Messages

201

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zombi U, I'm warming up to it

« on: December 12, 2012, 12:47:57 PM »

I don't understand how it is scary, but the game makes me nervous of the unknown. Games like Amnesia, Slender, Dead Space, Fear, etc are definitely more scary, but the hard difficulty compounds that slight fear.

I haven't played Amnesia or Slender (though I've always been tempted to pick up Amnesia on Steam), but I played both Dead Spaces and just the first Fear, and I didn't find those scary at all, even any of the parts in Fear where Alma screws with you and there's those weird ghosts shooting out at your from the flames.  Hell, you wanna talk about repetitive combat, let's talk Dead Space.  "Oh, time to shoot off more limbs.  Again."

I think the thing in ZombiU that...if not scares me, then at least makes me very uneasy, is that this game doesn't seem to be following normal game conventions/limitations/design choices.   

For example, I got up the nerve to  start the game again after losing 4 survivors trying to defend the safehouse.  When I started it up, the zombies were right outside the door to the room/hallway that is immediately connected to your actual "safe-room" where your bed and computer is.  They swarmed in and I ran back into my actual safe room, right in front of the computer monitors. 

Now, in normal games that have these kinds of "hub" rooms or "non-combat rooms,"  enemies NEVER enter these rooms.  It's like some kind of invisible wall blocks them.   Like, for example in Dead Space, you will NEVER be attacked by Necromorphs in a room where there is an inventory machine.   You will never be surprised by a Necromorph while using an upgrade machine.  It could be a game design decision or a limitation of the scripting engine, but in any case, they never enter your safe-room.  The room where YOU FRIGGIN SPAWN AFTER YOU DIE.

Well guess what?  Last night, the zombies said "screw you, basic gaming conventions" and CAME INTO MY SAFE ROOM.   Like, right next to my bed!  I barely fought them off, I survived, used all of my 6 measly bullets, had 1/4 health left, but I did it.  The floor between my bed and the computer was littered with corpses.

Oh, and the fact that you have motion sensing radar, but it's mostly inaccurate?  That drives me crazy. 

202

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zombi U, I'm warming up to it

« on: December 11, 2012, 03:41:35 PM »

i feel like your post would of sold me on the game if I hadn't already bought it.

Yeah, and I had read reviews about how the game was very difficult, each zombie encounter was significant, your character is more "realistically" powerless, etc...

Honestly, this made me want the game more, so I decidedly I didn't want to wait until it went on sale, as all 3rd party launch games tend to do, so I paid full price and just downloaded it.

I kind of regret doing that now.   

The game succeeds at everything it sets out to do.  It fulfills every expectation I had of the game.  Only, like a monkey's paw, it does it too well.  In a sick and twisted way.  I wanted a game that would really scare me.  It does, in such an unsettling way.   I am completely sucked in to the game, in how everything just seems real.   I really feel like that zombie is lurching towards me, and when I see one, just one, pure terror seizes my insides.

And that is the problem.   I'm definitely incredibly scared, I'm just not sure if I'm having fun.  I'm not relaxing, that's for sure.

If anything, instead of selling and promoting the game, I really want to warn people:  this is really, really scary.  It is NOTHING like any horror game you've ever played.  It is not like L4D, or Dead Island, or COD Zombie mode.  There is nothing cinematic or exhilerating about this game--  it is lonely, it is frightening, and I can't imagine anyone playing this game for more than an hour at a time, especially the way that I play, with all the lights off and in the dead of night--- this is the way I always play games, because I've got a wife and kids who are sleeping.

I let a cousin try it and he gave up after about twenty minutes because it was too scary.

The tension in this game is unbelievable!

I think maybe more people should try it out this way.   If I had gotten to play a demo, maybe, one that went from the beginning of the game to....the end of the supermarket level, maybe (literally, the 2nd mission of the game), I might have reconsidered buying this game. 

203

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zombi U, I'm warming up to it

« on: December 11, 2012, 12:40:51 PM »

Even if I want this game...I could never play it.  Games this intense freak me out, and it is basically impossible for me to play.  Resident Evil 4...I tried to play the game once...and the first level, freaked me out so much, I couldn't play it again.

Okay, so I have to admit, I'm about 2 hours into this game, and I might have to give up.

This game is too scary.  No, screw that.  This game is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.

I've played all the RE games, Fatal Frames 2 and 3, the better Silent Hills, Dead Space 1 and 2, Alone in the Dark, 7th Guest, Left4Dead 1/2.  You name a horror game, I've played it.   I can watch Suspiria in the dark, alone.   I will walk away from torture films like Hostel not because they disgust me, but because they are boring. 

The issue with a lot of horror games is that they try to ape horror films.  I'm not feeling that at all here.  This game feels like a completely immersive, well-polished, well designed simulation of what it actually must be like during the zombie apocalypse.  I mean, outside of the loading screens, I haven't heard any music.  At all.  And the loading screen music seems to be written to want to induce a heart attack.  You feel week, you never feel safe at all, and the whole new survivor / extra life mechanic is incredibly unsettling, because while it isn't really final, it "feels" final because you actually have to go and find your undead corpse.   

Last night, I lost 3 survivors trying to fend off an attack on my safehouse.  My friggin safehouse!  Where I'm supposed to feel safe!  My last survivor died right outside the room where you "respawn."  I'm afraid to go back and "respawn" again because I'm worried that zombies will be right there, in the friggin room!

So last night, I just turned it off, jumped back to the home menu, I didn't give a crap whether it saved properly or not.  And now it's morning, and I'm slowly working up the nerve to try again tonight.  But I don't know.  I am  honestly terrified constantly while I'm playing the game, and that is not a fun emotional state to be in during your rest and recreation time.

204

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 11, 2012, 12:02:48 PM »

Ah, I forgot you have an enclosure. That makes sense then to avoid having to switch the thing on and such. If your WiiU dies, you still got a data problem. Get an external man! Mine turns on when the WiiU boots up and it feels so liberating having all that storage ready to fill up.

Well, it's easy to say "go buy a new expensive external hard drive" when I have a perfectly good enclosure and spare hard drive lying around.   Tell me, do you enjoy being rich and being able to buy stuff willy nilly whenever you want?

Disclosure:  Just kidding about the "rich" comment.   If you did a search on my recent posts in the forums, you would see that I just posted about comparing the internet browser speed of the Gamepad to my brand new Ipad 4.  :-)  Hypocrite, thee is I!

205

Podcast Discussion / Re: Episode 317: Highway Through the Great Divide

« on: December 11, 2012, 11:57:48 AM »

Re:  The "Tablet" controller and its fidelity/power mentioned by Jonny

I've also noticed this, but having tried Netflix, Youtube, and the Internet browser on the Gamepad, I'm also amazed by how fast they are.  I've got the brand new Ipad 4 and I've spent a lot of time with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and the Gamepad beats those tablet devices easily, hands down.   Especially surfing the web.  Pages load so incredibly fast--- I think webpages load about as fast as Chrome on my quad-core overclocked PC, and definitely faster than Firefox.   But Netflix, I've noticed, is a lot faster once the app actually launches-- you can scroll through pages, open new genre pages, VERY quickly.  Once again, faster than my Ipad 4.  Significantly and noticeably.

Of course, I know why this is:  the gamepad is NOT A TABLET.  It is connected to a console which for obvious reasons has a lot more power than an Ipad 4 or any other tablet.  But because you're only holding the gamepad in your hand, it gives off that illusion of being a tablet, and probably the fastest tablet on the market on that.  It doesn't help that like many of the douchebags who buy Ipads, I use mine predominantly in the home, on the couch or in bed.  So I'm not affected by the whole "Well, I can't take this Gamepad to Starbucks and use it."

206

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 10, 2012, 04:10:12 PM »

I'm curious, why are you transferring your stuff back onto the internal storage? The bottleneck is certainly the WiiU's internal storage write speed for transferring stuff, but I doubt it affects loading time negatively for games.

Why?  Well, because I don't trust technology, I'm afraid of my harddrive failing one day and taking my save file with it :-)

But also, I realize that at this point, I was being silly moving everything onto the external when I had plenty of space on the internal for the 3 games that I own (Mario, Zombiu, Trine 2).   And I save myself from walking over to my media shelves, bending down to where the hard drive is, flipping the power switch on the back....

207

TalkBack / Re: Bit.Trip Saga Grooving Its Way to eShop

« on: December 07, 2012, 04:53:10 PM »

That's suspicious timing, since that game has plummeted in price for physical copies on Amazon...they can be had for like 15 or so bucks now.

208

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 07, 2012, 09:06:41 AM »

I would also add that data transfer rates seem fast....very fast for a Nintendo product.   I moved Zombi U, nearly 6 gigs, onto my USB enclosure in about as many minutes (5 or 6).

Whoa, I think I have to amend my previous statement.   Data transfer from Wii U to USB storage is very fast.  The other way around, however.....

I changed my mind, decided to just keep my games on the Wii U internal storage for the short term, and thought "Hey, I'll just pop it back onto the internal storage."   30 MINUTES LATER, still moving Zombi U back, at about 80% complete.   I don't know whether the bottleneck here is my USB hard drive's read speed, or the Wii U's write speed.   But the difference is huge.  Literally, about 1 gig per minute leaving the Wii U.  Coming back to the Wii U...I'm guessing Zombi U will take about 40 to 45 minutes.

Anyone else experience this?  Is it just my crappy USB hard drive, or a poor Nintendo engineering decision?

209

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 07, 2012, 08:31:33 AM »

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

I had read somewhere that those were not recommended by Nintendo...something about the spin rates of the platters affecting the way the Wii U accesses data?   

And is it me, or is there no way to just keep the save data on the Wii U internal memory....the Wii U seems to just move everything wholesale onto the USB disk, which is kinda lame, because on the off-chance that my USB hard drive fails one day (which is certainly possible), I'd rather not lose my save data as well as my game file.

210

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 07, 2012, 08:26:04 AM »

I would also add that data transfer rates seem fast....very fast for a Nintendo product.   I moved Zombi U, nearly 6 gigs, onto my USB enclosure in about as many minutes (5 or 6).   I still remember fridge cleaning on the Wii OG.  Man, just transferring 10 VC NES games seemed to take forever!

211

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: December 07, 2012, 08:22:00 AM »

As Louieturkey said, these SHOULD work.  I just wonder if they really will, since these can used just about any hard drive you have lying around.

They could have a problem with them being IDE drives instead of SATA drives.  But as long as the controller in the enclosure does a good job of converting the signal from IDE to USB, it shouldn't have any problem.

Finally got my Wii U back from Redmond yesterday, and I'm happy to say that my external enclosure works perfectly, even though it's just a super-old IDE drive.   I would highly recommend this method if you've got any old harddrive lying around and you want to save some money for your Wii U storage solution.

212

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Help/Question about Wii U audio

« on: December 05, 2012, 12:15:28 AM »

My Wii U is still in the shop, (but its tracking number tells me it's arriving tomorrow)

However,

I'm not sure you'll be 100% happy with your plan to plug in to the gamepad.  That will work for Wii U software, but the Wii U will disable the gamepad for Wii and VC, which I'm guessing will also disable the headphone jack.

213

TalkBack / Re: Thrii Has No SD Card Slot

« on: December 02, 2012, 12:07:14 PM »

This continues to baffle me. Who exactly is going to want this thing? With so many feature taken out it feels overpriced at $99.

Most definitely participating in the PSP GO school of design here.

214

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U console freezing up

« on: November 29, 2012, 02:36:09 PM »

I called Nintendo about the problem and they are replacing my Nintendo Land disk. This is weird, right? The problem is almost certainly not the Nintendo Land disk?

Eh....I would take what NOA customer service has said with a grain of salt.   I've had to call NOA about 4 different times since the Wii U launch (because my Wii U bricked), and I sort of get the feeling that they've staffed up with some new, less-knowledgable, and newly trained employees recently.   

On launch day the guy I talked to was fine, but all of their computers crashed and I had to call back the next day.   

Call #2 was fine, except the kid apparently clicked the wrong button on his screen and physically mailed me a mailing label, instead of sending it electronically via email. 

Call #3 was when I found out what the kid from Call #2 did wrong, but this other kid told me that he couldn't undo the first kid's mistake.   

Call #4, with a woman who seemed far more knowledgable, told me the kid from Call #3 was wrong and she could totally undo the mistake that the kid from Call #2 made.  Which she did, and all was good.

215

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: November 28, 2012, 07:19:46 PM »

What's an enclosure? I know what a partition is, but I'm not sure.

An enclosure is for making an internal hard drive into an external usb hard drive

I brought it up, so I'll try to be a bit more descriptive.  It's basically this little metal box that you stick any old hard drive into.   Great way to repurpose an old harddrive that has outlived its usefulness for you in your main computer.

If you have an older drive (let's say, under 500 gb) then it's most likely and IDE drive (connector is about 2 inches wide).  If you have a newer drive (1 tB or more) then it's most likely a SATA drive (connector is a tiny little red thing).

Enclosures tend to run between $20 to $40.  Very easy to set up (literally, pop it open, stick in old hard drive, connector wire, close it up, you're ready to rock).  Here's the one I plan to  use:

You should also be warned that enclosures come in 2 general flavors, 2.5 and 3.5.   3.5 inchers tend to be for old, normal sized hard drives you'd find in your PC.   They need to be plugged in with a separate AC adapter for power.   2.5 inchers are smaller harddrives for notebook computers.   They don't need an external power source, as they come with those little y-shaped usb cables (1 for data, 1 for power).  But according to Nintendo, these are not recommended for Wii U use.


As Louieturkey said, these SHOULD work.  I just wonder if they really will, since these can used just about any hard drive you have lying around.

216

Nintendo Gaming / Re: WiiU external hard drive

« on: November 28, 2012, 12:22:33 PM »

Can anyone confirm that partitioning the disk indeed won't work? It would be a waste to use all of my 600Gb hard drive just for a dozens Gb actually needed for Wii U games.

If not i will just use my two old ass 150Gb IDE-hard drives with IDE to USB connectors. It's not gonna look pretty though.

That brings up a good question.  Anyone try or have issues with sticking old hard drives into hard drive enclosures yet (you know, the enclosures you can get for like $20 on Newegg?)?   I have an old 300 GB IDE drive (that's right, IDE) in a $20 Rosewill enclosure, but I have yet to try it out because my Wii U is still "in the shop" up in Redmond.  I figure, as MrPhishfood pointed out, that since enclosures are cheap and "no frills,"  my chance of success is high.

217

TalkBack / Re: Chasing Aurora Review

« on: November 28, 2012, 12:16:51 PM »

@leahsdad

Well in the PC version you can only pivot the view by 90 degree increments, right? In the Wiiware version you can make the most minute adjustements. To me it sounds like that would completely change the game, but I haven't played the Steam version. Wiiware just sounded superior in every way.

Hmm...actually, you're right, you can only pivot by 90 degree increments in the steam version.   Wiiware lets you pivot by tiny increments?  Having played the steam version, that is sounding very...enticing.  I'll be honest, I got the steam version because it was cheap.   But why would they do that?   Why would they gimp the rotation like that?   There's no reason they couldn't replicate that on a traditional game controller.   

I wonder if the game looks nicer on Wiiware too.   Because on Steam, maybe because it was higher definition, it looked pretty darn ugly.

I may be tempted to double dip if the eshop ever had a sale.   And if we got something better on the Wii U than Wii Mode, at least something to let me play it on the gamepad.   Or if Nintendo actually cared about Wiiware.

I think I should stop now, I basically brought up enough content for at least 5 different forum threads

218

TalkBack / Re: Chasing Aurora Review

« on: November 27, 2012, 04:21:55 PM »

I loooved AYIM, especially the "doorknob" controls on the Wii. Great little game!

Really?  Hmm....to be fair, I played that game on steam, and I thought the controls were HORRIBLE.   But I also didn't like the level design, all that brown earth stuff, and the sound effects were amusing for 5 minutes but I got really sick of them very quickly (all that "Shh!" or "Crash!" whispered into a microphone stuff).

Are these different on the WiiWare version?

Oh, and I didn't like the physics that were involved with the game mechanics.   When I first started playing that game, I tried to jump off a surface and, while in the air, rotate the world A LOT, really quickly, to sort of "thread the needle" and get through that level in a fast and clever way.  Only you retain, and in fact gain, momentum the longer you're in freefall, so if you rotate a lot, quickly, while "in the air," then you will surely die a horrible death when you finally hit a surface.   I'm guessing that was a very intentional design decision, but I think that decision is bad, because it is anti-fun.  That decision tells me "hey buddy, don't have fun with this and play around with rotating the world too much.   Take it slow, or I'll punish you."  When you think about games where they used this threading-the-needle-by-messing-with-gravity mechanic well (some of the hardest levels in VVVVVV, for instance, or some of the star-pulling bits in SMG2), those are awesomely fun.   

Maybe they wanted the physics to be realistic, or maybe they wanted me to go through the level slowly, but I was not happy with that at all.

219

TalkBack / Re: Chasing Aurora Review

« on: November 27, 2012, 12:14:38 PM »

This is very disappointing. It was one of the launch eShop games I was looking forward to the most.

Well...And Yet It Moves was not exactly a great game.  Or a good game, for that matter.  But it got a whole lot of hype. 

220

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Land

« on: November 22, 2012, 01:50:44 AM »

Until my Wii U bricked, my daughter's favorite (and the one whose concept impressed me the most) was the Yoshi Fruit Cart game.   Awesome.   Something that I would have never thought of.   My kid loved it until she got to the 5th or 6th stage (the one with, like, 20 holes) and her mouth just dropper wide open and she said "Dad, I can't do this."    Maybe that was a little too steep a difficulty incline, eh?

221

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U console freezing up

« on: November 20, 2012, 03:22:19 PM »

That's how my Wii U bricked.  I had already applied that huge update, bought, downloaded, and installed Mario, played Nintendo Land for a few hours, played a level of Mario, went back to the eshop to download ZombiU and Trine 2, then went to the download manager to watch the progress of those downloads. 

Hard lock on the Download Manager loading screen.   Unplugged the power.  Waited.  Plugged it back in.  Brick.  Red light of death.

Damn. I'm sorry that happened to you. Of course the warranty covers it, but it still sucks. I really really hope they fix this SOON. I don't want this happening to me or anyone else. Just know that your situation will help force Nintendo to address it so it doesn't happen again.

Oh, no worries.   Nintendo is taking care of it, they were very gracious and apologetic, and my customer service experience was probably the best I've ever had, definitely far better than my experiences dealing with Microsoft, HP, Cisco, my internet provider, Amazon, etc..   I never got transferred or "escalated," was never on hold for more than a 2 minutes, I was obviously speaking with someone who was in my country (US), most likely up in Redmond WA.  Just when you call the NOA help line, you can speak to an actual human being in less than 2 minutes, with just 3 button presses.   It's pretty amazing.

And hey, I got to try Nintendo Land, which is mind-blowing IMHO, and I wasn't as much hung up on not being able to play on launch day as much as having the console to play during the winter break from school, when I don't have to wake up at 5AM every morning to get breakfast ready and pack my kid's lunch.   

And while I know that my experience has been mirrored by many other people, it seems that the vast majority of people who bought on launch day have had smooth experiences.   

222

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Wii U console freezing up

« on: November 20, 2012, 11:15:51 AM »

That's how my Wii U bricked.  I had already applied that huge update, bought, downloaded, and installed Mario, played Nintendo Land for a few hours, played a level of Mario, went back to the eshop to download ZombiU and Trine 2, then went to the download manager to watch the progress of those downloads. 

Hard lock on the Download Manager loading screen.   Unplugged the power.  Waited.  Plugged it back in.  Brick.  Red light of death.

223

TalkBack / Re: Server Stress and Broken Systems Vex Wii U Launch

« on: November 19, 2012, 01:08:57 PM »

Just thought I'd share that NOA has been very good about this....I like how I was on hold for no longer than 5 minutes before talking to a human being (who was obviously in the North America and not in some other country).   Didn't get transferred to someone else, like an "escalation manager" or "higher tier technician" or whatever.   And since it's launch, they're doing expedited shipping, for free.   They projected turnaround time for me to be about 7 business days, from the moment I drop it off at UPS.  And I was on the phone for a total of 17 minutes.

You might think that what I described should be no less than expected from a company whose product I purchased on launch MORNING, but...we've all called customer support for other products and had far worse treatment.  Apple, HP, Seagate, I'm looking at you.

Not being a fanboy, but just saying...

Oh, and when they put you on hold, the OoT music is a nice touch.

224

TalkBack / Re: Server Stress and Broken Systems Vex Wii U Launch

« on: November 18, 2012, 08:57:07 PM »

My Wii U bricked itself 40 minutes ago.  ARgh.   What has been termed on Gaf as "Red Light of Death."   On the phone with NOA now.    Being good about it.  Funny how they asked me "So, on what date did you purchase your Wii U?"  I just answered "Um....today."

225

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Missing Club Nintendo insert in Nintendo Land

« on: November 18, 2012, 07:50:41 PM »

Darn, mii too!  (see what I did there?)

OH, I'm also a Black Wii U.