Messages

576

TalkBack / Re: PODCAST: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 101

« on: June 06, 2008, 04:37:52 PM »

The NFL's my area of expertise, as we actually get to see that over here on TV. My knowledge of college football is mostly limited to the aspects of it that relate to the NFL, so I doubt I outrank any of my RFN colleagues in that regard actually.

[Wii version of the DS puzzler becomes the first post-launch WiiWare game in Europe while the Virtual Console is left without any additions.]

577

TalkBack / PAL WiiWare Update: Actionloop Twist

« on: June 06, 2008, 02:02:43 PM »

Wii version of the DS puzzler becomes the first post-launch WiiWare game in Europe while the Virtual Console is left without any additions.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=16095

 In the first update to the WiiWare service in PAL territories since its launch last month, Actionloop Twist has become available from the Wii Shop Channel for 1000 Wii Points.    

Making its Western debut in Europe, Actionloop Twist is based on the Nintendo DS puzzle game Actionloop (known as Magnetica in the US). This Wii version includes motion controls and Mii integration, along with local multiplayer options for up to four people.    

There were no additions to the Virtual Console library of downloadable games to complement the lone update to WiiWare, marking the first time in several weeks (including the WiiWare launch week) that this has happened in Europe.      

ACTION WITH A TWIST!    

This week the popular Nintendo DS puzzle game Actionloop Twist™ launches on WiiWare! Pick your favourite Mii character and take control of the Gemstone launcher simply by twisting the Wii Remote back and forth, firing magnetic Gemstones of matching colours to make them disappear before they reach the end of the loop. Jump straight into the action in QuickPlay modes for one or two players, put your skills to the ultimate test in Challenge mode, or see if you can survive the Quest mode where every level brings a new way to play. Or, if you’re in a party mood, try Multiplayer mode for up to four players; either with friends, against the computer, or a combination. Cooperate and clear the Gemstones together, or compete to see who is the Actionloop Twist master! Actionloop Twist™  is available now on WiiWare for 1000 Wii Points    

With the WiiWare pipeline filled with exciting and refreshing games keep checking www.Wii.com and the Nintendo Channel for all the latest WiiWare news and releases.

578

Nintendo Gaming / Re: VC Friday continuous thread

« on: June 05, 2008, 07:22:29 PM »

No VC games this week.

More than two weeks on from the WiiWare launch, we now only get one more game:

Actionloop Twist (1000 Points)

579

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Ubisoft rationalizes their current support for Wii

« on: June 05, 2008, 06:09:19 PM »

The big disconnect between Ubisoft's rhetoric and reality is that the Wii userbase is not only already large, but as it grows, it's only getting more and more diverse, much the same as with the DS experience. So it's just foolish to try and characterise millions of consumers who have purchased a Wii for various different reasons as one homogeneous bloc, but this seems to be what Ubisoft is saying. They assert that it is necessary to develop these kinds of games to succeed on Wii, but it is obvious from software sales that there are other ways to succeed on the platform, and also that even the low-cost casual market is not without risk of failure.

I have no doubt that there are Wii owners who seldom buy software as described in the quote above, but to imply that they are the only kind of Wii owner (or even the predominant kind) just doesn't fly. Ubisoft should be candid enough to say that they are choosing to target this particular kind of Wii owner with their lineup, rather than insinuating that they've somehow been forced into it because they're the only Wii owners out there to target. 

580

NWR Forums Discord / Re: JUNE IS END BOSS MONTH

« on: June 02, 2008, 02:42:50 PM »

Face the girth of Giant Baby Bowser.

581

NWR Forums Discord / Re: The British...

« on: May 30, 2008, 11:51:04 PM »

We would give you all your water back, but we're already committed to make vast quantities of tea using it. Stick that in Boston Harbour and smoke it!

[Game information and downloadable DS demos come to Europe and Australia alongside three Virtual Console games, but no update to WiiWare in its second week.]

582

TalkBack / Nintendo Channel Arrives in PAL Territories

« on: May 30, 2008, 03:23:54 PM »

Game information and downloadable DS demos come to Europe and Australia alongside three Virtual Console games, but no update to WiiWare in its second week.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=16055

 The Nintendo Channel, an online service providing information and advertisements for first party and third party games on Wii and DS, has gone live across Europe and Australia.    

DS owners will be able to wirelessly download demos from the Nintendo Channel to their handheld console, provided they agree to share information regarding their Wii usage with Nintendo online. In notable contrast to the North American Nintendo Channel, all of the demos available initially are of first party software, including:    

 
• Big Brain Academy
 
• Dr. Kawashima's BRAIN TRAINING
 
• 42 All-Time Classics
 
• Mario Kart DS
 
• Professor Kageyama's MATHS TRAINING
 
• SIGHT TRAINING
 
• Picross DS
 

   

The Nintendo Channel also offers users the opportunity to provide feedback for Wii and WiiWare games, given that they have put in a sufficient amount of playtime. The WiiWare service did not receive an update this week following its launch on May 20, while the Virtual Console saw the release of three games:    

 
• Burning Fight (NEO GEO, 900 points)  
• Pokémon Puzzle League (N64, 1000 points)  
• Samurai Shodown (NEO GEO, 900 points)  

   

Now available to download free of charge from the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo Channel uses 127 blocks of memory.

583

Nintendo Gaming / Re: VC Friday continuous thread

« on: May 30, 2008, 12:04:12 AM »

Judging from how Metal Slug just came to the US VC a few weeks after it arrived in Europe, I'd say there could be a decent chance of Samurai Shodown hitting America pretty soon. But then there's always some peculiar things going on with the Virtual Console, like how everyone has Axelay (even Australia) except for Europe, so it's hard to predict with any great confidence.

For the record, the PAL Virtual Console is no bed of roses - slow gameplay and borders afflict most games to varying degrees (Mega Drive/Genesis most of all), the only exceptions being Turbografx, import games and the very occasional game that was converted well originally (e.g. the DKC games).

584

Nintendo Gaming / Re: VC Friday continuous thread

« on: May 29, 2008, 07:44:34 PM »

Samurai Shodown (NEO GEO, 900)
Burning Fight (NEO GEO, 900)
Pokemon Puzzle League (N64, 1000)

585

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Official Evan starts a thread about politics and then backs out, leaving RAB an…

« on: May 29, 2008, 07:14:20 PM »

It's a lasting scar of the (in every sense) terrible war between Evan and Crimm.

586

TalkBack / Re: Gaming for $20

« on: May 28, 2008, 07:13:44 PM »

Zack & Wiki is a must.  Whatever you do, don't use the hints.  It's a serious gaming challenge that doesn't hold your hand

Having just finished the game, I couldn't agree more. Solving the puzzles without hints proved to be one of the most satisfying game experiences I've had in a long while. I managed to get this on import for under $30 US (the Freeloader has paid for itself now by a wide margin), so $20 is a total steal. Even if you've never played adventure games before (which I hadn't), this merits very serious consideration for purchase.

587

TalkBack / Re: How Talkback Flame Wars Kill Mockingbirds

« on: May 28, 2008, 02:58:44 PM »

I should be clear that this is not a response to anything that was said regarding any of my work. From what I saw in the talkback thread for my MK Wii review (or anything else I've done in my brief time here), the feedback was about the game/review and not personal attacks. Also, as I say above, the vast majority of forumers express their views reasonably, with the purpose of arguing a point rather than making insults, and while I may not post frequently, I do read these opinions and gain a great deal of insight from doing so.

Having said that, I have observed a few cases applying to other staff members' work that have crossed the line into silly name calling, and I just felt the need to express how completely senseless and futile that is (i.e.almost as much as this blog post). And while I accept the point that there can be spin-off benefits from doing work for NWR, I don't think anyone here does so with any Machiavellian scheme to exploit these benefits, and the fact remains that unlike commercial outlets, our one and only constituency is you, the readers. 

588

TalkBack / How Talkback Flame Wars Kill Mockingbirds

« on: May 28, 2008, 06:55:23 AM »

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=16035

  In the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, it was said that it was wrong to commit that eponymous act because Mockingbirds cause people no harm, only providing music for us to enjoy. Such entities are not merely confined to the pages of Harper Lee's work or the world of ornithology, however. Indeed, I would submit that the work of this very website is its own breed of Mockingbird.    

Nintendo World Report is the product of people giving of themselves, simply because of their passion for Nintendo and video games generally. Nobody earns a living from NWR; we do not praise or decry games for financial gain, there are no backroom deals with publishers for exclusives, no plastering of the site in Kane & Lynch promotional material or other such dubious practices. NWR exists only for the love of the game, if you'll forgive the expression. Having been a reader of the site all the way back to its PlanetN2000 days before joining the staff last year, I have long appreciated this fact along with recognising the outstanding quality of the staff's work over the years.    

This is not to say that, due to NWR's nature, the opinions and reasoning of our staff members are somehow unimpeachable - far from it. We do not proclaim our reviews to be definitive or absolute. Passionate disagreement and debate are to be welcomed and indeed celebrated, and we are no strangers to these things as a staff either. We only aim to provide criticism and analysis that is sufficiently thorough, considered, and well-articulated that our readers can glean their own insights from our work, whether they agree with us or not. Consequently, the diverse feedback from the vast majority of our forum-goers who participate in commentary and debate regarding our work is a large part of what makes contributing to NWR so rewarding.      

However, this also leads us to those who qualify as NWR's would-be assassins in this literary analogy: the furious few that seem to take our attempts to provide honest analysis as some sort of unacceptable personal attack in those instances where their views diverge from those expressed by NWR staff. Seeking to right such grievous wrongs, they take to their keyboards (with fingertips aflame and Caps Lock already enabled) and proceed to spew a mix of zealous assertions and puerile insults that serve no purpose other than to assuage their apparently volcanic displeasure at discovering that someone has the temerity to disagree with them.    

I believe that such unprovoked and unreasonable attacks are, in their own small and pathetic way, analogous to killing one of Harper Lee's Mockingbirds. This is not (I'm happy to say) because any of our staff are sufficiently thin-skinned to be dealt a mortal blow by such ingeniously fashioned barbs as "you're just plain dumb with a small poo brain". The sadness here lies in the fact that some people are apparently so incapable of respectful disagreement that they do not simply refuse NWR's unconditional offerings, but instead are compelled to belittle those that work to provide them without thought of personal gain.    

Though hardly a phenomenon unique to NWR or the video gaming media in general, its existence here is all the more incomprehensible given the fact that our work at NWR (regardless of whether a review is glowing, scathing, or anywhere in the vast, nuanced space in-between) is only ever in the service of our readers. The true folly of such intolerance is that we are always exclusively on your side, whether you agree with us on specific issues or not, and to behave otherwise is to your detriment, not ours.

589

TalkBack / Re: Gaming at 120Hz

« on: May 26, 2008, 01:18:41 PM »

I've had a similar experience with my Sony LCD TV, which has basically the same feature (though due to the PAL standard it goes up 100hz, not 120hz). Most of the time it doesn't seem to make a significant difference, and in some of the cases where it does, the effect can be more distracting than satisfying. However, one case where it seemed to work well was with Paper Mario on the PAL VC. The increased refresh rate in this case made it noticeably more fluid, bringing out the natural vibrancy of the Paper Mario style a little more. For the most part though, I leave it turned off, as apparently it can cause a very slight lag which could be a problem for heavily timing-dependent games (my TV has a "Game Mode", which basically just turns off the Motion Enhancer function for that reason).

590

Podcast Discussion / Re: PODCAST: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 100

« on: May 23, 2008, 11:13:55 PM »

Not the most pressing misconception to clear up but: I do not own a bird. We just so happen to record sufficiently close to dawn that you can hear the birds outside my window starting to chirp from where I record. Sorry James, not much I can do about that I'm afraid.

[Digitally distributed Wii games arrive in PAL territories, with six (of a possible eight) titles making up the first batch.]

591

TalkBack / Six Games Launch WiiWare in Europe

« on: May 20, 2008, 06:21:56 PM »

Digitally distributed Wii games arrive in PAL territories, with six (of a possible eight) titles making up the first batch.
 http://nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=15988

 WiiWare, a line of original games available to download from the Wii Shop Channel, has gone live across Europe today with six games on offer initially:    

 
• Dr. Mario & Germ Buster™ from Nintendo
 
• FINAL FANTASY® CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King™ from  Japanese developer SQUARE ENIX
 
• Lost Winds from UK developer Frontier
 
• Star Soldier R from Japanese developer HUDSON SOFT
 
• Toki Tori from Dutch developer Two Tribes B.V.
 
• TV Show King from French developer Gameloft
 

   

The list above includes some familiar faces from last week's North American WiiWare debut such as Lost Winds, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. However, Dr. Mario & Germ Buster has previously been available only in Japan, and Toki Tori Take 2 (a remake of the 2001 Game Boy Color platform/puzzle game Toki Tori) is making its world debut as part of Europe's WiiWare launch.    

Nintendo had previously indicated that two further games, Nnooo's Pop and Oxygen Interactive's Pirates: The Key of Dreams, could have been part of today's launch. It would appear that these games may have been held back to supplement future updates to the WiiWare service.        

SUPER SIX KICK OFF WiiWare!    

Today marks a momentous occasion on Wii as WiiWare storms onto the console. Get set to expect the unexpected as a raft of original, fresh and thrilling games from first and third party developers become available to download directly onto your Wii, through the Wii Shop Channel.    

Kicking off WiiWare’s launch in style, six superb new titles from developers across Europe and the world are available to download now! Why not treat yourself to the following:    

Dr. Mario & Germ Buster™ from Nintendo    

The all-time puzzle classic returns for the Wii generation, featuring online gameplay and a new Germ Buster mode! Destroy all the viruses trapped in the bottle by dropping and slotting capsules to create lines of matching colours. The more viruses you clear, the faster the capsules drop.    

In Dr. Mario, challenge the computer in 1 Player mode, go head-to-head with a friend in 2 Player mode, or prove your skills against the world via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. You can also send a demo version of the game to a friend (within your region) using WiiConnect24.    

In Germ Buster (based on the relaxation game in More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima), up to four players can use their Wii Remotes to grab, spin and slot capsules as your Miis try to keep the nasty bugs at bay. Who thought that catching germs could be so much fun?    

Dr Mario & Germ Buster™ is available now for 1000 Wii Points.    

FINAL FANTASY® CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King™ from SQUARE ENIX    

According to legend, a deserted town now serves as the lifeless reminder of a once powerful kingdom. The young son of an exiled king reaches this land after a long journey, finding only an abandoned castle – and a magic crystal. Though tarnished by years of neglect, the crystal has maintained its luminous glow and bestows upon the boy the power of architek, the ability to manifest memories into reality. With the help of loyal servants and audacious adventurers, the new king dutifully prepares to rebuild his people’s homeland in this new realm.    

FINAL FANTASY® CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King can be downloaded now for 1500 Wii Points.    

LostWinds™ from Frontier    

LostWinds is a fresh, enchanting adventure that lets you wield the awesome powers of Enril the wind spirit - from raging tornados to the gentlest breeze – to guide and protect Toku, a young boy who is the only one who can help you release the curse placed upon the world of Mistralis and its people by evil Balasar.    

Mistralis is a stunningly presented, magical land full of wonder and intrigue that bursts to life with your every action and exploration. LostWinds’ novel, playful controls let you use Enril’s elemental powers to jump and glide Toku through Mistralis’ different regions, buffet and smash enemies and solve puzzles on their journey to a dramatic showdown. Bursting with new gameplay ideas that embrace the Wii controller, LostWinds puts the power of the wind in the palm of your hand.    

LostWinds™ is available now for 1000 Wii Points.    

Star Soldier R from HUDSON SOFT    

A new kind of shooter where players aim for the best scores within a 2 or 5-minute time limit! Develop various scoring strategies and pump out those points within the breakneck timeframe! In-depth gameplay, tons of replayability!    

Assembled in record time to counter the advance of a powerful enemy, the mysterious Brain Forces, the "Caesar" starfighter takes off to fight for the very future of mankind!  Shoot down countless enemies, upgrade your ship to the max with power-ups hidden throughout the levels, and carry out an all-out assault against the core of the enemy fortress! Combining the excitement of shoot'em-ups with in-depth scoring strategies, this state-of-the-art competitive shooter will keep you coming back for more!    

Upload your best scores with the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, and pit your skills against the world's best fighter pilots from the comfort of your living room!    

Hone your skills and show the world who's boss!    

Download Star Soldier R now for 800 Wii Points.    

Toki Tori from Two Tribes B.V.    

Toki Tori is his name and collecting eggs is his game! In this puzzle / platform game, players get to use a variety of items such as the Telewarp, InstantRock™ and Slug Sucker. Clever use and combinations of these items is needed to solve all the game's levels, of which there are more than 70. These levels range from easy to brain-teasingly hard, resulting in dozens of hours of puzzle play-time.    

Toki Tori makes the most out of what the Wii was to offer. It uses of the Wii Remote for a unique control scheme, which offers players a new and more relaxing play style. A second player can help you out, by drawing hints while you are playing. The game even uses the Wii Message Board in a unique way!    

In short, Toki Tori:

 - is a puzzle / platform game

 - offers dozens of hours of gameplay

 - uses the multiple Wii Remotes for a new play style

 - uses Wii Message Board

   

Toki Tori is available to download now for 900 Wii Points.    

TV Show King from Gameloft    

Become King of a fun TV trivia show! Confront friends and family with your Mii and see who is the smartest! Confront friends and family in a TV quiz game show! Let your Mii try to answer fun and challenging trivia questions, from the classics to original stumpers, spanning across history, geography, literature, science, sports and entertainment! For an extra challenge, use your Wii Remote in original ways. Make it to the finals and see who can win the greatest amount of cash in one last, ultimate duel. TV Show King will challenge your brain! Now, get ready… get set… and go play TV Show King!    

- Have fun and test your general knowledge with more than 3,000 questions on all kinds of subjects; for an alternately serious and hilarious game.

 - Use your own customized Mii as your in game character for a truly immersive experience.

 - Numerous entertaining themes including music, cinema, entertainment, history, geography, sports, common knowledge, fun and pop culture.

 - Answer the questions following the different game rules: use your Wii Remote as a torch light, as a scratching tool or as a pointer.

 - A true animated TV set: highly colourful characters (a host, a DJ and a cheering crowd)

 - A turning wheel to spice up the game: double your gain, loose everything or swap your cash!

 - Increasing tension with an increasing difficulty and stakes!    

Download TV Show King for 1000 Wii Points.

592

TalkBack / Re: PODCAST: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 99

« on: May 15, 2008, 11:47:01 PM »

Crimm seems even bitchier than usual this week.  Is something up?

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon does that to people. It is quite horrifying actually.

Is it too late to try to keep Crimm from looking at the NPD numbers in the interest of public safety?

593

TalkBack / Re: PODCAST: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 99

« on: May 15, 2008, 04:48:37 PM »

In regards to Black Jack, according to IGN, High Voltage was shocked to find it as their first WiiWare title. They expected their shooter (Forgot the name) to be the first game and for Black Jack to come out much later so it looks like Nintendo is, once again, not communicating with developers on when their games will be released.

I heard that too, and I thought that was quite revealing. Clearly, Nintendo hand-picked the US launch line-up fairly late in the day, which makes you wonder what in particular motivated them to make these choices. Gyrostarr (the High Voltage shooter that GP was referring to), Star Soldier R, and Protothea all could have been launch titles by all accounts, but Nintendo chose not to use them - I would imagine this may have been to help differentiate WiiWare from Virtual Console by keeping the shooter genre out of the spotlight that comes with the launch of the service. 

594

NWR Forums Discord / Re: I'm thinking of becoming an interior designer, just like my boyfriend.

« on: May 14, 2008, 11:41:59 PM »

It looks like we're already counting the terrible cost of Evan's war on Crimm. Look at how traumatised this onlooker was by the sheer immaturity of it all:



The horror. The tragedy. The shock at how the hell Van Damme ever got any acting work.

595

TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: The World Ends With You

« on: May 14, 2008, 02:52:03 PM »

Infantile zealotry on an internet message board? Now I'm the one that's shocked, SHOCKED.

596

NWR Forums Discord / Re: too bad

« on: May 13, 2008, 11:36:21 PM »

Clearly, this is meant to be a dead issue at this point, but I wanted to say that I thought Evan was somewhat unfair in singling out GP's post in the NCFOM thread as simply "hatred". Goodness knows we see much more venomous, personally-directed comments made here (some of the reaction to Jonny's MK Wii review comes to mind) that manage to avoid being banished to the Funhouse.

Also, I think she raised a legitimate point that Evan was dismissing Ian's opinion as being a function of him being in error ("misreading the film"). There is a clear implication there that Evan deems Ian's assessment of NCFOM invalid because it is premised on something that is simply incorrect, whereas Evan has interpreted the film correctly and therefore his opinion is valid. It is no surprise to me that someone would find such inferences objectionable, as they have something of a supremacist undertone to them. I'm sure that Evan did not want to convey such sentiment, but that is how it can seem from a certain perspective.

I suppose GP would just like to see Evan display greater respect for different points of view rather than being so quick to dismiss them as the product of myopia or dysfunction, and I personally don't think that is too much to ask for either. I should point out that I have not seen NCFOM so I don't have an opinion on the film as of yet, I'm just commenting on the principle of how people regard the views of others. If I am missing vital context for the discussion here then I regret that, I just wanted to make these observations and hopefully shed some light on the disconnect that I perceive to be present in this case.

597

TalkBack / Re: PODCAST: Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition - Episode 32

« on: May 11, 2008, 09:40:35 AM »

Another excellent podcast edition guys. I loved the choices this week despite my being completely unfamiliar with three of them - Radio Trivia at its best.

598

TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Mario Kart Wii

« on: May 05, 2008, 01:19:07 PM »

With regard to the level themes, I too was disappointed in how generic a significant number of the tracks felt (not that this is something entirely new to the series).

All Mario Karts have those tracks

Such an astute observation, I shall have to remember that.

The point is MKDS felt like a step forward in creatively utilising the Mario heritage, while still maintaining its own identity by including tracks that were based off previous MK tracks and creating unique new ones like Waluigi Pinball. By comparison, MK Wii seems like a backward step. Also, just because something has precedent, that doesn't mean it's commendable.

599

TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Mario Kart Wii

« on: May 05, 2008, 12:49:24 PM »

With regard to the level themes, I too was disappointed in how generic a significant number of the tracks felt (not that this is something entirely new to the series). MK DS had some tracks that really felt embedded in parts of actual Mario games (such as Delfino Plaza, the Tick-Tock Clock track and Airship Fortress), and satisfied both as racetracks and as creative adaptations of parts of the Mario series proper. There are a few nice moments in MK Wii (like the underwater part of Koopa cape), but too often the themes feel scarcely related to Mario at all (Maple Treeway, Grumble Volcano), or are just glib nods to the Mario franchise like a character name and a giant statue (Luigi and Daisy circuits). This isn't very important in the grand scheme of things, but it adds to the feeling of the game suffering from a lack of creative flair given its many similarities with other games in the series.

To Jeff's other point: my considerable experience with the GP mode (getting all the unlockables requires getting star ranks on almost every cup in every class) has made it very clear beyond any doubt that items are deployed against you with a far higher frequency in 150cc mode than in the lower classes, and this is the primary way in which it is has been made more difficult to succeed in that competition.

We're not talking red shells here either, but rather it's the activation of blue shells, lightning bolts and POW blocks that seems to get increased the most to impede your progress. Also, this increase in item intensity and frequency has been designed to be asymmetrical; if you are in first by a long distance then it is quite likely you will be pummelled with items until you are no longer in first, whereas if you're a few spots back of an AI player you're far less likely to benefit from them suffering the same fate.

So basically Nintendo have increased the difficulty by just changing a few statistical probabilities so that they're weighted against you, and when the consequences of this are felt, it is inevitably frustrating. This is why I desire an increase in difficulty that arises from the AI racers being superior racers rather than the arbitrary dialling-up of item activation. Also, if this were the case you would be motivated to find ways to improve your own performance. In MK Wii, success is a function of possessing sufficient perseverance to try your luck enough times that success is a statistical inevitability, and therefore does not appropriately incentivise improving your racing performance. I'm not exactly sure how this could be achieved beyond just "better AI" (having an item set designed specifically for 1player GPs could help), but that's Nintendo's job, not mine.

Online play throws the shortcomings of GP into stark relief, as the items are clearly not weighted against one player in particular. This makes even the more unpleasant ones far more tolerable, as they don't occur as frequently and you will generally benefit from them as often as you suffer. Human competitors also give an idea of how much better the game could be with smarter AI; online play is just so much more fun than grinding through the GPs.

600

TalkBack / Re: REVIEWS: Mario Kart Wii

« on: May 04, 2008, 07:49:13 AM »

Personally, adding some giant floating star bits and a minor musical reference to the long-established Rainbow Road theme does not satisfy as an homage to Galaxy, and feels rather token.

I also think James is right about the AI issue - make them capable opponents that we compete with head to head, as opposed to increasing the difficulty by simply ratcheting up the frequency with which we are struck by items activated by distant, unseen opponents. Funnily enough, I think Jonny has played a Mario Kart game before and is very familiar with how the 1player mode has worked in the past, so if he singles it out for being especially frustrating, it isn't just on a whim - it's made in the context of his experience of the series as a whole.

Ultimately, I'm glad to have GP behind me with everythng unlocked and continue to enjoy racing online, which transcends a lot of these issues from 1 player and will provide a lot of fun for a long time.