AndrewTS

98. "Sonic, rise from your grave!" Well, after years upon years of awful 3D Sonics, when Sega showed early footage of Sonic Unleashed, fans of Sonic--both current and estranged, asked...."how will Sega/Sonic Team fuck this up?" I submit to you, Sonic the Werehog: http://gonintendo.com/?p=49561 http://www.gamespot.com/video/945571/61942...group=e32008_st Half of the new Sonic game is a shitty God of War clone (listen to the Gamespot vid--the Sega rep confirms it's "50%" of the gameplay. The hilarious part is the Gamespot guy pretending to be excited, topped off with him actually controlling the Werehog. Sega rep: "how do you like the control and feel of the werehog?" GS: "....oh, ah yeah, it's good business, dude...." Sega rep: "....cool..."

Italics on The Man in Black's quotes, since otherwise it may not post. I agree that their paranoia towards SD card loading is kind of silly, considering the current hackery in play (also worth mentioning: the Twilight Princess hack). But I disagree that it's completely a geek and otaku concern because the limited space provides a major roadblock for WiiWare developers, who will likely be reluctant to load up on any significant kind of game content due to the itty-bitty living space; that would seem to limit the distribution channel to gimmickry (Major League Eating!) and mini-game-worthy spew and, given that they're already competing against a lineup of various console classics, why would any developer (indie or otherwise) want to take the risk vs. developing for XBLA? I was sarcastically referencing Nintendo of Europe's Laurent Fischer: http://kotaku.com/5016274/nintendos-fische...d-otaku-comment I agree it's a major issue. Heck, as it is the XLBA game size limits sometimes are a problem, as the developers of SSF2T HD Remix can attest to. Considering that Nintendo was the first to enter the market with this imperfect tech, and that tech still surpasses any of the competitor's offerings by a long shot, I'm willing to give them a longer leash for this kind of hardware update, as long as it's positioned and priced accordingly. (As you mentioned, the new WiiSports is a perfect avenue for this.) I wouldn't say it surpasses all the competitor's offerings--though at least the 1st party ones: http://kotaku.com/gaming/namco/guncon-3-is...mote-328339.php Nintendo just needs to make sure it's done right, and pressure developers to use it rather than waggle-fest games. As it is, my biggest gripe about Nintendo and their relationship with 3rd party developers is their current lack of any kind of quality control. I don't support concept approval...but holy crap, Ninja Breadman?! I was referring more to the "disruption" strategy, rather than the actual tech itself, as there are obvious (and very unfortunate) precursors to the Wiimote in the motion controller field; my point is that the Wiimote is the first inclusion of that motion control functionality as base requirements for a console and, as I understand it, the Wii MotionPlus seems to be an enhancement of that motion sensing capability, rather than a brand new peripheral altogether. That's well and good, but technically the nunchuck is an extra accessory you have to pay for other than the first one you get with the console. So, it's getting to the point where, for a fully-functioning Nintendo Wii controller, you need: Wii Remote: $39.99 Wii Nunchuck: $19.99 Wii MotionPlus: $??? We're already at 60 dollars, and *each* Wii Remote needs one. Plus, you know it's going to be at least $15-20 per MotionPlus attachment. Once again, maybe it would be useful to get more technical details about how the new motion data is being recorded from the MotionPlus, but it appears to be supplementing the existing motion sensory capabilities (rather than replacing them with something new), so it should not require special effort and/or new APIs for the developers to use for it. If the new MotionPlus data isn't accessible to the programmers through the same means as the conventional motion sensory data, then I'll gladly reverse course on this one. Supposedly works with the existing accelerometer's, for what that's worth. I'm personally concerned about the instrument peripherals because I think it's one of the most banal gaming trends in years, Rock Band's remarkable gameplay be damned. As for the game itself, it is different enough from those other games (since we're dealing with a symphony) to be distinctive; the presumed lack of DLC (hey, there's that disk space issue again) would seem to be a buzzkill, but I'm reserving judgment on the "lame waggling" at this point until I can see more. Call me an optimist. You kind of have to be to be an N fan these days. Big time. Plus, I'm not saying it isn't distinctive, I just think the alternatives are far more appealing to most--add-ons or no. Yeah, as I said, a limp showing overall for them. Animal Crossing, in particular, seems like a major miscalculation; does anybody really view that as a AAA title? Really? There are people foaming at the mouth for any kind of halfway-decent FPS on that system, just because of the controls - how can they completely overlook that opportunity? Considering how well Prime 3 sold with *extremely poor* marketing, and Red Steel at a million despite being basically garbage, yeah it continues to puzzle me. However, Nintendo has never been looking at getting an FPS on the system. The 3D Metroids have focus on other gameplay aspects, and Geist was never what Nintendo actually intended, although the actual developers *wanted* to make it more like a traditional FPS. FPS games on the Wii are never going to look as good as on the competing systems, but anyone who has actually played Prime 3 can tell you the pointer function makes for an experience the others can't quite duplicate. Apologies on the error. I was aware they didn't make it, but with them being officially licensed--and in the case of the Power Glove, endorsed in the World's Longest Nintendo Commercial, I was thinking they were subsidized/bought up by Nintendo like the Power Pad.

Well, the PS3 is still a *small* disaster in Japan (a bit over 2 million). It's just that the 360 is an enormous, loud, flaming, exploding wreckage of a disaster (under 700,000).

Only geeks and otaku care about that. The rest can just clear out their "fridge" to make more room. It's still tied to your console, you'll have to just wait to download the crap again or move it onto an SD card and move it back, which isn't too much faster. The solution is staring them in the face--make games bootable from SD cards. However, they probably see PSP issues and are worried. VC already has been effectively hacked with the WAD Injector trick. That being said, there are a couple of things that I think they did right: First to enter the market? Do you mean with Power Glove or U-Force, or more recently--where Sony introduced the EyeToy but never did anything with it other than make it a peripheral with a handful of games? The only recent, innovative thing Nintendo had done with motion controls was their "disruption" strategy. The Wii Remote isn't a peripheral, it *is* the controller. It was going to be a GC peripheral until Nintendo decided to base their new system around it. Although honestly the Wii isn't much stronger than a GC, and everyone knows it. Power of better comparison: virtually every other update to a controller introduced ever besides that. Now, Wii Sports 2 will be marketed as a must-have and Motion Plus will be probably available in some other fashion, but it's amusing how Nintendo's motion control is garbage and they're charging you to upgrade. It's a "we fucked up, here, pay for our mistakes" type of solution. Then again, Sony is still selling Dual Shock 3s. However, charging people extra for a peripheral is the complete opposite of disruption. The DS was disruptive, and heck the original Xbox's hard drive was disruptive. However, if you can't count on everyone to have it, it's going to limit the potential for use. Well, there's Wii Samba de Amigo (which will be released first), but the Wii owners who bought Guitar Hero 3 and will be buying Rock Band are probably not concerned so much about the instrument peripherals, and will probably gladly accept that over some lame waggling to Nintendo music. Truth be told, Nintendo probably views this more as their chance to pander to mainstream non-gaming press than they do to actually offer/announce anything new to enthusiasts. Get used to the notion, because it's what Matt Cassamassabobassarolesina and Chris Kohler and others are going to say. I really want them to be right about it, too. Still, the most exciting Wii-related news it a port that was announced in Famitsu, IMO. Yay, Dead Rising with readable text!

The Penny Arcade comic-- hilarious and true! Oh, since Nintendo is apparently ashamed of us, they didn't bother announcing that the Wii is getting Dead Rising (broken via Famitsu scans this morning). Okay, it's a Japanese mag, but FFS, DEAD RISING!!! EDIT: someone put in Wii thread already, good work!

The big rumors for other titles are Kid Icarus Wii by Factor 5 (makers of Lair which featured gawdofal motion controls until analog was patched in0, a new Wii Kirby game from HAL that has been on and off since the Gamecube version was quietly canned. Nintendo probably should give us new media and a date for Disaster...if they haven't cancelled it quietly. A ground-up Wii Zelda is supposed to be in the works, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Now, if Nintendo were to completely cop out on all that stuff, they would pretty much lose Europe and the Americas, but honestly they'd still be gold in Japan. Have you seen a NeoGAF Mediacreate thread? If you haven't, I'll just say that it's deeply depressing and leave it at that. DS is on cruise control anyway and doesn't really need much 1st party stuff. There are still plenty of really good DS games out there I have yet to buy. Plus Kirby Superstar, remake or not, is still totally awesome and sweet and if you never played it on SNES you should get it. Ratchet and Clank PSN / Resistance PSP alone blows everything Nintendo new brought up out of the water for me. Plus the stuff I already knew existed that was shown/mentioned I find generally more interesting. Infamous will probably be the game that makes me get a PS3 if it is shaping up as great as it seems.

Fuck you, Reggie. Choke to death on a piece of pizza. "Casual" gamers don't buy games in large numbers. It's questionable if Nintendo will actually be able to sustain that market for very long before they get flat out bored with the Wii. Their model is sustainable if the core gamers are happy and sustain them. Casuals are fair weather; they come and go. Casuals are sustainable if they keep attracting new ones all the time, but they'll need to gain nearly as many as they lose. If this is Nintendo's plan, I hope their Wii games all bomb this year and they can't move software to save their lives. They'll still be okay selling Wii Sports Machines, but they could easily scuttle a large market and maybe never gain them back.

So awesome.

It's addicting once you get into it. And I think Andrew needs a big ol Nintendo hug. Overall the Microsoft conferance got me excited the most for their product, while Nintendo and Sony really didn't. What about you guys? Which company got you excited for their product? Sony. I want Infamous, PSP Resistance should be great, MAG has a lot of potential, and God of War III is the single biggest piece of news out of all 3, IMO. Too bad Sony is allergic to showing real-time stuff/gameplay. It better be one hell of a hug, too.

Well, worry no longer for this one. http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3168737 No slowdown, no sluggishness, no twitchy unpleasantness. All the problems that bogged down the PlayStation port from a few years back are completely wiped away; this is a game that's been reprogrammed as opposed to being done through shoddy emulation. And the music and sound effects are spot-on, free of the compressed, muffled quality that tend to affect Square's DS games -- good enough to sound perfect through a pair of high-quality headphones. Clearly, bringing aboard the game's original composer, Yasunori Mitsuda, was the right choice... We're told that all the Akira Toriyama-produced full motion video sequences from the PlayStation game are included in the game. The demo featured only the intro trailer, but the final product should incorporate everything. The best description of this port is probably, "PS1 version content, SNES version quality" -- a philosophy that extends all the way to the game's text. Trigger's original English script is widely regarded as being perhaps the single best localization of the 16-bit era, and fans will be happy to know that the DS version is almost entirely untouched. Die-hard fans will notice a few dialogue tweaks here and there (a word or two in robotic punching bag Gato's song have been tweaked a bit, for instance) but for the most part it's the same witty banter you remember.

I'd be upset if I bought a Gamecube for Mario Sunshine. We don't really need 2-3 Mario platformers per generation. However, with Nintendo's potential of IPs, old and new, that they could use for really great "core" games, and have so little to deliver these days, it seems like they have no interest in investing in a new AAA game anymore, period. All I ever did in Animal Crossing was play NES games.

A bit over the top exaggerated for effect, but the intent is straight. I'm losing my tolerance of Nintendo. It's bad enough that they can't even consistently release real games anymore. They can't even consistently release good downloadable games anymore. This is a company sitting on the likes of Earthbound and Super Mario RPG and they give us Major League Eating and Spogs Racing? I wouldn't download that for free. Now this. What is there honestly here to get excited over, praytell? It appears to me that the Wii's best days are over. It's common for third-parties to make cheap crap, but when you can't rely on Nntendo themselves for anything worth a damn, it's a really bad sign. If Nintendo ends up announcing like 4-6+ terrific looking core titles for this year (let's say, Next Gen Kirby, Disaster in smooth-looking playable form, etc.) I'll be glad to say I'm wrong, but this is ridiculous so far. Don't know about on here, but there are Nintendo fans who are more excited about N's stock than they are entertaining games to play.

9:00 Shaun White comes out and demos Shaun White Snowboarding, along with the Wii Fit balance board. 1up actually had some positive first impressions of this. Doesn't change the fact that the balance board is an overprice piece of plastic, but still could be worth playing.. 9:10 Satoru Iwata approaches the stage and begins to give a speech about how the industry has changed, and how Nintendo has managed to adapt. By being cheap bastards. 9:20 Animal Crossing City Folk is shown. Announces additional area called The City, where players can shop, ship items, etc. Animal Crossing's very existence eats at my soul. People buy it and buy it and make their little houses, fill it with crap and I die a little inside. 9:25 WiiSpeak is announced to allow voice chat during gameplay, and will indeed work with Animal Crossing. What the hell do you need voice chat in Animal Crossing for anyway? 9:30 Reggie Fils-Aime approaches the stage and instantly slips into the market data reports and sales numbers for the Wii and Nintendo DS, but admits they still aren’t satisfied. Time to renew that pact with Satan. 9:35 Star Wars: The Clone Wars is shown for the Nintendo Wii, with several actors jumping speedily around the living room wielding their wii motes as lightsabers. ****ty art design + impractical control scheme = money. It being a movie licensed game fills me with so much confidence. Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 is shown for the Nintendo Wii. Old news. Ubi bringing the Nintendo-like quality. Call of Duty World at War is shown, as showcases the ability to use the wii zapper to fire your weapon. Or in my case, the Perfect Shot. Too bad it will probably be the most gawdofal version. Spore Creatures is announced for the Nintendo DS, which allows you to share your creatures amongst your friends. My sporemons, let me show you them! It's pretty much just the creation tool of Spore, as far as I know, which you can then import into the real game. Fair enough activity on the go, but it really should *not* be a full priced title. Grand Theft Auto: ChinaTown Wars is announced for the Nintendo DS. Megatonnage! A Nintendo exclusive GTA game!! Like those other portable ones no one cared about on the GBA and GBC. 9:40 Wii MotionPlus is shown, which is a peripheral that attaches to the bottom of the Wii Mote. This helps calculate your wrist movements more accurately. Translation: a peripheral that is designed to fix the Wiimote's absolute dog**** motion detection, which was hardly worthy of being called a finished product. Yet again, Nintendo fixes their imperfect tech's mistakes, and passes the buck to you, the consumer. WiiSports Resort is announced, which will have MotionPlus included in the package. Jet Ski, Fetch with your Dog, and Sword Dueling are all demoed live. Launches globally next spring. A real WiiSports sequel is actually really, really smart. It stealth-introduces Nintendo's fixes to the technology plus will inevitably be considered must-have. 9:55 Wii Music is announced. Shigeru Miyamoto approaches the stage using the Wii Mote to play the onscreen saxophone. Someone is also using a combination of the Wii Fit board and Wii Mote to play the drums in the background. The balance board is used to push the drum pedals while the Wii Mote strikes the symbols. A large group of people then come out, select their instrument, and continue to play the Super Mario Brothers theme song. Nintendo's innovation knows no bounds!! They better not leave E3 without introducing a 1st party game that I can shoot, beat up, or otherwise kill some mother****ers in, and it better be good.

Utter garbage. The pointer is good, though.

Their big surprise might be, like, one core 1st party game? That isn't cutting it. The answer is: none. Nobody really cares. Just like how nobody cared about the Game Boy GTA titles. Because you can't honestly be saying Sin Tzu and Vengeance. Something like that. Nintendo's press coverage sucked my ass, but I would hope they have a few real games to show at E3. Save for Mad World, I'd give up my Wii today for Infamous right now.

http://www.d3publisher.us/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=57 Should be the most glorious piece of garbage Japenese budget Wii shovelware since

Mitsuda is going to be overseeing the music composition: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168602

It's Mega Drive ya yanks I'm with luke-o on this. It was the Mega Drive first, and it's the Mega Drive in every territory but North America.

Never really liked X. I don't really remember why at this point though, it's been a while. La Parka does The problem is that it's made by the Bloody Roar team and has some pretty godawful character designs to boot. Maria? WTF?! Ohgawdkillitwithfire!! Hooray for creepy perv marketing.

You haven't played Mega Man X? Or didn't like it?

Mega Man 9 is developed by IntiCreates, who developed the excellent Zero and ZX games, which IMO absolutely trounce X5-X8 and are par with the best games from any of the continuities. Their Zero games were a bit niche, however, because they started out brutally hard, although they scaled it back in later games and the ZX series. Again, I repeat: Admittedly, I'm a person who appreciates a little more of a great game series, even if each new game doesn't reinvent the damn wheel. However, I'd like another Legends game, myself.

Plus the stealth crap, don't forget that.

Wait, you're actually complaining about that? MM2 was partly so awesome because the weapons were actually useful outside of the context of fighting a boss. The best of the classic MM games and X games do this. It's one of the best things that MM8 had going for it, too. Remember passwords, too. Mega Man side scrollers aren't nearly that prevalent, however. Let's not act like Star Force/Battle Network actually play anything like Mega Man side scrollers. Also, there's major gameplay differences between OG MM, 8, MMX series, Zero series, and ZX series. Sorry if I'm actually informed about game series I like instead of making blanket statements. I don't know if Anya has ever played an Inticreates Mega Man, though. Most of the games you mentioned actually have those same marks against them. Contra has the code but that's not the normal game allotment. DD2 has finite lives and continues. River City Ransom has a password save but you lose your money and stuff. I agree with a lot of what you have to say here, although the best games are designed so that these issues are non-existent or minimized. Zelda has saves. The Marios have warps and shortcuts. Castlevania has infinite continues (at least 1 and 3, I loathe 2) Ninja Gaiden had infinite continues (hell, it was pretty much Ninjavania anyway) Sunsoft Batman--infinite continues Crystalis-- saves Punch-Out -- passwords Metal Storm -- passwords Metroid -- passwords, although imperfect (you have to refill your life meter) With the sequels, that's well over a dozen games not counting the ones you listed. Very few of the ones Lushus mentioned suffer from those problems (Golgo 13 had unlimited continues, although I think that was a game I'd be hard pressed to call good, but it's still strangely awesome). Nearly all of the Capcom games have some sort of password or are well balanced, plus many of them have a built-in level select (the Ducktales games and Darkwing Duck let you pick any stage. I *think* they all have passwords too). She seems to act like she doesn't get it but it seems she does. People aren't necessarily nostalgic for NES as much as they are for NES Mega Man. However, YES, the NES had plenty of bad games and most of those bad games are bad because of really bad design decisions. So? Because Geno doesn't wear pants.

Anya doesn't own a Wii and never will, however. She has no actual stake in the way the game comes out. She's just whining because she likes getting a rise out of Nintendo fans. The changes made in SFIII didn't detriment the gameplay--quite the opposite, so her strawman argument falls a little flat. Anyone who has played SF3, or at least one of its updates shouldn't find it it be a massive disappointment compared to 2. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would say MM7 and MM8 were steps in the right direction as far as keeping original Mega Man viable. Also, Capcom already tried original Mega Man with updated visuals. It came on out PSP and bombed. That was virtually a given, considering the platform (it would have made a killing on DS, I believe), but Capcom decides to interpret sales data in some silly ways sometimes. I'm not saying the actual approach isn't disappointingly spartan--it is, since there's much that can be done without hurting the gameplay. However, it's ultimately a decision Capcom went with to go deliberately retro. Whine to Capcom about it, don't whine about a dead system that was fucking ace when it was out and has 20+ year old games that are still worth playing today. What I'd like to see from Capcom more than anything else MM-related, is a new Demon's Crest/Gargoyle's Quest game, preferably with at least Demon's Crest-level art and graphics.

"Guest Characters" I believe is all the ones made by the various anime/manga character designers. It's from 1up's Shane so of course he doesn't give very detailed or useful information about it. To Shine! We all need to shine on to see How far we've come on our journey Hoooow faaaa-aa-aaar YET to go searchin' for our star! deep in the night I pray in my heart for that special light to shower me with love to shower me with power to shine from abooo-oo-ooove