With the Wii U now visible on the horizon, I can already feel the skepticism bubbling under the surface of the gaming public. There’s a lingering shadow of failure over the Wii. Somehow, despite being the best selling console of this generation, people seem to think of Nintendo’s little white machine as an abysmal failure that didn’t satisfy. Somehow, despite providing a long list of some of the best games this generation, gamers angrily accuse Nintendo of giving them nothing to play.
If you bought a Wii and didn’t have anything to play, it’s your own fault. You were clearly one of the brainwashed masses that got caught up in popular sentiment and failed to see the terrific experiences lying on shelves right under your nose. Why do you think third party support was lacking? Because you brushed aside the great games that were given to you and didn’t buy them so developers eventually gave up. Did the system fail to live up to its potential? Oh hell yeah. Did it lack third party support (whatever the reason)? Yup. Was its release schedule spotty enough to keep it from being someone’s primary gaming system? Yes, this too.
But considering its relatively meager cost and the fact that no one I know or have ever heard of actually tried to use it as their primary gaming system, I think Nintendo deserves a lot of credit for what they actually did do right.
It has recently occurred to me that for what might be the first time in my gaming career, the majority of my current efforts are focused on multiplayer affairs. This is a confusing and unexpected turn of events. My normally reclusive self would be horrified if he knew about this new me, this me willing to dive into the perils of online gaming and risk loss against an army of foul-mouthed twelve-year-olds.
To deny the truth would be futile, however. My time is currently split between Dirt 3 and Mortal Kombat, the latter of which I have developed a particular obsession with. Admitting that I am paying far more attention to multiplayer than is my norm is different from claiming something preposterous like having not battled a CPU in weeks. Nonsense. My presence in both games is still firmly rooted in a base of single-player used to warm up or pass the time in a less stressful manner.
Still, the fact remains: I’m playing nearly as much multiplayer as single player right now. That has almost certainly never happened before.
I learned something today. It was a truth that sunk in slowly and reluctantly; that my years of conditioning fought until it could deny the obvious no more. I had long trained myself to believe precisely the opposite, but through little more than sheer luck and a sudden revelation, I discovered what should have seemed plain but that was hidden by my ingrained biases.
The overabundance of headsets on Xbox Live isn’t actually a bad thing.
Hear me out. I know it may sound crazy at first. Before today I would have thought the same thing, but I now believe there is validity to the argument that Microsoft’s widespread dispersal of headsets with all their consoles may been a boon instead of a burden.
The argument has long gone that gaming on Xbox Live is a chore. You slap on your cheap headset and have to suffer through countless arrogant morons spewing profanity and racial slurs while kicking your ass and making you wonder what’s wrong with the world.
Let me be clear. All of that is still true. Dealing with the lowest common denominator on Xbox Live is still a cause of many migraines. There’s something about the aggression of online competition coupled with the relative anonymity of the online setting that seems to bring out the worst in people.
Most people.
It’s in this qualifying statement that we begin to see the upside to the proliferation of voice chat.
It has warmed my heart of late to see 2D platformers becoming acceptable again. From the sadistic challenge of Super Meat Boy to the retro thrills of Donkey Kong Country Returns to the adorable charm of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, to name just a few, the side scroller seems to be making a comeback.
Some games, such as Super Meat Boy, exist because downloadable games have made riskier titles possible. Others, such as Kirby and Donkey Kong, are actually, in a sense, children of Wii Sports and Nintendo’s movement toward making things simpler again. There’s something about the design of a classic side scrolling platformer that’s easy to grasp for just about anyone.
Both of these categories of old school game are representative of a happy truth. As a gaming culture, we have finally reached the point where 3D, and the complexity that normally comes with it, is no longer necessary for success. I love me some complexity in the right situations and simple isn’t always better, but it wasn’t too many years ago when the classic side scroller was basically dead because there was no market. To sell, you had to be 3D.
This is no longer true. Graphics may be in 3D, and you won’t find me complaining about that because there are some gorgeous examples of left-to-right hop-and-bops that feature pleasing use of the third dimension for eye candy, but what is once again most important is great gameplay, even if it’s in two dimensions.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why a game like New Super Mario Bros Wii is thrilling for me. I love Super Mario Galaxy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t sincerely appreciate a return to glorious 2D form for Mario.
Despite the Dreamcast’s relative obscurity in the gaming world, there are a good number of its titles that have become fairly well known, many of which have already been featured in this retrospective.
This is not one of them.
Ooga Booga may not have the popularity of Crazy Taxi or Space Channel 5 or Jet Grind Radio, but it definitely has the fun to compete with the best of its better-known peers.
It belongs on that special list of games, and every true gamer possesses such a list, that I can claim to have heard of and adore but nobody else has any idea what I’m talking about.
Ooga Booga is a simple title and, as the name subtly hints, is not a serious one. It is a relatively straightforward action game that, because of its simplicity, still manages to retain its charm and fun factor to this day.
You played as the Kahuna, or witch doctor, of one of four charming tribes: Hottie, Hoodoo, Fatty, or Twitchy. The goal was to compete on mysterious island arenas for the favor of the Volcano Goddess by battling the other tribes. Each tribe has their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as a special ability. Other weapons at your disposal include shrunken heads, which can be collected from all around the levels and thrown at your opponents, and spell tokens, which you can pick up to use spells such as mines, fireballs, lightening, tornadoes, and meteors, among others. You can also catch one of the creatures of the island, either a boar or a bird, and run around on it and attack other players. Finally, you can claim Tikis using shrunken heads as payment and they will act as automatic turrets, attacking enemy tribes whenever they come near.
It is simple, arcade-style fun, and incredibly addictive. There are even multiple match types to change things up. Most time will be spent in Smakahuna, which is a free-for-all match type where each tribe competes for points earned by attacking other players. In Rodeo mode you can only score points by attacking enemies while riding an animal, and in the wonderful Boar Polo mode, you ride on boars and play what is essentially a very bizarre game of soccer, using the boars to push a giant ball down the arena, around obstacles, and into the opponent’s goal.
By playing the single player Tribal Trial mode you could unlock not only expected game content like spells and creatures, but also new Kahunas, stages, and other wacky fun things. Or you could just use the cheat codes, which were awesome and numerous. The unlockable characters were simply awesome. You could play as Death, Disco Dude, a Leprechaun, a Pirate, and more, all of which had plenty of charm and personality. There were also multiple decorative masks you could unlock for each character.
Like so many titles on the Dreamcast and so many aspects of the hardware itself, Ooga Booga was ahead of its time. It came too late in the Dreamcast’s life cycle to catch on with anything even approaching a large audience and, let’s face it, the game is a little too weird to be tremendously popular anyway.
But the game is a great example of a terrifically addictive party game that is a blast when you get a bunch of friends together to play it. It would be a truly perfect fit in the modern gaming landscape as a downloadable title on Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Network, or even on the Wii, complete with a few modern conveniences and online play with a nice broadband connection. I doubt there’s anywhere close to enough demand for such a remake to actually happen, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep the dream alive.
The game did include online play that was a lot of fun in its day. It wouldn’t exactly have given Xbox Live a run for its money, but but it was still fun, and better than anything else at the time.
As it stands, it might feel a little dated, but I can almost guarantee that if you get a group of people together to play this game and go into it with an open mind, then you’ll still end up having a blast.
Wed, June 8, 2011 at 10:14 PM 
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