Well said, Blade.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool Nintendo fanboy. They have the best franchises (Mario, Zelda), the best characters (Super Smash Bros.), and the best magazines (N64/NGC/N-Gamer will always be absolute tops, just hilarious). Their systems always have quality games and are bold and different in ways that could flop or fly, and thankfully mostly fly. They are a bold and innovative company and get far too much hate by the modern gamer who'd rather buy the next big brown FPS or sports game instead of something interesting and different.
I wouldn't be a gamer if it wasn't for Nintendo. The Game Boy and Kirby's Block Ball were my first experiences in playing a game and I was hooked. Hell, my mother once told me that when I was in utero she'd play Tetris on my brother's Game Boy and I'd kick to the beat of the music. I sunk countless hours into Kirby, Mario Land 2, and Mario&Yoshi. It was my introduction to fighters with Killer Instinct, to puzzlers with Tetris and Mario&Yoshi, and to platformers with countless games. It gave me the Game Boy Camera, a novelty I had so much fun with, and it even introduced me to the brilliant underworld of video game glitches with Missingno and Wario Land's hidden minus worlds. If it wasn't for the Game Boy, I would not be a gamer.
Just as crucial to my evolution as a video game player was the Nintendo 64. When we got a Nintendo 64 I was too young to truly appreciate the jump from 2D to 3D, but I still had so much fun with some of the greatest games of all time. 3D impressed me greatly; I used to be content letting Mario walk around in this big world, not caring whether I got the star or not. I became an adventurer, someone who liked to explore every nook and cranny of a game and talk to everyone I could find. The N64 was filled with countless games that shaped me and turned me into what I am today, including my favorite game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
That game made me aware of the concept that everywhere, at all times, something is happening. Everyone has their own stories and we will never be able to help everyone. It's a fascinating subject wrapped up in a brilliant video game. Majora's Mask could not have been a book. It could not have been a movie. It was the game that introduced me to the concept of games as a unique storytelling medium, one that had its own set of pros and cons. The interactiveness of the medium is why I always preferred it to TV or movies. It was an adventure that I could shape, that I could have fun with. It was unlike anything else I had ever experienced, and it still floors me to this day with how brilliantly inventive and well-executed it is.
As I grew up I continued to support the Big N. With the Gamecube came Mario Sunshine, and with Mario Sunshine came eye-popping graphics and unique gameplay that left me floored. Xbox players could keep their futuristic shooters, because all I wanted to do is explore Bianca Hills on my water-powered jetpack. While the Gamecube wasn't as huge a step forward for the gaming world as the N64 was, I still have many a fond memory playing such brilliant games as Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Wind Waker, and Chibi Robo.
Nowadays, I play the Wii. The system's hackability combined with a large library of great games on its own has made it my top system of this generation. It was on this system that I legally played my first M-rated game. Now, I had played Conker's Bad Fur Day (brilliant game by the way) and Mortal Kombat 4 on the N64, but I had always done it in secret, at a friend's house, because my parents didn't like me playing M-rated games or watching R-rated movies. Well, that changed once I turned 17. And I took advantage of this, because for my birthday I got a copy of 300 on Blu Ray...and No More Heroes for the Wii.
No More Heroes is a brilliantly funny, brilliantly violent game for the Wii that is being remade for PS3. The Wii version made excellent use of the motion controls and Wiimote - probably the best use of it I've seen in a game so far. It was clever, funny, and ridiculously violent. It was raunchy, immature, and also had one of the most surprising story twists in a game I've played. I couldn't have picked a better first M-Rated game to legally play. As a stupid teenager, I needed a stupid teenage game to play, and No More Heroes delivered.
I mentioned the hackability of the Wii being a reason I've gotten so much life out of it. Because of my installation of the Homebrew Channel and the system's Virtual Console feature, I can revisit games of my youth, and visit the games I never played, all while using gaming's best controller (The Wavebird). It's made emulation so much easier than using a computer to play, since all games are emulated fairly perfectly and I'm playing them on a system designed for games with a controller designed to play games. I love the Wii.
I have a million more stories about Nintendo and video games and how they shaped my life and perception. I will forever support Nintendo because of their influence on me, and nothing can change that. In my mind, they're the tops, and will forever be the tops. Here's to another 122 years of innovation and fun!
) and really set the bar for what I expect from video games in the future in terms of overall quality and replay value.
