Topic: Metroid: Other M Intro Cutscene Leaked Online

[NWR_Lindy]

Nobody was supposed to film any footage of Samus' next adventure, but hey, this is the internet.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=22665

 The Examiner has posted some leaked footage of Metroid: Other M, recorded at last week's Nintendo Media Summit.    

The footage seems to be a recreation of the end of Super Metroid, when a baby Metroid gives its life to Samus in order to allow her to defeat Mother Brain.  In a continuation of the story, Samus wakes up in a quarantine unit of a hospital, and some rather uninspired voice acting ensues.    

   

Metroid: Other M ships on June 27 in North America.    

Update: The footage has been removed from Youtube, but this is the Internet, and the footage can now be found at The Metroid Database

[King of Twitch]

"Come on, Samus. Let's go next door."

Breathtaking

[NWR_Lindy]

i don't even know why Nintendo bothers banning the taking of video footage.

[MegaByte]

I'm guessing they banned footage of the games they did because they're surprisingly unfinished (at least the builds at the show) given their launch dates and they don't want to tarnish the image of their big names.  Though I never ran into any, I heard of SMG2 crashing, and the load times were pretty long.  Also, all they had was a simple level select, similar to when they showed off the first SMG in Europe and also banned footage.  I have to assume we'll get more Metroid footage at GDC, because it really doesn't make sense to not show this epic video in its full glory (it's kind of sad seeing it as a cell cam recording).  At the event, not every attendee even got to see it.  I was told that the level design wasn't quite finished, they had disabled all menus, and they said that the sound levels hadn't been normalized yet.  I'm not sure if they're trying to build up more hype like this or what, but I think having everybody try to explain the experience with words only does the game a disservice.  At least they aren't as bad as Square Enix.  They were a lot more permissive about filming at this summit than in ones past.  In previous years, we were limited to 5 minutes per game and had to include the controller in the shot.  This year, we had no time limit, only had to have a bit of body in the shot (still silly IMO), and could do direct feed for willing third parties.  And at least Metroid was hands-on.  I wasn't even allowed to touch Prince of Persia, let alone film it.

[NWR_Neal]

I can't wait to see that in some sort of quality.

I'm really excited for this game, mainly because I have a good amount of faith in Nintendo. Weird.

[Dropkik]

Some of the VO isn't that great, but I can point to much worse in many games (Resident Evil 1).  I wish Jennifer Hale was voicing Samus but the lady they have now isn't too bad.  I think the detachment in her voice is actually very fitting for the character and if in the final game she becomes more human and less detached from her emotions it will make for a very interesting character arc.  Only time will tell how this unfolds.

[greybrick]

I wish they'd had the decency to leak gameplay footage :

[Dropkik]

I wish they'd had the decency to leak gameplay footage :

It's probably hard to stealthily record gameplay footage when your trying to play the game =P

[MegaByte]

Actually, it probably would have been easier given the setup -- private booths vs. an open theater area.

[Dropkik]

Maybe, unless they had an Nintendo employee hovering behind them the whole time.  I highly doubt in the age of the iPhone Nintendo didn't expect people to try and sneak video.  Was there a bodyguard or were players left alone?

[Stogi]

Damn...they gave Samus a huge ass in this one.

The video looked good in terms of CG quality and I didn't think the voice acting was bad at all.

[MegaByte]

I was for the most part left alone, they'd just looked in a couple times.  There were seats for two people, so I don't know if others had a chaperon earlier in the day.  I'm actually wondering if that footage was taken when I was there because I seem to remember a similar "what" outburst after the showing.

[Dropkik]

It's definitely surprising to hear they didn't chaperon the demo.  I wonder why they decided not to release a new trailer for the game though.  Seems strange to me for them to set up such a long demo and not send out a new teaser trailer to go with it.  The screen shots are better then nothing though.  Speaking of them, I heard that the screens they released to the press were taken at a higher res then the actual game.  I understand why, it's easier to take a still from the PC based development program then it is to capture it from a TV screen.  Whats the difference between the screen shots and the actual game in terms of resolutions and smoothing?  Is there a significant degradation in quality or has Team Ninja been able to make this game look smoother then Mario Galaxy? 

[BlackNMild2k1]

It's definitely surprising to hear they didn't chaperon the demo.  I wonder why they decided not to release a new trailer for the game though.  Seems strange to me for them to set up such a long demo and not send out a new teaser trailer to go with it.  The screen shots are better then nothing though.

GDC in 2 weeks. Metroid will likely have updated trailers and stuff then.
Yoshio Sakamoto is speaking on Thursday March 11th, 2010 from 10:30am - 11:30am PST
From Metroid to Tomodachi Collection to WarioWare: Different Approaches for Different Audiences

At GDC, Mr. Sakamoto will talk about his thought processes and techniques on game designs that have allowed him to find market acceptance for his expansive portfolio of titles.

[MegaByte]

The graphics should look mostly like the screenshots, but there will be more edge aliasing when it is rendered at 480p.

[greybrick]

The graphics should look mostly like the screenshots, but there will be more edge aliasing when it is rendered at 480p.

Ah, Nintendo. I can play Prince of Persia Sands of Time on my xbox in 720p, the Wii's hardware is certainly capable of this... what gives?

[Halbred]

Samus looks hot. But what's with the Cindy Crawford mole? Otherwise...

*SKEET SKEET SKEET*

[MegaByte]

I wonder if that was always planned.  In a 1992 interview, the development team was asked to state a secret of Samus that only he/she knew.  Sakamoto said, "I know where Samus's beauty mark is."

[ShyGuy]

Who is doing the voice of Samus? It reminds me of that woman on V "We are of peace. Always."

[Adrock]

"Mother... time to go!"

Jesus Christ....

[greybrick]

I wonder if that was always planned.  In a 1992 interview, the development team was asked to state a secret of Samus that only he/she knew.  Sakamoto said, "I know where Samus's beauty mark is."

With the Japanese, you never know. Plus she didn't have it in Brawl (I just checked), but maybe Brawl is set after Super Metroid and we will get to see when/how she gets it removed.

[Dropkik]

I wonder if that was always planned.  In a 1992 interview, the development team was asked to state a secret of Samus that only he/she knew.  Sakamoto said, "I know where Samus's beauty mark is."

With the Japanese, you never know. Plus she didn't have it in Brawl (I just checked), but maybe Brawl is set after Super Metroid and we will get to see when/how she gets it removed.

She draws it on with a sharpie [almost] every morning

[greybrick]

On those days, the ones that she forgets, Adam refuses to call her lady.

[NWR_Lindy]

Some of the VO isn't that great, but I can point to much worse in many games (Resident Evil 1).

Don't you think this is setting the bar a little low?

"Hey, this game is bad, but I've seen much worse (Superman 64)." 

[Chozo Ghost]

"This Video has been removed by the user." *cry*

[Stogi]

Some of the VO isn't that great, but I can point to much worse in many games (Resident Evil 1).

Don't you think this is setting the bar a little low?

"Hey, this game is bad, but I've seen much worse (Superman 64)." 

Hey, it can't be as bad as Sunshine

[Rize]

The graphics should look mostly like the screenshots, but there will be more edge aliasing when it is rendered at 480p.

Ah, Nintendo. I can play Prince of Persia Sands of Time on my xbox in 720p, the Wii's hardware is certainly capable of this... what gives?

What do you mean?  I don't think the Wii has enough video memory to render HD resolutions under any circumstances.  It has a 3 MB video memory which must be used for textures and the framebuffer.  1280x720p requires: 1280x720 pixels x 3 bytes of info per pixel x 2 frames for standard double buffering = 5.3 MB required (or 3.5 MB if you used 16 bit color).

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Wii can do HD, just don't expect anything playable.

All-white screens w/ frame tearing, HOO-RAH.

[MegaByte]

I understand that it's theoretically possible to get around the framebuffer issue by drawing the frame in parts, but that would kill performance.  Because Nintendo designed specifically for SD res, the hardware just isn't there to support HD well, even if the processing power is there.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

PS2 "did" 1080i.

BIG MAC AIN'T NO THANG

[Rize]

Has anyone actually seen the Wii do HD?  I don't see anyway to do it unless you eliminate the framebuffer and draw directly to the area that is visible on the screen (this could be done for something static like a photo viewer, but that's about it).  Or you could do neutered HD resolutions if the software and output hardware is designed to handle it (although you'd have very little texture memory left). Even 1280x550 at 16 bits would leave you with 0.2 MB of video memory for textures.

@Megabyte: ok, well non realistic tricks aside then, the Wii is certainly not capable of rendering PoP Sands of Time in 720p (if only because of the video memory limitation).

[greybrick]

The graphics should look mostly like the screenshots, but there will be more edge aliasing when it is rendered at 480p.

Ah, Nintendo. I can play Prince of Persia Sands of Time on my xbox in 720p, the Wii's hardware is certainly capable of this... what gives?

What do you mean?  I don't think the Wii has enough video memory to render HD resolutions under any circumstances.  It has a 3 MB video memory which must be used for textures and the framebuffer.  1280x720p requires: 1280x720 pixels x 3 bytes of info per pixel x 2 frames for standard double buffering = 5.3 MB required (or 3.5 MB if you used 16 bit color).

The original Xbox had no special "texture memory", most specs only list it's 64mb ram, which the Wii has and which I assume to be the video memory.
Actually, these are the specs I found for Wii's memory:
Memory
64mb DDR3
24mb 1T-SRAM
3mb Texture Memory

vs. the Xbox's
Memory
64mb DDR ram

The Wii out-specs the original Xbox, the original xbox could do 720p... logic would dictate that the Wii could do so.

[MegaByte]

The framebuffer architecture (i.e. the circuitry that puts the image on the screen) is different so you can't make statements like that.

[greybrick]

The framebuffer architecture (i.e. the circuitry that puts the image on the screen) is different so you can't make statements like that.

I wasn't trying to imply that the Wii could currently support an HD image higher than 480p... I was noting that it has "the guts" to do so, so to speak. Like someone with a great set of lungs but weak vocal cords, I guess.

[MegaByte]

Yeah, even the GameCube had better outputs than the Wii -- Digital.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Tell me what's Digital about GameCube component cables that a TV actually cares about.

Tell that to my eyes.

[greybrick]

Yeah, even the GameCube had better outputs than the Wii -- Digital.

I currently use a vga output for my Wii, makes it look more bearable...

[MegaByte]

Tell me what's Digital about GameCube component cables that a TV actually cares about.

Tell that to my eyes.

Well my monitor cares about it.  I had to buy a converter box that doesn't even do that great a job at converting to VGA.  With GameCube I could hook it directly into my monitor, and everything was sharp.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

VGA is analog, just so you know.  Don't go touting niche custom cables as some sort of advantage.  GC and Wii were designed for TELEVISIONs.

Analog(YUV) is the natural output for these systems.  You converter box has to do an additional Analog(YUV) to Analog(RGB) conversion step to get VGA to work.  You're only LUCKY Nintendo left a gaping digital hole on the GC where some chaps figured out how to skip the Digital(RGB) to Analog(YUV) conversion inside the expensive GC component cables and go Digital(RGB) to Analog(RGB) suitable for VGA connections.

There are converter boxes that'll convert componet to HDMI without the quality downgrade you get from component to VGA, but that's something someone else's niche monitor problem would care about.

Stick to televisions.  They're more exciting to throw your Wiimotes into.  And stand up when you play.  Desks are lame.

[greybrick]

You may say that, but there is a big difference between plugging my Wii in with component cables vs. my VGA cable.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Of course there is.  It's a crap conversion process with no winners.

Get a TV.

wait, i was responding to NWR Staff; you need to be specific.  you're playing games on your microwave, you say?

[MegaByte]

Just because your antiquated crap can't use it and Nintendo wanted to save 3 cents off production doesn't mean it was a good decision to drop it, especially now that most TVs have native digital inputs (and many modern TVs have VGA input as well, which is how I used my GC on my friend's TV back in college).  Most of the world has even stopped broadcasting in analog.

[greybrick]

Of course there is.  It's a crap conversion process with no winners.

Get a TV.

wait, i was responding to NWR Staff; you need to be specific.  you're playing games on your microwave, you say?

I am playing on my 46" Bravia but sure, feel superior.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

That's better.  It's also a different situation than what I described before, as I assumed MegaByte was playing on a computer monitor (and your cable does a better conversion; shoot him a PM).  HDTVs I've come across handle VGA input differently than the components; they don't apply all the crazy scalers and filters on the VGA picture that otherwise blur-up the component picture; VGA was receiving bare minimum scaling.

Now if I could hookup my trusty aged 480p DVD player to my TV's VGA input, it would be nice, and I'd ask you to find me this magick cable.  But the industry isn't nice, and doesn't want to make things easy.  What IS easy is having a TV and grabbing component cables for $5-$10.

[greybrick]

That's better.  It's also a different situation than what I described before

Vs. the Microwave? Yeah it plays a lot better on the Bravia, and the microwave is free to heat up my Chicken Dinos.

[King Bowser Koopa]

Wait, is that a beauty spot? No. No. Just... no. On her chin? No. Samus doesn't... no. It looks like a freaking mole. I'll assume that thing is removed before the final game. It had BETTER be.

[NWR_Neal]

Wait, is that a beauty spot? No. No. Just... no. On her chin? No. Samus doesn't... no. It looks like a freaking mole. I'll assume that thing is removed before the final game. It had BETTER be.

Maybe the beauty mark has powers. If you choose easy, the mark gives you more health. If you choose hard, the mark is removed and you take more damage.