Played as part of my 2023 Summah Games series.
Summah isn't just about spendin' your days on the beach, sifting sand through your fingers, catchin' you some hermit crabs and poppin' them in your mouth like popcorn chicken from KFC. It's also about amusement parks, and roller coasters, and gettin' bored and stickin' your head through the railing of the line queue for Indiana Jones Adventure and havin' Mickey Mouse come hack ya free with a buzzsaw. It's about tossin' a cigarette butt into a bush near the Haunted Mansion and watchin' the fire grow as Disneyland fire fighters struggle to push through the crowds to vanquish the blaze. Summah!
What? You can't go to Anaheim? You're sayin' they ran you outta town because you cosplayed as a Storm Trooper and triggered a territorial dispute in Frontier Land? That's a little bit strange. I don't know why you'd want to break the illusion like that.
Thankfully Nintendo has a game designed for the criminal element, a Summah simulation known as Nintendo Land. Much like Astro's Playroom, Wii Sports, and Pilot Wings 64, Nintendo Land is a pack-in game designed specifically around its controller, making use of all the features one might expect to use during the duration of the generation. That said, I don't think I need to tell anyone that the Wii U's gamepad was seldom used by third parties for anything more than inventory screens and maps; knowledge which makes Nintendo Land interesting as a retroactive review of the console's potential.
Each attraction is built around a specific gimmick, like Donkey Kong's Crash Course, which thankfully does not involve putting a monkey in a car and setting him loose. Rather, you need to tilt the gamepad left and right to control your character as they slide around an obstacle course, occasionally blowing into the mic to raise platforms, tapping the bumpers to trigger gates, and cranking the right analog around to set tracks into place. At times it feels like you're controlling this with Joe Rinaudo's Photoplayer, but there's really no better way to learn every part of the gamepad. I also enjoyed Octopus Dance, which similarly requires you to juggle a bunch of different inputs as you match the timing and moves of a mime. Occasionally you'll even get jumpscared by your own face, which floats around in the background projected on a screen. I didn't consent to turning the camera on! I don't need to see myself slack-jawed, eyes wide and bulging as I try to match the beat-- I look like a freaking meatball!!
The real meat of Nintendo Land is its multiplayer attractions, which unfortunately can only be played locally. I suppose it's possible to try to set something up with friends through emulation, but doing so would mean forgoing the gamepad, which almost feels like too much a compromise given the whole conceit of Nintendo Land. None of these mini games are strong enough on their own to warrant a playthrough without the gamepad coloring the experience, and even if you were to map everything to another controller, I'm not sure how good it would even feel given how varied each game is. Unfortunately, this puts me in a position where I can't enjoy half of Nintendo Land's content. I can't even ride the train around for chrissake. Why wouldn't they at least put bots in the game to play against? I've seen the way Nintendo fans talk on Twitter, they've never interacted with another human being in their lives. know your audience! I hope someone was jailed for this oversight.
But, sometimes you spend Summah alone, stuck in the cigarette haze of a Nintendo themed pachinko parlor, spending all your coins on ? boxes that contain that piece of shit bird from Balloon Trip Breeze, or drawing dongs on the touchpad in Yoshi's Fruit Cart while everyone else is livin' it up in Pikmin's Adventure. Not that they'd let me into that smorgasbord anyway...
Now is the part of the review where I must run the numbers and determine if Nintendo Land is a Summah game. How well does it capture those Summah vibes? Can you feel the heat of the hot Summah sun beating down on you, the weight of the churro in your hand and the agony radiating from your feet as hour two of waiting to board Star Tours creeps on by? The only way to tell is by subjecting Nintendo Land to the usual Summah modifiers and a battery of tests, including how long it takes to get sunburned, if it can sustain rollercoaster velocities, and taste.
Nintendo Land scores a 4.8 on the Summah Index Scale. It is a game with slightly below average Summah vibes. Its fruity notes allowed it to pass the taste test, but it regrettably failed to complete velocity testing, having flown out of my hands during a sharp turn on Space Mountain. They refused to turn on the lights and let me look for it, so we can only speculate as to how Nintendo Land would have fared in further testing. Weighing all factors within our power, it was determined that Nintendo Land fails to capture the scope and splendor of the amusement parks it so desperately seeks to emulate, and you would perhaps be better served enjoying a game of Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Summah isn't just about spendin' your days on the beach, sifting sand through your fingers, catchin' you some hermit crabs and poppin' them in your mouth like popcorn chicken from KFC. It's also about amusement parks, and roller coasters, and gettin' bored and stickin' your head through the railing of the line queue for Indiana Jones Adventure and havin' Mickey Mouse come hack ya free with a buzzsaw. It's about tossin' a cigarette butt into a bush near the Haunted Mansion and watchin' the fire grow as Disneyland fire fighters struggle to push through the crowds to vanquish the blaze. Summah!
What? You can't go to Anaheim? You're sayin' they ran you outta town because you cosplayed as a Storm Trooper and triggered a territorial dispute in Frontier Land? That's a little bit strange. I don't know why you'd want to break the illusion like that.
Thankfully Nintendo has a game designed for the criminal element, a Summah simulation known as Nintendo Land. Much like Astro's Playroom, Wii Sports, and Pilot Wings 64, Nintendo Land is a pack-in game designed specifically around its controller, making use of all the features one might expect to use during the duration of the generation. That said, I don't think I need to tell anyone that the Wii U's gamepad was seldom used by third parties for anything more than inventory screens and maps; knowledge which makes Nintendo Land interesting as a retroactive review of the console's potential.
Each attraction is built around a specific gimmick, like Donkey Kong's Crash Course, which thankfully does not involve putting a monkey in a car and setting him loose. Rather, you need to tilt the gamepad left and right to control your character as they slide around an obstacle course, occasionally blowing into the mic to raise platforms, tapping the bumpers to trigger gates, and cranking the right analog around to set tracks into place. At times it feels like you're controlling this with Joe Rinaudo's Photoplayer, but there's really no better way to learn every part of the gamepad. I also enjoyed Octopus Dance, which similarly requires you to juggle a bunch of different inputs as you match the timing and moves of a mime. Occasionally you'll even get jumpscared by your own face, which floats around in the background projected on a screen. I didn't consent to turning the camera on! I don't need to see myself slack-jawed, eyes wide and bulging as I try to match the beat-- I look like a freaking meatball!!
The real meat of Nintendo Land is its multiplayer attractions, which unfortunately can only be played locally. I suppose it's possible to try to set something up with friends through emulation, but doing so would mean forgoing the gamepad, which almost feels like too much a compromise given the whole conceit of Nintendo Land. None of these mini games are strong enough on their own to warrant a playthrough without the gamepad coloring the experience, and even if you were to map everything to another controller, I'm not sure how good it would even feel given how varied each game is. Unfortunately, this puts me in a position where I can't enjoy half of Nintendo Land's content. I can't even ride the train around for chrissake. Why wouldn't they at least put bots in the game to play against? I've seen the way Nintendo fans talk on Twitter, they've never interacted with another human being in their lives. know your audience! I hope someone was jailed for this oversight.
But, sometimes you spend Summah alone, stuck in the cigarette haze of a Nintendo themed pachinko parlor, spending all your coins on ? boxes that contain that piece of shit bird from Balloon Trip Breeze, or drawing dongs on the touchpad in Yoshi's Fruit Cart while everyone else is livin' it up in Pikmin's Adventure. Not that they'd let me into that smorgasbord anyway...
Now is the part of the review where I must run the numbers and determine if Nintendo Land is a Summah game. How well does it capture those Summah vibes? Can you feel the heat of the hot Summah sun beating down on you, the weight of the churro in your hand and the agony radiating from your feet as hour two of waiting to board Star Tours creeps on by? The only way to tell is by subjecting Nintendo Land to the usual Summah modifiers and a battery of tests, including how long it takes to get sunburned, if it can sustain rollercoaster velocities, and taste.
Nintendo Land scores a 4.8 on the Summah Index Scale. It is a game with slightly below average Summah vibes. Its fruity notes allowed it to pass the taste test, but it regrettably failed to complete velocity testing, having flown out of my hands during a sharp turn on Space Mountain. They refused to turn on the lights and let me look for it, so we can only speculate as to how Nintendo Land would have fared in further testing. Weighing all factors within our power, it was determined that Nintendo Land fails to capture the scope and splendor of the amusement parks it so desperately seeks to emulate, and you would perhaps be better served enjoying a game of Roller Coaster Tycoon.
5 Comments
@BlazingWaters I think I like the two Wii games a lot more, but it's been a while. I had half a mind to do Wii Sports Resort because I think it also fits the whole Summer theming, but seeing as I actually went to Disneyland fairly recently, I was in the mood for something theme park related. I may have also grossly overestimated how much Nintendo Land leans into that theming, but that's on me.
Yeah, Nintendo Land is much better off as a multiplayer title. They let you play most of the attractions solo, but the ones that are meant for more players will let you know by aggressively curbstomping you into finding some friends. Unfortunately, you'll have to track down people who are willing to swallow their pride long enough to play a Wii U game. (I did enjoy the novelty of piloting Samus' gunship for bombing runs though.)
@Hooblashooga I've been lamenting the difficulties of enjoying some older games to their fullest without friends being able to come over and play them with you - probably to the point of just whining - but it really stung with this one given how much of the game is locked off for it, and how bot opponents wouldn't have been unreasonable given when it launched. But, you know... Nintendo don't care.
yup, way more fun with friends
BlazingWaters
11 months ago
As much as I enjoy Nintendo Land solo, I do concede that it's nowhere near as fun to mess around in as Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort were. About the only game I can recall spending a lot of time on was the shuriken one, since it's one of those minigames where you have to time the swing of the object for point gain, and I always liked those at the arcades. It's fun, but pretty fleeting.
Least we can agree RCT is pretty dope.