I-n-j-i-n

Wavedashing definitely is an exploit. The word 'exploit' describes it technically as well as figuratively. Also, a lot of serious tournaments do ban a few moves or set stipulations too. Gamers using all at their disposal to win is not very professional at all. I don't know where all these crazy tourney myths came from. Just about every tournaments sets up strict stipulations as far as exploits go. This is a foregone conclusion.

I know you're being sarcastic but whatever. It's ironic that a next gen game system is pushing so much on oldschool connectivity that's all. I could make the same argument for all the current generation systems. Downloadables are fine. Backward compatibility with old games filling up the sole disc slot? That is just silly.

I think they ought to push the PS3 as a future gaming system with the downloadable PS1 oldies (like Wii, like 360. Microsoft had the model working years ago) instead of pushing the backward compatibility all the time. Too many systems are having trouble because companies feel pushed to be backward compatible. Ultimately they really don't determine new purchases. At all. Also, downloadable PS1 games are possibly the biggest gaming goldmine ever. I love Nintendo's own oldies library, but many PS1 games are almost legendary and untouchable because of how some classics are too rare to get now. It's the silly backward compatibility BS that companies should stop caring about. Stretched screens in HDTV, memory problems, frame rate problems, all bullshit.

Instead of separating entire franchises, why don't they just get a bunch of SNK fighters and inject them in there? It'd surely help the lack of that certain quirkiness the SNK characters always had over Capcom types. Also, I want to see new characters instead of the same old.

I don't know about Touhou games since they are made almost entirely for the most hardcore of the hardcores. Even many shooter fans are turned off by its difficulty, though I think it's fun for like 3 or 4 rounds if I ever make it that far. I actually beat one game and that is about it. It's as accessible as Ikaruga, which means it's not very accessible. I think games like Einhander did it better with the much smoother difficulty curve. Also, the new generation Ninja Gaiden has it right IMO. Most of the fault of players dying is pinned solely on the player because otherwise, the enemy would be ruthless in killing you. Games like Splinter Cell had the difficulty done perfectly even if it got too hard at the hardest setting. And Halo is probably one of the most balanced out of them all. Even at Legendary setting, enemies only attack you on sight and sound instead of the typical cheating 'look thru walls' AI of most FPS games or merely have better armor and aiming as it's just the persistency of the AI that is revamped in Legendary mode. As for Mario games as of late, you can almost guarantee an easy difficulty after all the harder levels in Mario Sunshine (some levels being notoriously difficult and hard thanks to the wacky camera and touchy controls). Also, a lot of Sonic and Mario and other old time platformers have all gone soft in difficulty setting. If you want a truly good display of difficulty curves in platformers, it's typically with the Sony platformers like Jak & Daxter, Sly Cooper and Ratchet & Clank. Those games have long since gotten the difficulty curve right while all the older franchises just languished and gave up to easier difficulty. You can seriously cruise through most Sonic games without thinking much of any enemies or obstacles. Even Robotnik is a pushover nowadays.

Who really listens to that Steam guy nowadays? He's just creating one big sales pitch for Valve and reiterating how software engineers say the PS3 is the hardest to program out of the three consoles. As if others didn't say that a few hundred times before. And when he was confronted with the 360-bashing he did before, he just went into a technophile filibuster by going totally off the topic.

Market prices? The Wiimote (actually $60 for nunchuck+wiimote) and other wireless controllers costs around that much, the PS3 Sixaxis is precisely $50. Also a lot of 3rd party wireless adapters are $100 or even more. I wish both prices were a lot lower too, but they're just going by the market.

I thought the Dreamcast had the final good games of consoles that Sega have put out. Ecco was great, Seaman was amazing and very inventive (thinking back, it was much more of a 'raise the critter' experience than Nintendogs or Tomogachi ever was), Sonic Adventure 2 felt like the last time the Sonic Team gave a damn about a console Sonic game, the last good Daytona USA game, the first Jet Set Radio game (the best one is still the Xbox version) and Visual Concepts games (the great team responsible for the 2K sports titles. Way better than EA sports games for the mostpart) was actually a Sega 2nd party and responsible for old classics like the World Series games. That and Sega had 4 or 5 really high profile 1st and 2nd parties until they were forced to dissolve. Then there's the obvious classics like Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue episode 1 and 2. Though the obvious rarity is the Virtua Fighter games which is basically fighting game perfection since the very first to VF5 now. No other fighting game can really even approach it in depth and balance. I still wish Sega was competing Nintendo (or maybe now with Sony and Microsoft) head to head with 50/50 market share as to bring out Sega's most competitive, wild side. Sega really used to be a curveball company until the Dreamcast. Always wildly inventive, even to a fault so much so that it took down the company. And as for fighting game suggestions, there is Power Stone 1 and 2 (still compares very well to Super Smash Bros games for me. Too bad the franchise never really continued since) and there is a huge line of 2D fighters including a lot of King of Fighters, a lot of Capcom fighting games including a lot of rare titles like Rival Schools and such. Also, I thought it still had the best version of Street Fighter 3 ever since the Dreamcast apparently is near identical in its hardware to a Capcom arcade cabinet.

I love how a lot of high profile releases on the 360 are good old 2D, oldschool types of games that gets a heavy modern make over. Every Extend Extra could be a nice spiritual successor to Geometry Wars. Finally.

Wow. That was so funny. >every sort of rolleyes emoticon< PS- Is it shameful that PSP games are getting awesome games finally and it's still taking a while for PS3 games? I'm still playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma in the game demo booths.

I hope it gets a good overhaul like Ninja Gaiden did. Definitely one of the best action platformers ever made.

So they are showing Disgaea 3 screens recently.... And it STILL looks like a PSone game! Oh well.

I don't miss old Wario personally. He was in the mascot cellar until the Warioware and the GBA titles saved him. But mostly Warioware.. But it looks like they're using his oldschool Wario style of combat anyway.

Honestly, the game did have a few anti-aliasing issues to smoothen out the jagged polygons and the textures weren't as good as it could be and that TOTALLY detracts from the entire game experience. /sarcasm

More specifically, it was "launch of Wii", which stuck for a few solid months before Nintendo retracted it into ambiguity. The on to late 2007, then into very, very late 2007 and now early 2008. I'm not insinuating anything here. Just going by what the delays have been. I am. I'm still going to play and enjoy it but that is FOUR major, major delays going by the tentative AND specific dates. I seriously doubt it as the SSBB blog itself is saying the development is continuing right now. I don't know what to make of the argument that they already completed it. I seriously doubt that. Like you said before, the development is continual especially when they're constantly adding new stuff to the game. What else is there for me to say here? I know I was making a bit of an apples and grapes argument but Virtua Fighter games historically has been 'completed' but tweaked over months and years after the game itself has been completed. They even overhaul the entire engine to accommodate the balance changes. Certainly the SSBB development will do the same, but I seriously doubt they're ever going to count the frames of animation ala Virtua Fighter development in order to balance the game. And again, the blog itself makes it evident that they're adding new content again and again. How is that a testament to the complexity of the game engine? It's in essence little different from SSBM. I mean ultimately it is understandable. But I'm not faulting anything about the development or its difficulty. But the hard release dates were a huge tease and Nintendo knows it. It's not the first time it happened recently either. Remember Twilight Princess? "Not going to be made for the Wii"? It has happened before. Also, I'm not pinning it down on how hard or easy the difficulty of development is. But how they're announcing it. It always makes sense when they delay good games. Blizzard does it ALL the time, but fans are still miffed whenever the delay comes. Wrap your head around the fact that I'm talking about the delay and the fan reaction. I'm not looking at it from the developer's point of view. I'm not a part of the SSBB team.

It's not. At least not by people who actually own a 360, actually bought the game and played it online. It's by far the most fleshed out console FPS game ever made. I thought that title belonged to Perfect Dark before (the co-op for that game was legendary, literally), but Halo 3 outdid all console FPS and even trumps a few FPS games just on the sheer atmosphere of the game alone. The online co-op can probably be played forever and I won't get tired of it as long as the co-op partners remain interesting. That and aside from the few gripes, most of the media gave it rave reviews.

Console games being comparatively as good looking (and definitely having a larger library) than PC games, I probably won't bother. For $500 for a GOOD video card, I'd rather plunge on a PS3. I just need to play the newest Settlers and StarCraft 2.

I don't think I got anything wrong there. Setting a general, tentative estimate of the quarter of the year isn't exactly vague. It's still relatively specific in the broad scope of things and gamers will still be able to get preorders in and anticipate them. If they decide to drop a specific release date a month or two before the launch (BioShock anyone?), then all the better for everyone. Though I still think games like BioShock were rushed anyway. With fighting games, it tends to be not about the complexity of the game in itself but the tweaks they need to make. The SSBB team decided to add things on a constant basis and that's the situation they brought themselves. They aren't even making something scientifically precise like a Virtua Fighter game either. Now THAT game is all about complexity in its engine and balance of characters from the get go. SSBB, to me, is more about the constant additions they're putting out. Which isn't a bad thing, but it's not purely about the complexity of the entire game. Nintendo gave out a very, very vague way of saying it was 'intended' and yet it totally broke the game compared to, I don't know, ALL THE CORNERING IN EVERY MARIO KART EVER. It is broke. I'm not complaining because I can't exploit the game too. I snake almost all the time in MKDS. I did it in DAY ONE and that says something about it being for 'advanced players'. Play F-Zero GX and it is broken beyond all repair too, thanks to snaking. It seems a few recent racers Nintendo put out can't get the cornering right for some reason. Hopefully they fix it by the next F Zero and Mario Kart. No sarcasm. I can understand the reasoning for the complexity with the games, but adding new characters by the month is not the issue. It's perfectly understandable and it's fine they're delaying it. But a delay is a delay. If they were going to be CONSTANTLY delaying it as if they're Blizzard, then they shouldn't have set hard release dates to begin with. Way to not understand my point. Seems to happen daily. And you know, if something is so vague in development crunch like SSBB is, I would think that the vast majority of fans would be understanding of the long development time and the situation the team is in. "coming in 2008" is fine. Setting two or three different SPECIFIC dates are just teases. Not just SSBB either. It seems to happen only a few dozen times with high profile games in any given year. It's always a tease. I'm not angry at the development, development team, the game or the company or the media. I'm angry at the tease and I can understand if it miffs people. How the hell does that make it even remotely sound like I'm putting down the development effort? You tell me.

I don't have favorites because I don't play favorites. I like good games, period. I try not to have any bias about unknown games just because it doesn't have a franchise label on them. I try to get into the games that are typically overlooked. I also try not to get the whole console war mess into it. All that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of the actual development of a game. But if I'm a 'fan' of anything from the stuff I own, I have bought at least 5 different copies and editions of FF7, three versions of FF6 and four Chrono Trigger copies (don't ask why. Some just went missing). To be broad, I like just about all genres. Even some EA/2K sports games once in a blue moon. But if there is a particular genre I love which I think is overlooked nowadays, is the puzzle genre. Intelligent Qube is criminally overlooked. And someone mentioned Earthworm Jim, and I absolutely am/was a fan. I wish it turned into a proper series because it's basically some of the best 2D platforming ever made, period.

That is why an ambiguous release date may work just as well. The only people who would be miffed are those who stake themselves out on preorders. If a game is finished, it's finished. A lot of games in the past year have only have their release date finalized only a month or two before release. I think that is way more effective and not as misleading/disappointing. I doubt it is about complexity. The ability to put out an earnest release date or even a gross estimate that doesn't lead into constant delays are not about complexity. Though I think the part of it is how the SSBB development team is trying to add new things constantly and they probably haven't finalized it a long time ago. It just seems to me they're adding things as they go. Especially from reading the blog. Except not all EA games are buggy as well as there are a lot of Nintendo, Sega or any other game developers who put in some bugs in there. Mario Kart snaking anyone?

I doubt it has to do with the costs for smaller companies other than that BioWare has long since become a development group for blockbusters and they are making the biggest projects now. They put themselves in that position and they consolidate. This is almost a non issue. More gamers demand the more ambitious games, companies consolidate to deal with it. Smaller companies are still out there and it is not BioWare.

Again, that is totally besides the issue about the delay. I mean, if you're going into the actual details and the specificities, that all makes sense. But why even have release dates for something that is ambiguous? I wish they do away with specific release dates for good. Just go with the whole "release in 2008!" instead of teasing gamers with specific dates. It's not just for SSBB. It's for every game where the delays just puts a hamper on everything. I guess it doesn't matter nowadays because there are so many great games otherwise, but a delay is a delay is a delay. Tecmo is probably one of the most introverted gaming company out there. And what does Halo not being well received have anything to do with it? Enough with the fanboyism. I was specifically talking about the likelihood of crossovers.

The thing is, the game was heavily rumored even by Nintendo to be a launch title for the Wii. Then it is put back 6 months. Then a month. Then another 2 months. I can understand just about every type of delays imaginable (try waiting for StarCraft 2), but I can understand how some people could be miffed. It is basically a year of delays more or less. All from tentative release date to the actual release date to adding months on top of it. Sure the game is going to be great. That is not even the point when people are miffed about delays. People are miffed at the DELAY.

Actually Master Chief isn't such a far stretch. Nobody thought it'd happen with DOA4 either but it sorta/kinda happened with that female Spartan. I think it'd be hilarious if Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue makes it though. But that could be a pretty good addition too since he has a lot of nice and good martial arts move that could fit into any SSB scenario. And Cloud definitely would make a huge entrance, and I think anything is possible after Kingdom Hearts. But I still don't think Square is all that eager for Nintendo cooperation other than releasing some well-selling remakes and spinoffs like they have been. I wish they go totally crazy and put in some anime character or something.

Nice addition to the Orange Box, but for $20, I'd feel ripped off.