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[ShyGuy]

1

TalkBack / RE:EA Brand Tarnished, Says Analyst

« on: December 04, 2006, 01:49:47 AM »

Hahaha.... this just in: Water found to be wet

Quote
Originally posted by: ShyGuy


M.U.L.E.

That is no more the same company than Hasbro is Atari.  Also, another good "Electronic Arts" game is Archon -- something desperately needing a remake (since no one's ever heard of it either).

Make no mistake: Publisher does not equal developer.  Unless you want to be one of those people who bought "State of Emergency" because "it's made by those Grand Theft Auto Guys!!!!"  

EA publishes games.  When they publish games made by good developers who are given proper time and resources, we get things like The Sims and, one day, Spore.  Mainly though, they want to push out high volume lowest-bidder garbage that people see on the shelf at Walmart and say "THAT LOOKS FUN I'LL BUY IT".  These are essentially the "straight-to-video" class of games, in that the people who buy them are the same ones who rent things like "Starship Troopers 2".  

My point is, you can probably trust a good developer to produce games of consistent quality.  No one buys a book because it's published by Random House.  Look at the author.

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Nintendo Gaming / Worms 3D :(

« on: May 26, 2004, 12:37:19 PM »

I was a little skeptical about buying this sight-unseen, so I rented it and I'm really confused at the problems in this game.  Maybe you feel the same way.

You can only use one controller for multiplayer.  Why in the Universe?  I mean, it's so confusing.  I can't form words.  It would have taken literally twelve minutes to allow multiple controllers.  Passing the controller around?  Could the developers not afford an extra controller to test with?

There are graphical glitches.  I've seen worms suddenly stretch out into infinity.  Also, it almost looks more like an N64 game, not polished at all.  This doesn't mean much, I would totally overlook it for a good game.

The camera is bad.  Sometimes it zooms in really close to your worm and you can't back it off to see anything.  Also, it would be really nice, especially since only one controller is even usable, to control the camera when the computer is taking its turn to see who he is shooting at.  When you manually aim, your worm always seems to point straight up at first.  Add this to the lack of an inverse aiming option and you've lost a few seconds being confused, trying to look around to aim.

The levels are not good.  They are made up of teenie-tiny little crappy islands, and one shot is almost guaranteed to knock you off the edge.  There's a preset level called "NO MORE ISLANDS!" which tells me the developers recognized how much the levels sucked, and that's the closest they wanted to come to a solution.  It's actually a good level.

The explosions are small.  This is probably because the levels are so tiny.  But in the old worms, you could not shoot a bazooka from three feet away without getting hurt.  The weapons don't shoot very far either, which takes some getting used to.  A full power bazooka blast used to go fairly straight for a long time.  Now, 15 feet out it drops.

Most of this I could overlook, really, except the lack of multiple controllers -- the dumbest oversight in the history of gaming.  This might work for four 10 year olds sitting on the floor next to eachother, but not for people relaxing around a living room.  It's inexcusable.  

I really had high hopes for this game, being a huge Worms fan, which made the disappointment all the worse.  I'm glad I rented it, but sad there probably won't be a good new worms game any time soon.

Anyone else play it?  What are your impressions?

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TalkBack / RE:EA Announces Timesplitters Future Perfect

« on: May 06, 2004, 06:32:53 AM »

Awesome, I just hope there is a LAN mode for the Gamecube version.

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TalkBack / RE:NES GBA Might be Right Around the Corner

« on: March 04, 2004, 05:45:18 AM »

Now *that* looks cool.  ^^^

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TalkBack / RE:NES GBA Might be Right Around the Corner

« on: March 03, 2004, 06:33:12 AM »

I agree it is absurd to charge $30 for a 256k game from 1986.  They should be releasing these in packs of *at least* 10 per cart.

I have no incentive to buy one NES game for thirty bucks when I can play all of them on my GP32 for free.  However, I would pay for several per cart, especially if they had all the old manuals and promotional materials on the cart as well.  I'd get all nostalgiac looking at those posters of all the games again.

The NES style GBA might be really cool if they don't do some sort of horrible patchwork color mismatch that they seem to be so fond of lately.  The Famicom one looks awful because the top doesn't match the bottom by any stretch of the imagination.  And don't get me started on that black & white one.  I saw about 400 different color GBA sp's at last year's E3, but all we get are GBAs built with leftover mismatched parts.  Bah.

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TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Reveals "Third Pillar"!

« on: January 23, 2004, 05:53:17 AM »

I did a really bad mockup for the other page, I do think it will look something like this only with more flush screens.

gbds

[Ian Sane]

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TalkBack / RE:Nintendo DS Interview

« on: January 22, 2004, 09:01:16 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
"Uh, PSP plays PS1 games, right?"

I'm beginning to think that this will play GBA games but it will be more like the GBC than the GBA.  The GBA is a completely new format but the GBC was more like an upgrade.  Some games were GBC only but a lot of them could also be played on the old GB.  Maybe the DS will be more like that where most games are playable on the GBA as well but special dual screen games work on the DS only and some GBA games are enhanced on the DS.  Therefore it's not really regarded as a total replacement because a lot of games released will still work on the old GBA.

But they seem to be pushing this as a third system, not an upgrade.  I have a bad feeling someone high up will say "we don't want this to be a gameboy with two screens, it's a new and different system," and axe backward compatibility.  It's a cool idea by itself, but if that's all there is, it's just a neat gimmick, like the virtual boy.  If so, I'll happily buy one in the bargin bin for $30.

They need to look at it from a consumer perspective: Why would I want another portable?  Well, if it could link up to the current Game Boys for multiplayer, offered new and unique content and a major graphics improvement comparible to (or preferably exceeding) the PSP, then yeah, I *might* buy it.  The might hinges on that new and unique content.  What makes it must-have?  I don't have a couple hundred dollars to throw around.

But when I take a trip now, I take my GP32.  I can do a lot more with it than with a game machine (music, videos, emulation, etc).  These days I only play GBA games on the Gamecube.  

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TalkBack / RE: Nintendo DS Interview

« on: January 22, 2004, 06:07:20 AM »

I actually hope the physical borders of the screens are almost touching, so they almost seem like one screen.  That would allow for single screen type games to span both a little more nicely.

I hope developers rise to the challenge of coming up with innovative uses for the dual screens.  I could see a Metal Gear Solid type game working well on this system, with a first person and over-head view going on simultaneously.  Or a classic-style Mario game where you switch between Mario & Luigi above and under ground while the computer controls the other one.  

Developers could also use the screens as primary/secondary displays.  If you were playing Street Fighter, you could have your screen scroll away from your opponent, and look up to see where they are off screen.  Or you could have a game where the player drops a camera on the ground, and see activity in that area while you play elsewhere.  There are a lot of possibilities, but I remain skeptical about whether they will be realized and brought to life.

Something VERY cool would be to include a second set of controls and let the unit hinge away so two people facing eachother could play multiplayer, but I doubt that's the case.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Is Animal crossing for everyone?

« on: January 22, 2004, 05:48:09 AM »

My wife & I enjoyed our own towns on Animal Crossing, played it daily for a month and then never touched it again.  We both played The Sims for about two days.  AC prevents burn-out by limiting what you can do in a day, but unless you're collection-happy, there isn't a lot in the game for you.  The Sims requires you baby-sit morons who can't go to the bathroom by themselves and can go on indefinately.  It's fun for a little while, but gets old quickly.  

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TalkBack / RE:Nintendo DS Interview

« on: January 22, 2004, 05:33:53 AM »

The screens will most likely face eachother, I envision it like a combination of the controls-on-the-side GBA and the clamshell SP.

My strikingly terrible mock-up: http://www.planetidiot.com/temp/newgbds.png

I don't know how I feel about this system if it isn't GBA compatible.

At least there should be room for stereo speakers and a headphone jack.