Does the name Mario ring a bell, why of course it’s the adorable fat Italian plumber next door who does shrooms to give him extraordinary powers? Nintendo may be on the highway to success with the Wii, but Mario’s latest iteration just goes to prove how creativity in the industry is still not confined to high-end visuals, visceral gore and near levels of reality.
It’s the fun factor that keeps this particular genre a frog’s leap away from heavy hitting games on other platforms and ensures success. This discussion borders two basic things the importance of visuals and the essence of creativity in today’s hectic generation.
How essential is the word embedded fun in games of today’s generation, with boundaries of technology merging in this world today. People hardly have time to give a game like Oblivion a spin, so one of the major reasons of Wii’s success is the fact that it aims to create an experience whose flavor has been tasted and enjoyed by gamers nearly 4 decades ago. I speak about the golden days of the NES and Genesis. Most of the games on these platforms relied heavily on the concept of loops a trend that is seeing a major comeback. Most games on Nintendo’s baby are games based on this formula which has always seen success.
Have you ever got bored of playing Tetris or giving Street Fighter 2 a spin? These games are closer to gold than the latest iteration of Halo or Metal Gear. The guys at Nintendo have crafted such a game with Super Mario galaxy whose levels of fun remain unrivaled and unchallenged to this very date.
As a gamer I would still pick up a copy of Super Mario 64 and play it to death than give the original Metal Gear a whirl. This does not however mean I did not enjoy playing these games and their insurmountable sequels, I felt quite satisfied after achieving the designated goals and surviving all odds, but these games did not have the addictive feel that would make me come back for more. I would rather wait for the sequels to arrive, but the case of Mario 64 is just different, I am still quite satisfied with the original game and I absolutely have a blast playing it over and over again.
Mario games do not have multiple levels of depth in them neither do they tax the non-existent part of the gamers body, rather they rely heavily on the sense of achievement that seems to be vast and endless, collecting the stars and defeating Browser is just not enough. I enjoy jumping on turtles and racing penguins and gaining power ups hidden in the entire game.
The same logic applies to games like Geometry Wars and Everyday Shooter. These games capitalize on this very sense of achievements to advance to higher and more difficult levels neither do these games gobble up the precious word “TIME”.
With time and space being the center of crunch these days casual gamers are deemed to be a dying breed. Hey in a couple of years I’ll be a “working father”, these are two big words in a sentence and I’ll have to fight classic battles between my wife games and kids… Damn the very thought of it gives me a reason to stay single for the rest of my life, but who can stop natural processes… No I shall fight it and games will be my FIRST priority forever… Nature Vs Games… Aaaa…. The pain….
But on a serious note the genre of hardcore is seamlessly merging with the boundary of casual games. The case study at this crucial juncture is none other than the million seller Halo 3, noticed how short the single player campaign is, there is a very definitive reason for this. A game’s duration varies in a multiplayer match, it can range from a few minutes to long tedious hours. But a single player campaign relies on a story and the longer the story the longer it takes a gamer to finish the game and with the whole idea of multitasking taking the center stage in today’s generation this also needs to be given a serious thought. Shorter stories are the way to define games of the future, LOTR onscreen VS LOTR book, which one would a rational human? Choose, think about it…
I shall however exclude the extreme bunch of gamers who spend their entire lives online, and end up having trauma stricken lives with a bunch of virtual babies. I strictly speak of “rational” human beings here. So short and crisp is gaining momentum and nutritious games are soon giving way to fast games that may define the near future.
Super Mario Galaxy- $60… playing it n^n^n^n times= priceless… (^=Raised to the power)
–Neelesh Mukherjee