Review: New Super Mario Bros. 2

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The amazing thing about the Mario series is that almost every Mario game is essential. There are a few of them that aren't necessarily great, like Super Mario Sunshine, but they all at least have a reason for existing.

Even with the recent glut of Mario games, starting with New Super Mario Bros. in 2006, most every game has had a legitimate hook:

• New Super Mario Bros.: The triumphant return of 2D Mario.
• Super Mario Galaxy: 3D Mario done right.
• Super Mario Galaxy 2: An exceptional upgrade to Super Mario Galaxy with way more challenge.
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii: The return of 2D Mario to a console.
• Super Mario 3D Land: A definitive look at what stereoscopic 3D gaming can do.

Now we have New Super Mario Bros. 2, and there seem to be four reasons that it exists:

1. Coins, for whatever reason.
2. Digital distribution.
3. Multiplayer Mario on a handheld.
4. Because Nintendo likes money.

None of those reasons are entirely compelling for users. If we're being completely honest, there isn't anything that makes New Super Mario Bros. 2 an essential Mario game.

For that reason, I was ready to absolutely savage New Super Mario Bros. 2 for being such a cheap cash-in. I came to this game with knives at the ready, looking for the right place to insert my blade.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a spot. The level design is varied and fun and way better than the DS version, while falling short of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The bosses are fun and Bowser Jr. is nowhere to be seen, thank the heavens. There are a lot of secrets and plenty of challenges. And yes, it's a lot of fun getting piles of coins.

I still have three complaints, though. One complaint is that you get so many coins so frequently that extra lives lose all meaning. There was a tongue-in-cheek video out there that said that the Game Over screen is the rarest screen in all of the game, and I would have to say that's true. I completed the game with 220 lives. That's nuts.

So why didn't Nintendo throw out the lives system for this game? Because it's "tradition" to have lives in there, I guess, and because then gathering coins would lose all meaning. But, if extra lives have lost all meaning due to their abundance, then coins therefore have lost all meaning, and now my brain is leaking out of my ears.

The next complaint is that there are secrets, but you see them clearly marked on the map beforehand. That kind of takes away the point of a secret. Think of Super Mario World for a second. There are secret levels all over the map in places that you would never even think would hold a secret. There's an entire hidden castle that you would never find unless you were looking for it.

By contrast, in New Super Mario Bros. 2, there are secrets, but their existence is pointed out to you very clearly. It's like the game is telling you, "HEY LOOK THERE IS A SECRET HERE SHH DON'T TELL ANYONE KEEP IT UNDER YOUR HAT." I kind of preferred the old way.

Finally, I just played this game. I don't mean this in the sense like, "I just finished playing this game yesterday." I mean, I just played New Super Mario Bros. I've played it twice, once for the DS and once for the Wii. We've received so many New Super Mario Bros. games recently that they're all starting to blend in to each other.

We've never seen so many Mario games in a row that were so similar to each other. Really think about it. In the beginning, we got Super Mario Bros. 1-3 and Super Mario World right in a row, but there were distinct differences between each of them. Super Mario Bros. laid down the template for Mario games and 2 completely demolished it. 3 took the original template to new heights, added in suits, slanted surfaces, physics, and secret levels. Super Mario World added even more in, like Yoshi, the ability to save your game and the Star Road.

So what is the New Super Mario Bros. series adding? Anything? Anything at all? There was the giant mushroom and the mini mushroom. That was cool. Anything else?

That's the problem. Mario sidescrollers used to be about change and new ideas. Now they're starting to stagnate.

I don't want to be misunderstood: New Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good game. It hits all the right buttons, and plays exactly like you would expect a finely crafted Mario sidescroller to play, but I can tell you right now that I'm not going to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii U. Why should I? I just played it.

After Wii U comes out, I hope that Nintendo lets this series sit for a long, long time. In order to keep the New Super Mario Bros. series viable, they come up with some new ideas, new characters, new powerups, or something, anything, that deserves the moniker "New."

Final Rating: B-

NES Replay: The Addams Family

Developer: Arc Developments
Publisher: Ocean
Released: 1993
Stockholm Syndome: Probably Kicking In

In NES Replay, we go through each NES game from A-Z to see if they're any good. Today: The Addams Family.
 
Licensed games for the NES. Was there anything better?

Yes. Yes there was.

Most licensed games in the NES era (games based on an existing property, like a cartoon or movie) were plain awful. There were a few exceptions, and we'll get to some of those down the line. But by and large, most licensed games were lazy cash-ins where the minimum of effort was expended in order to get the game out the door.

Compared to most licensed games, The Addams Family isn't that bad. There's at least a semblance of complexity, as you pick up items and keys and delve into the Addams family mansion, and Gomez looks surprisingly just like John Astin. However, the controls are spongy, the music is kind of tinny, and most of the graphics look boring or bland.

See? A little like John Astin.

And yet, The Addams Family is still strangely fun. I can't put my finger on why. Maybe it's because Action 52 has completely destroyed my personal grading curve, but maybe, possibly, it's because The Addams Family was at least trying and was at least fun at some points.

For example, there's one frantic sequence in a kitchen, where you're trying to avoid cups and knives flying at you while you try to reach an oven so you can enter it. (Yes, yes, video game logic.) You can't kill any of the flying cups and knives, so you're just trying to avoid them. It's surprisingly entertaining.

And if you do manage to get hit by an enemy, you have a huge life bar that's surprisingly forgiving. For example, if you accidentally land on some spikes, as long as you get off of them quickly it won't automatically kill you, although it'll take a big chunk out of your health.

You're also not just running from one end of the screen to the other. You're getting keys and items, which open up other areas and enable you to continue onward. It's like a homeless man's Metroid.

I'm not going to pretend that The Addams Family is some sort of lost classic, and maybe I just have Action 52 goggles, but The Addams Family is not half-bad. Really.

Final Rating:

Next week: The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt.

NES Replay: Action 52

Developer: Active Enterprises
Publisher: Active Enterprises
Released: 1991
How Bad Is This Game: So Bad I Almost Cried

In NES Replay, we go through each NES game from A-Z to see if they're any good. Today: Action 52.

Action 52 is tremendously awful. It is, without a doubt, the single worst game I have ever played in my life.

I’m not going to go one-by-one through all 52 games of this collection. The Angry Video Game Nerd did this just fine. Suffice to say, every game in this collection is the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel with not a redeeming game in the bunch.

What I am going to discuss is something I’m discovering fairly quickly while doing NES Replay. My theory when beginning this series was that the worst games would come out in the beginning, as developers struggle to learn the concepts and make them any fun to play. That hasn't been the case. While some early games were stinkers, like 10-Yard Fight, it’s not because they were lazily-made games. 10-Yard Fight, for example, really tried to be a football game and just couldn’t do it.

Look at it.

However, from the small sample size that we’ve seen so far by doing NES Replay, the worst games are actually appearing to be the ones that came later in the system’s life span. This would make sense, when you think about it. After all, once a system appears successful, more and more developers will try to make games for it in hopes that they’ll strike it rich.

In Action 52, there are three games in this collection that have legitimate title screens, and one of the them, the awful Cheetahmen, even has a backstory. Before I knew the real story behind Action 52, I was willing to accept that maybe someone had some half-formed ideas for a couple of games, and instead of making a few crappy individual games, they decided to lump them all together into one cart.

Seriously, just look at this.

However, that’s not really what happened. As the story goes, the creator of the game saw his kids going crazy over a pirated “40-games-in-one” cart and thought it would be a grand idea to make his own game. He would charge $199 for his 52-game collection (It's only $4 a game! That's a deal!), and Cheetahmen would be the game that would turn into a TV-show, breakfast cereal, and dental hygiene appliance and make him a multi-millionaire.

What gets me about this entire plan is the rampaging cynicism involved in it. First of all, the fact that they thought that someone would pay $199 for a collection of warmed-over, half-baked games is astounding to me. It reminds me of the kid who sets up a lemonade stand and sells his lemonade for $100 a glass, under the presumption that he only has to sell one glass that day to make money. That's an acceptable idea when you're six years old, but when you're an adult, you're not supposed to do something that stupid.

Second, the fact that the crown jewel of this collection is Cheetahmen is insulting. It’s basically assuming that “kids are stupid and they’ll buy anything so why try to make anything good.” It’s a horrifying cynicism that just got under my skin and made me really angry.

However, we can learn from this. Action 52 wasn’t made on the cheap. The company got a $20 million loan to make these games. That a huge budget for not a lot of return. That makes me think of modern games, where a $100 million dollar budget will be spent to make a game that’s exactly like the previous one but with more misogyny and explosions.

Without using this space to editorialize too much, while the company that made Action 52 is long dead, the spirit that made Action 52 is still very much alive in the hearts of some game companies. If that doesn’t bother you, then I don’t know what to say.

Final Rating:

Next week: The Addams Family.

So I Guess There Aren't Too Many Mario Games

I've been concerned recently about there being too many Mario games. Too many games in a series too quickly can dilute a brand, and I certainly don't want that to happen to Mario.

Iwata said something today to try and put our minds at ease, saying that the "New Super Mario Bros." series will only appear once on each system. It makes sense and its a good idea.

The question is this: Have we been thinking about Mario games all wrong? Are they supposed to be a once-in-a-while treat or a steady stream?

Let's figure it out. Between 1985 and 1996, there were ten games in the Mario series spread out over the NES, Game Boy and Super Nintendo, culminating in 1996's Super Mario 64.

Between 1996 and 2006, there was a grand total of one: Super Mario Sunshine. Then, since 2006, there have been a steady stream of Mario games. Once the Wii U game is released, we'll be sitting at seven.

Here's the kicker: What were Nintendo's most financially successful years? Between 1985 and 1996, they became a gaming juggernaut. Between 1996 and 2006, they almost collapsed. Most recently, they've piled up money at an absurd rate.

There are a lot of variables at play here: Market conditions, competition and a myriad of others. Yet, there is a very clear demarcation when Nintendo doesn't make Mario games. When they don't, things go poorly.

So, can you blame Nintendo for wanting to make more Mario games? I guess I can't, although it would be nice if there was a happy medium between "no games ever" or "way too many."

NES Replay: Abadox

Developer: Natsume
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Released: 1990
Deja Vu: All Over Again

In NES Replay, we go through each NES game from A-Z to see if they're any good. Today: Abadox.

I assume that many who read these replays know that I've played quite a few NES games in my day. One of the games I had frequently seen but never actually played is Abadox. Finally, with this series I had a chance to remedy this.

When you start up Abadox, you're a lone man flying around destroying enemies in a vaguely organic environment. You blow up your enemies and get powerups while descending deeper into this gigantic organic being.

Something about Abadox seemed oddly familiar, though. I had a feeling that I'd played this game before. Now, you could be snotty and say that a lot of side-scrolling shooters play alike, but that's not fair. This was beyond playing a game in the same genre. Did I play Abadox at some point and not remember it? Either way, if I played it, I didn't remember it playing this poorly.

For one thing, your character moves far too slowly, and his sprite fills up too much of the screen, making it hard to avoid attacks. Since one stray bullet can kill you, this is a huge problem. Second, there is a LOT of sprite flicker. Now I'm not going to rip on sprite flicker in general, and I've avoided mentioning it thus far since it's one of the more endearing aspects of 8-bit and early 16-bit gaming in my opinion. However, in Abadox it's so bad in some points that you can't see your own player while trying to dodge moving obstacles.

In this screenshot, there are at least three
bullets that the the boss fired missing,
a part of his body, and some of my
own bullets. Aside from that, it's fine.

It gets even worse if you get a powerup and the boss is firing several projectiles. The sprite flicker is so bad that you can't even tell a bullet is coming toward you until it hits you. For a shoot-em-up, which demands twitch reflexes and a keen eye for what's coming, this is absolutely unfair.

I can gauge how good a shoot-em-up is by how much I feel I have to cheat to advance. A game like 1943 was difficult, but I always felt like if I tried one more time, I could get a little further. That's the sign of a well-made shoot-em-up. With Abadox, I had to continually use save states, and even then, I felt like I was only evening the odds.

Yet, I remembered playing a game similar to this one, but... better. What was it?

I finally remembered: A little game called Life Force, also for the NES.

In Life Force, you take a smaller ship around and destroy an evil organic being from the inside out, while the walls deform around you and you literally blast through veins and blockades to advance. It plays better, is superior technologically to Abadox, and is a deeper game.

Which came first? Abadox was released in the States in 1990. Life Force was released in 1987, three years before Abadox.

So what Natsume did in this case was take a three-year-old concept, copy it almost word-for-word, and then make it 50% crappier. That's... I don't know what that is, but it's not worth playing.

Final Rating:

Next Week: Action 52

NES Replay: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Developer: Rare
Publisher: LJN
Released: 1990
Freddy's Face: Looks like he's saying "HUURRR"

In NES Replay, we go through each NES game from A-Z to see if they're any good. Today: A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I've never been interested in horror movies. I don't like excessive violence, I don't enjoy seeing people get mangled and I don't enjoy being scared.

I scare pretty easily, too. When I was a 15-year-old kid, Jurassic Park scared the crap out of me. I was so scared that I could have sworn I saw a dinosaur outside the window at night. The first time I played Half-Life, I was so stressed afterwards that I was shaking and sweating.

It was with those two things in mind that I wasn't looking forward to playing A Nightmare on Elm Street. If done right, 8-bit can still freak you out, and I played Monster Party years ago on a whim, and it was fun, but still freaky.

I didn't expect to be laughing at Nightmare instead.

TERRIFYING

Here's the premise: You're a guy in a red tracksuit who walks around, avoiding spiders, snakes and birds. You enter houses, collecting Freddy Krueger's bones and throwing them into a furnace while punching ghosts and Frankenstein monsters. Then you face off with a boss that happens to be a part of Freddy. Every once in a while, you have to fight the man himself and punch him until he runs away.

If you're not scared yet, start turning the light switch in your room on and off while a friend holds a flashlight under their chin and says "ooooooo!"

NOT THE BEES

So obviously, Nightmare isn't scary. Does it least play well? Eh.

Let me use the example of the bosses. During a boss fight, you square off against one of Freddy's body parts attached to a chain. Now normally, these fights are handled with the enemy trying to hit you where you stand, so you have to anticipate the blow, move out of the way, and attack. This one is a little different. Instead of landing where you were standing, these bosses will land in random locations, meaning you can't really dodge them unless you stand in a corner and just wait for it to land near you while swinging your arms in the air. It's so incredibly lame.

Never mind that Freddy's chained-up head looks vaguely like Zoidberg.

Need a boss for your game? Why not Zoidberg?

Honestly, I think that A Nightmare on Elm Street is actually a work of meta-horror. The horror comes, not from the game itself, but from the fact that someone, somewhere spent money on it. That's the most terrifying thing of all.

Final Rating:

Next Week: Abadox

Review: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

The whole Super Mario Land series is an odd duck. Instead of directly cloning the Mario games like you would expect, they're all a little on the weird side. For example, Super Mario Land only tenuously feels like a Mario game. Super Mario Land 2 feels a little closer, but still has a bit of a disconnect owing to the game's non-linear progression, lack of typical bosses and very strange, almost action-adventure-ish structure, like the part where you ride in a hippo's snot bubble to access a level on the moon.


For Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, they decided to throw almost every connection to the Mario universe out the window and start over. Wario is much less graceful than his thinner, more noble counterpart, has burlier moves and only cares about collecting coins. I mean, literally the entire plot is Wario running through the world killing enemies just to get money. That's all he does, and it's kind of hilarious.

Just like Mario Land II, Wario Land finds ways to surprise you. For example, after beating one level, a lake is drained and dumped back into another world. That opens up new pathways in early levels that allow you to get more treasure. The bosses are neat too, like the giant stone head that snorts out rocks that you then pick up and throw back at it.

My only complaint is that Wario Land doesn't go far enough. There's still a timer on the levels, which prevents you from really exploring the world. You still have to manage extra lives, too. Fortunately, Wario Land II took the necessary steps in that direction.

Still, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is really good. It holds up a little better than Super Mario Land 2 because of its tighter focus and engaging main character, as well as the plethora of meaningful secrets that it holds. It's definitely worth playing.

Final Grade: A-

And Sony Is Struggling

Now Sony is struggling.

I've played the Vita. I thought it was a tremendous piece of hardware. But the problem with the Vita has nothing to do with the hardware, it's the games. It's the games, it's the games, it's the games.

For instance, right now Vita owners are touting Gravity Rush as a great game, and a game that should sell the Vita on its own. What is Gravity Rush? I'm serious. I'm not being facetious here, I really don't know what Gravity Rush is. I had to look it up on Wikipedia to find out. It's a gravity-shifting action game with a unique art style, as near as I can tell.

Now, that's great, but why does it sell the Vita? Is it just because it looks good? I really couldn't tell you. The reviews are all over the map, with some saying it's great and some saying it's average at best, so it's not one of those games that you absolutely have to play.


Some pundits may try and pin the blame on the encroaching power of smartphones and tablets. While there's no denying they've had an impact, they don't appear to be slowing the sales of the 3DS. That's because the 3DS has must-have games that reach a wide variety of people.

Heck, smartphones have must-play games too! Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Temple Run, FieldRunners, Minecraft Pocket Edition, Jetpack Joyride, I could keep going. The point is that with any system, you need to have games for it to be succesful. The coolest hardware in the world is useless if it can't do anything.

Let me tell you a story. I bought my first computer back in 1999. I was so excited. I got it home, set it up and was just thrilled. Then, a sudden sinking feeling hit me. It said, "Now what?" I didn't buy any games or programs with it, didn't have the internet. I was just stuck with a computer.

I got that same feeling right after I bought the 3DS at launch. I was all excited, and then had to ask myself, "OK, now what?" It was a horrible sinking feeling to realize you had something cool that you couldn't do a thing with. Nintendo rectified the problem pretty quickly, and they're still putting out great game after great game (Ocarina of Time 3D! Super Mario 3D Land! Kid Icarus! Pokemon Conquest! New Super Mario Bros. 2! Paper Mario!)

That's what Vita owners are going through right now too. However, unlike early adopters of the 3DS, there's nothing on the horizon, no savior that's going to come marching through the gates, no pile of free games that Sony can give to pacify their early adopters.

So yeah, Sony's got it rough, but it's all their own fault. I can't say I see it turning around, either.

Zynga, Casual Games, and the End of the Skinner Box

Zynga had a horrible last quarter. People are leaving their flagship game, FarmVille, in droves and their revenues are plummeting. It seems that the directors of Zynga also dumped their stock right before the earnings report, so there are now some allegations of insider trading levelled against them.

Some are using this as ammunition against the supposed Rise of Casual Gaming. After all, when one of the biggest companies in casual gaming starts falling apart and revenue from Android apps can be nonexistent, something is wrong in Casual Land.

Before we get underway, I want it to be known that I have a shameful, dirty secret.

I was hooked on FarmVille for a while.

I know! It's awful!


I never spent any money on it, but I tended to my little farm, raised strawberries, collected cows, and annoyed my friends to play. I knew what FarmVille was doing, too. I knew it was just a device to keep you coming back and clicking on things, and I knew how badly they wanted you to spend money on their stuff. I saw right through it, and still I couldn't stop playing.

After a few months I slapped myself repeatedly and made the decision to block FarmVille. I returned about a month later just because I was curious, and all desire to play had been sucked out of me, so I thankfully never cared after that. But I know firsthand what a timesink Zynga games can be and how you can fall into them.

With that out in the open, I learned how easy it is for these games to get their hooks into you. You start playing, and then the psychological processes that form the game's backbone start to take over. Since these games demand your attention, you can't ignore them. Since they fill up your news feed with your friends' accomplishments, you can't get away from them. If you try to ignore the game, you're constantly reminded of what you're not doing.

So maybe you spend a little bit of money trying to get ahead of your friends, or maybe you decide that there's a really cute barn that you just have to have. If that happens, then the sunk-cost fallacy kicks in: "I've already spent X amount of dollars on this. I have to get my money's worth."

Next thing you know, you're down a rabbit hole of haybales and horses. You're rearranging your farm, organizing your fruit trees, and buying a new tractor, and for what? You finally step away from the game when a new shiny distracts you or you lose interest, and the cycle begins anew.

The thing with so-called "casual" gamers is that they don't really have brand loyalty. They don't care that Zynga made the game they're playing, just that they're playing a game. If a new game comes along that tickles that part of their brain, they'll play it, and it doesn't matter who made it. Zynga (or any company who courts a "casual" gamer) may try and cultivate brand loyalty, but in the end, it's for naught. "Casual" gamers play what their friends play, and that's that.

So with that in mind, it's not surprising that some of these companies are struggling, especially Zynga. They've gone back to the well for game after game with the same few ideas.

Compare this with Rovio. Rovio has an incredibly infectious idea in Angry Birds. I personally have spent about $12 on Angry Birds games, and most everyone who has a phone has bought one of them or played the free, ad-supported version.

Rovio has made four incredibly popular Angry Birds games, but after the third, they changed up the game considerably by putting it in space. It's not a cosmetic change, because there are new birds and gravity changes that are fairly complex. For Rovio's next game, they went in a different direction. They didn't go back to the Angry Birds well, but rather made Amazing Alex. It's still a physics puzzler, but you're not killing pigs protected by shoddily-built shelters, but accomplishing different tasks. It's proving fairly popular as well.

Rovio is setting themselves up for long-term success because they're diversifying. They recognize that there's no brand loyalty in casual gaming, so you need to keep churning out new ideas and ways of playing to keep eyes on your games.

Zynga did not. They attempted to put the same "Skinner box" techniques in a variety of venues, and it's failing.

See, when people are whining about casual gamers taking over our hobby, Zynga is the type of company that was the most terrifying. After all, if you could pacify people and make insane amounts of money by having people click on things over and over with no end in sight, what hope did gaming really have?

But now we’re seeing that Zynga’s success may have been an aberration, a short-term lark that could end in a complete rejection of their methods, at least for the time being. That should be heartening to most people who are afraid of “casual” gamers.

However, some people are pointing at this and saying that Nintendo had better beware as well. After all, “casual” gamers propped up the Wii, and casual gamers are fickle. They’re running away from Zynga, and they’ll run away from Nintendo long-term, right?

Well, that depends. If you’re talking about gamers running away from crappy sports compilations that weren’t made by Nintendo, that’s correct. Gamers have roundly rejected that. However, Nintendo as a whole hasn’t exclusively made casual games during the Wii years. Here’s a list of Nintendo’s games that have sold over one million copies:

Wii Sports (79.6 million)
Mario Kart Wii (32.44 million)
Wii Sports Resort (30.14 million)
Wii Play (28.02 million)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (26.26 million)
Wii Fit (22.67 million)
Wii Fit Plus (20.48 million)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (10.79 million)
Super Mario Galaxy (10.68 million)
Wii Party (7.94 million)
Mario Party 8 (7.6 million)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (6.36 million)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (5.82 million)
Donkey Kong Country Returns (4.98 million)
Link's Crossbow Training (4.80 million)
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (3.52 million)
Animal Crossing: City Folk (3.38 million)
Wii Music (2.65 million)
Super Paper Mario (2.28 million)
Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (2.26 million)
Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition (2.24 million)
Punch-Out!! (1.86 million)
WarioWare: Smooth Moves (1.82 million)
Mario Strikers Charged (1.77 million)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (1.59 million)
Mario Sports Mix (1.54 million)
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (1.31 million)
Mario Super Sluggers (1.26 million)
Wii Play: Motion (1.26 million)
Kirby's Return to Dream Land (1.31 million)
Pokémon Battle Revolution (1.202 million)

In here, you’ll find a pretty good mix between “casual” games (Wii Fit, Wii Play, Wii Party) versus games that provide a really deep and engaging experience (Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime 3). Nintendo, like Rovio, is diverse. They’ve done what they can to set themselves up for long-term success.

That’s why a company like Zynga, with their horrible “games,” is struggling now. All they know how to do is copy the same template, buy smarter companies, and defraud investors. That doesn’t sound like a winning strategy to me.