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Mario to Shake His Groove Thing
After the news earlier this week that Mario would be shooting hoops in NBA Street, I decided that Nintendo had reached the end of its tie-in rope with Mario. I was wrong. The newest Dance Dance Revolution title for the Gamecube will be called Dance Dance Revolution with Mario. From the article: "As the title suggests, Dance Dance Revolution with Mario is a new installment in Konami's DDR dancing game series, featuring characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. Details on the game haven't been disclosed yet, but from the released images, DDR with Mario seems to play similarly to DDR, with familiar backdrops featured in the 3D installments of the Super Mario series." Ow.
What are you talking about? They're not just selling the same thing repeatedly. (Well, some older games are getting ported to their handhelds, but that's different). They're just taking a character(and his related world/universe) and placing him in unsual games, and seeing how it affects gameplay. And a lot of it turns out being pretty darn cool.
I think it's a pretty fascinating way to come up with new gameplay. Mario brings with him a whole bunch of cool stuff. His famous abilities, yoshi, parahnia plants, turtle shells, shyguys, etc... all stuff that doesn't make any sense outside of the mario universe. And then the designers have to find ways to make all of those strange things fit in to a new game type. That's a great way to spur some innovation. And it can be made to work.
So someone might buy Mario Golf, or Mario Tennis, or Super Smash Bros. just because they recognize Mario. Or maybe they want a golf/tennis/or melee type game. Either way. they're still getting a damn fine game, and if you've actually played any of them, you'd know that.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I think I'll expand on your point for you.
For many of these games, any character would do, but Nintendo has no reason to introduce a new star character for each new game series they make. If you take Mario out of Mario Kart, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Party, and anything else, you'll end up with games that still need to have some character associated with them. Why would they want to introduce new heroes and heroines for games without storylines?
The fact is, these games that everyone is complaining about, aren't the best games ever made, but they are in their own way one of Nintendo's strengths. Beginning with the original Mario Kart, Nintendo has been developing lines of games with simplified mechanics that groups of people can play. These games are simple, accessible and yet still fun. They're something you can play with just about any group of people.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.