Messages

[nionlights]

1

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Mature Titles doesnt always mean Violent !

« on: January 07, 2004, 10:57:49 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: nionlights
The current rating system is ridiculous-what is the point of a rating system which the majority of parents do not understand?  There is/was absolutely no reason why the "ESRB" couldn't just adopt the MPAA rating system (G, PG, PG-13, etc); no fuss, no crazy ratings that aren't ever used, just plain, simple movie-style ratings.  Oh, and here's my (only) problem with Nintendo, or, rather, the state of video games today-10 years ago, or whenever it was, when i fell in love with the Super Nintendo, there was no question that it had ALL the games.  You want sports games?  SNES had plenty.  You want "x" type of game from "x" developer?  SNES had them all.  Nowadays, I have to hold my breath, cross my fingers in the hopes that a good 3rd-party game that I've just heard about will get to the Cube.  It's not a pleasant feeling...

1) It is my understanding that the MPAA owns the rights to all the ratings except "X" (which is why porn movies could use it so freely). For the gaming industry to use these ratings they would probably have to pay the MPAA. I don't know what that would cost, but long term it might be worth it.

2) I have said it before and will say it again. Being "mature" has nothing to do with guns, drugs, whores and cursing. Maturinty is getting a job, paying the bills, taking care of a family. In short, the most mature game out there is The Sims.

2

Nintendo Gaming / Nintendo has something even bigger...

« on: April 24, 2003, 12:01:31 PM »

If I can remind everyone Nintendo's line up was accidentally leaked about a month early last year, and, once E3 happened,  fans B&C'd that there were no suprises.

Didn't keep Nintendo from almost universally being declared last year's "winner".

 Nintendo may have simply decided to take a preemptive track this year, announcing this on their own terms. But I would not be suprised if all of Nintendo's lineup was seen before E3 this year.

3

Nintendo Gaming / Finished Eternal Darkness tonight...

« on: April 22, 2003, 06:49:59 PM »

A very good game, and one of my favorites on the Cube. I love the way the stories were interwoven, the way each character's tale had a unique feel to it, the monster/color system, and of course the insanity effects. Bonus points for being about the only 3rd person game ever to not get the "camera stinks" criticism.

The flaw, of course, was Edward and Alex's missions. While it was an interesting idea, it didn't work well enough to flip those switches twice in a game - and even worse if you played it through 3 times. The end of the game should be the most exciting and action packed - and that just wasn't the case. It doesn't help that you are not the one who gets to kill off the giant beast in the end.

Oh well.

This is definately a game worthy of a sequel. The flaws were not unusual for a "first in a series" game, and a second game hopefully will iron out those rough spots.

[unicron5]

4

Nintendo Gaming / Nintendo lowers profit expectations... again

« on: April 07, 2003, 07:42:31 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: unicron5
Ming --

Your numbers are false. Nintendo projected to sell 10 million for fiscal 2002-03 *alone* (not total userbase). At one point last year, Nintendo actually raised this to 12 million before dropping it again to 10 million. In January Mr. Iwata warned that sales would be off by 10% or so, I think this was more of a pre-emptive PR move to warn stockholders that sales would be lower than expected without really letting on how bad things were.

The GameCube really experienced little growth in North America and actually managed to sell less in Japan in fiscal 02-03, despite having a full 12 months on store shelves and games like two new Bio Hazards, Mario Sunshine, Zelda: TWW, Mario Party IV, etc.

Right. I remember after their Euro launch last year Nintendo had projected 16 million cubes total by the end of the fiscal year. Had they hit their 10 million, it would have been pretty close.

5

Nintendo Gaming / Nintendo lowers profit expectations... again

« on: April 07, 2003, 10:02:31 AM »

Do you really think this is just because of third party support?

The GCN had a great deal of support for most of the last year, and many expected the RE exclusives to be sure fire sellers. Nintendo is now losing its support (like Sega sports) because of the poor sales.  For whatever reason Nintendo has been unable to capitalize on the release of a number of smash games the past year - RE1, RE0, Metroid Prime, Mario Sunshine, Animal Crossing and Eternal Darkness alone offer more than enough quality titles, and there was plenty of filler for those "between" months. What is hurting Nintendo, at least in the states, is its image, and I don't know anything they can do to overcome that.

6

Nintendo Gaming / PilotWings - Am I the only one?

« on: April 07, 2003, 09:57:48 AM »

This would be a great release. Flying around the various levels of PW64 and taking photos was a great stress reliever. In fact, I would love to see them release this at last with the damn SD adapter so, unlike Zelda, we can take more than 1 photo at a time!

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Nintendo Gaming / the gameboy to gamecube scam

« on: April 05, 2003, 08:24:49 AM »

Programming in all those extras takes time. This time costs Nintendo money. This is time that could be spent on other projects. So if Nintendo is going to anything substantial with it (ala the Tingle Tuner). So, yes, they would like to get that money back.

The truth is most people who own a GBA/GBASP would have bought one regardless of the GCN. For those who bought one ONLY for the link features, I would expect you to be disappointed so far. Then again, I would expect that you would have waited to see if any games came out with halfway decent support for the link before dropping $80 on the system too.

8

Nintendo Gaming / Mini-games in Modern Games are Boring

« on: April 02, 2003, 07:06:10 PM »

Generally speaking you don't HAVE to play or beat all the minigames in any game in order to finish it. In some games they are stupid, but in better games - like Zelda- I find them a pleasant diversion from time to time. In the end, having them costs little, and for some of us greatly enhances the experience.

9

Nintendo Gaming / Zelda TWW for someone who hasn't played Zelda since the original NES?

« on: April 01, 2003, 06:14:53 PM »

The sequel argument bugs me. There are only so many game genres out there, and its not as though the story every really matters a great deal. Sure, Nintendo could create a totally new fantasy and platformer franchise, but what would be the point?  

[)Dark-LInk(]

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Nintendo Gaming / question about mario sunshine and zelda?

« on: April 01, 2003, 06:08:52 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: )Dark-LInk(
i like mario's voice when he say "IT"S ME MARIO" in mario 64 thats fits him well.

Absolutely. But can you imagine him carrying on a dialogue with that cheeseball accent? "It'sa me, Mario! And I'ma gonna savea you, Princess, as soon as I keek da Bowser's assa!"


Keep it to a short phrase or two (ie "Itsa me!")and sound effects and all is good.  

11

Nintendo Gaming / 2003, last year before Nintendo switches focus to GC2?

« on: April 01, 2003, 11:41:03 AM »

It seems like 2004 will have RE4, Metroid Prime 2, and Mario 128 at the very least. Don't be suprised to see a second Zelda towards the end of the year either. So if the GCN2 IS coming in 2005, it doens't look to me like it will have a N64 type ending, with a year of next to no quality titles.  

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Nintendo Gaming / my fav game

« on: March 31, 2003, 04:04:37 PM »

You can't find your anus with a funnel, can you?

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 30, 2003, 04:38:28 PM »

Can't you read? No, you can't lie. That is, you can, but it'd be pointless. If you registered your warantee, they have it on file by your GCN's serial number. If you didn't register, then they will likely sign you up for 30 days just as they did me. Either way there is no reason to lie.

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 30, 2003, 10:28:35 AM »

I wouldn't lie. I didn't. The warantee is registered by the console's serial number, so it wouldn't matter if you lost it. As long as neither you nor the store it was bought from has registered the console yet, you should get a 30 day warantee when you call them.

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Nintendo Gaming / What ever happened to the SD Memory card?

« on: March 29, 2003, 04:30:23 PM »

Yeah, I have that big @$$ Interact card too and have had no memory shortages at all. I did save Zelda on my old Nintendo 59 card though, just because I heard some people had problems using a 3rd part card with it.

While we are on the topic...

One of the things that I think blows about WW is that the camera will only store 3 pictures. Considering this is (at least) the second Nintendo published game in which you are allowed to do screen captures, you would think that Nintendo would have planned for a larger storage medium in the first place.

[wikedskata]

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 29, 2003, 04:23:30 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: wikedskata
YAH SAME W/ MINE CAUSE WEN IT LOADS LIKE A NEW ROOM IT SAYS CANOT READ DISK so can i just like let it cool down for a cuple a days or willl this still hapen  also i think nintendo shud cover this since it hapeens to all of them

Go back reread my post. It tells you exactly who to call to get it fixed. Just leaving it to cool down won't do much of anything because as soon as you turn it on it will begin to overheat again.

Simponsfan - I will say that the defects are a preferable drawback when compared to living in non-industrial nations where there would be one lone GCN maker in a community making 2 or 3 each year!

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Nintendo Gaming / SLDLE?

« on: March 29, 2003, 08:45:57 AM »

Your English teacher is incorrect*. Check this site for more info: http://www.balancedreading.com/vocabulary.html

WHile I cannot vouch for its accuracy, its numbers fit what I have seen elsewhere and they do a good job sizing up the problems in finding a true measure of vocabulary.

*Feel free to tell her, and tell her another teacher (me) told you so.

[RickPowers]

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Nintendo Gaming / Green... or Red? Both it seems.

« on: March 29, 2003, 08:35:05 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: RickPowers
Yes, that is accurate.  If I remember correctly, there have now been FOUR different "versions" of Ocarina of time.

IS that including the MasterQuest and the GCN bonus disk?

[PS - Thank hemmorroid]

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 29, 2003, 07:23:21 AM »

Just contacted Nintendo. (1-800-255-3700)

I was worried about shelling out $80 to fix the system since I never got around to sending in my warrantee card and its been over a year since I got my GCN anyway.

BUT because I never activated my warantee, they just entered my serial number and activated it NOW, for the next 30 days, so I'll be able to take it to my nearest "authorized repair center" and get it fixed free. Win one for the procrastinators!

The bad news is that when I spoke to the repair center she immediately recognized the issue. I asked if this is common and she said it happens to "all of them." While I doubt (hopefully) that this is not truly an issue with 100% of the GCN's, I do find it upsetting that it is a widespread a problem.

PS - Thank hemmorroid you were abig help. Don't know why everyone says you're a pain in the ass.

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 29, 2003, 06:38:22 AM »

Tried again this morning. It took about 15 minutes of play for the error to occur.

The problem was also happening with Metroid now, so I guess I can safely rule out a disc problem.

What I want to know now is how prevelant this issue is. It seems there are 3 people here who had their systems spltz soon after the 1 year warranty. If this is widespread, it could really hurt what little momentum remains for the system.

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Nintendo Gaming / help my gamecube says error has occured!

« on: March 28, 2003, 07:43:38 PM »

Would you please be a bit more specific with your problem as I too have just suffered an error message with my Wind Waker. It may be a bad batch of discs.

Here's the specifics behind mine:

I have not had any problems playing my GCN for 15 months. I've played through about 20 games with no problems (other than the occasional Metroid Freeze).

My FIRST Wind Waker disc looked ok, but the system would not read it. It took about 5-10 minutes of fiddling with the disc to get the system to finally recognize. Once the system did read it though, it played fine for two 4 hours sessions.

Not wanting to go through the hassel every time I played the game, I exchanged it for a second disc (from a different store in the same chain).

The NEW disc was recognized and loaded with no problems at all BUT after playing for about 2 hours (right before the Dragon's Roost Boss fight), the game started to have trouble at load points. I would get a message along the lines of "Cannot read disc". Simply opening and closing the cover though would generally be enough to get the game back on track (it continued from exactly the point at which the error occured). Finally I got a "Power DOwn your GCN" message.

I did shut the system down for about and hour, and tried again. After 15 minutes of play (as the boss levels were loading), the system ran into the same problems all over again.

So my question is: Is this the game, the disc, or the system?

I would think that, if the fault lie in either the game or the system, that the error should be the same for each disc. But its not. Each disc had distictly different errors. These problems were consistently unique to that disc. (I haven't had the chance to extensively test other games but they do seem to be working fine). That would lead me to believe that the flaw lie in the discs themselves, but I am not much of a tech head, and I do have trouble thinking that I would crap out twice on the same game when there have not been any reports of similar problems.

[Ian Sane]

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Nintendo Gaming / Starfox Adv. = Zelda. I don't understand why people did not like it.

« on: March 28, 2003, 05:41:38 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Star Fox Adventures was a very odd game in the sense that it's like the creators knew in theory what all the elements of a good game are but just couldn't put it together.  The game in theory had it all: great graphics, great sound, large exciting places to explore, and good game length.  But it was just so boring.  It was like someone tried to make a human being and made a robot instead.

Nicely said.

I know I played this game.

I remember liking the game as I played it.

But I'll be damned if there is anything that really stuck with me.

I think back to games like SMS, ED, and even Pikmin, and I have very vivid, fond memories and I want to play them again. With Star Fox its as if I never played it in the first place.

I just can't put my finger on why this is the case.

The collecting doesn't bother me - most of the items, though poorly named - had a purpose. And the two Banjo-Kazooie collect-a-fests were among my favorite N64 games ever.

So what was it?

I guess, in general, the whole thing seems like it wasn't though through very well. The battles were uninteresting. Too short to be boring or tedious, but not in anyway memorable.

The goals seemed a bit too many. I never quite knew what I was working towards - freeing the dinos? Unleashing the spirits? Rescuing Crystal? Games like Zelda and Mario always have one driving goal to give it focus. All the little side tasks are done to bring you closer to rescuing the princess.

Another problem - rememeber the energy tanks or feul cells or whatever they were that you needed to get to the next level? These were the equivilent of Mario stars or Banjo puzzle pieces, but where is the fun in hunting them all down whenyou can simply BUY all you want?

I don't even want to touch on the ending, which was just a horribly conceived, very contrived betrayal to all that had been implicitly promised to the gamer. I wouldn't have minded the "suprise" had it  1) not been obvious they would do it, and 2) it had made a lick of sense. And why set the last boss battle in the Ar-wing, which had been up until that point trivial to the storyline? What the heck were we doing getting staff upgrades for if not to battle the big bad?

In the end, while I was initially happy to see DP become SFA, I think the forced marriage was the real mistake. Fox's SF origins didn't mesh at all with the primitive fantasy world.