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New Super Mario Bros. Wii To Include Official "Cheat"
phlack writes "Yahoo Games has an article describing a new mode in Nintendo's upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii that will allow the player to activate a 'demo' mode to get out of a hard situation. Nintendo plans on incorporating this into future games. Is this a good idea (to help relieve frustrations) or just sanctioned cheating?"
They actually patented this system as well.
Winning by cheating just isn't the same as winning 'for real'.
I may catch on with the casual gamers, though.
Getting rid of the stupid moments and rushing towards the fun ones. Hope they include a 'unlock-all-so-i-dont-have-to-just-to-play-the-whole-game' cheat as well.
Way to many games assume that i want to grind 25 hours to get that tiny little game mode which just happens to be the most fun part of it all.
I did my grind through Super Mario Brothers. I dropped a missile or twenty on mother brain. I actually beat Tyson after a couple of months. I flipped through contra, shooting my red, oversized, round bullets the entire way. Kid icarus was my bitch. It was all hard as balls, and I didn't have any built in cheats (Justin Bailey doesn't count and you know it.)
It makes my elitist heart warm knowing that now I can add one more example into my video game "get off of my lawn" play-book.
I want my games to be not very challenging but spectacular looking and amusing interactive movies, little more. Really hard intricate challenges is what work is for (well I'm lucky enough to have one of those).
If other gamers want to derive a sense of achievement from really hard-to-master games, good for them - but with this, Nintendo is reaching another market, namely people like myself, who couldn't care less about whether it's 'cheating' or not because 'winning' is not the reason why they play games at all.
Is this a good idea (to help relieve frustrations) or just sanctioned cheating?"
Yes and yes. It does help who just want to see the next level and it does let people bypass the essential struggle of the game, thereby 'diminishing' the meaning of playing it.
But, hey, you paid for the game, I say you should be able to access all of its content, regardless of your playing skill. I would never use the cheat option, but I'm not going to fret myself into a furor that elsewhere in the privacy of their own homes people are enjoying the game differently.
(I will however mercilessly mock any of my friends who are less uber than me. :p )
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Extended frustration isn't good when playing videogames. Most people play them to either relax, have fun, or spend time with friends/family.
I don't care about this Demo mode, because I won't use it. If someone actually has to use it, then I'm glad it enhanced their game experience. If someone is foolish enough to use it to get to the end quicker when they didn't have to... then thank goodness they'll never have enough patience to get good at the online games I play. :)
+1 Insightful for you.
It does make a good point, http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
The need for such a feature at all is a design failure in itself though. A game can still be difficult and not frustrating because of it. Instead of this feature, Nintendo should be going back and looking at what they did wrong and fix that instead.
By the way, my youngest have no problems with Super Mario Sunshine - it is a much easier game for kids. Maybe it's the controller?
For the hard-core gamer I'm sure that this is considered the height of EVIL and is something of a hell-worthy trespass for them.
However for the casual gamer (say someone who doesn't have the time required to develop the "Mad Skillz" needed to play these games) this is a godsend.
There are games out there with very in-depth stories and as the game progresses and gets harder, many find that a particular section is flat-out beyond them and the only way they'll ever get to see the end of the story is to look up cheats, walkthroughs...or now this new system.
There are times when I've asked someone to get me through one little annoying section that I've tried for hours to defeat...at times even WITH the walkthrough. Being told how to do something is not the same as being able to do it with some of the "twitch" games out there where the solution involves precise timing that many hard-core and/or avid gamers develop. I get help with that "one" spot and I'll beat the rest of the game on my own in my own time.
This is a good thing and it gives an option and a choice for the players. They can choose to beat the game on their own, or they can choose to get a little help. Let the game give these options and let the players decide. It's the best way.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
So I'm almost finished reading the article summary, already thinking up my response and about to post, when as I get to the end of the summary I read
Just like that. With a link. FROM THE EDITOR.
Just an offhand reference to something they happen to remember, right? WRONG because it belies the fact that THE EDITOR TOOK IT UPON THEMSELVES TO DIG AROUND BEFORE POSTING AND SERIOUSLY LINK TO PERTINENT EARLIER COVERAGE!! Where am I, engadget? What is happening? Who did this? It must be Taco, right, he's the only one who takes Slashdot for journalism. Nope: the editor is "soulskill". W...T...F
I have to go for a walk, air out my mind a little. This is some serious shit going on right here.
... especially for casual gamers and kids. I have a young daughter who loves the original SMB that I downloaded through the VC, but her frustration level can get to the point where she doesn't want to play it anymore. Something like this would be nice for her and casual gamers if implemented properly. But I also think they should also insert some sort of bonus ending or perk for players who don't need to cheat to win.
Is it fair to give her an advantage when I didn't have one myself at her age? I think so. At least maybe she won't start throwing nintendo controllers across the goddamn room like I used to.
When I'm competing against other humans, "cheating" is an appropriate term.
In a single-player game, that I paid for, the interaction is between me and something owned by me. Its purpose is my entertainment. Challenge is part of that, but if I want to use an easy way, what could anyone possibly have against it? Seriously, that's like saying your favourite poet can only be read in candle light on a stormy night, because doing it any other way would ruin the atmosphere.
No, "cheating" does not describe this at all. There's no party that is being cheated on, after all.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If this means game companies can stop worrying about frustrated casual gamers and start making their game harder and longer then I say "go for it".
I'm sick and tired of both the debilitating trend and shortening trend in the video game industry. I've got a friend which enjoys video game but isn't good at it and even him was disappointed that he finished Star Wars Force Unleashed in only 7 hours. I thought it couldn't be worse, but I've been proved wrong with a test I saw on the latest Terminator video game : apparently, you can finish it in 4 hours (and I'm not even talking about the price/hours ratio). Sure theses two games use well-known licenses, but this trend is occuring for almost every video game serie.
On the other hand, I'm currently playing Ninja Gaiden Black, which is reputed for its difficulty. I'm at the 2/3 point, it took me 30h to get there, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
But for the rest of us, temptation to try again and again (read:perfect the game) will feel crippled.
The reds aren't "getting closer"; they're already here. Tetris, the greatest Commie plot ever to hit the video game industry, has been on Nintendo platforms for two decades.
I don't want to come across as an old codger, but cheat codes and the like have ruined gaming. Easter eggs and hidden levels are fun and add some dimension to the games. Cheat codes, continues and even the prospect of getting unlimited extra lives have taken game skill levels to a new low. If you have to cheat you obviously aren't good enough to win. Most of us who played years ago, beat the super hard levels, by A) having great skill at the game or B) got really lucky. Either one is fine with me, but entering in a cheat proves that you don't have either. I say remove the cheats, keep the Easter eggs and hidden stuff, increase the gameplay and quit making games disposable. It's cheaper to rent the game for 2 weeks from the video store, solve it and give it back than buying it. You're going to find the sales figures plummet for marginal games. There needs to be a change in the industry.
The most intriguing part of the patent for this "demo mode" was how it was activated. The Wii-mote will detect when it is thrown against the wall and Implement Demo-mode for you.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Imagine for a moment that your DVD player didn't have a fast forward button, after all you should watch the movie, not skip through it to the end for instant satisfaction.
Doesn't sound to great, does it? With video games its the same thing. Sure a challenging game is fun, but being forced to play through those challenging parts is not. It should be the users choice of how he wants to enjoy the game and if books and movies are any indication, it works quite fine when the user has instant access to the end of it.
The only real trouble I see with this is that games have progression, you learn skills in earlier levels to use them in later ones. So if you skip those learning parts, because you find them to hard, you mind end up being even more screwed later on, as you haven't learned how to play the game, thus a hard game becomes an impossible one.
But in the end: You payed for the game, so you should have the right to see all of it, if cheats and autoplay allow that, so be it.
When we first got the NES SMB was the only game we played for it for a while. So with all the frustration of playing the damned game we did eventually beat it. And that was that. The we got a Game Genie and played it again but we kicked the games ass. In a game where getting touched once or twice by any enemy kills you It felt good to get a permanent invincibility and plow through the game. That's how I uses cheating now days, beat the game at least once, then cheat. I extends the life of the game IMHO.
Hi all...
I don't know if it's ok or not...but I think if it's needed then a game is not well balanced (against CPU I mean, not the game itself).
For example, if you play in the easiest mode at SF4 the final boss is able to destroy you anyway, while in all the other enounters the opponents are really...easy.
Now, I think that SF4 is a great game, well balanced etc etc. Really I stopped WoW to play SF4 PvP.
But as a single player game the fact the last boss is very hard even in easiest mode is a bit depressing, considering the quality of the game itself.
But to be 100% honest there could be a reason for that...in order to unlock all the characters you have to defeat the final boss some times straight without losing a game...so CAPCOM knew that everyone would play the game at easiest mode just to unlock all 25 characters...so basically this could be seen as a possible motivation to implement this hard boss as the fact everyone will face him at easiest mode...but still I don't like this.
I'm against demo mode but in favour of balanced games.
Cheers,
But what a 7 year old or someone who is 60 and has never played games finds frustrating may be pretty easy for a 30 year old who has played games off and on since they were a kid.
This would allow the game to occasionally present a challenge to the 30 year old and give the 7/60 stuff to work against. If it's too hard, they can use it to "skip" that one moment.
How many people here have had a brother/sister/friend get through a "hard part" of some game for them?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Cripes, people; read the patent before going all WHARRGARBL.
You cannot save progress that the game makes for you. It's right there in the patent, explicitly specified in no uncertain terms. When you turn off the demo mode, you're dropped back where you left off, not where the computer did. The computer can show you a path, but you still have to take it yourself. Except in puzzle games, knowing the path and walking the path are two very different things, and if knowing what to do makes it easy then something is wrong with the game design.
I am all for this if it means that they'll make the game actually difficult now. Recently Nintendo games have become way too easy, presumably because they don't want to frustrate casual players. With this demo feature, they can make the games provide more of a challenge without risking alienating casuals.
And most games picked it up from Nethack as you could use the Wizard Mode to change into invulnerability and complete the game. You couldn't keep your score but that's never stopped people from using it.
This is very similar to what I've been seeing out of Blizzard, but the opposite approach (and I think Blizzard has this right). Instead of pushing the "Easy Button", how about making all the content easy and making hard modes that you can do for mad props/cool cut scenes/phat loot/self gratification.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
But, hey, you paid for the game, I say you should be able to access all of its content, regardless of your playing skill.
If you think of content as just the graphics, or the levels, then I suppose this lets you access all the content. But if you think of content as the gameplay, then rather than letting you access it, this is taking it away from you (if you let it of course).
I certainly understand the sentiment though. I've seen enough games with ridiculous difficulty spikes (usually when a boss appears) where I used cheats as well - or simply gave up.
Oh I always rather liked having a little hidden cheat code that you had to look up to activate. It was kind of charming in its own way. But is this just going to be straight up in the menu? "Start Demo Mode New Game"? That would seem a bit hokey.
Way I see it, I bought it, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. "Cheat" only applies when competing on uneven term, e.g. online play. Also a "Cheat" can just as easily be a quick fix to bypass a poorly play-tested or unbalanced portion of a game. Games are designed by people, not infallible game-creating Gods.