61 Frames Per Second

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• You’re Doing It Wrong: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Franchise Misuse

  I understand. Using a familiar property to sell a game is a great way to make it popular. Just look at the myriad faux-sports games Nintendo’s made in the past decade. Would Tennis have been a hit on Gamecube? Hell no. That’s why you give Mario and everyone else living in a Mushroom Kingdom area code a racket and put them on the courts. The familiar will bring people in to play something they wouldn’t have otherwise. While the franchise-means-audience maxim holds true, I’m baffled by the way certain properties get used. Sonic Riders is a perfect example. Why in the hell would you make not one, but two separate racing games starring Sonic the Hedgehog when nobody runs? It would be like making a Transformers game where Optimus Prime spends the game renewing his trucking license. Ubisoft’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for Wii is just as misguided. Read More... Posted Jan 27 2009, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, wii, ubisoft, gamecube, sonic the hedgehog, smash bros, teenage mutant ninja turtles, mario tennis, game arts, sonic riders, tmnt

• The Band Joins the Plumber: Nintendo’s Strategy Finally Bears Its Sweetest Fruit

  It’s pretty amazing how effective Satoru Iwata’s business plan for Nintendo has been since he took over as company president earlier this decade. I’m not even talking about the company’s focus on videogames for broader, specifically family, audiences. No, it’s how Nintendo has, under Iwata’s direction, created a line of games that don’t need annual sequels or iterations to be successful. Just one, quality, iconic game, that continues to sell to alongside your hardware. There won’t be another Wii Smash Bros. because Brawl is never going to stop selling and chances are there won’t be a New Super Mario Bros. 2, because the first one continues to do gangbusters at retail. It may not always make me the happiest person in the world — like everyone else who plays way too many games, I’m always hungry for the next new thing and, yes, the next sequel — but I have to admire it, and celebrate its positive effect on the business of videogames broadly. I see Nintendo’s influence in Alex Rigupulos’s comments at this year’s CES conference. The Harmonix CEO let slip that there wouldn’t be yet another iteration of Rock Band in 2009. This is great news, for Rock Band fans and videogames broadly. Read More... Posted Jan 09 2009, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, ea, wii, super smash bros brawl, harmonix, satoru iwata, smash bros, rock band 2, new super mario bros 2, rock band 3, alex rigupulos

• Lowering the Standard: Why Nintendo’s Hardcore vs. Casual Commitments Aren’t the Problem

  I tend to sound overly pessimistic when talking about the Wii. I happen to love the system. I think the funky little box has quite a lot going for it and it’s given me a handful of unforgettable gaming experiences, with Wii Sports and No More Heroes chief among them. No, I’m not overly pessimistic about the Wii. I’m overly pessimistic about Nintendo. As much as I want to be excited about a new Punch-Out!, I can’t help but look at the facts: Nintendo has released more traditional, hardcore games in the Wii’s first two years than they did in the Gamecube’s first four and all of them, with the exceptions of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, have been below the gold standard of Nintendo’s internally developed software from generations past. Read More... Posted Oct 02 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, metroid, nintendo, wii, madworld, zelda, gamecube, fire emblem, super mario bros, punch out, klonoa, fragile, smash bros, house of the dead, oboro muramasa

• Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow

  The hardcore Nintendo fanbase have made their voices heard. They're sick of games with Miis and annoying rabbits. They want games with the characters from all the old-school games they know and love. They want fan service. Just look at Super Smash Bros Brawl, the definitive hardcore Wii game and a game that is 100% fan service. Sega may soon be delivering with MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill, but there's a lot of talk about what Nintendo's next "hardcore" game for the Wii will be. Kid Icarus? Disaster: Day of Crisis? Pikmin? What if I told you there was already a game coming out for the Wii which combined fan favorite characters from Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zelda, Punch-Out!, and more along with the side-scrolling fighting of Viewtiful Joe and the community activity of Animal Crossing? Sounds like exactly the kind of game we've been waiting for, right? Now what if I told you this game was coming out in Japan this very week? You'd probably ask when its coming out in the rest of the world, wouldn't you? Well, we don't know yet because Nintendo has yet to make any announcements regarding localization of Captain Rainbow. That's right, I'm talking about Captain mother-flippin' Rainbow here. Read More... Posted Aug 25 2008, 02:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, derrick sanskrit, wii, hardcore, captain rainbow, skip, smash bros, fan service

• The Madden IQ and The Future of Competitive Gaming

  I’ve said it before here at 61 Frames Per Second, but the Madden series baffles me. The game’s massive popularity here in the states — three Madden titles are among the ten all-time best selling titles in America — makes sense. Football is awesome and people love it. It’s the game’s popularity in spite of monumental difficulty that makes my brain itchy. Sometimes, you just need a different perspective on things. Nerve’s own Joseph Lazauskas is an old school Madden-ite. In this 61FPS guest spot, he gives us some insight into why Madden ’06–’08 are three of the best selling games ever made and why the just released Madden ’09 represents not just the future of the franchise, but the future of mainstream competitive gaming. – JC Written by Joseph Lazauskas There once was a time when John Madden’s illustrious football video game was my crack; I’d be in a sleepless fit the week before it’s release, and oh yes, I was a proud participant in the midnight-Madden release “parties” at the Wayne, New Jersey Gamestop for years. I’d run home and play all-night with the other Madden junkies in online “sim” leagues. From 2003 to 2006, Madden catered to us obsessives, and we were eternally grateful for the increasingly complex control. I played enough to be ranked in the top 100 online at one point (a stellar feat, if I say so myself). But Madden’s switch to the current console generation found the game significantly dumbed-down, and my interest in it dropped as a result. Starting college, embracing substance abuse and entering a relationship didn’t help. I go to a very liberal arts school outside NYC, with a 3:1 girl to guy ratio. No one there, as you can imagine, really wants to play Madden. Even when I found someone that would play, the difference in our skill levels was too great for the game to be any fun. That’s why, unlike a lot of hardcore Madden-ers, I think the mainstream-focused — but re-balanced — Madden 2009 is fantastic, and it might be the future of head-to-head games thanks to the Madden IQ. Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: mario kart, madden, smash bros, joseph lazauskas, nba live

• Shut It, Old Man: The Absurd Extent of Nintendo’s Secrecy

  Eighteen months ago, whilst combating poor previews of his imminent release Too Human, Denis Dyack expressed his opinion that videogames should not be previewed in any way, shape, or form until they near completion. I can appreciate the sentiment, to a degree, especially in Too Human’s case. That game used to look like this: And now it looks like this: That’s what happens when you show a game ten years before it actually comes out. Dyack, hypocrite or not, isn’t wrong. Showing a game too soon can give a very poor impression of what it will ultimately be, particularly with original concepts and new characters, but you need to get the game in the public eye early. Videogames, outside of marquee titles, are rarely advertised anywhere, let alone on television where they would get the greatest exposure. So you have to preview that sucker for a long time before it releases, seed the enthusiast press, and let people pay attention. Otherwise games die on the vine, even established franchises. Unless, of course, you’re Nintendo. Read More... Posted Aug 11 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, mario kart, mario, too human, wario, smash bros, Denis dyack, touch generations

• It’s Madness!: Evo Championship 2K8 Starts Friday, Baby

  The headline above may or may not mean anything to you. If it does, chances are you’re going to be spending August 8th through the 10th in Las Vegas screaming at arcade cabinets or constantly updating YouTube to check out the latest match footage. However, if everything I’ve just written reads like Sanskrit to you (not Derrick. The dead language.), the annual Evo Championship is the closest thing competition level gaming has ever had to a Super Bowl. Warriors gather from around the world and engage in combat. They don’t actually fight each other or anything. They fight in a selection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional fighting games including a number of Street Fighter titles, Tekken, and Smash Bros. It is an epic event. If this sounds silly to you, well, you clearly haven’t seen this. Read More... Posted Aug 05 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, street fighter, capcom, namco, smash bros, tekken tatsunoko vs capcom, evo championship