Unwritten Stories that Should be Written

• Is the Third Party NYKO Sensor Bar better than the original? The existence of it suggests a need for it, but is there a need for it? For who would it be a good investment? How about those homemade sensor bars?


• Ease of Use. What are the fan sites overlooking that may need to be explained?


• Not just reviews but actual tips on playing games. There has never been any game controller like the Wii remote. Tip stories deserve merit.


• Wii Jokes. And not the old kind. New ones, ones that aren't just puns but that rock the mullet. People take a console with such a silly name very seriously.


• Out of the box glitches--glitches on the Wii itself, and how to avoid and correct them.


• More personal experiences. If someone holds a Wii tournament, well, technically a Wii blog is still a blog. An original story on that experience, ( and what worked well, what didn't, tips for others), would be a refreshing story.


• Lastly, criticism and praise for the Wii blogosphere. Never dissing or naming any Wii blogs, but some of them appear to be merely taking the first paragraph stories from other sites, giving one sentence of original opinion, putting a link to the story on the end, and posting another one every ten minutes. In contrast, this blog has stories that are too long, updating not that often, and well there's not much left to say until if I actually get a Nintendo Wii.

These are the sort of stories I would love to see on Wii blogs; other Wii blogs, as well as this one.

Victims of Fanboyism: Can we all get along?

There is something dreadfully contagious that is spreading across the Wii (and general gaming) blogosphere, forums, and fan sites. A few remain to be unaffected. I, did not know much about this until I came into contact with it myself. It happened slowly and aimed to consume me. It was awful. It showed up in the posts, in the comments. I... became affected by something I previously sought to avoid at all costs! This phenomena is referred to, by the experts, as fanboyism.

I used to deny its prevalence and even its existence. The occurrence of someone taking pride in something that he did not create, explaining a work that was not his piece of art, defending the philosophies and emphases of a product of which he did not sit in the company meetings and develop. Nay, for I am not even a company employee.

Alright, enough with the dramatics. I observe that, on occasion, people will needlessly align themselves with a company or person, stick with them at all costs, and throw themselves forward to shield the verbal Q-tip arrows shot at said company. I came face to face with this harsh reality too, recently. I understand doing this if you work there or you know the person, but I don't understand why someone would take pride, and almost a sort of ownership, of a product that we didn't envision, toil over, create.

I am just fine with someone not liking the Wii. It's all about different tastes and things when it comes to entertainment. Imagine what it would be like if people succumbed to fanboyism when it came to things like people who make music (wait, way too late).

The point is that Nintendo is a great company. They can defend themselves. I think their product is great, but that doesn't mean I should be criticizing people who prefer other things. It's just a product! If you boil it down, all three of the major video game console producers want to make money off of us (of course, some are more blatant about it than others). That's how our economy works.

The Nintendo Wii will not fulfill me, the company is not going to hug me when I'm sad or shield me from danger, and it does not expect that from its fans either.

I need to say that, as it happened before, I could end up being a fan of Microsoft again someday if the next system they come out with is affordable. Before the Xbox (hard to imagine such a time, right?), I played the N64. Now I play the Xbox 1, with a bit of Game boy Advance on the side, saving up money for the Wii. Maybe I'll end up being a fan of Sony when the PS4 comes out, it's all about what's affordable. For some people, it's all about what will have the best graphics at any cost. That's good for them.

For others, it is only about the fact that a certain company made a system, and that's ridiculous if you think about it.

The point is that whatever you like, alright.

If you like the PlayStation 3, fine. But don't ever say things like "Ha ha, you can't afford it." You're jumping Jehoshaphat right I can't afford it! I can't afford a Wii. But this was just one person. There's probably a jerk somewhere who says "ha ha, you can't afford the premium dictionary." People who own PS3s, though rarer, are probably really nice people.

If you're a fan of Xbox 360, that's fine too. LAN parties and Halo 3, right? I've thrown many Halo 2 parties and I hope that you will invite me! If you think it's worth it, well that's your money. But don't ever say things like "the Wii is for immature people" as you turn around and play a 360 game where you... pretend to chainsaw someone's face for entertainment (somehow that's "mature"?).

If you own a Wii, don't throw your controller into the TV.

If you own all three... now that's just wrong.

That was just a little fun and joking. I have to say that, because someone might think I'm dissing "their" gaming system.

Here's the deal. If you buy a product, it does not mean you become a part of the product or even vice-versa. You are not an Xbox 360; you are not a PS3; you and I are not a Wii (or are we?). Chances are, you are not on the staff who made the console. If you are, then you made a great product and you probably don't want to dis the other systems because you know the hard work that goes into them. That would sting hard. This needs to become my mantra.

In actuality, most people who own a video game system do not get enraptured into a daze of fanboyism. Of course, you think a product is cool, and you want to share it with other people because you want to feel confident in your purchase. But it is rare that someone will assert that the product they bought is better than the other person's.

You bought something. I bought something. There's pros and cons. Who cares? Fanboyism in this generation of consoles may have started as a sort of fun dance but now it's getting to a point like the new denominations are going to secede based on what video game system you like.

Remember when we all used to be just regular people who liked to play video games in addition to other things?

As Sapadrew, (coauthor of this blog) said, "Wii is awesome 360 is awesome and PS3 is awesome! Why can't people just hold hands and sing about our great virtual world? lol"

Someday soon, Sapa. Someday soon.

:)

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Nintendo Wii: REPriiSENT Comic 7!

Mario gets introduced to one of the Wii's Channels.

*Rimshot* Duh-dum-CHISH!

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Starfox 64 for Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console!

Yeah yeah, I know that I strut REPriiSENT as being a blog with only original stuff on it that isn't everywhere else on the internet, but this is Special, and--hold on--there are original stories behind this!

Long ago, Starfox 64 was the first video game demo I ever played. I remember playing it in stores and being surprised by how the controller shook... it was the first time I experienced controller rumble. I was so excited when we had a copy of it in our home. Rumble wasn't built into controllers those days, so the game came packaged with a Rumble Pak! (there's no "c" in the word "pack", so cool.)

oh look! There's that KA for "Kids to Adults" rating I talked about in my last post.

The game also featured multiple ways to get through the game, many "routes." In the first level, which route you took depended on whether you could save Falco (one of the main character's friends), and if you did save him, he would show you a shortcut through a waterfall that would take you to fight a different boss than if you didn't go into it. Things like these determined if the next level you went to was on the hard, medium, or easy track, and you could go back and forth between them depending on scenarios within the game. This equaled (now equals) many possibilities.

Memories range from crashing into the mountains at the beginning and hearing Slippy (one of the main character's friends) say "Nooooooooo... !", to finding out the cool thing that happens when I was finally able to save Falco on the first level, and doing barrel rolls to make the laser bullets of enemies bounce off... and multiplayer was fun too... and... and...

In short, Starfox 64 was my first favorite video game. It featured rumble, a branching storyline, cool 3-D graphics... and it was definitely a challenge. This was one of the greatest games that anyone could play. I anticipate hearing how true this version is to the original, and I'd drop ten bucks to see how I could play it now.

Microsoft, Ahem, Wii is not just for Kids.

A manager of XBOX recently typecasted (right word?) the Wii. He was quoted in an New York Times story which was quoted on Sickr (an almost daily posted-upon Wii blog)

“We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing,” he said. “We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else.”

- John Rodman, group product manager for the Xbox and Xbox LIVE

What else? "Overpriced gaming systems that largely market pretend killing as entertainment? I’ll pass," (how I commented on the Sickr blog).

The thing that I see the Wii doing is really going to back to more to what gaming was like when it first started. Or rather, what games were like when they first started... What I mean is that with the other consoles, you rarely see a game that is marketed to everyone. Take a good, long look at other consoles' games, just go to the store and look at the front of the game boxes of the previous system by the company, because that's what the games will be like.

You see mostly violent games geared for "people over 14", several really over-the-top games as far as offensive content for what is supposed to be considered "mature" (like it's something we're supposed to grow into), and then a few overly-kiddy games. (And I'm supposed to pay 4 hundred dollars for it?)

None of the games in those categories really appeal to me! I would have to work pretty hard to find a game that is meant to be fun for teenagers and adults to play that doesn't have the idea of me supposed to be getting pleasure out of something wrong.

Then came the Wii.

Yes, the Wii has a few really really really kiddy games, but at the same time, they have many games that are accessible to everyone with very little emphasis on blood and crime games.

At the beginning of consoles, the games were mostly for everyone. Mario, Zelda, Pong, Tetris, etc. If there ever was a game that wasn't for young'n's it probably was because it was too complicated, not because of offensive content.

The ESRB (rating peoples of games) used to have a rating that was "KA" for "Kids to Adults," meaning that it was a game that Adults could enjoy with nothing offensive. A lot of the games for the Wii warrant me saying that this rating needs to come back into circulation.

The Wii pushes the envelope with its unique fun-ness while other consoles push the envelopes of price, graphics, and violence, sex, crime, fill-in-the-blank-here.