Messages

10926

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Wii Zelda

« on: June 05, 2009, 12:50:59 AM »

Wow, nice concept art.  I don't know where IGN was getting the impression that this was a much more "mature" Link.  He looks the same age to me he looked in Twilight Princess, which was the same age he looked in the Smash Bros. games, which was the same age he looked in Ocarina of Time.

As for the girl, I don't think she's the embodiment of anything or a G'nark/Crystal-style weapon.  It strikes me that we've had the Master Sword in the Zelda series ever since Link to the Past, but anyone else wonder who made it?  I'm willing to bet the girl is from the race of people who forged the Master Sword, and you may get to meet them in this new Zelda game.  She actually reminded me a lot of the look for the Sages in Twilight Princess with those masks they wore.

10927

TalkBack / Re: Sin & Punishment 2 Coming in 2010?

« on: June 04, 2009, 09:12:02 PM »

Well, in all fairness to Treasure it takes a lot of time; energy; and manpower to create a 5 minute-long game for a console as graphically powerful as the Wii.  I can see why they need that extra year to work on it.

5 minute long? Just what are you talking about?

I was mocking Treasure's history of making incredibly short games.  If Treasure's true-to-form with this game, that's probably the case here.  I was under the impression with the Wii that the big draw to developing for it was a quicker turn-around on development with lower budgets.  Given that, I just don't understand what's taking them so long with a game this simple unless Treasure just completely overloaded themselves with new projects.  It's an on-rails shooter/slasher, so what's holding up production?

10928

TalkBack / Re: Sin & Punishment 2 Coming in 2010?

« on: June 04, 2009, 08:21:49 PM »

Well, in all fairness to Treasure it takes a lot of time; energy; and manpower to create a 5 minute-long game for a console as graphically powerful as the Wii.  I can see why they need that extra year to work on it.

10929

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Wii Zelda (TP 2?)

« on: June 04, 2009, 02:36:09 PM »

Screw water colors, Okami was hard to look at.  My eyes had nowhere to focus.

Looking at footage of the PS2 version a few years back when Okami Wii was coming out, I agree with that.  I had no problems focusing on things in the Wii version, though, with the saturated colors and harder edges.

10930

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Monado Beginning of The World

« on: June 04, 2009, 02:28:29 PM »

Looks very promising.  I'm a little concerned about the battle system, because the footage reminds me a little of Final Fantasy XII and I hated that game.  Still, always great to see a JRPG on the Wii (with a good-looking art style, no less), and I really liked the two Baten Kaitos games on the Cube.  Here's hoping we see more of this game very soon.

10931

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Wii Zelda (TP 2?)

« on: June 04, 2009, 02:15:06 PM »

I think some people may be jumping the gun a bit suggesting that this game will have a watercolor-esque art style just because one concept art image used it.  While it would be interesting to see a Zelda game play with such a graphical filter, do we really need any more comparisons to Okami than there already are?

I just can't fathom why Nintendo isn't embracing the chaos of the internet and unleashing a high-res viewable version of this image online.  Any hype in their direction is good hype, and all we have to work off is this vague image.

10932

General Gaming / Re: New Castlevania Still Not for Wii

« on: June 04, 2009, 02:08:30 PM »

Not really a surprise there.  Konami hasn't given us a real Castlevania game on a Nintendo console since the underrated Castlevania 64 games.  From all accounts, though, we haven't missed much so far.

10933

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Super Mario Galaxy 2

« on: June 04, 2009, 02:05:31 PM »

So it's Super Mario Galaxy: The Lost Levels.  Or maybe The Lost Galaxies.

Has there been any word on the music?  The trailer makes me worry that they're not going to bother with the orchestra this time, and that would be a crying shame.

One can only hope he'll get the full orchestra back for this one, as the score for Mario Galaxy was very well-done and suitably epic.

10934

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Super Mario Galaxy 2

« on: June 04, 2009, 03:12:44 AM »

I see absolutely no reason to be skeptical of this game on the basis of its direct relation to the first Mario Galaxy.

Unless, that is, you have the same qualms about Majora's Mask.

I don't think this can really be compared to the Majora's Mask situation.  Majora's Mask made it very clear from very early on in the project that it was going to be a very different game from Ocarina.  It had a much more whimsical and colorful art direction than Ocarina as well, so it's pretty easy to tell the two games apart for the most part.  Plus you had the whole 3-day and mask aspects of Majora's Mask.  With Mario Galaxy 2, though, if you took a screenshot of the first game and compared it to a screenshot from the second that didn't have Yoshi in it, I think it'd be practically impossible for most people to distinguish between the two.  Now, if more of the same is what you want out of a Mario Galaxy successor, there you are and I hope you enjoy it.  Otherwise, I just don't see what there is to be excited about.

10935

TalkBack / Re: New Zelda in the Works With More Mature Link

« on: June 03, 2009, 09:40:18 PM »

I hope the inclusion of Wii MotionPlus means that they'll include a home-run contest, golf, and tennis in the game.  It wouldn't be a Wii MotionPlus game without them.

Well, it wouldn't truly be a modern Zelda game without a collection of sometimes silly and arbitrary mini-games that we have to go through to get heart pieces.

10936

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles

« on: June 03, 2009, 02:39:05 PM »

So I guess the shaky cam reflects how panicked the characters really were.  Of course it's hard to aim during these moments.  Journalists and non-casuals can't handle the realism they crave?

I think there's a middle-ground between this extremely shaky cam we have right now and what we had in Umbrella Chronicles.  The specific goal of a light-gun shooter is to shoot enemies, preferably killing them, and the goal of every game is and should be to be "fun".  The further you get away from these two things, the worse the game gets so yeah if I can't aim with anything approaching accuracy due to that shaky cam half the game they need to tone it down.  If you really want to go all-out on the shaky cam, make it a cutscene or Quick Time Event or something.  Just don't expect me as a mere mortal to be scoring headshots when my field of view keeps veering every other second.

10937

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles

« on: June 03, 2009, 05:18:17 AM »

IGN posted some impressions of the game from the E3 build, and as I suspected the Shaky Cam is a major, major problem:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/990/990357p1.html

One can hope that Capcom would fix it, but we're really far along at this point and I have to wonder if they have the time.  This demo is probably about a month old, maybe 2.  This game releases in what...September/October?  Fixing that now would be a tight order...

10938

TalkBack / Re: IMPRESSIONS: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

« on: June 03, 2009, 05:09:37 AM »

Looking at the new trailer they put out for E3, this game looks like it could actually be good and maybe something approaching an actual RPG rather than the gauntlet-style party games we've had so far in the series.  But yeah, this game looks like it needs a lot of polish in the production values department, as I think by now we can just expect better from a Square game.

10939

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Other M

« on: June 02, 2009, 09:27:33 PM »

Well, finally watching the trailer at home with full sound capabilities, one thing's quite clear: while the level design and visuals may be done by Team Ninja, the audio is quite clearly being done in-house.  In true Nintendo fashion, the music is good and the voice acting is terrible (though not on that level of epic fail I associate with Star Fox Assault and Super Mario Sunshine).

10940

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Press Conference Live Blog

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:49:36 PM »

Well, Nintendo certainly made some big strides this year talking about actual games this year instead of glorifed toys, and from an objective perspective they did everything they needed to do.  They announced some big titles, hyped titles that needed hyping (Conduit), hyped the DSi, and threw in a big announcement at the end (Metroid: Other M).  Honestly, though, I came away from this conference rather indifferent.  Yeah, they announced 2 new Mario games, but neither really excite me as sequels to games I didn't particularly find thrilling either.  I'm very troubled by the thought of the legendarily sadistic Team Ninja making this new Metroid and I'm not thrilled with this new direction, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment.  Seriously, though, where was Zelda Wii and Pikmin 3?  Or something different like a Good (if I could bold that, underline it, add astericks, and top it off with big glowing neon signs I would) Star Fox game, or something completely new and interesting altogether?

Like I said, Nintendo did what it needed to do.  It just didn't have much this year that excites me that we didn't already know about.  Sure a hell of a lot better than Sony and Microsoft did this year, though.

10941

General Gaming / Re: Microsoft, Sony, and 3rd parties E3 2009 Conferences

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:25:49 PM »

I though their Eyetoy2 w/ motion controller bulb was interesting.
If all that stuff came with the system, it might be really popular with some decent software.

The thing is, I don't see that hardware making their system more popular because it's still too expensive for the average consumer who cares about motion-sensing to afford.  Plus, I only caught bits and pieces of that portion of the press conference but I don't believe they demo-ed that peripheral with any actual games, just tech demos.  If all these companies can't get motion sensing right with the Wii (which they've already had several years of practice with) I don't see why they'd suddenly get it right with Sony and make a compelling experience.  Sony's just started experimenting with this stuff, and Nintendo's already at least 2 years ahead of them.

10942

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Super Mario Galaxy 2

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:21:50 PM »

Snipper64 actually brought up something that's been bugging me for a few Mario games now: why doesn't Nintendo let you pick your stars as you go while in the levels?  I loved that aspect of Mario 64, where you could select one star; wander around; and accidentally find another more interesting star along the way.  They jetissoned that for Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy, and it's a real shame...it offered a level of freedom I miss in these later games, not to mention cut down on the repetition of "select a star; chase the star; grab the star; kick out to the hub world; select a star...".  Exploration might not be what the Mario games are all about, but it certainly doesn't hurt the experience and can make the more formulaic parts of the game more tolerable.

10943

General Gaming / Re: Microsoft, Sony, and 3rd parties E3 2009 Conferences

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:12:59 PM »

Well, as I had expected only The Last Guardian stood out with me among the crap that Sony was shoveling today in that Press Conference.  I love the FF franchise generally, but I despise MMOs so XIV is dead in the water already.  Didn't particularly like God of War 1, so God of War 3 just does nothing for me.  And outside a few games I can't see why anyone would care about a PSP that can only download games at this point.  Great show, Sony.  You made Microsoft and Nintendo's conferences look like works of art.

10944

TalkBack / Re: IMPRESSIONS: Dead Space Extraction

« on: June 02, 2009, 08:03:41 PM »

Glad to hear it plays better than it looked in the video walkthrough IGN put up a few days ago.

10945

TalkBack / Re: Mario Galaxy 2 Announced

« on: June 02, 2009, 07:59:41 PM »

It's a Mario Galaxy expansion pack with Yoshi levels.  Whatever.  I'm happy for those that loved Mario Galaxy and just wanted more, but so far that looks...exactly...like what this is.

Expansion pack? Ok.

A 2.5-3 year in development expansion pack (By the time it comes out). Must be the greatest expansion pack EVER. I also am interested in playing that God of War 1.3 expansion pack!

I don't like God of War, so I don't see why you made that comparison.  In any case, yes it is an expansion pack.  From the trailer it looks like it uses the same engine and has a handful (1-3) of new powers.  If they had any more than that, they'd have shown it off in the video.  The only really new thing about this game is Yoshi, which looks like a fun addition but not necessary a major change.

10946

General Gaming / Re: Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft E3 2009 Conferences

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:54:58 PM »

Wow, look at those graphics!

Oh wait, that's real life footage.

FMV: the cutting edge of gaming entertainment.
-Sony, 6/2/2009

10947

TalkBack / Re: PREVIEWS: Metroid: Other M

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:52:15 PM »

I cant' help but think that this would be a 1000 times cooler if it wasn't Metroid.  It looks like a sweet game and all but it doesn't look like it plays at all like Metroid.  It doesn't even quite look right either.

Is this what Nintendo is about now?  This stock group of characters that get shoehorned into different game ideas?  Why can't Nintendo make a game and if it isn't a sequel come up with new characters for it?

Metroid is a big deal because it this solitary exploration game NOT because it has this blond chick in a cool looking space suit with a gun hand.  Zelda is a big deal because it's this epic adventure game.  Mario is a big deal because it's an intricately designed platformer.  They aren't a big deal because it's an elf with a sword and shield and a short italian midget with a mustache and red cap.  These franchises are legendary because of the games behind them, not the characters involved.

This game may turn out to be awesome and I'm really hoping it will.  But it doesn't sound like it will give me my Metroid fix.  Samus Aran is not some generic stock character to throw into any game with realistic visuals in a space setting.

Wow, you just summed up my thoughts on the trailer better than I ever could.

10948

General Gaming / Re: Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft E3 2009 Conferences

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:50:55 PM »

Hideo Kojima to announce MGS Thunder...?

Nope, just more lame PSP stuff with Metal Gear Peacewalker.

10949

General Gaming / Re: Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft E3 2009 Conferences

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:49:07 PM »

*yawn*

Man, Sony's making Microsoft's lame press conference yesterday look polished and exciting.  Not a single interesting title so far, just a bunch of lame PSP stuff.

10950

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Metroid Other M

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:46:58 PM »

I'm sure the same complaints were made when Metroid Prime was revealed.

It just looks like a generic FPS with Metroid paint. Metroid is 2D... blah blah blah.
I'm not even really a metroid fan, since I've never really played any of the 2D version that much, but that trailer sold me on this game.

Had a feeling that argument would pop up.     Except the Metroid Prime games maintained the the general atmosphere and whatnot of the 2D games, and in the end they were still true to the Metroid license.  This game is clearly a different beast altogether from the games that came before it.  Whether that's good or not we'll have to see.  I havgn't dismissed it altogether...I'm just troubled by this shift in direction.

Nothing can quite top Infamous, I know.

Have you read my most-recent post on that game?  That game's so frickin' cheap right now that it's sitting in the corner having a Time Out right now.  My current gaming obsession is one I just picked up yesterday: Fallout 3.  *trembles*

Now that I can support you on!

Yeah, I found a PS3 Collector's Edition copy in a EB Games near me, so I picked it up just yesterday.  Man, that game is ****ing awesome with the atmosphere and the V.A.T.S. system and all.  Unfortunately, it's also really really really easy to get lost if you aren't continually looking at your miniscule map.

And getting back on topic, here's hoping this Metroid is a worthy addition to the license.  I just worry about Team Ninja of all teams working on this.  What, on Easy Difficulty is Samus going to be carrying around a Teddy Bear or something, while on Normal Difficulty the game slaughters you on the first level?