Topic: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

[Mop it up]

Wrong. A game can never be too good. But there are deadlines to follow, games need to be finished, and sequels can always fill what was missing the first time around.

[Invincible Donkey Kong]

No, you are avoiding my point.  What could possibly be added to New Super Mario Bros. Wii that would "break the bank"?  Add orchestrated music?  Outsource CG cutscenes to a prestigious art studio?  Hire Hollywood actors/actresses to do voice/narration?  All of these COULD be done, but would they add anything of substance at all?  You have to eventually draw the line between what is necessary for an entertaining game and what is just superfluous garbage.  Otherwise you are just spending money just to spend money, which is the ultimate no-no in business logic.

[Mop it up]

Would having more playable characters and online play really be so difficult to add? Oh well, I guess you'd know better than I would.

[Invincible Donkey Kong]

Both of these have already been explained.  First of all, the characters were chosen over similar build and ability.  Having Wario or Peach with identical physics to Mario and Luigi would be awkward, and ultimately a mere texture swap.  "But why couldn't they have different abilities?," cries Mop_it_up.  Because then the balance of the counter-op aspect of the game would be skewed. 

Second, taking this sort of game online would need to take into account when a player disconnects.  Merely swapping in an A.I. wouldn't work because the A.I. would need to properly respond to the human players taking their time collecting coins, or running back to retrieve a lost Yoshi, or taking a completely different route, and just cooperating with human players to make it through the levels in general.  As far as I know, such a sophisticated A.I. hasn't been designed yet. 

[Mop it up]

I don't think the characters should have different abilities because then things could get unbalanced or unfair.

If a player were to drop out, why does the A.I. need to take over? They couldn't just disappear?

[Invincible Donkey Kong]

That's where the other problem lies.  Just what kind of level-progression system could possibly be applied for online-play?  Would you always start at World 1-1 every time you played?  Could you pick any World to start off in?  Could a player join a group that was playing through stages?  If a player disconnected from their friends, could they just rejoin and start off in the next stage?  Even if that were possible that player is missing out on the full experience with the other players, and if they were playing with a random group they have lost all their progress period.  There are a lot of variables to deal with here, and clearly the development team found these issues to be detrimental to the gameplay experience or else it would have been included.  We don't do things or not do things to piss our fans off, we just do what we think will produce the most cohesive and satisfying experience for everyone.

[Mop it up]

Ah, good questions. I didn't really think about what kind of structure the online mode could have. And I'd rather not have it at all if it didn't work very well.

Thank you for explaining that further, I'm sorry I doubted the effort put into the game. It's my most-anticipated game of the year.

[ShyGuy]

PUNCH SOMEBODY

[Peachylala]

First day purchase confirmed. Pre-Order? Pending. Want a gift if I pre-order in full.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Latest issue of Official Nintendo Magazine UK (which I just got this morning) has the world's first review of New Super Mario Bros Wii. They awarded it with a 96% score, praising basically everything - fun in both single and multiplayer, fantastic level design, stellar presentation, the spot on difficulty curve - and the few complaints were fairly trivial.

I was always going to buy this anyway, but this is like Game of the Year talk. We will see soon if everybody else agrees, though I'm anticipating universal acclaim regardless. Only one month to go now...

[Peachylala]

It will be impossible for NSMBW to get perfect scores from media outlets. It's not brown-shaded, marine corps forced with a trillion dollar budget and extensive voice acting.

I can already smell IGN giving it a 0.5 deduction. For what, time will tell.

Care to elaborate on NMUK's review, Killer_Man? I'm curious as to what the trivial flaws are.

[Stogi]

^Ditto

[EasyCure]

^Ditto

Threeto

Your post got me all sorts of hyped.

[Stratos]

I'm gonna guess people will dock it points for no online, tired story and lack of extra characters.

People find all sorts of reasons to complain about quality games.

[Luigi Dude]

Plus you know the worst thing of all they'll do, not even play the entire game and then dock it points for being too short.

It's going to be like Wario Land and Jungle Beat all over again.  Reviewers will take the quickest path to the end of the game and after they beat the final boss, complain that the game is only 5 hours long.  Even though Wario Land and Jungle Beat both had hidden levels and added challenges like finding all the treasure chest or platinum medal that added many hours of additional gameplay, a lot of reviewers never even mentioned this and still said the games were only 5 hours long with no replay value.

Watch as the same thing happens with this game.  They'll just take one path to the end and ignore any optional stages, not bother to even try and find all the Star Coins, and then say the game is too short.  Even though everything they skipped adds about 20 more hours of overall gameplay.

[Ian Sane]

It will be impossible for NSMBW to get perfect scores from media outlets. It's not brown-shaded, marine corps forced with a trillion dollar budget and extensive voice acting.

Almost NOTHING gets perfect scores, not even brown-shaded games with marine corps.  Actually the poster child for games getting perfect scores is Ocarina of Time which is made by... Nintendo.  Anything in the 90% score range is excellent and nitpicking between scores like 93 and 96 is stupid.  If it gets an average score of 90 or higher it means the media really likes the game.  And they will.  Nintendo games that deserve GOTY level praise always get it.

Though I think the game not having online when it's a multiplayer focused game is a valid complaint.  Same with the use of two Toads.  We're Nintendo fans and we're talking about these issues as being annoying flaws.  I fully expect reviewers to point at the same thing and it won't be because they're Nintendo-hating fanatics.  It's because those are real issues that even Nintendo fans are not thrilled about.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Look at how half-assed this game is.

Just like Wii Play not being a real Duck Hunt, this game cuts corners on being a real Mario2/Mario3 sequel.

[Mop it up]

Though I think the game not having online when it's a multiplayer focused game is a valid complaint.

Normally I would agree with that, but not in this case. Did you read that post up there by ReggieFA? An online mode would simply not work for this type of game, and then everyone would complain that it sucks and dock it points for poor online.

[BlackNMild2k1]

You are so precious. Don't change. ever.

You could check for peoples online connectivity inbetween each level and have a place holder for that connection so that if they do drop, they can simply join back in at the start of the next level.
If they happen to drop connection in the middle of play, then the character would just die, and then when they do reconnect, they can go into a "watch" mode until the beginning of the next level.

[Mop it up]

That sounds pretty lackluster to me.
Which world would you start on? Could you save your progress? What happens if you want someone else to join your group?

And let's not forget lag. This game would need to have all players and objects perfectly synced at all times in order for it to be playable. As Super Smash Brothers Brawl has shown, this simply isn't possible on Wii. And this game looks more complicated as well, so I doubt it could work.

[BlackNMild2k1]

If they wanted it to work, it would.

Where there's a will, there's a way.
Nintendo isn't too into online, so they probably didn't look into it all that much.
They probably didn't look into it at all as their online support pretty much sucks outside of MKWii.

[Stratos]

That sounds pretty lackluster to me.
Which world would you start on? Could you save your progress? What happens if you want someone else to join your group?

And let's not forget lag. This game would need to have all players and objects perfectly synced at all times in order for it to be playable. As Super Smash Brothers Brawl has shown, this simply isn't possible on Wii. And this game looks more complicated as well, so I doubt it could work.

Uh, let's not forget the pinnacle of Nintendo online gaming; Mario Kart Wii. It works perfectly in my mind. It can be done. Plus NSMBW won't being using crazy stuff like the Havok engine to produce realistic physics.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Right, three people wanted an elaboration of the first review, so here we go.

During the review, there was one small paragraph with gripes, of which there were 3 in total:
Firstly, they lamented that Yoshi apparently doesn't appear as frequently as they wanted him to.
Secondly, they thought a couple of extra characters instead of a second Toad "would have been nice".
Thirdly, they did indeed put in a comment about no online capabilities; I guess this one is not that trivial. Bear in mind that the reviewer himself claimed that "these were minor qualms and weren't a detriment to the game overall".

I suppose I've been prepared for no online mode since Nintendo dismissed the questions about it way back in June, so this didn't seem like that big of a deal. I can understand that it's more significant for people with nobody near them who would want to play a 2D Mario title. ONMUK assure us that it plays really well by yourself and everything can be achieved with one player's efforts, which is what was most important to me.

[King of Twitch]

I can already smell IGN giving it a 0.5 deduction. For what, time will tell.

Yep. This was my reaction to IGN's WSR review only a few months ago:

They docked lasting appeal for lack of online play but it's 'evergreen' and presumably never gets old?

It has some of the best Wii graphics but doesn't get knocked for lack of HD?

"Good enough" presentation isn't good enough? What do they want, MORE COMPLICATED POINT-AND-CLICK MENUS?

They invent problems and then immediately contradict themselves. They praise features and then dock points.

Place your bets, people.

IGN will dock NSMB for...

-lack of online, obviously.
-voice acting "Why is it that in 2009 Nintendo still chooses to use text blahblahblah..."
-story, graphics, sound effects, and characters.. while still calling them "more than adequate"
-lacking a third dimension in an era of HD..right before praising the game's high nostalgia factor
-bland powerups..right before praising the game's creativity

[Snipper64]

If anyone is interested, I recommend you look at this video to see some New super Mario bros wii Pro players doing amazing combos. Also shows the full extent of some items, and how you can use more then one person to get a awesome bonus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7gP7-sQMQ&feature=player_embedded