I feel an old man moment coming on…
You know, back when I was a young lad of eight, and had the old toaster-style NES keeping me company through weekends, games were tough. They were hard. They kicked your ass until you coughed up blood, and made you work to beat them. You played and you played until the hard edges of those control pads were grinding into your palms, and if you were lucky, you might have pushed a button at the right nanosecond and finished the final boss. That’s the way it was and we LIKED it! We LOVED it!
Now it’s mid 2009, and the video game demographic has spread beyond the Kool Aid sipping preadolescents of the 90s that we were. Now old people are playing, along with adults, young adults, parents, teachers, and nostalgic 30-somethings. So it’s only natural that a few adjustments would have to be made in how games are marketed and presented; but if this latest bit of news is true, Nintendo is about to go Kirby-soft when it comes to challenging their players.
The latest Super Mario Bros. will be released in stores this holiday season, and Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed that it will carry a feature called the “Kind Code.” Essentially a built-in demo player, the Kind Code will allow you to pause the game and let it play for you if you’re having trouble beating a level.
That’s right. Gone are the days of “Contra” and its insanity, of “Golgo 13″ and its mazes, of “Battletoads” and its jet ride levels. Welcome to the new generation, where Nintendo is prepared to take players by their soft hands and lead them through the big, scary games that could potentially make them sweat a little bit. Don’t worry about timing speed through those Twomps or adjusting jump distance for lava pits. Just sit back, relax, and let Nintendo do all the work for you.
Yeah, I’m a little angry about this.
