Well, not quite. But Nintendo have patented technology that they intend to implement into games called "Demo Play" or some such thing. I missed this at E3, but what it does - I Kid you not - is independently run through the game for you so you don't have to bother with all that tedious business of playing it and so forth.

Really.

Apparently it's going to appear first in New Super Mario Bros Wii. If, at any point you find you just can't be bothered putting the effort into the game or are finding the white-hot complexity of 2D Mario action to taxing, you push a button, and the game just plays itself and continues through the rest of the game. If you feel like joining in again at any point, you just push another button and take over again. Or just, y'know, wander of to Starbucks for a coffee for a few hours and come back when the Wii has finished the game for you. Save you the effort of playing and all that.

It's not just me, is it? This is crossing a line in dumbing games down, isn't it?

---

Wow we have truely reached the peak of what the games industie as to offer, games you dont even have to play. If your the sort of person who really needs this, then wtf are you playing games for anyway (Not aimed at you Matneee just at the people who actually thought this was a idea) why not just sit down and watch a dvd or tv??. This just goes to show you how batshit bonkers nintedo is, there next big thing lets you not play the game, not somethink to fine tune the Wii mote, not somethink to try and push the envolope like what PS3 and the 360 are doing but to let the computer control the game for you.

Its even more annoying that I'm in college now and my freind next to me is trying to justify this (Wii fan boy). This also begs the qeustion of why I'm on an internet forums instead of doing my work .

---

"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

I think it's a great idea. It's sort of like the Easy Mode in games in that I'll never use it, but I'm glad that people who don't know how to succeed in an artificial environment that they're only engaging in for the simple fun of playing are going to think they're enjoying themselves too.

Also, didn't they have something similar in MGS 4? Something like instead of a game, you just got a movie?

---

I only wrote this because I hate you.

In fairness to MGS4, there was a normal length, challenging single player game in there once you'd subtracted all the cut scenes

Anyway. I get that the point of 'Demo Play' is to get you past bits you might not be able to play past yourself in normal gameplay. But it's an absurd approach. Surely they could come up with something which lowers the difficulty instead of telling the game to stop being a game and be a rubbish TV show instead for a while? It rather defeats the point of it being a game, I would have thought. Mario Whatsit VIII is not exactly heavily story-driven - I could just about understand this if it was - so the satisfaction of playing the game yourself is where the enjoyment is supposed to come from...


*Sigh* Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and don't understand what people want from games these days.

EDIT - That said, only a fool would bet against any electronic entertainment idea Nintendo come up with right now, at least in terms of it making more cash for them. Well, except for that Wii Vitality thing. That's just mental...

---

matneee:

Wii Vitality thing. That's just mental...

??? I feel like ive been living under a rock, whats Wii vitality???.

Anyways the reason Nintedo does well is becuase its console isnt real aimed at gamers, not the average one anyway, you can see that with the line up, its more for party fun or family fun, the whole novelty of waving the remote makes it easy to pick up and play with the simple games on the Wii so people who would never play games I.e your mum/Grandmum can easily play and have fun with it.

Thats my thoery anyways.

---

"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

The thing is, I can see kids going 'Oh wow! Now I can get past that level and play the next one!' And then they go brag to their friends about how they completed Mario, and then break down, sobbing endless streams of waterfall tears when 'Dickface Jimmy' comes along and laughs because he knows she didn't really complete the game because she had a Wii with Demo Play and HIS dad bought him an Xbox 360 and lets him play GTA 5 on it and would you like to go behind the bike sheds and try out what I saw? It looked fun.

When I was a kid, I knew people who cheated their way to the end of games, just to see the end movie, have a go at each level and then try stepping round in circles to make Lara Croft go nude. It'll be a welcome feature sadly enough.

---

The only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on one.

Lol, Del you have a fucked up mind lol JK.

When I was a kid I was the kid cheating lol. although at times cheating can be fun, take GTA for example lol, bored?? just Spawn a tank and go nuts.

Res was also fun lol, Unlimited Magnum ammo, how could you lose??.

---

"IrishMorn"
If Adon and Sagat step in....ah, what the hell, I'll get drunk and join in on that one.

Yes it is fun cheating in gta but for completely diffrent reasons (just to have fun and destroy everything).

Just skipping parts of the games is however pretty stupid but i'm sure the reviewers of the newest alone in the dark was happy for it.

---

I could understand it if it ran a demo of how to do the next bit, I get mega stuck a lot on some games and would just wish that there was something more than gamesFAQ to help me find my way out of the room with no doors ...

however I'd want it to drop me back where I was when I pressed the demo button, so that I could have the joy of doing the damned thing myself ... I'm a pedant though and have to do everything myself or I get really angry! lol

---

Mortalitis_Infinitas:

You have gained enough renown to purchase the "Creative Director of European studios at Microsoft Games Studios" title.

matneee:

I missed this at E3, but what it does

They actually never showed this at their press conference lol. But I know it's been around since...February. At the least the idea was.

Sovvolf:

??? I feel like ive been living under a rock, whats Wii vitality???.

It's where you stick your finger in this little device and it monitors your pulse. Basically sees the changes your body makes when you're playing a game. Or something like that. Idk, I zoned out when they brought that up.

I think it's a rather stupid idea. I mean sure...it could be helpful for the casual gamers but for the average/hardcore? Ha! Yeah right.

I think the Big N is getting might arrogant...

Nintendo is like that Grandfather you have that's convinced himself he's a shed.

He doesn't need to be encouraged, people should stop playing with him, throwing money at him, and most of all, he just needs to be put down.

They've taken "innovative" so far that it's just gotten stupid, and all they're catering for is people who don't play games, but like to pretend they do to fit in with everybody else that pretends they play games, despite the fact that everybody who really does play games is a neckbeard with the same amount of social experience as a typical video game character from the 80's.

---

I only wrote this because I hate you.

I wouldn't mind having this for jrpgs, square enix games especially.  Then I would be able to watch those fantastic cutscenes without having to put up with the god awful gameplay.

:

According to the description in that patent, there was to be three different modes to this "demo play" option: One that lets a video walkthrough play in the corner but not interrupt gameplay; one that would stop gameplay for a full-screen walkthrough, and players could jump into the walkthrough and take control; and one that would allow players to choose where in the game to start, similar to the scene selection of a DVD

I can see the value of a feature like this considering who the Wii's target audience is.  I would think that adaptive difficulty would be a better option though.

---

Are you an ODST (fanboy)?

I suppose more than anything, it's a sign of the changing audiences that video games are attracting. It's all going a bit mainstream, so I guess it's inevitable that new features are going to find there way into games.

Ah, who am I kidding - I'm just whining needlessly. I grow old and weary and do not understand these modern trends the young'uns are so keen on like the Rap Music and the Twitter, but It's not like I'm forced to have anything to do with the bloody things. Much like I don't have to use Demo Play if I don't want to.

---