I purchased Super Mario Galaxy 2 on 11 June, the day that it was released in the UK, from Game (having been suckered in by the tin moneybox they were offering for pre-orders - my love for gaming tat knows no bounds). It is absolutely fantastic, the best game I have played all year (a list that includes God of War III and Red Dead Redemption, both themselves candidates for game of the year). This isn't a review, though - that may (or, frankly, may not - there is a World Cup on, you know) arrive in the coming weeks. Rather, I'd like to highlight what Nintendo has done in the game to 'train' the new gamers that the Wii has brought to gaming in how to play a 'proper' videogame.
And that's what SMG2 is (even though it has some motion control) - a proper videogame. There's a hero, a heroine and a boss. One of those gets kidnapped by one of the others, who has to be rescued by the third (no prizes for guessing which role is played by which character). There are bad guys who can be killed by jumping on them and there are stars. Always stars. Long-standing gamers will recognise the template - essentially unchanged for over twenty years - and will jump (or should that be double-jump?) in without even a second thought. The wider audience that the Wii has brought to gaming, who have been used to 'Just Dance Out Megamix Petz - Samba Edition', don't have this prior knowledge. They don't know, unsurprisingly when you think about it, that jumping on a turtle will kill the turtle and then allow you to use the shell as an underwater propulsion device - and all the other myriad gameplay devices present in a Mario platform game.
Nintendo know this and, possibly driven by lower-than-expected sales of the first game (it sold a lot - nearly 9m - but not as a percentage of higher-than-expected sales of the system itself - 71m and counting), have packaged the game with a 'How to Play' DVD. Most casual Wii games are literally 'pick up and play' - you don't need instructions when using a Wiimote as a tennis racquet, you just use it as you would a tennis racquet (I imagine - I've not lifted a tennis racquet this century). That is not the case with a traditional video game like SMG2.
Any Mario platform game's gameplay is the distillation of over twenty years of development. Expecting my mother-in-law, to choose a casual Wii user at random, to just pick up and play it is unrealistic. While at first glance the DVD is a bit patronising, I think it is a sensible approach from Nintendo and, at the very least, it is heartening that they are still producing core games, while at the same time trying to bring the new audience along with it. Even the choice of physical media is aimed at these new users, who would, I would argue, be less likely to use an online manual.
It doesn't stop there either. Throughout the game (and I'm 40 Stars in, so two thirds of the way to rescuing the Princess or one third to 'full' completion), there are signposts (literally) giving short, written instructions to the player, or larger signposts that launch a video clip showing exactly how a manoeuvre should be completed. This player-assistance reaches its zenith with the 'Cosmic Guide' (a kind of shadow version of 'Rosalina', from the first game), who appears after a few failed attempts at a particular sequence, stating that she can offer some help. If you take her up on this, control of Mario is handed over and the player watches as the level is completed on autopilot (you can jump out of this at any time and regain control). To prevent this making the game too easy, any star that you collect in a level where you have used the Cosmic Guide at any point, will be bronze, rather than gold (I tried it once - just for research, you understand).
Nintendo has received a lot of flak from core gamers this generation over its pursuit of non-core gamers but it tried to compete with Sony in the last two generations on a purely gaming basis and was soundly trounced on units sold. Microsoft, a huge money-bucket of investment, joining in last generation (and fighting out with Nintendo for the title of first loser) also cast doubts on Nintendo's future viability as a gaming hardware developer. The Wii marked a change in emphasis for Nintendo, in trying to make gaming attractive to non-gamers (as there are significantly more of them than gamers) and it has been wildly successful. However, I think that the attachment rate (units sold by games sold) for these new gamers, shows that they aren't a sturdy platform for future profitability. Nintendo need to school them in the ways of traditional games and the 'gaming stabiliser wheels' in SMG2 are, hopefully (for those that wish, like me, that there will still be games of this type in the future) a way of doing this. How successful this approach is, coupled with how many units this game sells, will have an influence on how many more of these types of traditional games Nintendo will develop in the future.
And if you have a Wii and don't yet have this game - buy it now!
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