When the first shots of the Nintendo Revolution came streaming back from the Tokyo Game Show, everyone exploded with some sort of emotion. Scott Ramsoomair at VGCats was stricken with grief and paralysis. Avid gamer Caleb and “not-so-avid-gamer-but-stubborn-wannabee” Joshua seem to be entirely for revolution.

I, on the other hand, am quite the counter-revolutionary.

It isn’t the appearance of the controller that worries me, but it is the mechanics. I’m not overly concerned that the controller looks like a television remote control. I’m concerned with how games will be made and played in the future, in regards to Nintendo.

Let’s take a look at the problems with the Revolution’s controller:

Functionality

i) Buttons Before the controller was even unveiled to the general public, Nintendo had taken a stance that controllers had “too many buttons and joysticks” and they claimed their new controller would make gaming simpler. However, some games NEED a great deal of buttons.

It’s time for a button count:

Nintendo Gamecube: two analog sticks, 4 face buttons, 3 shoulder buttons and a D-Pad. Nintendo Revolution: one motion “stick”, one face button, one shoulder button and a D-Pad Nintendo Revolution w/ Add-On: 2 “analog” sticks, one face button, three shoulder buttons and a D-Pad.

Let’s recap, shall we? Gamecube Total: 2 sticks, 7 buttons, D-Pad Revolution Total: 2 sticks, 4 buttons, D-Pad

This presents a SERIOUS problem, as far as certain games are concerned. For my purposes, we will consider two types of games.

The first game is your typical fighting game. In this variety of game, a button is traditionally assigned to guard, low attack (or horizontal strike), high attack (or vertical strike) and kick. Furthermore, there is required a “joystick” of some description to move the character. This is not available on standalone Revolution controller. Nintendo makes it absolutely necessary to purchase their add-on device to play any fighter game. Thanks a lot for that Nintendo.

The second game we need to consider is an RPG like the NamcoTales game, or even something like Xenosaga. In this variety of game, different pre-rendered attacks are assigned to certain buttons. This means that during a string of attacks, you can activate a spell by pressing simply “B” and a direction. “A” is assigned as the melee attack. Unfortunately, with the Revolution’s standalone controller, this would be your only option. You would be unable to jump, block, or change which opponent you are attacking. Even with the Nintendo Revolution add-on, you’d be given a mere two extra buttons, making it impossible for you to change the opponent you are attacking. The RPG of that type would be impossible to play, making the Nintendo Revolution an unfavourable home for the NamcoTales RPG’s, which are the third most popular RPG series in Japan. But guess who has the next Tales release? Sony. Oh well.

What Nintendo has failed to realize is that full-motion RPG’s are a lot more favourable with people because the fighting style is more involving than your average turn based RPG. Due to the new control design, Nintendo has limited themselves solely to the realm of turn based RPG’s. For shame.

ii) Sans Joystick

I’m not going to deny that the technology incorporated into the system is cool. It just will not work at this point in time. Why? They’ve limited themselves from getting a lot of third-party support. For the past while, third party games would be featured on all three platforms. This new controller style will make that impossible. Third party games will only be able to fit within the controls of X360 and PS3. Otherwise, the game designers and developers would have to completely redo the control setup to accomodate the Revolution’s controller. In their eyes, it might not be worth it. How many third party games have Nintendo users lost out on by siding with the Revolution? Capcom’s pulled out of Nintendo exclusivity agreements lately, so we can’t expect much from them. Other companies will likely side with the more reliable companies of Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo promised a decent Zelda sequel, and we’ve waited half a decade. They promised a line up of DS games. Where the hell are they? Now, with the Revolution, they’ve promised the world. Why the hell should we trust them?

Also, yes Josh, the controller would work great with a lightsaber game. If their line up is entirely lightsaber games, Nintendo is set. Also, who is to say LucasArts will even develop games for the Revolution. It is an inferior system, and I doubt Rev will be delivered any third party exclusives. The world is starting to hate Nintendo, and their gaming empire will crash to the ground.

Also, the console may be cheap, but they’ll rape the consumer up the ass in controller add-ons.

I had more to say, but I’m incredibly bored of Nintendo now, and don’t really want to write anymore.