This blog is incredibly out of line with my other postings, but.. shut up. Here it is, first drafted before I even came to Canada. But it's as potent as ever. Especially since I miss gaming out here. A LOT.
The other night I had a dream that I was in a video game. I was stood in a room, and wave after waves of enemies kept streaming through the doors. At first, the enemies were rubbish sort of spiders that luckily, I could smash with an at hand black mallet. But progressively, the enemies got harder. Eventually, it turned out a bunch of indestructible Nintendo characters (I specifically remember Mario and Wario) were running at me, and instead of a black mallet, I was armed with a load of toilet rolls. Yeah, brilliant power up, thanks. So basically, after chucking a few rolls at them to no avail, the only option I had was to throw the characters themselves out of a nearby window. So I picked up Wario and threw him out of the Velux window, just like the one in my bedroom. I then looked out and noticed that all the rain gutters down the street were filled with soggy Nintendo characters.
Right so, anyway... the dream is blatantly a bastard offspring of the fact I've been playing a lot of Nintendo games recently. Through a combination of being skint because of the lack of shifts at work, the fact I have to save for Canada and being subsequently bored because I don't really have any money to do stuff, I've been spending some quality time in a low maintenance relationship with existing electronic boxes. I've been playing a lot of Xbox 360, which I love to bits, but recently I felt something was missing. That's when I discovered a Nintendo Game Boy Advance on Ebay for an amazing seven quid, with free delivery and bugger me, Sonic 2 Advance. Since then, I've been picking up classic GBA games such as Advance Wars, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Zelda Minish Cap and Warioland for a few beans each, and they're bloody brilliant!
Now, the last Nintendo console I owned was a Gamecube. I've shunned some of the new fangled bits of plastic for reasons I shall go into. But this purple (*snigger*) handheld has brought my unnatural love for a multinational corporation right back. But why the shit did I think that in the first place?
ITSA MEEEEEE!
Ninty, The Big N, McNin and the Ten Do... was an integral part of my childhood. After a few years of playing an ugly beige Amiga Commodore, my parents gave me a SNES for Christmas one year with Super Mario Allstars. I was probably about six or so. Suddenly, a whole new world was opened to my tiny mind. The thing was just... fucking cool! Colourful, fun and exciting. I may have come late to the Mario party thanks to being born late, but the compilation of NES remakes destroyed my Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle figures or even the frankly amazing Playmobil sets with the men that I used to chew the hair off of.
As it went on, games like Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, and the utterly beautiful Donkey Kong Country series continued to metaphorically suck me off. And as I gained ages, I went straight for a N64 over one of them vastly more popular, new-fangled, Sony Playstations. I remember playing Super Mario 64 in a shop just as the machine was being launched and once again, a multinational corporation managed to blow my now slightly older but relatively tiny mind. The game was fully 3D! Mario moved around like a real person! I'd crossed the fourth wall!
I dreamt about that game for a long time, and played it, and loved it as I did with a great number of classic N64 titles, some of which were made by other companies exclusively for it (Rare were also beasts, let's face it) - Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye (Me and my mate once beat a bloke who was offering 25 quid to anyone who could beat him at it at a Christmas fair, probably the best moment of my life. Absolutely no idea how we did it, we were both rubbish, but I played as Oddjob and ran around punching him in the chobs and it worked), Banjo-Kazooie, Super Smash Bros and Donkey Kong 64... the list goes on.
And it continued once again when I made the jump to the Gamecube, once again, ignoring the now TWO consoles (the original Xbox and PS2) who were destroying Nintendo in the sales wars like King Kong (Microsoft) and Godzilla (Sony..I'm the cleverest) beating a frail Japanese man over the head with bits of wood, with the man only staying alive by occasionally coughing up a Gameboy or a yellow pocket monster.
But that was the thing y'see. As Nintendo progressively fell from grace in the home console wars, after the heady days of the NES to the almost embarrassing sales lows of the Gamecube, I always continued to stick with them and love their games and their characters like they needed me and I needed them. Even when they kept shedding popular, violent, blood thirsty carnivals of third party titles like a rapidly balding man, it just increased the interest for me to play more Nintendo games and use the wonder of the internet to download games from the last 25 years or so that I'd missed out on.
And this, when, in my experience, they'd never really been the popular choice. Sure, everyone had a Gameboy, but I knew so many more people with Sega Megadrives, with PSones and PS2s. Sonic (who I like, but he's no patch on the sacred plumber) and even bloody Crash Bandicoot (UNBELIEVABLE) were seen as cooler than Mario at school because they weren't fat, moustached Italians. But I never took any notice.
You're thinking why, right? You're not? Well... you are now.
You're the dork Paul!
Y'see, there's something about Nintendo that has always appealed to me. Sure, my Dad shoved the SNES on me because someone at work probably recommended it. And I sure as hell didn't go out and choose it. So yes, perhaps some of why I love Nintendo so much is because it reminds me of my childhood or that I have a brand loyalty for it like people dry hump Apple or McDonalds or something. But I've never been one for that really, I'd gladly buy another PC or burger if it was better (or cheaper.. Rustlers burgers are actually not bad for a quid and you get a piece of plastic cheese AND some knock off ketchup). So it's not that.
It's something to do with the creativity, the magic.. the little in jokes.. the rewards you get from the games. The craziness of it all. I mean COME ON. A monkey who wears a tie. A frog who flys a spaceship. And they're MORE than novelties... they play like a dream. The way they take their core characters and give them their own games and identities. And then there's the beauty. Metroid, Zelda, Pikmin, the original Donkey Kong Country games - the atmosphere, everything just seems to be CONSISTENTLY right. The fact they remain the only first party developer to have an identity with their own consoles to showcase them on.
I love the way there's never any difficulty level in Nintendo games because they can be blasted through as quick as you want, or you can take time to find everything and enjoy the game, and it progressively gets harder as you do. The way that they seem to have a startling record for not making duff games. The sheer playability, fun factor and "pick up and play" value. The way their first party titles can be literally played by anyone and enjoyed at so many levels.
I also have a lot of respect for the way Nintendo shuns gory violence. I get a proper kick out of GTA and Gears of War and all that shooty bloodlust, but I've always admired how Nintendo make pure fun games without resorting to the obvious. Their products have always FELT cool as well. The N64 controller looked like a fucking star ship! And it's not just looks - when have you heard of Nintendo consoles failing to read discs or carts or crashing and glitching? Very rare.
What now?
Anyway, after the Gamecube died on it's sorry arse, the Wii and the DS came a long and everything seemed to change for me. From what I could make of it, it seemed a bit of a cheap novelty. I didn't want to WAVE plastic around or control it like a bloody pen, I wanted to bash it. Why did Wii games look no better than Gamecube games?! And where were all the quirky characters? Bland avatars? Cooking mama? Brain training? Wii Fit? WHERE'S YOSHI?!
From what I've played of both consoles, there's still plenty of good games, and of course, franchises and stuff have carried on. Nintendo by their own admission set their stall out early and told the public they weren't directly competing with the 360 or PS3. So as many people and even itself agree, Nintendo seems to have cast off its hardcore audience these days to cater for the casual gamer, for your Uncle and his mates. It's a bit of a shame really, and the reason why I bought an original Xbox and a 360 - because those heartless bastards cater for my merciless bloodlust and brutal carnage. COS I'M WELL 'ARD!
But I still have faith in Nintendo. When it can pull off such beauty as Hyrule field at dawn in Zelda: Ocarina of Time (still my favourite game of all time) or the addictiveness of multiplayer Super Smash Bros or Pokemon, I know Nintendo will ALWAYS make good games, whether they are hidden among a tidal wave of games which teach you how to tie your hair into knots, or not. I also know they're still making brilliant original games and not just relying on the same old characters that I know and love - Pikmin and the Advance Wars series come to mind specifically and I'm sure the future will bring many more batshit insane franchises. But don't forget Nintendo is probably the best at recycling characters time and time again and still achieving results - the recent Mario RPGs on the handhelds are a testament to this.
Wrap it up Grandad
So this is why I now smile when I see more Wiis in houses than anything else. Or when I type "Mario" into Google. There's MILLIONS of people who still hold Nintendo in high regard and not just skinny emo kids with metal NES controller belts. I mean, you're bound to see at least one Mario and Luigi at a (good) Halloween party.
A good friend from my childhood is alive and well. Perhaps he's gone a little bit off the rails. Perhaps he's a bit money hungry. Perhaps the mainstream respect and success which he's longed for since the mid 90s has gone to his head. But he's not dead. And his soul lives.
And I still love him more than ever.
Thanks.. Shigsy!?
Yes, I stole all these pictures from Google images. Fight me. Watch out next blog (FUCK, ANOTHER?!) where I review some movies or some shit. Bye.
