This thread is about video games

[dnl2ba]

Wil Wright's Spore

You start off as some single-celled organism, evolve continually until you're an intelligent land animal, and then it becomes some kind of Sim City / Civilization RTS where you control a whole civilization of your creatures. Weird, but awesome. Ambitious like Black & White, but Wright is batting .500 recently (so we can ignore SimTower, SimEarth, etc.). Sounds like what SimLife was supposed to be.

Pics (http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/03/pictures_of_wil.php)

Analysis/notes (http://www.donhopkins.com/home/WillWrightSporeDemo.html)

[dnl2ba]

Jesus, who came up with that shitty thread title?


Wil Wright's Spore

You start off as some single-celled organism, evolve continually until you're an intelligent land animal, and then it becomes some kind of Sim City / Civilization RTS where you control a whole civilization of your creatures. Weird, but awesome. Ambitious like Black & White, but Wright is batting .500 recently (so we can ignore SimTower, SimEarth, etc.). Sounds like what SimLife was supposed to be.

Pics (http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/03/pictures_of_wil.php)

Analysis/notes (http://www.donhopkins.com/home/WillWrightSporeDemo.html)

A Real-Time Procedural Universe (http://home.comcast.net/%7Es-p-oneil/index.htm)


I started off with planet generation and rendering from a random seed. If I could accomplish that in real-time using dynamic level-of detail, I knew that I would be able to generate and render an entire solar system in real-time as well. Since you should never have to generate and display more than one solar system at a time, it should be relatively easy to randomly generate a galaxy of star systems at a higher level.


When I felt I had a pretty good start at planet generation and rendering, I started publishing articles on GamaSutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/). One of the developers at Maxis (http://www.maxis.com/) noticed it, and now I'm continuing this work under a part-time contract.

Speculation is that this guy is contributing planet-rendering code to Spore. Check out the screenshots.

OTOH, his resume makes it sound like he did this consultant work for Maxis in 2001-2003 and it's over. :confused:

[dnl2ba]

Tim Schafer, who did Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and Grim Fandango, came to my video game character design class in Spring 2003 to talk about Psychonauts for the X-Box. Now there's a PC demo (http://forums.idlethumbs.net/showthread.php?p=33994).

[dnl2ba]

I have a hard time believing I came up with this thread title.

X-Box 360 pic (http://img255.echo.cx/img255/1108/xbox3602ag.jpg)

another (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000293041091/)

super close-up (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000913041045/)

[Rhys]

I know I can't be the only one on the board who thinks they should've just stopped at the SNES. Really, you can't beat that thing.

[schally]

I was just thinking today that I need to pick up a copy of Super Metroid. Playing it on my computer just isn't the same.

Re: Nintendo: Never got along too well with the N64 due to lack of RPGs and it seems like all I ever play on my Game Cube are GBA games. I basically have a $200 Game Boy hooked up to my TV.

Speaking of GBA, I need something new to play around with and I was thinking about getting Metroid Zero. I also kinda want Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. I played my cousin's copy for about half an hour and really liked it. Anyone got anything else to recommend for Cube or Advance?

[Gump]

I think the last "new" game I bought was the GBA version of Castlevania, and the last new game I played was MGS3, so I'm kind of in the same boat. I still haven't played Katamari Damacy, dangit!

But I have gushed about Eternal Darkness before on IM. I still can't go to my bathroom downstairs at night without hesitating. And Metroid Zero Mission = FANTASTIC.

I've been spending most of my free time this past semester playing SNES games. I got through SMB: Lost Levels, Mario World, and Yoshi's Island, and I've been playing Secret of Mana the past few weeks--got everybody to lv. 80-something, all magic maxed out, and four lv. 9 weapon orbs. I've never had a save file go this well.

[dnl2ba]

For the Cube, it's all about the party games. Pac-Man Vs., Wario-Ware, Mario Kart, and so on. But the poor baby is dead in the water now. I think there were NO new GC games in April. None!

In SOM, I recall having the problem where some weapon orb chests turned to candy chests because of some weirdness (like if you don't open the chest the first time it comes on screen, and you go to another room and come back). So I ended up only getting the spear to Lv 9.

[Gump]

That's weird. I only got the lv. 7 Sword orb the second time it came on screen, and I even got an extra one because I forgot to pick up the one at Pandora Castle (that one became money). I also thought at one point that I'd almost broken the file while I was trying to get the lv. 9 sword, since the only way to get it is through a humongoid glitch.

I'd almost forgotten about Wario Ware. Rented it once, had a blast.

[Rhys]

Anyone got anything else to recommend for Cube or Advance?
I like Tales of Symphonia for Cube. It'll keep you busy, especially if you want to get all the titles and such for your characters. With GBA, I don't remember if you played both Golden Sun games. They're fun if you haven't. I'll also vouch for FF1&2. And if you don't mind the rampant commercialism, there's always some version of Pokemon, especially if you can convince a friend to get it too.

I like how when you get a level 9 sword in SOM, the little red bar showing your attack power breaks out of the box and goes off the screen.

I've got about $300 in tip money lying around, so I was thinking of finally picking up a PS2. What must I have for it?

[dnl2ba]

Do you play stuff besides RPGs? Ballz and I loved Katamari Damacy. I'm also a Capcom tournament fighter geek (and not a terribly good one at that), but I have a feeling you're not.

[schally]

I don't just play RPGs, but I like those, adventure games, and survival horror games the best. Everyone loves Katamari. On the list it goes.

Rhys, for PS2 FFX is a $20 no-brainer. I never played FFX^2 but it seems to me that any game with magical dress up would be right up your alley. There's also Kindom Hearts, which is fun if you can get over the crappy camera angles and a few crappy levels. Phantom Brave and Disgaea are both supposed to be awesome.

[Gump]

Phantom Brave's good, from what I've played of it. I really like the style. I just haven't had much of a chance to play it. I need to finish it after I graduate. That and Mega Man Battle Network 2.

I also want to get Metal Gear Solid 3. I rented it over Xmas break, and loved it, loved it, loved it (MGS2 Substance is good, too--it's just like MGS2, except it has actual gameplay). I'm also planning to get Katamari and the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection as soon as possible (although I want to save some money for my Scotland trip).

Yeah, FFX's a no-brainer. And if you're like me, and you like an FF that doesn't take itself so seriously (and if you like Job systems), you'll like FFX-2.

[dnl2ba]

The mystery of Totaka's song (http://www.planetnintendo.com/nindb/totakasong.shtml)

[dnl2ba]

Black & White 2 trailer (http://www.filerush.com/download.php?target=blackwhite2_ot_pc_042505.mpg)

Wow, it was 18 MB, but I downloaded it by the time it took to get to MCBB and start writing this sentence. It was like 460 KB/s by BitTorrent.

Seems more like Populous than the original Black & White. The creature now seems like an afterthought, and I saw no emphasis on the thing about being good or evil. The screenshots all seem to emphasize the creature, though. So maybe the focus is the same as in the original, but they wanted to emphasize what was new to the series? That's too bad-- it's not new to the genre.

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Nintendogs is too cute (http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nintendogs.php)
ad (http://touch-ds.jp/mediagallery/st14.html)

It reportedly got a perfect 40 (http://www.gfdata.de/archiv04-2005-gamefront/ninten.jpg) from Famitsu.

Comment from Ars peanut gallery (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/646004892731/r/322009892731#322009892731):

So according to that ad, this game's purpose is to give lonely hot rich girls a purpose in life without leaving their homes? That doesn't sound like a game, that sounds like the enemy.

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Soul Calibur 3 screenies (http://www.the-magicbox.com/0504/game050428h.shtml)

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http://www.the-magicbox.com/gaming.htm



- Here are the Top 10 Best Selling Games in Japan for the week of April 18 - 24.



Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song (PS2, Square Enix) - 217,000 units
Fire Emblem: Souen no Kiseki (GC, Nintendo) - 102,000 units
Naruto: Saikyo Ninja Daikesshu 3 for DS (NDS, Tomy) - 84,000 units
Nintendogs: Shiba and friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 83,000 units
Nintendogs: Dachs and friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 53,000 units
Nintendogs: Chihuahua and friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 46,000 units
Baseball Live 2005 (PS2, Namco) - 44,000 units
Rockman Zero 4 (GBA, Capcom) - 38,000 units
Mobilt Suit Gundam: The One Year War (PS2, Bandai) - 30,000 (234,000) units
Shutokou Battle: Zone of Control (PSP, Genki) - 29,000 units
- Here are the hardware sales in Japan for the week of April 18 - 24.


Nintendo DS - 96,191 units
PlayStation 2 - 33,080 units
PlayStation Portable - 33,004 units
GameBoy Advance SP - 10,820 units
GameCube - 8,329 units
GameBoy Advance - 422 units
Xbox - 112 units
-------

Gump, what did you end up getting?

[dnl2ba]

Age of Empires 3 (screenshots (http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/721/721644/imgs_1.html)) was almost a revolutionary game (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-empires-iii/608726p1.html), but they scrapped it.


We started off saying "Let's make this a game that revolutionized the RTS genre... which is a goofy vision goal, 'cause how do you legislate revolution? We reiterated that for a really really long time and in the end, I think the only thing that survived from that period of the design was the concept of the Home City. Because the idea of adding persistence to an RTS game is pretty much a lock -- I mean, that's cool. The things we thought would work out, well, they worked out, but it just didn't feel like an Age game. Why? Because an Age game has franchise expectations that people bring to the table...I don't think it was too 'new' for people, I just think it wasn't an Age game. It was clearly going to be a kick-ass RTS game, but it wasn't an Age game. When we talked to everyone in the office and people who played it, they all thought it was really good, but it wasn't an Age game. And so now, we sort of stepped back and we did things that made it feel like an Age game again.

Reminds me of WarCraft 3, which was originally gonna have more tactics / RPG stuff and less base-building.

[Gump]

I am now officially in love with Katamari Damacy. Whee!

[ohvermie]

I cannot wait for We Love Katamari to roll in. GET IT! ROLL IN!! HAHHAAHAHA!!
Anyway...cooperative katamari forming sounds sooooo sweet.

[Rhys]

I finally finished Final Fantasy VIII last night, after like six years of trying. Now I'm not sure what to play.

[dnl2ba]

I cannot wait for We Love Katamari to roll in. GET IT! ROLL IN!! HAHHAAHAHA!!
Anyway...cooperative katamari forming sounds sooooo sweet.

We Love Katamari preview (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3140041&did=1) at 1up.com

Doesn't appear to be much new.

[ohvermie]

We Love Katamari preview (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3140041&did=1) at 1up.com

Doesn't appear to be much new.

I think just the cooperative facet of the game should elevate it beyond greatness. Look at what it did for the new Splinter Cell!

And for another 19.99, I'm honestly not expecting too much other than some new levels and more kooky music!

[dnl2ba]

Well, the first one was so unexpectedly fresh, it's just too bad that they had to go make a sequel instead of another weird new idea.

[ohvermie]

Unlike the creative team of ICO who is now pumping out the marvelously delicious Shadow of the Collossus? I still prefer the name Wanda and the Collossus, but who'd want to buy a game with a chick in the title?

Is it just me or is Jade Empire kinda the suck. I got it like a week after release and I haven't done crap for it. It just can't suck me in and I hate the combat of random button mashing. *sigh*

[dnl2ba]

I'm thinking of picking up Animal Crossing again. 15 minutes of fishing or interior decoration here and there seems just right for me.

[Rhys]

I got the FFX today. More on that when I have some clue as to what the hell is going on.

[schally]

I'm thinking of picking up Animal Crossing again. 15 minutes of fishing or interior decoration here and there seems just right for me.
Every now and then I'll pick it up and catch a few new fish or something. One of these days I'll complete my museum and pay off my last debt.

[ohvermie]

I got the FFX today. More on that when I have some clue as to what the hell is going on.

You will probably have a clue when you're about to finish the game. That shit made absolutely no sense to me, and I had no desire to finish it. Too new fangled for my taste, although Blitzball was amusing.

[schally]

I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: The Minish cap for the past week. It's fun and very LTTP, but I think it's almost over. :( At the beginning I had to collect four thingies, and I was, "OK NO PROBLEM AFTER THESE THINGIES I GET TO COLLECT LIKE SIX OR SEVEN MORE THINGIES." But I've got three of them already and I've almost filled up all my item spots in my inventory. Go I guess that's all the thingies. :( :( :(

Anyway it's fun. Tingle's got like three brothers d00ders seriously.

[dnl2ba]

I actually picked up Minish Cap while waiting 5 hours for my car's 30K service. Having people or the bird hat thing block your way is a cop-out. In a REAL Zelda/Metroid game, it's because you don't have the right item yet.

[ohvermie]

shadow of the colossus (http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200505/N05.0503.1807.11056.htm) preview at game informer
looks like this strange concept of a game might actually be playable. not many games have memorable boss battles anymore and even Metal Gear Solid 3 was kind of lacking in its boss battles. hopefully taking down one of the colossi is mad satisfying.

[ohvermie]

I threw my controller at the PS2 last night while playing God of War. I'm trying to finish the game on God/Extra Hard mode and was up to one of the last parts of the game. I almost cleared the room of all the enemies and got whacked something cheesy by this archer dude that NEVER hits for shit. I lost it cuz it must've been the second hour I was trying to bust through that part and when I almost got through it, some cheesy BS happened to kill me. So I chucked the controller at the PS2. The PS2 is fine, the controller now doubles as a marocca. I am shamed and have submitted myself to anger management classes.

[dnl2ba]

So everyone's all caught up on the X-Box 360 (http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-2/the-xbox-360-103338.php), right?

So if all controllers are wireless and there's no controller ports, I wonder how many controllers it'll support at a time.

[dnl2ba]

Unreal Tournament 2007 screenshots & preview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/unrealtournament2007/preview_6123872.html)
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends screenshots & preview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/riseofnationsriseoflegends/preview_6123931.html?tag=boxcar_pc_preview_image)

With my budget being what it is, I don't see myself upgrading my machine to be a PC game monster any time soon. And with my schedule being what it is, I don't see myself playing in-depth games. I'll probably stick to quick console games for a while.

Also, big video card means big, loud fan. I might just upgrade CPU + mobo + RAM on the next go.

[dnl2ba]

X-Box 360 / Dead or Alive 4 (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59035) - nice, but nothing breathtaking.

fat X-Box 360 article (Tom's Hardware) (http://www7.tomshardware.com/game/200505121/index.html)


First he plugged in a Rio Carbon and began streaming tunes over the Xbox's sound system right from the MP3 player itself. Next, he took a Kodak EasyShare camera and snapped pictures of all of us, plugged the camera right into the 360 and displayed us on screen. You can even plug in a Sony PSP and watch pictures and listen to music it contains.

When asked what the thinking was behind letting gamers plug a competitor's product in to use on a Microsoft device, Mr. Henshaw replied, "Other console makers want to force you to buy brand "S" memory and use a brand "S" format to play on brand "S" TV's. We just want things to work for the gamer and be as easy as possible."

Taking a spin with the X-Box 360 (TeamXBox.com) (http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1143/Taking-a-Spin-with-the-Xbox-360/p1/)

The DVD drive won't support either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD discs.


The Xbox 360 will support up to 4 wireless controllers at one time and additional wired controllers can be used via the USB 2.0 ports as previously noted.


While the Xbox 360 can stream recorded video from a Windows Media Center PC, it does not have the functionality to act as a server like a PVR does.


All of the Xbox 360 games will support a minimum of 16:9 widescreen format, 720p and 1080i HD resolutions from the get-go. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a fancy HDTV yet, the Xbox 360 will play just fine on a traditional television.

-----------

I'm curious about the Revolution's purported novel input means, but after the N64 and GC's weak third party support, I'm gonna wait on that sucka. Twice bitten, four times shy?

[dnl2ba]

[/url][url="http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/535004333731/r/682009333731#682009333731"]Description of photos from Japanese press conference (http://ebinavi.oshietekun.net/modules/news/69.html)

Found some pictures from the japanese press conference (http://ebinavi.oshietekun.net/modules/news/69.html). Three games presented - Ninety Nine Nights, which appears to be a Dynasty Warriors-alike, or at least something similar, from Q Entertainment (Tetsuya Mizuguchi's new company - he's the fella responsible for rez, space channel 5, lumines, meteos, etc) and Phantagram (they did Kingdom Under Fire, so they know their way around the genre), and two RPGs from Mistwalker - Lost Oddysey and Blue Dragon. Lost Oddysey has character designs from Inoue Takehiko (famous manga artist or something, i think), and Blue Dragon has art/characters from Akira Toriyama, which should mean something to anyone who's ever heard of Dragon Quest or Dragonball... Basically Lost Oddysey seems to be aiming for the FF market, while Blue Dragon is blatantly going for Dragon Quest fans. I think both have music from Nobuo Uematsu (oldschool FF composer).

I recall this arhra guy was a PS2 developer. Not sure what he's up to these days.

[ohvermie]

X-Box 360 / Dead or Alive 4 (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59035) - nice, but nothing breathtaking.
I am so underwhelmed from the "screenshots" of DoA4 on the 360. Judging from what EA Sports has been rendering on the machine (photo realistic Madden and Fight Night), I was hoping for A LOT more. Then again, the only real leap for the DoA series graphics wise was from 1 to 2. DoA3 and Ultimate are just prettier versions of what they built in 2. I can see the addition of crazier fight environments in 4 since they have the extra hardware. I cannot see them putting too much time into re-designing all their models to take advantage of the more powerful hardware since this is probably going to be a launch title, and that sorta crap takes time and the moneys. When those shots were first released people were saying that the shots were from the Xbox version of DoA4 before they moved to the 360. That's how underwhelming it is. I want to see shots of Perfect Dark Zero and Starcraft Ghost. HOT VIDEO GAME BABES UNITE!


[I'm curious about the Revolution's purported novel input means, but after the N64 and GC's weak third party support, I'm gonna wait on that sucka. Twice bitten, four times shy?
I heard 3D glasses style display. Which should make FPS games a HOOT to play. But I doubt any third party will spend the extra resources on multi-platform ports to take advantage of ANYTHING the Revolution is going to utilize, especially if its as "revolutionary" as they are touting it to be. I'm surprised most multi-platform games even feature the GBA to GC connectivity, but I guess since they are making a GBA game anyway, it wouldn't cost too much more resources to add that.

[dnl2ba]

Seriously, developers will have to design from the ground up for the DS or Revolution if they're really that different.

3D glasses... like the Virtual Boy? That's also going to get expensive for multiplayer.

[ohvermie]

Seriously, developers will have to design from the ground up for the DS or Revolution if they're really that different.
Isn't the DS basically like N64 guts? Nintendo has a track history of keeping all the good libraries first party so they themselves have the best looking software. Dunno if that's still true today.


3D glasses... like the Virtual Boy? That's also going to get expensive for multiplayer.
3D glasses like those 3D glasses you wear to those "movie" rides in theme parks. I forgot what they're called, but the 3D effect on them is believable and the glasses shouldn't be too expensive (if theme parks are handing them out to everyone that takes the ride, how bad could it be?)

EDIT: I also picked up the last LotR game they released. The RPG one, I hope it's not super craptastic, and worth the $15 I paid for it brand new. Here's to games not sucking balls!

[dnl2ba]

3D glasses like those 3D glasses you wear to those "movie" rides in theme parks. I forgot what they're called, but the 3D effect on them is believable and the glasses shouldn't be too expensive (if theme parks are handing them out to everyone that takes the ride, how bad could it be?)

Blue + red glasses? Oh jesus.

[dnl2ba]

Hey fux0r, were you talking about this TOTELY FAEK VIDIO (http://cube.ign.com/articles/613/613578p1.html?fromint=1)? nub!

[ohvermie]

I didn't see no video. And I wasn't talking about red & blue glasses. Eh, it's probably just a rumor anyway. It was in an article about Lucas & Speilberg releasing their movies utilizing the same 3D video technology.

I'm hearing squeezeball style controllers on the revolution. I guess touching is good is going one step further at the house of Nintendo.

EDIT: Did some googling, the 3D tech that was rumored to be used is called "stereoscopic projection." Which does not have the red & blue ghey tint of the 3D of yesteryear. Although the 3D in Friday the 13th part 3 and Freddie's Dead was the bomb in the day.

[ohvermie]

PS3 unveiled (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4955)
All I can say is....UGLIEST CONTROLLAR EVAR!
And what's with the PS3 logo looking like some Spiderman the movie knockoff? I know they're both Sony, but I'm kinda expecting some sorta webbing etched onto the top of the thing or something.

Altho if you bop over to gametrailers (www.gametrailers.com) and check out the Killzone and Fight Night PS3 footage. If the Killzone stuff is not pre-rendered goodness, I shit myself at all its glory. That's what I expect from next generation gaming goodness. And I do agree with Gabe from Penny-Arcade when he said that today's games do not have justice done in screen shots. It's all about MOTION as intricate lighting techniques and awesome animation cannot be seen in pictures.

[dnl2ba]

LOL at the Spiderman logo. Jeez.

Guess the one I saw a night or two ago on Engadget or Gizmodo or something was another fake.

Nintendo Revolution photos? (http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/615/615008/imgs_1.html)

1up.com article (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3140623)


Though technical specifications on the Revolution hardware are not yet available, Nintendo says their new console is only two or three times as powerful as the GameCube. "It's not all about having 'turbo power,' " Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan told USA Today. "It's about what you do with it."

Sounds like SMALL PENIS

[dnl2ba]

Game Boy Micro (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-17-2005/0003633677&EDATE=)

What the shit?

[dnl2ba]

Can't edit for some reason.

[dnl2ba]

...Which is really annoying.

Plays GBA games, apparently.

[dnl2ba]

Zelda: Twilight Princess screenies (http://dsrevolution.com/article.php?articleid=271)

Trailer download Torrent (http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=6286) (MPG) / lower-res fast direct download (http://www.dailygame.net/news/archives/004105.php) (WMV)

omg sex. It looks great, though the animation isn't as convincing as the stills (e.g. the way the owl floated down).
(http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=6286)

[ohvermie]

Can't edit for some reason.

IMAGE NIXED

Is it just me or are the A and B buttons on that thing inverted? Or maybe it's the lower case lettering that's throwing me off.

Actually I think the Xbox controller goes left to right AB and the original systems are left to right BA. Stupid SONY and your shape buttons, I FORGOT MY FUCKING ALPHABET!!!!!

[Gump]

They don't look inverted to me.

And I still keep wanting to call the PS square and triangle buttons "y" and "x."

[Rhys]

Those are lowercase letters. I like the concept of an even smaller Game Boy in theory, but the screen is so tiny. Plus my hands wouldn't fit on that thing at all.

I dislike how with most Playstation games, X is comfirm and O is cancel. Not only is that counterintuitive, it also messes me up when I try to play SNES games.

[ohvermie]

I dislike how with most Playstation games, X is comfirm and O is cancel. Not only is that counterintuitive, it also messes me up when I try to play SNES games.

That's why I think it's inverted! OH DAMN YOU SONY!!!!!

[dnl2ba]

Those are lowercase letters. I like the concept of an even smaller Game Boy in theory, but the screen is so tiny. Plus my hands wouldn't fit on that thing at all.

I dislike how with most Playstation games, X is comfirm and O is cancel. Not only is that counterintuitive, it also messes me up when I try to play SNES games.

Actually, that's mostly just Square SNES games, isn't it? Most SNES games used Y and B like the NES's B and A, respectively. It's all about Y and B. I don't get why PlayStation developers latched on to X and O. I never really latched on to those names, anyway, and I have a hard time thinking of the shape names. SNES got me fo' life.

I can't ever remember which GC button is X and which is Y.

[Rhys]

It's mostly for RPGs, yeah. Which are a huge percentage of the games I own. For Mario Bros. and stuff, yes, it's all about the B and Y. Though for some reason the Super Metroid default controls used A and X, which made no sense to me. It's like that game fell out of the bizzarro universe.

[dnl2ba]

Nova's arm thing clearly says sex (http://www.blizzard.com/ghost/ScreenShot.aspx?ImageIndex=9&Set=1). Okay, the S is backwards, but honestly. It was probably just mirrored from the other side or something.

That suit seriously rides up.

[ohvermie]

Nova's arm thing clearly says sex (http://www.blizzard.com/ghost/ScreenShot.aspx?ImageIndex=9&Set=1). Okay, the S is backwards, but honestly. It was probably just mirrored from the other side or something.

That suit seriously rides up.

hehe...I wasn't even looking at the arm. But I did notice the thing does ride up. :p

Didja see the gameplay footage of Ghost from this year's E3? The game looks like it took a nose dive into generic 3rd person action platform game since Swingin' Ape took it over. Unless the footage they were showing was for some multiplayer deathmatch portion of the game. *sigh* I wanted Splinter Cell with hot tights and psionic powers.

[dnl2ba]

Lots of the footage I saw was for multiplayer.

I saw the release date was moved to mid-2006. That's a year away! Who knows what might happen before then?

[dnl2ba]

X-Box 360 backward compatibility not so hot? (http://gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=8996) - from Slashdot.

The news has raised more questions than it answers, however, as it suggests that gamers may need to purchase titles they already own in order to play them on an Xbox 360 - and almost certainly means that only a sub-set of Xbox games will ever be playable on the new console.

[dnl2ba]

Nintendo DSpeak: VOIP for Nintendo DS (http://ds.ign.com/articles/616/616193p1.html?fromint=1)

PS3 to cost 50,000 yen ($465) (http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/nid/788/) - I've seen other sources saying "under 50,000 yen," but you know, under $10 means $9.99.

Will game prices go up as development costs go up? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4562705.stm)


New games are set to cost twice as much as current ones to make, say analysts. With the bill for some big budget games now reaching $10m (£5.4m), producers are facing costs of up to $20m (£10.9m) a title.

"Teams working on a title can be one and half times the size today," said Scott Cronce, chief technology officer at games giant, EA.

"The budgets are bigger, the number of people working on it is bigger," he explained during a conference session on next-gen games at the E3 games expo in Los Angeles.

"EA has teams as large as 200 people or potentially as large as 300," he said, "but we also have teams as small as 50."

Some are wondering if the Revolution will run homebrew games (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000857043899/), but Gizmodo says probably not (http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/nintendo/nintendo-revolution-homebrew-likelihood-not-good-104204.php).

IGN Cube interviews Shigeru Miyamoto (http://www.cubed3.com/viewnews.php?storyid=3886)


Shigeru Miyamoto: We're kind of in a strange period where power is the crux of whether or not something is going to be successful. So again, that seems a little bit odd. If we rely solely on power of console to dictate to where we're going with games, I think that tends to suppress the creativity of designers. They tend to rely solely on what the technology allows them to do instead of thinking of new and creative ideas.


IGNcube: Coming back to power. We apologize, but if we don't get some answers our readers are going to go insane. What are the tech specs for Revolution? Or, to put it another way, is Revolution as powerful as Xbox 360?

Shigeru Miyamoto: You know, in regard to the power of the Nintendo Revolution versus, say, the Xbox 360, we're looking at making a small, quiet, affordable console. If you look at trying to incorporate all that, of course we might not have the horsepower that some other companies have, but if you look at the numbers that they're throwing out, are those numbers going to be used in-game? I mean, those are just numbers that somebody just crunched up on a calculator. We could throw out a bunch of numbers, too, but what we're going to do is wait until our chips are done and we're going to find out how everything in the game is running, what its peak performance is, and those are the numbers that we're going to release because those are the numbers that really count.


Shigeru Miyamoto: In the development of the Revolution, I can't really elaborate on anything that explains why this is the specific path for us. We know this is the path for us. I just can't give you specific details that maybe reaffirms for you that we feel comfortable. What thing I can say is that Sony and Microsoft are going down the same road. They have chosen their path and they're sticking to it. They're going down that road together. We have chosen the road less traveled and we're happy with that. We do think that is a good thing.

I applaud Nintendo for going the creative route, but I also fear that lack of emphasis on computing power and port-friendliness (standard same-ol' controllers) will hurt it in the long run again because it won't attract developers to make games. Then you end up with situations where the creative games end up on mainstream systems, because those're the only places where the audience is big enough that weird games might sell enough.


IGNcube: Speaking of Zelda, does the game story parallel that of the movie Ladyhawke?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Our game should not paralleling that movie very closely, no. That's not our intention. In regard to the animals in the game, it's an RPG and the more of those natural elements, this case represented by the wolf and the hawk, really just expand the realm of the RPG and give us room to grow in fill into. We thought that by adding these animals it would help us create a larger and more realistic world.


IGNcube: We're all assuming that the revolutionary aspect of Revolution is the controller. Do you know what the Revolution is yet or are you still trying to figure that out?

Shigeru Miyamoto: You're doubting me, aren't you? I can see that you're over there mistrusting my word. I understand.

Of course. It's set in stone. It has been determined. I'd love to show it to you. I'd love to be able to show you the features of the Revolution controller and tell you about them. However, unfortunately if we do that too early those ideas would be stolen. We know that from past history. Analog stick. Boom - gone. Rumble Pak. We bring it out and everybody has to have rumble. We got the wireless out first and now there's wireless everywhere. So we have to keep it under wraps.

[dnl2ba]

I just started playing Wind Wanker for an hour or so because I couldn't justify picking up Twilight Princess if I didn't at least put a little more effort into Wind Wanker. (Not that I ever played Majora's Mask or even beat Ocarina of Time.) I seriously had no idea WTF to do next. I got some mail with a really cool map (paraphrase) from Tingle, which is supposed to tell me where the Triforce charts are, only I see no indication of any such thing in my charts. So I just floated around and did stuff. Oh, and I got harassed a couple times about quests I was supposed to do once upon a time and apparently never finished (e.g. water of life for those crappy little trees planted on various islands for the Koroks or whatever). Then I laid claim to my island cabana and solved some slide puzzles.

[ohvermie]

X-Box 360 backward compatibility not so hot? (http://gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=8996) - from Slashdot.

That is absolute crap, but I think everyone's had a sneaking suspicion that MS would have problems making the 360 backwards compatible. I read an interview where they were talking to some dude from the 360 development team and he was saying something about how the PS2 only plays a selection of PS1 games, so he doesn't understand why everyone is ragging on them. I think the PS2 was unable to play like 3% of the original PS1 library. What it sounds like from MS is that they're going to be lucky if 10% of the Xbox library runs on the 360 without having to recompile and re-release. I bet they're going to end up packing the recompiled files on the HD, which would explain why there were rumors running around saying that the HD packed version of the 360 would be backwards compatible, when the rumor that there were going to be two flavors of 360 was floating around.

And I've always felt Nintendo had the most bizarre strategies toward hardware creation. Sure the raw numbers Sony and MS are offering up as specs are total BS since I'm sure a good heft chunk of that power ends up running things like physics engines, animation routines, and AI therefore theoretically the systems can never use 100% of their power on just graphics, but they should notice how the PS2 is constantly ragged on in this country for being "underpowered." Didja see the screens from RE4 for the PS2? They look like the Gamecube shots if someone shat all over them. It's that bad. I don't want Nintendo to be in the situation where there are multi-platform ports and people don't get the Nintendo version because it's fugly. God knows a small user base has already gotten the Gamecube excluded from some multi-platform ports, don't want to throw fugliness into the mix next time around.

[dnl2ba]

OTOH, Sony also had the most bluster last time around about how powerful their system was. I don't think Nintendo said anything about the GC's power in advance.

Though this time, Nintendo's kind of apologetic about the Revolution's power.

[dnl2ba]

[/url]Altho if you bop over to [url="http://www.gametrailers.com"]gametrailers (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4955) and check out the Killzone and Fight Night PS3 footage. If the Killzone stuff is not pre-rendered goodness, I shit myself at all its glory. That's what I expect from next generation gaming goodness. And I do agree with Gabe from Penny-Arcade when he said that today's games do not have justice done in screen shots. It's all about MOTION as intricate lighting techniques and awesome animation cannot be seen in pictures.

probably pre-rendered (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/952004343731/p/1)

[Rhys]

I just started playing Wind Wanker for an hour or so because I couldn't justify picking up Twilight Princess if I didn't at least put a little more effort into Wind Wanker. (Not that I ever played Majora's Mask or even beat Ocarina of Time.) I seriously had no idea WTF to do next. I got some mail with a really cool map (paraphrase) from Tingle, which is supposed to tell me where the Triforce charts are, only I see no indication of any such thing in my charts. So I just floated around and did stuff. Oh, and I got harassed a couple times about quests I was supposed to do once upon a time and apparently never finished (e.g. water of life for those crappy little trees planted on various islands for the Koroks or whatever). Then I laid claim to my island cabana and solved some slide puzzles.
Based on what you've said, I think you either have to put the two sages back in their temples or just get the Triforce now. If your sword is all glowy, you just need the Triforce. Tingle's IN-credible chart costs money to get out of the mailbox, so if you don't have it get some cash together and talk to a mailbox again. Once you have the Triforce charts, you need even more money to get Tingle to decipher them. Tingle, as you may already know, is a faggy little bitch.

If your sword isn't all glowy, go find Meledi and... that Korok guy, whatever his name is. I think you need to play a special song for them, and then they'll jump on your boat and ask to be taken to their temple, which will be marked on the sea chart.

[dnl2ba]

Meledi who? What Korok guy? I think I did do the sages' temple quest thingies, but I don't think my sword is all glowy... I'll have to check that. I did get the IN-credible chart ("really cool map"), but I don't know if I'm supposed to do something to activate them or what.

[Rhys]

Another easy way to see if you did the sage temples is to check if you've got the mirror shield and hookshot. If not, Meledi (or Medli, or some corruption of that word) is the little girl bird thing on Dragon Roost Island. She has a harp. The Korok guy is on the Korok island with the Deku Tree (whatever it's called). He's got a violin and is hiding in a waterfall.

Tingle's chart is classified as a treasure chart. So you have to flip through them to find it. And then anytime you want to look at it you have to go open it up again. It's kind of a pain, but what else do you expect from Tingle?

[dnl2ba]

I definitely have the mirror shield.

I thought I had the hookshot-- I remember it quite distinctly (climbing out of the bottom of a pit by going from platform to platform)-- but it seems all I have is the grappling hook. Not the same, right? What happened to my hookshot!??! I have to go back to some goddamn dungeon and do it again? Edit: Wind Temple... goddamnit.

[dnl2ba]

Looked it up. I am POSITIVE I beat the sand worm. Might the hookshot be listed separately from the grappling hook instead of taking its place? :( Did my save auto-regress or something??

[Rhys]

The hookshot is separate from the grappling hook. I think it's over by the arrows and stuff. It would suck to have to do the Wind Temple over again. That was one of my least favorite places.

[dnl2ba]

Huh, I'm just dumb. There it is, beneath the bow.

Now it looks like I'm supposed to surf around till a ghost ship thingy shows up with a Triforce map or something. I'll take it from here... until I get frustrated / stuck again.

[dnl2ba]

Oh yeah, you can lock on! I've been shooting things manually. Wow.

[prodos]

The triforce searching piece of that game was really silly... luckily I liked the end so much I nearly forgot about it. :)

[dnl2ba]

Do I just need to get them, then do a final dungeon?

From Slashdot: E3 booth babe hall of shame (http://www.gamegal.com/e32005/shame.shtm)

[Rhys]

That would be what you need to do. On a side note, the Gannon fight is awesome.

[Gump]

Yup, pretty much. Then you get into a cool fight with Ganon. Also, it's fun to shoot things with Light Arrows.

*EDIT: Gah, didn't see Rhys's reply before I spoke up.

[dnl2ba]

hehe...I wasn't even looking at the arm. But I did notice the thing does ride up. :p

Didja see the gameplay footage of Ghost from this year's E3? The game looks like it took a nose dive into generic 3rd person action platform game since Swingin' Ape took it over. Unless the footage they were showing was for some multiplayer deathmatch portion of the game. *sigh* I wanted Splinter Cell with hot tights and psionic powers.

Close-up of the Ghost statue (http://fearthedaystar.com/images/ghost.jpg)

Somehow, they got away without a booth babe, so they made up for it with camel toe on the statue.

[ohvermie]

Hahaha...that's great. And what's up with the black lines in the suit that highlight the crotch area. I'm guessing that's just contruction lines for where the build the statue, but it runs throughout the whole suit. And why only armor around the bust area? I guess getting shot in the tit is a more pressing issue than having your bowels spill out from a gunshot wound.

[dnl2ba]

Age of Empires 3 gameplay videos (http://videogames1.mtv.com/pages/gamespace/video.php?id=925735) - oh shits, this is the real deal. No PS3 FMV-passed-off-as-gameplay shitnuts here. Gorgeous, and a nice physics model (for an RTS) to boot!

[ohvermie]

I kinda don't like how RTSs feel that it's necessary to go the hardcore 3D route. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather have shit tons of units on the screen and have truly epic battles as opposed to unit concentrated clap trap of WarCraft III.

Have you played Psychonauts at all? I am waiting for this game to ultimately get clearanced out (which shouldn't be too long cuz it's so damn weird, but it seems to be really limited release so it might go the route of Disgaea and just be impossible to find) before I purchase it, but it's so tempting. I love a good 3D action platformer. Same thing with Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. It's MSRPed at $29.99 now, but EB games has been selling off EA's holiday 04 failures for $10 new recently and I'm hoping its only a matter of time for this title to get the axe as well. Also, FYE has Viewtiful Joe 2 on PS2 for $9.99. There's no reason not to hit that shit!

[dnl2ba]

I don't even have an X-Box. The only other thing I have to add is that Tim Schafer came to my class in spring 2003 to show off Psychonauts in an early stage.

[ohvermie]

Psychonauts is out on the PS2 isn't it? Coulda sworn I saw it at EBgames on PS2.

[dnl2ba]

I'm not gonna bother checking. It was an X-Box exclusive as of 2 years ago. :p

[ohvermie]

It was also supposed to be published my MS like 2 years ago. ;p It finally ended up getting published by majesco.

[dnl2ba]

Video game controller family tree (http://www.axess.com/twilight/console/)

Interesting how everyone borrows from the NES, SNES, and N64 controllers... but the GC controller has had no effect on the PS3 and X-Box 360 controllers. I guess the GC's only innovations were 1) a really prominent main button and 2) analog buttons with an additional digital button built it (L & R), so maybe #2 is lurking somewhere in the next generation's controllers. (P.S. hay guys pls stop calling the current generation "next-gen" k thx)

AFAIK, the Saturn controller is the first controller with analog shoulder buttons (or any buttons, I guess), but the chart doesn't show much being descended from it.

Something I noticed a while ago is that everyone but Nintendo has had to go through controller redesigns in the middle of a console's life. In fact, that's affected every recent non-Nintendo console except the PS2 and Dreamcast (which didn't last long enough): PS1, X-Box, Saturn. Does Nintendo always make great controllers, or is it just because Nintendo's too damn stubborn? The GC controller sure isn't very port-friendly, as I've mentioned before. It's terrible for fighting games.

[dnl2ba]

yet another "falling blocks" game in Flash (http://www.sobicsschool.com/fun/fun_game2.swf)

I quit at level 23, 632,700 points when it became clear it wasn't going to inroduce any further variety. I've never been great at / excited by these puzzle games where you need to set up intricate chain reactions to rack up ridiculous scores.

[dnl2ba]

No one should be surprised that I bought Metal Slug 4 + 5 for PS2. Indeed, you should've seen it coming.

My hand hurts. :( But the words TWO HEAVY MACHINE GUNS makes it all better!

[dnl2ba]

Who was the dumb shit who thought it would be okay to leave Tarma out of MS4? Out of the ones I've played (all but MS3), I think I like MS4 least.

MS5 is generally too easy, though I like how it's usually actually possible to survive barrages. Sometimes in MS4, I just have no idea how it's even possible to dodge some shit.

[dnl2ba]

A Gamer's Manifesto (http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html) (rant)

[dnl2ba]

Ninja Gaiden Black trailer (http://www.1up.com/do/download?cId=3140481) (250MB)

Downloading now...

[ohvermie]

Mmmmm Ninja Gaiden Black...
I got Ratchet and Clank 2 and Smackdown Here Comes the Pain this weekend. Much love for the PS2 since I think the last game I bought for that was MGS3. Altho if I ever find a copy of Alien Hominid, it'll have that too.

[dnl2ba]

I played Alien Hominid once and thought it was pretty crappy.

[ohvermie]

The flash version of Hominid that was on newgrounds was amusing enough. Maybe something got lost on the way to the Gamecube/PS2. Then again paying $30 for a game that was FREE for flash could knock down its goodness a bit. ;p

[dnl2ba]

No, it's more like it still played like a cheap-ass Flash game. :p

[dnl2ba]

Tetris for iPod Photo (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000217045165/)

That, there, is a killer app.

[Rhys]

I want it so bad. Actually, just having portable Tetris again would be great.

I bought Armored Core 3 recently to get my fix of giant robots blowing shit up. And not only do they blow shit up, they can look like they're ice skating while doing it. The arena part is really damn hard. Everything's cool up to C rank, then you start getting guys who actually move and can aim and it comes as something of a surprise. B rank has guys who can shrug off an entire 500 rounds of machine gun fire, so you better have missiles or something stronger. A rank has guys who can take rockets no problem, move insanely fast, and have impossible accuracy. So annoying.

[ohvermie]

I wish that Tetris Worlds wasn't so completely ass-tastic and unplayable on the GBA. But what am I talking about I don't even own any portables. Altho with the amount of time I spend playing Warioware on the DS at Circuit City, I should buy one.

Armored Core is a turn based strategy mech game right? Kinda like Front Mission only without all the crap ass RPG elements. Or is it more of an action game? Making your own robot always seemed too complicated for me, or maybe I just have a lack of interest in robots...

[Gump]

No, it's an action game. You pick a mission, walk around and blast stuff, and use the money to customize your robot.

[dnl2ba]

phpMMORPG (http://freshmeat.net/projects/phpmmorpg/)


phpMMORPG is a Web interface that can be used to create an MMORPG with a back-end which permits users of the interface to create their own games. It features real-time chat, a map editor, a template system, a quest box, PVP, PVE, a loot system, and other functions. Except for the use of "marquee", it uses 100% XHTML 1.0.

[Rhys]

Do I smell a MCBBMMORPG?

[dnl2ba]

omg MCBB phpMMORPG wtf bbq.

[ohvermie]

TOO MANY ACRONYMS!!!! ::dies::

[ohvermie]

PlanetGameCube preview for Lost in Blue on the DS (http://planetgamecube.com/previews.cfm?action=profile&id=365)
So when this rolls out, as well as Animal Crossing DS, and a price drop on the damn system...THE DS WILL BE MINE!!! Along with Warioware touched... God I am so gay for the weird games....

[schally]

At this point, the only way I'm going to have any connection to the DS is if they release a DS-player for the Cube or something, which they won't.

I'm tired of buying Nintendo systems. I haven't been getting my money's worth out of them lately. :(

[ohvermie]

Eh, I'd get a DS for about a hundred bucks. They're going to start bundling it with Super Mario 64 in a couple weeks, so that's kinda like a price drop. Some would say being able to play RE4 is worth the price of having a Gamecube. Don't agree?

[dnl2ba]

There aren't any really compelling-looking games out for the DS, though that Kirby game is getting good reviews. Plus, I just got a GBA a year ago.

New We Love Katamari movie (http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20050608/kata.htm)

[schally]

Some would say being able to play RE4 is worth the price of having a Gamecube. Don't agree?
Good point; RE4 had slipped my mind. It probably is worth it, from all I've heard, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Maybe I'll treat myself on my berfday. For now, Minish Cap is taking up any free gaming time I have.

[dnl2ba]

Dude, I tried RE4 once. Your aim moves so slowly! What I would give to go Quake-style on those zombies' rotten asses... but as it is, I found it more frustrating than rewarding, just like P.N. 03. Game control should be transparent, not an obstacle.

[deevan]

That doctor/surgery sim for the DS looks kind of cool, along with the new Super Mario game...

[ohvermie]

When does the new Mario game come out? Only one more day for Kirby! *splooge*

[dnl2ba]

Explicit sex in GTA: San Andreas for PC (http://www.fleshbot.com/sex/straight/cgi/gta-sex-hack-107697.php)

[deevan]

Not sure. But I'm sure a google search could help you.

[ohvermie]

Explicit sex in GTA: San Andreas for PC (http://www.fleshbot.com/sex/straight/cgi/gta-sex-hack-107697.php)

Cannot be any worse than the menage a trois you get to pull off after the first stage of God of War.

[Rhys]

Disaster! I put FF3 into the SNES today, and discovered that all my saves spontaneously erased themselves! That makes me a sad panda. But fortunately it also lets me kick that nasty Xenogears habit I've had over the past few days.

[dnl2ba]

Wouldn't that mean the battery's dead and therefore it won't save reliably?

I couldn't find my N64 at my parents' house. Just a controller. How does that happen?

[schally]

If a N64 doesn't have contact with humanity over a certain length of time it becomes feral again and returns to the wild.

[Rhys]

Wouldn't that mean the battery's dead and therefore it won't save reliably?
It seems to be working fine now. There are other things that make saves go dead. I know Chrono Trigger has a tendency to delete them if you turn the power on and off too fast. Plus if I think the battery in FF3 is going, that makes me worry about older games. The day Secret of Mana's battery dies is the day I lose my soul.

[ohvermie]

Time to back that stuff up. I am sure you can find one of those illicit SNES bootlegging devices from Asia pretty cheap now. I'm sure Matt knows what I'm talking about. The device goes under the SNES and will let you "backup" games on 3.5 floppy diskettes. Only problem is making sure you have enough RAM in the unit to support the Squaresoft classic games (I remember the carts for those were quite big, just get the backup system with the most RAM to be safe).

[dnl2ba]

I had one, actually, but it broke dead.

[ohvermie]

Didn't the N64 version of that device use CDRs instead of floppies? Those were the good old days of piracy....

[ohvermie]

Hey Matt,
Are you going to get/rent/somehow play Killer 7 on the Cube? Interested to see what an actual person that isn't a reviewer sez about the game since it's getting such split reviews. Although from what I understand the PS2 version is gonna be the raped. But I can look forward to it on the Revolution.

[dnl2ba]

Not likely to play it. I kinda forgot it was even coming out. I think I first heard about it around when I first heard about P.N. 03 and Viewtiful Joe. :p

"Is gonna be the raped"? Jesus, man. Is that good or bad?

[schally]

Raped is bad. Like saying the PS2 version is gonna be gimped or something.

[ohvermie]

Well I am pretty sure that it is. Judging from the horrendous job that Capcom is doing porting RE4 over to the PS2. Which makes me a sad panda, no want to hump other pandas and procreate.

[ohvermie]

Not likely to play it. I kinda forgot it was even coming out. I think I first heard about it around when I first heard about P.N. 03 and Viewtiful Joe. :p

"Is gonna be the raped"? Jesus, man. Is that good or bad?

Yeah it was announced as part of the "Capcom 5," I believe that the games were Killer 7, Viewtiful Joe, PN03, Battle Phoenix (which is still to be released), and maybe RE4.

The raped is bad...when is rape ever good Matt?

[dnl2ba]

Well, you know how shit is bad and the shit is good? I thought if rape was bad, maybe the raped is good.

[schally]

[deevan]

http://www.johnkeplerlewis.com/b2/

A Hillary Clinton induced gamer rant by me. Please leave comments. :)

[deevan]

woot, I got kotaku'd!

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/housekeeping/mail-bag/thompson-you-ignorant-slut-112635.php

[ohvermie]

so wait, does that mean you're pregnant?

[dnl2ba]

woot, I got kotaku'd!

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/housekeeping/mail-bag/thompson-you-ignorant-slut-112635.php

Ah, you got in just from the mailbag?

I only read Kotaku when Engadget links to them.

[deevan]

Yeah, I guess so. But at least it's something. Yeah, Joystiq (part of Engadget's network) is my main gaming news feed, but occasionally Kotaku gets the jump on them.

[dnl2ba]

I wasn't trying to belittle them or the fact that your letter got in as a blog entry. Just musing that I wouldn't've seen it otherwise.

[dnl2ba]

Zelda update (http://zeldawatch.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5257362&publicUserId=5631316) from 1up's new Zelda Watch (http://zeldawatch.1up.com/) blog.


Hands down, the part that should make gamers happiest is Aonuma's apology for the Triforce quest section of Wind Waker, which everyone on earth agrees was an exercise in tedium that bogged the game down to the point of unbearability. (And that was in the U.S. version, which was significantly toned down from the Japanese release.) Well, good news, folks! According to Aonuma:

"I apologize that we didn't fix the triforce hunt at the end of the game. It was slow and dull."

Well then. Let's hope he means it.

And Miyamoto promises:

"The new game will have more dungeons [than Wind Waker]. Many more."

[deevan]

Nah dude, none taken at that. I just sent the guy a link to my Blog, which was actually just a sample entry for the guys at Joystiq, and he put me up. (Strangely, never even emailed me about it.) I'd like to be a staff writer for one of the game blogs, but, who wouldn't?

[dnl2ba]

Resident Evil 5 for PS3 & X-Box 360 unveiled (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142136) - with grainy Famitsu scans

[ohvermie]

Those RE5 scans are the hotness wrapped in ooey gooey sauce.

[dnl2ba]

There's a Dungeon Siege movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460780/)!??!?! And Ray Liotta is in it (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3142146)!?!?!

Uwe Boll needs to stop making movies, particularly bad ones based on video games. Look at his credit list (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0093051/).

Did anyone else notice that Doom: the movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419706/) (not by Uwe Boll) has a character named Dr. Carmack?

[ohvermie]

Holy crap...what the hell is wrong with Hollywood, and how the hell does Uwe Boll get all these licenses to work with? Considering that all of them have bombed so miserably, and Bloodrayne the movie looks like total ass (buy the game for $9.99 instead, you'll get more entertainment).

Doom has THE ROCK in it. That's right....THE ROCK. That is why it will not suck. That and there is a 5 minute sequence in the film that's entirely in first person. Mmmmmmm simulated Doom on a huge screen...I can see people vomitting in the aisles from motion sickness already. :)

And since the creators of the Doom game have managed to slip their likenesses and names into their games, it's no surprise they've made it into the movie. It's kinda like Daredevil had all these references to comic artists/writers.

[dnl2ba]

http://www.uweboll.com/

[prodos]

Jesus... Dungeon Siege movie? Well, everybody already knows its coming but I'll be the sucker and actually post it. :P

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2004-02-25

[dnl2ba]

Shit. When I first saw that, I thought it was a joke, like American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake. :(

[ohvermie]

Whatever happened to American McGee's Oz game? I know McFarlane did a series of figures that were completely separate from the game called Twisted Land of Oz (http://www.spawn.com/toys/series.aspx?series=184). Perhaps the incredible failure known as Scrapland messed up any chances of American McGee making a game ever again.

[dnl2ba]

In the midst of all that GTA: SA sex hoopla, WoW nude models uncovered (http://www.fleshbot.com/sex/video/world-of-warcraft-porn-video-112701.php)!

[ohvermie]

Sims 2 (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22/news_6129609.html) now the next target on Jack Thompson's list. Worse than San Andreas he claims. I knew the ESRB was totally setting themselves up for some really hard ass fucking when they decided to screw Take Two in the ass and re-rate GTA:SA with an AO.

[schally]

So he goes from GTA:SA to the Sims 2? Right. I guess Disney Princesses is next on the list.

[dnl2ba]

HAHAHA, you know why? The Hot Coffee guy took down Hot Coffee and now links to nude Sims patches (http://www.gtagarage.com/mods/show.php?id=28).

[deevan]

Oh this is just gonna get ridiculous.

Although I'd assume that EA has a lot more fight in em then Rockstar.

[ohvermie]

I would assume EA has some ninjas out to cut this guy down at the knees. I mean it's EA, they're the evil empire. As for the hot coffee guy linking to Sims nude patches...THAT IS THE WIN!

[deevan]

Thompson? He himself is not too powerful, but he's got some big friends... EA is probably not as big as say, an oil company or someone who can buy out enough politicians.

[deevan]

Burnout Revenge Demo Review from my blog. (http://www.johnkeplerlewis.com/b2/)

[deevan]

I got Joystiqqed... (http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000980051953/) heheh

[dnl2ba]

JKL being alphabetical... I never thought about that.

Do you submit these, or does the Joystiq guy follow your blog, or what?

No trackback! Where're his manners?

[deevan]

Not sure. I'm pseudo-friends with the Kotaku guy, and I'm linked from Kevin Pereira's (of AOTS) blog. Kotaku picked it up first I believe. I actually submitted the Thompson letter to Kotaku, but they picked up on this automatically. I guess someone somewhere subscribes to my RSS feed.

Honestly, I'd love to be a part-time gaming journalist, so I'm gonna keep writing junk like this for a while, I've gotten a lot of positive responses on the blog and via email. (As well as one guy telling me I'm an idiot for liking Burnout 3's soundtrack... :/)

[ohvermie]

You are an idiot for liking Burnout 3's soundtrack. EA hasn't made a good soundtrack for one of their games since SSX3 which was absolutely sublime in its track choices (Felix da House Cat and Placebo for the win!).
Went to Best Buy to try to score the demo, but no dice. DAMN YOU BEST BUY!

[deevan]

It was a damn good soundtrack.

Dammit.

[dnl2ba]

More on next-gen consoles being too hard to program for (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/695004554731) - Ars Technica thread quoting articles like one with Gabe Newell (of Valve / Half-Life fame). The first post offers good excerpts from the article.

Development costs have to plateau at some point, right? Movies only get so expensive. But then, movies just get fancier as you throw more money at them; games, being interactive, are simply orders of magnitude more complex. You don't have to worry about stamping out bugs in a movie; the worst you get is errata some guy will post on a website after watching your movie 6 times. In software, things can happen differently each time it's run. In multithreaded software in particular, you end up with crazy race conditions that can be completely unpredictable. One guy wrote in the thread (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/695004554731/r/108005554731#108005554731):


I am guessing we are going to see an order of magnitude more bugs in software in the next generation. It won't be "if I do this and then this then it crashes" it will be random lockups that show up in the most inconveniant times.

[deevan]

Hasn't that been the case with all software since the beginning of comuputing? Even "Hello World" executed at the wrong time could throw an exception.

[ohvermie]

But I think that Gabe's point is that developers will have a steep learning curve with multi-core processors since that's not even the standard in the PC world yet. Games that truly take advantage of the multi-core architecture will not really exist or not come to be until the very end of the next generation since programmers will need that time to learn the new hardware. At least that's what I think he's saying.
And I always thought it was as easy as having each core compute every other line of code or something (kinda like how video cards work in SLI mode).

Oh and GTA lawsuit of the day (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050727/video_game_lawsuit.html?.v=2)! What's interesting is that I have not yet seen an article where they mention her grandson's age.

Also, Walmart is doing the world a public service by recalling all copies of GTA:SA. Bring in a copy of GTA:SA to your local Walmart and they'll give you back the $49.99 + tax in CASH for the game. They're sending them all back to Take Two for a refund.

[deevan]

The grandson is 14. So he shouldn't ahve got his hands on it anyway.

!! Dude, my copy is totally going back. I'll use the money to buy 25 to life.

Or Playboy: The Mansion.

[dnl2ba]

Hasn't that been the case with all software since the beginning of comuputing? Even "Hello World" executed at the wrong time could throw an exception.

I thought you were a developer!

When you have race conditions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_hazard), the program will appear nondeterministic and will run differently each time. Consequently, a bug might pop up only on 1/100 runs, which makes it very, very hard to debug. The guy I quoted was saying that it really adds to the complexity of bug conditions: instead of "if the program state is X, bug happens," it's "if the program state is X in one thread, and Y in the other thread, and Z in the other thread" (which is obviously not visible to typical game testing interns).

Some allege that very few programmers (at least below half?) are capable of writing good multithreaded code, and that the software industry is going to have a minor revolution in which developers who can't write good multithreaded code will be shaken out.

Most computer programs are not multithreaded.

[dnl2ba]

Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-johnson27jul27,0,1432940.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions)

Writer defends video games for their merits.

[dnl2ba]

Miyamoto on the Revolution controller (http://cube.gamespy.com/articles/636/636728p1.html) / article and discussion (http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2005/7/30/835?posted=true)

[dnl2ba]

New FFXII CG screenies (http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/finalfantasy12/preview_6130092.html)

[dnl2ba]

Oops, didn't I mention Diablo 2 1.11? There's a few screenies on www.battle.net (http://www.battle.net), but no permalink I can provide to the post. Anyway, looks like new items, new bosses, and even new quests. Rumored to come out within a few weeks. RAD. Did I hear "MCBB game night candidate"?

[Rhys]

Sure, why not? Diablo 2 is pretty cheap now, isn't it?

[ohvermie]

I can do Diablo 2. I need to figure out if there's a way to get the mac executables for it even though I paid for the PC version. I'm sure subsequent printings of Diablo 2 have been put onto hybrid discs...or at least I think they have been. I know Starcraft has.

[dnl2ba]

Sure, why not? Diablo 2 is pretty cheap now, isn't it?

Wow... it's actually pretty expensive, considering that it's 5 years old!

Diablo 2 Battle Chest for $30 at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005N6K3/qid=1122910541/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7709535-6850404?v=glance&s=videogames&n=507846) (Battle Chest means original + expansion + strategy guide)
Diablo 2 results at PriceGrabber (http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=177/form_keyword=diablo+2)

OTOH, it's one of those huge games you just have to play to be a complete human being anyway. So think of it as an investment.

[ohvermie]

Considering that I paid $54.99 - $59.99 when it first came out (DAMN YOU COMPUSA!) that's a damn steal!

[dnl2ba]

Oh baby! Diablo 2 1.11 is live!

[prodos]

So um, how do these game night things work? Do we all just start at level 1 and futz around dying for a while and then never play again?

[dnl2ba]

Ha, I don't plan on dying.

Who's never played D2 before? Gump and Rhys?

[ohvermie]

Well I guess we can have someone who's been playing forever and forever drag lower level people through the game. Should lead to mad fast leveling ups. Or does that trick not really work anymore?

[dnl2ba]

I think that might take some fun away from the D2 n00bs. There was a rumor that Blizzard put in level requirements for each act, but nothing substantive so far.

[dnl2ba]

Walmart employees leak X-Box 360 price: $299 (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050802-5159.html)

[ohvermie]

I somehow have a funny feeling that we won't be seeing it at that price. It's a little early for marketing materials to be leaked out, especially at a retail store front level. I do find it interesting that some analysts are saying that Sony might delay the PS3 till 2007 if the 360 launch is a crap shoot. I can almost see it happening, the strength of a sub-hundred dollar PS2 and that crazy ass library might be able to take on the next gen onslaught especially if it has crappy software.

[ohvermie]

Start your own Revolution! Make a Nintendo fake controller! (http://claudiotosado.vilabol.uol.com.br/nintendocontrollerfakeeditor/)

[deevan]

Having trouble with your coffee being too hot? (http://techsupport.rockstargames.com/rockstarsupport/req_support_patches_detail.php?product=191%2C%2CGr and+Theft+Auto%3A+San+Andreas%2C%2C%2C&submit=Submit)

[dnl2ba]

Chasing the dream (http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=4246109) / Economist article on video games, the generational divide, and the debate about social effects


Even games with no educational intent require players to learn a great deal. Games are complex, adaptive and force players to make a huge number of decisions. Gamers must construct hypotheses about the in-game world, learn its rules through trial and error, solve problems and puzzles, develop strategies and get help from other players via the internet when they get stuck. The problem-solving mechanic that underlies most games is like the 90% of an iceberg below the waterline—invisible to non-gamers. But look beneath the violent veneer of “Grand Theft Auto”, and it is really no different from a swords-and-sorcery game. Instead of stealing a crystal and delivering it to a wizard so that he can cure the princess, say, you may have to intercept a consignment of drugs and deliver it to a gang boss so he can ransom a hostage. It is the pleasure of this problem-solving, not the superficial violence which sometimes accompanies it, that can make gaming such a satisfying experience.


Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up, rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is under attack instead. “There's always this pattern,” says Mr Williams of the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is junk.” Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has its perception, it is pretty much set,” says Mr Williams. “What happens is that they die.”

I read a very similar article recently, but I forget where. And I mean VERY similar, including the note about many critics being Democrats pandering to the center.

[ohvermie]

You just experienced deja vu, it's a glitch in the matrix...RUN BEFORE WE ARE P0WNED!

[prodos]

Holy mother of Half-Life 2: Aftermath Trailer (http://games.softpedia.com/progDownload/Half-Life-2-Aftermath-Trailer-Download-7266.html)!!!

[prodos]

Smash Melee debug mode and glitches. (http://www.n-philes.com/features.php?id=174&p=1)

[dnl2ba]

Smash Melee looks a lot better than I remember. Maybe it's the novel camera angles, or maybe it's because my friends and I played original Smash on Saturday.

I thought the L- or R-cancel was a feature, not a bug. The article says it can be used to recover from attacks, too, though, which probably isn't the feature I'm thinking of.

[Rhys]

If someone sends you flying and you push L or R when you hit the ground, you do a cool flip thingy and are on your feet. But what they're talking about is when you do an attack in the air and push L or R. Then you do a sort of sped up recovery from your attack. It's mostly useful if you whiff with some of Link or Bowser's attacks, but I guess other characters can use it well too. I'm thinking that's not really a glitch since L and R don't do anything to any other attacks.

I'm not sure if wavedashing is a glitch either. It probably wasn't intended to be exploited in that way, but I remember reading the basic mechanics of it were put in to keep people from air-dodging into solid objects.

[dnl2ba]

Right, but wavedashing arises from sliding on the ground after dodging down into the ground-- something I doubt the designers intended to work that way, cuz you could do air dodging without allowing sliding. And practicing it makes my hand curl into a claw.


The article says it can be used to recover from attacks, too, though, which probably isn't the feature I'm thinking of.

I meant "recover from your own attacks"; I already knew that it could be used to recover from someone else's attack.

[dnl2ba]

I'd never tried wavedashing before, so I tried for about half an hour today. I think I can do it about 60% of the time to the right and mabye 20-30% to the left, but I end up with a lot of triangle jumps and dodges. With Mewtwo, I can't even tell whether he's dodging or wavedashing sometimes, and Zelda has such a shitty wavedash that it's probably not worth the trouble. One page noted that it's a must for Yoshi and Samus because their rolls are so slow.

What the shit (http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=516492&topic=20554322) is this (http://ssbm.detstar.com/advancedmoves2/)? Are they trying to kill me?


Fox's infinite combo- Short hop drill kick L-cancelled into a waveshine (reflector (down-B), then wavedash out of it), followed by a short hop drill kick, L-cancelled into a waveshine, etc., etc.. Very hard to do, even on the slower speeds of training mode without considerable practice.

[Rhys]

That would be the reason I don't use Fox.

Wavedashing becomes easier when you can relax while you do it. Also using the X or Y button to jump makes it inifitely more do-able. Some other characters that it's supposed to help are Luigi, Marth, G&W, and to a lesser extent Doc/Mario. But mostly people just screw around with it.

[dnl2ba]

Yeah, I always use X/Y to jump. Though I can never remember which is which by name... I use the one on the right. :p

L-canceling seemed to work best when I pressed a little before Link hit the ground, but maybe there's just a built-in delay because it's an analog trigger.

[dnl2ba]

YAY my Lightning sorceress found a +1 Lightning Skills amulet. That's the first +tree amulet she's found, so very lucky that it was one that's useful.

[ohvermie]

I heard that wavedashing is for losers. Actually they have a whole thread on the PA boards about Smash Bros. I guess a group of them went to a tourney in NYC and got spectacularly 0wNeD by a wavedashing Fox.
Videos of some ownage (http://www.ssbm.it/awesomevs.htm)

[ohvermie]

Time to get me a Gamecube! (http://www.gamespot.com/gamecube/adventure/hellokittyrollerrescue/news_6131156.html)




With LoZ:Twilight Princess delayed till March 06. This title will save Nintendo's d00med holiday season 05!

Gameplay movie for the win? (http://media.cube.ign.com/media/743/743601/dl_1198982.html)

[dnl2ba]

My friend has that. Oh, I'm not kidding. He gets every Namco title from work, and I mean every.

[dnl2ba]

Game Boy Micro confirmed at $99 (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000280054708/)
Nintendo DS MSRP drops to $120 (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000963054611/)

[dnl2ba]

Oh, er, and Zelda has been delayed till at least March 2006 (http://cube.ign.com/articles/642/642238p1.html). New screenies (http://media.cube.ign.com/media/572/572738/imgs_1.html).

[deevan]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-cenarioncircle&t=145812&p=1&tmp=1#post145812



Q u o t e:
ok i have a proposition for the horde, let us kill Korrak while you sit and watch. and well let you get all the honor youll ever want=}. no? ok well it shall be a great battle then, hope to see everyone there!



((OOC))

Pardon me for hijacking the thread, here..

But, Brion - if you don't want your mother to know you were up and on the computer at 3:29 in the morning - DON'T post on a forum that she reads.

Busted.
Grounded.

Heh heh, pwnd by his own mom.

[ohvermie]

My friend has that. Oh, I'm not kidding. He gets every Namco title from work, and I mean every.

I don't know if that's good or bad with stinkers like Death by Degrees and Dead to Rights: Hell to Pay, but then he gets cool stuff like Hello Kitty and We Love Katamari....

[ohvermie]

Xbox 360 price "scheme" announced. (http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/17/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm)

I think they're shooting themselves in the foot by making a non-HDD version. Also, the completely gimped functionality of the cheap-o box almost make it seem like the system is crippled (no wireless controller, no HD, no HDD) compared to what MS was touting the 360 to be when they first unveiled it.

[deevan]

So no word yet if one of those USB2.0 ports will accept an external HDD. The core system could be a decent deal at that point.

[dnl2ba]

The wireless controllers are $50/ea!?!? I have a feeling any X-Box 360 action with my friends will be BYOC.

[ohvermie]

So no word yet if one of those USB2.0 ports will accept an external HDD. The core system could be a decent deal at that point.

Prolly won't happen till more industrious people (ie homebrewers) get their hands on the hardware. The ones MS are selling are really laptop HDDs no?

And Matt, have you seen what the cordless controllers run for on the PS2 or Xbox? They're like $60 a piece for the logitech ones (the only ones that don't suck balls).

[dnl2ba]

The Logitech non-ball-sucking one I got for Christmas (http://mostlycloudy.net/~dnl2ba/images/photos/self_family_friends/moi/20041225%20Matt's%20present.jpg) was $30 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VNNE8/qid=1101533564/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-6947010-5014456?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846).

Wavebirds are $30.

[Rhys]

Am I the only person left who actually like cords on my controllers?

[dnl2ba]

I took a break from work and played some Diablo 2 with my lightning sorceress. I worked my way through Diablo's 3 superunique guard boss guys and then pounded the Big D himself down to a fraction of his life, all with 2-3 other people in the game but not in my area (so the monsters had 3-4x more life, but dropped more loot and gave more experience).

Then my connection got interrupted. :mad:

I managed to remember one of the players' character names and I whispered him, asking for the game name, but I didn't get a response. :mad: :mad: :mad:

[deevan]

There's plenty of 2.5" external HDD adapters out there, it probably won't take long before someone figures it out. Hell, all you have to do is look at the pinout, right?

[ohvermie]

The Logitech non-ball-sucking one I got for Christmas (http://mostlycloudy.net/~dnl2ba/images/photos/self_family_friends/moi/20041225%20Matt's%20present.jpg) was $30 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VNNE8/qid=1101533564/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-6947010-5014456?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846).

Wavebirds are $30.

Those are the action controllers. When Logitech first released the cordless controllers for the PS2 and XBox, they had a different design and cost $60 a piece.

[dnl2ba]

Right, and as I understand it, the first-gen Logitech wireless controllers are the ball-sucking ones.

[ohvermie]

Hmmm...when I said ball-sucking I meant Mad Catz. I liked the Xbox first-gen Logitech, the PS2 one weighed as much as a horse did, so I can see why they went with the "action" design. In fact I own the action corded controller and loved it until the ferrets use the analog sticks as chew toys.

[dnl2ba]

You have ferrets?? Actually, this kind of rings a faint bell...

[schally]

Am I the only person left who actually like cords on my controllers?
I'm kickin' it old school too. Cordless controllers are for communists.

[dnl2ba]

The cordless thing started senior year in college.



The Gamecube is in the top drawer, all plugged in. (Not to mention that the mouse and keyboard are wireless.)

[Rhys]

Roughly how many batteries do you use up in, say, a month?

[ohvermie]

I find it disturbing how this one conversation has now spanned into two different threads. (rhys asks question here, matt answers in tidy)

[dnl2ba]

X-Box 360 promo spread (http://www.xbox360news.com/hi-res/view01.aspx)

$40 for the wired controller!

If you click through to the other pages, you can see a "Core System" vs. X-Box 360 comparison. All the differing features, like "play original X-Box games" and "hard drive," say "optional." Only "premium chrome details" say "not available." So at least you'll be able to buy an upgrade.

What are the face buttons on the X-Box named? Are they also A B X Y? How could those monkeys use the SNES letters and then swap A & B and X & Y?!?@! That's just confusing.

[dnl2ba]

Zelda Mod (http://www.projectzeldaonline.com/) - mod for PC version of Halo

[ohvermie]

What are the face buttons on the X-Box named? Are they also A B X Y? How could those monkeys use the SNES letters and then swap A & B and X & Y?!?@! That's just confusing.
The original flavored Xbox has A B X Y Black White L R Select Start buttons on it. I think the 360 did away with the Black White buttons as they were kinda awkwardly placed and hardly any games used them.

What I want to know is if they're going to use the same video cords for the 360 as they did the XBox. I plunked down 40 bucks for a first party component cable set already, and I don't feel like having to do it again if I ever get a 360.

[dnl2ba]

China: no playing online games longer than 3 hours at a time (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/24/news_6131845.html)

Sounds like an Onion article, but... it's not?

[ohvermie]

XBOX 360 OMEGA Bundle at Gamestop (http://www.gamestop.com/gs/360/360.asp)
For $2000 + dollars after tax and shipping, there better be some women dressed as DoA characters in that bundle.

[dnl2ba]

Hot Biscuit mod for Nintendogs (http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2005/08/25/hot-biscuit-mod/) (just Photoshoppery, I think)
(http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2005/08/25/hot-biscuit-mod/)

[ohvermie]

Definitely photochopped. The clock is only displayed on the upper screen in Nintendogs.

[dnl2ba]

GB Micro colors (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/micro/index.html)

[ohvermie]

I thought the micro had face plates?

Also, the new Hulk game... DO IT!!!!!

It is so damned awesome, you can use buses as skateboards and turn people's heads into street grease. The only negative thing is that it isn't Marvel's Ultimate Hulk. THAT would've been awesome. "NO ONE CALL HULK A SISSY BOY!!!" ::eats man alive::

But if you do do it, don't do it via the Gamecube, supposedly that version has awful frame rate issues and needs to be shot to death with a gun.

[dnl2ba]

New X-Box Live pricing announced (http://www.planetxbox360.com/?view=article&article=116)

Apparently, you need the gold sub if you want to play multiplayer games (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/onlinespecs.htm).

[Rhys]

I like sailing in Wind Waker. There, I said it.

I also like playing with the giant piggy. <3

[ohvermie]

I think you're one of the few that does. I will know the joys of wind waker someday if the Revolution does have GC backwards compatability.

[dnl2ba]

BNetD down and out in court ruling (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050902-5270.html)

BNetD is basically Battle.net, but not run by Blizzard. I used them back in the day because I often had a poor connection to BNet, but that hasn't been a problem recently. I didn't even realize BNetD was still around. I mean, I didn't think they were gone; I just forgot about them.


In a 3-0 decision, the judges agreed with Blizzard, stating that Combs' and Crittenden's creation broke Blizzard's EULA, which bars users from reverse-engineering the software. In addition, the court also upheld the lower court's finding that BnetD violated the DMCA's prohibition against circumventing software antipiracy measures.


The court's ruling is an unqualified victory not only for Blizzard, but also for other software developers that want to restrict how consumers use their products. Following the reasoning of the decision, it looks as though third-party developers who want to create add-ons to extend the functionality of or interoperate with an existing program are likely out of luck.

[dnl2ba]

Nintendo Mobile (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000900057626/) - gaming-related content for cell phones

[schally]

I think you're one of the few that does. I will know the joys of wind waker someday if the Revolution does have GC backwards compatability.
It fucking better.

[dnl2ba]

I changed the thread title because it was bothering me. Who could've come up with such a fucking awful title?

[schally]

I think you ought to be a man about it. Leave it there. Let it taunt you. Forever.

[dnl2ba]

I'll taunt you.

[Rhys]

To be fair, the new topic title isn't much better.

[dnl2ba]

I'll taunt you too!

[ohvermie]

I think the type of smell needs to be more narrowed down. Is it pungent? Does it reek? CURIOUS MINDS WANT TO KNOW!

[deevan]

Note that it doesn't say anything about JC trolling or Matt being good-smelly.

[dnl2ba]

Everyone knows I smell like a meadow in the springtime.

[schally]

[ohvermie]

YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELLS OF ELDERBERRIES!

[ohvermie]

News Corporation buys IGN game network (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050908/85339.html)

The real question on hand is...will it make IGN not suck?

[dnl2ba]

AOE3 demo is out. Get it at your favorite PC gaming site. I have a feeling it'd look like an N64 game on my aging GF4 Ti4400, so I probably won't bother.

[dnl2ba]

Updates on Nintendo games (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60754)

Oh... 5/9/05 is Sept 5 in Euro-talk. Damn you for confusing me!


"This will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form," Miyamoto is quoted as saying.

Er uh... as long as he doesn't mean first-person, I guess I'm open to change, especially seeing that I haven't finished a Zelda game since uh... ALTTP. I barely hit adult Link whatnot in TOOT, never played MM, was sailing for Triforce pieces in WW, and got maybe halfway through Minish Cap.


And it's not just Zelda who'll be getting a next-gen makeover - everyone's favourite Italian plumber is set to star in a new game that will "surprise many people," according to Shigsy.

"Mario is and always has been a concept title from his birth. We are always looking for new ways of playing with him, manipulating him, to create something new and unique. We're in the midst of preparing something special for his future, something never before seen.
Are we talking like another "Mario carries a Super Soaker" kind of update? I guess it's always been true that Mario's gotten different power-ups with every game, though Sunshine was the first where he starts off with some ability beyond the typical Mario.

[dnl2ba]

JUSTIN BAILEY is a fluke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid#JUSTIN_BAILEY)


The password is now regarded as a total fluke, with no special meaning. Due to the algorithmic nature of the password, 1 in 256 possible passwords are valid

So it wasn't written specially into the game. You can actually make it with a password generator (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/PasswordGenerators.html).

[deevan]

JUSTIN BAILEY is a fluke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid#JUSTIN_BAILEY)



So it wasn't written specially into the game. You can actually make it with a password generator (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/PasswordGenerators.html).

I couldn't get it to say Justin Bailey..?

[dnl2ba]

Type it.

[deevan]

Ok.... got it...

Maybe the algorithm was designed around this code, rather than the algorithm producing this code. The odds of 2 dictionary words popping in there (let alone two western european/NA names) is probably very low...

[deevan]

Woo! I got 100 posts!

[dnl2ba]

Hey, constellation theory, mang.

[dnl2ba]

Metroid 2002 (http://www.metroid2002.com/) - Metroid speed run site with all kinds of crazy glitch videos.

[ohvermie]

Metroid speed runs are hot. I remember watching the Quake done quick demos back in the day and was astonished by the trickery used to get it to work. Telefragging that huge white demon monster was absolutely insane.

Also...HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREAMCAST AND PSONE!!!!

Oh and there's gonna be some Seaman (http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5522) squirted into your PS2.

[deevan]

OMGWTFBBQ

http://www.godtower.com

I'm stuck on level 64, about 2/3rds I had to get with google help.

Pass to access 64 is "airwalk".

The secret levels are impossible too.

[ohvermie]

At least the god's tower makes more sense than the puzzles in Not pr0n (http://deathball.net/notpron/notpron.htm). Altho for the life of me I can't get past the first level of god's tower (just type in the word that's mirrored in the image right?)

Also, Criterion drops Burnout Revenge on us all this week, EA has dropped some nuggets of Criterion's next project, Black.

Black teaser in QT format (http://gametrailers.com/player.php?id=7564&type=mov )
Black teaser in WMV format (http://gametrailers.com/player.php?id=7564&type=wmv )

And yes, this game is supposed to be current gen, not next gen. :eek:

[ohvermie]

Sam & Max game lives!!!! (http://www.adventuregamers.com/newsitem.php?id=1061)
WAHOO!!!!!!!

Hopefully when Indigo Prophecy comes out next week it'll sell like hot cakes and show those corporate bastards that people luvs them adventure point and click games.

[dnl2ba]

Nintendo Revolution controller unveiled

IGN pre-show (http://cube.ign.com/articles/651/651320p1.html) | post-show (http://cube.ign.com/articles/651/651275p1.html)
Ars Technica discussion (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/667000735731) (with good pics)
1up.com (http://gamecube.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143782)
Gamespot (http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-23521-2567-x-x-x&tag=gs_hp_flashtop_bg)

From IGN:

Main Controller Features





3D Pointing. Sensors understand up, down, left, right, forward and backward.
Tilt Sensitive. Controller can be rotated or rolled from side-to-side.
Buttons Included. Has a trigger on its backside, face buttons, and a D-Pad.
Multifunctional. Has an expansion port which can be used with different types of controller peripherals. Analog stick with two trigger buttons planned for left hand.
Wireless. Totally wire-free. Currently there are no details on the max distance, source or power, or otherwise.
Rumble Built-in. Included as a standard in all the controllers.
Video (a must-see): http://cubemovies.ign.com/cube/video/article/651/651334/revolutiontrailer_091605_qtlow.mov



What the shit? D: It might as well be a gigantic cock and balls.