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The Wii U’s anti-social message
Nintendo's 2006 Wii controller reveal remains one of my all-time favourite moments in gaming, effortlessly introducing a radical controller design and demonstrating its potential by showing not games, but people playing them. The video is brilliant; the Wii's potential as a fun-for-all-the-family toy was clear to gamers and non-gamers alike. They didn't need to show any games to get the point across because fishing, drilling teeth, sword-fighting, drumming and so on are all easily-recognised actions and gestures. I'm fascinated with this, because with the Wii U the message seems to be the opposite. Wii was about getting everyone playing together; Wii U appears to be about playing even when everyone else in the house is doing something else. →
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World of Goo
I'm a very fussy gamer, often owning consoles only for one or two games, and often abandoning games to ebay after about 30 minutes or so if it fails to entertain or show signs of promise. I've recently abandoned such critically-acclaimed gems as Shadow of the Colossus and Final Fantasy XII, and I'm giving serious consideration to giving up on Dragon Quest on the DS, despite having eagerly waited for it for months and only being three hours in. I'm tempted by Chrono Trigger, also on the DS, despite knowing deep-down that I'll probably play it for five hours over the space of a fortnight and then forget all the controls. I'm about six hours into Okami with perhaps another 50 to go, and despite being an utterly beautiful and joyful game, the notion that I may not be putting the final thing into the thing until fucking April fills me with dread. So with all that in mind, I hope you'll understand the gravity of the following statement: World of Goo is one of the best games I've played in about a decade. →
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Game On
Currently in London at the Science Museum, there lives a beautiful thing. It is Game On, an exhibition that purports to explore the history, technology and culture of computer games but is basically an excuse to play Xevious with all the free credits you can eat. Starting with Space War on the Vectrex and ending with Wii Sports, it's also how I imagine my house would look, if I could only disregard time, money, space and reality. →
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Cost and Effect, II
Last week saw me ramble on for far too long about Apple product updates, leaving me with no space to talk about the Nintendo announcements that took place around the same time. Unlike Apple, Nintendo didn't release news of any new or updated products, just launch details --- dates and prices --- for the Wii, something they've held off doing for some time now. →
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Nintendo name their console ‘Wii’
So, though I am technically supposed to be spending my time on something else at the moment, I felt unable to let this one pass by unmentioned. As you may have heard already, seeing as the internet exploded with the news last Thursday, Nintendo have revealed that their next console, previously known as the Revolution, will, in actual fact, be known as Wii. →
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That Nintendo Controller
So, Nintendo finally release details of their much-hyped revolutionary game controller that will accompany the Revolution console, the successor to the Gamecube. Some people hate it; naturally, I love it. →
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The Next Generation
Each of The Big Three have now released images and details of their next consoles. Microsoft appear to be aiming at the hardcore online gamer, Sony at the home media centre owner and Nintendo at the Existing Nintendo Fan. So far, so predictable. →