Mo mini, mo problems?

It's like this guy just woke up from a long 5 year slumber... Welcome to the mini/party game world of Nintendo! Are we having FUN yet!? WiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiII!

We need itprintsmoney.gif in here :(

As far as the DS goes, cause & effect doesn't nec. apply. Ppl will spend $30 for a full fledge action/adventure game, but only consider its minigames as bonuses. If they wanted minigames straight up, I'm sure they would've gotten the likes of Mario Party and Monkey Ball.

As for Wii (and other Nin sys like GC), minigames IS a great way to grasp at other demographics. For example, another Joystiq article mentioned that while many ladies play online, most of it doesn't really count b/c they're playing Flash games and those that resemble the ones that PopCap makes. Why not offer better/original versions of that same stuff with better graphics and/or wiimote capability?

Despite bad reviews (Cooking Mama from GS) and relatively low amt of non minigames, Wii is doing not bad so far. I do have to chime in and say that I hope its "bigger" games library gets bigger

I agree with the write of the Ars Technica article, Frank Caron. I've found myself looking forward to far less games than I used to, simply because almost every one is in someway a minigame compilation! Of course, the only next-gen/current-gen console I own is a Wii, so it makes sense at this point, but the only titles I'm really looking forward to right now are Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Until I see more from third parties, and see some better reviews, that's really about all there is on this system right now. Of course, Super Paper Mario is getting high marks, but it's still just a GameCube leftover!

Don't want mini-games and last-gen ports? Don't buy a Nintendo system. Problem solved.

Don't want mini games and last gen ports? Don't buy them.

I love Wii Sports. Rayman was a decent rent. I don't own any others, because I don't want them. I own Zelda, which is magnificent (last gen or not). I will buy more games as they come out, but I won't whine about the fact that the early crop has some definite hits and misses.

This is idiocy! Minigames are still few and far between. Even on Nintendo Wii, where is the next one? We've had Wario and Rayman, and Wii Play, plus Wii Sports if you want to count that one, but where's the next Wii minigame collection? Huh?

If anything, we need _more_ of these fantastically inventive collections of game ideas! When the minigames are still only a miniscule percentage of the whole offering, it's not a wonder that a console that offers them a little more than before finds success. Please, let us minigame lovers have our games, and don't squash the genre just because there are now two collections per year instead of one!

My top 5 games lately:
1) Gears of War
2) Wii Sports
3) Test Drive Unlimited
4) Sonic and the Secret Rings
5) Mario vs. DK 2

Only two of those are minigames, but they add a lot of variety to my gaming, so I wouldn't have it any other way. Minigames FTW!

Wow. Finally an acknowledgment that Nintendo's strategy isn't exactly "fun over graphics", it's "cheap and lazy over expensive".

I don't blame the companies for following Nintendo's lead on the minigames. If the nintendo fanboys want it, they can have it.

I'm just happy that horrible minigame collections for the 360 have flopped hard (Fusion Frenzy) and hopefully that'll put a stop to it. If I want minigames, I'll download them on live arcade, not spend 50 bucks for a lame collection of them.

Having only an xbox 360, I enjoy it alot, but im a fan of minigames. So when my friend brings his wii sports and monkeyball over, with a small group of people you can have a blast with bowling(wii sports),darts(monkeyball) and the fps which is the best multiplayer first person shooting game(monkeyball) on the wii so far. Even being a minigame, the control for the FPS is much smoother than Redsteel and the WW2 games.

They are more enjoyable than say, fusion frenzy 2.
Fuzion frenzy 2 was pure crap, I seemed to like the first one, with a few extra crappy games. The only good ones are twisted system and sumo. But part 2 was more of the same.

So even though most minigames suck ass, the new monkeyball on wii is worth it for the fps mode and the dart game. There is also a few others in the game that are almost as fun.

Ill eventually get a Wii when the price drops and they come out with some better games.

Actually the mini-game craze began when Nintendo was at the beginning of its 'upopularity' (in the later N64 lifespan). Mario Party was good, and the imitators were sloppy. Mario Party is often derided but it's the only console/board-game that's actually solid. If he's talking about like in Mario 64DS and NSMB, etc. they aren't what people buy the game for.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is NOT a Wii game that I would properly chastise Ubi-soft for releasing. Ubi-soft could use some talking to, but not because of RRR.

Breaking news: Individual gamer upset at popularity of genre he doesn't like. Also dislikes country music despite owning several albums.

More at 11.

The outrageous sales of stupid minigames creates a problem even for those that don't buy them - they divert publisher attention away from making deep games. Thanks Nintendo. We're all glad you're making money. If only it didn't come at the expense of the overall quality of good games.

Sami:

We need less minigame collections, not more.

On top of that, Cooking Mama is a series of minigames, and so is half of Super Monkey Ball, and then Mario Party 8 comes out.

That's 6 1/2 in under a year.

Here's my list of minigames.


Rayman: 100% minigames.

Monkey Ball: minigames on the side.

Sonic: minigames on the side.

Wii Play: 100% minigames.

Mario Party 8: 100% minigames.

Bomberman Land Wii: I'm not sure about this yet. I can only find info on the minigames, but it has to have your regular multiplayer mode too, so I'll assume that it's minigames on the side.

Wii Sports: I consider this to be minigames on the side; getting all the platinum medals and doing the Fitness Age tests feel like minigames, but the real multiplayer games you can play for hours straight.

WarioWare: 100% minigames.

Cooking Mama: 100% minigames.


So I count 5 minigame collections and 4 games that have some minigames on the side. But if you want to count those, every Final Fantasy and Zelda have some minigames snuck in there somewhere. I don't think these minigames are a problem, since the Wii has more games than the PS3, more games on the horizon than the PS3, and the VC has 144% the games that XBLA does (204% in Japan). I think the large amount of minigames at launch is due to developers being caught off guard by the immediate success out of the gate by a system they were doubting, and due to them testing as many ideas at once within one game, so they can find out what works for later.

Wii Sports is the reason I rented both Pangya and Tiger Woods, and I fell in love with Pangya. Wii Sports is the reason I will have to at least rent any boxing game on the Wii (if that hinted-at Fight Night comes out, or if that Victorious Boxers game comes to the U.S., or if they make a new Punch-Out!). These minigames let both consumers and developers dip their toes in the gaming waters and find out what works.

I'm pretty sure every Wii owner would be interested in a full-fledged tennis game now, where the remote works exactly as it does in Wii Sports, but the nunchuck's analog controls movement, and C and Z are for running or jumping. Umm ok I'm done.

Insomniac likes to call them "Maxigames" if they become more important than just a small diversion.

The problem with minigames is that they are like techno: cheap, disposable, cool in small doses, but really, really annoying in the long run. Developers like using them because they are easy and cheap, and give the illusion of extending the playability of a game.

Strategy games usually don't incorporate minigames. Guess why.

You hate minigames if you have no friends to play them with.

Rubang that tennis game is a disaster waiting to happen. Unless there's a huge nunchuck extension cable, there would be a lot of broken nunchucks.

You only need a tiny toolbox motion to swing in tennis, and there are several games that use the nunchuck that also use motion. Games like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance use the nunchuck for movement and remote swings for all kinds of moves. In fact, I think every game that uses the nunchuck at this point also uses motion in your other hand.