It’s been said that “People fear change and will generally resist it at all costs.” It’s one of the reasons you still see some people driving around with an 8-track tape player in their car or still using the single-blade shaving razors. It’s also why some people still insist on using a typewriter even though computers and word processors do things a typewriter could only dream of. People, as a whole, don’t like a lot of change, especially not all at once. With that said, Nintendo’s upcoming Wii system has the potential to completely change the way we play video games. While most message boards have been flooded over the past year with the various debates over how this new style of control will function and be accepted by the gaming masses, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look back at some game play innovations on various Nintendo systems over the years and see how they panned out since many people have already begun to compare the Wii’s new control method to many of these.
Power Glove - Anyone remember the scene in the movie “The Wizard” where game guru Lucas donned the Power Glove saying, “It’s so bad!” For those of you out there who actually owned this interesting piece of controller technology, you remember how well it worked. That is when it worked at
all. Now to be fair, the Power Glove wasn’t developed by Nintendo, instead toy company Mattel created this device, unfortunately most games weren’t developed to make very good use of it, and while it made racing games interesting, it didn’t offer much function in other games and wasn’t very practical for much of anything short of showing off in front of your friends that were smart enough not to buy a Power Glove. Nice idea, but not very practical at the time.
Power Pad - The first thing I noticed about the Power Pad for the NES was that it required way more effort than I was willing to exert for playing a video game. I thought rapidly tapping the buttons on the Track & Field arcade game was a pain, so no way was I gonna run in place while the few friends I had left mocked and ridiculed me for it. It only took a few rounds of running on the Power Pad to convince me that the closet was as good a place as any for it. I appreciated the idea behind it, but how many people wanted to run around on a giant tarp just to play a simple game. I play video games for relaxation, not a workout, and most people seemed to feel the same way since the Power Pad pretty much flopped.
Zapper Light Gun/Super Scope 6 - Now this is a forgotten peripheral that I actually liked. I loved playing Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, and even Gumshoe on my NES and I always felt like Nintendo and the third party developers really dropped the ball on this attachment. I was even excited about the Super Scope 6 on the SNES as I thought Nintendo might possibly support it more on the SNES than they did the NES. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. So while the light gun was a terrific peripheral, it somehow didn’t see the game support it needed to really take off. I think that’s one area of the Wiimote that I’m most excited about is the shooting capabilities. Maybe this time developers will make better use of it and get some decent light gun games out. At the very least, maybe Hogan’s Alley and Duck Hunt will make a return, which wouldn’t bother me a bit.
R.O.B. - The R.O.B. robot for the NES was a fun little toy. But after about an hour of chasing the spinning gyros across the floor, it began to lose it’s luster. Nintendo obviously knew that gamers would want to have a robot to play games with them on the NES, but in truth, R.O.B. was nothing more than a nice piece of eye candy to sit on top of your NES deck and impress your friends with. I almost didn’t even mention the little robot buddy in this piece, but it just seemed sad not to give the old guy his perks after all these years. Even when my first NES cratered years ago, I still kept R.O.B. around for old time’s sake and he still rests on my current NES system to this very day. Nice as a conversation piece, but crap as a control attachment.
DS Touchscreen - We know that Nintendo’s DS has been a huge success. But let’s face it, many of the best games on the system use the touchscreen minimally, and most could just as easily be pulled off without it at all. In fact, more and more games seem to be using the second screen more for show than for function. Now I know that there are some really great touchscreen games, but it’s not like Nintendo is pushing the touchscreen as much as they were when the system was first launched. I appreciate knowing where I am in New Super Mario Bros. as much as the next guy, but not something I would call a necessity. In fact, of the 25 or so sightings of DS players out in public, I think maybe two of them were actually using the touchscreen and the stylus at the time. Not a great percentage by any stretch, but at least Nintendo is trying to push something fresh and new and in truth, the DS still has quite a bit of life left in it so we might even see something new down the road. But so far the DS hasn’t been the “touchscreen revolution” some thought it would be.
So why is the Nintendo Wii going to change the way we control video games. It’s a fairly simple answer. Because the Wii isn’t some cheesy add-on peripheral that will see a few games take advantage of it only to become yet another obsolete attachment in a world dominated by control pads. With the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo is banking their entire next generation console on the idea that gamers are ready for something new and innovative. The entire console is pretty much built around that idea and the idea of the Wiimote controller using motion for various control methods. We’ve also seen at E3 that not only is this new idea quite exciting, but also very functional as well. Every game we’ve seen so far has some very unique uses of the controllers showing an almost endless potential of the idea itself. Will this new method replace the tried-and-true control pad of old. Probably not. But I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg so far and we can only look forward to many more new innovative ways that Nintendo, as well as their various third party developers, will come up with to zap some new life back into the video games we play.
If you own a DS and are looking for a really great change of pace game, check out Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime. It's like a cross between the 2-D Zelda titles and Dragon Warrior Monsters. You'll spend time saving your fellow slimes and also plenty of time collecting items. As if that weren't enough, you get to take part in monstrous slime tank battles. Easily one of the best DS games released so far, and a great title to own if you can appreciate something a little different.
