Topics

26

General Chat / Does anyone want the Slayers anime TV series?

« on: December 26, 2004, 03:59:25 PM »

I know of an internet store where you can get the three Slayers TV series DVD box sets (Slayers, Slayers Next, and Slayers Try) for $30 Canadian each. It's part of a "boxing week" sale.

There's like 26 episodes in each box, on four disks. It's a fun series. I highly recommend them.

I don't want to make their entire stock vanish in five minutes, so I'm not going to post the link. Just post here if you want them, and I can PM you. On the honor system, don't buy more than one of each set. I want them to have some stock remaining available so everyone who wants to watch the series can have a chance (and no, buying them all and putting them up on eBay isn't the same thing).

The store is Vancouver-based, which is good for Canadians who don't want to deal with border issues, and is especially good for people in the Vancouver area because you can just visit their warehouse and pick things up in person.


Edit: Just looking around, it's not as much of a super awesome deal as I thought it was, but it's still pretty good.

27

Nintendo Gaming / "DS-tan" Wallpaper!

« on: December 12, 2004, 02:07:23 AM »

For those who don't know, there's a bit of a trend going around in anime fanart circles lately called the "OS-tans" or "OS girls". Basically, people draw cute anime girls who represent the embodiment of various kinds of computer software (originally just operating systems, thus the name) and hardware.

Anyways, I was looking around on 4chan (adult content warning) and saw that someone had made a 1024x768 wallpaper featuring the twin DS-tans. I thought it was really very nice.

Enjoy!

28

Nintendo Gaming / Are you a blindly-loyal vicious nutcase?

« on: December 03, 2004, 09:58:31 PM »

In recent days, Craig (from IGN Pocket) has been saying on IGN DS that Nintendo's pretty much just strolled through through the unchallenged handheld industry since it was created with their virtual monopoly, that everyone else who ever tried to put out a handheld was a joke, that the PSP is all that and a bag of chips, and that Sony is the first company to truely offer Nintendo some fair competition.

They've also had a guy named Juan answering the letters lately, and he flat-out said that he likes the PSP more than he does the DS.

Then the other day, Anoop reported from the DS launch in Japan, saying that it was boring, and not as good as Dragon Quest VIII's launch, and that he thinks the PSP's Japanese launch will be better.

Needless to say, they got some hate mail.

But, it seems Craig and the rest never got any hate mail in the ever-boring IGN Pocket. And they've noticed that everyone seems to hate Matt and the rest of the guys at IGN Cube. Logical conclusion? It must be Nintendo's fault!

They've decided that Nintendo's fans are the source of all their problems (or they figured out that getting them worked up generates hits for IGN), so they snapped and are fighting with them in their mailbag.

I suggest that we all stir the pot. It's fun! And it might save some babies! That's a good cause, isn't it? Send your hate mail to IGN DS.

29

Nintendo Gaming / IGN DS's "NDS Feature a Day" articles

« on: November 18, 2004, 03:39:45 PM »

In case anyone hasn't noticed, IGN DS is putting out a number of short-but-sweet articles highlighting various things about the DS, which I think are kind of cool and easy to read. So I thought I'd draw some attention to them.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#1
The DS's "Alarm Clock" mode.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#2
The Wrist/Thumb Strap.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#3
The clamshell design.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#4
The GBA-style cart slot.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#5
Sleep Mode.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#6
The single-cart multiplayer.

Nintendo DS Feature a Day#7
DVD-style game cases.

Enjoy!

30

Nintendo Gaming / NDS-GBA Connctivity Unlockables Confirmed

« on: November 18, 2004, 03:16:28 PM »

Check it out!

(Possible spoilers?) IGN DS

I'm betting that this is going to become a major trend.  

[IGN: Why not include Growlanser 1 in the collection as well? And have you given any consideration to bringing Wayfarer of Time (Growlanser IV) over here as well?Vic:]

31

General Gaming / Vic Ireland's take on the XBox/GCN DS/PSP

« on: November 15, 2004, 04:37:27 PM »

From IGN PS2

Quote
IGN: Why not include Growlanser 1 in the collection as well? And have you given any consideration to bringing Wayfarer of Time (Growlanser IV) over here as well?

Vic: It's just the way it worked out. By the time we realized Atlus US wasn't doing Growlanser, it was too late to do it for PSone. In fact, Arc was actually too late, but we were already almost done with that by that point. And, focusing on the PS2 release, adding ANOTHER game to the Generations box would have created logistical problems and delayed the release another 9-12 months while we localized another huge game. We do have to occasionally release games to keep making more! That said I would still love to do the original Growlanser on a newer platform, be that PSP or something else.

Quote
IGN: What are your feelings on the upcoming Sony PSP and Nintendo DS formats? And can we expect to see anything from WD for these platforms other than the possible Growlanser?

Vic: I'm interested in the PSP, but like everyone else, for me battery life is the potential joykill. The machine is certainly sweet. I just hope they get some decent single-charge playtime out of the final machine. We'll have to see how the market goes before publishing for it.

Nintendo DS will be a no-brainer for us to play because of the GBA compatibility, but as a publisher, we'll have to see. The new Goemon is on DS, though, and it's a return to the "classic" Goemon look, so I'm excited about that.

IGN: There has yet to be a Working Designs-release game for the GameCube and Xbox. Any particular reason why? And while we're on the subject of other platforms, how soon before you start looking forward to the next generation of hardware?

Vic: Gamecube just can't support our kind of titles in the US because of the tiny userbase, and there's not many localization prospects to choose from in Japan.

Xbox we have been actively looking for a title to publish, but it has even LESS titles to choose from in Japan. There is finally one RPG title we may do next year, though.

What does he mean about the GameCube's "tiny userbase"? AFAIK, the spread is something like XBox=10 million, and GCN=8 million in America right now. How does that make one "tiny" and the other one not? And what does that say about Vic's earlier choices, like the TurboGrafx and the Sega CD? Plus, you have to look at the demographics. Who bought those XBoxes? Fans of Halo and XBox Live. Who bought those Cubes? Fans of Mario and Zelda, and other oldschool goodness. Why did the GameCube version of Megaman Anniversary Collection outsell the PS2 version? I think Vic's making a mistake on this one.

Plus, he's looking forward to the PSP? More than that, why PSone ports on the PSP? At one point Vic mentioned that he was considering releasing a GBA game, since cart royalties had come down to non-absurd levels. Then he skipped releasing Lunar Legend, which he later said was a mistake. What does he think about the nearly-CD royalty rates of the DS?

Ah, whatever. I think I'm ranting. What do you think?

32

General Gaming / Shocker! A Rare game gets delayed

« on: November 03, 2004, 12:58:10 PM »

From IGN XBox.

Apparently Kameo has just been pushed back from "Jan 2005" to "indefinitely delayed".

33

Nintendo Gaming / IGN-Cube's on another Nintendo-rant

« on: October 30, 2004, 01:29:07 PM »

There's another multi-page rant on IGN GameCube about how Nintendo can never do anything right... blah blah blah... Nintendo never innovates... blah blah blah... Nintendo should've given people what they wanted and not tried going with cel-shading on Wind Waker... blah blah... Nintendo should've never let Namco use Link in Soul Calibur because it made the game sell beter than the PS2 version... blah blah blah.

I can't say I really bothered to read the whole thing. Same old IGN crap. Except that this time, it's not IGN crap. It was written by N-Sider, but Matt thought it was Teh Greatest Editorial Evah so he posted it as the headline story on IGN Cube.

Personally, I think the biggest mistake Nintendo's been making lately is handing IGN so many exclusive scoops. You suck, IGN!

Feel free to use this thread to talk about the article, make fun of IGN, blather on about what Nintendo's done wrong with the GameCube, or just ignore what people here post and make fun of their typos and grammar mistakes.

Edit: Oh yeah, here's a link to IGN.

34

General Gaming / Canada + ESRB = Power?

« on: October 29, 2004, 11:15:58 PM »

I was just in my local EB earlier today, and they had a really long lineup at the cash register. Apparently some "Grand Theft something-or-the-other" just came out.

But that's not what was really causing the lineup. Everyone buying the game was getting carded (and they apparently only had one working cash register, for some reason). That's right, the EB clerks were checking to see your photo-ID before they could sell you the game.

At least one person who was in the line to buy the "M" rated title tried to show his school-provided transit-discount card which indicated that he was 15, and he was roughly told to leave the store, with something muttered about "facing thousand dollar fines".

"M" rated videogame titles have apparently become like tobacco products in Canada now. Personally, I think we needed it.

And at EB, they were carding everybody, regardless of how old they looked. That should really help with parents who aren't paying attention to what their kids are putting on their Christmas lists. Mommy goes into store. "Can I have Bonestorm 12?" "Sure, lemme see your ID." "Why would you want my ID?" "Because children aren't allowed to buy Bonestorm games." Should be a good wake up call.

Do you think this might actually cause some developers to put some minor effort into getting a lower rating on their games? Unlike companies like Tecmo, which put out "Teen" rated products, and only apply for the "M" rating, because it's "cooler" that way.

Edit: Here's a news link from the CBC

[Mr. Iwata]

35

General Chat / That's it. The election is over now.

« on: October 09, 2004, 01:50:09 AM »

Mr. Iwata is our new Worldwide President!

So says Reggie.

We can all stop talking about that Yamauchi guy now.

That is all.

36

Nintendo Gaming / Some minor info on "how the DS will work"

« on: October 06, 2004, 01:51:44 PM »

Two links from IGN-DS.

The menu system.
Sleep mode.

Apparently when you turn on the system, you'll see an icon-based menu on the touchscreen, asking if you want to launch whatever DS game is in the DS slot, or a GBA game from the GBA slot, or download a single-cart multiplayer game from somebody within range, or otherwise connect to people, like for Pictochat or something.

"Sleep mode" is going to be built into the system itself, and is apparently going to be a part of every single game, so you can automatically "pause" your game and put it into sleep mode, just by closing your DS and putting it into your pocket.

37

Nintendo Gaming / Sega's "I Would Die for You" = American DS Launch Title!

« on: October 06, 2004, 12:34:18 AM »

The headline says it all. Except that the new American name is "Feel the Magic: XY/XX"

IGN DS has too much stuff to quote. Here's the link.

38

General Gaming / Some bland PSP news

« on: September 04, 2004, 01:01:36 AM »

From Gamespot and IGN-PSP.

The PSP will be "almost as powerful as the PlayStation 2," but its "programming would be more comparable to the PlayStation One." Whatever that means.

I take that second part to mean either that the PSP will be as easy to program for as the PSone was, unlike the PS2 (making PSP games potentially look even better than PS2 games), or that it's available software will for the most part look like PSone games, not PS2 games (which would look nasty, but could help with the PSP's apparent financial problems).

The freshly-unveiled PSP Development Kit plays DVD-Rs, because Sony apparently isn't ever going to let anyone get their hands on a UMD burner, not even their own developers, in order to try and maintain some sort of copy-protection (which will probably work as well as the GameCube's disks did, and be "an effective deterrant" to widespread piracy).

As a result, the "Universal" Media Disk is probably only ever going to be a format for PSP games, FF Advent Children, and some Sony-produced movies. Music will need to be imported to the PSP through the Memory Stick, and presumably, only in Sony's own ATRAC form (MP3 support isn't looking very likely).

The PSP's price and battery life are still top-secret, but will supposedly be unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show later this month, along with some actual playable games. However, the PSP dev kit will come with it's own simulated "battery life remaining" indicator, if that tells you anything...

Oh yeah and, some sort of "A/V out" port, to connect a PSP to a TV, was apparently chopped from the system a long time ago.

39

Nintendo Gaming / Secret of Mana Remake for the GameCube?

« on: August 24, 2004, 09:55:34 PM »

According to GameCube Heaven, Brownie Brown just posted this absurd image on their website.

It's a rough scribble-drawing of a GameCube (with a GameBoy Player) and a TV, with three stick-figures on the screen, some trees, and some sort of house. And the number "2004".

With the overhead perspective and three stick-figures, does this refer to a three-player RPG? And Brownie Brown did most recently release a remake of the first game in the Seiken Densetsu series. Could they be working on the second one (Secret of Mana)? With it set to come out, possibly in a matter of weeks?

Or is this just a crazy drawing from someone who'd rather be remaking Secret of Mana?

Can anyone read Japanese?

40

Nintendo Gaming / Square considering Final Fantasy ports

« on: July 28, 2004, 01:46:05 PM »

Gamespot

Apparently, FF1&2 for the GBA in Japan has a postcard in it from SquareEnix, asking them what game they'd like to see Square make on the Nintendo DS.

Final Fantasy III (that's the Japanese-numbered FF3, the one from the NES, never seen in America).

Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI (all three SNES games).

Seiken Densetsu (the prequel to Secret of Mana, released in America on the GameBoy as FF Adventure, and remade on the GBA as Sword of Mana, but may be referring to the "series", which included two SNES titles).

The SaGa series.

Front Mission.

Chrono Trigger.

Hanjuku Hero (I must admit that I don't know this title).

Or the "Chocobo" series (which I believe would mean "Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon", a random-dungeon generating game series on the PSX, IIRC).

41

General Gaming / Tales of Symphonia on PS2: English version rumor

« on: July 16, 2004, 11:43:47 PM »

Those fanboys at IGN are pretty insecure, aren't they?

The PS2 version of ToS isn't even out in Japan yet, but for some reason IGN-PS2 figured this was a good week to start up a rumor about a possible English version of it. (Gee, I wonder why?)

PS2 Confidential

It looks like they're speculating that "ToS is doing well, so obviously it'll be on the PS2". (As opposed to "ToS is doing poorly, so obviously it'll be on the PS2".)

Of course, we really do have Namco to thank for getting the PS2 fanboys worked up like this in the first place.  

42

General Gaming / You know you want it...

« on: June 13, 2004, 02:58:28 PM »

Check it out.

A $100,000 eBay auction that isn't a joke.

Link  

43

General Chat / Ahhh... nostalgia

« on: June 10, 2004, 01:10:44 PM »

I was just flipping through an old March '99 NextGen magazine, when a bird flew into my window, and started attacking my keyboard, and well, you know how it goes.

nextgen.png

[Custom Robo comic book]

44

Nintendo Gaming / Any Canadians want a free Custom Robo comic?

« on: June 04, 2004, 06:42:34 PM »

My brother was just in Blockbuster video the other day, and brought back the May issue of "Total Gamer" their free videogame flyer/magazine, in the back of which they had a sort of next-issue ad.

Quote
Total Gamer is proud to present the Canadian exclusive of Nintendo's
Custom Robo comic book

In July's issue of TOTAL GAMER
Written and drawn by the artists at Dreamwave.
Will feature an exclusive Custom Robo promotion.

Total Gamer will be the only Canadian publication with this exclusive insertion
make sure to get your copy

In case you didn't know, Dreamwave is the (Canadian) group coming out with the (extremely popular) new Transformers comic books (good fit for Custom Robo, eh?), and recently did a (much too short) Metroid comic for Nintendo Power.

45

General Gaming / OMG! LOL! Factor 5 making major PS2 game!

« on: June 04, 2004, 01:22:28 AM »

And they're cancelling their XBox game to do it!

IGN XBox

Quote
True Fantasy Live Online, announced at E3 two years ago, was meant to be one of Xbox Live's killer apps for the Japanese market. With a well-known developer (Factor 5 is currently developing Dragon Quest VIII, likely to be the biggest selling title of this generation in Japan) and some tantalizing trailer footage, many were eagerly anticipating the massively multiplayer Online RPG's release. Although appearing, to good review, in playable form at last year's Tokyo Game Show, delays took the title away from its original Japanese Summer release.

...


Yeah, I know. Making fun of typos isn't THAT funny. But I liked it.

On a side note, the XBox is teh d00med in Japan now.

46

General Chat / Tommy Tallarico: New (not really) Target of the Nintendo Fans

« on: May 28, 2004, 03:06:19 AM »

Tommy Tallarico is back in the news again, if you're a Nintendo fan.

In case you don't know, he's apparently never been much of a Nintendo fan, and co-hosts The Electric Playground videogame TV show, along with a former (N64-era) Nintendo fan, Victor Lucas. They earned some infamy a while back by being the only two reporters in the videogame industry to give SSBM a 2 (from Tommy) and a 3 (from Vic) out of 10 (IIRC).

Anyways, apparently in the latest episode of his other TV show, he gave Nintendo's E3 booth this year a "5.5 out of 10", saying that it was "barely above average", and that's a generous score, since he seriously judged it on it's own merits, and if he had actually compared it to the other "great shows" of E3, it would've scored even lower than that.

Also just recently, a particularly ugly video interview with Tommy from E3 has surfaced, in which he rants about how Nintendo fanboys are the worst part of the entire videogame industry (and he honestly has no clue that there's such a thing as an XBox fanboy, seriously), and how he wishes they would all just shut up and stop trying tell people like him what they think of things when he says that Nintendo sucks.

After some dissent popped up in his own show's forums he went on a bit of a rant about how he's allowed to have his own opinion, and that he thinks that all the other reporters out there think like he does too, but they just say what Nintendo fans want to hear, to avoid their wrath, and he's the only one with the balls to speak the truth about Nintendo. And that he must be right, because the PS2's sales numbers back him up.


Personally, I consider myself a fan of The Electric Playground (I haven't seen his other show), and usually don't mind Tommy or his (often absurd) opinions, but sometimes he just seems like an %#&@. So yeah, I guess I'm doing a bit of muckraking by pointing this out. I guess I like it that his position as "enemy of the Nintendo fans" is getting solidified. Because that'll make it all the more entertaining, watching him eat his words when the numbers back Nintendo up instead of Sony. Have some rope Tommy! All the rope you want!

47

General Chat / A Friendly Reminder About Copyright Violations

« on: May 27, 2004, 06:04:26 PM »

As most of you should probably know, PGC doesn't allow us to do "mildly illegal" stuff like post magazine scans in the forums. It's not very fun of them, but they do have a reason. Duh, it's illegal, of course. That usually doesn't seem to matter on the internet, but check this out.

RPGamer's "Japandemonium" column.

Quote
Perhaps one of the biggest news bits of Japanese gaming recently is the arrest of the owner of the extremely popular gaming site, Game Online. He was arrested in Fukuoka on charges of copyright violation. Apparently, a number of companies, including RPG developer juggernaut Square Enix, discovered illegal screenshots on the site. Of the thousands of screenshots available on the site, hundreds of them were illegally scanned and taken from other gaming sites and magazines.

So umm... yeah. I know it's not exactly the same thing as posting stuff in the forum, but it makes for a good reminder.

48

NWR Feedback / Has PGC considered Bittorrent for media downloads?

« on: May 15, 2004, 05:57:43 PM »

Just a random thought.

PGC seemed to take a pretty good pounding around E3 (not that I'm complaining). Peer-to-peer systems like Bittorrent might be able to help out. I know there will always be some people who will try to beat the system and sneak out after they download all that they want, without uploading their fair share in return, but hey, some people helping out with the uploading should be better than everybody just leaving the effort all up to PGC all the time, right?

Of course, PGC seemed to be getting hit the hardest at the start of E3, when there was just "news" not "downloads" available yet, but making the media a little easier to upload can't hurt, can it?

I dunno. I'm not an expert on P2P systems or anything, but I just figured it can't hurt to ask (unless I just keep writing and writing), and there's a chance that using some kind of P2P system hasn't ocurred to you yet.

[5]

49

General Gaming / *Big Surprise* 3rd Parties Failed the Cube at E3

« on: May 14, 2004, 04:07:53 PM »

GameSpot has a list of the games at E3, and the platforms that they're for, and it really illustrates how much of a cold shoulder the industry is giving the GameCube.

I made a rough count of the "third party" games at E3 (not counting the GameBoy, NDS, NGage, or PSP, of course). It's not exact, but here's basically how it breaks down.

The number of 3rd party GameCube exclusives: 5
(Want me to name them all? "Amazing Island" from Sega. "Baten Kaitos" from Namco. "Resident Evil 4" from Capcom. "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" from Atari. And "WWE Day of Reckoning from THQ".)

The number of multiplatform games that include the GameCube: 56

The number of multiplatform games that exclude the GameCube (meaning PS2/XBox games): 66. If you want to include the PC as a console, the number shoots up to 85.

Wanna look at how the PS2 and XBox fared?

Number of 3rd party PS2 exclusives: 70
Number of times the PS2 was excluded (meaning GCN/XBox games): 2
Or if you toss in the XBox-PC ports: 16

Number of 3rd party XBox exclusives: 20
Number of times the XBox was excluded (meaning GCN/PS2 games): 11
Or if you toss in the PS2-PC ports: 17


I don't even feel like blaming Nintendo for this. They've had a damn fine show with just their own games, and the exclusive games they managed to arm-twist out of third parties, so I don't really see any excluse for this kind of lackluster attitude the GameCube's been getting since day one.

Third parties = Teh Suxxzors. They can all rot on the NGage for all I care.  

50

General Gaming / Sony and Microsoft at E3

« on: May 11, 2004, 02:50:31 PM »

With all the buzz about the NDS and "realistic Zelda" for Nintendo at E3, I figured we need to keep an eye on the other big happenings of E3.

Microsoft's Press Conference.

EA's making a few dozen XBox Live games.

Bungie showed some Halo 2.

"Online" is supposedly the wave of the future, with 1 million XBox Live units out there (and two million PS2 Network Adaptors).

The "Crazy Billionaires" market has become polarized by region, as Donald Trump has teamed up with Bill Gates to make fun of Sony's Kaz Hirai and Ken Kutaragi.

The XBox's Conker remake apparently got some attention by parodying Terminator 2.

And apparently Halo 2 (again) now has built-in Grand Theft Auto elements.

On the Sony side of things, the PS2 had a price drop, and is now $149. It looks like Sony's discontinuing the Network Adaptor bundles, so they're making them the same price as the regular PS2, while supplies last, which is kinda like an additional price drop. Of yeah and, Sony apparently thinks they're gonna sell 200 million PS2s now because of the price drop. And IGN-PS2 apparently thinks a GameCube sells for $149.

The PSP got it's hardware specs revealed again, but they still don't wanna say how much it's gonna cost. Sony's convinced Square to release FF Advent Children on the PSP's disk format, as well as DVD. And there's a new picture of the hardware design.

But more interesting than that PSP "news" is that the first PSP games were revealed.

Hmm... there's a PSP port of Ape Escape. A new Syphon Filter title. A Dynasty Warriors.

Wipeout, Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal, and a Ridge Racer for racing games.

An "old school" Breath of Fire RPG and a Darkstalkers fighting game (and even IGN-PS2 seems concerned that SCEA won't allow them in the USA, for being "too 2D").

And apparently a blantatly-obviously ripped-off "Metroid Prime killer".

Oh yeah and, elsewhere on IGN's new PSP section, they mentioned that there were some ultra-breif hints of a possible Metal Gear Solid of some sort for the PSP (some sort of wireless-networking multiplyer version).

Feel free to post any more news you dig up over the next few days!