I was discussing with one friend the other day that the Mario proper series IS one of Nintendo's franchises that does see a lot of innovation. Sorry I didn't mention that.
Metroid and Zelda you could say the same, since they changed quite a bit when the moved to the GC and N64 respectively, but since then the games have stuck to essentially the same formula. The Metroid and Zelda franchises along with the Smash Bros. franchises stay pretty fun, but I can't help but feeling that they currently rely to much on the same formula. Nintendo seems to be making all of its gambles this time around with the casual market games, the one area where only a small percentage of the games appeal to me. I remain hopeful for Smash though, since the jump from the original to Melee was a FANTASTIC one.
Mario Party and Mario Kart and the Mario (fill in the blank here) games are the worst, since many of the offering on the GC were actually the worst in the history of the series (I am looking at you Mario Party and Mario Tennis). Mario Golf was pretty good though.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
