of near-equal importance: I have no great incite into the development teams at EA. They’re the top-tier game-creating geniuses; I’m just some wannabe games journalist. While the developers might screw things up, there’s an equal chance that they’ll pull the proverbial hat trick and give us something spectacular.
To punctuate this meandering piece, why not discuss the only game to perfectly connect both sides of Gamestreet? Valve, in a typically vague and secretive fashion, was content to recently state that they’ll eventually release “more Portal.”…Done applauding? Ok, because now, I’m gonna stick a fine-tipped needle into your exquisitely bulbous bubble. Portal is amazing, incredible, ground-breaking, and hilarious, but can a sequel live up to the astronomically high standards the original set forth? In terms of gameplay, certainly. Valve merely scratched the surface of a figurative iceberg, that, with further digging, would turn out to be the ice-planet Hoth. But what about the hypothetical sequel’s story? What happens when the confines of Aperture Science are no longer present, and Glados isn’t in control? And even if Glados manages to find her way back into our lives, will her dark humor be as novel next time around? Really, the internet has already found a way to kill many of the jokes Portal created – I would’ve once been overjoyed to own a “The Cake is a Lie” T-shirt, but I’m now content to silently despise those who wear such apparel. Granted, knowing Valve, Portal 2 will be great, but I highly doubt it’ll be able to surpass its predecessor. Funnily enough, however, no game since Half-Life 2 has had this kind of hype to live up to. So if anyone can do it, Valve can.
