Topics

351

General Chat / Jury Duty Blows

« on: February 02, 2008, 01:20:48 AM »

Yeah, so I've been in Jury Duty all week and god does it suck. You have to get there early and you get out late everyday and you have to sit in an uncomfortable chair for 10 hours a day more or less listening to lawyers babble a bunch of nonsense to try and prove that what they are saying is right. Oh well.

Anybody else ever been cursed with this responsibility?

352

General Gaming / Rare classics on XBLA?

« on: January 09, 2008, 06:09:22 AM »

So.... some rumors have been floating around that Rare's classics from the N64, namely Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie, are going to appear soon-ish on Xbox Live Arcade. This struck me as near impossible due to a couple of my perceived constraints.

1) They all run on N64 hardware. In order to bring them to the 360 they would all have to be ported due to the fact that they couldn't be legally emulated.
2) It was my perception that Nintendo owned the final product created by Rare because they were the publishers. So even though they may not own the characters or the source code, they still own the finished product.

Now I don't really know if any of this is true, but I would think that Microsoft would need a contract with Nintendo in order to even have the opportunity to do this. Anybody have any insight on this?

353

Nintendo Gaming / Iron Chef Game Announced!

« on: January 08, 2008, 01:12:00 AM »

Except it's crappy Iron Chef America which no one should care about because it sucks and isn't the original awesome one featuring Chairman Kaga.

Check out the story here

354

General Chat / Any tips for a first time home buyer?

« on: December 18, 2007, 03:25:06 AM »

I know some people here on the forums are home-owners and I am attempting to join their ranks. Can anyone give me any pointers when buying a home for the first time? I know it is somewhat of a broad topic, but any tips on any particular topic would be great. With the market being so strongly a buyer's market right now, I want to get in on the action and get myself a decent home for a decent price.

355

General Gaming / Who loves to do Crack-Cocaine?

« on: December 13, 2007, 07:48:31 AM »

According to some whack job priest in Canada, playing games is the electronic world's equivalent to doing Crack-Cocaine. Awesome!

356

General Chat / Rise of the Video Game

« on: December 06, 2007, 06:01:05 AM »

I have been watching these on the Discovery Channel over the past few weeks, and I'm not entirely happy with them. The title is pretty misleading. I envisioned the series covering the fairly interesting history of gaming starting with the Magnavox Odyssey and going all the way up to the Wii. However the second and third episodes seem to be focusing on the progression of a particular genre of game or concept of gaming rather than gaming as a whole. I think it's great that gaming is finally getting some mainstream recognition, but it would be better if the book The Ultimate History of Video Games written by Steven Kent was turned into a series with some new content added to cover the latest in gaming.  

357

General Gaming / Preordering Games

« on: October 31, 2007, 08:19:22 AM »

Recently in the Zack & Wiki thread, a discussion sprung up involving preordering games in order to show suppliers demand. Apparently GameCock is begging people to preorder small budget games because it spurs the game carriers to order more copies of the game for distribution.

Why is preordering becoming a standard for this industry? I believe this directly links gaming sites who are covering games and giving titles exposure to the gaming crowd direct power over the sales of a particular game (See Halo 3). Essentially we have created a system in gaming where any writer can spam his opinion and it will literally control the fate of the product. Why the hell is this happening? The big game carrier Gamestop is using Joe Shmoe casual gamer out there who preorders games as the representative of the gaming mass.

How do we fix this issue, how can we as gaming enthusiasts push the industry into stocking games(smaller budget) properly without relying on the casual gamer's preorders to determine the fate of a game? Preordering is an unnecessary step in purchasing a game and it ultimately pads the pockets of these big companies allowing them to make money on your invested cash. I refuse to put money down on a game unless I am getting something out of doing so.    

358

General Chat / Mac OS X Leopard (10.5)

« on: October 25, 2007, 05:43:32 PM »

So tomorrow is a lovely day. All Mac users will have the opportunity to upgrade Tiger to the new version of OS X, Leopard. Alot of the backend changes to the OS have me really excited as well as Spaces on the front end. I'll definitely be upgrading my iMac tomorrow, anyone else going to be basking in the glory of Leopard tomorrow?

359

General Gaming / Microsoft and Bungie Part Ways

« on: October 05, 2007, 07:58:48 AM »

Microsoft has just issued an official press release revealing that Bungie is breaking away from Microsoft in order to become an independent company.

So I guess the rumors were true...

This creates an interesting situation. I wonder if Bungie will continue developing for Microsoft or start a new franchise on other consoles. I would have a big laugh if they developed a very Halo-like FPS for the PS3 or Wii.

360

NWR Forums Discord / Craig's List lol

« on: October 03, 2007, 07:11:04 AM »

Sooo, I have a buddy who was looking through Craig's List for an apartment here in Albany. He found the greatest post ever for an apartment, and sent it over to me. Take a look-see.

361

Nintendo Gaming / Free Wii Anti-Slip Jackets

« on: October 02, 2007, 12:44:38 AM »

Nintendo is officially providing Wii owners with antislip gloves in a similar fashion to the Wii-Strap replacement. If you go here you can input your Wii serial number and request up to 4 remote jackets, which will be shipped to you for free starting October 15!

362

General Chat / Demonoid Down For Good?

« on: September 26, 2007, 06:19:15 AM »

Sooo, it looks like demonoid.com the second largest torrent tracker out there is down and has been for the past couple of days. Are they down for good? Does anybody have any idea what happened?

363

General Chat / iPod Touch

« on: September 05, 2007, 06:57:42 AM »

Looks like Apple just announced the iPod Touch!

iPod Touch = (iPhone - the phone) + Mobile iTunes Store;

8 GB version for $299, 16GB for $399.

Available Sept. 28.

EDIT: Actually the iPod Touch is now just an iPhone - the phone, because the Mobile iTunes Store is coming to the iPhone too later this month.    

364

NWR Forums Discord / The Reason You Bought an Xbox 360

« on: September 04, 2007, 07:34:25 AM »

Madden '08 of course!



Yay for this year's roster update of one of the most boring games in history!

365

General Chat / Mr. Jack's Killer App (Not Really)

« on: August 27, 2007, 03:05:36 PM »

So... I wrote a little application I call Inventory. Basically it is just a little application that keeps track of stuff (i.e. - Video games).  It can keep track of stuff you have and stuff you don't have and some information about each item in the list. It can be used to output a nice HTML rendition of your lists, displaying all the vital information. You can link lists together, to keep a master list. I link all of my game systems to a master game collection list that will update with a click of a button with new data from any of its linked lists. You can see and example of the html output here and you can download the app here.

To launch the app simply double click Inventory.jar. It's written in Java so it works on all platforms. If anybody does happen to download it, and finds any bugs, throw them up in this thread. And if anybody downloads it and would like some other sort of feature that isn't found in the app, let me know and I'll work on putting it in. And finally if anyone would like the source I'll post it. 

366

NWR Feedback / Staffers Forum Names

« on: August 16, 2007, 07:43:54 AM »

I've been thinking it would be a cool idea to include the staff's forum names in their profiles on the staff page for the site. Though most of us regulars know who all of the staffers are on the forums, other newcomers may not, and including their name on the staff page may get new forum goers interested by seeing what the staff has to say in a more casual environment. Just a thought considering the more recent push to get casual NWR visitors to engage in the forum scene.

367

General Gaming / Twisted Metal: Head On

« on: July 27, 2007, 04:09:08 AM »

Jaffe's Secret has been exposed to be a new Twisted Metal game coming to the PS2. It will feature the lost level maps from Black. Look for it this Winter.

Pretty decent news if you ask me. I have always had a place in my heart for Twisted Metal.  

368

Nintendo Gaming / Mario Kart Wii Mega Thread

« on: July 11, 2007, 06:28:50 AM »

This game looks awesome, plus we're getting it online with an unnamed number of players in Q1 2008. Total Awesomeness.

369

Nintendo Gaming / Tomato Adventure

« on: July 06, 2007, 02:16:20 AM »

Curious to know if anyone has ever played this game before. It's made by AlphaDream (known for Mario & Luigi games). With that Play Asia thing going on I can pick it up for like 12 bucks, but I don't want to bother with it if it's garbage. It's an RPG so probably very text heavy but gamefaqs appears to have a step by step guide so that shouldn't be an issue. Anyhow, if anyone knows anything about the game or has played it, let me know if it's worth the $$$.

370

Nintendo Gaming / Wii Life Span

« on: June 15, 2007, 12:40:49 AM »

Maybe I'm the only one, but I am constantly calling into question just how long the Wii (in it's current form) is going to live on the market. I have strong doubts that it will have the 5 year staying power of a usual console. I especially doubt it will match the lifecycles of the PS3 and 360 which will probably be closer to 7 or 8 years. I'm guessing within a year or two, the Wii's graphics and processsing power will be looking pretty bad in comparison to it's competitors.

Obviously Nintendo has proven it's not all about graphics, but to some extent it still is. I would love to see the Wii's unique setup used on a system with alot more horsepower, giving developers the flexibility to bring different types of games to the fans. It annoys me that we miss out on games like Soul Calibur IV/Resident Evil 5, which could be amazing with the Wiimote, simply because the graphical capability is not there.

I'm guessing/hoping the Wii will be on the market for 3 years before Nintendo replaces it with hardware based around the Wii concept with more graphical/processing power (Essentially at the point where building a PS3 is affordable).

371

General Chat / THe Most Anticipated Rock Album of 2007

« on: May 18, 2007, 12:03:02 AM »

If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's from a band we all know well, Linkin Park. Their album Minutes to Midnight has somehow been labeled the most anticipated album release this year from a Rock Artist.

Having just listened to the Album I just wanted to share my thoughts.

THIS CD BLOWS.

This damn CD violated my freaking ears. From the first track to the last this album was uninspired, boring and flat out crappy. The rap tracks have no purpose other than to spout off a few swear words, the "rock" tracks pick up and never go anywhere, and it seems like each track on the CD they are trying to imitate a different artist. You're Linkin Park, you weren't some extremely talented set of artists at any point, so stop thinking you can be all of a sudden. Go back to making your Rap-Rock, radio friendly hits and stop trying to be artistic.

I give it a 0/5 because literally every track is awful. I feel ripped off and I didn't even buy the CD. What do you guys think?  

372

General Chat / Andy McKee

« on: February 02, 2007, 03:32:59 PM »

Not sure if anyone here is really into finger picking acoustic guitar stuff, but Andy McKee is amazing. I just picked up his CD, Art of Motion and it is phenomenal. Check it out, even if it isn't your deal, he is so damn talented it will amaze you just seeing his style.

373

Nintendo Gaming / Datel Max Media Dock

« on: December 23, 2006, 07:32:36 AM »

I saw this in Walmart the other day and comtemplated a purchse because it said you could play "homebrew" DS games. Does this mean you can actually play DS ROMs with this? I'm not really into game piracy, but there are a ton of Japanese games I'd love to play which sucks because I don't have the money to afford to import them. This would give me some way to play those games and import the ones I really think are good. Anybody have any information or knowledge on this?

374

Nintendo Gaming / Wii Controller Glove Tear

« on: December 19, 2006, 09:53:46 AM »

Has anyone else experienced tearing of the Wii controller gloves? My fiancee went to remove her glove to replace the batteries, and in the process of doing so tore the glove.

I called Nintendo to try and rectify the situation and as it turns out, they do not deal with that problem. Subsequently, they redirected my concerns to BDA the manufacturers of the controller gloves. I have yet to hear back from them, but I will report on any of my findings. I truly hope though that there is some system in place so that I can return the glove and get a new one. After 1 month of use, there is no excuse for the product to tear in this way.  

375

Nintendo Gaming / Gamespot Zelda Review

« on: November 20, 2006, 01:40:19 AM »

Don't know if this has been posted already, because i haven't been on the boards in a few days, but has anybody else seen this unbelievably low 8.8 they gave Zelda. I mean 8.8 isn't too bad, unless you are talking about gamespot, and then it's just atrocious. It's Zelda, and it's amazing, but I guess the graphics were too terrible for them to even enjoy Zelda. I was pissed about the score when I first saw it, but even more pissed when I read their response to people being pissed about the whole thing.

"It's the same damn game we've all been playing for the last 15-odd years. Hey, guess what? You get to go into dungeons...and find items...and put together pieces of heart to make new heart containers. I haven't gotten very far into it, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Triforce is in the mix at some point.
There's a difference between tradition and ossification, and Nintendo's been content to let this series stay the same for too damn long. What's more, in a lot of ways it's actually getting to be pretty annoying."
Exerpt from this article

I am going to take a moment here to simply say, Gamespot lick my testicles. Seriously, they do not deserve readers after a response like that. After reading a bunch of the launch game reviews I am confident in saying that Gamespot is extremely biased against Nintendo and they just need to stop covering anything Nintendo on their site. I mean really how do you knock Zelda? It's not like you get this experience very often, so whenever I do get the chance I love it. There is no game in this world more engaging than Zelda, even my brother who plays primarily shooters and sports games picked up Zelda with his Wii and considers it one of the best games ever. I just can't believe that Zelda didn't even make it above 9.0 for an editors choice award. Maybe I shouldn't be this pissed but WTF how do you ream Zelda like that?