Posts Tagged ‘Nintendo’

Sep
17
2009

Too Late for Kurt Cobain in GH5 but we can stop Ant and Dec Game

The use of Kurt Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5 has caused a fairly big uproar. His old band mates from Nirvana have condemned it and more recently Jon Bon Jovi weighed in agreeing with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic that it is distasteful. Cobain’s ex naturally came out and had a moan as well even though it was her that signed an agreement with Activision allowing the use of his likeness. In typical Courtney Love style she leeches yet more money from the memory of her husband while simultaneously moaning about it.

There is no doubt that he would not have approved and that’s reason enough to not do it. Have some respect you big business whores. Reviving corpses to make extra money is a filthy act. We were all screwed on this after the first big profile case when the family of Steve McQueen agreed to line their own pockets and let Ford use him in a car advert, splicing together footage from his films. It seems you no longer have any rights after you die and your greedy, graspy family can whore your likeness out to the highest bidder.

Sadly there isn’t too much we can do about Cobain in Guitar Hero 5 other than not buy it. This is the only way the game was going to get this level of publicity because it is a tired series which has pushed on past its sell by date. Just like the truly great bands you have to die or break up to leave a genuinely awesome legacy.

Talking about celebrity appearances in videogames it may be too late for Kurt but we can do something to prevent Ant and Dec appearing in videogame form. I’m referring to this story at MCV which reports that Nintendo have signed them up. Prepare for the ultimate awful Wii release. I’m not against them using a videogame likeness of Ant and Dec out of respect, more because they are a couple of overexposed no talent arseholes. For non UK readers who have never heard of them, I envy you.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Jun
26
2009

Wii The Choice of Non-Gamers?

WiiIs the Wii console really a good thing? I’ve been reviewing lots of Wii games recently and despite all the blabbing about the funky peripherals and potentially interesting ways to use them the majority of games for the Wii are seriously sub-standard and completely fail to use the Wii remote in any interesting way.

The Nintendo crusade to get everyone playing the Wii has rendered it hopelessly mainstream and the result is an awful lot of mediocre or flat out rubbish titles. Then you get titles like EA Sports Active which isn’t even a game. It’s a personal fitness trainer and, like Wii Fit, it is undeniably a good idea if you want to draw in an audience traditionally uninterested in gaming.

The contrast between gamers who tend to flog their Wii’s off after a few months when the novelty wears off and non-gamers who can’t seem to get enough Wii action is striking. The thing is that mainstream market is much bigger than the niche hardcore gaming market that Sony and Microsoft are scrapping over. Nintendo have cleverly managed to release the technically least impressive device with the largest profit margin for hardware and a novelty controller and they’ve captured the mainstream market.

There are still reasons for gamers to own a Wii but you have to choose carefully. Novelty titles and retro games are the best titles on offer, recently I enjoyed Let’s Tap and Punch-Out!!

There is no getting away from the fact that Nintendo have allowed an awful lot of rubbish to be released and personally I find it dispiriting and worrying for the industry that a lot of terrible titles on the Wii sell more than awesome titles on other platforms simply because the audience is larger and less discerning.

Tags:
Posted in Wii | 3 Comments »