Old Grandma Hardcore

This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Super Mario Galaxy is boring Grandma to death

If you've read us long enough you'll know that it happens once and awhile; sometimes there will be a game worshiped by many that Grandma just can't enjoy. It almost makes her feel bad to have to say she hates it. Almost.

But then she falls off another ledge because her fucking Wii-mote isn't cooperating and she comes back to her senses.

She's tried repositioning the sensor bar, sitting further away from the television, recalibrating the sensitivity, everything. With Super Paper Mario, everything came together nicely for the Wii.

But for whatever reason, Super Mario Galaxy, which has been called the must own Wii game and Game of the Year and all that just isn't fun to Grandma.

She thinks it's boring.

It's not that she hates the Wii style controller entirely, just its dependency. Think of all the reviews for Super Smash Brothers Brawl recently. Or even emails and comments made by some of you guys to Grandma recommending the game. It's alarming to think that one point that needs to be made in a review of what is being heralded as the best selling Nintendo game of all time is that one doesn't have to use the frustrating controller for which it was made.

"Use a GameCube controller and it's awesome" they say.

Grandma wishes she could have used a GameCube controller for SMG.

"I hate this fucking game. I feel so stupid playing it, it's a kid's game for fuck's sake and I can't.. get.. the fucking... CANNON to line up- GODDAMMIT!"

[vigorously shaking controller back and forth] "COME ON, DAMMIT! HIT THE BASTARD!"

"No sense talking to this guy.... I don't have any money to buy anything because collecting coins is a pain in the ass."

"Fuck this. I quit."

To her credit, she's said 'fuck this, I quit' many times while playing Super Mario Galaxy, but she keeps plugging away for some reason. There isn't a whole lot excitement about the current crop of games out there for Grandma right now, only for that which is to come.

It makes her worried about her poor Wii.

Super Paper Mario was the last game she played and really enjoyed for the system and she got into the plot; cared about the characters and had a generally good time with it. But she isn't apologetic about her hatred of SMG to its fans; it's just not a game for everyone, I suppose.

"I fucking HATE it. It's not the upside-down multi-dimensional aspect of it, hell Portal did that and it was brilliant. It's more of what it isn't, if that makes any sense. It isn't Mario 64. It isn't Super Paper Mario. It isn't Super Smash Brothers or even Super Mario RPG. You compare a game like Super Mario Galaxy to everything else I played just last year and it seems old already. And the weird part is I played a demo level at E3 in 2006 and I thought it would be a lot of fun. Oh well. Can't win them all, I guess. Goddamn, I can't wait for another good game to come out. There isn't shit out there."

So, in the past few months or so, she's bought more movies than games. Mostly on BlueRay, but she did take advantage of the HD-DVD firesale at BestBuy because.. well, the attachment for the 360 is only something like $40 now, and HD-DVD movies are cheap as hell. She knows it's a dead format, but what the hell- we're poor and we like movies.

It makes her sad that she and I talk more about the meaning of the ending to No Country For Old Men more than we talk about Super Mario Galaxy, for instance. She used to hate when the gaming magazines started reviewing DVD releases after the PS2 came out. "I subscribe to read about GAMES," she'd tell me. "Not about the different languages available on Pulp Fiction." And yet here we are in one of those gaming lulls where, honestly, what else can we do?

In a nutshell, Grandma's reviews of things she'd rather not review:

On HD-DVD...
American Gangster - "Not Ridley Scott's best, but it ain't bad."
King Kong - "Don't look at me, it came with the HD-DVD player."
Elizabeth: The Golden Age - "Sucked."
Zodiac: Two Disc Director's Cut - "Great movie. David Fincher is great."
Planet Earth: Complete Collection - "Great series, but we had to return it to BestBuy to get another copy because it came with scratched discs. HD-DVDs scratch really easily it turns out. And when they do, it won't even load up. You have to get a new one."
Ultimate Matrix Collection - "Pretty much the reason we got the player. used to be $100, then $90, then briefly during the firesale after the announcement that Toshiba gave up HD-DVD it was only $50. So you could get a player, all of the Matrix movies plus The Animatrix series for just $100. Awesome."
The Pianist - "Nothing like watching The Holocaust in high-def to make you feel like shit."

On BlueRay...
Weeds: Season One - "Hilarious!"
Weeds: Season Two - "Not as hilarious. More serious."
Letters From Iwo Jima - "Better than Flags of Our Fathers."
30 Days of Night - "Scary as fuck. I liked it."
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - "Really well done movie. Pitt was great it in."
Kingdom of Heaven - "Better than Gladiator."
Blade Runner: Complete Collectors Edition - "Awesome, but I don't even know why you'd want the original narrated version."
I Am Legend - "Thought the effects were done much better in 30 Days of Night, actually. I wish they wouldn't use CGI for everything."
Ocean's Thirteen - "Great, but don't get it on BlueRay."
Ratatouille - "Loved it!"
28 Days Later - "We've already mentioned this before. Don't get it on BlueRay."
Black Hawk Down - "If you're going to play Call of Duty 4, you might as well know why the story is compelling."
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - "Only reason to get this in high-def is the great audio. Otherwise, there's not much they can do to make it look any better than it did before. Great movie, though."

Grandma knows what to do. She posted a video (she'd like to do more, by the way, she likes talking directly to yas') and at the moment she's doing a lot of baking. Which is great for me because I fucking love her cookies.

She's been scanning the gaming magazines for exciting new releases each month, waiting with the anticipation of a vulture watching a rabbit try to cross a highway. She's just ITCHING to get the same experience she had playing Call of Duty 4 or Orange Box or actually- what she REALLY wants is another horror game like Fatal Frame, Resident Evil or Silent Hill. She talks about that genre a lot, now. Condemned 2 came out recently, but it hasn't been received well and she wasn't exactly a huge fan of the first game. I know she won't buy it, but if she does end up renting it, it will be for achievement point whoring reasons only, I'm afraid.

Grandma's on the search for another awesome game to get into; to get her fix before GTA IV, FFXIII, RE5 and other ambiguous acronyms are released.

Me, I've been working my ass off. I like working. Working means more money, which means bills get paid and I can save for better equipment which means more work, more money, better equipment, and so on...

It ALSO means that we here at OGHC are proud to introduce the newest member of our little family.

But first some backstory for those of you who weren't with us in the beginning. When I first started writing about Grandma, people thought it was fake or at best a funny sort of hoax. So I had to take pictures of Grandma to prove she even existed. The moment she discovered the site existed was when I asked if I could take her picture to put it online. Of course, that's wasn't good enough for the folks who thought she wasn't real and I wanted to give at least audio of her doing her thing while she plays because I felt no matter how much I wrote, people wouldn't understand why I thought she was so awesome until they heard it and seen it themselves.

So we got a little ol' webcam from Staples. A Logitec something or other. It was choppy but it worked okay. Then, after we finally relented to those calling for us to put up a PayPal donation button to get some better equipment to show Grandma, you guys bought us the Sony Handycam that we've used for all the videos of Grandma on YouTube. It's suited us very well. I can't thank all of you enough for helping us get it with your donations back in the day.

While we didn't feel quite right taking such a gift, you can imagine how stupid I feel not being able to use it as often as I used to; giving you guys new videos of Grandma playing all her latest stuff as it happens. I felt like such an asshole recently because of that. Here are you folks who loved Grandma enough to want to see her and talk to her and gave us money to help me do that and here is me not doing all I can after work to do that. And Grandma likes to talk to you guys too! That's why she made the last video.

So, I needed to give something back. I figured, well- if we're going to do videos we might as well DO VIDEOS.

So I got THIS:


This is Panny. Panny is a Panasonic DVX-100B MiniDV 3CCD ProLine Camcorder. It's also the same model camera used by MTV whenever they filmed Grandma at our house or at E3 or at the press-junkets.

I use it for work shooting video for the newspaper's website when I can, so it still pays the bills. I'm a still photographer by trade, but everybody wants video now. Still, Panny is my camera; not the newspapers. So I can use it to shoot anything else I like as well. Porn, Nature Documentaries, Weddings, whatever! So why not use it in conjunction with a decent audio set-up to give y'all some kick ass videos of Grandma being Grandma?

Game on!

41 Comments:

  • At 12:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    First comment .... Nice post by the way nice to see you back Tim ...... Also I havnt heard about Grandma's dog , what happened ?

     
  • At 12:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Sorry to Grandma didn't like SMG, but I didn't care for it much either. If she wants a good Wii title, she could give No More Heroes a try. Really fun game that has a lot of new ideas.

    Looking forward to some new videos. :D

     
  • At 7:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    sad to hear Grandma doesn't like SMG (I did), but then... everybody seems to like Assassin's Creed, and I just don't see what the fuss is about :-)

    if Grandma is looking for something really good to play, I can recommend Lost Odyssey. that game is brilliant, gave me 92 hours of fun, tears and everything in between. I'm now into Enchanted Arms, which is ok, but not that great.

    and mario kart for the wii should make Grandma happy, no?

     
  • At 7:55 AM, Blogger djkibblesnbits said…

    I was actually having control issues with SMG, as well. Then I realized that Galaxy, for whatever reason, didn't like the fact that my Wii-mote was being powered by a third-party battery pack as opposed to regular batteries. So, I switched out the rechargeable battery for some AA's, and low and behold, the Wii-mote started working like a charm with no controller issues. Once I made the switch, I started to really enjoy the game.

    So, if you're using third-party battery packs, switch 'em out for some AA's and see if that improves the experience. Because there's absolutely NO reason that anyone should have trouble on the cannon parts.

    Hope that helps!

     
  • At 11:04 AM, Blogger Crazy Raven Productions said…

    That is a damned sexy camera, dude. I'm jealous! :) Sorry Grandma isn't diggin' Super Mario Galaxy, but I can understand...it didn't really appeal to me either.

     
  • At 12:19 PM, Blogger Jamie said…

    I can understand why grandma cant get into SMG I found it boring aswell and I haven't even touched my Wii in months the xbox 360 takes up all my free time.Wow Tim thats one hell of a nice camera.Grandma I cant wait intill Resident Evil 5 comes out either it looks amazing and I really hope I can the same feeling when I first played Resident Evil 4.Thanks for that awesome post take care
    From Jamie

     
  • At 2:09 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    sorry to hear about your dissatisfaction with SMG... but you cant win 'em all! if youre in the mood for some comically amusing violence and decent gameplay (despite an at times annoying camera) you should check out Viking on the 360. maybe im just a cynic but the mini-fatalities you do on enemies is comical! although it is just out last week so there will be no gamefaq to print out, but from my experience one isnt really needed... the one or two times i've been stuck a google search lead to other gamers on forums with similar problems! although the game is decent, it is most assuredly a RENT and not OWN... even for the true achievement monger, its relatively short but i dont think i will be replaying on hard before i return it..

     
  • At 3:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    WHEN IS GRANDMA GONNA PLAY METROID PRIME 3 ALREADY!

     
  • At 7:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree about what she said about Galaxy, although I didnt find it too boring. If you wanna check out a game you should try the Metal Gear Solid: Essentials Collction. I bought it last weekend for $30 and I'm loving it. Now I'm really pumped for Mgs4. Gta4 will help sooth the wait :)

     
  • At 2:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hey Granny! Thank you for your thoughts about some of the HD-DVD movies that are out. I just bought an HD-DVD player for my Xbox 360 since it's so cheap nowadays, and I totally agree with you; It's a dead format soon, but I'm poor and I like movies! ;D

    I'm glad you gave 30 Days Of Night good reviews, because it's a movie I'm really looking forward to, as I'm a big fan of the comic books. I'll be getting my copy in a couple of weeks, when it's released in Europe!

    Right now I'm waiting to buy Condemned 2 and GTA 4, and I totally agree that the games out there right now aren't that exciting for my taste. So I'm really looking forward to these 2, plus Silent Hill 5 and RE5.

    Tim, I can't wait to see a new vid of Granny made with your new camera. And thank you for this recent post about Granny. Give her all my best from me, and...

    GAME ON!!

     
  • At 8:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It is sad indeed to see Grandma dislike Super Mario Galaxy. If you think the Wii Remote is too dependant in that game, you would've LOATHED, DREADED, and HATED Twilight Princess on the Wii. Ah, well. Like other posters have said, "You can't win them all."

    NICE CAMERA! I wouldn't mind having that thing to shoot a movie for my upcoming local film festival. You lucky bastard, you!

    Game on!

     
  • At 7:24 AM, Blogger Guernican said…

    A little Dark Sector, maybe? It's no Resident Evil but when you can Aftertouch a spinning metal glaive into the throat of a soldier at 50 yards, it feels.... goooood.

     
  • At 7:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The cookies looked great and it's a shame she couldn't get into, I enjoyed every second of it. =)

    Keep up the reviewing.

    PS: Please stop calling it "Blue" Ray :P

     
  • At 4:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    YAY NEW POST! And yay sweet new camera! And of course, yay cookies! Mmmm, cookies...

    Anyhow - I've gotta recommend Persona 3 - the special edition, Persona 3: FES is coming out at the end of the month (23rd) and trust me, you gots to preorder this sucker - because like all good Atlus games they make like FIVE COPIES and that's it. Go forth and grab it, trust me! And watch out for the instant death bastard skills like Hama and Mudo - those are MEAN!

    Hope you guys are doing well, many hugs, and I'd be curious to know what Grandma thought of Dark Sector and Viking - might be something nifty to pass the time ::grin:: Take care, be well, and GAME ON!

    -A!

    P.S: April issue of Game Informer - go get lots of copies! Trust me! ::big grin::

     
  • At 10:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Grandma Hardcore FTW!!!

     
  • At 6:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I would strongly suggest that Grandma plays Patapon for the PSP. It's a very addicting rhythm/RTS/RPG that I've sunk 30 hours into. It's also very Japanese, which provides for some good humor

     
  • At 11:11 AM, Blogger Rejkyvik said…

    Hey Grandma,

    you know, i know what you mean about playing a game that was heralded as a "jewel encrusted treasure from azgard" and found that personally you just didnt like.

    If the game was great- in my opinion, a person woudl be using *the controller for the current generation system* and they wouldnt HAVE to use the last generation syetem controller to make the gameplay worth a fuck because the assholes short changed the R&D and QC on the functionality of hte game using the WII controler. (what a concept)

    at any rate, here's what i do when i get to the point where the games out ive already played and grown weary of- and there's just nothing else that has come out yet. I'll pull out the games that i liked enough to actually buy (or that i got as gifts and kept) and play them again. For me, that'd be any of the last 3 GTA games, Legacy of Kaine/Soul Reaver series, or Morrowind, or Oblivion, or Bards Tale, Oddworld: Strangers Wrath,.... etc etc.

    Hey that's what i do.... go back to the games ive played, and enjoyed and woudl be happy to play again. Good way to spend the time while there's a dry spot in the game flow.

    Oh BTW enjoyed your first video/podcast. You did a good job. Hope you do more.

     
  • At 3:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Condemned 2 was well received. It has an 8.1 avg on metacritic. Is that not enough? I thought it was pretty good, definitely a scary game. Don't write it off so quick

     
  • At 9:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Awe, we own the game, but have yet to really play it... We just bought 4 games for Wii this weekend... Destroy all humans, the sonic olympics one, smashbrothers, and soemthing else.....

    My fiance ALSO thinks you should play condemned 2! I must admit though, watching him play made me have nightmares! haha! I would dream about the damn black things that came out of the walls.... crazyyy..., but it LOOKED fun!

     
  • At 7:00 PM, Blogger electric goldfish said…

    Ah I feel better about not liking a game everyone else is head over heels for. I bought Zelda: Minish Cap for the gba and...I kinda hate it. ;_; I guess I just don't have the patience for fetch quests anymore.

    Anyway, I look forward to Grandma's videos. Game on! ~_^

     
  • At 10:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yeah. All we can do now is play Pop Cap Games. :-) Now, really, I've never felt bad about not liking some game. I don't like Mario at all, to be perfectly honest.

     
  • At 11:09 AM, Blogger محمد said…

    www.worldgames1.com

    yes
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  • At 5:40 PM, Blogger Gromix said…

    omg! this blog is amazing, and grandma rocks!

     
  • At 9:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    lovely...

     
  • At 12:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    condemned 1 so much better
    u.t.h.

     
  • At 5:46 PM, Blogger pika23 said…

    I did'nt like it either Grandma...it was sorta boring and kind of easy and just too off the traditional platforming path for me to enjoy. I'm like you...I enjoy Ratchet and Clank and the normal action platformers, but SMG was just not as great as people make it out to be.

     
  • At 5:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

  • At 12:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi, I`m a big fan of yours grandma! You rock!
    Anyway, I can understand why you didn`t like Super Mario Galaxy... I didn`t really enjoy it either; I only bought it because of the great reviews it was getting, but I was still dissapointed.
    By the way, if you`re looking for some good, non-kiddy Wii games you could try out Metroid Prime 3 or No More Heroes, but you should check out first what`s wrong with your Wii-mote.
    And if you`re interested in upcoming releases for the PS3, then you DEFINITELY have to buy Metal Gear Solid 4 (which comes out June 12th). Well, I hope this helps. Bye!

     
  • At 4:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

  • At 11:36 PM, Blogger Steven B. said…

    Nice posts SMG isnt all a bad game really. I beat the whole game entirely with mario & luigi its not that hard. I got about 46 stars in 2 days so thats an accomplishment. Anyway keep up the good work.

     
  • At 5:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Has she played Metroid Prime 3 yet? I really enjoyed that one and it came out before super mario galaxy. I thought I was the only one who thought SMG was pretty boring.

     
  • At 9:15 AM, Blogger Geek-GirL said…

    Grand ma,
    stay clear a way from 3rd party Batteries they are use less.

    I use Duracell Ultra,

    Give Metroid prime 3 a Try and also Alone in the Dark a Survival Horror. try it on the 360 or Ps3 have it in glorious HD

     
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  • At 6:54 AM, Anonymous gih said…

    Haha, I like that story.

     
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    Interesting site you have here. And it would be nice to see what you to say about macro trading. Most experts on this subject have an annoying have of taking a simple concept and twisting and turning around it until it sounds hellishly complex.

     
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    if Grandma wants Cheapest wow goldsomething great to play, I'm able to advise Misplaced Odyssey. which online game is excellent, provided 92 several hours regarding entertaining, tears and also everything in among. I am today into Enchantedgw2 gold Biceps, which can be okay, but not exceptional.

     
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