Messages

1

Nintendo Gaming / What are your favourite games and which future games do you desire?

« on: July 10, 2003, 03:00:07 AM »

I know, probably there were a lot of threads like this in the past, but what the heck, time for a new one. I will start:

Favourite games:

On Gamecube:
Supermonkey-Ball 1!
NBA Street 2!
Sega Soccer Slam!
Resident Evil 1!
SSX Tricky!
Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance!

On Dreamcast:
Headhunter!
Jet Grind Radio!
Soul Calibur!

Which games do I desire the most for the end of the year?:
SSX 3!
Soul Calibur 2!
Prince of Persia!
Headhunter 2!
Need for Speed-Street-Racing!

Now it's your turn.

Usul

2

Reader Reviews / NBA Street 2

« on: July 10, 2003, 02:35:43 AM »

This basketball-game has it all: Fantastic moves, great dunks, a lot of street-ball-courts, a great "build-up-your-team-and-become-a-street-ball-legend-mode", in which you have to visit all the famous street-ball-courts throughout the USA and beat the home-players, and the streetball-flair it offers is unbeatable, with Hip-hop-music and a witty commentator...

There are also a lot of NBA-stars in that game, even though I prefer playing in the "Be a legend"-mode where you have to play with No-names.

The best is that the multiplayer-part is as equally fun as the single-player-part.

My score for it: 9.5/10

Usul  

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Reader Reviews / Super Monkey Ball 2

« on: July 10, 2003, 02:21:39 AM »

First I played Supermonkey Ball 2, then I sold it and bought instead Supermonkey Ball 1, which is way better in my eyes. Why?

I will try to explain why I prefer the first part over the second:

1. The core-game, in which you have to move a tableau in such a way that the ball on it doesn't fall into a hole but instead makes it to the finish-line as fast as possible:
The core-game is considerably different between part 1 and part 2. While in part 1, the emphasis was put on the skill you had to achieve in navigating the ball through a long course, with many obstacles,  part 2's courses are short and relie on a special trick you had to find out. Once you knew the trick, the challenge was over.

The difference is that part 1 is much more fun multiplayer-wise.


2. The racing-mini-game, sort of a mario-kart-experience on six courses.
The racing in part 1 and 2 is pretty much the same, with one big exception. In part 2 there is a new "weapon" that allows you to fire three rockets at once. These rockets then hit every other opponent that has a higher ranking during the race. That means that not only the next in front of you will be hit, but all up to the first in place, which basically ruins the whole racing-system.
Part 1 is better because it lacks that uber-weapon.

3. The billiard-mini-game, which is played with 9 Balls. In this case part 2 is better because it offers not only 9-Balls but also 8-Balls.

Sure, there are other mini-games, some of them are great like the flying or the bowling, others are boring like the tennis-game, others plain suck like the soccer-game or the boat-race.

I give Supermonkey Ball 1: 8.5/10

and Supermonkey-Ball 2: 7/10.

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Reader Reviews / Wave Race Blue Storm

« on: July 10, 2003, 01:53:40 AM »

Waverace is a great game because of the water-physics, but it lacked gameplay-wise. Why didn't they include a lot more courses, like 20 or more. Why not including more action during the courses, for example waterfalls? Why are the courses so short?...

Does anyone remember Hydro-Thunder on dreamcast? It had fantastic courses, long and with a lot of interesting action along the way. The only thing it lacked was good water-physics. A combination of the water of Waverace with the courses of Hydro-Thunder, now that would have been extraordinary.

8 of 10 for Waverace from me.

Usul

5

Nintendo Gaming / New article on Nintendo´s future! Must-read!!!

« on: July 08, 2003, 11:47:47 PM »

lastexit,

my name is Usul and not Usal, your flaming of mine is pretty rediculous and normally I would just ignore it, but this topic is too important to be left for flamers.
You think it's just fine what Nintendo does, that it sells a console with mini-optical-discs that can't play DVD's, that it has developed a gamepad that is impractical for a lot of genres, that it ignores online-gaming. You think it's fine to have only a gaming-machine, but that is shortsighted.  

In these days develpoing games cost a lot of money, at least when it's a game with 3d-graphics, with FM-secuences and with motion-capturing, with recorded voices and orchestrated soundtrack... So, the thirdparty-developers think about what platforms could have a big enough userbase. They look at Sony, yes big enough, they look at Microsoft, still not big enough but could be big enough in a few months, they look at Nintendo, also not big enough, and the future is unclear at best.

Why is that so? Because the console is built only for gaming, but families who are deciding what to buy this christmas-season, they are looking at what they will get for their 99 $. They see the X-Box and the playstation 2 both can play music-cds and DVDs, at least potentially, and the gamecube not for the same money, the decision is pretty clear. At least the decision what not to get.

You perhaps think "I don't care for those families and other losers who don't know a bit about gaming", and for the near term that attitude might be right, but in the long run, Nintendo won't earn enough money to produce good enough future games, since more and more developers will leave the platform.

Nintendo still acts like it had a monopoly like back in the 80's, but those times are gone. Now Nintendo is the runner-up, and it has to offer the same functionality and compatibility as the competitors or even better.

It needs to be much more aggressive in pricing, in convincing thirdparty-developers, in marketing, and they should espescially stop their policy of developing so many "Mario"-games that cover all the genres, like fighting (Supersmash-Brothers), racing (Mario-Kart), tennis and golf... That scares off many thirdparty-developers, because they fear that Nintendo sells millions of their games, while their own games that offer even better gameplay won't sell.

That's why the N64 lost to the playstation 1, people waited for the next big Mario-side-game, while they ignored the other offerings. The other reason was off course the cartridge-system.

I could go on and on, but I don't have the time, perhaps tommorow.

IanSane, and ThePerm, you both made good points.

Usul

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Nintendo Gaming / New article on Nintendo´s future! Must-read!!!

« on: July 08, 2003, 01:35:18 AM »

Here is what Nintendo needs to do if it wants to achieve market-domination with its next-gen-console "Gamecube 2":

1. Backward-Compatibility with "Gamecube 1", and backward-compatibility with "playstation 1&2". Backward-compatibility was the only thing that let the playstation2 outsell the dreamcast a few years back. Yes that means no loger special-mini-optical-disc but the full dvd one, better still the new blue-ray-dvd that can store up to 50 Gigabytes data, better still make it a recordable one, with a TV-tuner, so everyone can store his game-progress right on the game-dvd, just like in the good old cartridge-time.

2. Stop doing remakes or ports of old games. That means no more Mario or Zelda, but actively creating new characters and new sorts of games.

3. Stop using cell-shading. Sure it saves time and money, but it's ugly, and it surely turns off new customers. Go instead for as much realism as is possible with the hardware, while still maintaining 60 fps. Yes, 60 fps are very important, not like the 30 fps in Mario Sunshine or Waverace.

4. Reduce the percentage you require the thirdparty-developers to pay for every selled game on your platform from now 20% to 5%. Then you can reduce the price-point for new games from now 50$ to 35$. At the start it means less money for you and the thirdparty-developer/publisher, but in the long-run, it means more people will buy consoles and games, and it will surely make up for the loss.

5. Every single commercial or advertising you do should promote thirdparty-games and not your own. Your own will be made known anyway.

6. The Gamepad is the most important thing for gaming, because through that the interaction with the game-world occurs. So, you must absolutely take care that the most improtant genres are played as well as possible with it. The "Gamecube 1"-pad failed really miserable, because it was espescially build to work perfectly with certain games(espescially Nintendo-games like Mario and Zelda), but to be a pain in the ass for others, because of the face-buttons, that are not useful for trendsport games, or beat-them-ups where you are required to use more than one button simultaneusly, and in a timed manner.
For racing-games the R and L - buttons aren't optimal. The triggers that the dreamcast-pad used were much better in that regard.

7. Offer broad-band-built-in-Online-capability right from the start. Even though it's not very useful for gaming-fun, because the gamers are not physically in the same room, but it's very important for the public mind. the buyer wants to buy a console that has the capability right out of the box, even though he won't use it very often.

8. Buy Sega for its knowledge in building consoles, and off course for the sports-series it offers, and off course for Sonic, Monkeyball and espescially for Virtua Tennis.

That's it.

Usul

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General Chat / Hello my friends on the planet with the water that falls from the sky

« on: June 13, 2003, 12:45:30 AM »

Paul. it was long ago that someone called me Paul.

Regardless, finally I have an idea how to beat the Harkonnens, it will go like this: Me and my rebels will open up and analyse the inner workings of the gamecube and rebuild it from ground up, so that we can mass-produce it. Same goes for the small game-discs. Then we will give them away to the troops of the Harkonnens. I know the Sardaukars, they will be sucked in by this gaming-machine, and their discipline and fighting-moral will go way down, espescially their awareness of danger.

The only problem is how to give it to them without evoking their skepticism. Perhaps by letting some smugglers lose their freight near the troops, so they can find it.

Then after a few days of observing them,  small units  will enter all of their troop-centers simultaneously, while my rebels will encircle all of the troop-centers. The natives here on this planet have the capability to hide in the desert under the sand and even move under it very slowly, without anyone noticing. It must happen in the full heat of the day, so that they don't expect any attack, and so it will be more difficult for them to be outside of their buildings.  The small units will then let explode some emp-bombs, so that their weapons and any technology espescially the communication-technology will stop to work.  By this the Harkonnen-troops will have to fight on our terms, without laserweapons, only with the good old knives and swords.  The small units I send in will be killed pretty fast by the Harkonnen-troops, but my rebels outside of the centers will come out of the sand and will derstroy all of the Harkonnen-troops, because we are much better trained on hand-to-hand  or knive-to-knive fighting. I expect that every single rebel of mine will at least beat five to ten of the Harkonnen-soldiers.

The rest will be done by the worms we will bring with us.

That success will provoke a revolution among the cities, that will end up with the Harkonnens dethroned.

I think the whole operation will take at least four weeks to execute, most of the time we will have to work on the mass-production of the gamecube, and off course I have to convince every sietch to send me all of their fighters.  In a week the hazardous storms will weaken and eventually cease, so that I can send my messengers to the other sietchs.

Hopefully I can convince them to take the risk of an open confrontation with the Harkonnens.

Usul

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General Chat / Hello my friends on the planet with the water that falls from the sky

« on: June 11, 2003, 11:34:17 PM »

To NintendoKid:

Actually I have a lot time on my hand due to the hazardous storms going on. We are closed in in our sietch here for weeks.

To Professional 666 and to Infernal Monkey:

I'm living on Arrakis since my parents and I came here fifty years ago. My father has been assasined during the second year on this planet and the Harkonnens have taken over the throne. Luckily my mother and I could escape and hide in the  outer regions of the endless deserts. We found friends among the natives and are since then building up a force to reconquer the throne.
On my former homeplanet the oldest of our species could become 220 years old, but thanks to the spice that is surrounding us our lifes are prolonged and we think that we could become up to 300 years old, if we don't die unnaturally, which happens more often than we like.

To Frodo Fett and JSasky:

This was not the first time I contacted your planet, decades ago I tried to establish a subspace-communication to my homeplanet (a girlfriend of mine was still there) and I somehow came out with it on your planet. A guy called, what was the name of him, damn memory, Franck Herby or something like that, answered me, and we came into conversation, and I told him what was going on here on my planet. He was eager to listen, though my prophetic talents told me that he thought I was just a dude making it all up, and that he would make a book out of it. I didn't care, it was a good possibility to talk the troubles off.

To The Perm,  Grey Ninja and Ian Sane:

Years after I talked to that Herby-dude, troubles came up again, and I thought that my brain would explode, so I configured the subspace-transfer-machine the same way again and contacted the earth, but this time another dude came on the phone. What was his name? I talked to him about the politics of the imperator that troubled me, and my growing powers which scared me. Greg, Giorgia Lucky, or was it Greg Luka, no, I think it was Giorge Lukas. Again I knew that he thought I was just another crack puffing dude, and my prophetic talents told me that he would make a movie out of my experiences, but I didn't care. It just helped me a lot to talk about my troubles with people that are far away from me.


Perhaps I should read the book of Herby and watch the movie of Giorge to amuse me and my rebels here.  

Usul  

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General Chat / Hello my friends on the planet with the water that falls from the sky

« on: June 10, 2003, 11:02:51 PM »

May I introduce myself? My name is Usul, I'm living on this planet full of sand. It's pretty hot here, and I don't ever seem to have enough water to fill a glass with. I'm preparing to lead my new friends here to rebel against the Harkonnens, but the last few weeks it was pretty boring because there is a big storm going on that forbids us to leave the sietch.  Luckily , shortly before the enduring storm broke out, a space-ship crashed down not far from our sietch.  The spies in it died, but they had an interesting gaming machine on board, called the gamecube...

I just love that racing-game called "Burnout 2", or that stupid looking italian-guy "Mario", or that really lovely "NBA Street Basketball 2". Thanks to my prophetic talents that allow me to see the future, I know I will have fun playing the games from the company called Ubi-Soft: "Prince of Persia" and "Project BG&E", a fighting game called "Soul Calibur 2" from Namco and a snowboard-game called "SSX 3" from EA. Well you should understand that on this planet there was never enough water, and it was never  cold enough to produce snow, but I still remember it from my homeplanet that I lived my first fifteen years on, so it should be a little nostalgia.

Off course the only way to get to playing these games is to survive the next few months, and that alone should prove very difficult, because of all the assasins, and the Harkonnen's troops consisting of Sardaukars.  The easiest way to achieve this would be to reconquer the throne, to defeat the Harkonnens and to somehow make a deal with the imperator which would allow me to become the new imperator, perhaps by marrying his daughter. The future is not as clear as I would wish...

Nonetheless, I'm writing this in order to get to know you all. What games do you play nowadays, and which games do you want to play at the end of the year. With the help of the subspace-transfer-technolgy, I'm able to read and write to you in real-time, even though there are many light-years between us. By that technology I was also able to watch some movies of you: I really liked the "Matrix part One", and I like your Hong-Kong-Movies: "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" and "Hero". Which movies do you like?

When the storm is over I think I will practice riding the big worms in the dunes a bit more... See you later

Usul

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Nintendo Gaming / GameCube controller, Really hurts...

« on: June 04, 2003, 11:49:22 PM »

I bought my gamecube a year and a half ago, and I was really fond of the gamecube-controller, because it fitted so nicely into my hand and because of the really good analog-stick. But a few months and quite a few games later I'm not that content and happy anymore.

First off, let me say that I really don't like the ps2-pad because it doesn't have any analog triggers, so it's horrible for racing-games. The X-box-pad (not the new Controller-S-version) on the other hand was much too clumsy and the face-buttons were aligned in a very bad way.

The gamecube-pad is just perfect for action-adventures and jump-and-run-games like Mario, Zelda,  and also good for ego-shooters like the James-Bond-games or Metroid Prime, but it's only hum-hum for racing-games, and really bad for trend-sports- and kung-fu-fighting-games.

Why? Because the face-buttons are proportioned and positioned in such a way, that you can differentiate the buttons just by feeling. The big-A-button in the center, the small B-button to the lower left... It's great for games where you don't have to press them all the time and where you don't have to press two or three of them simultaneously. But for games which ask you to perform tricks in a creative way, that buttons are a pain in the ass: SSX-Tricky, Mortal Kombat DA, Soul Calibur 2... are not fun on the gamecube but hard work.

What makes it worse is that there is not a single third-party-pad for the gamecube that offers normal face-buttons like on the Dreamcast-pad or the new Controller-S-pad from Microsoft. Those are/were really perfect pads for the games I just mentioned.

I wish there would be an adapter, so I could just plug the ControllerS-X-box-pad into the gamecube, or a Dreamcast-to-gamecube-adapter, but I don't think that will happen. So at the end of the year I will buy an X-box and will play all the fighting and trendsport-games on that box, and keep my gamecube for all the action-adventures.

Usul