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Posts posted by Overflow

    Nintendo's Big Press Conference

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    You're kidding, right? Like, being sarcastic or something? Stuff that's oriented for gamers like you and I is so ridiculously costly for a company to develop and sell, predisposed audience or not. Why make more work for themselves? They're laughing all the way to the bank, and there's no reason to stop the direction they've been going in. None at all. It's the path of least resistance. Mountains of easy money for very little effort.

    This is how businesses stay alive in a competitive market. Why do people not realize this.

    Very true; They'll probably take the easy road. I guess whatever works.

    Still, I think it would be cool. Maybe not feasible, but cool.

    Nintendo's Big Press Conference

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    When you think about it, this phase of casual/innovation Nintendo is doing right now is almost like a massive experiment. Everything they made until the DS was almost entirely focused on "hardcore" gamers, but then they decided to start catering to the nongamers too. since the release of the DS and the Wii, Nintendo has more than succeeded in bringing in tons of people who would never normally play games, probably doubling their audience and having a ridiculous increase in revenue.

    I have a feeling that Nintendo will continue down the path they're headed in terms of casual games with some hardcore ones every now and then. What this does is put the emphasis back on the fun of gaming rather than the seriousness of it. To most nongamers, video games are nearly synonymous today with games like Gears of War, GTA and Soul Caliber, all of which are games that are very intimidating and difficult, especially for people who never played games. Then, they decide to try the Wii, and really get into the simple games like Wii Sports, Play and Music. After some time with these games, they decide to up the ante a little bit, with games like mario galaxy and Zelda, slowly easing their way to becoming dedicated gamers who want deeper experiences.

    This is the future for Nintendo as I see it: They will continue with this trend until about 2011, or until whenever they release their new console. It will likely have power close to or as good as the PS3, and an even more innovative control scheme. By this time, Nintendo will have a huge audience of the people I just described, and then Nintendo will turn 180º, and drop the casual games, instead returning to their roots of intense gaming since now they have a huge support for these games, and people who are almost guaranteed to buy them. THAT'S when Nintendo will become the true king of video games again, as now it is merely ahead in the race. If and when Nintendo makes it to the next generation, they will have made a crapload of money from the Wii and DS and can invest their time in making a very powerful piece of hardware that the once casual gamers will eat up because they are ready for it, having been weaned on Nintendo and becoming loyal to it's ease of play.

    If this is their plan (Which it should be, IMO) then they are Genius. This strategy could very well make them THE video game company again, establishing their place in the market and being set to last another 10 or 20 years.

    Nintendo's Big Press Conference

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm sort of scared for the shorter battery life, their emphasis on apps (again, why are they competing against the iPhone, again?), a CAMERA, and a web browser... I mean, they're just jumping into all the cliques they have been supposedly against. And it doesn't really make sense to semi-upgrade the DS to do it. Why not wait for a true next generation?

    I think it probably has something to do with their E3. After they saw how much everyone hated it and was starting to lose faith in them (Myself not included), they took whatever product they were working on and quickly finished it up, aka the DSi. They probably had greater plans for it and were planning to release it in 2010 or so.

    Then again...They are prepared to ship it in Japan on november 1, so I'm probably wrong, but still.

    But about the whole GBA thing: I'm ripped too, but we had the same deal with the original DS and GBC games. We got over it. And again, the people who want to play those games that need the GBA slot likely already can, so complaining about a company pushing forward is weird.

    Also, I don't care what Nintendo says: this is going to replace the DS. They said the same thing about the game boy, so no reason to believe them about this.

    P.S. There are tons of great GBA games, and the pokemon issue is something that bugs me too. But again, I already have the means to do it, so I really have no reason to complain, I guess.

    Nintendo's Big Press Conference

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Are they actually remakes, or just ports? I was under the impression that Nintendo was just going to re-release a line of "ultimate player's choice games" that aren't changed at all, except for some new box art or something. While I would love wii controls for prime 1 and 2, remember: This is Nintendo. They're probably going to take the easy road, which IMO is fine by me. If I want to play the original pikmin, I want to play it the way it was meant to be played, no extras or added controls. If I wanted the extra wii stuff I should get the wii version, is all I'm saying.

    Plus...Is it just me, or does the DSi have better graphics??? It DEFINITELY has a higher resolustion, and the graphics look upped.

    Wii Music

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It sounds like an interesting idea...

    But it looks like it's being applied in the most boring way possible.

    Exactly. The game doesn't seem to have any life in it.

    Maybe that will change when I can see my mutant miis in the audience, but...

    In-game adverstising

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    What I think is funny is the issue of realism in games. If a game is supposed to look realistic, then there should be advertisements. But it wouldn't make sense to see a mars bar billboard in gears of war, even though that game is trying to be realistic. It's hard to explain, but it's like people want games to be realistic and non realistic at the same time. People don't consider mario games to be realistic, but they do conisder games about fighting evil aliens on giant rings in space that can blow up planets and mind controlling bugs realistic as long as everything looks properly proportioned.

    As far as advertisements, it does bug me to see the ads for sony lining the rink in NHL games.

    Wii Music

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I know what you are all thinking. And, after watching some of the instrument demonstrations from Gametrailers, I feel much the same way.(Although, the sheer amount of instruments is impressive(over 60).)

    Wii_Music_Confirmed_US_Boxart.JPG

    However, I watched some gameplay footage on iTunes and I have to say, it does look like fun to jam along to a jazz version of 'twinkle twinkle little star' however you like. Also, the game is presented so that every performance looks like a music video, which I think is a nice touch; they even have a picture of your album cover with your Mii and the other band players on it at the start of each song. From this, I would assume that the game features a single player, guitar hero like experience, where you gain popularity by playing at progressively larger gigs with your party of miis until you hit the big time.

    This genuinely would be fun IMO, but the probable lack of any kind of scoring system detracts from it. If there is no way to play 'badly', then there is no real reason to try to play well. I understand the appeal of just playing with friends as silly as you like, but in the single player mode there has to be some standard you must meet to pass songs, otherwise there is no incentive to play. Wikipedia does say, however, that the orchestral conductor mode does have a ranking system. Hopefully this carries into the campaign mode as well.

    Another interesting thing is the track list. There are, undoubtedly, going to be a lot of Nintendo songs. themes like mario and zelda are obviously going to be included, but maybe we'll even see some songs from lesser known games. Maybe even some songs from third party games (I would love to play the Metal Gear Solid theme all orchestral!). There will probably also be a large selection of well known songs, such as lullabies and classical pieces. Knowing Nintendo and from what I've seen so far there won't be any real mainstream music, as there is no (confirmed) microphone or wiispeak capabilities, although should these be included it would be pretty sweet, and then mainstream songs would become much more likely.

    Hopefully the game will include online play (As hinted by the box art), rankings and maybe even the ability to upload your performances to Nintendo WFC for others to see (Of course, if this were to be the case, bye-bye singing!). Being able to upload your work to a computer and maybe even convert it to MP3 would be neat as well.

    To wrap this up, I'd say the game has potential. Simply playing a tuneless song on a trumpet by yourself looks boring, but multiplayer, the single player campaign and the conductor modes do look like fun.

    What are your thoughts (Although I have a good idea what they will be, lol)?

    Are there any games that play with your phobias?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    An older game by Epic Megagames...Makers of Jazz Jackrabbit and I believe the Unreal games.

    It was a point-and-click game about a boy's dreams called Dare to Dream. The game starts out with the standard lullaby theme, then shows the title:

    DareToDream_titlescreen_episode1.png

    That monster face scared me when I was about 7 or 8.

    Anyways, the game takes place inside the dreams of this messed up kid, and there's two things in particular that freaked me out: Near the end of the first episode there is a panoramic view of hundreds of impaled people on large stakes in a blue field. The stakes and people are silhouetted, but there are bright red stains at the base of each.

    The other is that throughout the game, everyone is telling you to wake up quickly or else "the monster will get you." Mind you I played this during the time that I still had nightmares about monsters under the bed. When you finally wake up from the dream, you see the kid sit up in bed and a pair of red eyes under the bed. WHat made it worse though is that that night, my little sister made a pair of cut out, glow in the dark eyes and put them under my bed, then jokingly told me to check before I went to sleep. I flipped. Big time.

    More info on the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_to_Dream

    Nintendo Wii

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Once you reformat, it will go back to it's factory settings, meaning it won't even recognize any of it's old data.

    You should try deleting the mega mans, then redownload them and try again. (Redownloads are free)

    I don't think that free space should be an issue, though, because I've only got 9 free blocks left but all my VC and wii stuff work fine.

    Disaster: Day of Crisis

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Holy cow. This game looks great. I'm surprised there isn't already a thread about it.

    It's supposed to come out this month in Japan, but no word on whether or not it's coming here.

    Logo_disaster.png

    Graphically, it doesn't look too bad, could be better, of course, but the game seems to be presented very cinematically, with interactive cutscenes.

    Also, according the wikipedia, the game's getting an M rating. A game published by Nintendo that's rated M? what's the world coming to.

    I sure hope it makes it overseas. This game, along with Moon for the DS and The Conduit are at the top of my 'wish list'.

    Any thoughts on the game?

    Nintendo Wii

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Unless the Wii version of a game manages to have ridiculously awesome controls, I never take multiplatform games into consideration.

    I actually heard that they're going to include extra missions or something in the Wii version. I remember someone specifically stating that the Wii version will not be a "me too" port.

    Nintendo Wii

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I think when people think "Hardcore", they think of a story, a 10 hour + single player game, a desire to sit down and play for extended periods of time and voice acting (I don't know why there's so much emphasis on it.) When they think "Casual", they probably think party, puzzle or games with little or no story to them that you'd play in smaller sessions, focusing mainly on fun rather than engaging the player.

    But what do I know. I think that games should be fun, and anything else is bonus (Of course there are standards for everything, I don't want to play a fun game on anything that looks like a nes game, unless it's intentionally that way, i.e. megaman 9), but immersing the player into a game world should be key, especially in "hardcore" games but even in "causal" games, to an extent.

    Games and Learning: a third video by me (and James Portnow!)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Very good stuff... tangential learning is certainly powerful, I've experienced it many, many times myself.

    However, one problem is that many topics simply cannot work with this method, and you even cited one perhaps without realizing it: Math Blaster. Once you get past simple arithmetic, do you really think there is any non-standard educational method of helping the player learn about, say, Calculus? Trigonometry? Accounting? Engineering? At best, you can encourage the player to look up a few things when they're done playing (or link from directly within the game, as you suggested) but to meaningfully teach most topics, video games with the philosophy of "fun first" can't really work, IMO.

    The computer games Cluefinders, grades 3 through 6 are actually quite good for this, while difficult. However, they aren't "fun" so much as an obstacle to overcome so you can find out what happens next.

    Spore

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm seriously considering picking up this game for my intel mac (Intel core 2 duo; that'll work, right?) But I'm a little confused. FIrst, does the full game come with the $10 creature creator you could buy separately, and second, is it worth the $50? What I mean is, how long does the game last for the money?

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