Messages

26

TalkBack / RE:GBAccelerator Speeds Up Handheld Gaming

« on: October 26, 2004, 03:03:19 AM »

Didn't Wing Commander have problems with slowdown? And that Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon game? Probably the heavy poly-pushing games would benefit the most from this, if they had slowdown problems. (Ozzy and Drix used polys as well, I think, I don't remember if anyone mentioned slowdown, though.)

[DeadlyD]

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TalkBack / RE:Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 26, 2004, 02:56:26 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: DeadlyD
People just need to realize that video gaming isnt mario and sonic anymore

Sorry to just pick out one point, but I really think you should go look up the US sales numbers for the recent Sonic games before making a comment like that. Even though they've done things that have angried some of the fanbase (a fanbase that I'm not sure will EVER be happy with a Sonic game again unless it's published for the Genesis/Mega Drive), the games have still had remarkably high sales, even titles that were presumed to be cheap throw-away efforts, like Sonic Mega Collection. So apparently the buying public still considers at least one of those video gaming. And if Nintendo could ever get around to making a brand new Mario title with some real development effort and polish put into it (I'm sorry, but Sunshine just REEKS of lazyness or poor design in spots, even though there are fun-to-play points)... well, who knows?

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TalkBack / RE:Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 Shipped

« on: October 12, 2004, 09:31:33 AM »

Why the budget price at launch? Funny that the GBA version has ended up being more expensive (because of hardware and publishing costs, I assume) than the console versions it's releasing with.

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TalkBack / RE:Midway Prepares Arcade Treasures 2

« on: April 28, 2004, 07:57:35 AM »

Stun Runner... I've wanted a port of that for so long. It was just a neat, stylish racing game. Sure, it's not going to win any visual awards compared to Gran Turismo 4 (if I remember correctly, the look was closest to that of Starfox for the SNES), but it was really impressive for the time, and should be good for some nostalgia indeed.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Zelda for NDS confirmed! Awesome...

« on: April 28, 2004, 07:06:58 AM »

I know he was "officially" young in the earlier games, but to be honest, he never looked that young in the character artwork in the manuals and such. Yes, his sprites were small, but everyone's sprites were small because the way the game was designed. That didn't mean he was a child. Otherwise, the wise man with a beard was actually just a kid with a facial hair problem. It's like how Small Mario in SMB didn't mean "child Mario," that was just how the game was designed and worked.

And then, of course, there is the much-malaigned Zelda 2: Adventures of Link... there were kids visible in that one, and Link certainly wasn't their height...

So I never really bought into all of the "Link was obvious a child from the get-go" talk, I always saw him as a sort of wide-eyed, quiet teen adventurer. Not _quite_ as serious as how he turned out in the Spaceworld demo and Super Smash Bros. Melee, but close enough. They're supposed to be Links from different generations, anyway, so I don't quite mind having to spend a game with one that's still young, but people arguing _every_ Link in every game was that age...

[kingvudu]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:This is what Mario 128 should be like...

« on: November 11, 2003, 09:30:12 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: kingvudu
did you get anything special if you collected every single shine?  kinda like how you got to see yoshi in mario 64 if you got all 120 stars?

The guy that gives you sunglasses will also give you a "Shine Shirt" to go with it.

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TalkBack / RE:Mario Kart Unlockables REVEALED!

« on: November 07, 2003, 12:28:24 PM »

I didn't expect Sonic, but why DID that person (was it Miyamoto, or someone else?) drop that comment a little while back about Sonic maybe showing up in the next Mario Kart? Just random chatter?

...Anyway, for the way Double Dash is set up, with nearly every character having a similar partner, it would've been Sonic and Shadow. *Uses a Mushroom* "Here we go, Chaos Control!" *wince*  

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TalkBack / RE:Surprises from Nintendo in the Future

« on: November 07, 2003, 12:25:06 PM »

It's a physical product they're working on, Round Eye. But I think they'll be doing that too, since they pulled back Pikmin II, and as it's been pointed out, they've been very quiet about announcing new games in the past few months.

I'm surprised it's specificially not a new GB, because I thought it might be the next GB integrating that new screen developed by Sharp, the type that can fake up to a meter of depth? Wouldn't that kick for a portable system? It would make the most sense to develop it into a new GBA, but knowing Nintendo, they'll build it into a seperate product no one will want. All well.

The thing that bugs me most is that they're saying it's likely Super Mario 128 (not that 100's Marios thing, it's obvious the two projects having the same name is coincidence, because of the way a working title is typically assigned), a game that was supposedly in the works simultaneously with Sunshine (that's what they _said_, anyway), that people were expecting last E3, may not even show up until 2005? Give me a bloody BREAK. OK, Miyamoto or whomever's got this revolutionary idea (didn't we hear about that last time for Sunshine? It was such a big deal, they couldn't show off the water pack's hover feature...), what was to be Mario 128 can't or won't be completed until the new system. Fine. They can make SOMETHING for the meantime. Just a filler title, something gamers might find enjoyable, that still keeps Mario in people's minds. It could be as simple as making a 2.5D platformer, quite a lot like Melee. Some old school level designs and tricks, some nice graphics, decent music, it wouldn't be _the_ hit, but it'd probably do decent business, and fans would be complaining a LOT less. They could do up a project like that with a moderately small staff (heck, chuck it on to HAL, I _love_ how they handled SMB, versus how NCL's handled them lately), eight to ten months, they'd have it in time for 2004 Christmas. And it wouldn't spoil people's appetites for the next "huge" Mario game, since that wouldn't show up until mid-2005 at the earliest.

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TalkBack / RE:Warp Pipe ver. 0.1 Released for Testing

« on: October 21, 2003, 11:07:40 AM »

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Nintendo obviously thought someone would step up and provide something like this.

I think they knew there was a possibility, but I don't think they were counting on it. Nintendo are such control freaks, if they had wanted something like this to happen, they would've developed it themselves. That's just the way they tend to be.

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Why else provide LAN play on these titles?

Because they could honestly be that deluded? This is Nintendo we're talking about: great, innovative company; doesn't necessarily always make the public-winning decisions. "Pah, CD-ROMs won't catch on this generation, let's stick to cartridges!"

[Edit: Don't get me wrong, LAN play is better than nothing, but I'm saying that they sided with LAN play and didn't think it was worth it to go the extra step to Online play.]

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TalkBack / RE:Warp Pipe ver. 0.1 Released for Testing

« on: October 20, 2003, 02:54:20 PM »

I loved a recent interview with Nintendo. Roughly quoting:

"It's not a matter of us not being able to do it, the technology is the same as for LAN. Nintendo just doesn't want players to have to spend more money on a game they already purchased."

And also the variant:

"Anyone can put online play in a game; Nintendo wants to bring something original to the table when they do it."


So you see? They're doing us a favor by not delivering the single-most requested aspect for a new Mario Kart. That way, instead of having the choice to pay them if we wanted to play online, that difficult decision is removed, and it would be so common and urbane to make their games online without a brand new gimmick to focus on solely.

Kudos to Warp Pipe Project; I personally though there'd be a lot more roadblocks in their efforts to pull this off. My only concern is if Nintendo encodes the signal sent to try to block Online Play using something like this, but even then, I guess it wouldn't matter, just as long as Warp Pipe gets the signal from one Gamecube to another, it doesn't really have to understand specifically what is being sent...

[Djunknown]

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TalkBack / RE:Soul Calibur II Now Available

« on: August 28, 2003, 10:00:27 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Djunknown
I just can't let that one go.

Sure you could've. But you said "Oh, no, a valid complaint, I must try to put it down!"

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Granted Rogue Leader got cranked out in EIGHT months (check the video documentary)

The number I had recently heard tossed around was 6 months, but I'm willing to believe you that it was indeed eight months.

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but they are the exception, not the rule. Other companies like Acclaim try an eight-month cycle and come up with less than perfect products.

To be honest, Acclaim can hardly ever develop a proper game in ANY amount of time. I would never put them at the same level as Namco. I have much more respect for the latter.

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I'm pretty sure the fellows at Factor 5 had to live without sleep when making Rogue Leader.

Right, and they were developing a game from scratch for all-new hardware. SCII uses middleware to simplify the development process across all three platforms.

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As far as translation goes, I'd love it to have come out earlier in the summer. It would've been the game me and my friends would play until dawn. But now they're back in school leaving me a solo gamer but that's beside the point. They had to LOCALIZE (Tweaking the text for us Westerners) for all three versions, which means going back to the source code and replace the Hiragana (Japan's basic script) and Kanji (Pictographs, kind of like Egyptian Heirogylphics.) with good old English. Sometimes translations can't fit text boxes, odd bugs can surface,etc and its back to the proverbial drawing board.

 

Thank you, I have been in gaming long enough to know the process of text translation, especially back with the much MORE limiting standards for 16-bit and 8-bit consoles. Five months I could understand for translation for an RPG, but SCII, while it does have Weapons Master Mode, is by no means anywhere near even the simplest RPGs. Mario Sunshine had more Japanese text. And main menu options and many other text notices are already in proper English, further simplifying the translation process.

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As far as extras, what MORE do you want Namco to do?

Wow, now that's a can of worms. The simple answer was "something more with the free time they had." Mario 64 had several months between the Japanese and US release. What did they do? Lots of little things. Many of the polished touches you're used to in the American version of SM64 were not present or not as refined in the Japanese version. They couldn't add in Luigi for play, that would've been far over their heads and the game wasn't designed for another character like that, they couldn't add a new level because that would've been too much for the time they had, but they did SOMETHING with their time.

SCII is set up much more modularly; thus it's easier to add new characters and stages. Not a walk in the park, but certainly not a monumental effort.

What bugs me the most is that Berserker, Assassin, and Lizardman were all added... except into the modes that would require effort. No Weapons Master, no Single Player... they didn't even go for a full effort on these three, and these three were already playable to a certain extent in the original. They were not as refined as in the US release I'm assuming (I HOPE Namco expanded their move arsenal in the US release, anyway). It just seems like a lot of time when they could've been doing ANYTHING to the game was wasted. Heck, if another new character is too much, how about a few new stages? Or just some new costumes for the characters? Some characters REALLY got shortchanged on costumes. Link does have his Four Swords color tunics, but no "alternate look" like Spawn and Heihachi get... many suggested a costume that just looks like Oni Link (not as powerful, but just looks), wouldn't that have been an interesting addition? It just feels like the wait was for almost nothing.

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Namco could've rested on its laurels and gave us nothing special over the original.

And sales and reviews wouldn't have been as good.

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Instead, they racked their brains to improve on a flawless formula that got it right the first time.

They... didn't exactly do a ton of "improving on the formula". There's some balancing, but the game plays heavily like Soul Calibur 1. Anyway, I'm speaking less about the formula, and more about, "What the heck were they doing for five months between the Japanese and US release?"

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While it did take a while to reach our shores, I know I'm getting the FULL experience, translated text and all. I'm getting my full fifty-worth while importers are getting 80-percent of what they paid (Getting a freeloader plus the price of the game.) Granted the 20 percent is not that crucially important, but its like chocolate cake vs chocolate cake with the frosting. Its that much sweeter.

Actually, my console was modded already for two earlier games, so that wasn't part of the cost for me. And it's more like an extra 8%, like someone took your chocolate frosted cake, took a knife, and shaved a small layer of the frosting off. It'd be nice to know the Weapon Master and Single Player endings, but when I hear a fanfare, and a box with Japanese text and a picture of a new level pops up, I think I can figure out things just fine.

Also, cake tends to get a little stale after five months. (Alright, I'm not implying the game is dated now just because it's a few months older, but I couldn't resist the analogy.)

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Should Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles really use GBA connectivity??

« on: August 26, 2003, 07:06:13 PM »

Why does everyone think the game would have to pause while one person went through menus? PSO had menus, and it certainly didn't stop and wait whenever someone looked for a spell they don't use often. Small floating menus near the characters, with type icons for easy ID (Ice, Fire, et cetera) that you could crawl with the C-Stick while still running around with the Control Stick. You wouldn't even have to look away from the screen to menu crawl like you do using a GBA.

I mean, if the game works in Single Player mode with just the GCN controller, why can't it work in multiplayer? How does it handle it, DOES it stop the game and stupidly throw up a full-screen menu?

I don't think the GBA functionality should be removed, but I think it should be an option, not a requirement. Purists can play with the GBAs, but there are too many alternate solutions to effectively handle what benefits using a GBA has to require the use of one. No, it may not work with people who have four inch TVs. Those are the people that would need the GBA functionality. Those of us with more reasonably-sized screens should be able to make out four floating text menus with little issue, while still being able to see the action behind and around it. (Semitransparency of the menu background would help a lot, too.)

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Wind Waker Hat Taker - Fan Art

« on: August 26, 2003, 06:26:43 PM »

"Link"'s face bugs me... but otherwise, it's a funny pic... and that's a really cool rendition of the King of Red Lions. (Yes, the boat of all things caught my attention in the pic. )

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo to switch packaging for GBA games...

« on: August 26, 2003, 05:52:44 PM »

That does seem rather big, though. Something similarly clamshell but the size of the old GBA boxes would've seemed a little more portable.

It is smart if Nintendo's doing it as a transition step to get people used to the idea of them for the next GB, though.

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TalkBack / RE:Soul Calibur II Now Available

« on: August 26, 2003, 10:09:05 AM »

Five months for the Weapon Master mode text translation, and three characters that were already playable in the Japanese version despite what that release says? (Although it was only during certain Weapon Master missions.) And they didn't even give them Story mode stories. :/ Unless something bigger is revealed, I'm glad I didn't wait and just imported. I mean, people were hoping for the unique characters to get their own real stages, instead of claiming others', heck, some were hoping for MORE unique characters. That might sound a bit over the top, but Rogue Squadron was developed in six months, and yet Namco scheduled five months for nothing but tweaking up three throw-aways and translating the random messages and weapons information in the game? Even with a full month devoted to playtesting, that would've left a quarter to a third of a year for full-on further development. I reeeeally hope something further is discovered.

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TalkBack / RE: 3DO Sells off Game Properties

« on: August 22, 2003, 12:54:40 AM »

If it was old enough, then Trip got it.

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TalkBack / RE:Mario Enters Polictics

« on: August 14, 2003, 10:52:52 AM »

NOA is seriously repressed by NCL, and it shows when they send out things like this. Hey, you KNOW headquarters in Japan didn't write this one.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:GameCube Online Plans Unvieled

« on: July 26, 2003, 06:38:36 PM »

This sounds like older news, except with a couple of words changed to make it "guaranteed" Gamespy would be handling it for Nintendo. The article I remember had Gamespy offering to do it, but not guaranteed.

*digs*

Can't locate it off-hand, but I think CUBE jumped the gun when it said it would be providing _THE_ networking middleware technology, because the rest of the article is worded almost identically to the interview from a while ago.

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TalkBack / RE:Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour out on Monday

« on: July 26, 2003, 06:09:21 PM »

Huh, I just realized this is the first time since Super Mario 64 that Nintendo of America has used "Toadstool" again. (As opposed to "Family Tour" for the Japanese version.)

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TalkBack / Midway's Arcade Treasures

« on: July 04, 2003, 03:37:46 AM »

If they added Mortal Kombat 1-3, they'd have to rate it an M. ...Well, I guess a T with today's standards.

I do remember Smash T.V. being a bit violent, and with a name of a game like "Satan's Hollow", it does make you wonder (not that it matters either way) if this'll get an E or a T rating...

But ultimately this collection kicks complete arse, and at the very least I'm getting a copy for my sister, who I remember played some of these games constantly.

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TalkBack / Cross-Platform Online Game Technology Coming

« on: July 04, 2003, 03:36:14 AM »

You know, I've been waiting for a company to fill the void of Gamecube vs. PDA games...

Notice their list doesn't include Xbox. "Live" must be practically hard-wired into the consoles.

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Nintendo Gaming / what is/was megaton?

« on: June 10, 2003, 09:50:49 AM »

I loved the old mock-up box art someone here made:

"Megaton: so big, we couldn't fit it all on the box"

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Nintendo Gaming / Super Mario Advance 4 will be...

« on: May 13, 2003, 11:45:03 AM »

I'm curious why there's a picture of Mario using his SMW cape in SMB3 in that KoroKoro article. Looks like they're having some fun with the game...

[joeamis]

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Nintendo Gaming / DVD GBA

« on: May 13, 2003, 11:43:44 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: joeamis
could they fit an episode of Pokemon on a gba cart?
without commercials it would be about 20 minutes long

i think that could be done, maybe 2 episodes per cart
and sell it for like 18 bucks

Are you quoting from the news? 4Kids announced that very thing for Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon, GBA-TV. Two episodes, VCR-like controls, carts around $20...

If you weren't cheating, you called it, alright...

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TalkBack / Nintendo Announces Geist for GameCube

« on: May 13, 2003, 11:37:04 AM »

Omikron?