Messages

1201

TalkBack / Re: The Positives and Pitfalls of Review Democratization

« on: April 10, 2017, 09:08:10 AM »

Tangentially related question, but do consumers really use metacritic? I feel like that website, along with things like Rotten Tomatoes are more commonly sourced by the industry itself and "reception" sections on Wikipedia articles, than by actual individuals.

However, that's an entirely unfounded hypothesis. Would be curious to hear if anyone on here uses it a lot? I've looked at Metacritic a few times for games, less so for movies, but never found it super useful. The user reviews are often absolute garbage for one, and what I personally dislike is that the Critic scores use so many websites I've never heard of.

Just clicked the first game on the site, Persona 5 right now, and you've got notable sources like the Guardian, Washington Post, EGM, Gamespot etc. alongside things called SixthAxis and Cheat Code Central. Not to disparage those websites, since I don't know them, but that's not very helpful to me. Similar thing with Rotten Tomatoes.

It's probably my fault for defaulting only to places I've heard of and not stepping out that comfort zone, but I'm just trying to illustrate how the score aggregators don't really help out an average joe like me since they're not at all aligned with my personal outlets of choice. Not saying they SHOULD only display my preferred filter bubble, that'd ultimately be even worse probably. But yeah in reality that's what I'll end up doing myself. Just wondering if others have similar experiences with review aggregators?

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General Chat / Re: Music

« on: April 10, 2017, 06:46:35 AM »

Two of my favorite bands finally got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday: Yes and Journey.

Thanks Phil now I'll have Owner of a lonely Heart stuck in my head the rest of the day.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Switch Discussion Thread (The early days)

« on: April 06, 2017, 07:20:10 PM »

Sounds like Square Enix is considering even more ports for Switch. I know a lot of people would rather see original games, like Project Octopath Traveler, and I would as well, but I think it's still encouraging that Square Enix is throwing a lot of support behind the console early.

Neat! So, best case scenario, what would be in the realm of possibilities? Would NieR Automata make it, or am I setting too high expectations there? I'd be down for that.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch/Wii U Indie Game Review/First Impressions Thread

« on: April 06, 2017, 01:00:51 PM »

Sky Force Anniversary was recently released on Wii U, a port from the 2014 release on PS4 and the like... Which in turn is an HD remake of the 2004 game Sky Force, are you keeping up? Not sure how the Wii U version differs drastically, apart from cloning the game to the Gamepad, but hey it's finally here! This is from a Polish studio who mostly do mobile games and versions of Sky Force.

So Sky Force Anniversary is a vertical shoot-em-up, and feels a bit like a steampunk~ish variation on Capcom's 1942 shooter. You pilot a lil' ship that needs to take down an entire army by itself, over varying terrains such as oceans, seasides, weapons factories, caves and stuff. Some of that terrain is destructible, though it's mostly limited to towers and crates and the like.

SKy Force is definitely on the forgiving side of the shmup genre, you can take several hits before dying, and by collecting stars from downed foes you can upgrade your ship. (My recommendation: start by adding side-cannons and the missiles, before expanding health and getting special weapons!) Importantly, you can keep the stars you collect even if you get shot down. This means that while failing a stage 5 times in a row you're at least getting a more powerful ship.

There's also temporary firepower upgrades, and permanent cards to collect which can do things like add extra drones for more firepower, or increase your movement speed. Lastly you can also rescue stranded paratroopers by hovering over them for a bit.

By clearing stages with various conditions (saving all paratroopers, not getting hit, destroying X amount of foes) you gain medals - get all 4 medals on a stage and you can play that stage on a higher difficulty setting. So with 9 levels, each with 4 difficulty levels, and 4 medals per difficulty... there's 144 medals in total you could strive for. If that's not enough, the game also features 2-player local co-op (Pro Controller support waddup) aaaaaand there's an online Tournament mode every weekend.

This all sounds great! Are there no negatives? Well I guess that the Tournament mode being locked to weekends only is a minor annoyance, and the medals are mostly just the same 4 goals over and over again. The sprites of the two characters don't match the artstyle, but you don't see them often. I suppose not all the bossfights are equally cool, the first two levels pit you against giant frigates so facing a helicopter in the next may feel like a step down.
Also I wanna complain about the loadtimes, which feel just a biiiit too long, especially if you accidentally exit out of a stage by pressing the wrong button and needing to wait another 30 seconds for it to load back up.



In summary: Sky Force Anniversary packs a lot of bang for your buck, looks pretty, has very precise controls, and is surprisingly welcoming for newer players to the genre thanks to its permanent ship upgrades. You could totally grind your way through it if you have the patience.
While the loadtimes feel excessive, and I would've perhaps liked a boss rush mode, I have very little to complain here. If you're into shmups or think you might be, Sky Force Anniversary comes highly recommended. 9/10

1205

General Gaming / Re: Crossover Game/Switchin' Up Tired Franchises Idea Thread

« on: April 02, 2017, 05:02:29 PM »

Ah okay, gotcha. Yeah that'd be super hard to balance, track designs would need to accomodate so many different vehicle classes... but cool idea! Not crazy about animals requiring constant QTE's but I suppose you need to give them some sort of challenge.

I liked the personalised karts from Mario Kart Double Dash and Wii, like DK's barrel, the pram for baby Mario, and Diddy's train and stuff. So expanding on that with F-Zero cars, have Samus in the morph ball, a few of the racing Pokémon like Ponyta, get a SKell in there from Xenoblade... Be cool for sure!!

1206

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U) Out now!

« on: April 02, 2017, 03:51:59 PM »

I hung out with a friend of mine today, the only one I have that owns a Wii U.  I asked if he has Zelda and he does but he's barely played it and he got it on day one!  He's off the Great Plateau and is earning money to buy stuff.  He has literally done no shrines aside from the Great Plateau ones.  He feels the sheer scope of the game is overwhelming and just doesn't seem that excited about it.  I was rather surprised.  Everyone at work that has this game is nutso over it.  Everyone on any forum I visit is crazy about it.  He is literally the only person I've encountered who has played this game that seems rather lukewarm on it.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Whenever you hear people rave about "I spent 50-100 hours on this!", I mean, that's like 100 episodes of TV shows, or 3 re-reads of War and Peace. Daunting as hell.

I've not played an open world game since Spider-Man 2 (discounting the 2 hours in Xenoblade X), and never really used crafting systems before. The prospect of Zelda is both thrilling but also a bit off-putting, if only because it seems like such a massive commitment. Instead I've been playing Sky Force Anniversary, a simple arcade shmup.

Will certainly get Zelda soon, but just saying I think I understand where your friend is coming from. If you look at Zelda as this monolithic entity that must be consumed whole, rather than a whole bunch of bite-sized chunks to dip into at your leisure, it's just a very daunting proposition.

Plus I mean, people who rave about it on forums are kind of self-selecting right. For every 5 hype posts there's surely someone out there who got sucked in by the hype and "doesn't get it" or gave up early. Reckon once the honeymoon phase is over we'll see more critical takes on BotW emerge.

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General Gaming / Re: Crossover Game/Switchin' Up Tired Franchises Idea Thread

« on: April 02, 2017, 03:25:01 PM »

It would be the Smash Bros of racing. I would so play the **** out of this.

There's this WiiWare/Wii U eShop title called TNT Racers which married kart racing and Smash Bros. in a slightly different way. Basically all the lil' cars need to keep up, if one falls too far behind or gets smashed off the course/screen with one of the weapons they lose a life, like in Smash Bros.
That gives you two win-states, either finish first, or smash off all the competing race cars. Like a wackier, less complex version of F-Zero's death race.

It's just an overhead racer, but I think there's more potential for this concept. Maybe mix it up with your idea, shabam Smash Karts let's go.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: E3 2017: REGGIE GOES BIG

« on: March 27, 2017, 07:14:04 PM »

There's also Pikmin 4, which we already know exists. That's not as much of a heavy hitter, but it'll be there and be a nice complement to the bigger announcements.

Oh yeah good point!!! Would that be a 2018 release you think? Do you think things like a new Monster Hunter and/or Animal Crossing could also be on the horizon? Those would go over very well I imagine and if there's some sort of connectivity between the mobile Animal Crossing and a new game on 3DS or Switch the mobile title could hopefully spur on some sort of Pokemon Go effect.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: E3 2017: REGGIE GOES BIG

« on: March 27, 2017, 06:58:08 PM »

I mean, if they want to totally kill it and "win the show" they should drop several big title announcements in my opinion. I agree with Oedo that those titles should all be there, but then the narrative will still be "Nintendo shows not much news, Switch line up remains sparse, yeah we knew about all of these already" etc.

So here's my completely unreasonable line-up I would want to title drop if I was Nintendo's PR and had somehow gotten all these very unlikely projects in near-complete stages without anyone noticing until now:

Bayonetta 3, just to really rub it in once more. Show off those perfect 10 scores for the previous one. Oh yeah and it comes with free copies of the first two games too, so no "I didn't get a Wii U so I can't be up to date on the story" excuses either.

Metroid. A big one. Dual release with a side-scroller on 3DS set after Fusion. Flashy, no Federation storyline, no voice acting. Call it Metroid Andromeda just to stir up ****. It could be sidescrolling, something different, or Prime 4 but...

New Retro Studios project. Preferably a unique, new IP with Splatoon-esque immediate broad appeal. If they're doing Prime 4, then it should just be them dropping 2 games in 2018 like it ain't nothing.

Beyond Good & Evil 2. Platform exclusive. And we're not Kickstarting it it *side-eye Shenmue which inevitably got hype during the Sony conference* oh and also Jade will be in Smash 5 which we're teasing this show but won't be out for another year or two.

Of course none of these will happen and I'm being a totally entitled fanboy now. But it'd be great marketing and it's just fun to daydream haha.

1210

Reader Reviews / Re: FAST RMX (Switch)

« on: March 27, 2017, 11:42:01 AM »

Cool thanks, then I'll hold out for the Switch version. Still secretly wishing for an F-Zero entry on Switch but will accept this as substitute!

1211

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Mario Sports Superstar amiibo Card Production flaw - one in every pack!

« on: March 27, 2017, 11:39:41 AM »

Soooooooo that link's asking me to verify being 18 or older...

Ya know what I don't even wanna know why the Reddit Amiibo page is for adults only.

1212

Reader Reviews / Re: FAST RMX (Switch)

« on: March 26, 2017, 08:39:40 AM »

Hey Phil did you ever get to try the Wii U one? I heard it was exceedingly difficult, any inkling whether this one is tougher/easier? Definitely looking to pick one of the two up someday, but may go for the Switch one once I get that device a year+ down the road.

1213

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: March 24, 2017, 08:27:08 AM »

1-2 Switch well past the 100k mark seems pretty good to me? Also enjoy seeing Bomberman in these charts - I hope they can work something out to have him in the next Smash Bros. Not sure if 50k sales is good for the return of such a dormant franchise, but hey.

Also just a question but didn't Japan also have Disgaea 5 on launch for Switch? That hasn't been in any of these charts (yet), gotta assume they were hoping for more.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 12: It's true! We rue this Wii U review too. Final Round!

« on: March 24, 2017, 08:21:13 AM »

Omg finally had time to check back in today after some crazy days, this was a nice surprise! Sorry Fatty The Hut, though you almost got me! Also major thanks Khush for hosting this game and thanks to everyone for playing. It's probably for the best that the final game remains a Wii U exclusive actually, that sounds like useful data for R.O.B.64

If there's another one of these someday I'll be in for sure!

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 12: It's true! We rue this Wii U review too. Final Round!

« on: March 21, 2017, 06:56:29 PM »

Ermegerd do I stick with Yoshi, or do I go with Fatty The Hut's last safe pick? It feels like Toad has been chosen more times... But it makes sense to make Yoshi the bomb... Especially because I think I've switched with every pick... Unless that's what they WANT me to think! A bluff? But what if it's a double bluff? A triple bluff pile-up? A true batman gambit?

Fatty's wise words ring true, and I've only played Yoshi's Woolly World, so if one can only win by not playing, surely the safe pick must be Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker!!!?!?!?!!!!?!??!

*chews every fingernail*

1216

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Indies for the Switch!

« on: March 19, 2017, 06:45:18 PM »

(Also gives me an itch to go over my old game design notes from high school and I had plans for a dinosaur themed game. Might be able to do more with it now that I know a thing or two about programming.)

Sounds like a pretty neat pitch, but it feels like something's missing still. Might I suggest adding a fox?

1217

General Gaming / Re: What is your most recent gaming purchase?

« on: March 19, 2017, 02:57:59 PM »

No offense, but I hope that was a problem with your disc. I have a copy of that Sonic racing game that I haven't opened yet, so I hope I don't have issues with it when I go to play it... if I go to play it...

Yeah most likely was; the disc looked fine, but Wii U's are known for being kinda picky about what discs they will/won't read. Certainly can't have been a widespread issue or we would've heard more about it in the early years of the system, and I tried the demo later to compare and that had no issues moving past loadtimes. (Couldn't replicate the other problems since the demo only has Sonic characters and no Samba de Amigo stages).

You should open your copy sometime and give it a spin! It's an easy game to pick up, as well as put down if something else is keeping your attention, and above all just pretty fun racing.

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General Gaming / Re: What is your most recent gaming purchase?

« on: March 19, 2017, 02:30:48 PM »

Sonic Racing has a very small demo of it on the eShop, it's quite competent. Faster than Mario Kart, looks great and if you have a bit of affinity for the Sega brands you'll likely smile at the inclusion of a Golden Axe stage and such. It also handles single-player MUCH better than Mario Kart, by actually giving you missions that vary (gasp!). Tracks tend to change every lap or two and I like that the boats don't slow you down much, unlike Mario Kart 7 and it's dull underwater sections.

THAT SAID, the online has been dead for years and you should really really really test this one thoroughly immediately. It was utterly broken on release so they patched it, but I've ran into so many bizarre issues with it on disc! It would only work with the Sonic characters and Wreck It Ralph, but not with Ai-Ai from super monkey ball. The samba de amigo track would just freeze the console every time in the third lap but only when using the Crazy Taxi driver. Sometimes it wouldn't move past a loading screen and just stay there forever. I ended up returning it. Probably a disc issue (I bought mine used), but just a heads up I guess. Fwiw it's also on PC with more characters and actual online players.

Splatoon is good, there's still a lot of online players but with the sequel launching within a month I wonder how long that'll last? The single player is rather perfunctory, it's nice that it's there but has serious issues. One of them being invisible level entrances, nothing is more infuriating than trudging over the hubworld looking for the last stupid level entrance they hid up some tower. Final boss fight is truly crazy though which may make the campaign worth it. Took me like 20 tries.

1219

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Indies for the Switch!

« on: March 19, 2017, 02:18:37 PM »

Well Acclaim published comics about Turok and Shadowman for a bit which led to the Iguana/Acclaim games on N64. A quick google says that Shadowman's comic is currently on hiatus but the rights are held by Valiant (they also had Turok 2 decades back). Turok's comic is now over at Dynamite.

Acclaim went bankrupt and its assets got bought by a company called Acclaim Games (no relation), Throwback Entertainment (looks like a sticker company) aaaand WeGo from South Korea now hold the rights to Re-Volt and those kind of N64 titles.

There was a Turok game in 2008 for X360 it looks like, but that was distributed by Touchstone Games (and Touchstone is a brand Disney uses to release 'mature' content or bad films they don't want souring their brand).

SO long story short: Turok is probably under Disney unless the license has lapsed by now, Shadowman is under Valiant (they also released the PS2 sequel together with Acclaim). Seems highly unlikely that they'll make it to virtual console, certainly not by Acclaim. Sequels/new games seem more likely, though Shadowman... I mean if they're not even publishing the comic anymore, sounds like a dormant IP at best.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Safe Words 12: It's true! We rue this Wii U review too. Round 10.

« on: March 18, 2017, 10:53:27 AM »

Nice super slo-mo jump to the chopper save there haha!

Welp if I'm getting blown to smithereens I wish for others to tell my story... spin my yarn, if you will.
Don't let me down GoodFeel! Yoshi's Woolly World let's go!

1221

TalkBack / Re: Sonic News: Mania Delayed, Project Named

« on: March 17, 2017, 08:43:07 AM »

Will be interesting to see how these will be received, Mania in particular. As I understand it Sonic fans have been clamoring for a retro-styled iteration done well, but I'm curious if it has appeal beyond that fanbase. Personally I'm not really in the market for either of these titles, but hopefully they do well for Sega.

1222

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Downloads - March 16, 2017

« on: March 16, 2017, 11:48:16 AM »

Oh of course NOW they're starting to release a bunch of shmups for Wii U lol. Ghost Blade recently and now this Sky Force game.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Off-Topic Wise-Ass Comments About Other NWR Forum Threads And Also Other Stuff

« on: March 12, 2017, 08:38:01 PM »

Hey acknowledging one's own Pharaohphobia is the first step towards self-actualisation*! We're here to aid in your journey!

*= in the Maslow Pyramidian sense, naturally.

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NWR Forums Discord / Re: Off-Topic Wise-Ass Comments About Other NWR Forum Threads And Also Other Stuff

« on: March 12, 2017, 08:25:59 PM »

There were a bunch of accounts posting hieroglyphics today. I was scared.

Don't be so Pharaocist Phil, they're called Wingdings and it's the indiginous language of a civilisation that stood for 3000 years. Gosh, so much igNilerance in this thread!

1225

TalkBack / Re: Melbourne Nintendo Switch Midnight Launch

« on: March 12, 2017, 08:18:30 PM »

Cool writeup! Always fun to catch a glimpse into the scene down under.

Just to chime in on the opening hours discussion though: could see why (smaller) towns choose to enforce stricter hours. Be it from some certain religious reason, or perhaps more practically - longer hours means you're asking more from your employees. While the convenience of 24/7 shopping is immense, you gotta wonder if your staff can handle all the extra hours.

In small towns it might just not be feasible to stay open longer every day, knowing that it won't increase your customerbase by much - they'll just come in later instead so you're essentially spreading the same amount of purchases over more hours (and thus more costs to the establishment). Just not a great financial proposition I guess?

Where can I hand over this post for my complimentary BA in Economics?