Farewell, "Good For a Wii Game"
When you consider a game, how do you judge it? Maybe you start by considering the genre and whether that fits your tastes? Maybe you consider the value behind the title and its offerings? Perhaps you account for visual flair?
But have you ever asked "Is it good considering the platform?"
Something that I found all too common in the way Wii games were judged in reviews and otherwise was with the phrase "Good for a Wii game". I have to tell you, that phrase made me cringe. Every time.
"Good for a Wii game" implicates some not so flattering things about the Wii. It says that the quality of Wii games, on average, were not all that great. I think we can all agree that implication isn't entirely true, nor entirely false. The Wii had some great titles, but they didn't flow as quickly as on its HD counterparts, thanks both to stronger online communities (and thus more indie titles) and far superior third party support.
I'm not offended by that implication, though. I had fun with many titles on the Wii, but I recognize that the Wii had a quantity issue (quality over quantity, sure, but there's a point when too little quantity is not acceptable) on great titles.
Where the phrase bothers me the most is the implication that this excused games for being sub-par or lackluster. Many titles got away with glaring issues that would never go unpunished in the way they were reviewed or viewed on the PC, PS3, or Xbox 360. It was almost a get out of jail free card to be a half decent game on the Wii. It was acceptance of a lower standard.
If I say nothing else positive about the Wii U, I have to say this; I'm glad to see the phrase "Good for a Wii game" die with it's release. There are a lot of AAA third party titles releasing on the Wii U. Any game will now have to be compared to those titles. No one will say "Good for a Wii U game" because the bar is much higher, with big name titles like Assassin's Creed 3 and Batman Arkham City seeing their own Wii U iterations.
For all the good Wii did, it also brought some quality issues along for the ride. Perhaps now we can move forward and the expanded gaming community can now be more thoroughly introduced to a higher standard. A standard that gravely needs to improve.
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I constantly read,
"Good multiplayer....for a Wii game"
"Good controls....for a Wii game"
And sure, reviews and sales were lukewarm, but it got considerable attention and praise before and a while after it's release due to the fact that it compared favorably to most Wii games (shooters especially) and not very much by its own merit.
And don't you dare say "but the WiiU is different". Mass Effect 3: WiiU Edition says otherwise.
If this kind of thing keeps up when newer consoles show up the term, "Good for a Wii U game" might be something to wish for.
Plus, there's the obvious issue that you NEED to look toward the controller for special interfaces, and unless you're talking about a very complicated game, the D-pad usually services itself just fine for item management and the like - In which case, you have a faster interface that requires less effort. It makes me think of this great article by Ben Yahtzee where he talks about how the less you have to think and do, the more immersion.
ANYWAY, I'm certainly not saying that the Wii U will have perfect third party support. In fact, I think once the honeymoon is over and much more powerful systems launch in a year or two, third party support will linger, because developers have been complaining about the limitations of the ps3/360 a lot lately, and the Wii U's only main advantage specs-wise seems to be a slightly more powerful GPU (and nearly neglectfully, if launch games, both third and first party have anything to say about it - ps3/360 launch games might not have been amazing compared to today, but they were DEFINITIVELY a generational leap).
2) Having already bought into the BS of this gen, you really don't notice that "current" has changed little from launch? Where there were changes and improvements from the start of the PS1 era to its end, the same for the PS2 and Xbox1, this time around it was just a difference from between a crippled state to a not as crippled one. We lost and regained features, but to me at least its things were promised, not delivered and we had to settle for something else instead. Mostly FPS.
And right now the Wii U is no different. doesn't really change anything but has a gimmick that might make you forget nothing's changed. Or gotten worse.
The wii had some great games, from No more Heroes to TvC. Metroid: Other M was a great game too. When it comes to games, it's mostly due to western tastes. This generation was the FPS/realistic/western domination generation. Few Japanese made games made it in the spot light mainly because COD or some other western game overshadowed it. Japanese devs get discouraged when they release a good game over here just to have it not sell because the west is too busy shooting people in the face or drooling over realistic graphics.
This multi-platform game is good for a PS3 game.
The graphics for this exclusive is good for a 360 game.
The title sold well for a PC game.
It's not that any of them are true to the degree that any of those things can be said with any certainty, but when they are repeated by people who don't clarify what they mean when it does matter is what makes such stereotypes stick.
http://www.prlog.org/115827...