A big complaint of the Brawl Tourney players was that it was dumbed down from Melee, that there was less of a gap between the uber hardcore, the hardcore, and the people just having fun but are still pretty good. A big complaint about Mario Kart wii was that it was given blue shells and other too imbalancing items, took out "hardcore" techniques like snaking, and in general made it more accessible.

This is a complaint among many, but a fantastic thing to me. You can bring up as much anecdotal evidence you want of sucky players on COD4, or how you get your ass kicked in Mario kart but are awesome at Halo, or how you can consistently dominate Mario Kart but But have a win/lose ratio in some other game or what have you. But that doesn't change the design philosophy that Nintendo has taken. Make games more accessible, try to level the playing field a little. I think you'd have a hard time arguing that that isn't Nintendo's overall design philosophy this gen.

You don't have to be at tourney level to kick noob ass in Brawl :P

I don't think it's any easier for an inexperienced player to win a random Brawl match than one in Soul Calibur for instance. Mario Kart (aka the game that punishes skillful racing) was a much better example,  but I do get what you're saying.

that is true, but saying playing like this doesn't require skill is false:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=HqdyhUFNrKw

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hRixxMH1E88

Gaming for 20-21 years? Pussy. I'm nearing 30 years of gaming.

While I appreciate your sentiment, not all of us suffer from old man's hands like you apparently do. I definitely don't have the reflexes of my 19 year old drunk spaz self from back in the day, but I can pick up almost any shooter and still hold my own. I don't need to win every round to feel like a man. With age, I've learned that it's more fun to just play the game and do well than it is to be ultra-competitive. I still enjoy a hard-fought match of Gears... Maybe not as much as my 8 hours a day CS marathons from 10 years ago, but I still find it fun in small doses.

Frankly, as this generation matures, I find myself less and less interested in Nintendo. I absolutely adore Mario Kart but that's not a casual game. Just play someone who's good... I also love their classic franchises but after watching them turn their back on gamers like me in 2008, Nintendo has abandoned players like me. I love SMG, I love TP, I love MK Wii, but what have they done for me in the past 10 months? NOTHING.

I don't care what anyone says, I remain convinced that Myamoto jumped the shark with Wii Music. I hated Wii Fit, but at least I could see potential in that game. Wii Music is an instrument emulator for the mentally challenged. It's terrible. I hate it with every fibre of my being. Even my 8 year old niece thought it was stupid after she came off 2 hours of playing drums in Rock Band. That's a pretty bad indication of where Nintendo is going with this "casual" bullshit.

Anyway, to end it, I love the Wii and I love its potential. What I hate is Nintendo and its fascination with removing any sort of challenge from most of their games. That's not fun, that's just stupid. You're catering to a group of individuals who never liked gaming, view it as a fad, and might stop playing at any moment. While I think it's important to nurture these people and keep them gaming, dropping virtually all support for your core base in favor of these people is a bad idea. It may benefit Ninty in the short run but in the long run, they're really pissing off old gamers such as myself.

PS. I saw Vagabond's last post. I have no problems with "evening the field" like they did in MK Wii. It makes for hectic racing, but 9 times out of 10, the best two racers still finish in the top three of every race. I don't mind that. I think Nintendo did a fabulous job with the online of that game by removing snaking and some of the "hardcore" maneuvres.  Still, the best people finish in the top of the game almost every time. Every once in awhile you'll get a nasty first-to-eleventh combo, but that's pretty rare. Next race, you'll be back on top if you're good. Unfortunately, MK Wii is the exception to Nintendo's gaming rule of late... While they "dumbed down" the title, they didn't dumb it down so far that it became impossible to distinguish luck from skill.

Oh dear. Now you've gone and turned it into one of those threads.

rocketpig,... i love you

I feel the same way, good thing we still have the HD consoles to feed us some games. Just don't forget Madworld, it should be good.

Well my topic is about to be shot to hell. I'm going to go get my hat, and grab a few drinks. Maybe I'll check on it sometime tomorrow.

I'm in the same boat as you Vagabond. I use to be competitive in Unreal but nowadays online is just frustrating because I can't compete with teens who have endless hours to hone their skills.

I may not win much in Mario Kart and I do win a decent amount of time in SSBB but I can always do well enough at least to have fun. In CoDWaW I can only dominate bootcamp, be competitive the early levels and then when I come back 2 weeks later I'm getting smoked and need to restart in bootcamp to have fun again.

If someone is allowed to congratulate Nintendo on how they've revolutionized gaming, I'm allowed to talk about how they've Jerry Bruckheimered gaming.

Vagabond, I'm not trying to derail your thread. I'm really not. While I appreciate that you've enjoyed how Nintendo has changed online gaming, some of us haven't. They've gotten it right a few times but in so many ways, they've gotten it so wrong in my eyes.

Mario Kart was a great compromise. Unfortunately, I think MK is the exception of Nintendo gaming with the Wii, not the rule.