Super Metroid, Ninja Combat & NCAA Football

Thanks to my 3 year old son waking up at 5am I ended up playing a lot more yesterday than I planned.

At the early hour I was looking for something to keep him occupied and so I purchased Ninja Combat through the VC. Of course Ninja Combat is a bad game. The voice acting is horrible, the game becomes ridiculously hard after the 3rd level, showing its arcade eating roots, and there are balance issues throughout (such as the weapons that can be picked up that are completely useless). Still, I've always enjoyed the game. It's a good game for Co-Op play as you really need two people to do well, and with two good players, the result is satisfying, at least for 3 levels.

Speaking of bad games, after playing Super Metroid for the first time, I jumped back into NCAA Football, which despite its many shortcomings has been a game I've really enjoyed. Just like real NCAA Football, if you disregard the old men deciding who is the champion by voting on it and just focus on the action of each game individually, it can be a lot of fun. I really enjoy the all-play controls and the sense of accomplishment when I thrust my remote down and my player lays out the opposing QB. The graphics are just flat-out bad, there are AI issues all over, and there aren't many modes, but I've been really enjoying NCAA on the Wii, despite it not being a great game. It's just fun, and if you go in not looking for realism or depth, you'll find a decent arcade-y football game.

So I should end with the one 'good' game I played yesterday, my first foray into Super Metroid. I'd planned on getting it a long time ago, but then it was released on the VC the same time as Metroid Prime 3, so I put it off again. The demo in SSBB got me interested again as I loved the pixel-work. My first impressions (I got as far as the charge beam) were that I can see why the game is so well loved, but it didn't suck me in like the Prime series (at least 1 & 3 of that series) has. The slighly un-smooth movement of the parallax made me slightly nauseated, and the controls definitely take some getting used to. In the end I feel like it is a game you need to play a lot over a short period of time, which really doesn't reward my random play habits, making me think it will likely take awhile for me to get through it. It certainly didn't suck me in with its magic like Lost Winds did, but over time I expect I'll become more aware of Metroid's goodness.