Europe Getting Wii Fit Before US, and Possibly Mario Kart Too.

Wow, Nintendo of Europe is DOING something for once. This comes as a shock to me (and no doubt many other PAL gamers) because if this ends up being true:

A) Wii Fit is coming nearly a month ahead of the US date (Who cares really though? Its a casual piece of garbage anyway)

and

B) Mario Kart Wii would be releasing the day after the Japanese date, which would be amazing.

But you may be wondering why I’m still annoyed? If they can get Wii Fit out in Europe before America then why the HELL can’t they get Brawl out here asap? You’d probably be responding by saying “Wii Fit doesn’t have a massive amount of text or expansive online mode like Brawl” which I would be fair enough in understanding. But then this Mario Kart Wii stuff appears, the DAY AFTER JAPAN… what the Hell? What’s their excuse there then? That game, like Brawl, has a lot of text as well as a massive online mode to maintain.

So what the fuck Nintendo. Where is our Brawl date? You recently dismissed the rumours of the June 6th date as “speculation” well you know what STOPS speculation. An actual release date. So maybe you should try giving one to us so we can get over the hate asap.

You guys seriously annoy me. You can’t do backflips like this, it really isn’t fair on us gamers. And I don’t want to hear anyone lecture me about how I should be happy to be getting Kart early. I don’t want Kart, I want Brawl… the reason I bothered buying a Wii at launch.

*sigh*

Frustrating.

Australia Going Its Own Way For Brawl Ruleset?

Obviously nothing is confirmed in this area yet, because its far FAR too early to try and assume how we’ll be playing the game competitively. But it is sounding a lot like Australia will have a unique set of rules to play Brawl by when the competitive scene really starts up later this year.

I find this interesting and generally support it, however I only support the idea of having a unique ruleset. I do not support the idea of items being usable in tournaments beacuse as many Smashers have stated it unbalances the game. I know a lot of you will probably hate me for talking about Smash like this, but deal with it. The depth Smash has intrigues me (even if Brawl is lacking it at the moment) but I do not think items should be turned on in competitive matches.

Picture yourself about to finish off your opponent, one stock each, however they get lucky and a Heart Container + Hammer is spawned right next to them. Thus allowing them to heal and pick up a weapon that will nearly always kill you. Bang! You lose. How would you feel? Empty? Cheated? Well, I know I’d personally be annoyed.

I cannot speak from experience with Brawl however as I have not been lucky enough to play it. But I will be importing the American version in a few weeks so I’ll understand the game a lot better then. Until then I shall continue opposing items in competitive Smash but supporting the idea of a unique ruleset for Australia.

See you next mission.

Being a PAL Gamer.

Being a PAL gamer is one of the hardest ways to game. You can take that from a longtime hardcore gamer.

We get games later, we get lesser games sometimes (rarely we’ll get improved games) and game developers enjoy screwing us around just for funsies. Just recently it was reported that online had been removed from Medal of Honor Heroes 2. This was a massive blow, because that game was boasting 32-player online but due to EA AU being tight they didn’t want to fund servers so they pulled it.

Why?

Why couldn’t the bajillionaire’s at EA US or somewhere similar have put in to help out. I mean its not like they are or ever will be running short on money. And anytime they are short on money then all they need to do is make a new expansion for the Sims. There, easy cash.

So why does all that matter? Well, firstly it has confirmed that I WON’T be buying MoHH2. Which is a shame, it had been getting great reviews. But paying AU$99 for half a game is a complete rip-off and EA won’t be getting their money. In fact, I doubt they’ll be getting much money from this at all… if any.

The main reason that this annoys me is that now rumours are being spread about PAL Brawl lacking online. I quite personally think this is a ridiculous allegation, but it is also one that might have some merit.

What do we know about Nintendo of Australia? They don’t really give a crap about their customers, their website sucks and we definitely can’t just e-mail them and ask them a question. So what do they care if online is removed from PAL copies of Smash. Means they wouldn’t have to pay for servers. Again, I’m not saying I think the rumours will become reality, I’m just saying its not impossible.

Never doubt Nintendo’s ability to fuck themselves over harder than the Dreamcast fucked Sega.

See you next mission.

Franchise Spamming (It Needs To Stop) + MGS Movie?

Argh, so what happens to Guitar Hero as soon as Activision gets their grubby hands on it? Spam. And much like annoying chain e-mails, this is going to piss me off. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been a big fan of the Guitar Hero franchise, but I’ve always thought of it as a nice option if I need to kill 5 minutes of my time.

So why would this annoy then you ask? Because NO ONE likes seeing a franchise spammed. And at the moment we have Guitar Hero 3, Guitar Hero 3: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero 4 on our menu (I think there might even be another one called Guitar Hero 3: On Tour… it wouldn’t surprise me either way)

Developers need to actually give us a chance to enjoy the full lifespan of a game before churning out a new one, 12 months is hardly enough time to get the full life of the game.

DragonBall Z, Mario Party and a lot of EA games are also guilty of this. They bring out a new entry into the franchise AT LEAST every 12 months. And its quite disgusting. I often wonder if the people who worked on that game ever get a day off. It almost seems that as soon as the game is released they are already working on the opening of the next one. Horrifying. Try something different. We get a Zelda game every 3 or 4 years. A Smash game every Nintendo console. Mario games usually come out once a Nintendo console.

Anyway, rant over. Metal Gear Solid is apparently one step closer to becoming a live action movie. Obviously there have been rumours flying around ever since Kojima mentioned it at E306. But now it appears something is coming from it. Kojima has allegedly appointed himself as Executive Producer (which is a relief) and confirmed that Uwe won’t be touching it (yay!). Heck I even heard rumours he’ll be overseeing the story writing process. Very promising. MGS has a massive chance of being the greatest video game movie to date. Main thing that remains is picking Snake. I’d love to see Viggo Mortensen play Solid Snake (which is also one person who Kojima mentioned I believe), as I think he’d do a superb job. He’s a very talented actor.

Who do you think would do a good job playing the manly Solid Snake?

See you next mission

1,000 Hits And More.

Well, seems my blog passed the famous 1,000 hit mark. So I decided to create a new header for the joint. It represents Brawl of course (Nintendo’s next big title) and the characters inside it are the ones I’m very likely to use. Its going to be pure awesome.

To fill in time I’ve been replaying Kingdom Hearts. My God that game is good, even though it feels so terribly slow after playing Kingdom Hearts 2, it is still a great game. Who would have thought combining Disney character’s with Square legends and original creations would work so well. There’s something special about seeing Hercules and Cloud in the same place. Pure awesome.

Rumours are flying around about Kingdom Hearts 3 being a Wii exclusive. I’m not going to rule this out, I’m just going to say that I don’t know if it’ll actually happen. I mean, SquareEnix has developed the last two KH games for Sony systems. The only Nintendo platform that got a KH game was GBA… and that game sucked. But was still remade for the PS2. Bastards.

So I’m going to put it out there that we’ll probably get a Kingdom Hearts spin-off title, not the actual third game in the series.