Messages

[Jonnyboy117]

76

TalkBack / RE:Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 40

« on: March 03, 2007, 10:37:08 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Jonnyboy117
The very nature of a tournament like Evolution means that people aren't playing for fun but rather to win, no matter what.  There's nothing unethical about using a technique like wavedashing; it is a quirk of the game's physics engine that requires no special equipment or other modification of the game to use.  I agree that it makes the game less fun, and in casual play I would not battle against someone who uses it.  But this tournament isn't casual play, and the people who are in it to win it don't care if wavedashing makes the battles less fun.

When I used to play a lot of Magic: The Gathering Online, if I could tell within the first few turns that the other player was using a common strategy which I find to be annoying and too specialized to counter in an otherwise great, well-rounded deck, I would just concede and spare both of us the wasted time.  I would never have suggested that such strategies be banned from the playing environment, but if players insist on doing things that make the game less fun, I insist on disallowing them the opportunity to play against me, and so did many other players.  In other words, they had a hard time finding anyone to play a full game against their annoying strategies.  (For the Magic literate, I am mostly referring to focused land destruction, although there were a couple of others depending on the current meta-game.)

This I can get on board with.  The sentiments expressed by others seemed to imply that if I lose to someone playing 'cheaply', then I need more practice.  Maybe if my goal is to win a tournament, sure, I need more practice, but if my goal is to have fun, then I need to either ask my opponent not to be cheap, or stop playing against him.

I still think that a tournament should be fun, and both the players and organizers should care about making it fun.  But if people want to spend their time practicing exploits to compete in a win-at-all-costs tournament, I suppose I can't stop them.

77

TalkBack / RE: Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition

« on: March 03, 2007, 12:34:39 AM »

Just a note, since I missed yesterday's trivia once again -- it might be a good idea to put up a post on the website more than 45 minutes before the event begins.  Unfortunately I don't have time to check NWR every half hour.  

78

TalkBack / RE: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 40

« on: March 01, 2007, 10:00:33 PM »

Exploits that mess with a game's gameplay only make it a bad game if everyone insists on using them.

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TalkBack / RE: EA Trax Now on iTunes

« on: March 01, 2007, 04:58:56 PM »

This is actually pretty cool.  I've had the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 soundtrack on a CD in my car for a while now.

80

TalkBack / RE: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 40

« on: February 28, 2007, 05:42:40 PM »

Snaking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9jipVR-lVs

I think the game gives you a slight speed boost when you come out of a slip, to somewhat counter the momentum lost while you're slipping.  This was meant to lessen the penalty for sliding around sharp corners, but players exploited it by constantly weaving back and forth for an entire stage to build up speed.

81

TalkBack / RE: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 40

« on: February 28, 2007, 12:41:25 PM »

I see my points have been passed over completely.  I'll try one more time.

By my definition, a "cheap" exploit is one that makes the game less fun.  Cheapness makes the game less fun for the person doing it, and less fun for other players as well.  I could spend hours practicing snaking in F-Zero GX so that I could snake past all the computer opponents and easily win every race on Expert, but what's the fun in that?  What would be the fun of snaking vs. my friends?  They'd see that I was exploiting a bug in the game's physics (which is what snaking in F-Zero IS, a bug - powersliding in Mario Kart 64 was put into the game on purpose) and get bored of losing very quickly.  Now, you're going to make the point that they should instead learn how to snake, but now you're playing a different game.  Instead of seeing who's better at racing, you're seeing who's better at snaking.  Is this still a fair game?  Sure, in the sense that anyone can learn how to snake, and snaking done well is equally beneficial to whichever player is doing it.  Is it still a fun game?  I guess some people think so.  I think racing is a lot MORE fun.

I don't think cheapness and cheating are the same thing.  I think both are lame, with cheating obviously being more lame.  At least if you're being cheap, you still have some respect for the rules of the game.  But you can still make a distinction between "the letter of the rules" and "the spirit of the rules."  In Formula 1 racing, for example, teams have been penalized for violating the spirit of the rules, even if what they did is perfectly acceptable according to the exact, precise definitions of what was laid out in the rules.  If rules (or game mechanics) are designed to allow certain kinds of behavior, but written such that a small loophole exists which allows unexpectedly advantageous behavior, exploiting these loopholes are both cheap and lame.

82

TalkBack / RE: SimCity Coming to Nintendo DS

« on: February 28, 2007, 07:27:01 AM »

I see we have YADSGWYBITM.  

83

TalkBack / RE: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 40

« on: February 27, 2007, 11:47:11 PM »

Cheapness is fair because anyone can do it.  But that doesn't mean it's not lame.

If your only goal in playing games is to win, I feel sorry for you, I really do.  I play games to have fun.  Do I usually have more fun when I win?  Probably, but how fun is it to just repeat the same exploit over and over again, and win with no effort?  Not much in my opinion.

The fact that cheapness sometimes takes a lot of practice to be able to pull off doesn't make it any less lame, either.  If you've practiced some exploit, be it wavedashing, snaking, whatever, to the point where you can pull it off flawlessly anytime you want, well, I think you've just wasted an enormous amount of time.  The rest of us have better things to do with our lives.  The time that I do put into a game is spent trying to be good at the whole game, not good at one or two exploited features.

One could argue that in a tournament setting, this all goes out the window, since the goal is to win the prize at any cost.  I still say this is BS.  Games are supposed to be fun whether there are prizes involved or not, otherwise why even have a tournament?  If a contest isn't supposed to be fun, I'd rather it be a contest of doing something productive.

84

TalkBack / RE: Virtual Console Mondays: February 26, 2007

« on: February 26, 2007, 04:26:24 PM »

So there is, in fact, no rumble in Ocarina of Time.

Lame.  The Gamecube bonus disc version had rumble.

Lame.

85

Nintendo Gaming / RE: System Selector...

« on: February 26, 2007, 02:44:09 PM »

If the unit were actually doing upconversion to component, I would believe it would need an external power supply.  Something is always "lost in the translation," so it would make sense for that scenario.  But if it's a simple pass-through switch, I don't think an external power supply is going to help the signal much.

[Kairon]

86

TalkBack / RE:Ocarina of Time Coming to US Virtual Console

« on: February 25, 2007, 02:39:22 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Or third parties could do it...

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Third parties have done it for the PC.  RetroZone has USB adapters for several old controllers.  The trick is software support -- there is no generic "controller" driver with a DirectInput API on the Wii, there is only whatever Nintendo provides with the Wii firmware.  So a third-party controller would have to emulate a Wii controller over Bluetooth, or plug into the Wii Remote like the classic controller, and use the same protocol.  Or it would have to emulate a Gamecube controller and plug into the Gamecube ports on top.

Not that any of this isn't doable, it's all doable.  But Nintendo is pretty tight-lipped regarding these protocols, and reverse engineering has thus far met with very limited success regarding communications with the Wii Remote.

[KDR_11k]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:2000 Wii points = 25€?

« on: February 25, 2007, 09:15:13 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Buy them on your Wii...screw retail...

But that requires getting a credit card.

Most banks give you a check card that's tied to your account, and works just like a credit card, except it comes out of your account as soon as you make the purchase (and you never pay any interest).

If you're old enough to regularly be spending your own money on games, you ought to have a bank account.  Not trying to be insulting, but I can't think of a different reason that you wouldn't have one.

[KDR_11k]

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TalkBack / RE:Ocarina of Time Coming to US Virtual Console

« on: February 25, 2007, 09:08:40 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
The classic controller has ten buttons in addition to the directional control and home button, the N64 had at most nine buttons accessible by two hands (i.e. counting only two shoulder buttons). While the C buttons wouldn't be as close together on the classic controller it wouldn't matter much for anything but the ocarina and that thing can be handled fine with the right analog stick.

Think about a game like KI Gold though.  I'd want 6 buttons under my right thumb to play that, you just can't link combos as easily if you're forced to use some combination of thumb + shoulder buttons.

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TalkBack / RE: Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition

« on: February 25, 2007, 09:05:05 AM »

Well, for example, on this podcast, I could tell that the second game was from Capcom pretty readily.  It sounded similar to Megaman 3, but I knew it wasn't, and also knew it wasn't MM1 or MM2.  So it had to be one of the ones I never got into, 4-6.  The hint question helped me guess that it was 6, but I still really wasn't sure.  If I had time, I could easily find music from the Megaman games and play it until I discovered which game it was.  I wouldn't be able to do this in a real-time setting.

You can almost always narrow something down, at least to a certain platform, and probably genre.  All that leaves you with is an educated guess in realtime, but if there are prizes involved, you bet that people are going to hunt down the tracks if they have time to do it.

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TalkBack / RE: Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition

« on: February 24, 2007, 06:34:54 PM »

I think it's easy to cheat too, but I don't see how making it the person with the most correct answers solves the problem of cheating.  It does solve the problem of not everyone being available on Friday night (first person to submit would just mean first person who downloaded the mp3).

91

TalkBack / RE: Ocarina of Time Coming to US Virtual Console

« on: February 24, 2007, 12:01:38 PM »

I think if you have the bonus disc, there's little point in buying it for the VC, since the bonus disc is playable on the Wii.  I for one don't want to keep my N64 connected to my TV though, so I'd probably pick this up if I didn't have the bonus disc.  I'll probably pick up Mario 64 at some point as well.

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TalkBack / RE: Radio Trivia: Podcast Edition

« on: February 24, 2007, 06:44:35 AM »

There's an awful lot of hum in the audio for this one.  My subwoofer is going like crazy.

I really like this idea for Radio Trivia.  I've always wanted to play, but I've never been around when it's going.  Good stuff.  

EDIT: Megaman 2 IS the best NES Megaman game.  
EDIT 2: That last game was an awesome choice.  I didn't get it until the third song.  I thnk overall, the difficulty was right on.  I'm pretty well-versed in gaming music (or so I thought), but I only got one game right away, and I got a few others on the second or third songs.

[Bloodworth]

93

TalkBack / RE:Ocarina of Time Coming to US Virtual Console

« on: February 23, 2007, 11:09:29 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Bloodworth
Well here's one title to confirm/deny rumble support for N64.  If it is removed, I wonder if the stone of agony gives you a visual clue now.

The Ocarina of Time release on the bonus disc for Gamecube included rumble support, and it was basically running an N64 emulator on the Gamecube.  ***Should*** be easy enough to run the same emulator on the Wii, with rumble support for Gamecube controllers.

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TalkBack / RE: Virtual Console Mondays: February 19

« on: February 22, 2007, 01:01:55 PM »

I suppose I can agree that $5 for the original Donkey Kong is a bit much.  They ought to at least include both DK and DK Jr. for 5 bucks.  But either way, we're still talking about FIVE dollars here.  Kid Icarus was certainly worth it.  

95

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Official "Virtual Console Mondays" Thread

« on: February 21, 2007, 06:14:13 PM »

While we're on the subject of emulator issues and arcade ports, I should mention that a lot of old arcade games should be portable to the Virtual Console without too much trouble.  That is, if Nintendo wanted to support arcade-perfect emulation, they could do it fairly easily for many arcade systems, including the ones that ran the TMNT games.  These systems used 68000 CPUs and Z80 coprocessors, with various Yamaha sound synthesizer chips.  The Sega Genesis also used a 68000 CPU, a Z80 coprocessor, and a Yamaha sound synthesizer.  The Virtual Console already has a Genesis emulator, so extending this to early arcade boards would not be nearly as difficult as emulating a completely different system.

I still don't see it happening though.  

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TalkBack / RE: Virtual Console Mondays: February 19

« on: February 20, 2007, 06:02:38 AM »

I would think that in most publisher contracts, the publisher would retain the rights to re-publish the game in the future, whoever owns the license.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Official "Virtual Console Mondays" Thread

« on: February 20, 2007, 05:57:17 AM »

Turtles in Time (SNES) was clearly superior to the Hyper Stone Heist.  Sega got the short end of the stick on that one.

It would be great to play BOTH Arcade versions of TMNT at home on the VC, with 4 players.  Kickass.    I don't see it actually happening though.

[Kairon]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Official "Virtual Console Mondays" Thread

« on: February 19, 2007, 04:42:43 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
DKC WAS a great platformer. However, what it did to achieve its graphics was, essentially, smoke and mirrors...

.. which ISN'T bad, because I feel it gave the game its own flavor and art style, which is what good art should do, simply put.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

ALL graphical effects are smoke and mirrors.  Even the most modern games with complex shaders and lighting and such are still drawing polygons, and I don't know about you, but I'm not made up of polygons.  

Anyway, the graphical technique is the same as the technique used in Mortal Kombat, which predates DKC.

[Caterkiller]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Official "Virtual Console Mondays" Thread

« on: February 19, 2007, 04:52:15 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Caterkiller
Ok good, im not the only one, I just read the bored, got online and no Donkey Kong Country. Once again where are you guys getting the info that certain games are coming out?

Well 31 Flavas posted this link: http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=11455

You would think a press release from Nintendo ought to be accurate.  Maybe it will be available later today.  

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Official "Virtual Console Mondays" Thread

« on: February 19, 2007, 04:38:56 AM »

All of those titles are available EXCEPT DKC.  I just checked the VC.