Messages

1

General Gaming / RE: Portal - The Cake is a Lie!

« on: December 22, 2007, 02:35:14 AM »

Portal alone is worth $70. It'll make your head explode.

Of course it's worth $70, it's not my money after all

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General Gaming / RE: Portal - The Cake is a Lie!

« on: December 20, 2007, 05:59:17 AM »

I finished the advanced levels, but some of the challenges are nearly impossible .

3

General Gaming / RE: Reward posted for release of Duke Nukem Forever

« on: December 19, 2007, 06:55:02 AM »

Duke looks only slightly less plastic than the guy in the original Starcraft intro movie. I don't know if that's a bad sign or not.

4

TalkBack / RE: Greenpeace Paints Mario as Bad Dude

« on: December 18, 2007, 08:43:12 AM »

DON'T EAT WII. IT ONLY MAKES YOUR CRAP TOXIC.

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TalkBack / RE:One-Day-Only Wii Reservations at GameStop

« on: December 18, 2007, 08:33:21 AM »

Quote
"We're not really expecting PlayStation 3 or even Xbox 360-level scarcity for Nintendo's Wii come this holiday season, but just in case you want to be certain-sure of a Wii on launch day..."

Say stupid sh!t all the time; always get away with it. Such is the life of a technology blogger.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo WII

« on: December 18, 2007, 06:06:57 AM »

All shall bow before the inimitable might of DEMOCRACY!

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land (Longest WiiWare title EVAR),

« on: December 17, 2007, 03:32:02 AM »

I'll judge it when it's out, and not a second before. Besides, I can't read Japanese.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: What do people say about Nintendo being market leader again?

« on: December 15, 2007, 09:15:50 AM »

I wouldn't go *that* far, but I think there is a significant difference between 'casual game' and 'crappy game'.

9

TalkBack / RE: EDITORIALS: A Note about Our Reviews

« on: December 15, 2007, 08:08:45 AM »

It seems like being at the mercy of the game titans is an unavoidable evil in this particular industry. Getting even one of the 'Big 3' (Sony et al) upset at you could seriously ruin your coverage- but what are you going to do about it? If the industry were full of tiny companies (relative to the size of the industry), you'd have the reasonable ability to resist the temptation of outside influence, but that's not the case here.

However, it also seems that NWR is too small and 'under the radar' for the big companies to care all that much about negative reviews. The site is staffed by highly dedicated volunteers and is not exactly a moneymaking enterprise in the same vein as Gamespot or any of the larger VG sites. And I think that's a really good thing. Nintendo or any other company really has no incentive to cow the site to artificially boost ratings or rankings, and we get high-quality, pretty well unbiased coverage.

This brings me to the third point. Baten Kaitos was a pretty craptacular game, looking back. I thought the sequel (Origins) was much, much better in most respects, which makes it 'on-the-par' for an average JRPG (although most people probably thought it was crappy as well). But Baten Kaitos was a low-profile game that wasn't heavily advertised and wasn't really expected to sell very well- which leads one to ask: were the impressions changed at the behest of a publisher, or were they changed to conform to an industry convention (positive impressions)? If it's the former, there really might be something to worry about.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: What do people say about Nintendo being market leader again?

« on: December 14, 2007, 03:08:11 PM »

That cat creeps the **** out of me.

I say that in the best way possible, of course.

11

Nintendo Gaming / RE: What do people say about Nintendo being market leader again?

« on: December 14, 2007, 11:23:37 AM »

It'll be interesting to see what happens.

The 360 and PS3 are ultimately moving towards what is essentially a bastardized version of the PC experience (the PC market is far from dead, by the way...c.f. Blizzard...), at least in North America. Look at the types of things that PS360 games are getting or have become standard recently- map and level editors, online play, patches and map packs- all long-standing PC conventions. They'll always be around for those who can't be bothered or don't have the technical fortitude to set up their computers to play those selfsame games (e.g. BioShock, any XBox FPS, etc), or for those people who want the old 'main-line hardcore' games and franchises- the Final Fantasies, Metal Gear series, and other heavy-hitters that won't move to Wii eventually.

Will the PS360 kill the PC market, or will the opposite happen? I don't think either will happen, for the aforementioned reason. PC gaming will almost certainly have the technological advantage and the superior FPS/RTS/whatever control scheme in the long term, but the PC-contender consoles will always have that 'casual hardcore'/'technically disinclined' sector to draw upon. (Note- I'm not really using 'technically disinclined' as a pejorative term here, I'm using it to emphasize how consoles move along the 'technical capability' - 'ease of use' continuum in order to attract people who wouldn't be playing those sorts of games otherwise.)

What am I saying here? I guess I'm trying to make two points: first, that the divergent foci that Nintendo are trying to emphasize with the Wii represent the right direction for the console's future (same-room multiplayer gameplay, control scheme, etc), and secondly that the few idiot PS3/360 gamers who brag about being '1337 h4rdc0r3' need to STFU.  

12

General Gaming / RE: Who loves to do Crack-Cocaine?

« on: December 14, 2007, 11:09:33 AM »

Video games kill the imagination, promote pornographic violence, and exacerbate lines of class division between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie! What's not to hate?  

13

Nintendo Gaming / RE: DvD Playback?

« on: December 14, 2007, 11:06:25 AM »

It's like the different color options. They'll need to get through month(s) of backlog after the holiday season before they can even think about modifying or diversifying the core line.

14

General Gaming / RE: And the Greepeace saga continues...

« on: December 14, 2007, 11:04:24 AM »

Wii, like iPhone, can be deadly if eaten.

15

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Disaster: Day of Crisis - M Rated?

« on: October 16, 2007, 06:32:02 PM »

It's the inevitable result of the transformation of games into 'art': soon, the only real games will be the unplayable ones that art critics can write page-long dissertations about.

16

Nintendo Gaming / RE: So.. what are Nintendo's options for the Holiday?

« on: October 11, 2007, 10:14:58 AM »

Nintendo's going to send out the top-secret firmware update that enables the Wii's ultra-secret high-performance hardware, which also provides full XBox 360 emulation. Then they'll pack each Wii with a free pirated copy of Halo 3.

Seriously, though, I think they're fine. One thing I'd like to see is advertising. Promote the heck out of all the new releases (and even releases like MP3) with all sorts of ads and exposure. Pound the truth into consumers' minds (both existing and prospective) that there is much, much more to the Wii than Wii Sports and minigames.

17

Nintendo Gaming / DS demo channel?

« on: October 11, 2007, 06:19:40 AM »

DS demo channel? At least in Japan.

This is good news. Could a full-fledged Wii demo channel be not too far off?

18

General Gaming / RE: Sony getting hit Hard lately (Now With Rumbling Fun Time Machines)

« on: October 09, 2007, 05:54:44 PM »

Quote
What the hell do you call the Sixaxis?

A crappy boondoggle that wrecked what was supposed to be one of three flagship games?

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General Gaming / RE: Sony getting hit Hard lately (Now With Rumbling Fun Time Machines)

« on: October 09, 2007, 12:46:18 PM »

The problem is that MS's management structure doesn't allow them to innovate very readily. Take the Zune. I'm sure there were engineers and designers deep within the company who came up with great ideas that would have put the iPod to shame if they had been built into a production device. But ultimately upper management and focus groups turned it into a spectacularly mis-marketed mediocre PMP. It's the same with consoles- as long as Nintendo is willing to take steps to innovate (which seems quite likely given the success of the DS and the Wii), they should be able to maintain at least a strong foothold within the console market.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Official Smash Bros. Dojo Update Discussion

« on: October 07, 2007, 07:06:54 PM »

Quote
but if I were Nintendo, I'd pick Cloud based on sales potential alone even if he's there by a technicality.

Not to mention the symbolic middle finger to Sony in revenge for 'taking' away the franchise in the first place (even if that's not technically accurate). But that would be a good omen. If PS3 can't even keep its old franchises exclusive (in this case, the flagship characters of its PSx FF line), how compelling can it make its new ones seem? I'm sure there are marketing people at all three companies that are aware of this issue.  

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Costumes

« on: October 07, 2007, 07:00:32 PM »

I like having elaborate costumes. It would cut down on the chances that crappy obscure characters/character variants make it into the game as unique characters and destroy game balance.

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General Gaming / RE: Microsoft and Bungie Part Ways

« on: October 06, 2007, 03:04:05 PM »

I'd say that there was a significant chance that some of Bungie's developers were threatening to leave and form their own studio, especially because they were afraid that MS would turn them into the 'Halo factory'. By pre-empting that, MS retains some control over Bungie's assets.

23

General Chat / RE: I need the best music player/organizer; now LINUX FRIENDLY!

« on: October 03, 2007, 06:28:26 PM »

You can use OpenOffice with Linux. It's free and supposed to be compatible with the MS Office suite (read: your professor's Windows machine). You can also set up a dual-boot system if you have enough HDD space.

Oh, and the latest version of iTunes lets you copy songs right off your iPod.

24

Nintendo Gaming / RE: The more I think about it...

« on: October 03, 2007, 06:25:19 PM »

Nintendo is pre-emptively declaring Manhunt 2 a success, that's all.

Jim Raynor as a marine is the other third-party character. When he dies, his head pops off and he explodes into a bloody ring of guts and body parts.

25

General Gaming / RE: This just in: Developers and publishers still have no business sense!

« on: October 01, 2007, 07:53:30 PM »

I'll just briefly address #2 and #4.

2. The Wii won't age gracefully. But then again, it's not supposed to last for ten years like the PS3. By the time that proverbial 'brick wall' is approaching, they'll be readying a next-generation machine, and with the way that IC technology is going, it will be a lot cheaper to pack the hardware necessary for a marked increase in performance into the device.

4. The vast majority of consumers don't give a flying poo about things like homebrew and DVD support. In fact, PSP is really good for homebrew and stuff. It's so suited for that application that very few people I know who own a PSP don't have at least a few pirated games for the device. Do you honestly think (third-party) developers are happy about that sort of thing? They want you to buy their game, not freaking download the ISO or watch a movie instead.