Topics

26

Nintendo Gaming / Wii Sports...REV 2?!?

« on: February 17, 2008, 03:01:37 AM »

So I recently gave my Wii + Sports to my GF's family and we kept hers, except she had lost her copy so she picked up a used one from Gamestop.

This would've slipped everyone by, since we'd typically never see this, but the latest version of Sports not only depicts all the Wii remotes in jackets but there are also some interesting new features added in.

I'll update as I learn more...

Boxing
-sparkles above the head of a KOed Mii
-the physics seem enhanced (I punched a Mii for a KO blow and she FLIPPED OVER BACKWARDS!!!)
-replay cam at the end of the match which shows the final moments before the KO
-higher camera angle on a KOed Mii

Baseball
-At the start of the game, the camera starts on the center of the diamond about eye level and zooms out, revealing all the Miis on both teams on either side looking at the camera.

I've checked all the games and these are the only two changes I've noted thus far. Any others might be minute enough to be unnoticeable.

27

Nintendo Gaming / Full Character Roster Discussion (SPOILERS)

« on: February 16, 2008, 12:19:44 AM »

...I'm glad we only had two 3rd parties, but it's mainly because of looking at the travesty that is SC4.

This way, the SSB series still has some room to grow. If we had 3-5 3rd party characters, I get the feeling that the next SSB would need to "one up" Brawl because people would complain otherwise.

If each SSB game adds 1-2 3rd parties and that's it, I think it would be for the best so as not to lose sight of the focus of the Nintendo characters.

(prepares to be killed over Megaman...)

28

NWR Forums Discord / "everybody on the planet, and then myself."

« on: February 10, 2008, 08:50:09 AM »

Start with the easy part first.

29

Nintendo Gaming / OFFICIAL: SSBB = deepest fighting game, evar...

« on: February 05, 2008, 02:36:04 PM »

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=141977

It's official: Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, Melty Blood...all of them won't have anywhere near the depth that a competitive game of SSBB does.

Think about how far a SSBB player can take their game: mid-game, a player can be tweaking their moveset. Since there are advantages to both spamming a move and not using it at all now, you can literally be customizing your character on the fly in terms of move potency.

Two Mario players start a match. 30 seconds later, they could be as different in moveset as Mario was from Dr. Mario, and all of this happens dynamically and at the player's discretion.

No other fighting game has this depth. You typically just memorize moves and use them at the appropriate time. In SSBB, you'll have to keep mental tabs on which of your moves you've used and landed and where their appropriate knockback ability should now be.

This is, of course, if this new system is all that it's cracked up to be. We could still be mistaken in terms of its relevance, but it sounds to me like this is officially the deepest fighting game ever, unless there's another fighting game that factors fatigue into movesets mid-fight.

If this is indeed the case, I forgive Sakurai everything. He might not have even intended to give players an edge with which to combo each other better by spamming moves, but the result is still the same.  

30

Nintendo Gaming / I, the poster, DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR... (spoilers)

« on: February 04, 2008, 06:20:29 AM »

...to not main a Space Animal.

I've been watching "competitive" videos of duels, and while I can't wait to start dueling in this game, the primary choices people are using still seem to be Marth and the space animals...and they seem to be winning quite a few matches.

So people, let's get some of the underdogs up into the higher tier brackets before they're formed. Let's hear it for your Bowsers, your DKs, your Luigis, your Warios!

I intend to once again main Bowser, and take him into many online matches and stomp the hell out of Falcos and Marths.

VIVA LA LOW TIER REVOLUTION!!

Who's with me!?

31

Nintendo Gaming / Place your bets...(spoiler warnings)

« on: February 01, 2008, 11:18:17 AM »

We have an awesome story mode, craptons of secondary single player modes, stickers up the ass, trophies galore...and yet Ganondorf is still borrowing Falcon's moveset.

With all of this evidence before us, I can't imagine that the roster will turn out to be balanced. The clones feel like a last minute decision, yet again, so I'm inclined to believe the game couldn't possibly have gone through the proper playtesting to ensure certain characters aren't, well..."broken".

So, how many months of wifi play SSBB (in the US, I mean) until the majority of online matches are only played with 5-10 characters out of the entire roster? This, of course, will be due to trial and error and players realizing that they get beat an awful lot by players using (insert character name here) so they decide to switch to using said character.

I'm gonna say two months.

Who else has a prediction?

Note that I don't mean skilled players will be doing the same, just that the internet will figure out which characters are the easiest to get kills with and stick with those. How long until the internet figures out which characters these are?

Also, keep in mind we're locked into 2 minute time matches, which means characters which are skilled at getting quick KOs or stealing them will work best.

32

Nintendo Gaming / REAL LEAK! NOT A DRILL! (SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER)!

« on: January 28, 2008, 10:38:29 PM »

 Sorry, triple weird time paradox post.

33

Nintendo Gaming / Three character reveals... (SPOILERS)

« on: January 20, 2008, 03:19:08 PM »

Three characters confirmed:

At 4:20 on this video:
http://wii.com/jp/movies/smashbros-movie1/

These can be seen. See the icons in the lower right corner?





From the blog:

Also, some stickers can only be placed on certain characters. Stickers whose range of usage is limited in this fashion are proportionally stronger when placed appropriately.

There you have it: Lucario is in and JP and Ness are back.

FYI, I took these myself from the video.

34

Nintendo Gaming / Why hasn't LuigiDude exploded yet?

« on: January 08, 2008, 01:04:42 PM »

Well?

 

35

General Gaming / Mass Effect

« on: December 05, 2007, 04:18:52 PM »

Playing through it. It's pretty decent, and can keep a room full of folks entertained, which is hard to do for an RPG.

Anyone else playing it?

36

Nintendo Gaming / Gamestop: the reason games need online multiplayer

« on: November 23, 2007, 07:49:08 AM »

Something I've been thinking about recently...

Gamestop functions on a system where people sell back games so Gamestop can then sell those games as used, generating 100% profit for Gamestop and completely cutting the publisher out of selling a new copy of the game. It's quite ingenious. It allows people to spend less money to get the games they want while simultaneously allowing Gamestop to sell the same copy of a game 3, 5, maybe even 10 times over.

There's one key lesson publishers need to understand in all this: if you don't give gamers a compelling reason to keep your game, then you're going to get screwed out of many, many potential sales, not just in terms of Gamestop, but in rentals, resales, borrowing, etc.

To date, the most compelling reason is a multiplayer mode, but even better is an ONLINE multiplayer mode. It's a simple equation: the more gamers keep your game for a longer period of time, the more gamers will buy new copies instead of finding used ones.

To the point, which will have a higher percentage of used copies show up at a local Gamestop, Metroid Prime 3 or Halo 3?

This is one of the reasons Nintendo's stubbornness in embracing online gaming irks me so much: first day sales are going to be weaker for games which most players know will show up used in less than a week if they're willing to be patient. Halo 3 didn't suffer this stigma because most players are buying it for the multiplayer and thus will keep the game for a while after purchase, unlike MP3 which players will complete and likely sell back for store credit toward Mario Galaxy, which they'll also sell back for store credit for SSBB which they'll probably hold onto for a while because it has online multiplayer.

We don't live in a market paradigm where getting a game sold is the end of the battle. Games are a volatile commodity, as the trade in credit for a particular game will go down after time, urging players to beat a game quickly and sell it back quickly. The trick is giving gamers a valid reason to not bring it back to Gamestop.

It'll be interesting to see how many copies of SSBB show up used a week later...

37

Nintendo Gaming / RRR2?

« on: November 15, 2007, 05:01:51 AM »

Anyone else have/tried this yet?

It's even better than the first one, and the party game focus is even stronger this time with more four player games, including its own version of Donkey Konga/Rock Band where all four players play different posts in a band of rabbids.

Some of the minigames I've seen are really clever. You have two in a similar vein which involve a similar concept to "red light, green light". In one, you're in a movie theatre and you talk on your cellphone when the light is out but when the usher rabbid shows up and turns the light on, you have to put it away and then mash the A button to hit all the buttons on your phone. The player who hits theirs the fastest will send a text to the player who hit theirs the slowest and they'll get in trouble with the usher and lose points. Another similar one involves shaking the Wiimote to screw around and work while the rabbid boss is away. Be shaking the Wiimote when he pops out of somewhere and he'll yell at you making it so you won't be able to start screwing around again immediately after he leaves.

It's easily better than Mario Party 8 but it'll likely get overshadowed because it was released in one of the biggest weeks for gaming releases of the year...

38

Nintendo Gaming / Winter release logjam has GOT to stop...

« on: November 14, 2007, 08:46:52 AM »

Here's a hot topic for ya...

How about the fact that being a gamer from Jan-Oct is like crawling through a desert with a few rare oases here and there and then Nov-Dec is a flood where we struggle to keep our heads above water?

I'm glad a few companies are starting to savvy up to this, but here's the thing: why the hell do publishers insist upon piling on the game releases in one brief period?

Yes, I'm well aware that Xmas is a feeding frenzy of capitalism, but let's be honest here. When a well-known developer drops a massive game into the market, I don't care how much of a frenzy is going on, any game not of the same caliber is going to lose out on potential sales because it will be overshadowed and often completely overlooked.

Take Mario and Sonic Olympics, for example: I've played it and it's a great little game, one worthy of purchase, and had it released sometime during September after we had all finished MP3, I'm certain many Wii owners would have rushed right out to buy it because there was nothing else available at the time. Gamers are like furnaces: they need fuel to function, but you can douse a flame with enough oil instead of keeping it burning and I know that I can't even hope to play through all of the games I want to this Xmas and I consider myself a picky gamer. I can't even imagine what people who are the "give everything a try" types would be feeling right now.

What does everyone else think about this? I can't be the only one frustrated with this situation. Would you buy MORE games overall if they were spaced out throughout the year?

39

Nintendo Gaming / "

« on: November 08, 2007, 10:01:17 AM »

Starting with this comic and going forward

Not sure if anyone else follows LICD, but I thought their discovery of TP was great.

40

Nintendo Gaming / The more I think about it...

« on: October 03, 2007, 04:20:07 PM »

...the more Snake's neck snap bugs me.



I know, I know: it's just a game, it's silly and ridiculous to be bothered by polygons interacting with each other.

And I know SSB is about violence at its core, but this is the first time we've seen a move which would, IRL, be indicative of lethality.

Yes, I know there are plenty of sword users in the game and swords are for stabbing and hacking, but the swords are handled in a non-realistic way: Link never impales Mario on his sword then pulls it back, leaving Mario to collapse to the ground.

I realize the implication of death is everywhere in Mario games, but never in a manner as graphic as this.

I have a hard time believing that Miyamoto okayed this. I understand the desire to appeal to older gamers, but making it so you can perform a neck snap on Nintendo's most beloved mascot seems to be a cheap way of doing that.

41

NWR Forums Discord / OH SNAP!

« on: October 02, 2007, 07:21:07 AM »

I hear his final smash is the same, only they don't get up afterwards.

42

Nintendo Gaming / Prediction: MGS: TS port for Wii

« on: October 02, 2007, 01:14:55 AM »

After today's SSBB update, I'm convinced.

The fact that they hired David Hayter to do all this dialogue, as well as the voice cast who did the colonel and Mei Ling, says to me that they're planning on a Wii port of Twin Snakes.

As Capcom demonstrated, ports can do quite well if done properly, with the RE4 Wii port having sold 750k copies and this is the 4th system it's been on.

So yeah, the fact that they're using the characters from Twin Snakes (and the same voices) says to me that this will be used to advertise TS for the Wii.

God knows, you couldn't pay for better advertising than this.

43

Nintendo Gaming / It's nearly a year later, and...

« on: September 22, 2007, 04:09:16 PM »

...I was hoping that, by now, Snake's appearance in Brawl would make a bit more sense via the announcement of a MGS game for the Wii or DS, or at LEAST a port or two of MGS:TS and MGS2 (it's par for the course, but it's something).

So now that they've given us a MGS4 theme on the SSBB site, is anyone else starting to wonder why he's in the game? As much as I liked Twin Snakes, we've had 6 PSP MGS games to only 0 DS MGS games.

My point is, why is such awesome advertising potential being wasted on a character whose games cannot be enjoyed without buying Sony hardware?

44

Nintendo Gaming / STRELL LOST THE BET!

« on: September 17, 2007, 08:04:39 PM »

 Sorry, Strell.

If it's any consolation, I was doubting it as well.  

45

Nintendo Gaming / New WiiWare developer...

« on: August 25, 2007, 06:01:29 PM »

I submitted this as news, but I've no idea if the submission form worked (it hasn't for me in the past).

Medaverse Studios

Their first game will be called "Gravitronix".

Quote
Details:
-Gravitronix is an action/battle game for 1-4 players (possibly .
-The game takes place in a single-screen arena.
-The objects seen in the logo are your weapons.
-Projectiles will have different physics.
-There will be a great deal of depth in the control scheme.
-Veteran players will master maneuvers which make rookie players cry "HAX!!!"

Nothing else but a press release, though.

There was also bPlus who announced a game called "PLÄTTCHEN twist ’n’ paint"(their logo is too big to post). Looks like they're an Austrian company.  

46

Nintendo Gaming / Smash Site Icon Discovery...

« on: August 22, 2007, 06:36:25 AM »

This is taken from Smashboards.com so I won't claim credit for it, but has anyone noticed this?

Enter this address into your browser: http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/images/icon/world_b_01.gif  It's the SSB icon.

Now change the number "01.gif" to 02, 03, etc.

These are the icons of the SSB franchises which are being represented with at least a level. You'll cycle through all of the existing franchises from 1 through 12, but 13 and 14 have no icon (yet), but 15 is the Animal Crossing icon, 17 is also missing, but 18 is the Kid Icarus icon.

Since there's no rhyme or reason to have missing numbers on the list from 1-18, we can safely assume that 13, 14 and 17 all represent franchises which have yet to be revealed but will be at some point in the future, a fact which is corroborated by the Franklin Badge update which placed the Earthbound logo at 07 where there was previously nothing to load.

We don't know if it goes any higher than 18, but we know that these three empty spaces will be filled with something. If two of these will be Ice Climbers and G&W (Dr. Mario was represented by a mushroom logo), then that leaves MGS, but if either ICs or G&W don't return, there will be at least one more franchise on the roster which has yet to be revealed.

I'm personally hoping the numbers will hit at least 25.

47

Nintendo Gaming / Wifi MAYBE confirmed...?

« on: August 10, 2007, 09:50:43 AM »

The link

I'm still pissed that the Japanese are getting this first, but oh well.

We did get the Wii and Zelda first...

48

General Chat / Anyone here have talent?

« on: July 25, 2007, 05:30:21 AM »

No, not THAT kind of talent. Put your pants back on.

Anyone here particularly good at drawing concept art for freaky looking alien-types, specifically flying ones?

I don't know if anyone does this as a hobby, but if you have anything you could either scan or direct me to, I'd definitely appreciate it.

Why do I need this? I have a 3D modeler buddy who finds having concept art before he models something helps leaps and bounds for creating stuff like this and he needs to make some.

49

Nintendo Gaming / Chicken Shoot...

« on: July 03, 2007, 09:34:33 AM »

...is cute for 5-10 minutes but grows quickly boring.

It's straightforward: you use a bounding box to pan around the screen with your reticle which you aim with the Wiimote pointer. You can also use the d-pad to move the screen. You basically have a hand-drawn picture which is the game field and, as the title suggests, you shoot a plethora of cartoon chickens with B and reload with A. Reloading is manual so you cannot simply mash B endlessly.

As for the chickens, they'll occasionally hurl eggs at you, which you can shoot out of the air, but I don't think there's any downside to being hit other than having a small section of the overall screen covered with yolk for a few seconds.

As for the storyline, I remember hearing something about an invasion of alien chickens, but I don't see this as being at all represented in the game. These colorful cartoon birds will be found doing a range of things from listening to music to knitting, but the majority will be flying past the screen as you attempt to gun them down. The aiming works relatively well, but the real issue is that each level is timed and there's no real purpose to the game other than to score points and move onto the next level. You can shoot chickens carrying briefcases labeled with machine or shotguns and get a different weapon, but the same premise remains. The other issue is that, other than 1-2 level-specific chickens, all of the chickens which show up are the same. The chickens flying by, the old lady chicken knitting and the chick listening to music are all the exact same sprites with the exact same animation on each level. Even Wii Play's shooting game was better conceived than this.

It's a cute diversion, but I couldn't recommend anyone pay full price for this game (I rented it through Gamefly).

50

Nintendo Gaming / Major 3rd parties coming around, at long last?

« on: June 25, 2007, 09:56:04 AM »

Link

Quote
Here’s some more great news for Nintendo fans. Sega, Bandai-Namco, and Capcom all like to make money off of their games. It seems that their projects for the PS3 and PSP just aren’t raking in the kind of dough that they want. What do you do when you want to make games that have a chance of selling? You move them to a platform that has the most momentum. While these companies will still make games for all platforms, there will be an increased focus on the Wii and DS. I am sure the 360 will do just fine with games from these companies as well, but it sounds like Sony may start to hurt sometime soon.

I figured this was bound to happen at some point. Glad to see it, if it is indeed true.