G-pinions

Alternate titles: "It's Evolution, Baby!" and "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead." Clearly, this is a column that would much rather quote someone else's work than come up with an original idea. And now you know the rest of the story.

But, like every story with an ending, there is a beginning as well. I finally finished Sabre Wulf a few nights ago. Upon firing up my GBA:SP for the first time in months, I was actually surprised to see I hadn't completed it earlier. Considering how much I loved the game, and how close to the end I was, there is no reasonable explanation for waiting so long. By playing through the last 3 levels, which took about an hour because Rare is a sadistic company, I was reminded just how good the game is. Probably the second best game I've played on the system, only behind Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga.

At the end of the game, the mayor says to, um, the lead character (I have no idea what his name is. Sabre Wulf is the main bad guy):

"You never know when we might need your archaic platforming skills again."

Yeah, it's a funny comment. But it also kind of bummed me out. Why is this a dead genre? I can hear Nick growing angry already, jumping to the defense of his beloved Ratchet and Clank series. While really fun games, I don't really consider it a platformer. Not a pure one, at least. The majority of the action is focused on combat, and sadly not of the jumping on enemies soft head variety. Big guns and platforming simply do not mix.

With Sly Cooper being all about the stealth and Jak about the story, where did the real platforming games go? Even Nintendo has seemingly forgotten its roots. Mario Sunshine was really fun... but that's their only platformer on the Gamecube. Donkey Kong is stuck with bongos for some reason. Kirby has only been in an average racing title. I don't even think Pit is on life support at this point. What's most shocking about Nintendo abandoning the genre that brought them to the party is the fact that the big N clearly doesn't care about the mainstream anymore. Just because kids these days would rather fly airplanes with horrible physics while tapping that nasty hooker ass, doesn't mean there isn't still a viable market for platforming titles.

I guess this is just a plea to get Nintendo back to what they do best. I fear that with Microsoft at the helm, Rare won't be able to churn out the classic platformers like they used to. Microsoft paid a ton of money for Rare's services. They would much rather they churn out commercial successes like Perfect Dark than a kiddie, brightly colored jump jump game. I hope that Conker is a huge success because of its outstanding one-player mode. While not in the Mario or Banjo league of great platformers, it might give Rare the leeway to make some real titles in this somehow obsolete genre.

Right now, all my hope rests on Hal and their upcoming Kirby GC title. Though I would love to ignore the stupid public who makes games like Goldeneye: Rogue Agent possible, I have to rely on them to buy Kirby: GC to show that people still want these games.

Note - if you clicked on that Gamerankings link to Sabre Wulf you'll see it only got a 79% ranking. This just goes to show you how little respect the average reviewer gives to platformers now. This was an original, and more importantly fun, take on the genre. If the same caliber title was a stealth game or FPS the score would have been in the high 90s.