Tuesday, March 4, 2008 10:56 PM 1. DELAYED That’s
just a short list off the top of my head of Nintendo games that were
announced for a certain date, and then delayed right when anticipation
was at its highest. Basically, if Nintendo announces a release date for
a game, that day can be freed up on your schedule because NOTHING is
going to happen then. 5 million Smash fans cried themselves to sleep
every time Brawl got delayed. As such, I think November 3rd should
be national “Hate Reggie Fils-Aime Day”… where everyone on the planet
posts a Youtube video of themselves crying onto their own keyboards
until it they get an electrical shock from the damaged equipment strong
enough to knock them out until at LEAST February2nd because it’s coming out then, right? Animal Crossing: Wild World How
many children around the world have the complexion of a dead polar bear
because they spent 43 and a half straight hours playing the new Zelda
game indoors and alone? The number of kids who are now friendless
because they discovered Super Metroid at a young age is probably in the
trillions. Something must be done to introduce these kids back to the
concept of FRIENDS. Co-op mode, maybe? Nah. Co-Star mode will do just
fine, won’t it Nintendo? WON’T IT!?!? Until Brawl, with its supposedly
good 2 player adventure mode, those kids will just have to be
friendless, and continue hating see-saws. So
I’m cruising through Mario Galaxy (Which I reference an obscene amount
of times in this list), not having any real problems. Sure, there’s a
level or two that I have to retry a couple times, but besides the
random boss, nothing is really too demanding. All the sudden I get to
the Dreadnought Galaxy Purple Coin Challenge. I capitalized that
because it’s the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in a game. I
spent THREE HOURS redoing and redoing that thing and STILL DIDN’T GET
THE STAR. Your aim with the Wiimote has to be better than O.J.
Simpson’s aim with a knife if you even want to stand a chance. It was
totally out of the blue and about 10 times as hard as the final level
and boss fight. Thanks Mario, for warping my mind. (I did eventually
beat it, btw) Oh, and the Elite Four in Poke’mon? I get that it’s the
final challenge or whatever but I mean REALLY. You suck at that game if
you ever get a game over screen before that point, but if you don’t
spend FOREEEVER leveling up before that you’re just straight outta
luck. It made me almost squirtle my pants. Waluigi…
Tatl and Tael… Lanky Kong… I’m sure that at one point in development of
their respective games, somebody thought that these fools would a good
idea. And then you see them. Waluigi is the most anorexic and badly
groomed character I’ve ever seen. Tatl and Tael are like Navi, but even
more obnoxious. And Lanky Kong… I’ll be danged if Lanky Kong isn’t some
kind of sick riff on retarded kids. That’s messed up, Nintendo. You’ve
got a special spot in Hell for that. Games
don’t HAVE to have a story. I recognize that. But when the plot of the
game I’m playing is THEPRINCESSGOTKIDNAPPEDBYTHEBIGMIS- PS
- Your Rival being the leader of the Elite Four was the lamest and most
predictable plot twist I’ve ever seen. You suck, Game Freak. 7. Hindu Bosses Apparently
ALL of Nintendo’s developers are led by people who believe in
reincarnation. “Oh look, I get to fight the Phantom Link again… I was
really rusty on my volleyball skills since the last time I fought him
was 30 MINUTES AGO. Oh joy it’s Bowser again! This time he HOPS BEFORE
HE SHOOTS FIREBALLS. 8. Spontaneously Combusting Defeated Bosses As
if gigantic octopuses, massive screaming robot pterodactyls, one-eyed
spider monsters, and overgrown evil vegetation weren’t weird enough as
boss characters, they all have a really strange way of cashing out. I
can’t for the life of me figure out why kicking coconuts at a giant
octopus in Super Mario Galaxy would cause it to EXPLODE. I’ve heard of
allergic reactions, but that’s ridiculous. Gohma in The Legend of Zelda
does the same thing. All I did was hit it in the eye with a slingshot
and a midget sword! Isn’t there a Visine for that?! These musings bring
me to my next complaint, however. 9. Voice Acting (or lack thereof) Everyone
knows those few, sad little sound files. Mario jumps and he w00ts.
Mario double jumps and he “wah”s. Mario triple jumps and it sounds like
he just won the Kentucky lottery. Other than that you won’t get too
much out of everyone’s favorite obese Italian. He’s like some kind of
overweight, spring-loaded caveman with a disturbing sense of fashion. And
when he DOES speak actual words players are confronted with the serious
consideration of whether or not to fill their own ears with silly putty
to escape the helium-fueled horror. There are moments when you just
want to punch that voice actor in the kidney, as seen in
“SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARIO GAAAAAAAAAAALAXY!!!
WOOOOOOOHOOOO!” The intro to that game probably makes at least 1 out of
3 respectable adults return it immediately, just by itself. Link,
Samus, and Donkey Kong, on the other hand pretty much keep to
themselves. In fact, when asked a question they will just stare down
the other person until they continue the conversation un-fazed. At
least Link and Donkey Kong grunt or scream in pain every once in a
while. Samus is some kind of deaf-mute. And what if she sneezes in that
helmet? How sick would that be? 10. Animal Slaughter on a Grand Scale is Okay So
you’re standing there minding your own business and a turtle comes
waddling up to you. If you’re a sane human being, you just watch it go
by on its merry little way or pick it up and try to feed it dirt or
something. If you’re a Nintendo character, however, you stomp on that
terrorist’s head and then kick his dead, lifeless corpse at his friends
and kill them too! It doesn’t end there, innocent alligators in Donkey
Kong get hit with a barrel until they die of blunt force trauma (again,
because they’re between DK and his bananas). If you come upon a bear
cub in Poke’mon, you better dragon-kick that sucker in the melon until
he passes out or you won’t be able to fit him in your little
apple-sized container. Samus is the sole reason that some species of
bats are extinct. The animal crossing guy puts live fish in his pants
and laughs as they die of suffocation! The list goes on and on, getting
only worse. The atrocities committed in the average Nintendo release
would make a PETA employee’s head explode. Disgusting.
Mario Kart Wii
Super Smash Bros Brawl (LIKE SEVEN TIMES)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Pretty much every game involving a Zelda character ever
2. No Real Co-Op. EVER.
3. Mind-Blowingly Fluctuating Difficulty.
4. Increasingly Retarded Supporting Cast Over Each Iteration
5. You lost your Power Suit/Princess/Bananas!
Donkey
Kong’s quests don’t even BEGIN to make sense. It’s BANANAS. They grow
on trees, man. They’re everywhere. But that punk goes running off to a
sure death anyway. Good stuff, Nintendo writers, good stuff. The worst
of the lot is the Mario Party series, though. Somehow, they manage to
give a quick, 30 second explanation for why these guys are playing a
board game (they’re saving the world, duh). As if the game itself
wasn’t bad enough…
6. Almost no plot, but still has cut scenes.
SHAPENDINOSAURGOGETSOMESTARS
(See next point) I don’t want to see cut scenes. Especially not ones of
the entire universe exploding or of Mario getting a kiss ON THE NOSE
after all the crap he just went through. And don’t even get me started
on Fire Emblem. Those cut scenes don’t even make sense. Just write “SEE
PLOT OF FIRE EMBLEM 1-9” and start the fight.
I
could a three hour rant on Metroid Prime: Hunters. You had to suck at
life to ever lose to one of the other hunters, and there was literally
only two bosses that you fought about 6 times EACH. So much of the code
for that game was copy-pasted that it was more reminiscent of a Kotaku
article than a game.
-Ryan Rigney
PS – This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were missing. (R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg)