Topic: IGN Nintendo Voice Chat thread, New episode! Moon has abysmal sales

[Flames_of_chaos]

We all know that IGN is a love it or hate it website considering how crappy their reviews are at times and the whole kid icarus debace although the Nintendo Voice Chat does leak or provide some interesting info and here's a quick summary of some stuff.

Summary came from this thread

December NPD:
-DeBlob sold 250,000
-Shaun White 450,000

Indy Trailer Wii:
-Broke on Youtube
-The Wii and DS games have been finished for a while according to Mattā€™s Editor

TMNT Smash Up:
-ā€œSaw some people on the Gaf thread bitching about itā€

WiiFit:
-Matt grew a beard to cover up for his Holiday weight gain
-Lost ten pounds in post holiday weight on the Wiifit plan

Winter:
-2 Years ago, 12 guys 6 weeks.
-About it showing it without having a publisher ā€¦ ā€œIt worked for Conduitā€
-ā€œPeople who said it looks like a PSX game are idiotsā€
-10,000 signatures for one of the petitions, many fans sites picked up the story
-Matt, Guys from N-Space havenā€™t been overwhelmed with publishers like High Voltage was after the unveil. Hasnā€™t spoken to the N-Space guys in days.
-The N-Space guys says the Winter demo allowed them to get other products
-Bozon, like at WayForward the Shantae demo allowed them to get other projects.
-Bozon believes Scribblenauts will find a publisher since, like Conduit, it will be finished regardless

House of the Dead Overkill:
-Recently played Train level and Swamp level
-Overkill train level is better than RE:UC in Bozonā€™s opinion
-Frame rate issues in the game currently
-Camera Issue
-7 Chapters, has a director cut that is different after you beat it.
-Matt thinks the F word is a little over done.

Madworld:
-Media blowout starting around February 10th, new story every day until release[ IGN EXCLUSIVE!!! ]
-Including 2-3 minute direct feed snippits of levels!
-Sega and Platinum Games guys excited to be doing this, IGN excited because Madworld article brings clicks
-Likely for ign insiders, but Matt says if you have Reader questions for Madworld guy interview to post ā€˜em

Tenchu:
-Is it bad? ~ Its not bad *giggle*
-The Devā€™s did some control decisions IGN didnā€™t understand
-They say its ā€œfunā€ but their tone says otherwise.

Fragile:
-They talk about it, but based only on some Japanese guys 30 second videos

Dragon Quest 5:
-Like DQ4, Story is changed a little here and there

The World Ends With You:
-The guys want to do a sequel
-They said if they do a Wii sequel they would have to do a lot of things differently

Choice info from Reader Questions and Answers:

-One publisher said its using the sales of DeBlob and Deadly Creatures as parameters towards what they will do on the Wii in the Future (THQ ??)

-HOTD:Overkill, Conduit and Madworld sales are both being watched closely by publishers not just Sega.

-They talk for a few minutes about IGN reviews GTA4 and MGS4ā€™s 10ā€™s start the debate

-They think Wii Sports Resort will be the years best selling game and sell like WiiPlay

-They blame the virtual console lack of support on NoA, no factual information just opinion.

-SD card fix will be coming at the end of March, no details available yet but thatā€™s the target date IGN were told.

-Gas Powered Games ā€œGod Gameā€?? They wanted to bring it to Wii, pitched to THQ but have no idea what ever happened. Bozon slips in a little mention that they know of more dark games coming

-They love the Pikmin Wiimake controls and are excited for the Prime WiiMakes made by Retro

-The 3 guys who left Retro were replaced from within. Tim Little from Midway (CTO) has joined Retro.

-New Retro Project ~ ā€œits coming along, its going to be rad, its epicā€ Matt

-Matt, ā€œweā€™ve seen a lot of people being pulled off PS3 projects and putting on Wii projects, but its not the Wii projects youā€™ll want, A major PS3 project was pulled for a mini-game festā€. Its why Conduit and Madworld sales are so important.

-Matt confirms more dark games, youā€™ll see them as early as April

-Matt claims Major IPā€™s from big publishers, says to check out his top 10 games of the year to do detective work

-Bozon on Conduit, their tech is better than their artists

-The EXCITE Truck developer is working on a new Wii game, no idea wat it could be.

[ShyGuy]

So does this mean Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead, Fallout, or Dead Space is coming to the Wii?

[Kairon]

If Mirror's Edge comes to the Wii I will be ecstatic.

[KDR_11k]

Gas Powered Games ā€œGod Gameā€??

Demigod?

-Matt, ā€œweā€™ve seen a lot of people being pulled off PS3 projects and putting on Wii projects, but its not the Wii projects youā€™ll want, A major PS3 project was pulled for a mini-game festā€.

Yay devs being pulled from a console I don't own and put on a console I do .
At very least that'll let them get some experience so they have teams at hand when they want to start serious Wii development (even if serious just means minigames that work well instead of being broken with bad controls).

-Matt confirms more dark games, youā€™ll see them as early as April

"There will be new game announcements until April!"

-Matt claims Major IPā€™s from big publishers, says to check out his top 10 games of the year to do detective work

Yeah because we know how that worked out the last time, right?

[Morari]

So does this mean Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead, Fallout, or Dead Space is coming to the Wii?

Nope, that's why you should only purchase a Wii after you've upgraded your computer a little bit.

[Pale]

/sigh

[Flames_of_chaos]

Here's some from the latest IGN Nintendo Voice Chat   
Done updating

Snowboard Riot:
-Worst rubberband AI than any racing game.
-Craig threw controller at wall First time in 6 years. Really bad.
-"Looks good from still screens... but you don't wanna play it"
-"I can't beat the first level"
-Tries to be Snowboard kids

Lonpos
-Hate using tilt control to move pieces
-Skip. Was japanese launch
-No widescreen

Deadly Creatures
-Good game.
- Review Friday

Tenchu
-Surprise game. Good fun stuff.
-Looks really nice on Wii.
-Fixed a lot of the bugs.
-Anti climatic ending
-Ubisoft not really marketing
-Will have a good rating
-Matt is surprised about the quality
-Some negligible flaws but had fun with it
-Perfect for people who are looking for a traditional game
-Cat mechanic is awesome, can run the cat through the whole level, can pick up 1 item with cat

HotD: Overkill
-Minor things mentioned, impressions will come later.
-Review Wed/Thurs

Rune Factory:
-Really good. Harvest Moon sucks etc.
-"I'm having a blast with it"
-Looks like a living painting
-Plays very similar to DS Rune Factories

Pikmin
- Wii controls feel good and more fun.
-Still looks pretty good after 8 years.
-"Almost makes me wish pikmin never went on GC" Pikmin made for the control scheme
-Thinks that it should be 20 dollars instead of 30
-Widescreen
-Can't wait for Pikmin 3
-Controls make it more fun and natural

Boom Blox 2
-Better wiiconnect 24, upload, rate, download levels
-Level creator is the same as the developers tools
-New Physics Zero G, underwater physics
-WC24 is seamlessly connected to game
-Target release in the spring
-No Wii motion plus but Boom Blox doesn't need it
-No headtracking easter egg that they tried to put in the first game
-Fantastic

Sim Animals
-Wii version not so good
-Game doesnt run well on Wii
-Technical issues on Wii version
-DS version is good
-More for kids

Big Bang Mini
-Awesome
-Game gets insanely hard especially during the last levels
-Worth the 20 dollars
-BUY IT
-Great art style and graphics
-As good as Space Invaders Extreme

DSi Ware
-PicoPict ultimate fan service for Nintendo, unlocks are classic Nintendo songs
-2nd artstyle game is basic, slide puzzle match the color
-WarioWare turns your DSi to an Eyetoy takes pictures and video clips of your progress does a lot of neat things with DSi hardware
-DSiWare not must have but will make people excited for future potential

My World, My Way
-Not Mind blowing but pretty cool
-Typical RPG
-Tile based movement
-Random Battles
-Can spend points to do stuff, 20 Points is "I hate random battles" which ends the battle
-Spend points to tweak the rules of the game

C.O.R.E. (DS)
-A regular FPS
-Has multiplayer
-Uncreative by the books FPS
-30 FPS and dips lower not gamebreaking
-usually 2 or 3 enemies at a time

Misc
-Nintendo loves word of mouth
-Wii Fit and Wii sold well in Jan more than 300k Wii Fit sold in 1 week in Jan most sales are from people who were looking for it in Dec
-Wii sold better in Jan 09 than Jan 08
-Iwata hyping E3 wants to topple PS2 sales introducing great software
-Talk about the alleged Icarus character model from F5, thinks if that was ever submitted to Nintendo it got rejected
-Matt wants Kid Icarus
-Shameless Plug for Lit

Listener Mail
-No set release date for Conduit May or June
-Next Nintendo event probably after GDC thinks Iwata will talk about DSi at GDC
-ToS2 sold around 95k
-Thinks Mad World will be more successful than No More Heroes 2 and Conduit sales wise. Matt thinks Conduit. Thinks people will play Conduit will be played the longest.
-No idea about what happened Sword Of Legendia from Namco Bandai which was announced at E306.
-Wishes Tactics Ogre comes back
-Fire Emblem:SD is awesome

[IceCold]

Huh, is the Pikmin remake actually that good? I thought the Cube controls were great..

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

THE FEBRUARY I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR

[KDR_11k]

My World, My Way
-Not Mind blowing but pretty cool
-Typical RPG
-Tile based movement
-Random Battles
-Can spend points to do stuff, 20 Points is "I hate random battles" which ends the battle
-Spend points to tweak the rules of the game

I think points are a pretty crappy and unimaginative limiter for that ability, pretty much turns this whole "world changing" into a set of magic spells. It would have been more interesting if you could have used everything at will but with consequences. E.g. if you turn up the power of the fire element because your spells are fire based or your enemies ice based you damage the crops being grown in the area and **** with the predator-prey balance, possibly wrecking the ecosystem. If you just spawn money out of thin air you run a risk of triggering Weimar-style inflation. Set enemies to lower levels you obviously get less exp (but that alone wouldn't do much since you could just weaken enemies everywhere) but what if the ability wasn't 100% reliable and you'd occassionally encounter enemies at the regular strength? What if the effect wasn't identical on everything and you accidentally make the city guards too weak to handle the monsters of the area so the city is being pillaged and then burned while you're away? Obviously it wouldn't be easy to think of consequences for everything without making the abilities too dangerous to use and turning the game into a "don't mess with nature" aesop. I just think that points are a shitty way out and don't really make the world "my way" because you don't really control much. Being an omnipotent god with the ability to **** things up in biblical proportions would be much more different from the regular RPG fare.

[AV]

i'm really curious about LiT for Wiiware they said its coming next monday and I think they developed the game.

oh yeah remember to email them: NVC@ign.com

[UltimatePartyBear]

Big Bang Mini
-Awesome
-Game gets insanely hard especially during the last levels
-Worth the 20 dollars
-BUY IT
-Great art style and graphics
-As good as Space Invaders Extreme

I agree with all but the last item (I assume they're right about the difficulty because I've managed to die a few times already and I'm only on the second world).  The games get compared a lot because they're both zany "shooters," but I wouldn't guarantee that fans of one would like the other.  Big Bang Mini doesn't have the hypnotic, rhythmic effect that pulls you into a groove like Space Invaders Extreme does.  On the other hand, BBM is by far more insane.  Even so, I reiterate that I agree with everything else.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

TWO T'S

"TENCHU TOMORROW"

[Flames_of_chaos]

Summary done!

DQ V

-Review will be up shortly
-Square only allows specific media shown
-Had to restart game to put up game media that was approved by Square
-Commented on how Square is practically as strict as Nintendo in this regard

Retro Game Challenge

-Turned out really well
-Xseed said if sales of this will be good they will push to get FRAGILE to North America
-Because Retro Game Challenge and Fragile are both Namco Bandai games so XSEED can convince NB to give XSEED the North American publishing and distribution rights
-The only downside in the US version is that the localization "isn't really creative", one of the fake letters to the fake game magazine in the game is by Homer Sexual

Fragile
-Really impressed by the game
-Heavy Japanese but you can get through it
-Controls really good
-Beautiful
-"Dramatic Story" line that's well done

Lit
-Likes the concept
-Frustrating implementation
-Inconsistent mechanics like you can't do specific things in a specific level just because the game says so and it can cause frustration
-Ultimate definition of trial and error in a puzzle type of game
-Very repetitive and you might reset the games many time
-Recommended buy, hate the control scheme and be prepared for wonky design and to get frustrated
-Took a couple weeks to wrap up the final version and to put it up on Wiiware, quick turn around
-Submission process in Nintendo is generally fast and they issue a release date once Nintendo approves the game, Bozon(who was technically a developer insider) was amazed how fast the whole process is

House of the Dead Overkill

-Turned out well
-Biggest issue was frame rate
-Lots of cursing
-Usually funny dialog but sometimes goes way over the top
-Lots of inspiration from movies
-Calibrate IR works well and up to 10 feet
-Dual wield mode is unlocked after story mode and director's cut story mode
-Buy guns, unlock guns
-Works well with Zapper, "insert gun shell here", Nerf gun is awesome, HotD:overkill hand cannon gun shells look awesome but are crap

Deadly Creatures

-Should of been a Editor's Choice but IGN's policy of 8.5 or higher only gets a Editor's Choice reward despite having issues(game got an 8.0)
-Sort of glitchy
-Some annoyances like a load pause during in the level, clipping issues
-Incredible Audio
-Wishes there were more moves in combat and more exploration
-Deserves a sequel
-Uses the Wii remote in fun ways
-Good motion controls  to string combos, no mindless shaking
-Think's Edge's review of a 5.0 is stupid, the game deserves a 7 or higher.

Dead Space

-Dead Space game for Wii
-High hopes for the Wii Dead Space
-Possible more info on it next Wii
-Hopes it won't be a port
-IGN Nintendo team loves the PS3/360 Dead Space
-They think it won't be a port

Sonic and the Black Knight

-Only played a few hours
-Very fun but not totally blow away
-Nice presentation
-Feels like the day time sonic unleashed levels
-Leaderboards
-Some multiplayer modes(decent)
-Excellent graphics
-More similar to Secret Rings
-Sword control mechanics are mindless waggle
-Great sense of speed
-Some levels you are forced to talk to villagers by stopping and strafing to them at times you have to stop to fight enemies feels like this artificially increases length
-Wants Sega to pull a Mega Man 9 with Sonic and put it on WiiWare
-Feels like Sonic never properly went 3D properly while Mario went 3D successfully in the first attempt
-Ultimate Sonic gimmick should be making a great Sonic game

Klonoa

-Very good remake
-2.5D platformer
-No pointer used Controllers - Wii remote on side, Classic Controller, Wii remote and Nunchuk
-Feels good to play, like how Super Mario Bros feels good to play
-Platformer with some puzzle elements
-Looked good on PS1 looks excellent
-Each level has hidden gems and treasures to collect
-Sometimes need to use enemies to get these gems

Onslaught

-FPS by Hudson
-Looks generic and 4 player online on Wiiware seems impressive
-Thinks Turok on the N64 looks better, readers seem excited
-Won't slam it for presentation if it plays well and is 60FPS

Battle Rage

-First half decent game from Data Designs
-Wear 3D glasses for 3D effect
-Doesn't look half bad compared to their past efforts such as Ninja Bread Man and other shovelware
-Port of a PC game
-Data Designs didn't develop this game

Madworld (part of listener mail segment)
-Month of Madworld starts today
-funny and disturbing at the same time
-plays well
-Can pick up a guy plant him on a spike ass first and the spike comes out of the guys mouth
-boss battle death animations are awesome
-Extremely violent

-Fire Emblem Dragon Shadow(part of listener mail segment)
-is great
-getting a good score
-similar to other Fire Emblems
-faithful remake although the battle animations feel a little lazy
-looks beautiful
-online voice chat
-if sales are good Nintendo may look at remaking other fire emblems that never came out in NA, -producer of FE:Dragon Shadow wants to make a Fire Emblem that appeals to a bigger audience

Listener Mail and Misc. Segment

-No word real word on a sequel to Lost Winds except it was announced one of the bigger selling games on Wiiware behind World of Goo
-Wants to see a 2d Mario Bros on Wii, World of Goo on DS, Smash Bros on DS, 2D Metroid on Wii or DS
-Nintendo hired a PR/marketing firm to get more Wii software sales
-Metroid Prime 1 and 2 remakes have a Space Pirate side story, speculating on what it could be
-Prime 1 and 2 remakes have awesome controls and widescreen!
-Wants to see a new play control remake of Super Mario Sunshine with fixed framerate, better camera and Luigi's Mansion
-Disappointed with the RE5 demo, feels way to similar to RE4, co-op doesn't feel amazing won't feel as good as RE4, lacks the impact that RE4 has in terms of innovation, thinks Dead Space felt more amazing, RE5 just turned to a straight action game and lost it's survival horror roots
-Thinks that Wii will get more RE titles since sales were good, wants a ground up Wii RE game

[Spinnzilla]

Deadly Creatures did get an editor's choice....Harris just argued that in his own opinion games with only 8.5's or higher should recieve them.  Matt thought that was redundant and awards to games he wants to protmote.

[KDR_11k]

Retro Game Challenge
[..]
-Xseed said if sales of this will be good they will push to get FRAGILE to North America
-Because Retro Game Challenge and Fragile are both Namco Bandai games so XSEED can convince NB to give XSEED the North American publishing and distribution rights

The first one was pretty WTF (not the same audience, guys!) but the second one makes it sound like they're just trying to get the rights for themselves instead of letting anyone else take them.

-Should of been a Editor's Choice but IGN's policy of 8.5 or higher only gets a Editor's Choice reward despite having issues(game got an 8.0)

Um, why didn't they just give it an 8.5 then? If the issues aren't enough to hurt the fun, why lower the score for them?

-Think's Edge's review of a 5.0 is stupid, the game deserves a 7 or higher.

I remember hearing that Edge simply uses a different scale where 5.0 is what others call 7.0...

-Wants Sega to pull a Mega Man 9 with Sonic and put it on WiiWare

It's not like Sega isn't making 2d Sonic games anymore, the 2d games just show that they can't handle those as well as the old ones either (then again MM9 was worse than the high time of Megaman too and people still ate it up...)

-Thinks Turok on the N64 looks better, readers seem excited

-Thinks they need to play Turok again

-Wear 3D glasses for 3D effect

I hope that can be disabled...

[Flames_of_chaos]

Um, why didn't they just give it an 8.5 then? If the issues aren't enough to hurt the fun, why lower the score for them?

Game had a lot of technical issues, mid level loading that it dropped the score to an 8 however they want to award it because of the great gameplay.

The first one was pretty WTF (not the same audience, guys!) but the second one makes it sound like they're just trying to get the rights for themselves instead of letting anyone else take them.

XSEED is a publisher that listens to their fans and they know that their fanbase wants this game, Namco-Bandai rarely licenses out their games to other 3rd parties in N/A I believe only Atlus and XSEED were successful. Also Namco-Bandai has a bad habit of leaving games in Japan just because they think that it won't sell. Since XSEED is handling  Retro Game Challenge, if that game get's good sales they can probably convince Namco-Bandai that the games that they left behind does have an audience in NA and in turn they can get something like fragile or a bunch of games that they left in Japan(NOTE: Tales games are out of the question since Namco would never give up publishing rights for those, also Atlus usually handles the Flight Plan/Banpresto games).

[KDR_11k]

But if it's fun enough to warrant an award that usually requires 8.5 why do the technical flaws warrant a reduction to the score but still keep it an EC candidate? Sounds to me like they're rating "objective" value rather than value to the end user (how much entertainment the game produces). If the loading hurts the fun so much the game shouldn't even be considered an EC candidate but obviously the game is fun anyway.

(BTW, Namco did have Nintendo publish Tales of Symphonia, at least in Europe...)

[Flames_of_chaos]

But if it's fun enough to warrant an award that usually requires 8.5 why do the technical flaws warrant a reduction to the score but still keep it an EC candidate? Sounds to me like they're rating "objective" value rather than value to the end user (how much entertainment the game produces). If the loading hurts the fun so much the game shouldn't even be considered an EC candidate but obviously the game is fun anyway.

(BTW, Namco did have Nintendo publish Tales of Symphonia, at least in Europe...)

I know that Nintendo supplied the VO talent for ToS in NA.

[vudu]

IF YOU WANT FRAGILE BUY RETRO GAME CHALLENGE!

I'm torn.  I really want RGC, but I don't want Fragile.  Nor do I want to make others happy by contributing to their ability to play Fragile.  What to do?

[UltimatePartyBear]

IF YOU WANT FRAGILE BUY RETRO GAME CHALLENGE!

I'm torn.  I really want RGC, but I don't want Fragile.  Nor do I want to make others happy by contributing to their ability to play Fragile.  What to do?

Simply operate on the thoroughly proven theory that Wii owners will be screwed over regardless, and buy Retro Game Challenge safe in the knowledge that the comment about Fragile won't come true.

[Adrock]

The Gamecube remakes are $30. FAILURE. I won't even consider buying Klonoa and at least that's completely remade. Pikmin is over 7 years old and Nintendo's selling it for $30. No thanks.

[Caliban]

-Metroid Prime 1 and 2 remakes have a Space Pirate side story, speculating on what it could be
-Prime 1 and 2 remakes have awesome controls and widescreen!

The controls and the widescreen I can disregard, but having a side story? I'm probably going to have to rent this package just to play the extra content, because no way am I trading in the original games.

[NWR_pap64]

IF YOU WANT FRAGILE BUY RETRO GAME CHALLENGE!

I'm torn.  I really want RGC, but I don't want Fragile.  Nor do I want to make others happy by contributing to their ability to play Fragile.  What to do?

Easy, if you wish to screw others screw yourself first. Don't buy RGC and you will be at ease knowing that you didn't contribute to a game being released... Or anything for that matter.

[KDR_11k]

Speaking ofthe Wii remakes, Pikmin is already out here, I saw it for 27ā‚¬ in a store.