Nathan and Karl join Greg and James to fill out their Wii Report Cards.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/24574
It's not often that you can say fate itself seems to have something against a podcast, but such was the case for this week's episode of RFN. With our usual host Jonny already scheduled for a week off to cap his decade-long college career, disaster struck when James fell ill and Jon suddenly had to board a flight to an unspecified location. But never fear, for two special guests offered to step in for their fallen comrades: Nathan Mustafa of the NWR Newscast and former RFN host Karl Castaneda. Then, at the last moment, James found the inner strength/medication to join fill-in host Greg for a rather unusual but no less bro-ey show (OK, maybe a bit less given Jon's absence).
New Business gets underway with Nathan sharing some of his recent iPad games of choice, including World of Goo and the oddly Punch-Out!!-like Infinity Blade from the makers of Shadow Complex. Next, Karl shocks the world with a return from his years-long review exile for THQ's uDraw tablet for Wii (drunken Pictionary ahoy!) before James dusts off his regal robes to reconnect with his favourite WiiWare game, FFCC: My Life as a King. Greg brings an end to the first segment with some stern words for Nintendo and an outburst of joy at his conquest of Ghosts'n Goblins and the long-awaited arrival of his copy of Kirby's Epic Yarn.
Part two of the show kicks off with your Listener Mail, which continues to add to the medical lexicon with a discussion of "The Metts Condition." Then it's time for the main event: our Wii Report Card, not just for 2010, but for the lifecycle as a whole. In a throwback to RFN 78, Karl takes the reins as we grade Nintendo's revolutionary console in four categories in addition to our overall personal satisfaction with the system. It's a big discussion covering big topics - let us know your thoughts and send us an e-mail!
RetroActive will conclude soon -- if you've played The World Ends With You and haven't yet posted your thoughts in the official forum thread, please do so!
The most disappointing this generation has be the PS3. There are no good games, and the "good" ones bore me to death.
Killzone 2 = Boring/generic level design.
Uncharted 2 = Couldn't finish it. It looks pretty, but it didn't hold my attention.
Little Big Planet = I'm not creative enough for that game.
PS3 is also the home to horrible ports. Fallout 3 is unplayable on that system.
Greg (understandably) cut a lot of toilet humor for this episode.
On the fan service point, I agree that this was an exceptionally great year in that regard, but I'd stop just short of giving Nintendo perfect marks, given their stubbornness in regard to control options in games like DKCR and Metroid Other M. I hate to beat a dead horse, but if Nintendo really had the concerns of heavy users in mind, those games would have supported the Classic Controller, and in Metroid's case, the nunchuk.
It was probably a bit easier in this case since half the regular crew was out.
Also Karl comes off very "professional" on your podcast.
Vicarious Visions said that this functionality is available to all Wii developers. Why aren't other developers doing this? Shame on them.
The Wii's online suffers because of the infrastructure Nintendo put in place. GoldenEye does it well, but it does so despite the flaws in Nintendo's online implementation. If only there were a unified, system-wide friends list and a better voice chat solution, things would be so much better.
