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You Say You Want A Revolution?
rafemonkey writes "Looks like the first hard info on a revolution game has hit the internet. The game, from Ubisoft, is called Red Steel. It's a FPS where the Revo's positional controller takes the place of the mouse. And, for those of you that were worried, the graphics look nice." PointlessWasteofTime points out that it doesn't actually look like an FPS, but more of a GunCon title, in a piece called A FanBoy Intervention. Elite Bastards has a brief history of the Revolution console. From the Waste of Time article: "Look at the Red Steel screens again. Never mind that Ubisoft has a habit of publishing concept renders and claiming they're in-game screenshots, and never mind that shots like that in magazines tend to have usually been 'touched up' a bit. Just look at the screens, then look at the inset photos of the people pointing and shooting with their Rev controllers: Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.' It's next-gen Duck Hunt."
Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.' It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
Really? I wasn't aware that Duck Hunt allowed you free-movement in a 3D environment. Oooohhh, that's right. It didn't.
This isn't the next Duck Hunt, and (unless it's on rails, which apparently it's not) it's not the next Time Crisis either. What it is, is a new generation of First Person Shooters that actually work on a console. No more fidgeting with those tiny analog controllers! You can now take aim and fire, all while strafing, running, jumping, (can we do Matrix style flipping, puullleeeazze?), and dodging. If this works out, Nintendo will have again revolutionized the console controller! Which would be impressive, considering that their Gamecube controller just didn't live up to its predecessors.
Of course, that's a pretty big "if". Nintendo is telling us that they've developed inexpensive positional monitors that are more natural than a light gun with target-painting, but with a full controller built in. Given that most of us remember how horrid the Power Glove was (Lucas: "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." Yeah, right.) and that target painting doesn't work on LCD screens, Nintendo has one heck of a tall order to fill.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The one interface not allowed for a First Person shooter is, you know, a gun-like interface?
Keyboard and mouse interface: Yup, it's a shooter!
Gamepad interface: Yup, it's a shooter!
Gun interface: OMGWTFBBQ, it's Duck hunt!
What kind of stupid fanboy do you have to be to make that kind of argument?
Look, you have to understand. If you want to be a "Halo Killer" (and every single game is a halo killer, these days! Don't bother judging the game on its own merits. The only question is, does it kill Halo?), you have to match the control scheme that made Halo popular. And that control scheme is: A clumsy replication of PC FPS controls shoehorned into a Dual Shock II workalike format.
After all, everyone knows that what made Halo popular was the radical and unnatural retraining that is required when you take a control scheme that was designed and perfected for a mouse and keyboard, and just jam it unceremoniously underneath two thumb-controlled joysticks and a maze of randomly positioned multicolored buttons. Unless Nintendo can replicate that kind of hand-eye coordination dissonance, they'll never get anywhere with their Halo killing, I mean console, business. My suggestion: They should duct-tape a cinderblock to the Revolution remote. Then everyone will just eat it right up!
If you scroll down to read the rest of that web log, it's almost 100% Nintendo bashing. The author is clearly trolling Ninentdo fans. Please don't feed the troll.
P.S. Has "fair and balanced" journalism finally arrived at slashdot? Is every story going to feature, alongside the actual news, an obvious troll?
I think not.
Moz la Punk got ahold of details on the Game Informer article from which this news emerged, and that includes the control mechanism. Check it out. You actually use the controller to push obstacles down to use for cover. You nod your head or shake it in order to interact with NPCs. How awesome is that?
Apparently the game uses the controller's assets in the most obvious way--that is, sword and gunplay--but from what I've read so far, it's hardly gimmicky. The gameplay appears to be pretty deep.
The summary is biased and stupid, by the way, in an attempt to get a reaction from Nintendo people. Nice job, Slashdot.
Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.' It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
Since I'm sitting in class bored, I'm going to mince that line apart.
Guys...
While it's likely that's just a common euphamism for "You all", it shows a little bit more; most console gamers are guys. However, only roughly half of all humans are guys. That leaves a lot of potential consumers, and this is one thing that Nintendo has really been pushing for since we got the DS. Games like Super Princess Peach, Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing have been pulling in female gamers by the bucket load, and Nintendo wants to extend that to your average parent and grandparent as well with the Revolution.
it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not.
Light gun games require the controller to interact with the light cascading from a television. In the case of the afformentioned Duck Hunt, the screen briefly changes its colors to highlight the location of said duck, and the gun reads those colors to see if you hit it or not.
Nintendo's controller, on the other hand, uses spacial recognition in co-operation with gyroscopes to measure height, distance, arc, pitch, yaw, and alignment. Light gun game my ass.
This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.'
It very well may not be, but what it shows is how the Revoltion controller can do for FPS games. Say you're chasing someone (or they're chasing ou) on the run down a hallway, and baddies pop out of side doors to shoot at you. To shoot them back, you'd have to turn your character to face them (or lock on), shoot them, and turn your character back to look at the guy you're after and continue forward. In this time he's gained ground on you.
With the Revolution controller, you never stray off the path. You keep holding forward, and simply move your hand to point the gun to your right, left, or whatever, cap the guy's ass, and continue as if nothing happened.
This controller adds a whole new layer of immersion to many titles, especially FPS. A good majority of people complain that regular console controllers suck for FPSes, citing various reasons. I'm really interested to see how the remote controller will fair in this.
It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
If you ask me, we're overdue for an updated Duck Hunt. None of this hiding in the bushes shit of other hunting games, either- you just sit there with a gun in a patch of grass while endless numbers of birds of different types fly out. Your dog (you would get to choose the breed- maybe even import a dog from Nintendogs!) would then fetch the bird and/or scare up more. Every so often you'd get to shoot the dog when it gets too damned annoying.
Bonus levels would including shooting flamingos in Florida and a form of skeet shooting where penguins launch down ice ramps into the air and you try to get them before they land on the other side.
I swear, I've always backed you guys up when you screwed up, I've always had Zonk's back, but this report I will not take sitting down: THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT.
Of all the Red Steel coverage floating around the net, you chose the links to people calling BS on the screenshots? No reports on how awesome this game looks and how wonderful the system will be if it works like they say, just the "oh, this can't be this good" speculation.
No, you only looked at the bad. You pointed out the guy who said that these pictures were probably "touched up", but ignored Ubisoft's own claims that these are totally legit, real screenshots. You blatantly called it a GunCon game, while completely ignoring Game Informer's quote about it feeling like a true FPS, and NOT a lightgun game.
In other words, you only looked at one side of the story, the negative one. The one with no facts to back it up. This is one of the most intriguing games I've seen in damn long time. Sure, you have to take stuff like this with a grain of salt, but to completely ignore how amazing this is and just calling it BS is bullshit itself on a level I have trouble comprehending.
The game looks amazing. Period. There is not a reason in hell anyone should have a reason to question the graphics. If the Gamecube can pull off Resident Evil 4, the Revolution can pull off this. As for the controls, well, I don't think you should judge until you try it for yourself, but I also think it's stupid to think Ubisoft has Game Informer in their pocket and GI was lying when they talked about how great the game felt to play.
I'm damn ashamed and quite frankly pissed off at you Slashdot. Get your act straight.