Messages

176

TalkBack / RE: RUMORS: Phoenix Wright Gets Appeal?

« on: March 12, 2006, 06:34:40 PM »

Quote
A Capcom representative told us, though, that the game isn’t even sold out, and thus, would not receive a re-release.
...
So what can you do if your local retailer doesn’t have a copy? Pester them until they reorder, says Capcom.

Capcom lies. Retailers have been trying that for months and it hasn't worked. Until now, apparently.

But if they actually follow through with more Phoenix Wright now, and we aren't reduced to importing it from Europe of all places, then it doesn't really matter what they say.

177

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Umm, Metroid rip-off?

« on: March 12, 2006, 03:43:54 PM »

http://www.factor5.com/history.shtml

Factor 5 made all the Turrican games. Those companies you mentioned are just some of the ones who published and distributed them.

178

TalkBack / RE: IMPRESSIONS: Nintendo DS Lite

« on: March 12, 2006, 01:20:32 PM »

Quote
The new and improved D-pad is a little more elevated than that of the original DS. It is very responsive to the slightest touch. It must be noted that it also resembles the planned D-pad of the forthcoming Revolution. The buttons are still small, although very responsive. The movement of the Select and Start buttons is a welcome change, although they feel very stiff.

The D-pad and buttons have gone back to the "classic" Nintendo style, right? Not the "clicky" ones of the GBA SP and NDS? And could someone who has a DSLite grab a ruler and measure the D-pad and buttons and compare them to some other common systems? FYI, the GBA/GCN pad was 18mm, the NES one was 20mm, and the SNES/DS one was 23mm. The buttons are 10mm on the NES/SNES/PSX, 9mm on the GBP/GBC/GBA, 8mm on the GBA SP, and 7mm on the original DS. And am I wrong in assuming the Start/Select buttons on the DSLite are the same as the ones on the classic GBA?

179

TalkBack / RE: Revolution Dev Kit Details Uncovered

« on: March 11, 2006, 06:00:08 PM »

I thought of mentioning it. And the PS2's unhappy mix of analog and digital. But my post was getting long, and I didn't think they were relevant to the "the Rev's D-pad is tiny" issue (but then again, the same might be said of half of what I wrote).

180

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Umm, Metroid rip-off?

« on: March 11, 2006, 05:44:12 PM »

Metroid is an "Aliens" ripoff.

181

TalkBack / RE: Revolution Dev Kit Details Uncovered

« on: March 11, 2006, 04:19:16 PM »

Quote
OH gawd!

Freudian slip. I was thinking of saying "1cm". And I think the grammar's wrong too.

Quote
How the hell do you know that much about D-pads?!

It's really not that much.

182

TalkBack / RE: Revolution Dev Kit Details Uncovered

« on: March 11, 2006, 01:40:38 PM »

I think Nintendo just about perfected the D-Pad on the day they invented it, and then they spent 20 years trying to "fix it".

The top of the D-pad is a hard plastic shell. Underneath it is a piece of rubber with some points of metallic coating painted on, which connect a circuit when they get pressed down. A ball prevents more than two of them from connecting at the same time, and the plastic edges holding it inside the casing make eight points, so it has a natural affinity to move cleanly in eight different directions. The minor divot in the center of the surface helps with grip. The buttons have similar hard plastic shells, and the lesser-used Start/Select buttons give you direct access to the rubber layer, for a different feel. This is a genius design.

The NES D-pad is 20mm across, and has 10mm buttons.

The original GameBoy is exactly the same, with some minor grip differences.

The SNES made (IMO) the only improvement to this formula, by bumping the D-pad up to 23mm.

The GameBoy Pocket (I believe, I don't have one handy to measure it) was the first Nintendo system to make the buttons smaller, having an 18mm D-pad and 9mm buttons, which carried over through the GBC and the GBA. The smaller buttons were part of the entire point of the GameBoy Pocket, but nobody ever hid the fact that they sucked on the GBC and GBA. But they did the job.

With the N64, Nintendo went too far, making a D-pad that was 25mm, and an assortment of buttons from 12, to 11, to 9mm (the 9mm buttons even had customized angles to them, so they couldn't use GameBoy buttons). Going too far is not an improvement. But then again, it's not like it mattered, because Nintendo gave us analog. You see, when they give us revolutions, they're allowed to botch everything else.

The GameCube's D-pad (now an afterthought) is the crappy old GBA D-pad, originally designed for spatially-limited enviroments, and they put it in and uncomfortable position to boot. The buttons themselves are a chaotic mess. A retard-proof 16mm button. A beautiful 10mm one that looks sadly puny by comparison. And some strange kidney things.

For the GBA SP, Nintendo dared to throw out their entire rubber-pad button technology, replacing it with cheap mouse click sensors. But with an 18mm economy D-pad, it actually works, probably because the range of movement has been scaled down to match the punyness of the pad. They also too the opportunity to shrink their buttons even more, making them 8mm.

For the Nintendo DS, something strange came over Nintendo, and they gave us back a 23mm D-pad. But that doesn't work well with cheap mouse-click technology! And they shrank the buttons yet again. 7mm. Too far in the other direction. And yes, I know, they did both because they wanted the DS to look symmetrical and ambidextrous. I don't think it worked or was needed.

I don't have a micro, but supposedly it went back to some sort of rubber technology in a puny form. Which is apparently what the DS Lite is using. And what the Revmote will use.


FYI, Sony stole the 23mm D-pad and 10mm buttons for use in the PSX and PS2 controllers, and the Hori pad uses a 23mm D-pad, but it's unfortunately saddled with the chaotic GameCube button configuration, while a GBA setup would've been better and more appropriate.  

[is]

183

TalkBack / RE: Revolution Dev Kit Details Uncovered

« on: March 11, 2006, 12:13:09 PM »

Quote
I did stuff in CvS2 EO for the Gamecube with the stock controller every bit as well as with any other, if not better. The GC had a VERY flexible and nice D-Pad once you got to know it, and it was WAY better than the GBA's.

You mean the Hori Pad, right? Because the GC's D-Pad is the GBA's D-Pad.

184

NWR Forums Discord / RE: Revolution not a "next generation" console

« on: March 01, 2006, 12:04:26 PM »

I'm older than Ian.

And no, you can't mess with the title.

185

NWR Forums Discord / RE: Revolution not a "next generation" console

« on: March 01, 2006, 01:19:43 AM »

Mario Kart Online is the kind of revolutionary idea that could only come from Nintendo.

Apparently new generation = last generation. Not counting the one we're currently exiting. That's much better than next gen. Especially considering Nintendo's downward spiral.

[KDR_11k]

186

General Chat / RE: Official Avatar Discussion

« on: February 27, 2006, 10:48:08 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Bill: Did you MS Paint that yourself?

It probably came from an "oekaki" board. Oekaki is a popular type of Japanese message board where you can use your mouse to draw pictures for your posts. A lot of uncommon fanart can be found on these kinds of boards, and sometimes it's really quite good.  

187

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Rev attracts "Indie" developers

« on: February 25, 2006, 04:08:30 PM »

Slot Machines are fun.

188

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Transformers Armada - Comin To The Cube??

« on: February 23, 2006, 01:54:31 PM »

It didn't end.

At the end of Season 2, Bob got shot into the Web by MegaByte, leaving only Enzo (now a rookie Guardian) and the others to take care of Mainframe.

After getting kicked around for a while, Enzo (along with Andraia and Frisket) got trapped in the Net in Season 3. After growing into a majorly cool badass renegade (Andraia grew into a hot babe), Enzo made his way over to the Web, rescued Bob, made his way back to Mainframe, kicked MegaByte's butt, and MegaByte got trapped in the Web like Bob was.

Then in the first half of Season 4 (season 4 is made of two movies), Glitch-Bob led Mainframe in a battle against the Guardians, who had all been corrupted by a super-virus named Daemon, and Mainframe eventually won thanks to Hexadecimal.

In the second half of Season 4, the Surfer found another Bob in the Web, and while Mainframe was trying to figure out which one was the real one and which one was the copy, MegaByte came back, even stronger than before, took over the Principal office, and said that he was tired of playing games and now he just wanted to hunt down and kill everyone in Mainframe. End of Season 4.

There is no Season 5, and there likely will never be one.

189

Nintendo Gaming / RE: IF Revolution still is a code name...

« on: February 22, 2006, 10:23:13 PM »

The original Play Station (commonly written with the space) was an SNES CD unit designed by Ken Kutaragi himself (who also designed the SNES sound chip), which was the source of a major coldwar between Nintendo and Sony, as well as a lot of rumors and misinformation.

When Sony finally gave up and went their own way, they announced development on what they were calling the "PlayStation-X", which was widely believed to be keeping the original PlayStation's name as an f-you to Nintendo. I don't think it ever had an "official abbreviation", but the videogame media took to calling it the "PSX". The final version was just called the "PlayStation". But the "PSX" nickname had already caught on, and everyone was calling it that, including people at various divisions of Sony.

Around the time when the PSX became the undisputed winner of the 32/64-bit era, Kutaragi decided that he was tired of being reminded that the PSX was his "second try" at the console industry every time he saw the name, and wanted to create the image of a flawless record, so he insisted that the PSX was the "original PlayStation" and demanded that people stop using the "PSX" nickname for it. Then when they were redesigning the PlayStation, he decided to invent and push the "PSone" nickname, hoping it would replace it. This is why the redesigned PS2 wasn't officially renamed the "PStwo". There was no need for a new name.

When another division of Sony made a Tivo-like device with a built-in PS2, they named it the "PSX", saying that if Kutaragi didn't want the name, they would take it, and this apparently got him really ticked off.

[Smash_Brother]

190

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Final Fantasy VII-IX for the DS, Think it could happen?

« on: February 22, 2006, 02:39:12 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Smash_Brother
Why was the REmake brought to the GC instead of the PS2? Because Sony fans had likely already played RE and wouldn't buy it again.

Actually, REmake was on the Cube because Angel Studios ported RE2 to the N64 (after Square refused to let them do FF7) just to prove it could be done. This convinced Mikami to give the N64 a chance, so he announced RE Zero for the N64. But "possible" doesn't mean "easy" or "worthwhile", so RE Zero got shoved onto a back burner until the N64 died and the Cube launched. The REmake was a tech-demo that Mikami was building in order to get a feel for what to do with RE Zero (now moved to the Cube), which went out of control and became a complete game, because Mikami and his team were having so much fun with making it.

Quote
Why was the MGS remake made on the GC? Again, same reason.

MGS:TTS was made on the Cube because Hideo Kojima owed Miyamoto/Nintendo something special as an apology for his "purple handbag" GameCube comments. Silicon Knights being put at Kojima's disposal should've made the whole process effortless. Suggesting a port of MGS was a rather uncreative move on SK's part, but what really killed the game was that Konami wasn't interested in it, and that they had much bigger and better things going on (in the same series even) with the PS2.


Kojima still owes us an apology, and Mikami still owes us his head.

191

General Chat / RE: Official Avatar Discussion

« on: February 22, 2006, 02:15:05 PM »

Don't give him any worse ideas or I'll mention your avatar size.

192

TalkBack / RE: Reggie Talks About All Things Nintendo

« on: February 21, 2006, 01:31:47 AM »

The NES got an odd-looking redesign which simplified the cart mechanism to cut costs, which most people say was actually an improvement because the old mechanism was finnicky and prone to wearing out.

The SNES redesign was a puny thing that eliminated it's eject lever and it's RF output.

The N64's Ram Pak expansion is just an add-on, not a redesign. The N64's redesign looks like it has a dead fetus attached to it's head, with feet you can poke and cheeks that light up. Pika.

The Cube has no redesign (unless you want to count the removal of the Digital Out port). The Panasonic Q doesn't count.


Edit: The GameBoy got a redesign to become the GameBoy Pocket, which had a clearer screen, used fewer batteries, and was likely cheaper to make.

The GameBoy Color had no redesign.

The GameBoy Advance was redesigned into the SP to fix a major flaw that Nintendo doesn't admit ever really existed, and it didn't use batteries anymore. (The design is cool, but the old one wasn't exactly lame.)

The GameBoy Advance was redesigned again into the micro in an attempt to make cost-cutting cool.

And the GBA SP was "upgraded" to use a better screen.

Now the DS is being redesigned for it's appearance, it's weight, and also apparently because lately Nintendo's practically itching to upgrade their screens every time they see a newer version.

["Rev Controllers Won't Work on GC Games"]

193

TalkBack / RE: Reggie Talks About All Things Nintendo

« on: February 20, 2006, 11:19:19 PM »

Thread title needs to be changed to "Rev Controllers Won't Work on GC Games".

Quote
Have you set a timetable for when the DS Lite will be available here in North America?

We have not announced the date and we won’t be announcing a date for the foreseeable future. We are working through our inventories and our allocations of product and frankly, we are doing everything we can just to meet current demand. Japan has already announced that they will launch in early March and they have the same challenges of meeting that very high level of demand.

We need to make sure that we have enough product in hand for us to launch effectively here in North America and as soon as we feel we are in that position we’ll announce it.

Quote
Exactly. They have gone down a path that is very expensive for consumers, very expensive for developers to create content against, and they're providing a level of horsepower technology that not many consumers want. We in providing to consumers and to developers an approach that is certainly high-tech and certainly powerful enough to create the most sophisticated games,

Shifts from making good Reggie-sense, to saying the exact same things I heard before Quest 64 came out.

194

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Metroid Prime 3: Discussion with Series Producer

« on: February 20, 2006, 10:32:51 PM »

- On the Grapple Beam issue, I think everyone at Retro needs to go play Bionic Commando. Then they need to re-read the stuff Jonny just said about the Morph Ball.

- I think the problem with "backtracking" is when you start to see through the illusion of the game, and start to recognize things as straight lines. I think a good way around this is to have multiple legitamite pathways to any given area, from any given area (and don't wuss out and make several "bottleneck" points with only one way through them, which mark your progress through the game), in addition to making numerous paths across particular rooms. Plus you can try to make paths through rooms that offer direction-specific experiences (jumping down a ledge for one direction, climbing it going the other way, for instance), or you could go with enviroments that can shift/change over time (and don't just go with triggers to cue the harder enemies).

- I think Bill's comment about Samus and money comes from the total lack of Samus's character development as a bounty hunter. I don't think that's something that should come from dialog writers, but more from the gameplay. There have been a number of games that try and capture the spirit of bounty hunting (if only just as side quests), but I can't think of any good examples offhand. Metriod has traditionally done none of that, and has stuck to heroic adventure.

And on the subject of Samus's character development, I think there won't be any more character development without more sexualization of her. Samus is sexy. She's not ugly. Making her more human (and less of a player-controlled robot) will only make her more sexy. And there's nothing wrong with that.

- Regarding Ian's suggestion of being able to make marks on your map, I remember saying/thinking the exact same thing about the Metroidvania games. Having a touchscreen map on Dawn of Sorrow would've been so much better than a dumb "sealing" system.

195

General Chat / RE: question about forums

« on: February 18, 2006, 04:11:44 PM »

Type [ spoiler ] before and then [ /spoiler ] after any text you want to hide. Without the spaces, of course.

196

TalkBack / RE: MechAssault Announced for DS

« on: February 17, 2006, 04:27:59 PM »

Yep. I slapped it together as part of "what game do you want on the DS" thread on some forum a while back. The top and bottom of the screens were cropped slightly to fit on the DS (less than most other SNES games would need) and the grey bars are unused screen area. I could've expanded the pic with pieces of two more screenshots, but I didn't feel like it.

I think Shadowrun would really benefit from touchscreen for the weapon-aiming and picking up/examining items, and the top screen being a status menu works because you can see your HP total which is more accurate than your life bar (although the status menu could probably be improved to include things like stats on your fellow runners), and the keyword-based dialog system could even be drastically improved with relatively-simple voice recognition.

IMO, one of the only things better than an enhanced DS port of the SNES Shadowrun would be a DS sequel to the SNES Shadowrun.

I figured this was Never Happening because MS seemed to be rethinking it's Nintendo support with the DS compared to the GBA, and they're making a new Shadowrun FPS for the Xbox360, but this MechAssault announcement makes me hopeful again. Of course, there's still no evidence of this (Shadowrun DS) actually happening.

197

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Other options

« on: February 17, 2006, 01:48:56 PM »

I think there was a suggestion in one of these threads that I read once, suggesting that Link uses an old European fighting style (I don't remember it's name) which has you fight while using your shield with your dominant arm, for a greater emphasis on defense and survival, while you wait for openings in your opponents defense, which don't exactly need crushing force.

[Fri February 07, 2003]

198

General Chat / RE: vets check in

« on: February 17, 2006, 01:36:04 AM »

Like Mouse Clicker, I was a part of the Great IGN Exodous, and joined back in the days of the EZBoards. Near as I can tell, February 21, 2002 was when the IGN Insider crap really hit the fan, so that's probably about the time when I joined.

I signed up for the relaunched forum on Fri February 07, 2003, and am user number 717.

199

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Transformers Armada - Comin To The Cube??

« on: February 16, 2006, 10:59:38 PM »

Quote
Your points about Starscream I have heard before on TF forums, but the flaw with that logic is Starscream never said anything about going through the transwarp. Also he described how he died in the War against Unicron in BW, which was BEFORE Unicron reincarnated him.

I think they visibly showed Starscream's spark come through the Transwarp corridor at the start of the episode, and he went back through it in the end. But it's been a while since I've seen that episode.

I'm pretty sure Starscream was flat-out lying about himself to the Predacons, in order to command their loyalty (he didn't sacrifice himself in an attempt to save Galvatron and the Decepticons from Unicron, he was killed by Galvatron for pushing the wounded Megatron out of Astrotrain in space and leaving him to die). And when Black Arachnia (the only one who had studied that chapter of history) finally ratted him out on it, they all turned on him.

200

TalkBack / RE: MechAssault Announced for DS

« on: February 16, 2006, 10:40:54 PM »

Needs more touchscreen Shadowrun.