Topic: Secret Placeholder Thread!

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Mashiro
I'm with you on hating Bowser's newest kid. I didn't like him in Sunshine and I still don't like him. Bring back the Koopa Kids Nintendo!

Yes Baby Bowser is an annoying character, Koopa Kids were so much better.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Mashiro
I'm with you on hating Bowser's newest kid. I didn't like him in Sunshine and I still don't like him. Bring back the Koopa Kids Nintendo!

QFT

The only time Baby Bowser has been cool is when it was actually supposed to be Bowser back in Yoshi's Island and, to a lesser extent, Yoshi's Story. Once they made it an actual offspring of the character, they just ruined it...

[Mashiro]

Yeah I agree Arbok. The original Bowser as a baby from YI:SMW2 was the best. Making him an offspring was a terrible idea. (Where the hell does Bowser even get all these kids anyway?)

[bubicus]

Quote
Originally posted by: Alfonse

Quote

Furthermore, you (and Dyack, because he's a short-sighted hack) discount the possibility of new gameplay possibilities that are impossible on prior consoles. Super Mario Bros was simply not possible on an Atari; it just couldn't cut it. And so on. Even in the relatively modern day, something like GTA3 couldn't have been done on prior generations; it had certain basic memory requirements that made it impossible before then.

Actually, both games were possible on earlier hardware, but game designers and developers had not thought certain gameplay elements until later. I can't think of many games that have gameplay which cannot be replicated in some way on a console or PC configuration one or two generations old.

If you want to see some ancestors of GTA3, for example, look up Midwinter, Midwinter 2, and Hunter. These games had open, 3D environments featuring a wide variety of characters, vehicles, activities, and open-ended gameplay, all running on a 512KB Amiga or Atari ST around 1989-1991. If you want to go to 2D, you have games like Autoduel or Road Raider on the 64KB Apple II+ or C64.

The gameplay of Super Mario Bros. is definitely possible on an Atari 2600, if you're willing to use your imagination on the blocky graphics... :-) But some precursors to SMB on the Atari 2600 would be Pitfall 2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Montezuma's Revenge,  or the Swordquest series.

Memory requirements for data for a game like GTA3 are not that high, which is a big reason why similar games existed for over a decade before GTA3. Most of the memory overhead is due to the rendering engine, not data. For example, an object like a gun may require only a couple dozen bytes of information unrelated to the rendering engine. Then there's a few dozen more bytes of rendering information that is still independent of the engine, such as position, orientation, skin and/or color IDs, sound IDs, etc. Even if you had to make the rendering engine for, say, an 8-bit 2D system with only 64KB of available non-graphic memory, the core gameplay could still be implemented. For example, Autoduel. Since the gun is installed in the car and point in fixed directions, it doesn't even have to use up a lot of extra memory for rendering information that the 3D version requires. You don't need loads of textures, so you save several KB that way per object.

I guess I'm rambling now, but the short answer is: there is no strong relation between core gameplay possibilities and modern hardware capabilities. There is only a perception of it.

[Mashiro]

Quote
Originally posted by: bubicus
I guess I'm rambling now, but the short answer is: there is no strong relation between core gameplay possibilities and modern hardware capabilities. There is only a perception of it.

It's time for another fun filled edition of "Did you know!"

Did you know that Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to implement the concept of having Mario ride a dinosaur far before Super Mario World? It's true, in fact he had wanted to do this right after Super Mario Bros. came out but couldn't due to hardware limitations.

(This is from a very old interview, I can't believe I found it online!)

Quote
Q. How do you decided when to make another Mario game?

A. After we finish a Mario game, the staff usually vows never to do another one! But once the game is released, we start thinking it may not be such a bad idea to add another title to the series. We usually have lots of ideas that we haven't been able to implement yet. A good example is Yoshi the dinosaur who just appeared in Super Mario World. We wanted to have Mario ride a dinosaur ever since we finished the original Super Mario Bros., but it was impossible technically. We were finally able to get Yoshi off the drawing boards with the Super NES.

Quote
Q. How do you go from a game idea to an actual program?

A. Usually the design staff gives detailed ideas to the programmers in the form of rough sketches and written instructions. But because it's a team effort, we often sit down and discuss different points, sometimes late into the night. What most players don't know is that everything in a video game happens for a reason. Even a powerful system like the SuperNES has many programming limitations. It's easy to say, "It would be better if you made such and such happen." Many time we probably think the same thing, but the idea just can't be done because of programming limitations.