Andy Laub

One of my least favorite aspects of the process of makin’ websites is cross-browser testing. It’s not that I feel it’s unimportant; nor does it really cause me too much stress. But the mere fact that it is a thing that has to happen can be cause for frustration. Fortunately, it’s 2010 and for the most part we can be content to worry about which browsers support which bleeding edge features. Unfortunately, it’s 2010 and we still have to test in Internet Explorer 6.

I’ll be honest and say that of all the headaches I’ve dealt with over the past few years, IE6 has decreasingly been the cause of them. I think more people are starting to come around to the theory I posted on Twitter this morning:

IE6 users either A) know their browser sucks and expect a degraded experience (corporate) or B) don’t know/don’t care (grandparents).

Everybody knows this is true. Any self-respecting nerd wouldn’t be caught dead using IE6 – we’re talking about software that:

1. is nearly 10 years old.
2. was never that great to begin with.
3. stopped being supported 2 versions of Windows ago.

All of which begs the question: why are so many people still using it? The obvious answer is because they can. Massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly, which means there’s no incentive for the user (or the user’s IT department) to upgrade. And since they don’t upgrade, then massive corporations insist that their websites continue to be IE6-friendly.

Which is totally insane; the burden then falls on the developers to build websites that somehow feature the latest technology and run in a browser that was built before most of that technology was invented? I mean, we can do it, but we don’t like doing it because it encourages bad habits.

As developers we can only explain all of this to the client in the name of enlightenment, but If anyone can pull the plug on IE6 it’s the enterprises. Google, bless them, is leading by example and we can only hope others take notice. We’ve got to get the IE6 users potty-trained onto better browsers instead of coddling them into adulthood while they’re still shitting their pants.

After what seems like decades, Abe and I finally have a week where we don’t have extracurricular activities eating up every evening. Thanks to a Target gift card and some smooth talking on my part, we decided to spend some of that time with New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

We played through the first world last night, and looking back I think I enjoyed it. The game looks great, and we did a decent job of remaining alive (a definite plus) and so I hope that trend continues. Similar to 2006’s New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS, this game is a spiritual successor Super Mario Bros. 3 from the NES days. A prime choice; I consider SMB3 to be the pinnacle of Mario side-scrollers. So all is great, right? Well… no. While the game in and of itself has a lot of potential, there were also some attributes that really felt detrimental to the whole experience.

The big news in NSMBW is that you can play with up to four people simultaneously – no waiting for your turn; everybody’s on the screen, all the time. Except when they’re not. Unfortunately, it is possible for players to find themselves scrolled right off the screen, which can be overcome but may also result in death if they’re beyond the threshold of what the game decides is “safe”. Fortunately, the deceased player will quickly return in a bubble that you need to pop to get them back into the action (imagine Baby Mario in the Yoshi’s Island series).

Player interaction is another iffy item. For better or worse, your characters cannot all occupy the same space at the same time. This becomes problematic when two overzealous teammates decide to tackle the same obstacle simultaneously and instead end up as obstacles themselves. You can overcome this by constantly trying to call out your plans (“okay, now I’m going to jump on this Koopa”) but that seems like a strange thing to need to do for what should be a relatively casual experience. At the same time, it really does add to the atmosphere of the game and make it more interesting.

The biggest problem with this game, though, is where it is. My opinion is and always will be that the Wii platform is a hinderance to “normal” games. The controllers suck, not only in a physical sense but in an “it takes me 5-10 minutes to even get them to work” sense. By the time I’ve gotten the console to function I’m already beginning a game with a feeling of disappointment. Maybe it’s a repetitive fluke (oxymoron?), but how can Nintendo expect the console to appeal to non-techy casual gaming types when they can’t reliably sync their controllers to their consoles?

And while I realize that motion control is the Wii’s bread and butter at the moment, I think it’s ridiculous that they feel obligated to tack it on to every game just because it’s there. Making the game rely on motion control means that we are stuck with the basic Wiimote turned sideways (ugh, just like Super Paper Mario) instead of being able to use a Gamecube controller, the Wiimote/nunchuk combo, or the classic controller.

And that interface! Still so terrible.