Nintendo: Masters of half-assing it.

So, I did just get back from seeing The Da Vinci Code, and the movie doesn't even do justice to the fairly mediocre novel. So many key things are changed and left out, anyone who read the book will feel like they are seeing a movie based on a different book, and anyone who didn't read the book will not understand most of the movie. It's also very poorly paced at a plodding 150 minutes and even though you have a fine cast with the likes of Tom Hanks, Iam Mckellean & Jean Reno, the acting all around is extremely wooden and/or hammy. Since this will obviously be a huge smash regardless, it'll be likely that they will adapt the much better Angels & Demons, and hopefully, it'll be a much better book.

Ok, so I did pick up the New Super Mario Bros., and it's a great throwback to the 2D era. It even allows you to play competively against others in minigames and such. The problem? It's only if someone has a DS within 10 feet of you. This is yet another example of Nintendo promising to really utilize a key feature of a product and just truly half-assing it. I mean seriously, you hav wifi available, why not make every use out of it? They have essentially done this with every "feature" they've tried to include. The Zapper, the power pad, ROBB, the ram cartridge for the N64, the gameboy connectivity, online in general. I could list plenty more, but that gets my main point across, Nintendo has a habit of introducing some potentially huge innovation if it's actually supported with a weatlh of innovative titles, and they tend to actually not do much to support said innovation. I'm hoping the Wii will be a lomg overdue change of focus, not only on the need for innovative controls (which will most likely happen since the primary controller is so unique) but a healthy online service. This means if a game is multi-player, it better have online capabilites, if we want to download old classics from the virtual console like say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Street Fighter 2, they better have online capabilities as well. A solid online selection could be the key difference in this upcoming round of the console wars, lord knows Microsoft is essentially placing all their hopes on the future of online, Nintendo may at least want to give it an earnest effort for a change.

Free Game of the Week: Johnny Rocketfingers 2