AndrewTS

http://kotaku.com/5057883/lets-compare-the...ite-and-the-dsi The biggest addition is the camera and the slightly larger screen. However, it comes at the expense of battery life and the GBA cartridge port, so I'm going to pass on this one myself. Although if you haven't gotten a DS already or already have a perfectly good GBA SP--there ya go.

"No plans" for DSi-exclusive retail titles (i.e. all downloads): http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20518 DSi-only titles will be region-locked, but otherwise not: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20525 LOL at how NOA doesn't know jack.

IGN gave it a 5.7. It's apparently ok but just above average. I'll be renting at least. I couldn't put it down; so awesome.

If anyone was expecting E3 to have a megaton announcement, they were just kidding themselves. However, it should have still been better than that. The fact that the major Nintendo releases for the rest of this year are Wii Music and Animal Crossing is pretty sad. No Reggie, Animal Crossing is a not a major "core" title. 1up's Jeremy Parish--that site's most outspoken and consistent Nintendo apologist, posted a blog entry about this: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=891969...cUserId=5379721 So...what I get from that is a) he doesn't really like it, and b) buy a 360 if you don't like what Nintendo is offering these days. And this is what I feel the problem is. Wii Music isn't the problem. The lack of major, awesome titles alongside it is.

I know it was Midway, but gamefaqs was listing it as a Nintendo published title, but when you check the Data specifics, that was only in Europe. Nintendo still had publishing arrangements that turned off a lot of companies, especially the Japanese. The Wii is getting the "wait-and-see" approach on "hardcore" titles. Which is unfortunate because almost nobody is taking the risks. No, PORTS aren't risks. I knew there was a bit more to that relationship than just publisher/developer, but I couldn't remember. Danke. Nintendo doesn't normally hand over their licenses to a small developer they don't own. So it's different than Nintendo's normal procedures. Also, S&P was such a bomb on N64 retail, it's still a big risk and Nintendo's bearing it all. That's not too common for them. Okami was a PS2 game, so there's an exception! Dead Rising is pretty much a heavily altered version of the original game. If it does sell well (and I believe it will), I think some variant of RE5 will hit Wii, but I would bet co-op would be out and the game getting heavily re-written. They could perhaps also do a "separate ways" style side-story, too.

What's even more messed up--nay, inexcusable--it that this will pretty much be Nintendo's worst holiday lineup in ages. For comparison's sake, let's look back at the N64 era (for North American releases). 1996: DKC3, Wave Race, Cruisin' USA, Gretzky 3D Hockey, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (and of course, this was shortly after the N64 launch, so we at least had Pilotwings and Super Mario 64). 1997: Diddy Kong Racing, Bomberman 64, (Mischief Makers was October, though. Also, this was the year Goldeneye and Star Fox came out.) 1998: Ocarina of Time (Third party note: Rogue Squadron released) 1999: Jet Force Gemini, DK 64 2001: Banjo-Tooie In the cases when they only had one big release--it was a pretty big one (Ocarina). If not, they at least had a few. And I'm really only mentioning November/December releases. The Wii has had..what, just Wario Land this month?

This is what annoys me the most about the Wii right now. Fortunately, my holiday will be fine with the 360 games I do end up buying. The character designs make me wanna cry, but if it is Power Stone-ish it could be a fun diversion (but not worth 50 bucks in these troubled times). Also, Belmont's Revenge is a good game. Legends was indeed bad, though. Count me among those who liked the (2nd) N64 title. Castlevania Adventure is also pretty lame, but a little more forgiveable as it was an early GB title. Nintendo funded the development of, and published Fatal Frame IV in Japan. It bombed, though, so I doubt we'll get it here under the Nintendo label. Nintendo also is helping publish Sin and Punishment 2, mainly because of good sales for the VC release of the original (the N64 release of S&P was a bomb, incidentally). Nintendo's also done more outsourcing for some of their titles, although the results haven't been too spectacular (Wario: Master of Disguise, Yoshi's Island 2, for instance). Perfect Dark Zero was, by nearly all accounts, a pretty terrible game. I doubt lower-spec tech would have benefitted it at all. Also--I don't seem to recall DK64 being much of a success, either. Viva Pinata and Banjo are fair points, though (though I have zero interested in Viva Pinata, myself), but I wonder if VP would really "fit in" to N's lineup. However, is Rare worth all the wait for their occasionally-decent titles? Also, the Rare sale was 2002-ish. Far pre-DS boom and pre-Wii success. Nintendo probably felt it a good sale because it gave them more operating capital. They also undoubtedly saved money on paying for the deadweight of development that has been modern Rare (for the original Xbox they made one new ultrabomb of a game, and one port).

I'm not attacking the Wii itself. It's just that this is one of the top games Nintendo is offering for the holidays (oh, and Animal Crossing!), and that's pretty weaksauce, imo

A High Voltage game and a port? lol Yes, what's so funny about that? Anya, is that you on Drew's sn? I don't see, based on their pedigree, why someone should be excited about a High Voltage game. Maybe if you were a really big fan of the Hunter: The Reckoning game, which was pretty average at best IMO. And I can't get hyped up for a wii port of a CoD game that's going back to WW2. Plus it's Treyarch, so you shouldn't expect anything really new or exciting either (but you could probably expect bugs!). Is it even Treyarch handling the Wiiport, or some outsourced ninja developers? Rebellion is apparently doing the PS2 version. I'd be surprised if the Wii version was much different than just the PS2 version + waggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_5

http://mother3.fobby.net/ And a cool opinion piece from Gamespite.net: http://www.gamespite.net/ Hats off and a respectful bow to the geekichlorian levels of the Starmen. I'm looking into getting this d/led and patched up ASAP. Of course, I recommend you do this, too. As well as picking up the import game, too, because NOA needs financially teabagged for letting this slip by.

Added a little detail there for ya. 1up isn't necessary much more or less reputable than anyone else (I don't believe Nintendo is going to moneyhat the hardcore gaming press anyway). Stated reviewer does have a higher tolerance for this stuff, though. A music game with shitty, midi-quality music and virtually no gameplay is a bad music game. It's not my fault if "casual gamers" (or those tolerant) don't have any standards for what they're willing to pay 50 bucks for. I'll make no apologies for Nintendo for it, though. It makes them willing to overpay for cheap crap. And morons, no, if they have no reasonable standards to judge by. Fans of Rock Band, though, well, they have little excuse. A High Voltage game and a port? lol

Like Mother 3 but kind of want the nostalgic feel of a full-cover guidebook? http://handbook.fangamer.com/ This community frightens me as much as it delights me.

There's also the compilation cart of Mother 1 and 2. Which Nintendo has Nintendo-made translations already done for, which would require almost no effort to plug back into the game (the releases on that comp cart are based on the unreleased US version of Earthbound-0 and Earthbound, including all of the graphical edits!).

I was talking specifically about my reaction to the videos of it. The song selection is cheap old junk, bad pop and public domain. Ok, that's not so bad by itself (because at least the classical stuff is cool): http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2008/10/1...ding-videos.htm However--having your own classic game tunes turned into crap? Really? http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/10/16/w...lda-theme-tune/ http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/22048 It's not just cheap; it's cheap and sounds like crap. To quote a poster from another board:

Wii Music is getting some reviews rolling in. IGN 5/10!!! Regardless of the score, I'm checking out some game footage...and seriously--fuck you Nintendo. The music *quality* is just flat out horrible, nevermind the lousy music selection.

Krome Studios, of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and the last 2 Spyro games made that version of the game. LucasArts did the 360/PS3 versions. Also, the Metacritic and Gamerankings' scores are slightly higher on the PS360.

I'm currently working on Yakuza (digging into my backlog), and this Saint's Row talk on various forums is making me want to check it out--if only for the coop. Damn my being broke. =/ BTW, in a comment that most certainly does not warrant a thread, Toshinden is getting a new iteration on the Wii: http://kotaku.com/5063851/toshinden-returns-on-the-wii-yay So Tekken 6 is coming to Xbox 360 and Wii gets...Toshinden. FIGHTER MEGATONNAGE NEWZ!!!

Starcraft 2: The developer already confirmed the game(s) are stand-alone. The assumption is multiplayer will let you use Zerg or Protoss. You seem strangely proud..

Kotaku via Famitsu confirms Sakura: http://kotaku.com/5060431/japanese-schoolg...ighter-iv-fight Boo to no Karin, still. =/

WHAT FUCKING TREMENDOUS SERIOUSLY Owned. Although honestly, WTF are the NA Club Nintendo accounts for? The Japanese get all the cool stuff. That *would* be the logical route for unification. LOL.

Source: CNN-Netscape I'm appalled those vicious game developers took advantage of this poor young girl when she didn't know any better!! I hope she sues the pants off them and they can never make games again!!... Well, I was joking about part of that, anyway. The funniest part is trying to sue the manufacturers of the systems.

I again beg to differ. When I take a portable on trips, a system that plays both DS games and GBA games is really nice, since I just need to bring the carts along. This kills it. Also, it would be easily ignorable if it wasn't being positioned as a new platform with games that *only work on the DSi*. And the DSi would be easily justifiable as a purchase if it were a lot more powerful *and* supported all original DS games. However...it's a JUST A DS at its core! It's an inbred mutant of a system that kind of screws a lot of people with perfectly fine and usable DS Phats and even Lites, since DSi-only games just won't work. Oh, I know that's the obvious direction this is going. Even more annoying is that the DSi will use a points system totally separate from Wii Points, so you can't use points left over from a transaction on one system to the other. However, I already have a way of playing those titles on a bigger, brighter screen with the convenience of it being in a digital format, and Nintendo's not getting money out of that, either. It doesn't matter to me or you that GH DS won't work for obvious reasons, but it's the principle of the fact that the GBA slot, which is used for many different things (there's been other accessories besides the rumble pack and GH insert, like the paddle-style controller attachment). The fact is, TWO DS VERSIONS have come and gone with that slot as a standard of the hardware. Now Nintendo is yanking it for something they would like to be a DS-2, but they are too cheap and lazy to upgrade the core architecture on it. It's kind of like the Wii in that regard.

I fail to see how this fits the context at all. It's more of a historical note than anything. To me it seems to be another NeoGAF meme people toss around anytime someone notes something that could be considered a minor inconvenience. Really now? Incidentally, when did you get your DS (if you have one)? The DS' game lineup was pretty much total crap until Canvas Curse. The GBA slot helped urge on early adoption. Could you imagine having nothing to play on that thing early on except stuff like Zoo Keeper, Feel the Magic, and tragically terrible-controlling titles like Mario 64 DS and Rayman? The DS also extended the lifespan of the GBA platform. Also--the GBA slot was used for the rumble pack and some other accessories (including unauthorized ones, i.e. flash carts with ROMs). It has no direct compatibility with any cartridges from the Game Boy line. GB games played on GBC. GB/GBC games played on GBA. If there was a "Game Boy DS", there would have been expections that it would have played all of the previous "Game Boy" line titles (the GBA slot, in all honesty, was a crutch for the DS in its early days of meager and highly unimpressive lineup of titles). There's been similar annoyance with regards to Sony's treatment of backwards compatibility with the PS3. If they actually changed the product name (and not made explicit pledge that they considered BC to be important) this round, people wouldn't actually care as much. However, Sony DID RELEASE PS3s WITH FULL BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY...and now...they're not. They half-assed the BC. They claim it was a cost-cutting measure, but I don't know anybody who actually believes it. I believe it was because the PS2 was still way too vibrant a platform to shrink into the sunset and allow PS3 adoption rates to boom. Granted, there's a lot of other reasons why PS3s didn't fly off shelves except to Ebay speculators, but business is business. Nintendo is also participating in some somewhat deceptive marketing here. DSi...not a DS2, but a DSi. If it were a full blown evolution of the DS (DS2), we'd expect it to support all the old DS games plus its own. However, it's not a DS2. It's still a regular ol' DS with new features; at most, it's maybe an overclocked DS. So one expects it to support all the features of the original DS. The Lite offered no functional sacrifices from the Phatty, really. The DSi offers sacrifices in battery life, GBA compatibility, and all accessories/features that used that slot. Iwata is trying to position this as a next-gen DS, but that argument--and the system's performance specs--doesn't really make any sense. tl;dr version: if you make major changes in a new system's features, change the name and maybe the look. Nintendo didn't, and it looks way too much like the DS Lite.

http://www.1up.com/do/my1Up?publicUserId=5379721 Evil.

Has $50 price point been stated? I would expect 30 bucks, actually. Also, Miyamoto had proposed this ages ago, so it's just the first we've really heard as part of an actual product line. Also, there's precedent for this already: Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition and Resident Evil 0 (in Japan). The latter wasn't a huge hit, but there are some titles that Nintendo can probably make safe bets on--Pikmin 2's aftermarket demand is huge, for instance.