And Yet It Moves (demo)

As they did last year, Nintendo has authorized the release of demos for new Wiiware games. Like last year, I'm looking at these demos as marketing tools not strictly as games. After all, it wouldn't be fair to rate full games on 20 or so minutes of play and they aren't being released for our amusement, but to sell us on the full product. Unlike last year, the demos don't automatically end with a trip to the Wii Shop Channel. Instead, you get to choose to replay the demo, go back to the Wii Menu or go buy the full game. It's a nice customer-friendly change that will not likely alter the sales totals.

And Yet It Moves takes the atmospheric, puzzle-platformer slot that was occupied by NyxQuest last year. The twist¹ this time is that the entire world can be spun 360° around the hero. Other than rotating left and right (and possibly upside down), the game restricts the plater to moving left, right and jumping. In the first level an impassible tunnel becomes a deep well to fall into with a 90° rotation. It's a limited verb set that brings the platform genre to the absolute essentials much like Terry Cavanagh's VVVVVV. In fact, entire levels can be completed with the world rotation mechanic alone if you don't let the little man touch anything before reaching the exit point.

And Yet It Moves showcases a simple art style inspired by paper collage. The main character appears a crudely drawn paper puppet, though he is in fact expertly animated. Background, foreground and platform scenery has been clipped from much larger images of rocks, logs, flowers and so on. To match the minimal art, only occasional ambient sounds and light sound effects are played: there's essentially no music. In contrast to the simple presentation, the gameplay exhibits an intuitive and sophisticated physics system. You can feel the puppet's mass, velocity and acceleration as you fall to limb-shattering doom.

Prior interest: low

It turns out I'd already played the PC demo of this game and while I did enjoy the premise, it didn't work for me. For some reason, my brain wants to press exactly the opposite buttons than the game requires of me to rotate the world. It's a problem that I run into a lot—my Y-axis always needs inverting. I was ok in the first level, which could be managed mostly on foot, but the second level demanded almost constant acrobatic world rotation that my Pooh brain would not perform. I see now that there is an option to swap the meaning of the left and right arrows, but back then I didn't bother to find it. Needless to say, the game was dismissed long before it came out on the Wii.

Odds of purchase: medium

As with the truly excellent World of Goo demo, the Wii controls implemented for AYIM are a revelation. On the PC, rotation must conform to discrete 90° or 180° turns, but the WiiWare version allows a turn to end at any convenient angle. Facilitating the variable turns are four² accurate analog control schemes: NES-style Wiimote, key-twisting Wiimote and Nunchuk, pointer-dragging Wiimote and Nunchuk, and Classic Controller. My favorite control is turning the Wiimote sideways which maps walking to the D-pad and world rotation to tilt controls. It's automatically more intuitive than any button-pressing scheme and puts the title back on my definitely/maybe list. This game is why demos exist.

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1 - See what I did there?

2 - Well at least I assume they are all accurate and analog. I don't have Classic Controller to test.

Mario Kart Wii

A while ago, the question reverberating around the internet was: "Can games be art?" One of the more interesting subquestions was: "What games would be best to show someone who doesn't play games to convince them they can be art?" My top five suggestions are:

1. Tetris
   
2. Civilization
   
3. Earthbound
   
4. Mario Kart
   
5. World of Goo
   

I'd guess that most gamers could get onboard with this list except for Mario Kart. It just doesn't look like an arty game.

In fact, Mario Kart looks like nothing more than Yogi's Space Race with Nintendo characters. Tetris defines abstract beauty, Civilization celebrates the grandeur of world history, Earthbound tells a story of a boy who is more extraordinary than he appears, World of Goo oozes with atmosphere worthy of a fantastical film, and Mario Kart is the professional wrestling of motor-sports. One of these things is not like the others. It meets the accessible criteria, but is it art? Besides the hurdle of being lowbrow, Mario Kart seems less artistic since it is focused wholly on being an utterly pragmatic game, which is to say: fun.

From the moment you pick up the WiiWheel, which eerily resembles the feel of an actual steering wheel, to the winner's circle ceremony you'll find yourself laughing, groaning, cheering and basically having a good time no matter how poor you are at the game. For each additional player in the room, that fun doubles. And it's all because of the first level of art: craftsmanship. Cave paintings, such as those at Lascaux, are considered art largely because of the painters' skill at representing their world. On a basic level, you know a game is well made when you are having fun playing it. (Occasionally, people suggest unfun games as art, which seems like suggesting Jackson Pollock as an example of skilled painting. Yes, he was skilled, but it's difficult for non-art enthusiasts to see why from his work.)

Mario Kart's goal is simple: get around the track three times faster than everyone else, but this isn't just a racing game. It's a game about making decisions: which character (it makes a difference), which vehicle, which track, when to rev the engine at the start, what line to take, when to use an item, and so on. Some of these decisions are clear (rocket start between 2 and 1), but most are balanced, which is to say reasonable people can disagree about which choice is best. For example, holding items until the perfect moment can be amazingly effective, but the longer an item is held the more likely another racer will force you to drop it. Like bluffing in poker or a sacrifice gambit in chess, the decision forces an estimate of risk versus reward.

Which brings us to the second level of art in games. Chris Farrell writes on board games:

To be grossly general, to the extent that we're willing to call games art, they are the art of decisions. Music generates feelings and emotions through sound. Literature is the art of words. Painting is visual art. Games create their impressions, feelings, and emotions through the decisions they ask you to make. Every complaint people make about games ultimately boils down to a problem with the decision-making (i.e., too much luck = my decisions don't make enough of a difference; too much downtime = I make decisions too infrequently; brain-burner = the decisions are too hard; the theme is a paste-up = the decisions I make don't seem authentic; and so on).

Mario Kart breaks down as overly luck-dependent for most serious players. Not that there isn't skill involved, rather items tend to level the playing field such that no driver can remain far ahead of the pack for long. Most infamously, the Blue Shell seeks out and destroys the current leader, which always seems to happen within sight of the checkered flag. Luck becomes particularly aggravating in the higher levers of the single-player Grand Prix mode where the computer AI can use all the game's speed-boosting abilities to perfection. The Wii edition seems not to feature "rubberbanding AI", but the most useful boosts are unavailable to the lead driver (slipstreaming, mushrooms, stars, thunder clouds, and especially Bullet Bills).

On the flip side, there are a number of modes that remove luck as a factor almost entirely, such as Time Trial (which comes as close to a standard racing game as Mario Kart gets) and VS. Mode (which allows players to turn off item boxes altogether). In fact, the game seems to bend over backwards to provide the player with as many amusements as possible: local multi-player, internet multi-player (world, region and friends variations), two Battle modes, semi-regular tournaments that challenge players to unusual races and battles, online leader boards, and ghost characters to download and race against in simple time trials. Reviewers of the game only lamented the loss of free-for-all battle mode. (Pro tip: the game does tally individual scores and shows them at the end of each battle and series.)

The broad appeal of Mario Kart counts against it's credentials as Art since we are used to art being inaccessible to the masses. Shakespeare, for instance, requires sophistication and a monumental vocabulary to be enjoyed. Only, of course, in his own time when The Globe hosted standing-room-only crowds of people who could only afford a penny for an afternoon's entertainment, Shakespeare was seen as uncouth by the Elizabethan equivalents of Roger Ebert. Now Mario Kart isn't Hamlet, but it might be The Merry Wives of Windsor.

I don't think Nintendo looks at what they do as creating art. Over and over, the Iwata Asks column addresses practical design decisions to the exclusion of aesthetic or artistic concerns. However, like a Leonardo da Vinci sketch, Mario Kart observes the fundamentals of the racing game genre with style and precision. The secret seems to be the collection of tracks which deftly evoke the feeling of Formula One or rally racing or a movie car chase or demolition derby or, of course, kart racing. Add in fantastical space settings and inventive dashes through gigantic trees, and you have a masterpiece of imagination.

In a world that acknowledges Andy Warhol as artist, it seems odd to exclude Shigeru Miyamoto. The difference seems to me that the former's canvas is, well, canvas and the later's is pixels on a TV.

Entertainment value: Collection of arcade racing cabinets set on freeplay.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Reviews are the crystallization of an experience the reviewer enjoyed (or endured) and with luck and skill it represents an indication of what consumers of the review can expect from a game if they were to try it themselves. The climactic scene in Ratatouille features an aloof food critic who tastes the titular dish and recalls an incident from childhood when the meal soothed him. It is a touching scene, but the review itself, which is read in a voice over, does not mention the experience or the dish itself, but rather the skill of the chef who produced it. Experience is individual, but skill at producing an experience is universal.

Generally, reviewers are able to easily separate the quality of a game from the circumstances of their experience of playing it. Even if your cat just died or you were recently married, you'll still be able to say that World of Goo is pretty good and M&M's Kart Racing is terrible. But not always.

Any pleasure sensor gets numb if it's been stimulated too much for too long. That's why we love the N64 kid. We no longer get orgasmic unwrapping toys at Christmas so we try to experience the pleasure vicariously. Similarly, game journalists have played games since they were sucking their thumbs and play as many games in a week as most people play in a year. In particular, every one of them obsessed about at least one iteration of Super Mario Bros., if not all of them. No new Super Mario Bros. game can match the high they got playing a Mario 2D platformer for the first time. They are more to be pitied than censured, actually.

I never really played Mario as a youngster (I was a PC gamer until recently), so I went back and played a few levels of some NES, SNES, Game Boy and DS Mario platformmers. These are all great games (even SMB2 in it's own special way). They are challenging, colorful, intriguing, and addicting. But they are also very, very similar to each other (except SMB2). The first "?" block in World 1-1? Hit it and it yields a Super Mushroom. The first enemy is always a stompable Goomba. Try all the pipes until you find the one that takes you to a secret level with lots of coins. There will be underground levels and water levels and air levels. Bowser or one of his minions will be at the end of lava-filled castle levels. If you search hard enough (or get clued in from an outside source), you'll find a way to warp ahead to a distant level. As time goes on, more level themes, enemies, puzzles and power-ups are added to the formula. It's more of an evolutionary process than revolutionary.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii, despite it's convoluted name, turns out to be a brilliant update of the 2D Mario formula. To be sure all the original pieces are still in place and there are plenty of new bits added. If you've never played Mario, you'll find yourself hooked like I am and like game journalists were in their formative years. Gameplay, graphics, music, sound, and levels have been given a 1-Up or two. This version can be seen as the definitive edition for those new to the series.

The world has changed since the last 2D Mario for a home console (Super Mario World for the SNES). Most reviewers would be thinking of HD TVs, the internet and the changing demographics of gamers. So most reviews take this time to lament graphics recycled from the DS, the lack of online anything and no playable female characters. (But wait! Toads can be difficult to sex even for other toads. Mario games may be more gender neutral than we thought.) While these are fair criticisms, this review will instead point out that entertainment options have exploded over the last couple of decades. You don't need to wait for Saturday morning to watch cartoons anymore or listen to whatever the goofy local DJ decides to play on the radio. What that means for game designers is that they have to work a lot harder to suck players into the experience.

So designers might go big by producing huge cut scenes and story inviting players to press forward. Or go small by filling a disk with dozens of bit-sized mini-games. Or lower the difficulty. Or exploit the desire to connect with other by adding multiplayer options. Or feed players at intervals with DLC. Or just use sex, violence and bathroom humor. Most blockbuster games do several of these things. But Nintendo had limited options when it came to console 2D platformers. (Handheld games don't have to worry about the problem since they can rely on a more captive audience who is riding the train to work or waiting for the dentist.)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii solves the problem by serving up bite-sized levels and giving players ways to get past tough sections. None of the levels take more than 5 minutes to finish even if you take it pretty slow. There are checkpoint flags halfway through every level to avoid replaying the early parts of a stage too often. You can "Quick Save" at any time in the overworld or hard save after finishing a tower or castle stage. 1-Ups are fairly easy to obtain and continues are infinite. Mushroom houses and overworld enemies grant powerups that can be applied before beginning a level. Hint movies may be purchased with Star Coins. Being able to advance in multiplayer as well as single player helps quite a bit. (More on this below.) Finally Nintendo added Super Guide, which veteran Mario fans will never see as it only shows up if you die 8 times in a row. (I however saw and heard it tempting me constantly.)

These helps are necessary because the game get difficult quickly. With the helps you can usually make some sort of progress in every play session. For those who afraid they make the game too easy, understand that none of them are required. Even the midlevel flags can be bypassed by jumping over them. Anyone who thinks this Mario outing is too easy can be safely ignored unless their save game slot looks like this:

Needless to say, the levels are brilliantly laid out. When you tackle a level for the first time, enemies and hazards seem to be placed where they can cause the most havoc. But then you "stumble" on ways to get around the level more easily. For instance, there's an early level where you are riding an elevator that picks up hordes of Koopa Troopas. Initially, this spot looks like it will be impossible to beat. But then you "happen" to hit one and kick their shell across the screen which takes the rest of enemies and produces an easy 1-Up. Don't think for a moment that the sequence was accidental. Players are meant to discover and be delighted by this solution. And that isn't even the best way to handle the elevator as revealed by a hint video available in the game.

Once a level is beaten, there are plenty reasons to return including three Star Coins, which serve as optional challenges. Early on, Star Coins appear not far from the beaten path of a level. Then they are placed a bit out of reach until you hit on the method of reaching them. Finally, they are hidden with just the barest hint of where to look. Pretty soon the game has you trained to look for any imperfection or oddity to see if there might be some secret hidden in that part of the level—a habit that will often be rewarded with secret areas.

What makes these levels more amazing is that they work in multiplayer situations as well. Way back in 1983, Shigeru Miyamoto followed up the arcade hit Donkey Kong with
Mario Bros. featuring both Mario and Luigi. Together they earned money by clearing pipes of creatures such as turtles and crabs. It's notable that the game can be played by one or two players with each earning an individual score. But it's best played cooperatively as each enemy requires at least two hits to be defeated. Working together prolongs the game. In the main story of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, multiplayer works the same way. Each player has their own set of lives (which are replenished between levels if needed) yet completing levels requires cooperation and communication.

Multiplayer Mario has been called Divorce Mode, which is a pretty clever phrase that reveals as much about the players as it does about the game. Here's the deal: you have to learn to take turns and talk to each other. It's a team sport. With the extra players there are more ways to die and more ways to survive. On the one hand Mario can slam Luigi into a bottomless pit mid-jump. But he can also bounce Blue Toad up to a difficult-to-reach platform. A level doesn't end until all players fail (or time runs out), which means one person can camp in a safe area while everyone else takes risks and pushes ahead. There's no need for the Super Guide either, since players can save themselves or skip ahead to the lead player by bubbling up. If you press "A" in mulitplayer your character will go into a bubble just as if you'd died but doesn't use a life. Using these strategies, two of my brothers and and my brother-in-law nearly beat the game in an afternoon over the Christmas break.

When I play with my son, who hasn't mastered video games yet, I take care of enemies and carry his character past difficult bits. Our favorite early level features Yoshi, who makes the game much easier. But when you get hit riding Yoshi, he runs back and forth like a decapitated chicken, which totally frustrates my son. Thankfully, my Yoshi can swallow his character and spit him out another Yoshi thus saving the day (or at least the level). For those of you complaining about power-ups going to the wrong player, you need to learn where they are hidden during single player games and tell your partner where to stand to pick them up. You are responsible for your less-skilled friends.

Competitive types will have a chance to show off in Free-for-All and coin battle modes. Nintendo added five extra levels for Coin Battle and also added a ton of coins to the regular levels so that they are filled with coin-collecting opportunities. Some levels are unlocked from the start (so you can ride the terrifying Bonecoasters of level 8-7) and others become available as you beat worlds in story mode. One clever feature of these modes is that the game remembers which levels you play most often and saves them as favorite levels so they can be replayed easily. Neither is (or should be) the goto mode of New Super Mario Bros., but both are fun additions.

Speaking of which, I find it odd that many reviews complain that multiplayer is unfair and that it's not online. Often these complaints are linked in the same paragraph. How does that make sense? The latest Call of Duty game, which has a huge budget, geared toward online multiplayer competition and designed by veterans of the genre. And almost immediately players found and exploited glitches in the game to screw over opponents. Though it would be fun to play against my brother who lives in Texas, there's no reason to not play Mario Kart. At least that game is designed from the ground up to mess with the play of others.

Not adding online anything fits into what Nintendo seemed to have in mind with their latest Mario game: do everything right or not do it at all. It's not a perfect game, but it is nearly flawless. A perfect game would include the features everyone wishes for and do them all well. No game can reach that standard and New Super Mario Bros. Wii doesn't try. Rather, it tries to be a fun challenging game that can be enjoyed years from now as it's being enjoyed today.

Entertainment value: playing the original Super Mario Bros. with your son, wife and grandfather all at the same time.

World of Goo (Demo)

World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game using Goo Balls—among the most unusual construction materials ever imagined. The standard black Goo Ball forms a semi-rigid spar when dragged near an existing structure. Other colors have different properties: green may be repositioned after placed, red inflate into buoyant balloons, etc. Each level is built around the idea of helping Goo escape out of a vacuum pipe positioned in some awkward location. Unattached Goo Balls run on the structure you created in order to escape and serve as a scoring mechanism.

Prior interest: high

Of the first round of WiiWare demos, the World of Goo was the only game I'd previously played as it had been released with a demo on PC. Thanks to gushing reviews and a few minutes with the demo, I was already interested in the game. In addition, the publisher (2D Boy) gave away the soundtrack, which I always appreciate. Since then, they posted some thoughts on game design and sold the PC version of the game for, well, whatever you feel like paying. So they have a lot of my goodwill if not my money. The only question I had was if the WiiWare version would be a better choice.

Odds of purchase: high

World of Goo uses pointer control exclusively, which limits the potential platforms for it. On the PC, there is just one pointer: the mouse. The Wii has the ability to display up to 4 pointers using the Wiimote, which ought to be used more often by game designers. Super Mario Galaxy's coop play is a bit silly, but giving the second player an onscreen pointer turns out to be both useful and clever. World of Goo on WiiWare runs with the idea in that 4 players can grab Goo Balls and add to the structure all at once. For some levels, like the giant tumbler level that requires throwing up a tower quickly before the floor moves out from under you, the extra hands are very useful.

Ultimately, the multi-player option is likely to be the reason I'd buy this game. On the PC, it's a fun diversion. The demo shows off some of the game's tricks and certainly leaves me wanting more, but on the PC I'll just move onto one of hundreds of demo or adware puzzle games that proliferate on the internet. But the same game with another pointer or three turns into a community experience. For now, the demo can be pulled out when the family tires of bowling and tennis and eventually, someone will want to do more than just play the first few levels over and over.