Pikmin - New Play Control
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By Brent Oxford
| Published by: Nintendo | Developed by: Nintendo | ESRB Rating: E for Everyone |
| Platform: Wii | Release Date: March 09 2009 | Genre: Adventure / Strategy |
June 21, 2009
Nintendo, attempting to give gamers another chance at titles that many people may not have played during the Game Cube era, began a new line of games called New Play Control in 2008. New Play Control took prior Game Cube titles and fitted them with Wii remote-based controls. One of these titles was the 2001 classic Pikmin. This seven-year old game holds up to today's standards quite well, and with the Wii remote controls, your experience will be even better.
The story is about as simple as you can get, but it's a Nintendo game so asking for a complex story is asking far too much. While exploring the deep reaches of space in his spaceship, Captain Olimar's ship The Dolphin gets hit by a meteor and is forced to crash land on a mysterious planet: Earth. During the landing, multiple pieces of Olimar's ship fly off in different directions leaving Olimar with a non-functional piece of junk. Olimar has only 30 days to repair his craft or he'll die from the planet's poisonous atmosphere. Luckily for Olimar, he lands right next to his only hope of survival and escape: the strange but very loyal creatures known as Pikmin.
Pikmin is a 3D top-down strategy game. The goal is to grow as many Pikmin as possible using flower pellets and the corpses of defeated enemy creatures. You can then command your ever-expanding army of Pikmin to help you find your missing ship parts and carry them back to The Dolphin. Even with its simplistic goal, the game has a lot of depth.
There are three different kinds of Pikmin: red Pikmin are your strongest fighters and are completely immune to fire; yellow Pikmin can carry objects called bomb rocks that can be used for clearing out walls that block your path; and blue Pikmin have the ability to walk in water without drowning. As you progress through the game, you'll find instances where having a certain type of Pikmin with you will give far greater chances of success in defeating creatures and finding new parts. Olimar can only have 100 Pikmin in his command at any one time, so careful consideration must be used when preparing for a day when you'll need two or all three types out at once.
The last mechanic in Pikmin is the day cycle. At the end of one day—one day being equal to about 15 real-life minutes—Olimar has to round up any stray Pikmin and bring them back to his ship, or he’ll be forced to take-off and leave Pikmin behind for the nocturnal creatures to devour. You only had 30 days to beat the entire game which doesn’t give much time to explore. This bothered a lot of players in the original GameCube version, and unfortunately the same could happen here. Nintendo did add a new feature which would allow you to revisit previous days if you did poorly, but this causes the player to lose all progress after that day.
In the GameCube version, you were forced to aim with the c-stick to launch your Pikmin at enemies or ship parts, which was not a very well-liked among some players. However, a very welcome change to the game allows you to fire your Pikmin with much more ease thanks to the infrared aiming of the Wii remote. This addition makes Olimar far more evasive while still being able to accurately deploy Pikmin.
The game also got a small visual upgrade. New Play Control Pikmin now supports 16:9 aspect ratio, making the game look slightly better. It still has some rather blurry textures in places, but overall the game is one of the Wii's best looking titles...which is kind of sad when you realize that this is a seven year old GameCube title.
Overall, New Play Control Pikmin for the Wii is still very fun to play, even after seven years. While players of the Game Cube version will still be annoyed by the 30 day limit, they will also be thankful for the improved control scheme and for the slight visual upgrade. It is a game that is worth your 30 dollars, so whether you are a Pikmin fan or an unfamiliar gamer, you should definitely give it a try.
About the Author: Brent Oxford has been gaming for over 18 years and started like many of us playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Brent is a regular contributor to Elder-Geek.com.