Oh shi- (http://gonintendo.com/?p=13018)...
Oh well, I hope Megaman is considered 'kiddy'. A Wii Legends game would be close to orgasmic.

Yes, the Wii seems focuses on providing content to family a lot.
But it wouldn't be a childish system if developers like Capcom made more mature games for it.
And why would that mean mature games aren't possible?

Yes, the Wii seems focuses on providing content to family a lot.

When did this absurd equation of "family" and "childish" start, anyway?

Personally, I blame Disney. They keep banging on about Family This and Family That and the bottom line is that out of the average family 3.4 members have grown out of 90% of Disney's colourful, infantile garbage. Warner Brothers, on the other hand, seem perfectly capable of making programmes and films that the entire family can and will quite happily watch together -- the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, which is essentially a 7-minute version of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen being a case in point. If you're making a show purely for children you don't bother putting that kind of effort into parodying something they won't have ever heard of. That can be done, and is done, in games too.

I mean, look at Worms -- that's a "family" game at it's best: it's so simple that anyone can play it and it's complex enough to be engaging for adults. Ditto for Smash Brothers, Lemmings, Yoshi's Island, and so forth. Nintendo can and do make family games. Very few other companies do, because they think "family" means "baby", so once again third party software support is Nintendo's biggest problem.

Wii Play has a go at it but doesn't quite get there, but Wii Sports manages it pretty well.

Warner Brothers, on the other hand, seem perfectly capable of making programmes and films that the entire family can and will quite happily watch together -- the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, which is essentially a 7-minute version of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen being a case in point. If you're making a show purely for children you don't bother putting that kind of effort into parodying something they won't have ever heard of.
"Well what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending?"

Unfortunately, the age of good kids cartoons is over. It's all about the animé-inspired adventures, now. The shows that ARE supposedly made for "the family" appeal only to kids.

Nintendo is quite good at making family games, and I agree that family doesn't really mean childish (I was paraphrasing Capcom in my last statement).
It generally means games that can be played by everyone. I personally don't think that, exactly. I can't imagine a senior playing Yoshi's Island, nor can I imagine a ten-year old playing Sudoku.
I think that there are multiple kinds of family games. Ones that appeal to young-adult, and one's that appeal to teen-senior, for instance. Then there's also the coveted young-senior type, but that probably isn't met by very many games (Wii Sports might be one of them). There are just some things too complex for seniors, and things too dull for the young.

I'm guessing that there's a better term for all inclusive titles than "family games", but I don't know what it is.

Unfortunately, the age of good kids cartoons is over. It's all about the animé-inspired adventures, now. The shows that ARE supposedly made for "the family" appeal only to kids.
Actually, there are some half-decent cartoons out now (Billy and Mandy for example) that aren't part of the "It's anime, JUST LOOK AT THEIR EYES" genre, but most of them really are terrible. The fact that Teen Titans has a huge fanbase scares the crap out of me.

Back to gaming, I really have no idea what exactly they were refering to as "mature" games. Is something like, say, Serious Sam (semi-obscure PC FPS, which is rated M due to gore yet has a completely childish and nonsensical plot), really more "mature" than games like Zelda and Final Fantasy, which are both filled with complicated plots and deep meanings? Hell, even Capcom's recent Megaman Zero games can get pretty dark (the mass human/reploid genocide and Zero's cheesy little speech before taking on Weil in his suicide mission at the end of MMZ4 come to mind) and guess what, it's rated E.

It's very hard to judge the exact age for a game or genre. For example, while I could probably play EyeToy to my hearts content (or exhaustion) in a family party, I couldn't on my own. Nor can you imagine people playing unreal tournament at a family party. The Wii to me smacks a lot of a partyish, novelty console, yes, it'll get all ages up and swinging around, but I don't know if you could play it as one would a PS2 or XBox. It's very much meant for a multiplayer environment IMO, it's a shame the games being put out for it are in the 'family get-together' bracket rather than in all the sectors multi-person play covers.

Are you nuts? Billy and Mandy is the worst cartoon ever! My brother was obsessed with it before our Topup TV box packed in, and I hated every second of Billy's childish blabbering and Mandy's "genericness". I was actually really pleased when it died, glad I didn't have to endure horrors like Foster's home for imaginary friends and xiowlin showdown or whatever.

I was actually really pleased when it died

I hope you are not refering to your brother...

Are you nuts? Billy and Mandy is the worst cartoon ever! My brother was obsessed with it before our Topup TV box packed in, and I hated every second of Billy's childish blabbering and Mandy's "genericness". I was actually really pleased when it died, glad I didn't have to endure horrors like Foster's home for imaginary friends and xiowlin showdown or whatever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion
Billy and Mandy isn't really any different from something like Ren and Stimpy and other "classics" in terms of humour, if you think about it. Also, Foster's is a decent show that can be sort of funny at times.

Xiaolin showdown can rot in hell, though. :p

I hope you are not refering to your brother...

Naw, I mean the TUTV box.

In my opinion, Billy and Mandy is one of those cartoons that are so stupid they're funny.

The Wii doesn't HAVE to have party games. I mean, Nintendo is encouraging that, but the controller feels more natural to me than a regular two-handed controller. Your hands are separated, so you don't need your hands to be close together all the time.

I don't even really watch kids cartoons anymore.
I quit watching Saturday mornings after KidsWB went to heck with things like Coconut Fred (Which TOTALLY isn't copying Spongebob. At all. Seriously) and that show called Spider Riders, which I believe met absolutely every single kids adventure show cliché in the book.
With spiders.
And it was animé, to boot.

(People, we can continue the side topic of cartoons if there will still be posts about the main topic. Thems the rules.)

This is true -- anyone who's played the shooting range game in Wii Play will know how effective it can be as a gun. Nintendo have designed a controller which is a gun. Can developers really not see the potential for adult games there?

Well.

There's a fine line, isn't there, between "candid truths" and "knee-jerk gibberish".

This is true -- anyone who's played the shooting range game in Wii Play will know how effective it can be as a gun. Nintendo have designed a controller which is a gun. Can developers really not see the potential for adult games there?
Mario Sunshine FPS? :p

On a completely different note, I wonder if Capcom's fighting game franchises are considered "mature" and thus not 'suitable' for the Wii. I know the controller can't be used for regular fighters, but something along the lines of Pocket Fighter/Super Gem Fighter designed around the Wiimote would be great. So would a Ghosts and Goblins-style game.
[...]and that show called Spider Riders, which I believe met absolutely every single kids adventure show cliché in the book.
With spiders.
And it was animé, to boot.
Animé? Like, the oleo-resin (said to be so called because in its natural state it is infested with insects) which is discharged from the locust tree, Hymenaea courbaril, and other species of Hymenaea growing in tropical South America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anim%C3%A9_%28oleo-resin%29)? :p

Anyway, just watched a few clips of that on Youtube; I seriously lolled. They even have a rap theme song. What confuses me is the fact that the whole plot and writing was done in the US, yet they still hired a Japanese studio to do the animation, as if being produced in Japan really makes anything better. In fact, most Japanese animation (art-wise, the plots are sometimes a bit better than something like My Gym Partner's a Monkey) is usually just as unoriginal and bland as the stuff Kids WB and Cartoon Network are crapping out.

Not that "adult" animation is any better right now. Half the anime aired on Adult Swim was actually aimed at kids to begin with (Inuyasha is not adult-only material for god's sake; Rocko's modern life was more 'adult' and it got a TV-Y rating), and most of their original shows, while sometimes funny in a really stupid kind of way, look like something out of Macromedia/Adobe Flash.

I've only watched a few episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and I've already seen them recycle a plot twice (a parody rap artist turning out to be some sort of animal that ends up in Hell at the end for no reason). They also recycle the same low-FPS animations during each 9-minute episode.

Here's hoping the new Futurama will turn out as great as the old one. Now that's a great way of doing an animated series.

Edit: There, started an animation thread so this won't go terribly offtopic. (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?p=559556)

When did this absurd equation of "family" and "childish" start, anyway?

You can't really call a game 'family' unless it includes grandparents (woo! old people!) and little kids

Hence family = childish (not completely I know, but generally)


If Capcom have ditched the Wii, there is NO WAY IN HELL I would get one, and 'PS3-Diet' I already see as 'pointless'

You can't really call a game 'family' unless it includes grandparents (woo! old people!) and little kids

Hence family = childish (not completely I know, but generally)


My family doesn't have little kids? And old =/= childish :p

You can't really call a game 'family' unless it includes grandparents (woo! old people!) and little kids

Hence family = childish (not completely I know, but generally)

Well, y'know, I wouldn't call say Tetris or Links childish, and they're certainly games the whole family can play.

Err... but I don't WANT to play tetris?

It would be a shame if companies like Capcom dismissed for being "childish", which is bullsh!t to begin with. It has great potential.

When did this absurd equation of "family" and "childish" start, anyway?

Personally, I blame Disney. They keep banging on about Family This and Family That and the bottom line is that out of the average family 3.4 members have grown out of 90% of Disney's colourful, infantile garbage. Warner Brothers, on the other hand, seem perfectly capable of making programmes and films that the entire family can and will quite happily watch together -- the Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc?, which is essentially a 7-minute version of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen being a case in point. If you're making a show purely for children you don't bother putting that kind of effort into parodying something they won't have ever heard of. That can be done, and is done, in games too.

I mean, look at Worms -- that's a "family" game at it's best: it's so simple that anyone can play it and it's complex enough to be engaging for adults. Ditto for Smash Brothers, Lemmings, Yoshi's Island, and so forth. Nintendo can and do make family games. Very few other companies do, because they think "family" means "baby", so once again third party software support is Nintendo's biggest problem.

Wii Play has a go at it but doesn't quite get there, but Wii Sports manages it pretty well.

I blame Mcdonalds. Disney were trying to stop the stereotype with things like Fantasia and Bambi's motherr getting shot etc. mind, Disney isn't really as wise as it used to be. the Lion king was probably the last actually good one

I agree about Worms, though. I was always impressed at how I kept noticing new things in it every time I played it. like how it has violent weapons (mortar, bazooka etc) and sucidal sheep, yet kids could play it. kids aren't really as easily disturbed as people like to think.
unless it's Bambi.


about the thing; lots of people see an E rated game and think it's a game aimed only at children. it's not like if a child plays a T game they'd roll on the floor dribbling because the plot is too complicated, and if an older person were to play an E rated game it should engage them. after all, it's supposed to be for everyone, not just kids.

Err... but I don't WANT to play tetris?

BLASHPHEMY!!

:p

Err... but I don't WANT to play tetris?
That doesn't make it any more childish!

Also, I hate games that class completely unnessesary gore as 'mature gaming'. It's practically the opposite!

Also, I hate games that class completely unnessesary gore as 'mature gaming'. It's practically the opposite!That's the first sensible thing you've said in...

... well, ever.

Good lord.

This is true -- anyone who's played the shooting range game in Wii Play will know how effective it can be as a gun. Nintendo have designed a controller which is a gun. Can developers really not see the potential for adult games there?

And not just ANY FPS. You can duel-weild in Wii Play.
DUEL. WIELD.
And not just the old "Both-guns-fire-at-the-same-target" duel-wielding, but TRUE, "I can shoot 2 guys at the same time" duel wielding.

I just cannot understand why I haven't heard about a FPS in production that uses two Wii Remotes for control yet. It could have the potential to be an extremely intense and/or awesome game.

I don't know why I haven't heard of ANY genre games using 2 Wii remotes, yet. It's screaming for a drum simulator.

And not just ANY FPS. You can duel-weild in Wii Play.
DUEL. WIELD.
And not just the old "Both-guns-fire-at-the-same-target" duel-wielding, but TRUE, "I can shoot 2 guys at the same time" duel wielding.

I just cannot understand why I haven't heard about a FPS in production that uses two Wii Remotes for control yet. It could have the potential to be an extremely intense and/or awesome game.

I don't know why I haven't heard of ANY genre games using 2 Wii remotes, yet. It's screaming for a drum simulator.

That is the first good idea I have heard for the Wii, n1 :eek:

Err... but I don't WANT to play tetris?

OK! it's not the only one, you know :p

people call that "choice"

get used

(I mean, why didn't you mention zelda then?) :p

(I mean, why didn't you mention zelda then?) :p

Well I don't want to play that either :p But I don't mention that as I know there are millions who do.

However, I wouldn't call zelda a family game?

Well I don't want to play that either :p But I don't mention that as I know there are millions who do.

However, I wouldn't call zelda a family game?

That's not my point... red steel is not quite family, for example :)

Well I don't want to play that either :p But I don't mention that as I know there are millions who do.Millions want to play Tetris. Otherwise there wouldn't be such an endless number of clones of it. It also has a broad age appeal.

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, that's another one.

I don't know why I haven't heard of ANY genre games using 2 Wii remotes, yet. It's screaming for a drum simulator.
I remember seeing a demo of one in some video some time ago being played on the wii, so I must assume one is on the way.(Drum Hero? :p)

However, I wouldn't call zelda a family game?

Zelda can be played by people of most ages and doesn't contain any overly childish or mature themes. It's a game a family can all play, but they can't play it together because it has no multiplayer.

So that depends on your definition. Videogames have really ingerited the word "family" from films where that wasn't a consideration.

This is true -- anyone who's played the shooting range game in Wii Play will know how effective it can be as a gun. Nintendo have designed a controller which is a gun. Can developers really not see the potential for adult games there?


You mean Duck Hunt from way back in the day?:D They should so remake that!

There is a Wii-compatible flash version of Duckhunt at this website.
http://www.wiifii.net/