Wii Party? No We Don’t.

So yesterday, at a family trip to the beach, SS and I were overcome with a strong case of nostalgia. Specifically, the Mario Party series, and other Gamecube and Nintendo64 moments. We talked about the characters! The minigames! The boards! And all the little inside jokes we had in between. Although we only had Mario Party 1, 2, 3, and 7, we loved them all, and played them for countless hours until some point in 2008.

So, today, SS and I were researching the series, and if there were any plans to make new ones, and so on. We were nervous, seeing as they made new ones annually, and the last one was made three years ago, so the franchise seemed dead. We came upon a bittersweet discovery: A new game is being made… but not for the Mario Party series. For the Wii series.

I don’t mean the actual console, but all the Wii themed games, where you get to play with your own Miis and it’s just boring. Other games in the ‘series’ include Wii Sports, Play, Fit, Music, Sports Resort, Chess, and Fit Plus.

Honestly, if people don’t hate the Wii enough already, this will give them a reason to run into every GameStop in their area and vandalize the Wii section. I mean, I already thought 95% of the Wii games were party games, so why make a specific one that basically says ‘This is the official party game for the Wii, and others are inferior knockoffs’? Besides, it’s ridiculous that people are going to have to pay around $50.00 dollars, not including frivolous peripherals, to play bland, dry, repetitive minigames they could already find in Wii Play. I mean, at least the Mario Party series lets you play with loveable Nintendo characters, and the whole game is themed, so you could play ridiculous minigames without thinking ‘Why can virtual people fall into fire repeated times but come out without a scratch?’. And there are things like Bowser and the whole Star concept that can’t(And shouldn’t) be rewritten into the Mii series. Basically, yeah, Nintendo is the Mario series’ parent, but they shouldn’t be allowed to, say, turn Mario Party’s old bedroom into the Wii series’… gym, or study after Mario Party moved out, or went to college, or something.(If we’re still going with the parent analogy). And if people would be paying around 30 or 40 dollars for a Mario Party game(Ah, the good old days, where video games didn’t cost someone an arm, a leg, or their first born), at least they’d be promised that the game had Mario, and that Nintendo went creative with the game. For the Wii games, they don’t give you a theme, they don’t bother thinking of characters, they probably won’t give you voices, there won’t be a storyline, and there’s going to be about 40 sequels before the next Nintendo console. And each will probably introduce 20 new useless crappy peripherals that you need to play. I miss it when the worst thing about video game storage was just getting controllers tangled.

And the crappy part about this is, that my Wii’s playback thing is being.. stupid. I can’t play any of my old games from the Gamecube, and I’ve done exactly what Nintendo wanted me to do for it. And they haven’t put any of the Mario Party games available on the Virtual console, so it looks like Nintendo is trying to write out my childhood memories the Mario Party series out of existence.

Infidelity for Video Games

So today, I was just going through my bookmarks on Mozilla Firefox, and I noticed a category I haven’t clicked since August, the latest. “Zoo Tycoon 2”. I remember that game. The fun, custom content my brother and I found. The interesting exhibits we made. The adorable animals. The accomplishment after winning a tough challenge. Screaming “Not again! We don’t have room for that budget!” when the game announced a Thomson's Gazelle or Koala would be pregnant for the umpteenth time. Then, I wondered why I don’t play anymore(Especially after paying for the Ultimate Collection Edition which cost a lot for not having a constant flow of income). I looked across the room, and noticed the Sims 3 box, staring at me. And I remembered, I moved on. I realized I’ve done this to other video games too- anything Mario related, the Pokémon series, Zoo Tycoon 2, and who knows what else. The Sims 3 might just be another phase for me. I feel bad for kind of cheating on the video games. It’s not their fault I grew up. I always promised myself I’d return to them. Then, I just started changing my mind, because of other people. “People hate Mario spinoffs.” “Pokémon isn’t for 14 year olds.” “Zoo Tycoon 2 has a dead fanbase.” And I’d just forget about them. Yeah, I only buy one or two video games a year, especially in this economy, but I play a lot. Or do I? It feels like I just go into addiction for a video game, then 3 months later, it’s just collecting dust, lying in a corner with every other video game that thought they were the one.

Maybe I’m looking too deep into things. But it’s hard to play more than one video game at a time, especially if they’re open ended. And in the end, only one will be on your monitor or screen, and taking up your time. All others would be mistakes, because “This video game is totally the one'”. …Yeah, I really need to get out more.

 

So, my question for you, viewers, is Do you ever feel like you’re cheating or neglecting a former hobby/video game/show/etc.? What do you do to prevent that feeling of “I miss that game :<"”? Would this just me growing up, or having commitment issues?