Messages

976

General Gaming / Re: Xbox720 - that's 2 full revolutions - not till 2014? ~Rumor/Speculation Thread~

« on: November 21, 2012, 07:28:57 PM »

This MicroSoft business only feeds the feeling that I have that the next gen is really going to go off the rails. How easy is it going to be to communicate to consumers that the set-top box has a Kinect 2.0 and plays some, but not all, Xbox video games? 

Combined with the generally lukewarm WiiU reception in the press (and pretty strong confirmation that it's going to be quite far behind the Orbis and Durango techwise), plus the sorry state of the Sony corporation, it's making me question if consoles need to exist. With all this convergence toward media capability (dependent upon third-party subscriptions) and cloud services, I'm thinking it would make more sense for something like the mythical Steambox to take precedence. Required minimum specs on any computer device that run whatever games are on the service. Nintendo and Sony would make their money on the software. MicroSoft would do whatever, maybe push Smartglass features. The WiiU Gamepad would be a competing peripheral. I guess I'm just not seeing what the advantages of proprietary consoles are in this day and age. I am not at all a PC gaming enthusiast, but this console arms race is getting Kafkaesque, or probably more accurately, Seussian.

977

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Unofficial And Pre-Emptive Majora's Mask Retroactive Thread

« on: November 21, 2012, 09:24:06 AM »

I think this is easily the most emotionally affecting Zelda game. There were a few side stories I almost cried during, it gets so weird and poignant at points.

978

General Gaming / Re: Dat GTA 5 trailer!

« on: November 18, 2012, 04:37:46 PM »

I've never spent significant time with any GTA game but I love the hell out of Red Dead Redemption. Maybe I should go back and play GTA IV. And I do like that trailer.

I was in a similar situation. I hated what I played of the PS2 GTA games, but Red Dead Redemption turned out to be one of my favorite games ever. Based on that I picked up GTAIV to give the series another shot, but I quit in disgust after five hours or so. The driving was terrible and the "action" gameplay was worse. I enjoyed seeing obscure Brooklyn landmarks appear in the game world, but whenever you actually had to do anything the game felt borderline unplayable.

I'm sure V will get the usual 10s across the board, but I remain skeptical that the mindset behind the game design has actually changed.

979

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zombi U, I'm warming up to it

« on: November 18, 2012, 04:26:56 PM »

The extremely negative Gamespot review claimed that you just beat individual zombies to death with a cricket bat over and over again. Is this the reviewer "playing the game wrong" more than an actual design problem?

980

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Wii Era Is Over. Thoughts?

« on: November 15, 2012, 04:08:11 PM »

It obviously would have been preferable if the console hadn't totally dried up in the last two years, but I'm judging the console based on the best parts of the library. I don't play through that many games a year, so the general droughts never bother me that much (and there's been little on the other consoles that I've liked as much as the games on the following list).

For me, the Wii had some of the best games of all time, which trumps its other failings.

Mario Galaxy 1 +2
Zack and Wiki
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Little King's Story
Metroid Prime 3/Trilogy
Skyward Sword (not the best Zelda, but pretty damn good, especially when this type of game is hardly being made anymore)
Brawl (despite the criticisms, still the most fun fighting game this gen and one of the most content-rich games ever made)
World of Goo
Super Paper Mario (gets some hate, but I love it, one of the most interesting game design experiments of this generation with some of the best writing)
Dead Space Extraction (best light gun game)
Excitebots (best racing game)
Xenoblade Chronicles
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

And a large host of really good/interesting stuff that doesn't quite make the A-List:

A Boy and His Blob
Lost in Shadow
Cursed Mountain
Endless Ocean
MotoHeroz
Boom Blox
De Blob
No Mo Heroes
Madworld
Conduit
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Lost Winds
Sin and Punishment 2
Red Steel 2
Wii Sport/Resort
Bit.Trip
Trauma Center
Lit

This is just off the top of my head, but I'm sure I played more great and unique things, most of which weren't available anywhere else. Waggle might have harmed the Wii experience overall, but the HD consoles are where creative game design went to die outside of downloadable titles for the most part.

981

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U in Review (News & Rumor Consolidation)

« on: November 13, 2012, 04:14:37 PM »

An easy way to defuse the debate would be for the achievement points to actually be worth something. Like, 1,000 points equals $1 on Xbox Live. You'd get a ton of user engagement in exchange for a mild discount on virtual wares, which are already free to reproduce.

982

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U in Review (News & Rumor Consolidation)

« on: November 12, 2012, 11:05:43 PM »

I find achievements pretty worthless, Zynga-esque dopamine-addiction tools for the most part. The amount of times they've encouraged me to do something interesting vs. just activating dormant OCD receptors is slim. I would point to Bulletstorm, though, as a positive example of having ongoing activity goals that actually help sculpt the experience in interesting and rewarding ways. AND that system is primarily in-game, not system based.

983

TalkBack / Re: Mario & Luigi: Doing RPGs Better Since 2003

« on: November 12, 2012, 10:59:47 PM »

Yeah, Bowser's Inside Story was certainly the best RPG I've played since the classic 16-bit days. Shame it got so little attention when drab borefests like Elderscrolls ruled the roost.

Bowser's Inside Story sold over 4 million copies and is the best selling Mario RPG of all time.  So it actually got quite a lot of attention.

Ah, did not know! I guess I've just never met anyone in meat space who has even mentioned it. Silent Majority. . .

984

TalkBack / Re: Mario & Luigi: Doing RPGs Better Since 2003

« on: November 10, 2012, 01:34:47 PM »

Yeah, Bowser's Inside Story was certainly the best RPG I've played since the classic 16-bit days. Shame it got so little attention when drab borefests like Elderscrolls ruled the roost.

985

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U Demo Station Impressions (Stated on 10/17)

« on: November 05, 2012, 10:47:46 PM »

Yeah, it doesn't make sense in my brain to have four fingers on top of the controller. It really irks me when modern games require you to use both shoulder buttons in tandem. As much as people dump on the Wiimote, Nintendo was definitely on to something about standard controllers having too much **** on them and alienating people who aren't adapted.

986

TalkBack / Re: Manhunt 2

« on: October 29, 2012, 03:05:32 PM »

I have hope that Rockstar's oeuvre will be looked back upon as the sloppy, infantile, crass, poorly designed mess that it is.

987

General Gaming / Re: Xbox720 - that's 2 full revolutions - not till 2014? ~Rumor/Speculation Thread~

« on: October 24, 2012, 05:37:43 PM »

The problem with smart glass is that you can't use it to play Halo 4. You still have to use a regular controller because of the lack of buttons, joysticks and most importantly, latency issues. It's neat that you can track things you would normally have to pause and see, but this does not compete with Nintendo (at least not yet).

Yeah this strikes me as similar to the 3D TV at home problem. People don't actually want to wear the glasses. With smartglass, it sounds cool in the same way as the Wii U, but you'd have to have a tablet on your lap or whatever and constantly take your hands off the regular control to interact with the tablet screen. Another similar distinction I think is the 3DS, which is basically the only palatable 3D consumer product out there because you don't have to take the extra step to wear glasses.

988

Nintendo Gaming / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:59:54 PM »

Yeah, I really liked the water sequence too. Reminded me of the Zora portions of Majora's Mask. Also like the silent realm stuff. Stealth-ish sections go way back in Zelda, don't know why they stick out as out of place for people. I guess it's lingering ill-humor about the Phantom Hourglass repeat dungeon, but then again, I liked the idea of that section and thought they just needed to make the streamlining more clear/satisfying on repeat runs.

989

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo of America Confirms Pikmin 3 Release Before End of March 2013

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:54:25 PM »

I'm already scared of that whale.

990

TalkBack / Re: Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien Preview

« on: October 19, 2012, 07:53:21 PM »

I liked the music in Core, but I had an extremely difficult time keeping track of what was going on. It was a rubbing your tummy while patting your head type sensation that I didn't enjoy. Most of the rest of Bit Trip games I could tell I was bad at for specific skill reasons.

This is kind of similar to how I feel about RTS games. I just can't track what's happening well enough to even know why I'm bad at them.

991

General Gaming / Re: IGN up for sale

« on: October 17, 2012, 09:11:09 PM »

I've been wondering what the hell the Wii/WiiU guys have been doing for two years. No way that's been full time work for quite some time. I think it's pretty clear that having dilineated tribal content channels doesn't make sense at this point.

992

Nintendo Gaming / Re: I do want the Wii U to fail

« on: October 13, 2012, 09:37:34 PM »

Video games can of course be something for children to play with but that does not make all video games toys.

Errr... Toys are things adults can play with too.

True, but nobody wanted BMX XXX...

I bought that game for $2 at the mall, and definitely had that amount of money in fun with it over that course of an hour.

993

General Gaming / Re: Games Industry Death Watch 2010-2012

« on: October 11, 2012, 06:39:19 PM »

 
Capcom witnessed deminishing returns on their investments into the Megaman franchies, so they pulled the axe on it for a period of time.

I think they don't really know what to do with it. When's the last time Capcom made a "colorful" console game? Zack and Wiki? I'm thinking that if they tried to make another 3D console Megaman it would end up like Bomberman Zero given the direction Capcom has been blundering in.

994

General Gaming / Re: OSU's Marching Band does the coolest fucking thing ever.

« on: October 08, 2012, 03:44:42 PM »

Worth watching the whole thing! Extremely technically impressive from a marching standpoint.

Except for the part that was like "hey, why did this start sucking all of the sudden?" And then the Halo letters formed and it became clear.

995

General Gaming / Re: Resident Evil 6 is Apparently as Bad as Operation Raccoon City

« on: October 07, 2012, 01:02:54 AM »

I am intrigued by project Zwei. I cannot find the footage but it was of very early Resident Evil 4 built where it looked like Leon was up against these ghostly kind of enemies. There was this misty gloomy corridor that Leon was walking through and I get the same kind of vibe when I look the corridor in that image.


I wonder if this game is the one Resident Evil 4 could have been.

I know exactly what you're talking about. It got forgotten with the RE 4 reboot, but that original footage looked pretty awesome, and a much different direction for the series. They weird hookman ghost thing was pretty horrible. Here's hoping that's what Zwei is based on.

996

General Gaming / Re: Resident Evil 6 is Apparently as Bad as Operation Raccoon City

« on: October 05, 2012, 11:14:05 PM »

Yeah, it will be, erm, interesting to see where RE goes from here. The reviews should sink it, but if improves on RE5's sales, we're probably in for more games in the same vein.

But wait! There is another?

http://kotaku.com/5905277/first-look-at-resident-evil-creators-new-horror-game

997

General Gaming / Re: Resident Evil 6 is Apparently as Bad as Operation Raccoon City

« on: October 04, 2012, 12:45:43 AM »

As far as good contemporary horror games go, shout out to Lone Survivor. It's a 16-bit styled 2D survival horror game. It ends up being not the greatest by the end, but the first half is unlike anything I've played before and genuinely unnerving and upsetting.

As for where RE went wrong, it's a tricky question, because it's so entangled in what made RE4 so good in the first place. It's kind of like how Scream killed slasher movies. And then got totally terrible itself with the sequels.

What I've been thinking lately, especially after playing through Dark Souls, is that someone needs to go really far in the opposite direction from RE5/6. Play it like an actual zombie movie where if you get bit, it's over. It would have to be really hard and unforgiving. Every single monster would have to be as awful as it would be in real life to tangle with one, and you would be better off 99% of time avoiding all fights. I'm thinking a rewind function would go a long way to make this kind of game work, which new console advances could make a reality.

998

General Gaming / Re: Resident Evil 6 is Apparently as Bad as Operation Raccoon City

« on: October 01, 2012, 03:41:32 PM »

I dunno, if anything Gamespot tends to carry water for major releases. Either someone at Capcom USA broke this guy's heart or the game is actually in 5 territory. If so, it's hard to read as anything other than another sign of gaming industry crack-up.

999

General Gaming / Resident Evil 6 is Apparently as Bad as Operation Raccoon City

« on: October 01, 2012, 03:19:35 PM »

I wasn't optimistic about this game after RE5, but damn.

http://www.gamespot.com/resident-evil-6/reviews/resident-evil-6-review-6397185/

"Resident Evil 6 is a mishmash of elements put together without any sense of care or direction. Series faithful might stumble through for the sake of story, and perhaps to appreciate those few moments that recall when Resident Evil was at its peak glory. But this long, poor sequel is the ultimate test of patience for even the most dedicated. "

1000

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Day 1 Launch Games!

« on: September 26, 2012, 12:37:32 PM »

What the hell?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/mass-effect-trilogy-arriving-november-6-6397206

Why isn't the Wii U getting an enhanced version of the whole trilogy with GamePad support?

Mass Effect 1 is going up on PSN, so maybe 1 and 2 will end up on the eShop, but still . . .