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Rare Working On The Nintendo DS
Sean O'Neill writes "Ken Lobb mentioned to a GCAdvanced writer that Rare is already working on titles for the Nintendo DS. "After him mentioning that, I began to speak to him about the Nintendo DS. He loves the DS and confirmed with me that Rare does have DS development kits and that two titles are in the works for the DS."
Rare are owned by Microsoft. Does this pretty much confirm that Microsoft are not considering entering the handheld market with their own console?
I'd like to know if they (or other MS studios) are also working on PSP games. It could be significant if they are supporting Nintendo only. Tactical?
No more than a few days ago I had a nice little discussion about PD:DS. It sure would be nice to see this come true.
To this day I still play Perfect Dark quite a bit. It's about the only N64 game my friends and I still play. One thing the GC lacks is a good multi-player shooter. The EA shooters just aren't as good as what Rare has made in the past. EA has really butchered the Bond games, Golden Eye is by far the best Bond shooter.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Is it just me or am I the only one not sold on the whole 2 screen thing? and The product pictures I have seen look really plasticky
nick...
4+ is not even a major limit, considering that the DS supports 16 players locally (and who knows how many via wi-fi) and there are no limitations on screens and processing power as each unit handles its own
The major limitations would be the number of characters each DS can display on screen at each time and the practical number you can have on each map without it being unplayable
All in all it would be far better than the original multiplayer and thats saying something!
Could it be that Microsoft is realizing that Rare is just too much like Nintendo (family friendly, quality over bottom line, etc.)???... or that it was really Nintendo that made Rare strong? Remember that some of their best games were Nintendo properties. It could be that Rare is better at bringing the ideas of others to life than bringing the ideas themselves.
Perhaps this is just Microsoft making the most out of a potentially failing investment... perhaps Nintendo knew that Rare's image would be hard to re-shape... and knew getting rid of them would kill Rare... perhaps I'm just rambling.
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
Second, why is Rare news and not a bigger developer like Square-Enix, or Konami? It is widely known that the talented development team left Rare several years ago (hence talk of "the Goldeneye team" making games for various non-Rare studios). Look at the big console games Rare released this generation; Star Fox Adventures and Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Two poorly-regarded titles total (one of which was a pushed back N64 title IIRC) from a developer who used to pump out a title every few months (10 N64 games from 1997 to 2000, and the N64 was much harder to program...).
While I enjoyed Conker, the game helped me recognise something about Rare: I don't really enjoy their games. While often clever and interesting, I think they often turn out to be not really very much fun.
Conker is a neat game on the surface, but the problems gradually chased me away: it pushed the hardware too hard, making the game choppy and ugly (a problem that all the Rare games seem to suffer from). It was just plain ugly (again, common Rare problem) and the gameplay was painfully frustrating and often very slow. Slightly convoluted controls, slightly sticky view angles, other frustrating, clumsy little features. Thinking back to Diddy Kong racing and Golden Eye, I see the same problems.
Of course, ymmv - I personally find the continued popularity of Goldeneye utterly perplexing for what I find to be a mediocre - if groundbreaking - FPS. Dreamcast's Outtrigger stilll stands out to me as the best console FPS ever. Goldeneye is frustratingly painful in comparison. To me Goldeneye is the Wolfenstein of the console FPS world - yeah, it was the first, but I never want to touch it again.
Now lets be realistic - Rare's games are only really popular because of their groundbreaking natures and their hype. Donkey Kong Country (a very hyped game) for being the first large-scale rendered-graphics platformer, Diddy Racing (another hyped game) for being an adventure-kart hybrid, and Goldeneye for being the first console FPS. That, and they're always frustrating, and always very very long.
Of course, this is the perfect element for making games *memorable* - they break new ground, so people pick them up. They take forever, so the players pour lots of time into them. Also, they're frustrating, so the players really get emotionally involved in trying to succeed. This makes the games get carved into the mass psyche of players. I've gotten lost in many Rare titles. The games are such that your life gets sucked into them, so of course you become attached. No wonder everyone loves them so much.
But the fact I think about when I think back to them is: did I actually *enjoy* playing them? All too often, the answer is, well, no. They were more of a habit and a task, with small rewards to keep me going. But rarely actually fun. Sure, they have their moments, but they tend to be short and fleeting rewards for endless perseverance.
Other players may have different opinions, but I've come to mine, and I'm happy with it. Microsoft can have them.