Messages

51

Nintendo Gaming / Interesting EE Times interview with Dave Orton...

« on: March 04, 2003, 10:40:52 AM »

http://www.eet.com/sys/news/OEG20030304S0007

Seems like ATI is being really, really aggressive these days. A lot of stuff that's rather interesting to note, especially his speculation regarding the PS3.  He seems pretty confident that he can help to design a console that will not only be just as powerful, but way easier to develop for.

It's also interesting to note that ATI is pursuing contracts for both MS and Nintendo, although it seems most likely that MS will go with Nvidia again for easy backward compatibility.

Pretty apparent ATI's making Nintendo's next graphics chip too.

52

Nintendo Gaming / Is this a glimpse of the future? Blu-Ray Disc ...

« on: March 04, 2003, 07:39:17 AM »

First off, that thing has tons of functionality that can be stripped out of it for console use- it's not like there's any need for recordable blu-ray discs in consoles, in fact, quite the opposite.  It's not like it needs VCD or CD support, although for Nintendo it might need the ability to read GODs.  Honestly, if Nintendo goes with a smaller bluray disc the size of a GOD, they'd be set.

Go and compare the price of a DVD recorder and a regular DVD player for your computer and then think about it some more.  If you go back 2 years ago, the cost of DVD recorders was ridiculously high, in the several thousand dollar range.  In fact, at launch the cost was very similar to this unit for something with similar functionality in a home unit.  Last I checked you could buy a home DVD recordable for around 500 bucks.

The drive itself can't really be much more expensive to manufacture than any other drive, honestly.  The only thing different is the type of laser used, and a proprietary interface but that doesn't really change the cost either.

I think that it's not only feasible, but very possible.

Once again though, I'm hoping Nintendo goes with a smaller disc form factor to help decrease piracy even more because around 2007 or so recorders for this thing will be affordable enough that piracy could be a real problem for them, kind of like the PS2.

I think it's very likely next generation that Nintendo WILL, in fact, have the most powerful unit, simply because it's not going to include TiVo, web browsing, picture editing, and all the other garbage that will very likely be in competing systems.  Essentially they'll be able to make a competitive unit that for the same cost will only have gaming hardware in it, and that in my estimation is a good thing.  My computer already does all that stuff much more efficiently.  Besides which, does anybody really think they'll need another DVD player by 2005?  I sure hope not.

53

Nintendo Gaming / game freezing in eternal darkness

« on: February 28, 2003, 06:37:56 AM »

I actually had Eternal Darkness freeze on me a couple of times.  There's some sort of glitch in it where sometimes when you're casting spells and the runes drawn on the floor clip out of the level it croaks.  I can make it repeat this in the hallway before the book room in all 3 church chapters AND in the hallway right before the Greater Guardian.  I'm not EXACTLY sure what causes it, but I think it has to do with the extents of the actual map and it not knowing what coordinates to actually draw the spell effects at.

54

Nintendo Gaming / Metal Gear Solid for GameCube

« on: February 27, 2003, 10:27:57 AM »

The admin over at the Konami boards has confirmed it too.

55

Nintendo Gaming / Metal Gear Solid for GameCube

« on: February 26, 2003, 10:31:30 AM »

They're in the same timezone as Miyamoto, but don't get your hopes up just yet.  Newtechnix also reported GC Contra about a year ago before it was announced.

56

Nintendo Gaming / Hardest Single Thing To Do On Gamecube?

« on: February 26, 2003, 08:36:45 AM »

From what I understand, playing an all chain game of Ikaruga is damn near impossible.

57

Nintendo Gaming / No Contra, no Castlevania, Red Rock RTX rumor...

« on: February 26, 2003, 07:10:50 AM »

First off, if you're surprised that's your problem.  Rumors are rumors, as popular as they might be.


Wait until Konami announces something substantial for cube and then talk about it.  Hopefully around E3.

58

Nintendo Gaming / Soul Calibur 2 Discussion!

« on: February 25, 2003, 01:42:50 PM »

I'm fairly confident that it will sell on cube.  Well at that.  When Namco put Link into it, they sold a copy to me for sure that'll be the GC version.  Plus, the GC is just my on the couch multiplayer system, so...

Smart move by Namco, hopefully it pays off for them.

I've played the arcade version and I'm about 100% confident that it will be well worth owning.

[babble]

59

Nintendo Gaming / PN03 Discussion

« on: February 25, 2003, 07:19:09 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: babble
If you go and look around the site linked above, you'll see that they're offering the game at a discount price!?
I don't know how much Yens are worth but here it is on the home page:
Instead of behing 6,800 yens it's gonna be 5,800 Y???

Can anyone convert this?

That'd be roughly 50 USD.  Last I checked it's around 100 yen per dollar- granted, that was a WHILE ago.

I'm looking forward to this game quite a bit myself.  It sure would be nice to see more than just the frst level of it though.

60

Nintendo Gaming / Dust off the ol' 64 games.

« on: February 24, 2003, 01:10:45 PM »

N64 cartridges were measured in megaBITS, not megaBYTES unfortunately, so there's 8 bits in a byte... 32mb.  

Pretty nifty stuff.

61

Nintendo Gaming / Have the Gamecube SD cards been confirmed a no-go?

« on: February 24, 2003, 07:53:58 AM »

Well, the SD card adapter WAS a good idea on paper, but in reality... egh.

It'd be a great peripheral idea if it came out at launch, but if Nintendo's planning on releasing it- well- it takes at least a year (usually two) to develop a game.  If they were to release it tomorrow, there wouldn't be many companies outside of Nintendo that could REALLY take advantage of it.  Don't get me wrong, I could see where a GC Pokemon game that works with the ECard peripheral could really benefit from such a device (scan Pokemon, get them in the game later even if Nintendo hasn't invented them yet, battle it out with them at a friend's house).

Still, by the time it would get any meaningful support, Nintendo will have moved on to their next system.  You figure it out.

[Calibretto]

62

Nintendo Gaming / Gettin' Cube...finally! (Official "What game should I get?" Thread)

« on: February 24, 2003, 07:47:41 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Calibretto
Thanks to Munky, PIAC, and Christberg for their input.  With your guys help, I have decided on Skies of Arcadia.  I was really torn between it and Dark Cloud 2.  So I am going to get Skies of Arcadia, and slide Dark Cloud 2 on to the back burner for now and pick it up later.  I may rent Splinter cell one day just to try it out.  Many thanks for the input guys!

No problem.  I'll be surprised if Skies of Arcadia doesn't make you happy.  It's a really good game.

[Calibretto]

63

Nintendo Gaming / Gettin' Cube...finally! (Official "What game should I get?" Thread)

« on: February 24, 2003, 06:59:31 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Calibretto
Ok, to get back on track with the "Official 'What game should I get?' Thread," I just paid all my school debts for the semester, and I have enough money left over for one game.  Now, the trouble with my desicion is that I have all three consoles, so my choice of games is so broad I have trouble deciding.  However, the games I am interested in are Skies of Arcadia for the Cube, Dark Cloud 2 for PS2, and Splinter Cell for the Xbox.  My favorite of the three systems is the Cube, so I buy games for it more often, and I am leaning towards Skies of Arcadia, but still in the throwes of indesicion.  So, if anyone has anything to say about that game, or any of the others, let me know. I would especially like to hear from people who have played both Skies of Arcadia and Dark Cloud 2 about which they thought was a better RPG.  I must chose wisely, for this game I purcase now must fill the void between now and when my preordered copy of The Wind Waker arrives.

Well, I just got Dark Cloud 2 yesterday so I can't speak for it just yet.  I'll get back to you on that.  I can certainly say that it being 40 bucks is a great deal though.  Skies of Arcadia, on the other hand, is a solid port of a very, very good RPG so I definitely recommend it.  I'm already a good 30 hours into it and I certainly recommend it because it's really kept my attention well with interesting enemy designs and lots and lots and lots of action.  The boss fights really make this game.

Personally, I got Splinter Cell about a week ago for my Xbox and my final decision on it is that it suffers from an extreme case of "artificial difficulty-itis" that is really unforgivable and I wound up returning it.  It's a really pretty game and all, but there's frequent sections where you have to guess what to do, not figure out, but actually guess, and you die a ton of times because there's no way to actually figure out what to do except through trial and error.  It's on thing where a game is very, very hard but fair about it (Like Contra:Shattered Soldier)- I have no problem with that.  I do have a problem with having to guess what to do to complete an objective because the game doesn't give you enough information to do what you need to.  Splinter Cell does this.  A LOT.  To me that should never, ever happen.

[Sean]

64

Nintendo Gaming / Game's that Lost Money?

« on: February 19, 2003, 08:37:59 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Sean
I remember a commedian, years ago, joking about how we're all so hung up on sales and box-office intake for movies, etc. by saying he knew it was bad when his cab driver was warning him against a movie he had said he wanted to see because it only made x-dollars over the weekend and couldn't be worth his time.  And, as you know, x-dollars isn't good.

When you reflect on that, it's hard to imagine that movies have been around for over a hundred years and only relatively recently have we really paid a lot of attention the box office.  This has extended to everything, pretty much.  I'm not complaining, just talking.

Yeah, I can completely agree with and appreciate this sentiment.  Most of us internet geeks are washed over with ridiculous amounts of information that have no real bearing on our actual happiness with the things that we purchase.  I mean, honestly, if how well something sold dictated how well I liked it, why would I ever have bought a Gamecube?  I mean, it's so distantly behind the PS2 it couldn't possibly be worth owning right?  Wrong.

Couldn't be farther from the truth.  It's my favorite console this generation so far and it's only now with this new batch of RPGs that my PS2 is really, really starting to make me happy.  Still, in the next couple months I'm still going to be buying more GC software than the other 2 in spite of there being way more stuff released.

I think it's important that we all take a step back and think about it for a while.

[RickPowers]

65

Nintendo Gaming / Shadowrun cubed?

« on: February 19, 2003, 06:39:48 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: RickPowers
Indeed, Microsoft owns FASA, and thus, Shadowrun.  I'd love to see another Shadowrun game on ANY platform, but Microsoft has been ignoring the franchise for years.

Yeah, and it's really damn unfortunate too because it's a super cool property that could make for one HELL of a game.

[Ian Sane]

66

Nintendo Gaming / Incoming SEGA GCN announcement!

« on: February 18, 2003, 12:03:06 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"I guess I realize that the traditional d-pad is becoming 'passe' with the death of 2-D, but it still works so well in many newer games. Even the PS2 has the d-pad in the prime position on the controller."

Well the PS2 also has only two controller ports so in terms of hardware it's not a good indication of what the future of videogames holds.  The control stick SHOULD be in the prime position.  Sony just seems to have a fear of changing their original controller design from 1995 (which was considered pretty poor even then).

I think the whole fighting game controller issue wouldn't exist if Sony wasn't the market leader.  Nintendo and Microsoft both made the control stick the main focus of their controllers and they both push analog support.  3D games with D-pad controls are ridiculously out-of-date and it makes no sense to make them.  If Gamecube or Xbox was the top system most games would be designed with that console in mind and therefore most games would be designed with the control stick in mind.  Today's controllers shouldn't be designed for fighting games, fighting games should be designed for today's controllers.  Analog is the future and every 3D fighting game should have analog controls.  If Sony wasn't living in the past and encouraging developers to stick with an out-of-date standard all 3D fighting games would have analog controls.  If Sony loses the top spot or the PS3 controller is control stick centric and guarentee this issue will die.

Though I'll admit that Nintendo is a little TOO anti-d-pad.  The Gamecube d-pad could easily have been done a lot better and seems to have been intentially made to be uncomfortable in order to persuade developers to use the control stick.  That's taking things a little too far as making the controller control stick centric in the first place is sufficient.

Don't even get me started on the 2 controller ports bit with the PS2.  That's so painfully stupid I can't even begin to describe it.  Let's just say it's one of the main things that kept me from buying one, for ages.  That and all the useless crap on it.  If it weren't for the fact that it is the industry standard I'd never have bought one.  I really dislike the hardware.  Half outdated crap and half junk you'll never use/is totally worthless.  When was the last time YOU used that firewire port anyway?  Do those lightguns REALLY need to be USB and did the controller ports themselves REALLY need to be that big?  No.

Back to the D-pad bit though- hopefully Sony really does fix their next controller (although somehow I doubt it) and release it with some actual analog triggers and the analog stick in a prime position.  Hopefully they'll make the actual ports themselves smaller, too.

Hopefully Nintendo upsized their Dpad on their next system, maybe adds clicks to the analog sticks... and doesn't change too much else about it.

[Sean]

67

Nintendo Gaming / Incoming SEGA GCN announcement!

« on: February 18, 2003, 10:38:02 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Sean
My main problem, as I said, was the control pad itself--NOT THE BUTTON LAYOUT, per se.  The control pad is EXACTLY the same size as the GBA's.  NO ONE ON EARTH wants to play, exclusively, a game like VF4 on a GBA.  Once you dig really deep into VF4, the finest control nuance is utterly essential, and I PERSONALLY would hate to play it on a pad that small.  The PS2's regular pad is hard enough for the really complicated stuff.  (The PS2 has it's own problems, too, that almost no one mentions, which is the horror of not having diagonal connections on the pad.  Am I the only one on earth who hates this?)

I hear you on that one.  I hate every next gen console's d-pad for various reasons.

[Mephistopheles]

68

Nintendo Gaming / Incoming SEGA GCN announcement!

« on: February 18, 2003, 10:18:48 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Mephistopheles

Quote
Originally posted by: Sean
As for Virtua Fighter 4 on GCN, I can't imagine it.  I mean, I LOVE THE GCN CONTROLLER, but I don't even want to play Street Fighter with it much less the unbelievably complex VF4.  I mean, some of those moves, if you ask me, are almost literally impossible to pull off on the much bigger and loser PS2 control pad (I've lost fingers--nuff said).  The only way I would get that game, my favorite fighting game just behind Steet Fighter Alpha 2, is if Sega released a joystick or if I had that sweet new Hori Soul Calibur stick.  To me it really boils down to that.  I just really think that it's with games like this that the GCN controller shows one of its few real handicaps.

I don't agree... the Gamecube button layout itself, with the guided layout (unlike the uniform are rarely distinguishable PS2 botton scheme, which I can only distinguish between because my X button is the most worn) provides a major plus for fighters... the problem comes with the control pad... but why should you have to use the pad?  Seriously, I would love to try and play Virtua Fighter 4 with a stick... it would be far more reminiscent of using an arcade stick instead of getting a blistered thumb trying to achieve the same thing on a pad.  Seriously, the only handicap is 2D fighters, and those have gone the way of the dodo.  If you've ever played the original Soul Calibur with the Dreamcast controller (and it's lame and uncomfortable pad), you understand that using the analog stick for 3D fighters is just a good idea.

The problem with the GC pad is that Virtua Fighter uses EVERY button combination which comes to 8 buttons if you were to separate them.  The GC pad is really poorly designed for the way the game is laid out.  Then again, playing it on a PS2 pad doesn't even come close to approximating an arcade stick anyway.  The GC pad would definitely NOT work with the game though.

That said, if a fighter were designed with the GC pad in mind from the beginning there wouldn't be any issues with it's layout.

69

Nintendo Gaming / Reviews for GC games: How much do you depend on them?

« on: February 18, 2003, 08:45:04 AM »

You know, it really depends on the title.  I base my decisions on the developer's track record just as much, but then if the title starts getting consistently bad reviews, well... I forget about it.  I really like Gamerankings because it gives me handy access to a large portion of all the reviews on the internet, which I then base my opinions on.

I certainly don't consider reviewers the end all be all decision makers on whether a title is worth purchasing or not based on the raw scores due to the fact that they tend to be jaded and only pay attention to highly hyped titles or on the flip side of that are wined and dined for good scores and I take that into account when I read the review.  If it seems pretty apparent that the actual text of a review says one thing but the rating says another then I discount it.  Then again, if I see a game having a pretty poor average review rating then I tend to relegate it to "rental" status if I was planning on buying it and "no buy" if I wasn't interested.  In all actuality modern review scores 7 is actually an average game too which is a real problem.

70

Nintendo Gaming / Capcom should have put more effort into RE:0

« on: February 17, 2003, 02:25:15 PM »

Personally, I liked it better than all the previous Resident Evil games.  The partner switching made the puzzles a lot more interesting (although some of them were rehashes like the voltage one for example) in spots, and the new graphics really did make the series for me.  I wasn't even interested in it all that much until it came out on GC because the graphics always looked silly to me and that coupled with people griping about the controls kind of kept me away from it, but a rental was all it took and I'm now a huge fan of the series.

Granted, the basic gameplay is still the same, but it's a super polished title for what it is and I can't really find a single negative about it when you really get down to business.  Billy is way more interesting than Leon, Claire, or any of the previous protagonists too.

I love the title, but to each his own I suppose.

71

Nintendo Gaming / Are you satisfied with your Cube at the moment?

« on: February 17, 2003, 02:19:43 PM »

You know, the GC was my first *SERIOUS* console purchase.  I'd been playing PC games for some time (I'm a huge fan of PC FPSes and RTSes) and I'd been getting sick of the same 2 aesthetics being rehashed over and over again with essentially the same gameplay so I decided I'd try out console gaming and Nintendo really was the ticket for me.  

Now, the first couple months I had it were great (got it about a week after launch) being that I got to play Pikmin, SSBM, Rogue Leader, XG3, and Luigi's Mansion (which despite being too short is actually a pretty good game despit the shortness),  but then January rolled around and that was pretty disappointing and it was a good thing I had those 4 games to tide me over.  I got Sonic Adventure in February and despite not liking the game by itself all that much (horrid multiplayer) got totally hooked on that evil Chao breeding stuff so that kept me busy for a while.  There were some third party titles that kept me somewhat entertained (Bloody Roar was pretty good) but during that time my PC still got the vast majority of my gaming time.  I really hadn't gotten my 200 dollars out of the unit until Eternal Darkness and the REmake came out, and both of those games just got the holy heck played out of them.  Since then, the thing has gotten very steady use and has had a nice stream of titles that have kept me interested and I'm really quite happy with it as a purchase, which doesn't look to change anytime soon.

As the system has matured it's really become a great addition to my spare time and I look forward to continuing using it.

72

Nintendo Gaming / why dont we see more bumpmapping and hi-res textures in GC games?

« on: February 17, 2003, 11:38:53 AM »

The Xbox has more total RAM than the GC by a fair amount so because of that Hires textures get used more.

The GC can't do DOT3, just emboss as I recall.  I could be wrong on that though.

The GC is still capable of some rather nice looking games.  Metroid Prime looks better than Halo IMO but that's not necessarily a fair comparison.

[nolimit19]

73

Nintendo Gaming / Is it just me, or is 1080 fugly?

« on: February 17, 2003, 11:20:41 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: nolimit19
not even one of the worst?!?!?! it may not be the be the worst but its one of the worst. the graphics get so bad in multiplayer that i can see where i am going!

I'd post screenshots to prove it but trust me, Jeremy Mcgrath looks waaaaayyyyy worse.  

I mean, at least your car doesn't drive inside the ground in spots or anything.

74

Nintendo Gaming / Skies of Arcadia Legends = Great Game

« on: February 17, 2003, 11:03:50 AM »

I've been playing this for a while now (about 20 hours in) and I'm enjoying it rather immensely.  I haven't played an RPG this good in a very very long time.

75

Nintendo Gaming / Is it just me, or is 1080 fugly?

« on: February 17, 2003, 10:57:07 AM »

Nascar 2k3 doesn't look all THAT horrible...

I mean, look at Jeremy Mcgrath Supercross World or Universal Studios Park Adventure for example.  There's some real crud on GC, but that game certainly isn't one of the worst.