AndrewTS

You still hear whispers of the new Game Boy, but there's no need. Nintendo has to be shocked at how well it did. It was supposed to be the "3rd pillar," but almost all of this year, Nintendo Powers' main attractions were all DS titles. Cover features, even! Although when my GBA SP conks out I'll have to buy a new one, since I still have Game Boy and Game Boy Color games that won't work on my DS.

I'd take an official Nintendo bling if it was like a gold necklace with a triforce.

That would be probably the Sega Saturn's US launch. Sega announced that they were "stealth launching" the Saturn that same day; retailers were about to recieve the Saturns and it was available for $399. Sega execs thought this was brilliant. People were going to rush out of the show and buy Saturns, along with crappy ports of Virtua Fighter, Daytona, and...well, that's about it. There was like nothing for months because even 3rd party developers didn't know of the plan. Then Sony announced "$299", and Sega was screwed. I'm not as optimistic as Downhome on the Wii, or as pessimistic as metr0. Now, Downhome was about the only one here to get a DS *right* away when it just had a bunch of really gimmicky launch titles. Not that they were bad, but the system's true potential didn't come until much later. On the contrary, most of the Wii's early titles are at worst solid updates to classic series, and at best look incredibly cool and fun. As for people metr0 talked to not knowing anything about the Wii--where are you finding these people? I see parents at EBs, Gamestops, Wal-mart and Target constantly asking about the Wii. I see regular gamers asking over and over if they're available for reserve. The guys at my local EB said they can't wait for Nintendo to announce the details, if only because they're sick of hearing about it and having to tell people they don't know. And as for the folks not knowing of it--well, system isn't out for months and there's been no TV advertising. Sony is throwing up billboards in major cities with all sorts of vague, stupid promises. Kutaragi comes up with several winning quotes to make himself look like a smug ass every month. In contrast, Nintendo has Reggie saying he's not on the Wii60 bandwagon, and that was like last month. PS1 was cheaper than Saturn. Game Boy was cheaper and technologically inferior to Game Gear. DS is, horsepower wise, much weaker than the PSP and all it's media features. People look at a Coby DVD player for $25 bucks and a more expensive, feature-rich DVD player from a brand name for much more--and yeah, the cheaper item looks like crap. However, game consoles aren't completely interchangable, because game libraries are what ultimately matter. Xbox did well, but it was almost always more than the PS2. However, the PS2's game library was 10 times better. Kudos to Downhome for posting that info. Looking great. I own like 3/4 of those VC titles in some form, though. 2 Wiimotes? That sounds very likely considering the whole vibe they were going for from the beginning. Is that with 1 nunchuku attachment or two? The attachment is a gotta-have. And yeah, TGS isn't going to be the reveal--Nintendo almost came out and said this already. It's only a few days away anyway. And don't expect a stealth-launch, even if there's nothing Sony could do about it. Nintendo isn't going to stealth considering they'd probably not have many games available, and they would lose a good 2 months to milk pre-orders. I still say early November, with late October at the earliest.

Trinity Blood is so hilariously ripped-off that I want to keep watching to see how ridiculous it can get. They're even tossing around talk about Lost Technology.

I'm shocked considering how much they promoted it.... Seriously, I've been to 3 stores this week and never heard of this.

Remember those e3 teaser vids this year with the rhino and the giraffe? The ones we all assumed were tech demos? http://content.imagesocket.com/images/Afri...nimation2cd.gif http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/a...es/img_main.jpg It's a game!

MK Annihilation is terrible but terribly funny. MK and SF are much, much better films on any scale, though. The writing sucks. The best character from MK1, Johnny Cage, is killed off. Chris Lambert wouldn't return for Raiden (big warning sign there). Liu Kang and Kitana are supposed to be having a developing romantic relationship despite the fact that they have zero chemisty. People are shot around through holes in the earth in giant hamster balls. Two major characters are revealed to be LONG LOST BROTHERS. You see people being tossed to their death and changing into someone else. Sheeva got squished so save on fx since they were going to be having Motaro fight. There's the cg tattoos that come off people's skin. Then there's animalities... Oh, my favorite line... "DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT!" spoken as a word of caution to Shao Kahn. Like, it's supposed to be a feel-good moment or something, but it's giggle-tastic with it's timing and deliver. The whole thing with Jax's bionic arms was stupid too. Not the arms themselves, but Raiden badgering him to fight without them. Yet they'd been a big help the entire movie and there was no noticable downside to actually using them. IIRC, Shao Kahn kills Rain because, even though his accomplished his task of knocking off his target (who I think was Kabal, or Stryker, or something like that), he DIDN'T MAKE HIM BEG FIRST. And it's still better than Uwe Boll's movies.

I really liked Dark Cloud 2, what I played of it. I'm not a huge fan of the dungeons tho. We're talking randomly-generated, with weapons that deteriorate. It's basically a 3D dungeon-crawl with a charming plot, character, and cutscenes. However, it was only an extended rental.

Bison: "And I...beheld SATAN....as he fell from the heavens... LIKE LIGHTNIIIING!!!"

Well, there's Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, which is coming this year. As I mentioned before, it's got a very different style of gameplay. I'm not sure about the cutscenes, though. If you have or are getting a PSP, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth seems to meet all of the criteria you speak of. It has cutscenes, but they were mainly added to the original PS1 title, so you could skip 'em. I find it funny that Star Ocean 3 isn't even going to try to make excuses for Star Ocean 3. The Kingdom Hearts series is pretty good (although most would say pass on COM unless you want every little storyline detail of KH2). The first game isn't too cutscene-heavy, but you do get them at pivotal storyline moments. Yet, they are unskippable. Kingdom Hearts 2 has a *lot* of cutscenes, but for some reason I didn't really mind it. The prologue sucks, though. So I'm not sure they'll grab you. But the battle system is real-time, almost a hack-and-slasher but with magic and summons.

Nintendo killed the Metroid guy! Maybe "in space...." is different for video games. What other one is there? Dino Crisis 3 which is Resident Evil with dinosoars....in space. So it was too convoluted and silly to begin with. Virtual Boy killed "the Metroid guy" (Gumpei Yokoi). Sonic Adventure 2 had the most space-themed levels out of any of the other games. Although the ones in the other games were actually good. Xenosaga - Xenogears in space! And it sucks hard! Space Ace - Dragon's Lair, in space! (kinda) Street Fighter 2012 - either in space or futuristic. whatever. I'm sure there are mo'. It would be Star Wars, though.

BTW, here's the 3rd party dongle I had in mind, plus an extensive review: http://gear.ign.com/articles/704/704528p1.html You can find it at just about any Gamestop.

As a long-time b-movie/horror fan, I know that "____ in space" pretty signals the creative pits of a franchise. Wii has an uphill battle against it's disappointing previous predecessors. Plus, as I've stressed previously, they don't have Sony / MS' resources. Both of them have massive game studios with many diverse 2nd-party developers under their roof. Not that Nintendo doesn't have good ones too, but it seems either there aren't as many, or too many of them are doing mere extensions of previous franchises. The only top-tier new developer I can think of in the fold is Retro right now. And as much as Nintendo's cute, charming, cuddly games appeal to me, they need more mature titles to get that mainstream attention. 360 has it out the rear. Sony is never wanting for it. However, Wii doesn't have a Halo and it doesn't even have a Killzone. Red Steel is looking to be disappointing, and even so there's no Grim Gray Laser Death #2 that Joe Madden and Johnny GTA would like to pick up. Of course, that's the point behind the Wii60 angle. Anyway, my current positioning is: Wii 100% definite, crossing my fingers in hope that Assassin's Creed Wii isn't a brutally butchered version with worlds half as large. With Sega not producing anything of note yet, the 360 would merely be a doorstop for a gamer who leans more towards cute-n'-cuddly, odd-ball Japanese-themed games. Thing is, I *know* that PS3 is going to get those games. 360? I doubt it.

Yeah. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, though.

But what about the 4D gameplay?

Yay, spend less money for less quality. Hey, why buy a Lexus when you can buy a Kia instead and save thousands?! Flamebait aside, I am amazed at the amount of online support Wii is getting, not just here but also at huge sites like GameFAQs. I'm very interested in seeing whether that's going to translate into anything with the mass market. I don't really expect it to mean that Wii will actually be competitive with PS3 in terms of total sales, since Nintendo always is more popular on the internet than they are overall. Still, even compared to other Nintendo systems, the Wii online support is pretty extraordinary. Interesting. You're surprised that there's a lot of Nintendo fanboys at GameFAQs? Have you paid attention to the recent character battles? Also, depending on the sites you go to there's still plenty of people dogging on Nintendo. "The Wii is an overclocked gamecube," "More of the same old crap," "The only thing on it that interests me is a Gamecube port that should have been out last year," etc. I'm shocked too at the Wii support, because while it appeals to me a lot, it doesn't seem to be mainstream enough to be a major player in western markets. Joe Madden wants his favorite game in HD with the same controller he's used for 10 years and with top of the line graphics. He doesn't want to play it in a new way with slightly-better-than-current-gen graphics, IMO. Johnny GTA never wanted a Gamecube because the games all "looked gay." There weren't enough games with "mad grafx where you can gun mother****ers down." Of course, the whole point of Wii is to get people to play games who don't have those preconceptions--but it seems far less likely to happen outside of Japan. I think Wii will be a hit early on, but will it have staying power? Or will it fizzle out like Gamecube and Dreamcast? I wouldn't been on Wii being a huge winner in Japan just yet, though. Microsoft never even tried to capture the market (how about Blue Dragon, huh? And that other RPG...?). Yet, Nintendo was still a DISTANT number 2 in Japan with the Gamecube, behind PS2. You'd think with no real MS threat they'd do better, but it was pretty much total PS2 domination. However, things have changed with the DS, which basically is ruling Japan and a huge success in other markets, but that's a portable, not a console. I'll say Nintendo will finish with at least a good 38% of the Japan gaming market this gen. Sony probably 58%. I'll be optimistic for the 360 and leave that remaining 4%. That's still a lot of creepy otaku who love Kasumi, transplanted Americans, and bruised bananas. Outside of Japan it's really up in the air, but Nintendo has to do better this time than with GC. Sony is going to have to make some monumental screwups to not stay #1. You don't go from #1 to dead last that quickly otherwise. Atari suffered from the industry crash. Sega suffered from 2 bad stopgaps, and the arguably the worst *major* system launch in history. Nintendo had an unpopular format (cartridges), bad timing, and yet they still were very successful, albeit way behind PS1.

"North America" is getting it Nov 17 still, though. Although I gotta wonder... -What is going to be the failure rate on those 500,000? -How will they be allocated in NA? -Will Nintendo/Sega be able to capitalize big time? http://angrysonyfanboy.ytmnd.com/

Europeans share their opinions on the news: http://www.thisiswaiting.com/

If you buy a PS3 off ebay and it breaks, will Sony honor the warrant? I doubt it.

Well lots of bad news, but how about that PS1 emulation on PSP to be available at PS3 launch?

It's the same as with the DS, basically. Either use a wireless router or a wi-fi dongle that is compatible with PSP. DS one won't work, obviously, but there are 3P ones that are designed to support both.

http://www.scee.presscentre.com/Content/De...mp;NewsAreaID=2 So much for their massive worldwide launch that nobody ever believed they'd be able to pull off. lol

Square was never even involved in the original--Enix published that. The only reason Square's name is involved with it now is because of the merger, and the new Enix-heavy leadership.

If you honestly think WWE's influence had nothing to do with that, you must be kidding yourself. The AKI games, especially the early ones, felt so disconnected from the American wrestling scene, you could tell they were all about gameplay-first, WWE/WCW accuracy later. It's like they were mailed some tapes and faxed some general information about the "superstars", but those were afterthoughts. Every AKI game, from WCW vs. the World to No Mercy felt like Japanese wrestling games loosely molded into American aesthetics. Almost all of the Yukes games feel from the ground-up to be strictly, 100% WWE games, for better or worse. So you have the entrance vids, updated outfits, recapping of familiar angles, and all the other crap you couldn't give a crap about if you want a good *wrestling* game. It's a WWE game, with all the inherent problems that brings along. WM2000 and No Mercy had a decent balance going, but even so the angles that showed up there would usually be dated.

The original PS1 game that was basically an arcade wrestler? Seriously? It isn't quite that bad, but it's been...well..."altered" into a more "sim" style game. That is, "sim" in the WWE sense, where the main eventers are overpowered and have ridiculously unrealistic stats while everyone else is mediocre or worse. The games now resemble Fire Pro or the AKI games--about as much as a 7 foot basketball player who is 3/4 of the way through a sex change resembles a woman. You can squint and kind of see the similarity, but you'd have to be extremely drunk not to easily tell the difference.