Messages

51

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 350: Theme from the Bottom

« on: September 16, 2013, 08:19:44 AM »

Stupendous epic episode, all. Bravo!

52

TalkBack / Re: Retro City Rampage Impressions

« on: September 03, 2013, 01:34:57 PM »

Loved RCR on Wiiware! The more people that play it, the better.

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TalkBack / Re: Ryū ga Gotoku 1&2 HD for Wii U Impressions

« on: August 15, 2013, 02:45:22 PM »

Other that the cutscenes being copy-pasted, this sounds fun and solid, and I think the devs are right to think a lot of Nintendo nerds may have skipped this game. However adding up the low polish level and lack of Yakuza 5 in the West, this is looking like a download-only title at best. And then to read that the sales of this game are worse than abysmal.... But thanks for the impressions!

54

TalkBack / Re: Play as a Work of Art in The Wonderful 101

« on: July 31, 2013, 11:55:14 PM »

Awesome. This has been a must get since the awkward moment we first saw it in showcases _after_ that e3 keynote. Way to go Nin and Platinum on a likely awesome, unique title!

55

Podcast Discussion / Re: RFN RetroActive #28 Poll

« on: July 29, 2013, 11:41:03 PM »

Came here after listening to to the latest podcast.


Cool, I own and like all of these games. I haven't beaten Pandora's Tower yet, but I think it would be a great choice for winner for the sake of supporting Xseed and spotlighting what will be one of the Wii's most overlooked very good (I hesitate to say great as I'm only about half done) games. Also, this would encourage me to finish it.


Wii Sports resort, as a previous poster said, would be a great opportunity to go over the release of motion+ and then the success of each mini game, maybe comparing it to the impact of the original Wii Sports. But as the game has no story, and as the game largely depends on multiplayer, it may not be the best pick to have a conversation about. Ironically, I just found my last 'i' in flyover mode while the podcast was wrapping up.


Crystal Chronicles I've beaten and replayed. It's very good, great music, some great visuals, a couple odd mini games. I cheesed my way through the combat, but if you try you can make it more interactive.


Prince of Persia I have respect for as it is its own game apart from PS360 (including the original I don't think is that big of a benefit now that the IMHO superior SNES version is on Wii VC). I suppose I found it to be a little bit of a waggle fest though in combat. Didn't really care about the Prince's character. But neat platformey game, sure.

56

TalkBack / Re: Famicast 25 - LIVE on June 29/30

« on: July 14, 2013, 01:57:20 AM »

As usual, a mostly interesting and diverse podcast from the Famicrew, but hopefully you realize what a mouth-breathing ass you sounded like with the "is she hot?" question.

57

TalkBack / Re: Game & Wario Review

« on: June 26, 2013, 12:49:12 AM »

Nintendo has more or less said what the problem with this game is. They had a bunch of gamepad-only concepts, most demoed already at E3, but no cohesive product. They thought about making them built in software but, in the typical Nintendo fashion, they looked at their franchise catalog and found some pigskin to squeeze this in to, exactly as done with Epic Yarn and many other games. Wario's outings are almost all very good and the underlying strength has to be creativity followed closely by humor. I hope Nintendo ponders the uncharacteristically terrible review scores (in Japan and abroad) and understands their software is still measured against a very high bar. That said... I just picked up my copy at Gamestop. (best cover art this year?)

58

TalkBack / Re: Pandora's Tower Receives a Price Drop in America

« on: June 25, 2013, 11:26:39 PM »

The game is awesome. Glitch fixes in games? I can only think of that happening for Skyward Sword and Metroid Other M. It's very cumbersome to fix them on Wii and I am not going to jump on Xseed for this. It's fairly clear that all Xseed did in this case was a minimum of marketing, possibly the legal / ESRB stuff and whatever their end of distribution is. For the few times the camera picks a bad angle there are dozens of good transitions and angles (even Mario Galaxy sometimes stumped me as to why it didn't allow me to adjust the camera at certain spots). I see this being a huge unsung classic and it easily deserves an 8.5 on the 201x video game scale in my opinion on the basis of atmosphere, scenario and novelty. Xseed doing the $30 bit for this and Last Story earlier is insane. They are the heroes of Wii's third party lineup!

59

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Super Mario 3D World

« on: June 12, 2013, 02:10:59 PM »

When I first saw this "live" on the stream, the stream was at 240p and constantly buffering. I am not trolling when I say I thought it was a 3DS sequel.


The clear pipes are an interesting idea and I can see some fun sections coming from that. But simultaneous four player multi player is meaningless to me and my lifestyle and social circle. Nintendo nailed the "girlfriend mode" 2P with Galaxy 2, though.


I was (again) replaying M64 this past weekend. I don't think Nintendo can top the level creativity of that game. Layering in a new play mechanic like the dumb cat suit is not the same as a brilliant level concept. At this point I'd have much rather seen an HD remake of Mario 64 with the camera and movement of Galaxies.

60

TalkBack / Re: Sonic Lost World Impressions

« on: June 11, 2013, 06:56:55 PM »

Most of my trouble with Colors came from the camera.


Good write up, and I can honestly say that the preview of this game's footage (last week) gave me a bigger "wow" than SM3DW.

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TalkBack / Re: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut is No Longer a Wii U Exclusive

« on: June 11, 2013, 06:51:26 PM »

Dang. So that year to 18 months leading up to the Wii U launch, where we assumed it would be a
heaven for "definitive" director's cuts, goty releases, and the strongest day 1 of multi plat releases, was all for not. Ultimately the Wii U will end up having... what, maybe two games that fit this (NFSMW for sure, Tekken TT2 maybe, SR:T maybe)? Preorder canceled, and yes I know what an insane fanboy that makes me sound like.


But honestly, when the Tomb Raider people said there was no Wii U version because they couldn't think up a unique gamepad use (... MAP? ... MAP!?!?), the case was pretty much closed for every third party that Nintendo wasn't directly moneyhatting.

62

TalkBack / Re: Super Mario 3D World Announced for Wii U

« on: June 11, 2013, 12:44:40 PM »

Mario games are getting too gimmicky.


By far the most intriguing section of the trailer was the rotate-the-level 3D Land esque bit around 5:25. The rest reminds me of NSMBWii in the way that the screen is oddly barren and zoomed out to account for (potential) multiple players.

63

TalkBack / Re: Retro Studios Developing Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

« on: June 11, 2013, 12:37:42 PM »

This game looks expertly made and confirms Retro has extremely talented artists.


However.


I cannot be in the minority in hoping that Retro has staffed up enough to develop two titles at once, and that perhaps Retro can finally surprise us at E3... 2014.

64

TalkBack / Re: Monolith Soft's X Coming in 2014

« on: June 11, 2013, 12:32:34 PM »

Stunning trailer! It gave me the shivers! This CRUSHED the new Mario segment for me in this ND. I assume the tower that ticked down from 60% to 59% will be a central part of the story?

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TalkBack / Re: Animal Crossing: New Leaf Review

« on: June 05, 2013, 03:26:24 PM »

If there's one series I've played and thought a lot about, it's Animal Crossing. I think Nintendo is on the wrong track with this series- at least for my tastes. The extreme collecting is not the resonate part of AC to me. To me, it's the real time clock, "serial multiplayer" (your turn, mom; now your turn, brother) and the writing. I would like to see them expand the game in terms of the player-to-animal relationships (slash the number of possible neighbors down to a dozen or so and give each one a small text adventure-ish quest line), and I'd like to see a larger and more varied town landscape. They've also gone the wrong direction by pulling commerce out of the village and by making you the center of power and attention. I think it's a problem that you don't feel like a citizen as much as God with everyone else being a prop.

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 83: We All Hate Danny

« on: April 30, 2013, 06:25:34 PM »

The most recent episode in the MP3 RSS feed is missing the opening <item> tag, and therefore the feed isn't parsing for MP3 RSS listeners.

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TalkBack / Re: Pandora's Tower Review

« on: April 18, 2013, 12:37:49 AM »

Awesome game, and the voice acting of the old woman deserves a mention. It might be my favorite voice acting of any Wii game. I'm also really only distracted by the choppy framerate when using the 'zoom' function. I won't single out this one score, since I think the score numbers thing is passe (and yes I know that criticizing numerical scores is by contrast extremely trendy), but if this game came a little earlier in the Wii's life cycle (which it did... just not in NA) and / or came first to NA of the trilogy, it would have a Metascore more like 80.


(and... not playing for review with the wiimote... when the player character's signature item is a chain he flicks?)

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TalkBack / Re: Rumor: Game & Wario Arriving June 30

« on: April 09, 2013, 10:40:27 PM »

Completely unfathomable that they couldn't squirt this out within a few weeks of the JP release. Wow....

69

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 79: PAX Director's Cut

« on: March 31, 2013, 12:48:57 AM »

The PAX previews convinced me that the Dues Ex port is safe to preorder. Thank you.


Also, am I the only person that assumed "rank the following cartridges in order of size" referred to data capacity? In fact, I feel like you may have had this same question in an earlier podcast.

70

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 78: Tropes vs Connectivity

« on: March 25, 2013, 02:05:15 PM »

"Because people donate money to a Kickstarter expecting that money to be put directly into the project. When the money raised goes a little over the goal, it's easy to see how that extra money can go into the project. When the money raised is $152,922 over, and the person is just making youtube videos, my skeptical nature questions whether or not all of that money is going into the project and not into personal things. Kickstarters are to support projects, not people."

There are a couple giant assumptions in this post. Her supporters saw what her current total was when they donated. They saw her added videos and stretch goals, if applicable. What if a significant portion of her donations were simply votes of confidence in the cause behind the kickstarter? Why does it seem like almost all of the criticism I've read of her overflowing response has been from people that seemingly weren't backers themselves?

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Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 78: Tropes vs Connectivity

« on: March 25, 2013, 12:57:01 AM »

I don't understand holding the "over donation" against her. Is there a way in the Kickstarter system to stop taking pledges once the goal is reached? If not, why is her project discredited based on the amount of money given? Even if there is / was, it seems like some people are bitter that the topic being discussed is important enough to so many people that raising this amount of money was possible in the first place. By the way, good to hear a female voice on the podcast. Hopefully we'll hear more even when sexism isn't the topic.

72

TalkBack / Re: Need For Speed: Most Wanted Preview

« on: March 20, 2013, 02:14:20 PM »

Yup. Eating my hat. The sale is still up. Most Wanted U is on the way to me for half off.  The early reviews are stellar; thank you Criterion for giving Nintendo nuts at least one title that's the clearly definitive console version.

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TalkBack / Re: Need For Speed: Most Wanted Preview

« on: March 12, 2013, 05:10:34 PM »

I liked the campy live action scenes in the original Most Wanted. That game had a feeling of its time and a personality.  But I can live with the attitude shift in the new version.


And I did try the new version with a PS3 1 hour timed trial. Why is it, that while in Gran Turismo I feel like I'm in a game by car nuts, for car nuts, but in the new Most Wanted it feels like I'm in a car dealership? Sure, I don't really think Ferrari plans on selling many new cars based on peoples' MW experience, but this game feels like marketing while GT feels like "car nerding". The other aspect I didn't like was, unless I'm grossly mistaken, I drove up to a couple cars in the city that had to be purchased with money (real-life Human money!) to unlock. I HATE ingame upsells like that and I AM stubborn enough to not buy a game because of it.


Yet if this will _finally_ usher in a multiplat full retail game where the Wii U version is _clearly_ the definitive console experience, I would consider a purchase to support those that bring the best out of the WiiU.

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TalkBack / Re: Rayman Legends Delayed To September

« on: February 07, 2013, 07:06:22 PM »

  I'll freely admit to giving a closer look to console exclusive games. I'll freely admit to paying more for them than I would a multi-plat game. Maybe it's my age, but exclusive games give a system its character and are worth more to me. It was easy to have this philosophy with the Wii because most of its best games were console exclusive and almost none of its multiplats were better than the PS360 versions.

 
In the case of Legends and this statement, of course the corporate half-truth of “fan service” irritates anyone with intelligence and integrity. Of course this is first about maximizing ROI. I don't object to that on a moral level but it moves the game from a pre-order, full price purchase to a 'maybe for $35... at most' purchase for me. Yet obviously there are many fans of Origins on the 360 and PS3, maybe more than from the Wii. Given the tablet's presumed integration with the game design, squeezing this game on to the older consoles may be no small task. Why not create two parallel games, not unlike some good SNES / Genesis series had? Legends would remain basically as we've seen it (and oh my have we seen it, and for some time... bring it out, already!) and for the other platforms you have Rayman Chronicles.

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TalkBack / Re: How Nintendo of America Severed Direct Two-Way Communication with Its Fans

« on: February 01, 2013, 01:24:43 AM »

Thank you for sharing your experiences about the Camp Hyrule event. As for the NSider forums, I don't know how much is lost, in retrospect. It's hard to imagine the Nintendo staffers in this day and age would be authorized to share anything exclusively first with a forum. More likely, they'd be babysitting people setting up wi-fi and plugging in component cables correctly. And the fans that spend time on Nintendo forums are the last ones Nintendo needs to spend resources on because that group will be buying the next software release and console regardless. Much of this is just the nature of the Internet now compared to ten years+ ago.