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."

Comments

Conker

[wheresdrew]

I shudder to think how they'd use the touch-screen capability or voice input in a Conker title.

(Then again, I'm curious to see how twisted they'd get with those....)

Re:Conker

[Pxtl]

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.

Microsoft Handheld

[Aelfy]

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?

Re:Microsoft Handheld

[fireduck]

The weird thing about the MS purchase of Rare: Their first-post buyout game was released for the GBA. In fact, on their release schedule since 2003, they have more games for the GBA than they do X-BOX (4 nintendo games to 3 xbox games).

Given how slowly Rare release titles, MS must be in this for the long haul (it was a $375 million purchase), as it'll take years before Rare even comes close to selling that much product. particularly if they've got a significant portion of their workforce developing Nintendo handheld games...

Golden-Eye, please?

[Hackie_Chan]

I'd kill to play Golden-Eye on Gameboy DS. I mean, seriously. 4+ players duking it out? That'd be friggin' amazing.

Re:Golden-Eye, please?

[Eluding Reality]

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!

Re:Golden-Eye, please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to keep up. The DS has X and Y buttons. We're all making fun of the PSP's battery life now.

Not just DS titles, either

[iainl]

According to this month's Edge, Diddy Kong Pilot for the GBA has been resurrected post Nintendo-split as Banjo Pilot.

So its definitely looking like we're on target to see more Rare releases on Nintendo hardware this year than we are Microsoft (with GBA Sabre Wulf already on shelves). Oops.

Perfect Dark: DS

[BigDork1001]

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.

Re:This is news?

[buffer-overflowed]

Square-Enix is doing 3+ DS titles and 1 token PSP title.

Konami is still TBA/TBD for the DS and is doing 1+ PSP title last I heard.

And yes, who cares about Rare? The only property I think they own is Conker(who has had one good game thus far), and it looks like they're wasting that by doing a mindless shooter. Nintendo retains the PD property, the Donkey Kong property, and pretty much every other bit of IP that rare used to make good games.

Re:Plasticky

[Naffer]

You know, originally I thought that the PSP was the most awesome handheald ever for being able to play movies.
Then it occured to me, the UMD is not going to be a writable media and any movie you're going to play on it is going to be purchased. That means I don't get to toss my divx movies onto my handheld and watch them while waiting in the dentist office. The PSP won't be the new walkman without a harddrive or writable media, maybe the new gameboy, but not the walkman.

Re:Plasticky

[buffer-overflowed]

The touchscreen is center mounted between the controls, so it could be programmed to be a customizeable control pad. Supposedly it has little subtley raised bumps on it so you can work it by feel.

Of course that means you'll have to muck it up with finger prints, but that's not too big of a deal.

The interface to Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS) is as follows. You can use either the D-Pad + L button for some basic control and then touchscreen/stylus to complement or rather than using the D-Pad you can use XYAB/R for the same thing.

The control has been thought through. Trust Nintendo, you have reason to.

Re:Check out this picture!

[KDR_11k]

What's the problem with that? If someone else designed that G&W, that might mean something, but it's a design by Nintendo. People don't complain about the Gamecube being built in a 4 controller, 2-memory cards, top loading drive standard fashion, why complain about the layout of the DS?

The G&W didn't use the screens in the same way the DS does, the G&W's screens were just extensions of the playing field and essentially one big screen split up for cost and portability reasons, for the DS one screen is a touchscreen and since they're real screens, not those pre-printed LCD screens, they can be used for many different things.

Also, part of the innovation in the DS are the new means of control, which cleary weren't present on the Game and Watch series.

Well, if you think it's bad the device has roughly the same shape as a really old machine that's not even close to the same ballpark, how would you have designed the sysem instead? Make the top part smaller for no apparent reason, or what?