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Revolution Roundtable
1up.com is running a piece talking to six professional game developers, where they discuss the possibilities and possible pitfalls of the Nintendo Revolution. From the article: "I don't think it will be difficult at all to make full length titles for the Revolution. First of all, Nintendo has hinted that they will provide an add-on for the controller that will mimic a "normal" controller, like the GameCube's Wavebird controller. Second, as long as the device is light, movement based input is not that tiresome. I have used a gyroscopic mouse for many years, and can successfully play many games with it. I would presume that games specifically tuned for the Revolution's controller will be easy to use for extended periods of time. As a bonus, gamers who play that long will end up with impressive looking forearms!"
And I am one of them. However, the touch-screen still seems gimmicky to me (and that's a Nintendo fanboy talking here). Even though I have played a couple of games that required the touch screen pretty extensively (Mario DS, Kirby Canvas Curse, and the wife is on Nintendogs), the two games I spend the most time with at the moment are Advance Wars DS and Mario Kart DS, and I only use the d-pad + buttons for both those games, never the touch screen.
Simply having two screens is a big plus in itself, allowing for all the action to go uncluttered while the extra info is displayed on the secondary screen. Plus, I love how folding the thing instantly puts the game into sleep mode, which then makes for insanely fast "boot speed" when you take it back.
The touch screen is definitely not the only good feature of the DS.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
But that is the whole point of the Revolution. We don't want EA to go and make yet another batch of traditional "console-genre games", we want a whole new breed of console genres. The "second stick" or whatever controller add-on one can plug in should always be secondary, or it should be as innovative as the wand. I'd really hate it if games required a regular controller to plug into the wand, and then only use the controller for regular gameplay.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Nintendo would have to go out of its way to ruin the launch.
I think more accurately, the developers would have to go out of their way to ruin the launch. It seems to me that with the stale game market these days, developers would have to be tied up to keep them from flocking to this console.
Just imagine the current proposal for a game now: "Ok, it's a [insert genre] game where you play a [insert catchy character type] who has to [choose: save, kill, defeat] this [choose: victim, enemy]."
Now think about some of the game ideas you could have with the Revolution--just from the unique controller: Drums player (2 controllers for sticks), pilot games (tilt/turn the plane with the controller).
Then there are the improvements to current games: aiming a rifle, using a sword, etc.
All that needs to happen is for a decent initial lineup of games to come out, which will attract a lot of users, and a lot more companies will follow. If all that can happen, the Revolution may really live up to its name.
It sounds a lot like these developers haven't even seen a dev kit for the revolution. Which to seems odd to me if we are going to see a system in roughly 6months, and the 3rd party dev's don't have the dev kits; then how are they going to have decent launch titles? Maybe they need to interview developers who are going to have launch titles, but maybe big N has these people locked down on what they can say about the new system.
Try out Meteos. I don't know how anybody could even THINK of using the buttons for it, even though it DOES technically support it. Using the stylus (personally I think the stylus is WAY too small, though there's not much you can do for it, and hence I use my TabletPC's big pen) is essential to that game. Honestly, I think that the only other control scheme that MIGHT work for that game would be a mouse, which would obviously preclude it being a console game, but the DS's screen works perfectly. Another game that would work great for this concept would be Yoshi's Cookie, which I played a LONG time ago (Rented) on the SNES. It worked OK, but that game would be even more natural with the DS's control scheme.
Meteos takes a little getting used to, since it really IS different from just another tetris re-hash. About the only thing is has in common with tetris is that it has a "well" as the primary game space, and that you're not supposed to let things pile out the top. Besides that, it's a COMPLETELY different experience, since you're TRYING to "launch" things out the top. And add in the fact that every planet you play on is slightly (or radically) different (Gravitas is a nightmare IMO), different strategies are required depending on where you play on.
I'll agree that for things like MK: DS the touch screen is superfluous, though the SECOND screen is useful. Being able to see locally or globally around you is invaluable. And the fact it's touch-responsive is great only that it's easier to find a stretch where you can take your left thumb briefly off of the "wheel" to touch the screen to change the view, while keeping your right thumb firmly on the gas 100% of the itme.
I'm quite happy with my DS. I'll admit that I thought the 2nd screen, AND the "touch" aspect of it were both gimmicks, but after playing with it for a while I know it's a solid game system, with neither mechanic being a gimmick.
impressive looking forearms... I think we're overlooking one of the revolution controller's biggest disadvantages. Before all we had to worry about was a bad case of Nintendo thumb. Now what? Carpal tunnel syndrome? Tennis elbow? A sprained shoulder? Will I have to get Tommy John surgury to play MVP 2007??
It makes real cupcakes, with a 40 watt bulb, and there's icing packets....but the secret ingredient is love.
Nintendo could mess things up pretty well with even slight flaws in their controller, if performance isn't up to snuff the lag will destroy them, if wireless conflicts are a problem that will kill them.
Most critical is how accurate this controller can be, if it has poor quality tracking people will have to lower the sensitivity (Totally destroying the fun) or simply will hate the thing.
But it's damn good to see that the biggest problems they're likely to have are technical which is how it should be, there will be killer games for this system the fps control scheme alone practically guarantees huge interest.
And the DS is really a feather in their cap, it's not totally dominating (yet) but it's technical acheivements are increadible in how seamlessly it handles things that would be considered a problem in another system,two systems (GBA and DS in one), two screens, two cpus, and two control schemes. Brilliant, I love mine.