BNJMN

As published on N-Philes.com I hope that in Wii Music (or Wii Orchestra , whatever it’s called), if it is in fact an actual game slated to see the light of day, Nintendo lets me conduct or play music from Super Mario Galaxy . The themes from Good Egg Galaxy, Battlerock Galaxy, and Buoy Base Galaxy are specifically on my wish list. Despite being a more casual experience, gamers will perk up at the thought of interacting with fully orchestrated versions some of Nintendo’s best pieces of music. For the casual crowd, exploring the origins of these songs might be one of the side effects of putting original musical compositions beside Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Fur Elise. Nintendo using one of its games to advertise and leverage its other properties? It’s almost unheard of! I’m pretending that I haven’t heard of the likes of WarioWare , Smash Bros. , and Pikmin . Actually, Nintendo is very good at telling people about their own games. One particularly brilliant move Nintendo started wi...

As posed at N-Philes.com GoNintendo recently had a series entitled, "Casual vs. Hardcore: Opinions of the Gaming Industry," where a number of players in the industry were asked to comment on whether Nintendo’s influence on the emphasis on the casual gaming market is good for the industry. While it’s certainly a worthwhile feature that explores and exposes what the industry is thinking, it cements this dichotomic vision of gaming. Worse than that, it pits one group against the other, forcing everyone to take sides on the grand gaming battleground. Are you a casual gamer, or are you a hardcore gamer? Once you answer that question, you quickly discover that the other gamer is a threat. Causal games are taking over; I have less ‘real’ games to play because of cartridge wasters like Nintendogs and Brain Age . Games are so complex and violent when all I want to do is have some quick, clean fun. Casual gamers, hardcore gamers, non-gamers... they’re all terms that have become stand...