P4: Gritty Reboot

@Yant - I... don't want to get too off-topic, but I don't think that's true for the most part. I can't imagine a scenario in which a reviewer plays a game to the end, sits back, and thinks, "Well, that was mediocre. 5 or 6 at best," and then proceeds to write a review of 8 or 9 out of 10 just to not upset a fanbase. Has it happened? Possibly. I just don't think it could happen on such a large scale as you're suggesting. Re: Skyward Sword, early reviews are often positive so it's not much of a surprise. Still, the extent to which these reviewers went to pile accolades on, giving the game top honors and such, suggests to me that it's really something special. Indeed. Boggles the mind how anybody could've rated Twilight Princess any higher than a 90, but it got crazy good scores for an incredibly mediocre experience. Nintendo games are judged in a vacuum, under an "EVERYTHING'S AWESOME" preconceived notion. If there are any games whose reviews are by far the least informative, it's Nintendo games. "Stale" becomes "classic", "recycled" becomes "nostalgic throwback", "simplistic" becomes "easy to pick up", etc. I do definitely believe reviewers are deathly afraid of rating a major Nintendo release anything than a very high score (9.0/10 points, 4/5 stars, "BUY THIS NAO" verdict, etc.) We've been over this tired ground before. You personally didn't like Twilight Princess, but I and many others thought it was amazing. Broke new ground for the series and provided a truly epic adventure.

I believe it's handled by Future Publishing, not Nintendo. Still, yeah, don't really care for "official" mag reviews. I don't think any reviewer would feel as if they weren't "allowed" to assign a bad score. I think the franchises you list tend to have solid, tried-and-true gameplay, and game reviewers don't tend to mark games down too much for a failure to really innovate. That being said, I think Zelda games have consistently innovated, even if they don't shake up the structure too much.

Welp, first reviews are in and are good. Shocking, I know. ONM gave it a 98% (highest score they've ever given it sounds like), also indicates 35 hour playtime, 70 for 100% completion Edge gave it a 10/10 (one of just over a dozen they've given)

Gamecube was lacking features? (If that's what you meant by GC). It did lack DVD support, but had better processing power and graphics tech than PlayStation 2. I think the GC sits squarely with the others.

Even if they're the same price, the power's increased exponentially since five or six years ago; ergo, graphics are cheaper per dollar today than they were then. A midrange card for $150-$200 today absolutely blows anything from then out of the water, and can dominate most graphics engines and outperform current gen consoles. I just don't see any evidence that graphics hardware components are getting more expensive.

A Radeon 9800 went for $499 back in 2003 and benchmarks about 300 in G3D . A Radeon HD 6970 goes for about $350 and benchmarks about 3100 in the same test. FWIW

One need only look at Atomontage Engine or other 100% voxel-based middleware solutions to see the huge potential for gameplay advancements, potential that can't be harnessed--not even close--on current hardware.

MHT and Muramasa are both RPGs. Of course, this gets into the whole debate of what makes an RPG or whatever, but they're both clearly action RPGs. As for XC and TLS, we're talking about US releases.

Little King's Story, Monster Hunter Tri, Tales (as you said), Rune Factory Frontier, Muramasa The Demon Blade, and the upcoming Dragon Quest X. I'm not saying these are all everybody's cup of tea, but to suggest there are "no good RPGs" for the Wii is disingenuous. Metacritic lists nearly 200 games in "the green" for Gamecube, same for Wii. Not saying these are definitive, but it's the best "standard" of quality we have right now.

Well, I own some 30-35 Wii games ranging from decent to amazing. Just because you personally only found 3 games you wanted doesn't mean the system doesn't have its gems. You listed 5 games for each system and concluded that the Gamecube had a stronger library? There's been this movement to romanticize the Gamecube's library over the Wii's, making it sound like "the good ol' days" or something. The Wii's library is easily as good as the Gamecube's, and in my opinion, better.

I preferred the N64 carts for the short load times, but it sucked for sound and obviously no CGI (which was a big deal at the time).

I know we've talked about this before on Twitter, but I honestly feel the same way about Xbox and PlayStation. Sure, I'd like to play Halo and Gears, or maybe Resistance and Uncharted, but those exclusives aren't enough to make me buy the consoles, especially when I've got a gaming PC to play multi-plats. It's why I think some sort of platform convergence is in the cards for the future.

My trigger finger is tired from all the upvoting of comments in this thread. Good talk.

I wasn't getting at anything, other than that I've personally found the catalog to be just fine. Maybe it's just the pace at which I pick up games, or the fact that I play a lot more PC games, but I'm fine with the Wii's library. It's not what was promised nor what was expected, but for my needs it's more than enough. I know that's not the case for everyone though.

The Wii is probably my favorite console I've ever owned, if only because it plays second fiddle to my gaming PCs. Taken in that context, the Wii is an awesome machine that's provided me with many hours of great gameplay. I'll never be able to dig into all the great games for the system; there's still a huge catalog I never got around to buying (Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid Prime 3, Wii Sports Resort, Epic Yarn, Monster Hunter Tri, Little King's Story, Sin & Punishment 2, etc.). I can certainly see where someone who picked up the system expecting a full hardcorez catalog like the PS3 or 360 would be disappointed though.

Excellent taste, my good man.

I'll list a few comedies, as we're lacking in that direction. UHF This is Spinal Tap What About Bob Best in Show Dumb & Dumber The Three Amigos (1986)

Ugh, I depise the Force Unleashed series, though the story was okay. I forgot to mention I picked up the recent humble bundle.

Yeah, someone suggested that above, FDS. I do believe they have a loose timeline, probably pretty close to what Johnny posted, but it's a little fluid it seems.

My copy of Bioshock 2 wouldn't validate for a while on GFWL through Steam, really frustrating because it wouldn't let me save a singleplayer game. Arg. It straightened itself out though.

SS is supposed to be a prequel type story right?

Took me 6 months, Dean. And yeah, Portal 2 was not only singleplayer but also one of the best games I've played in a long while. L4D1, 2, and Alien Swarm can all be played singleplayer as well (though I don't particularly recommend it).