So what exactly IS the Super Guide and why should you care or not care? In short, the Super Guide is a feature that when activated will play the game for you… and this kind of description is what has put a lot of people up in arms and have condemned the feature outright without them even looking into what it really is.

Put your rage and your conclusions aside and let’s continue on and see what this is really all about…

The Super Guide really isn’t just some magic button that let’s the game play itself. What it is is a tool to allow a game to be accessible to those who may not be the best at video games and may not be self proclaimed pro-gamers that we all seem to believe we are. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not an easy game and although it’s not anywhere near the hardest game either, the idea of adding the Super Guide is to try to level the playing field so that people who aren’t experienced gamers won’t give up in frustration in later levels.

Let’s go through the features of the Super Guide:

• The Super Guide is not accessible right away during the game. The green Super Guide block only appears in a level if you have died 8 times in a row during the level and will disappear once you have completed that particular level.
• The feature only works in single player mode, the Super Guide block will not appear if you’re playing with two or more players.
• If you do choose to hit the green Super Guide block, you are told what the feature is about and are given an option to activate it or decline. Once activated, Luigi will take control of the game in place of Mario. With Luigi in control, at any time through the level, you can deactivate the feature and take back control of the game to finish the level yourself.
• Using the Super Guide feature will not automatically score you all of the Star Coins, it will not help you find all of the secrets or have you performing super cool moves or have Luigi run all the way to the finish. It’s a very slow, safe and boring pace and not something you’ll want to sit through time and time again.
• The game will record the fact that you’ve used the feature and will show people that fact on your save file. (Oh, the shame of it all!)
• This feature is completely optional and to add to that, you may NEVER even see that green Super Guide block appear at all. To have it appear you must first truly SUCK at the game and be desperate enough to use it.

Now that you’ve had a bit of an explanation, let’s see the Super Guide in action so you can see for yourself exactly what it’s all about.

I personally haven’t seen the feature at all through my play through of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. At the moment this entry is being written I’m currently up to 8-1 which is almost at the end of the game. The difficulty level may not be up there with Ninja Gaiden, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii does get challenging enough during certain levels that will frustrate some and ultimately have them put down the controller and move onto something that isn’t.

I almost feel as if Nintendo purposefully made the game harder because the Super Guide feature was added on. If that really is the case, then hell yes, I want this feature in more games because even though I’ll never use it and will never see the option appear to use it in the first place, it will give Nintendo an excuse to make the overall game more challenging.

…isn’t that what we all really want?

Nintendo of Australia is definitely happy with bringing out Wii Sports Resort down here as well as the Metroid Prime Trilogy later this year. They have much confidence in those and similar titles; however it doesn’t seem to extend to all first party Nintendo games. In fact, there seems to be a couple of games Nintendo of Australia thinks just is not for the Australian market at all.

Okay, so Excitebots: Trick Racing may not be the best or most interesting game ever made, but I still find it interesting that Nintendo of Australia has chosen to simply not sell the game in this country at all. The reasoning is that they just don’t think it’ll sell very well down here, which may be a fair point… however it then makes you wonder why another niche game like Trauma Center: Second Opinion and New Blood have been released down here… with Nintendo as their publisher. Hell, you can even get Club Nintendo stars if you purchase either of those games. Atlus must have shovelled quite a lot of money down Nintendo’s throat to get those two games into the country.

The second game which isn’t seeing much attention down here, though is being treated slightly better than Excitebots, is Punch-Out!! for Wii. Unlike Excitebots, this is a game that has received very favourable reviews and is also from a series long remembered and loved… which is probably why it actually is being released down here. The problem is that it’s only being released at a single retail chain, JB Hi-Fi. The reasoning for this game not having a full release is the same with Excitebots… just not enough interest, apparently.

Well okay, so the general theme from Nintendo of Australia seems to be, “no one really cares, so why bother selling it?” Interesting take… though you’d think that a company like Nintendo would realise that if you advertise these games there is a pretty good chance that you’ll create interest for your products… no?

Either way, I’m kind of nervous about missing out on Punch-Out!! since it does have a “limited release”… it makes me feel like, if I don’t get it on release day then I’ll never be able to find it anywhere and then I’ll miss out completely. I really should pre-order it or something but there’s no JB Hi-Fi anywhere near where I live. Damn.

I was really sure that Nintendo would announce that the DSi would be getting “Virtual Portable Console” support during this year’s E3. After all, it would make sense on so many levels… though at this point, I don’t really know what to think with Nintendo. They obviously have a plan they’re following which they think will get them a lot of money for the least amount of effort, that much is obvious…

Putting the “Are Nintendo supporting the hardcore or not?” argument aside, it puzzles me as to why Nintendo didn’t announce VPC. In fact, Reggie Fils Aime, Nintendo of America’s President was quoted as saying that they had no plans for such a service.

So then why would a company who obviously wants to make a lot of money as easily as they can pass up on something like this? I mean, it’s not like they’d have to put any huge effort into bringing back the library of ye olden Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games of the past. We all know that Nintendo as well as Sega and other third parties have milked quite a lot out of Wii’s Virtual Console. It really is easy money and would convince a lot of people who don’t already own a DSi to actually buy one.

To top it off, the DSi Ware I’m seeing at the moment is extremely uninspiring. There are a couple of gems in there, of course… but overall there’s nothing I would like to spend my free 1000 Nintendo points on. Maybe if they release a VPC version of Metroid II: Return of Samus and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, I’d actually have something to look forward to on the download content front.

Throughout Wii’s lifespan there has been a considerable amount of talk about whether Nintendo is still a traditional video game company, or if their new found audience has turned them into something entirely different. Of course, these kinds of criticisms are not unknown to the company since they’ve had a certain image problem with certain groups of gamers ever since they became a video game industry giant.

Nintendo has been striving to create new experiences on its console with the different control method. So far we’ve seen some interesting results. Unfortunately, these results are being produced on games that more traditionalist gamers have trouble appreciating. Not because they’re unwilling to try them but because it just doesn’t fall within their tastes.

Through all of this, Nintendo continuously tries to assure those who they have described as “core” gamers that they are making the kind of games core gamers will enjoy. It is true that Nintendo has been making more traditionally based games, however the most they’re coming up with is just the same old thing with added Wii functionality… so much so that they’re even re-releasing GameCube games on Wii for that purpose.

I haven’t been seeing many surprises from Nintendo on Wii when it comes to games more aligned with my own tastes. The most I’m seeing is sequels with added Wii functionality, remakes with added Wii functionality and the revival of an older generation game, Punch-Out! with added Wii functionality. I think the thing people are craving for the most at the moment is really just… something brand new.

Disaster: Day of Crisis, Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and Another Code (aka Trace Memory) R: A Journey into Lost Memories. These three games currently have little to no hope of ever being released officially in North America. But why? The simple truth is that Nintendo of America has no interest in investing their money on these titles for a niche market when they could be spending their money promoting Wii Fit and Wii Music.

With all the criticisms aside, you can see why Nintendo doesn’t bother to invest money on new franchises for the “core” gamer. Just have a look at how MadWorld and Zack & Wiki have faired… not very well. The Internet hype machine isn’t going to make them money and the niche is too small to make that kind of a risk with new franchises. Nintendo has already made their share of risks this generation by reaching out to a new audience… to add to that, back in the last generation with the GameCube, Nintendo was doing all it could to reach out to the “core” gamer and it didn’t get them anywhere.

When E3 comes around the corner, chances are we’ll be seeing a lot of sequels announced and possibly one brand new IP. However, I seriously doubt that new IP will have any real impact and will probably be met with a fair amount of scepticism. However, Nintendo will run with that one new game franchise and use it to say “Yes, we are supporting the core gamer, look at this new IP we’ve just announced, this is for all of you who have been waiting patiently.”… but will it be enough? Surprise me Nintendo, at the moment I’m growing bored with the same old thing… and please, don’t try to surprise me with a new Wii Sports or Wii Fit, I’m not a part of that particular audience group.