Aprils 17th was actually my last day with the site.
I'm just another Slashdot user now.:)
My primary gig is over at Massively, but I'm also writing at places like Wired, Gamasutra, and 1up.
As for stability, unfortunately I can't really speak to that. They're still very much in a Beta phase. It was a lot less glitchy than I've seen some games at that stage, but it was (of course) a setup specifically designed to give me the best impression of the game possible.
Actually, the dialogue was okay. Again, totally throwaway plot you've seen in a hundred animes. Even so, the words they say are not nonsense by any stretch of the imagination. And if breathy emphasis is your definition of good acting, whoo do they have you covered.:)
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Nooch here. That's a really extreme viewpoint to take. Yes, these technical issues are pretty bad; I myself have returned my 360, though I only had to do it once before I got one that seems solid.
That said, dismissing an entire console because of technical issues is pretty crass to me. Not only have there been several wholly worthwhile titles released for the system already (Crackdown, Overlord, plus tons of multi-system releases), but this summer, fall and next spring bear an avalanche of awesomeness. Bioshock, Mass Effect, that Halo thing, Two Worlds...
I guess I understand where he's coming from, but I feel reluctant to dismiss great games so casually. Ultimately, it all comes down to the games, and the 360 has some really great offerings.
Of course it was marketed for girls. Good lord, the packaging alone is enough to send a diabetic into coma. The point is more that he and the rest of the company completely fumbled advertising this to... everyone else. While I'm sure young women *can* enjoy it, this is a deep strategy title that can be enjoyed by everyone, and it's darn cute to boot. I am far from the only person to think so, and I think it's a disservice to the game to pigeonhole it the way Gates has here.
Look... Microsoft is good at a number of things. Your hardware is great. You make terrific peripherals. You made wise decisions in getting the Bungie and Epic guys to do their thing exclusively for your console. I would point out, though, that your stated goal for the 360 was to reach out to both non-gamers, and gamers that traditionally didn't play titles on the Xbox. This kind of crap, right here, with Gates calling Viva Piñata a 'little girls' game? It's what is making sure that you're not expanding the market. I really like my 360, but Sony and Nintendo are going to eat your lunch if you don't get with the program. Remember that Psychonauts thing you strung along and then dumped at the finish line? Games like that and Viva Piñata would go a long way towards getting to those 'Moms' you were talking about back in 2005. My name is Michael Zenke, and I'm a proud Dragonache owner. And, apparently, somewhat outside the 'intended audience' for a really, really great game.
Before anyone freaks out (in a good way), Multiverse has yet to ship a product. MMOGs take a lot of time, and a lot of money to produce. While I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement, it's going to be a while before Serenity flies again.
I get all of the images for the Slashdot videogame reviews from GameTab, which hosts the buckets and buckets of promo screenshots that game companies put out. I'm not actually on that many PR lists, so I use this resource to ensure there are shinies on our game reviews.
I agree with the implication you're making: Twilight Princess did *not* look that good on my TV. But, it didn't look half bad either. I just got the component cables for the Wii the other day, and on my set (which does up to 1080i), it looks really really nice. I'd rather have slightly nicer-than-the-real thing images than nothing at all, which is what my choice was here.
The request you're making, that I take my own screenshots, is something that I'd very much like to do myself. However, I'm just not set up for such a thing here. See, the first step along that path would be to hook a PC up to my home entertainment setup. As I have a.) a wife and b.) no spare PCs lying around, that plan pretty much stalls out before it even leaves the hanger.:)
Sorry I didn't use the sarcasm tag there. I didn't realize I needed to qualify a summary of another site's post. This is where I got my great spin from:
"Legendary Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto also commented on the problem, saying: 'We are encouraging people to understand that you really don't have to be so excited, but rather you need to understand the control and then you're going to be the best player. We are looking into the situation to see if there are additional methods to encourage people to kind of calm down so they would never throw away the controller itself.'"
I actually *loved* Wind Waker's look. What I didn't like was that it was rushed out the door to meet with the demands of Nintendo's corporate strategy. It (almost) felt like the over-compensated with Twilight Princess. Wind Waker is short, and kind of spartan, while Twilight Princess is just *so much game* that it can feel a little overwhelming at parts.
As for Princess's look, I just think that the art style they used in the twilight realm was infinitely more interesting than the off-the-shelf fantasy feel of the light world. I'm like most gamers: I like seeing new stuff. More newness in the visual style would have just been even more icing on an already delicious cake.
I think Telltale games are going to sell the boxed game themselves later, so I will wait for that.
It's certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, but so far the only information I've heard about accessing Sam and Max is 1.) Gametap or 2.) Directly from the Telltale site.
Now, once the entire series is released they'd be crazy not to do a boxed version; just wanted to warn you that it might be a while before you see that.
The weekend runs are hard, but by the time you read something that goes up on Saturday or Sunday morning, it's been scheduled since probably midnight the night before. I don't sleep much, though, so it's possible I'm posting live late on a weekend. I am quite the social butterfly.
Otherwise, your observations about scheduling are almost entirely correct. That's pretty much exactly what I aim for in story spacing. Obviously, the more news we get the faster we post. August tends to be slow, so we space stuff out more. As the Holidays approach stories are going to be appearing on the frontpage faster and faster, which we like.
A plea for their fans to bail them out of several thousand dollars worth of debt sounds like a 'going out of business' sign to me. I understand your objection, but the content of the post is pretty clear.
I have very, very little sympathy for Palladium. They're a business. They may be selling fantasy, but they work in the real world. In the real world, if you want to call yourself a business, you don't go screaming to the people who have been propping you up all these years because you have some financial troubles.
I totally agree with you. I'm really looking forward to what the community has to offer; for some reason I really like the house add-ons. People get really creative with the tools and make some really great homesteads to settle down in.
The reason I phrased it that way: if faced with the game running badly on their PC and running smoothly on the 360, I'd rather folks play the actual game well.
While I'm sure technical issues are also involved, I'd be willing to bet another factor is the 'smack talk' gamers seem to love so much. If you've ever played Halo 2 on Xbox Live, you'll be intimately familiar with the levels of inarticulate garbage people can spew while trying to win. Nintendo is, and always will be, a company that focuses on family. The only way you can interact in Mario Kart is by *actually* racing. Put up or shut up, so to speak. I find it interesting they're even allowing voice chat before and after games.
All around, very interesting to see Nintendo changing with the times.
A reason I could see for taking exception to this is the specificity of their objection. I've seen 'all female' guilds, Hispanic guilds, Asian guilds, etc. recruiting in City chat, and as far as I know none of those folks have been warned.
I can understand why these folks would be annoyed; Blizzard is essentially saying that simply by mentioning their lifestyle they're inviting harassment. Ergo, they themselves are harassers. While your RL sexual preference has nothing to do with your ability to game, isn't everyone entitled to group with folks that share the same interests?
I'm playing on a Samsung 27" HDTV. (The official HDTV of the Xbox 360! or something.)
People don't give the current generation enough credit. All three consoles released games last year that looked as good as DOA4 does during actual play. RE4 on the Gamecube, Shadow of the Colossus (on an HDTV) for the PS2, and about half a dozen games for the Xbox all looked comparable in graphical quality and art direction to DOA4 on the 360.
Now, the catch there is that there isn't a current-gen system out there that could equal the smooth feel of the combat or run those cinematics. DOA4 looks great, it just didn't have my jaw dropping like some moments in Call of Duty and Kameo did.
I have greatly enjoyed playing with the Marketplace, but the for-pay elements are not the only things on offer.
As I said, all the demos offer a free trial version, so you can try before you buy. They're usually fixed time, so you can only play for about half an hour or so before it quits. The themes and gamer pictures are usually for-pay, but there are a number of freebies as well. For example, right now you can download a Kameo Christmas-themed skin for your blades. It's not as attractive as some of the other options, but if you want to futz with your console's look you aren't always going to have to pay for it.
I honestly can't tell you. The "random crashing" that I've heard some people report, and the outright failures, haven't happened for me. Whether that's because I have a second shipment unit, or just luck, I can't say.
I will say, the power brick gets pretty hot. If it was just lying on the carpet, I may have the same heating problems others have reported. By putting it on the open wire mesh of my entertainment unit, I have a lot of air moving over it. So far I haven't had so much as a stutter or slowdown.
Slashdot Mirror
n/t
Aprils 17th was actually my last day with the site.
:)
I'm just another Slashdot user now.
My primary gig is over at Massively, but I'm also writing at places like Wired, Gamasutra, and 1up.
As for stability, unfortunately I can't really speak to that. They're still very much in a Beta phase. It was a lot less glitchy than I've seen some games at that stage, but it was (of course) a setup specifically designed to give me the best impression of the game possible.
Actually, the dialogue was okay. Again, totally throwaway plot you've seen in a hundred animes. Even so, the words they say are not nonsense by any stretch of the imagination. And if breathy emphasis is your definition of good acting, whoo do they have you covered. :)
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Nooch here. That's a really extreme viewpoint to take. Yes, these technical issues are pretty bad; I myself have returned my 360, though I only had to do it once before I got one that seems solid.
...
That said, dismissing an entire console because of technical issues is pretty crass to me. Not only have there been several wholly worthwhile titles released for the system already (Crackdown, Overlord, plus tons of multi-system releases), but this summer, fall and next spring bear an avalanche of awesomeness. Bioshock, Mass Effect, that Halo thing, Two Worlds
I guess I understand where he's coming from, but I feel reluctant to dismiss great games so casually. Ultimately, it all comes down to the games, and the 360 has some really great offerings.
Of course it was marketed for girls. Good lord, the packaging alone is enough to send a diabetic into coma. The point is more that he and the rest of the company completely fumbled advertising this to ... everyone else. While I'm sure young women *can* enjoy it, this is a deep strategy title that can be enjoyed by everyone, and it's darn cute to boot. I am far from the only person to think so, and I think it's a disservice to the game to pigeonhole it the way Gates has here.
Look ... Microsoft is good at a number of things. Your hardware is great. You make terrific peripherals. You made wise decisions in getting the Bungie and Epic guys to do their thing exclusively for your console. I would point out, though, that your stated goal for the 360 was to reach out to both non-gamers, and gamers that traditionally didn't play titles on the Xbox. This kind of crap, right here, with Gates calling Viva Piñata a 'little girls' game? It's what is making sure that you're not expanding the market. I really like my 360, but Sony and Nintendo are going to eat your lunch if you don't get with the program. Remember that Psychonauts thing you strung along and then dumped at the finish line? Games like that and Viva Piñata would go a long way towards getting to those 'Moms' you were talking about back in 2005. My name is Michael Zenke, and I'm a proud Dragonache owner. And, apparently, somewhat outside the 'intended audience' for a really, really great game.
Before anyone freaks out (in a good way), Multiverse has yet to ship a product. MMOGs take a lot of time, and a lot of money to produce. While I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement, it's going to be a while before Serenity flies again.
I get all of the images for the Slashdot videogame reviews from GameTab, which hosts the buckets and buckets of promo screenshots that game companies put out. I'm not actually on that many PR lists, so I use this resource to ensure there are shinies on our game reviews.
:)
I agree with the implication you're making: Twilight Princess did *not* look that good on my TV. But, it didn't look half bad either. I just got the component cables for the Wii the other day, and on my set (which does up to 1080i), it looks really really nice. I'd rather have slightly nicer-than-the-real thing images than nothing at all, which is what my choice was here.
The request you're making, that I take my own screenshots, is something that I'd very much like to do myself. However, I'm just not set up for such a thing here. See, the first step along that path would be to hook a PC up to my home entertainment setup. As I have a.) a wife and b.) no spare PCs lying around, that plan pretty much stalls out before it even leaves the hanger.
Sorry I didn't use the sarcasm tag there. I didn't realize I needed to qualify a summary of another site's post. This is where I got my great spin from:
"Legendary Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto also commented on the problem, saying: 'We are encouraging people to understand that you really don't have to be so excited, but rather you need to understand the control and then you're going to be the best player. We are looking into the situation to see if there are additional methods to encourage people to kind of calm down so they would never throw away the controller itself.'"
I actually *loved* Wind Waker's look. What I didn't like was that it was rushed out the door to meet with the demands of Nintendo's corporate strategy. It (almost) felt like the over-compensated with Twilight Princess. Wind Waker is short, and kind of spartan, while Twilight Princess is just *so much game* that it can feel a little overwhelming at parts.
As for Princess's look, I just think that the art style they used in the twilight realm was infinitely more interesting than the off-the-shelf fantasy feel of the light world. I'm like most gamers: I like seeing new stuff. More newness in the visual style would have just been even more icing on an already delicious cake.
1up doesn't have its GameCube review up yet, but there is a fairly extensive preview of the game on that system.
I honestly can't imagine playing it without the Wiimote, though. Slashy slashy!
Now, once the entire series is released they'd be crazy not to do a boxed version; just wanted to warn you that it might be a while before you see that.
We do schedule them out, thankfully. :)
The weekend runs are hard, but by the time you read something that goes up on Saturday or Sunday morning, it's been scheduled since probably midnight the night before. I don't sleep much, though, so it's possible I'm posting live late on a weekend. I am quite the social butterfly.
Otherwise, your observations about scheduling are almost entirely correct. That's pretty much exactly what I aim for in story spacing. Obviously, the more news we get the faster we post. August tends to be slow, so we space stuff out more. As the Holidays approach stories are going to be appearing on the frontpage faster and faster, which we like.
I'm really interested in Heavenly Sword and Assassin's Creed, and vaguely interested in Warhawk ... but as you say, I'm not $600 interested.
I'm 100x more excited about the near-future of the PlayStation 2. Okami and FFXII are going to be lots of fun to get into.
Oh totally. I just recently got my Brain Age *down* to 32, which I consider a huge victory.
A plea for their fans to bail them out of several thousand dollars worth of debt sounds like a 'going out of business' sign to me. I understand your objection, but the content of the post is pretty clear.
I have very, very little sympathy for Palladium. They're a business. They may be selling fantasy, but they work in the real world. In the real world, if you want to call yourself a business, you don't go screaming to the people who have been propping you up all these years because you have some financial troubles.
That's what Chapter 11 is for.
I totally agree with you. I'm really looking forward to what the community has to offer; for some reason I really like the house add-ons. People get really creative with the tools and make some really great homesteads to settle down in.
The reason I phrased it that way: if faced with the game running badly on their PC and running smoothly on the 360, I'd rather folks play the actual game well.
While I'm sure technical issues are also involved, I'd be willing to bet another factor is the 'smack talk' gamers seem to love so much. If you've ever played Halo 2 on Xbox Live, you'll be intimately familiar with the levels of inarticulate garbage people can spew while trying to win. Nintendo is, and always will be, a company that focuses on family. The only way you can interact in Mario Kart is by *actually* racing. Put up or shut up, so to speak. I find it interesting they're even allowing voice chat before and after games.
All around, very interesting to see Nintendo changing with the times.
A reason I could see for taking exception to this is the specificity of their objection. I've seen 'all female' guilds, Hispanic guilds, Asian guilds, etc. recruiting in City chat, and as far as I know none of those folks have been warned.
I can understand why these folks would be annoyed; Blizzard is essentially saying that simply by mentioning their lifestyle they're inviting harassment. Ergo, they themselves are harassers. While your RL sexual preference has nothing to do with your ability to game, isn't everyone entitled to group with folks that share the same interests?
It's a tough question.
I'm playing on a Samsung 27" HDTV. (The official HDTV of the Xbox 360! or something.)
People don't give the current generation enough credit. All three consoles released games last year that looked as good as DOA4 does during actual play. RE4 on the Gamecube, Shadow of the Colossus (on an HDTV) for the PS2, and about half a dozen games for the Xbox all looked comparable in graphical quality and art direction to DOA4 on the 360.
Now, the catch there is that there isn't a current-gen system out there that could equal the smooth feel of the combat or run those cinematics. DOA4 looks great, it just didn't have my jaw dropping like some moments in Call of Duty and Kameo did.
Sorry about that. Coffee first, then posting. Article fixed. And thanks for writing the piece. *Very* good work, sir.
Dude, you are so why I work the frontpage shift with the blinds closed.
I have greatly enjoyed playing with the Marketplace, but the for-pay elements are not the only things on offer.
As I said, all the demos offer a free trial version, so you can try before you buy. They're usually fixed time, so you can only play for about half an hour or so before it quits. The themes and gamer pictures are usually for-pay, but there are a number of freebies as well. For example, right now you can download a Kameo Christmas-themed skin for your blades. It's not as attractive as some of the other options, but if you want to futz with your console's look you aren't always going to have to pay for it.
I honestly can't tell you. The "random crashing" that I've heard some people report, and the outright failures, haven't happened for me. Whether that's because I have a second shipment unit, or just luck, I can't say.
I will say, the power brick gets pretty hot. If it was just lying on the carpet, I may have the same heating problems others have reported. By putting it on the open wire mesh of my entertainment unit, I have a lot of air moving over it. So far I haven't had so much as a stutter or slowdown.
Grandpa? Is that you? :D