DUDE, DID YOU SEE THAT? That’s Punch-Out!! And it’s really, seriously Punch-Out!!(!). Croissants fly out of Glass Joe’s head when he gets knocked out. King Hippo is as hideous and unnerving as ever. If you give me Don Flamenco in all his flamboyance and Soda Popinski (or Vodka Drunkenski) I will love you forever, Nintendo. And I do mean physically.

This past week I completed Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol. I’m not sure how you can really finish a game that’s centers around the endless fight against pollution, but I managed to do it.

Funny thing: this was actually a good game. The core mechanics were great. You play as a robot dude who runs around this barren park. You use your squirt gun to water buds, which turn into flowers, which give off more buds. When a bud turns into a flower, you get “happy points,” which are turned into watts. You can use watts to either recharge Chibi-Robo or take small actions to improve the park, like tilling the soil… which would allow you to plant more flowers. It’s an endless cycle. And all the while these smog monsters are killing your flowers and trying to get up in your face. It may not sound like much, but if you’re the type of person who loves that sort of reward system (where the next goal is always so close) it might as well be a socially acceptable form of crack (I can use it on the bus!).

I blew through Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol in, like, two weeks. For me, that’s crazy. Who knew that gardening simulations could be so addictive? Oh no… do you think this is what Viva Piñata is like? I’ve resisted it’s call for so long… maybe the time has come. But I have so much I still want to do in life! I have goals, dreams. Am I ready to trade that all for a future that consists of nothing but tweaking foliage to attract anthropomorphic Mexican oddities?

Side Note: I actually really like the Viva Piñata cartoon that’s on Saturday mornings. This could be because I am a goddamn child. Seriously, the fact that I even have an opinion about a Saturday morning cartoon should tell you a lot about my personality. I watch cartoons, play video games, drink beer, look at boobs on the internet and… um, write lots of papers analyzing the role of Gesamtkunstwerk in contemporary media. Basically, everything my eight-year-old self fantasized about doing when he grew up.

There are some failings to Chibi-Robo, though. Mainly because it’s a bit too wishy-washy for the subject matter. There should have been some sort of clarification as to where energy comes from for the sake of our younglings. Like, how it’s actually comes from large power plants that are often causing the pollution Chibi-Robo does battle against. I imagine that may have come up in the planning stages and the developers opted to go for something a little less hopeless. And call it “happy points.” It also may have been important to illustrate that pollution isn’t a cute creature that frolics in your vegetable garden, let alone a tangible thing you can conquer with a squirt gun. Our children are sheltered enough without this sort of candy veneer being thrown over something they should be worried about. But, then again, when I was a kid I thought that the manhole in front of my house was a gateway to a magical world of talking turtles with extraordinary martial arts abilities, so who am I to judge?

Just once I’d like to see a game that taught children about failure, or at least the Sisyphean struggle associated with certain ideals. It would have been great if Chibi-Robo had woken up every morning, gone out to his park to find it a mess, then spent the day cleaning it up only to have to do it all over again the next day. Then again, I’m not sure if that would have been a good game. Something like September 12th, which is sublime in the way it handles it’s subject matter, lacks that aspect of fun that most people expect from a game.

Now that I’m thinking about it: have you ever heard of Wall Street Kid? It was surprisingly good (for a NES-era life simulator). You play as a certain Mr. Benedict, the biggest WASP to ever be portrayed in an 8-bit game. The premise is that Mr. Benedict’s uncle has died and left him with a nice chunk of inheritance, but under one condition: the player has a short period of time to take some minor seed money and become a success playing the stock market. You spend most of your time staring at a screen like this:

Yapple Computers for $74 a share? Dude, buy that shit! Trust me, just hold on to it until Steve Yobs comes back on as CEO. Also, grab up some Yoogle as soon as the IPO hits… it’s never going to come down!

The entire game is spent trading stocks, trying to build your assets, then blowing them on unnecessary objects in the trappings of typical American excess… which is, sadly, the gameplay mechanic that hooks me on these titles. All the while you have to balance this greed with courting ladies, going to the gym, and trying to score reservations at Dorsia.

The nice part about Wall Street Kid is that, unlike Chibi-Robo’s battle against pollution, this situation is practically impossible to win. Not because the gameplay itself is difficult, but because it’s accurately modeled after the ridiculous standards of success the modern world has come to accept.

• Acquire a house worth at least a million dollars.
• Purchase a massive yacht.
• Get married.
• Keep your wife happy with meaningless but expensive gifts.
• Buy a ridiculously pricey ancient castle that was owned by your Aryan ancestors.

Just like real life! And, just like real life, it’s completely impossible (at least without abusing the password system). Seriously, I remember sinking a fair number of hours into this title and never even coming close to winning. My friends were mostly confused by the whole concept and never wanted to try it, so maybe I just suck at stock market simulators. I did have to take economics twice in high school, and even then I only passed because I was stuck with the remedial group due to a scheduling error. Those kids thought I was the coolest.

When you fail at one of the game’s ridiculous goals (like coming up with a million dollars for your house payment by March 1st), that’s it. Your character loses everything and you’re forced to restart (or reenter your last password). There are no continues and no extra lives. It’s refreshing to see a game not sugarcoat things and just tell them like they are in real life. It’s not like some fairy tale where the government grabs seven-hundred-billion dollars from the average taxpayer because Mr. Bigwig on Wall Street has to make payments on his frickin’ castle. It doesn’t work that way in the real world, and I applaud Wall Street Kid for not having any such ludicrous deus ex machina.

You’ve got to think about what it’s teaching the children, after all.

My Game Mug appears to serve no other purpose than hooking up lonely, unsatisfied gamers such as myself with one another for late night multiplayer matches (and potentially sex in the long run, although I think that’s implied by most social networking sites). Could there be someone out there that shares my love of pretentious rantings on the nature of games as a medium? I couldn’t resist. My future pals were just forty questions and a mandatory registration away!

Question number one: Do You Love Video Games: head over heels in love or only as a friend? Well, they kept it as two words, so this is off to a good start. I guess I really never thought about this question before. I mean, I enjoy playing games… but the current state of the industry leaves a lot to be desired. I feel that video games as a whole right now are full of wasted potential. I may love Super Mario World, but I don’t love Madden 2009 or any of the other shovelware that’s dumped out by major publishers on a weekly basis. So I’m going to have to answer no to this question. Except, um, “no” isn’t an option; they had to be cheeky with the whole thing. Maybe that’s what 18-25 year old males are looking for in a social gaming site.

Question number two: What game are you playing right now or your favorite game? I really think that should be two separate questions, or at the very least proper english. I mean, I’m playing Chibi Robo Park Patrol right now, but there’s no way it’s my favorite game. Similarly, some of my favorite games I don’t want to play anymore just because the memories are so strong. Do film buffs who loved Schindler’s List pop the VHS screener in every few months? I guess I should just list off a couple games I adore and some I’ve been playing lately: Super Metroid, Worms, Persona 3 and the tutorial for the Facebreaker demo.

The next two questions are pretty straightforward, about my penis and which consoles I own. As always, I’m saddened by the fact that the Game Boy Advance is no longer considered a major platform. Maybe there’s a question about that later on.

Question Number Five: Do you regularly trash talk when you play? Of course. Who doesn’t? Unless I’m playing strangers online, in which case I keep anything potentially hurtful out of the game because I’m not exactly familiar with their mental history. I always thought that was common sense before I started using Xbox Live. So, no, I guess I don’t trash talk in what the adopted sense is.

Question Number Six: Do you care if others trash talk? This might as well be “Do you like playing with racist homophobes?” No thanks.

Question Number Seven: Doctors recommend short breaks between gaming sessions. Do you follow this rule of thumb? Yes. But I call them cigarette breaks and booze runs.

Question Number Eight: Would you or have you ever gone to a video game convention or competition? I think this question wants to know if you’re afraid of other people finding out that you like video games. PAX is supposed to be fun, and I’m planning on going to Philadelphia’s VG Expo in Novmber. So, yeah, I don’t care if the outside world sees me dressed up in a homemade Ganondorf costume (the beard used to be a Raggedy Ann!).

Question Number Nine: Your “significant other” calls you during a VERY important gaming session. Do you pick up the phone, or ignore it? I’m not really sure why “significant other” has to be in quotes. I’m also not sure how important any gaming session can be unless there’s some sort of tele-surgical equipment out there that keeps track of your high score. Really, do you want to be the douchebag who missed the call about your wife needing an immediate blood transfusion because you were totally just five minutes from a save point? Because there are people out there like that. They always cosplay as Sephiroth.

Question Number Ten: Do games always get your adrenaline pumping hard??? It should be noted that the “yes” option has three exclamation points to match the enthusiasm of the original question. I can’t say that any game outside of Wii Fit has gotten my adrenaline pumping at all, let alone hard. That’s normally reserved for, you know… doing stuff. Like going outside. Or having sex. Oh God, do you think there’s going to be a question about that?

Question Number Eleven: Do you watch anime or read manga? Um, I don’t know, I guess so. I don’t actively avoid anime or manga. I also tend to think of them more as “television/films” or “books” without getting hung up on stylistic choices. I suppose this question is trying to figure out if I’m an obsessive wannabe otaku whose biggest dream in life is to visit a maid cafe in Akihabara. In which case… maybe.

Question Number Twelve: Which is sexier: highly addictive gameplay or very realistic graphics? Well, I don’t really desire any of my vices to be labeled as highly addictive, but I’ll gladly take it over a pair of weightless boobs trapped in the uncanny valley. Not to mention that — wait, sexier? Seriously? Wow.

Question Number Thirteen: Have you recently engaged in a debate or argument about video games? Yes, but the argument was “what happens to all the Virtual Console games when we break up?” Maybe they’re trying to see if I’m the type of person who will threaten rape and dismemberment if another speaks ill of my favorite console. I tend to get in spirited debates about game design decisions and the validity of many titles, but I can’t say I’ve ever gotten angry while discussing a video game. Oh wait, I forgot about the red ring of death. Fuck Microsoft and any pansy ass who supports them.

Question Number Fourteen: Can the average of any two consecutive prime numbers ever be prime? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Although there is an option for “who cares?”, I don’t think I want to play video games with anyone who does not know the answer to this. In fact, I’m going to ask any gaming friends I meet through this service why just so I know they didn’t Google it while taking the initial survey.

Question Number Fifteen: Would you date someone that you’ve only met in an online game? Call me old fashioned, but… what? I’m pretty sure that’s an awkward misunderstanding, not dating.

Question Number Sixteen: At the end of the day, do cheaters ever win? I suppose I should start thinking of these questions purely as they relate to video games instead of treating them as grand philosophical debates. So, no, cheaters don’t win, they either get banned or their exploit gets patched.

Question Number Seventeen: If you suck at an online game and an opportunity to cheat presents itself. Would you take it? Only if the cheat had really hilarious results, like all the weapons turn into giant salamis and the in-game music is replaced with Yakkity Sax.

Question Number Eighteen: You have an impulse to try to find every secret and accomplish every goal in every game. This is where the site stops being nice and starts being real. This isn’t a true or false question, it flat out just told me that I’m a completionist. It is calculating my gamer personality, so I suppose it should just trust it… which kind of sucks because I don’t have to free time to shoot two hundred pigeons right now.

Question Number Nineteen: Your mission presents a large critical objective to accomplish. Do you set a plan or jump right in? I guess a lot of games have missions now, enough so that there’s no need to explain what the hell this question is about. I set a plan? Only after jumping right in and seeing what’s going on. Maybe I don’t play the type of games this is addressing. My mission normally consists of nothing more than “beat the bad guy” or “move right until you win.”

At this point, I’m presented with a hard truth: the site is, in fact, not meant to get gamers laid. Disappointing or comforting, I’m not sure. The graphic is kind of frightening, though.

Question Number Twenty: Tell the truth. In your opinion, in most video games you play online, your skill is above average, average, or below average? How the hell am I supposed to know? If I had friends to play online with I wouldn’t need to use this stupid site! I’ll say “below average,” because my Bejeweled score doesn’t even come close to making the top ten.

Question Number Twenty-One: How long have you been playing video games? The fact that the choices top out at “more than 13 years” makes me feel very, very old. I choose “less than 5 years” because I don’t want to be lumped in with the people who are searching for a partner for their retirement community’s upcoming Wii Sports tourney.

Question Number Twenty-Two: When forming a team from a pool of players, do you choose the best players or players that play well together? As we all learned from the MLB All Star Team, just sticking the best players together on a team leads to absolute apathy. I’ll choose whatever is on PBS instead.

Question Number Twenty-Three: Drama occurs between you and another player. Who’s to blame? The failings of mankind.

Question Number Twenty-Four: Which profession is more appealing: soldier or medic? Is this, like… in a video game? I’d probably choose the medic because you can learn valuable life skills that’ll be useful in finding a career once you’re discharged. Also, why would I want to kill when I could heal? Especially in a never-ending war like the one in Iraq, or the one presented in your average multiplayer FPS. Seriously, I’d love for a company to shut down their servers one day and give all players a message saying “ARMISTICE HAS BEEN REACHED!”

Question Number Twenty-Five: All your gaming friends start playing a game you despise. Do you join them, play something else or find new friends? I assume this refers to some sort of online gathering, as the latter two options would be pretty harsh in real life. But if they’re playing a game I despise online, how would I join them? I would need a copy of the game in question, and if I despised it so much why would I own it? Clearly the only correct answer here is “stop taking this survery.”

Question Number Twenty-Six: How often do you play video games? (read carefully) Too much, just enough, or not enough? Oh snap, they almost pulled a trick question on me! Only not really, but I’m guessing that’s what the “read carefully” alert is supposed to indicate. “Just enough,” because I’m an adult who knows how to regulate my leisure activities, thanks.

Question Number Twenty-Seven: When you buy a game, an average realistic time frame in finishing it would be closest to: 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year or never? If there are really people out there who buy a current generation game and manage to complete it in a day, I doubt they’d be actively trying to find friends using a networking site. I’d put myself at closer to “never,” because this survey is starting to make me hate video games.

Question Number Twenty-Eight: When do you usually play games: morning, afternoon, night, late night, weekdays and/or weekends? I’ve always thought I was strange for mostly gaming on weekday nights while leaving weekends for doing real life stuff, but now I’ll be able to find the person who has the other half of this gaming schedule pendant!

Question Number Twenty-Nine: Do you care about the age of those you play with? Hmm… tricky. On one hand I don’t like to discriminate, on the other I wouldn’t want to go to jail. I’ll play it safe and answer “yes.”

Question Number Thirty: Do you play video games more for the challenge (ie. to win) or for the experience (ie. entertainment)? I wish “the potential for artistic expression” was an option. I’ll have to go with “the experience.” If I was just playing for the satisfaction of winning I’d probably pick something with absolutely no challenge like Barbie’s Horse Adventures or any Square-Enix RPG.

Oh, Question Number Thirty-One changes things up a bit! And, really, I’m having a hard time believing this site’s purpose is anything other than finding love for lonely geeks. I mean… highly skilled, commanding and a nerd? That’s the woman and/or man of my dreams.

Question Number Thirty-Two: Can a video game character’s sexual attraction convince you to buy that game? I was wondering when they were going to cover this. It’s important in explaining why Death by Degrees made it past the planning stages and somehow into my game collection.

Question Number Thirty-Three: You are God for one day. Your goal: wreck havoc upon the world or provide salvation to all? Wow. Um, I know what my answer would be, but I’m actually kind of curious as to how the majority of people would answer this. If more than ten percent chose the first I’d probably just stop playing games all together and go join the Peace Corps or something.

Question Number Thirty-Four: Your fellow gamers needs your participation NOW. You have a report due tomorrow morning. Do you do the report or help your leader, then stay up all night to do the report? A report on what? Time traveling back to the fifth grade when reports were assigned to me on a regular basis?

Question Number Thirty-Five: When you discover a bug in a game: report it or exploit it? I actually caught all those golden bugs in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. True story. And I had a pretty good collection going on in Animal Crossing for a while. I’ll just skip this question.

Question Number Thirty-Six: Next to your toilet: kama sutra or player’s guide/cheats? Who the hell would practice the Kama Sutra in the bathroom? I’ll go with a player’s guide, because it won’t make me slip and crack my head open on the tub.

Question Number Thirty-Seven: What do you think of professional gaming: devoted fan, fun to watch or don’t care? Really? There are fans of professional gaming? I thought the entire world was in agreement that it’s probably the worst thing that could happen to gaming. This survey is making me feel sad.

Question Number Thirty-Eight: A popular game is launched and there are limited copies being sold for the first week: camp overnight or pick it up later when available? I don’t know. I camped out for the Wii, but that was more about the idea of communally camping out for something exciting, not the console itself (although I do enjoy it quite a bit). I got up an hour early to buy Super Smash Bros Brawl on release day, so I guess that bumps me into the hopelessly nerdy group no matter what.

Question Number Thirty-Nine: Assume you are a video game master. Finish the sentence: I am… 1337 pwnage, or very skilled with video games. Okay, first off, there’s no such thing as a video game master. That’s some shit Todd Holland made up to sell copies of Super Mario Bros 3. And while I can occasionally overlook leet speak, there’s absolutely no excuse for the travesty presented by this question. 1337 pwnage? That doesn’t even make sense. If that’s how a video game master talks, I never want to touch a video game again.

Question Number Forty: Um, I guess there are actually only thirty-nine questions. I’m a bit unsure as to how my answer for the prime number question will be ranked, considering the site can’t even count to forty without getting confused.

And now, the moment of truth. My gaming personality is…

Wait, my gaming personality? I thought I was answering these questions to find someone to play games with. Instead the whole thing was a LiveJournal “What Bread Are You?” type of quiz. Apparently I’m the type that can give disembodied handjobs through a controller.  I dug around for a bit and managed to find the “personality matches” section on the MyGameMug website. But every profile I click on looks like this:

Awesome. I wasted, like, twelve minutes filling out this damn quiz. And then I wasted another three hours writing a stupid blog post about it. This is what happens when you’re hopeful! I’m guess I’m going to stick to meeting gamers the old fashion way: getting them drunk at college parties, then talking them into playing NBA Jam back at my place.

You see, the last game I finished was Resident Evil 4, about six months ago. I mean “finished” in the sense that the story was brought to a conclusion. The thing is that the game came out in 2005. The only reason I actually completed it was because the gameplay was so fucking fantastic (and the controls on the Wii edition so easy to readjust to) that it was quite easy to jump back in to after a long hiatus. The fact that the story was practically non-existent also helped; the only plot point I really needed to remember when playing the game was “shoot zombies.” Most games I’ll play for a while, get distracted by real life, and then struggle with finding an entry point.

Final Fantasy XII was disastrous in this regard. I loved the pseudo-real time battle system and the interesting license board, but the time commitment was something I just could not deal with. After putting the game down for a few weeks, I’d return to it and be completely lost. Most of the time I’d be in the middle of a side quest or puzzle and just have no idea what I was supposed to do. Following an FAQ/walkthrough wouldn’t help, mainly because those types of things written by people who do nothing other than immerse themselves in the world of a single title and commit every detail to memory.

How am I supposed to make sense of that when I haven’t touched the game in a month? Even if I skipped the side quests and just tried to further the story I’d still be lost, thanks to Final Fantasy’s trademark convoluted narratives. This one’s even worse because it’s about politics. I guess the average fanboy is all grown up now and wants to argue on the internet about what really matters… military conflicts in the fictional land of Ivalice. And, uh, crystals and magical swords. Or something.

I think that Lost: Via Domus handles this problem quite well. Whenever you load a save game it presents a “Previously on Lost” montage of everything that happened up to that point. That’d be great if there was any reason to actually play the game. As it stands now the only engaging elements are the bizarre character animations and the lovely voice acting supplied by what must be Alberta’s best community theater.

I could go on, but I’ll save that for another day. I’m sure I can wring several posts out of how terrible it is.

The new Alone in the Dark title includes a similar catch-up feature but takes it several steps further. The game is divided into episodes, and each episode into chapters. When you initially start the game, all of this will be available for you to shuffle through. Want to fight the last boss immediately, then play through the rest of the game? Go for it! This is pure genius. If I’m stuck on some sort of, uh, wooden chair physics puzzle or whatever, I can just skip that chapter and go on to the next one. Maybe being presented with a story summary when I fire up the game for the first time in months may not be enough. But I can rewind to the last clearly presented goal or fast-forward to the next event that catches my eye. Why can’t more games do this? I’m going to buy it just because the developers have the balls to try something different.

More importantly, I’ll buy it because there’s a strong chance that I’ll actually finish the game. I miss the sense of closure I get from watching one-dimensional characters rescue anatomically improbable females after conquering an ambiguous, underdeveloped evil. Why is it that I can read Nabakov in a day but this shit takes months to come to a climax? And you wonder why people think video games are inherently inferior to other mediums! But back on topic: I wouldn’t be inclined to buy Alone in the Dark 2: Alonercaust if I hadn’t finished the first game. By being able to skip through and just see the story sections in Alone in the Dark, you can pretty much guarantee that I’m going to buy the sequel. If the gameplay isn’t terribly flawed and frustrating, that is.

Which, surprisingly, it doesn’t look to be.

What we’ve got here is a classic sense of immersive mechanics. I marveled at the way Goldeneye on the N64 presented the pause menu as James Bonds’ crazy ass watch, but in order for the watch GUI to fill the screen (given that it’s a first person perspective) James Bond would have to be mashing it against his eyeball. In a simple FPS this is excusable, but for a survival horror game nothing takes you out of the zone like spending twenty minutes fiddling around the inventory screen while that thing that’s about to dismember you remains frozen in time. So here’s Alone in the Dark’s inventory screen…

It’s like Orcs and Elves, only you don’t have to play Orcs and Elves to get it. If it doesn’t fit in your coat, you’re not going to hang on to it. And, more importantly, if you spend too long admiring the player character’s abs you can bet that you’ll end up gored. This stands in stark contrast to the rather polite monsters in Resident Evil 4, which wait patiently as Leon recovers the best weapon for the task at hand from his attache case. Which brings me to another great feature: first aid spray.

When you select the first aid spray, you’ll be shown specific injuries that need to be treated. It’s no longer an instant cure-all. That’s pretty badass. The idea of modern games presenting these hyper-realistic physics and AI but having your character be healed by walking over a medpack or an apple has always seemed somewhat odd. Whether or not having inventory and injury systems like this will make Alone in the Dark more fun or just tedious in it’s realism remains to be seen, but I’m excited to try it nonetheless.

I thought I loved you, Leon Kennedy. But this new boy… what’s his name again? Barnaby McCarnby? He’s saying all the right things to me. He may not have the cool gloves and jacket, but I like his swagger. When he’s close to death he doesn’t just walk a little slower. This kid bleeds, Leon. Remember blood? You bled in a cut scene once. And there was a comical fountain when that chainsaw dude decapitated you after that poorly timed reload. But it wasn’t enough for me. If you’re going to strive for realism, I need you to go all the way. I need–

Okay, forget it; this is just weird. Alone in the Dark still looks awesome, though.

Wow, so, um, the dudes who write for Game Informer are going to spend their economic stimulus checks at Gamestop? And the editor thinks I should too? Totally will do! If some sepia toned jackasses tell me that doing this is going to make more people think games are art I can’t not comply. I wonder if they’re getting some kind of kick back from that? Oh wait, of course they are, since the sole purpose of Game Informer is to move Gamestop merchandise. It’s one thing when they wrap it up in a magazine format and have to manufacture actual original content to go with it (even if it amounts to little more than “10/10 preorder this game now or INTERNET MEME”), but it’s a whole different beast when it’s nothing more than a shopping list on chemically treated paper. And why the hell does the Game Informer staff need this shit? You’re telling me that a bunch of guys who work as professional game reviewers at a massive video game publications are eagerly checking their mailboxes every day for their tax refunds so they can go out and buy a Playstation 3 controller? Somehow I doubt it, although this may support the theory that they don’t actually play the games they review. Controllers are pretty important for reviewing games.

Just as I was ready to punch myself in the face and burn down the store, I noticed something interesting inside the pamphlet.

“The Real American Gamer.” Damn. That was going to be my handle. But wait what’s on The Real American Gamer’s wishlist? Only the best titles out there! None of which happen to be made in America. In fact, every title on his wishlist is an English port of a game developed in Japan.

And then I thought “oh, I get it now!” This is a bit of clever satire. See, we’re getting these economic stimulus refund things because our economy is royally fucked right now. We’ve got national debt, external debt, crazy interest rates, massive current account deficit… we’re in trouble, and unless people start stimulating our internal economy we’ll be in a recession by the end of the year. So, how would The Real American Gamer spend his stimulus check? He’d send it all to Japan for crazy anime chicks and overwrought war dramas.

Voltaire, eat your heart out.

Iwata Asks is an occasional feature on Wii.com where Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, sits down with his staff and grills them on their latest projects. Most of the time it’s just everyone really polite and respectful to each other in that charming Japanese way, and occasionally they joke about how someone went batshit insane while working on a game and killed another employee with a tea table. The most recent entry in the series is about Link’s Crossbow Training, a rather fantastic lightgun title, and some frightening truths were uncovered.

I’m mainly surprised, Mr. Miyamoto, by the fact that you’re the most widely acclaimed game developer in the world and you actually like first person shooters. C’mon, you’re Japanese! I’m also surprised by the fact that being weaned on your games has made me pretty much despise everything with a first person perspective. After you’ve played Super Mario World, how can you honestly pick up something like Turok and say “Hey, this isn’t complete shit?” That may be an unfair comparison. I had more fun with the Irréversible than I did with Turok.

Miyamoto produced games just have a certain quality that I have yet to encounter in a first person shooter. The control mechanics and intuitive gameplay that has become his bread and butter is rarely seen outside of a plaformer. And when that does take on the form of something other than a platformer, it’s something very different. Like Pikmin or Animal Crossing or Pacman Vs or Nintendogs. I still contend that Nintendogs is one of the best games ever created. Take that, street cred! Most FPS titles seem to lack that level of polish and accessibility.

First person games can be done right on occasion, as seen with titles such as Call of Duty 4 and… uh… Perfect Dark? The original Perfect Dark, not the shitty one. Portal was technically an FPS, although that part is very far removed from all the elements that make it a great game. I think Portal actually circumvents the limitations of the first person perspective by the way it handles the narrative. By having what basically amounts to a voice over narration–cleverly presented as coming from a PA system–be the sole voice of the story, the player character needs no ‘focal point’ to absorb the information. I can’t even count how many times I’ve missed important plot elements in a FPS because my character was facing the wrong direction. That is, you know, in the few first person shooters that actually contain plot elements.

Link’s Crossbow Training succeeds because it’s an arcade style lightgun game. Only one third of it is presented in a first person perspective, and the reason it works so well is due to the complete absence of story–it appeals to the gamer in a ‘personal best’ sense and nothing more. Could you imagine if Ocarina of Time was a FPS? It’d be… bizarre. As a matter of fact, someone with more free time should definitely crack open Half Life 2 and design a Zelda mod, if only to see how it could work. I can’t imagine the standard Zelda design being shaped into the mold of your standard first person shooter. A Nintendo FPS would be–

Oh, wait. I just remembered the Metroid Prime series. Those are most certainly first person shooters, but they do everything right, thanks largely to the ’scan’ mechanic. The ability to bring up information on anything in front of you is wonderful. All of these things are linked together, and every component–from the little bug guys to the massive Chozo statues–is folded expertly into a larger overarching story. At the same time you don’t have to scan anything; more traditional FPS players can just blast the shit out of everything and speed through the game. In addition to that, you have things like the morph ball, beam stacking, inventory expansion… just the sorts of elements that are unique to a Metroid game but somehow work beautifully in a first person shooter.

All things considered, maybe a Zelda FPS wouldn’t be so bad. There’s a lot of potential with the formula, and Miyamoto has a good track record. Actually, it could be sort of badass. Climbing around with the hookshot, shooting arrows while strafing behind Darknuts (heh), using bombs to carve out tunnels… and no jumping puzzles since Link can’t jump! Well, no jumping puzzles until you get Roc’s Feather or cape or whatever. Hmm. I like the sound of that… I think that’s going to become my new personal motto.

Leave it to the Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time fanboys to come out of the woodwork and push their respective birds over the top. What purpose do cuccos and chocobos actually serve in their respective game worlds? In Legend of Zelda, the cuccos (which oddly resemble chickens–’oddly’ meaning ‘exactly’) hop around and that’s about it. You can pick them up and throw them, or hit them with your sword until they use their hen-sense to call upon a swarm of other cuccos to vigilantly end your life. Oh, and you can use them as a hang glider despite the fact that they only weigh about three pounds. In Final Fantasy, chocobos serve whatever purpose the designers drunkenly cook up on any given day of the week. They race each other or get stuck in storybooks or dungeon crawl or play CCGs or end up slathered on some worthless crap SquareEnix wants to peddle to their fanbase (”Chocobo Ponchos? Now I’ll never get wet… just like Boco!”). You can even breed them in a extensive and uncomfortable sidequest (the black chocobo is inferior to the gold chocobo, FYI).

Blathers, on the other hand, is undeniably awesome. He works in a museum. He wears an argyle vest. he sleeps during the daytime. He’s everything I aspire to be. I mean, the guy took a correspondence course in fossil identification. How bad-ass is that? He’s an owl that can teach you about dinosaurs. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s the coolest fictional bird to ever appear in a video game.

Also, Birdo is creepy and the Chozo are extinct.

What I’m saying here is that Zelda and FF fanboys should be excluded from important matters like this. Just like professional wrestling fans shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the Time list of most influential people. How the hell is Eddie Guerrero more important than Jesus, Einstein, and Satie? The people who voted for him are going to feel really stupid when it turns out he was abducted by aliens and returns to the ring as an evil pregnant post-op with a goatee, or whatever plot twist they have planned for sweeps. Then we’ll see who’s more influential than Hitler!

And what about that crow that smoked cigarettes in Earthbound? He was so cool when I was twelve.