News and Neatness for August 31st.
- Freaking News has a neat little set of manipulated images that show off a sort of celebration of Pac-man’s 26 years.
Some amusing stuff, to be sure.
- According to Jaxel at The Mega Man Network, IGN has a final build of Mega Man ZX, and likes it. Unfortunately, it’s still only a preview, but the final review will come the weekend before release.
“They also comment on the voice acting. Yes, it is in Japanese, crushing rumors that it was removed from the game (like MMXC X6). They give their own reasoning why the English plans were deep sixed.”
They also use the word “nodel” a lot. But since they’re actually going to bring us a story soon about each model, with exclusive art no less, I think I can forgive.
From what I’ve played, the game is definitely one for the books. But according to Go Nintendo’s post, EGM doesn’t think quite as highly of it.
- N-Philes has a link to some new Capcom Classics Mini-Mix screens, followed by this:
“Metro city has never looked so… 8-bit.”
…to which I say, “It has, the first time Mighty Final Fight came out.”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
- Oh, cool, SimCity is coming to the DS, with stylus controls.
But sadly, I bet you can’t make Bowser trample downtown in this one.
- Oooooh, IGN has some new Wii Duck Hunt vids.
I’m such a sucker for that. I’d be quite happy if Nintendo did what SEGA once did and made this the console’s default game, like if you turn it on with nothing inside.
- Ah, so we find out what UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine’s big whoop–er, I mean, big surprise is.
DVD might be neat, tho.
- Slashdot defers to, of all people, MTV Games for a piece about how developers are refining Wii controls, and references Marvel Ultimate Alliance using the control to swing Thor’s hammer, shoot Spidey’s webs, or use Wolverine’s claws.
Sounds cool. But it also brings to light how perhaps playtesting for the Wii may be more complicated than anything that’s come before it.
- Huh, remember that “PSP Lite” hullabaloo yesterday? Yeah, it may not hold as much water after all.
Guess it’s to be expected of the guys who sorta ripped my wife’s article.
- Wired speaks a bit on developers and kids able to make XBox 360 games now.
Sorta.
But if you’re an aspiring game developer, as I know a few people who read this stuff are, this may be worth a look if you haven’t already heard.
- Huh, now this is just strange.
“Craigslist poster claims rare N64 cart, offering free rom for services”
Curious though I am, I think my more paranoid side would keep me some distance from this…
(Be sorta funny-scary if this was some kind of a piracy bust)
- While it seems that “World War II FPS” has become a genre unto itself, and one I really couldn’t give much of a crap about, I have to admit that Fall of Liberty is at least making an effort to freshen things up a bit.
As far as anything to do with WWII goes, I say bring on a new 194- game, or a new Bionic Commando.
- I tried to watch the video, just to see the Wii experience in action, but somehow I couldn’t make it through this time.
But if you can tolerate Madden, well, maybe you’d be interested in seeing how it works. Maybe I’ll try again later.
- …this is living?
More like “this is boring.”
- I’ve seen this Famicom ad for Super Mario 2 and Zelda before, but only now have I stopped to wonder just what they’re trying to advertise. Frustration?
- God, I hate the shorthand for Blu-Ray Discs. “BD?” Couldn’t it be “BRD?” “BR?”
I’m annoyed because friends often refer to be as “BD” for short.
In any case, Fox is going to have 8 of them ready for the PS3 launch, it would seem.
About 3 or 4 of those have my interest.
Except I can already see them on DVD.
- Wow. This runs a little deeper than your usual Mario fare.
Has a good message, though.
…poor Goomba.
- If ever there were a reason to import 360 games…
- Press The Buttons takes a look back at the ORIGINAL PlayStation. Not the one you owned, but rather, the Super NES CD-ROM drive that never really happened.
Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder what might have been. On the other hand, I think it took the PlayStation(as we know it) to really show what a CD-ROM could do for gaming.
- I think it’s been touched on already, but better safe than ignorant.
2old2play reports on Best Buy offering 3rd-party Wii titles for $49.99.
Not bad, but I bet the Canadian pricing will still make me wretch.
- Hmm, it seems that maybe developers are finding Blu-Ray useful after all.
- Oooh, this could be good news. Good news indeed.
The Wavebird controller will work with the Wii.
Now, I just have to hope that when the Wii comes out, retailers start knocking the price down as it’s a “GameCube” peripheral.
- Toymania takes a closer look at the “Take the Mario Challenge” Happy Meal, scheduled to start today.
Additionally, I’ll have images of the bag up later today for those who wish to see it.
- Oh lord, more Kiss Play TransFormers, this time of Rodimus.
The words of Simon Furman are true. “It never ends.”
- The Allspark has also reported on a TransFormers movie poster featuring the new Optimus Prime.
Still not the greatest image quality… I still can’t make out a lot of what’s what, but he seems a little more in line with the TF aesthetic than some of what we’ve seen.
Allspark also reports that the TransFormers in the movie will have CG-augmented faces.
Which means that the image of Bumblebee we saw isn’t quite finished yet.
And finally, speaking of ‘B, here’s a video of him in action… driving.
Hey, you take what you can get at this point.
LBD “Nytetrayn”
September 1st, 2006 at 2:15 am
“Life is boring” is right. Not only is the slogan kinda blah, the video was boring too. Sony really needs to find new ad people. Or do they? They are getting people to talk about their products, after all. “Did you see that PSP ad? Wasn’t that racist?” And now it’s, “Did you see that PS3 ad? How boring was that?!” I mean… rather than come up with a GOOD campaign, a bad one could almost do the same job… Building a future on notoriety?
And speaking of boring… Ugh, that Madden video!! While it did look nice, it was way too boring for someone like me who has no interest or understanding of football in the first place… What I really wanted to see was more ACTION, not some guy posturing with his butt in front of the TV. And man, they really ought to let you use the control pad to make menu selections, not just the Wiimote. What if you have a tiny-ass screen?
Speaking of Wii control schemes, what I’d really like to see more of is DS-Wii interaction. You know it’s going to happen with Pokemon, but the Wii game may not be far enough along yet… But this seems like an exciting prospect to me, and in some cases, a nice alternative to split-screen.
As for the price on Wii games… Is it just me, or are games actually getting cheaper? Not compared to last generation, but to several generations ago. Remember when Toys R Us would stock new SNES fighting games at $80? Just because fighting games were the “in” thing, no matter how bad they were? If you factor in inflation, wouldn’t that be even MORE compared to today’s games? All that aside, though… $60 IS way too much for new games. Maybe it’s partially why I’ve grown so attached to the handheld market in recent years, in addition to being able to play anywhere…
“GOT PROFIT MARGIN?”… Haha, great line…
It would be nice if the Wii had something built-in so that you wouldn’t need to plug in the Wavebird receivers… But that’d probably be too complicated… Would it? But I guess the system needs to know whether a controller is plugged in or not, and it judges that based on the presence or absence of the receiver…
Games on Blu-Ray WOULD be kinda nice. I remember how much of a pain it was to swap CDs on the Playstation, and DVDs did away with a lot of that. Certainly the most exciting aspect for me is the audio… More games with multiple language tracks, and especially surround sound! That would REALLY make games come alive, assuming you have the setup (and if they assume you have HD, well, it’s not an unreasonable assumption). But the thing is, the Japanese don’t seem to care too much for surround sound since, from what I’ve heard, Japanese surround tracks typically stink.
Uh… Madden in 5.1? Yay…
The SNES really was not meant to have the CD-ROM attachment. In those days, tack-on peripherals did really poorly… didn’t they? I’d cite the Jaguar CD, but the core system did suckily as well… Sega CD seemed like a decent success, but even then it wasn’t so great… Maybe, similar to what you said, the world just wasn’t ready for CD gaming until the PSX came out. I’m just thankful we no longer have FMV games. Now those games are heading to movie DVDs!! It’s kinda works, actually…
And BLECH to those Sony movies on Blu-Ray. The only one I’m even remotely interested in is The Omen… I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I will at least sorta appreciate the HD picture. But… it doesn’t seem worth it. Certainly not for THOSE movies. I don’t really know which movies are Sony movies, but they have to have a good number of movies worth putting on Blu-Ray. You know, go for classics! People would love movies like Star Wars or The Matrix. Plus, older movies would probably be able to be sold for cheaper, improving sales… I remember when Lodoss War came out on DVD, in a single set for one low price, I pounced on that. The quality sucked for DVD, but it was good at the time… Bottom line, give people a bargain!
Phew… Nice news day!
September 1st, 2006 at 2:31 am
Re: Living> Bad talk didn’t help Ngage very much, so I imagine it remains subjective…
Re: Madden> Glad it wasn’t just me.
Re: Prices> Don’t forget, SNES and N64 were on cartridge. It’s like they dropped a little for CD to slowly rise back up.
In Wii’s case, though, it’s supposed to be cheaper to develop for, and it’s not as HD-LOL-State of the Art as the other two, so…
Re: Blu-Ray> I hear that space is at a premium in Japan as well. That might have something to do with it.
As for an abundance of language tracks and such? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Re: SNES CD> This is why I don’t fault Nintendo for going cartridge on N64: until the PS1, nobody really made very good use of CD-ROM for games. It was more about the software than the hardware. I mean, you had the odd Sonic CD or something, but then there was how much shovelware on the shelf beside it?
Why abandon something that was working for something that wasn’t?
(On a related note, I always dug how small-yet-heavy N64 games were)
Re: Sony movies on Blu-Ray> Um, those are Fox movies. ^^;; I’ve not seen Fantastic 4 yet, so that has my interest, Speed was alright, and I’m also curious about Transporter and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
LBD “Nytetrayn”
September 1st, 2006 at 2:55 am
Yeah, that’s true that cartridges were an inherently more expensive medium. But would that really factor into your price comparisons when shopping? “Well, this game on CD is cheaper… But this other game is on cartridge, so even though it costs more, I should really consider them to be the same price.” As long as we’re talking about new, modern content, I don’t think it would matter that much… It just seems like our attitudes about what’s too expensive and what isn’t has changed. Not that it’s bad, of course not! It’s just a little funny that several years back it was “Man, $90? That’s too much!”, but now it’s “Man, $60? That’s too much!”
But yeah, of course, $50 per game would be very welcome for any next-gen system’s games. Frankly, I don’t see them yet being worth the extra $10…
As for extra audio on Blu-Ray, yeah, I know. I’m not an audiophile myself, but I know they do get shafted in comparison to videophiles. And it is a rarity to see dual language tracks on games these days… It seems video games are a few years behind anime when it comes to voice acting. What we need is the option to choose our language and some better actors. Why can’t we get anime voice actors to work on games more often?
And yeah, like I said, I don’t know which movies belong to which studios… But I just know Sony MUST have some movies on that caliber!! I mean, otherwise it’d be pretty sad. Perhaps they’re just trying to milk more money off these modern releases before they fade from memory? I can see how that’s a valid strategy, but really, in my opinion, offering classics would be better for them. Let’s say you watch your favorite movie on DVD dozens of times… And then you see it in HD on Blu-Ray. Suddenly the movie you’ve become familiar with every nook and cranny of becomes almost new again! That’s the impact of high-definition…
September 1st, 2006 at 3:56 am
Fall of Liberty (11) — “As far as anything to do with WWII goes, I say bring on a new 194- game, or a new Bionic Commando.” Or how about a new Command & Conquer Red Alert? Anyway, the premise behind Fall of Liberty seems amusing, very clever of them to gain some attention. But that’s just the story premise. I am still looking at Call of Duty for its apparent emphasis on simplicity and atmosphere.
September 1st, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Oh wait, apparently Fall of Liberty is tied to Call of Duty. Fall of Liberty is being developed by Spark Unlimited, which was involved in Call of Duty Finest Hour for Xbox, GCN, and PS2.
Better watch out.
September 1st, 2006 at 8:10 pm
C&C isn’t really my bag. I mean, great for anyone who does love it, I have nothing against it. Just not my thing.
Better watch out.
Better not cry. Better not pout.
But I ain’t tellin’ ya’ why.
LBD “Nytetrayn”
September 1st, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Don’t be silly, LBD, everyone loves Command & Conquer. It’s only a matter of time before you come around. 8]
September 1st, 2006 at 9:46 pm
And money. Gotta have the money.
LBD “Nytetrayn”