Nintendo’s Portal 2

Ninety percent of the year my Wii has one task: collect dust, and damn well do it good. One hundred percent of the time, it does this flawlessly. But every so often I look down at my Wii and wonder about what more it could be doing.

If you were Frued you might be right, incidentally.

Moving on, there’s one missed opportunity that always comes to my mind. A game I always, without doubt, believe the Wii was invented for. Luigi’s Mansion 2.

You might look at the title of this post and make the connection. You might not. But luckily for you, Mr. Unobservant, connecting these dots is why we’re here. In 2007 Valve released Portal as an experiment bundled with the hotly anticipated Team Fortress 2, and the equally as anticipated Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Portal ultimately stole the show and walked away with being one of 2007′s Games of the Year. The quiet word from Valve’s mouth before Portal was released that, basically, if the game did okay they would consider a sequel.

Sequel it is! with Portal 2 on the way in a matter of months as of this writing.

Admittedly, Luigi’s Mansion is no Portal. It had the distinction of being a launch title for the GameCube, an honored thing for sure, but it never came close to Portal’s runaway success and explosive fandom and oft repeated quoting (to the eventual annoyance of all of Internetland). Regardless, I believe there’s no doubting how important Luigi’s Mansion 2 would be. Luigi’s Mansion could be described, perhaps unfairly, as a tech demo. A showpiece of the GameCube’s graphical prowess. A demo with limited gameplay, and short length, but undoubtedly FUN.

Does that sound like another game? Maybe? A game that begins with P and ends with ortal?

If you were thinking Paraplégiques Kombat des Mortal, you’re incorrect.

Animal Crossing City Folk

When the Wii came out in 2006 I was right up there in line at 6:00 in the morning, waiting for the doors to open on what seemed like the first day of the rest of my life. The Wii was supposed to be Revolutionary, right? Gaming was supposed to get a whole lot better, and it didn’t matter what kind of graphics capability the Wii had or even how much power. The games were supposed to be great and the Wii remote and nunchuck were supposed to throw you into the experience all the more.

Yeah, right.

I’m not going to say a bunch of stuff and claim I’m the first to feel this way. By now it’s a pretty common feeling among those who bought the Wii. The system itself is still great, there’s no doubt there. The problem is with Nintendo. Their output as of late is uninspired, and to get to my point quickly, it’s games like Animal Crossing City Folk that don’t help the situation.

Now I will admit that after boycotting the game, packing up my Wii, cursing Nintendo, and falling madly in love with my year-and-a-half old Xbox 360… I’ve picked up a copy of City Folk after reengaging myself with Animal Crossing Wild World for the DS these last few weeks. Despite the lazy effort with City Folk, Animal Crossing as a franchise is mad fun and it is nice to have an amalgam of the original N64/GameCube version and the DS version into a tightly knit Wii package. City Folk isn’t that bad, and I enjoy it.

So, should you rush out and buy it? I don’t know. I still chastise Nintendo over it. But for anyone who had never played an Animal Crossing game before, it’s going to be an absolutely brilliant purchase. Otherwise, you have to be, well, someone like me who eventually just loves things anyway and doesn’t mind playing the same game for the third time. In other words, sickeningly forgiving.