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Nintendo Game Cube On (Limited) Preview In 12 Cities
psxndc writes: "Nintendo has set up "Cube Clubs" at various US cities that allow you to go in and play (mainly first party) Game Cube games. Cube Clubs exist in Boston, San Francisco and Minneapolis, with plans to run in a total of 12 cities. I went to the Boston one today. Most games were disappointing, but Rogue Leader and suprisingly Luigi's Mansion were a lot of fun. More info on Cube.ign.com. A recap of the SF one is also there." Anyone else with first-hand reactions from this?
I played a few of the games at the Mall of America on Friday night, and on the whole, it was impressive, if not mind-blowing.
Luigi's Mansion, the new Smash Bros. game, and Pikmin looked pretty decent, but far and away the most impressive game showing was Rogue Squadron. (There were a few games missing-- Zelda and Metroid aren't due out for awhile, so don't expect them in any of the other cities if you go.)
Unfortunately, even the ones there weren't marvelous. There's nothing on deck that I saw that would make me want to buy a GameCube come November 18th, even though it's a hundred bucks cheaper than Xbox or PS2. There's no flagship title yet-- it's missing a Metal Gear Solid 2 or a Halo.
Of course, Nintendo had everything running under the best possible conditions-- you have to wonder what the games will look like on regular televisions, instead of the HDTV screen they had up. The remarkable detail crammed into Rogue Squadron could easily get lost.
The controller was a bit less awkward than that of the N64, but it's not the kind of thing you'll get used to right away.
My affection for Nintendo left over from the original NES will probably lead me to pick up a Cube after the holidays. But even after an hour's worth of hands-on I'm not exactly dying to do so.
What I've heard about those Xbox units crashing is that, at least with Halo (a Bungie employee said as much), it's because the demo discs were accidentally built with an older video library. When that library looks for things that aren't there in a shipping Xbox, it goes on the fritz. Microsoft may have a rep for things that don't quite work properly, but at least here it's a one-off that shouldn't carry over to the final product. Oh, and about the Gamecube - I'm interested in that as well, but I already have a Dreamcast and a PS2. Even a third console would be a bit much!
Okay, a standard television can do 640x480 interlaced (called 480i if you follow DTV specs). This is 60 fps interlaced, which is really 30 fps. Alternatively, you can do a 240p signal in the 480i system, which is what the original Nintendo system did. (IIRC)
:)
With a HDTV-ready system and a Gamecube, you can do 480p, which is 640x480 progressive, which can provide a true 60 fps signal.
Because of the size and shape of my living room, I have a standard size television, which is a 4:3 ratio. Some of the HDTVs are full-screen (4:3) and some are wide-screen (16:9). You can send a 16:9 signal to a 4:3 television and it letterboxes (or you swap the aspect ratio and get tall, thin people). You can send a 4:3 signal to a widescreen and reverse letterbox (on the sides) or stretch it and get short, fat people.
In supporting 480p, the Gamecube offers a true 60 fps, as the entire screen updates every frame. With a standard television, running at 480i, you will really only effectively get 30fps, as it takes 2 frames to draw a full image.
Interesting, the 1080i ration for HDTV (which can also carry a 540p signal) is interlaced. Interlaced is fine for things without that much movement, games and heavy movement systems benefit from progressive images. Computers have all but abandonned interlaced signals, and with HDTV, you'll have to find a TV/STB combo that does what you want. The 720p resolution will be amazing for HDTV and the "next" generation consoles after this crop.
Alex
I have just started Pikmin, which is also amazing, visually and as far as gameplay is concerned. It really seems to be a new genre of game. I can't think of anything else to compare it to, except in small small ways to C&C. Not only are the ideas and goals innovative, but the controls are absolutely an innovation in gaming.
I am a little worried that Pikmin will be short and sweet as well, though. I've only had a few days with it, but I think I've made pretty good progress so far.
I am also worried in general about Nintendo's catalog and release schedule...Even months after the initial release, the software release schedule does not seem very complete.
What's a contemporary gaming console without a good golf game?!?
One more plus...I think the new controller is great; a great improvement over the N64 controller, and much better thay playstation/PS2. Probably the 1st controller I've felt comfortable holding and using since the NES.
I was at the Club in Boston on Friday and all the games looked great. Only one seem kind of DOA, it looked like a Resident Evil clone but it might take a bit to get into. WaveRace was its usual great on all accounts. I liked the idea of Pikmin and its look but I didn't get into it, it does have great promise. I didn't get around to playing Luigi's Mansion or Rogue Squadron but those 2 titles really make the system shine. They actually where able to turn the lame N64 version of Courtside to a good cube game, Courtside 2002. Madden was like someone else said, looked like a broadcast. Smash Brothers was Smash Brothers but a better system made it better also. If you don't want a gamecube that's one thing but it is far from lame. I only played Monkey Ball battle a little, but the game comes highly rated.
P.S. They gave out Nintendo Powers with a CD with demos of the first 10 games include an amazing demo of SSX. You could win one for just going so it is a win-win.
Euphemism, what is that a euphemism for something.
You can run into trouble if your game links against debug or devel versions of system libraries and you run on a home unit -- but that executable would never pass certification. The linker is very noisy about this.
Interesting, the 1080i ration for HDTV (which can also carry a 540p signal) is interlaced.
(Disclosure: the company I work for has a broadcast integration arm, so I'm always hearing people yak yak yak about the latest TV technology. And we also play with HDTV a lot in our lab.)
Interlacing provides one very imporant feature that you didn't mention: flicker reduction.
I don't have science to back this up, but it seems that a 60 Hz progressive display-- one in which every scan line is redrawn 60 times per second-- has a noticable flicker to most people. (Set your computer monitor to 60 Hz and see. No, really. Go ahead. I'll wait.)
A 60-Hz interlaced display, however, flickers less, because only *half* the scan lines are being redrawn at any given time. Your eye perceives a clean, flicker-free image, although admittedly this can result in some tearing or blurring when the scene moves quickly.
We've known for years and years that refresh rate is more important than frame rate for visually pleasing, flicker-free pictures. Analog film is projected at 24 frames per second, which is a really low frame rate by digital standards. We get away with it because the film projector gates (that is, projects on the screen) each frame twice, meaning the screen flashes 48 times per second. Less flicker for the same frame rate.
Interlacing uses the same principle but in a different way. Instead of refreshing the screen faster than we update it, we only update half the scan lines each time through the raster, leaving the other half lit. This works because phosphors on TV tubes continue to glow after they've been excited, so we basically get half of our scan lines for free every refresh.
My point here is that you might find a 60 Hz progressive scan display more pleasing than 60 Hz interlaced scan in some cases, but it's not universally true to say that progressive is always better than interlaced.
OK, first of all, as an avid Nintendo supporter and GameCube fan, I take offense to this:
Most games were disappointing, but Rogue Leader and suprisingly Luigi's Mansion were a lot of fun.
Luigi's Mansion? Please! Apparently the author must have not felt like standing in some of the longer lines to play the really cool games. I agree with his comment on Rogue Leader, it was most impressive.
Anyway, as to what I thought, I really enjoyed the preview. I have a cube on preorder along with a few games and I can't wait to get mine. The controller is really nice, unlike the N64 they really made a controller that "fits" your hand this time. The response of the controls is also very nice, unlike PS2 or Xbox, you really get a feel for the game, as soon as you move, it moves.
*My favorite game was Star Wars... I've been a big Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember and this game is about as close as you can get to actually flying around in futuristic space and fighting the evil empire.
*I also really liked Madden 2002, although I was a little dissapointed at the way it seemed to be just a carbon copy of the PS2 version. There were a few differences and I'm sure once my copy arrives I'll notice them better.
*Another really fun game was Super Smash Brothers. They had 4 controllers set up and it was a blast using Samus to whoop some teenager ass. That game is hilarious, all out fun and it's surprisingly cool to fight with all the classic Nintendo Characters.
*The new version of WaveRace was stunning. I really liked the N64 version but this new one delivers on every graphical aspect of the gamecube. You can actually see individual fish under the water as you're speeding by.
*There was also a basketball game there, I don't remember the title but it wasn't EA Sports, and it also wasn't very good. The graphics were nice but it seemed to me to move too slowly, but I'm not a big basketball fan anyway.
Well, that's what I thought about the games I played while I was there. I didn't play any others so I'm not going to talk about them, although I saw a long line for this Resident Evil type game. Anyway, only a few more weeks!
~ now you know
Then again, as the games are clearly targeted at a young audience, they may appeal more to kids than me.
What are you talking about? Did you play Star Wars? How about Madden 2002? Resident Evil? Wave Racer? Yes there were some kiddie games, but why is that such a bad thing? Kids have to have fun too. Pikimin was good? Are you on crack? Star Wars was the Killer App, hands down.
Graphics on par with PS2. In spite of specs that don't look as good on paper as ps2 ('cept RAM, I guess), the EA games (NBA and Madden) looked every bit as good as the ps2 versions.
Ummm, well.. hmmm, maybe you haven't seen the specs, but if you go to cube.ign.com I'm sure you can find some. The Gamecube is the leader in all areas except clock speed, which in reality doesn't matter because it has the highest processing power, it just takes less clock cycles to produce it. It runs off of a PowerPC-type RISC chip that was designed specifically for gaming (not watching DVD's). The most important areas are PPS (polygons per second) and Colors, and the GameCube has the lead in each of those categories. Anyway, all the stats in the world don't matter, PS2 has what feels like a 2 second delay between your movements and the game's reaction where the GameCube flows right along with your input, and that's the most important thing to me.
~ now you know
The Ultimate Gamecube FAQ (at cube.ign.com)
... Well, you've got a couple million polygons/sec to work with. (Not a bad number by any means -- but it's not 66-75 million)
If you go by published specs, the ps2 pumps out around 66-75 million pps, and the cube does 6 -12 million (I think you get more polygon effects on cube though..
Yeah -- the PS2's graphics hardware can theoretically push 66-75 million flat-shaded triangles per second. Apply a texture and you halve that. Enable lighting and halve it again. Do some game physics and AI calculations and
The XBox has similar numbers and similar 'issues'.
The Gamecube advertises "6-12 million polys/sec" because it's a real number. Developers are *guaranteed* 6 million polygons per second with:
a) hardware lighting
b) 8 simultaneous textures
Basically, any numbers you get from Sony or MS are purely theoretical and don't reflect an actual game environment. Nintendo's and Sega's specs are real in-game numbers.
Of course, all the numbers in the world don't make good games. But if you're going to base your judgement on hardware specs, you need to look at in-game numbers. Not market propaganda.
--Jeremy