I was reading this week's Penny Arcade comic and news post and was shocked by how closely Tycho's opinion matched my own. Interestingly, I'd thought the exact same thing about their Mario Kart rantings on Friday. So I thought I would post them here and see if anyone else agreed on their analysis of the franchises and their reviews.
Mario Kart Wii:
A white box with a black skid mark appeared at the office on Wednesday, sharp with the ozone bite of innumerable blue sparks. I could go on like this for awhile, as you are probably quite aware. We could explore a whole range of olfactory stimuli. Let me slice through it: Playing the new Mario Kart online is a narcotic experience. We passed this Goddamned wheel around for an hour, shouting and laughing, watching a globe whirl on the screen to show us which wicked nations harbored our hated foes.
Developing your sparks isn't about a couple quick button presses now, to be done at absolutely anytime. It's about turning into the curve, because the only way to earn potent gold sparks - that's right motherfucker, gold - is through extended, ever tightening slides. Presumably this is to mitigate the Snaking scourge, a "fiendish" technique used to powerslide on straightaways. Fiendish is in "quotes" because while hatred for the technique is widespread, it's not universal. For example, I understand that fiends like it.
The gun shell Nintendo offered - the "Wii Zapper" - didn't feel bad, but its actual utility is severely constrained. I found Link's Crossbow Training far more enjoyable than I expected, but then my expectations were so low they could only be discovered with the help of state-of-the-art tools, a government grant, and the world's top geologists. Media events we had seen online suggested that the Zapper was the appropriate way to play RE: Umbrella Chronicles, but we found quite the opposite was true: there were means of use that were made difficult or physically uncomfortable with the controller bound up in the thing. The Wheel won't suffer the same fate. If a game is designed do be played by turning the remote in space, this simply makes that experience better. Even for a professional cynic, this stupid piece of plastic is startlingly compelling.
We've seen the hated Blue Shell less frequently than in games past, but this is probably because we are so rarely in first place - I don't think they've reconsidered their position. The blue shell (as I have described in other communiques) is that socialist undercurrent that grinds winners and losers together into a smooth paste. So Nintendo's much vaunted "blue ocean" "broadening effort," their attempt to make gaming something everyone might have a chance to enjoy, is at least as old as this azure carapace and probably older. Taking in the current reviews, the consensus is that - as it relates to Mario Kart - they have trampled some sacred ground.
We don't have much use for the single player content in a Mario Kart game, so I can't really speak to claims of bullshit rubberband AI in the Grand Prix. I think we're just not hardcore enough about Mario Kart to really feel the flaws I'm reading about - we liked the mutant Double Dash as well, which was also spurned as the flailing of a decrepit series. We think the game is fun to play. The motorcycles - unable to create gold sparks, but able to claim an easy "wheelie" boost on straightaways - have been fun, but not life changing. The boost-tricks you can perform off jumps and the new half-pipes are nice additions to the new tracks, but they also spice up the classic maps from previous versions. I understand that people are disappointed in the lack of voice chat - we resolved this by sitting in the same room as one another. You may discover other workarounds.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/4/25/
Grand Theft Auto IV:
Grand Theft Auto - like Gran Turismo - is a game that we have a difficult time integrating into our consciousness. Gran Turismo got this way by being an uncompromising simulation of something we don't care about, a blisteringly high-resolution image of a ketchup packet or a strip of bark. Ketchup fans and bark enthusiasts are going nuts, they'll pay forty dollars for part of the image. I played the second one a million years ago, earned enough money to wash my virtual car, and then quit the series forever.
Grand Theft Auto has had another problem, or rather, we have had a problem that intersects with what the game offers: the raw, virtually limitless opportunity presented is paralyzing, a sheer face with no purchase. We're always impressed by each world's livingness, but historically the story structure - the obvious thread that we can grip and pull ourselves along - is hung about the neck with frustrating, repetitive gameplay. We end up burning out on free roaming in a couple days, taking random missions or sitting in a parking lot listening to the radio. I feel guilty, because there's probably no game more "important" globally than Grand Theft Auto. I certainly feel like I'm looking in on what I consider my own community. It never seemed to bother anyone else that the core of the game wasn't much fun, so mostly the whole thing just makes me feel like a crazy person.
There's been some commentary put forth about whether or not exclusive reviews can be trusted, an absolutely fair avenue of inquiry. Unfortunately, GTA IV's tectonic, continent cracking power makes assessing possible score inflation difficult. IGN's forty page exegesis is distilled down into a ten, Eurogamer says "ten," and surely these are not the only tens we'll see. Gamespy tells us that the game merits five stars, but what is their celestial configuration? Stars may be of ill omen. 1up has given it an A+, which is not a number, making the score less... numeric(?). At some point today, I expect to hit up GameRankings and see a score delivered in degrees Fahrenheit. Boy, that'll be some useful fucking information.
If IGN had given it a twelve, scourg In any case, there's no score higher than ten, and tens or ten equivalents are being dished out by every Tom, Dick, And Harry.ing them would be much easier.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/4/28/
