I love everything about this game. I bought the last copy at my local Gamestop last week. My girlfriend and I have played the crap out of Katamari Damacy and we finished it today. Extremely simple, but constantly rewarding. All wrapped up with a quirky art style and eastern religious undertones. And the soundtrack is amazing.
If you like games, you owe it to yourself to go pick this up once stores get restocked.
Well, follow the link, and you'll see the actual title of the article is, "Heart Condition Strikes Girl Down At Arcade". If you read the article, it doesn't blame the game for anything.
Whoever wrote the title for slashdot is the one that put the spin on it.
I played both the DS and the PSP at E3, and they were both a lot smaller than you'd think. Both about the same size as the original GBA.
Though I'd be nervous about the PSP in my pocket without something to protect the screen.
The PSP definately looks a whole lot cooler up close, especially the screen. Its very large, and comparitively, the DS screens seem a bit washed out, as far as color. DS screens look exactly like GBA SP screens.
Still, based on the games, I will certainly buy a DS the day it comes out (another animal crossing!). I'll probably wait a few months on the PSP. The only PSP game that interests me enough to buy the system so far is Makai Wars.
The trouble is that there is a great deal of movement between these tribes, and a great juggling of different enthusiasms. Could it be that a nerd is defined not so much by his specialist genre than by the nature and intensity of his interest?
I've been using Gamefly for about 4 months or so. So far, the experience has been pretty good, with my only complaint being the turn-around time. Once I put a game in the mail, the result is sporadic, taking a range of 4-9 days to get a new one back. Spacing your mailings out can help a lot (keeping one game while the other one's in transit).
I've contacted gamefly 3 times since joining (always wondering what's taking so long for my games), and they always respond to me within 24 hours, and are very nice and helpful. I complained about the speed of delivery in comparison to Netflix, and Gamefly pointed out that Netflix has distributing centers all over the US, while Gamefly only has a California office, and that they're working on ways to speed things up. One method they have been considering is a "tell them when you've put a game in the mail, and they'll send you a new game immediately" policy, which of course would have zero tolerance for any abuse of the system.
Anyway, like I said, I've been pretty happy with it so far, though I'd still change over if I found something faster. In any case, while I buy a bunch of games myself, a rental service like this is the only way I can play all of the games that I'm interested in without going bankrupt.
I've got a Sharp 27F631. Its one of the few 4:3 TV models that will shrink a widescreen signal down to the correct aspect ratio, which is required for widescreen games (games aren't anamorphic). It was this feature that I bought the TV for, as I wanted to play games in widescreen without having to buy a widescreen television.
A significant number of games actually do have a widescreen option, however the only games that I have found that really are enhanced through widescreen are racing games. The extra peripheral gives you an edge on sharp turns and opponents (I love playing F-Zero on widescreen).
Movies are made in widescreen because they are meant for a 16:9 movie screen, and therefore directors will actually use the extended width with purpose. But as a game developer, your widescreen audience is extremely limited, so gameplay will not be implemented to take advantage of the added width. In some games the widescreen mode makes for some odd visual anomalies (In GTA:Vice City, the moon is flattened).
One game that is an exception is Beyond Good and Evil, which is apparently entirely in widescreen (hopefully they will actually support widescreen tv's as well).
Check out the shooter Blowout. Brand new value title game for $10 for ps2 and $20 for xbox. Gamecube release coming soon as well. I was on the development team that made it.
Contra-like action with metroid/castlevania style levels.
Also, I'd like to see a review site with more on 3rd party budget games, ones that cost 9.99, kid games, educational, more complete, and links to buy
Try Blowout. Its only $9.99 for ps2. Its pretty cool, especially for the price. Be warned though - I'm a little biased because I was one of the developers.
No kidding. I now have more Gamecube titles than any of my other [currently supported] consoles. In my opinion, there are plenty of really good games on other consoles, but the best games are found on Gamecube (though they're mostly first party). I'm really looking forward to Tales of Symphonia and Crystal Chronicles as well.
All the gamecube really needs is more memory and a better advertising campaign. Maybe Nintendo will get that right next time.
sidescrollers/jumpers
on
NES PC
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
For a good sidescroller/jumper in the age of 3D, check out Viewtiful Joe, being released by Capcom in September.
I've also heard of a Castlevania project in the works by Konami as well - let's hope this one is a 2D sidescroller along the lines of Symphony of the Night
Re:Why not a partnership?
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 1
The other reason nintendo can't do this is that they don't own the rights to most of the games released for the NES. They would have to keep track of the rights of all the games and then send small royalties out to all those companies...
By the way, nothing against Super Mario 3 (definately one of the best in the series and one of the best NES games ever), I am really glad they are releasing Yoshi's Island like this. Have you played it before? Its an amazing game, and definately a worthy member of the series. It always seemed like it was released and marketed more as a offshoot of the series instead of a bone fide sequel. I'm looking forward to it being in my portable library. Besides, a Mario All Stars for GBA is almost assuredly on the way.
Another thing - if you want SMB3 on your GBA now, head over to lik-sang, get yourself a flash cart and linker, and then download the PocketNes, a GBA NES emulator.
Maybe if companies spent a little more on their manuals, and making them easier to read or more entertaining, then they wouldn't have to spend so much money on tech support.
Why wasn't the deadline put in the headline for this article? There is nothing in this headline or the Slashdot text that conveys a sense of urgency! I had to read the linked article or reader comments before I was aware of the deadline.
I agree with you on the Flight to the Ford. That scene was my only real gripe with the film. For being the climax of the first book (Book 1, not FOTR), the movie treatment of the scene was a real letdown. To make matters worse, when I complained about it to a friend who hadn't read the books, she said, "Oh, you mean that part when the elf lady makes the river flood and kill those black riders?" I almost cried. I mean, seriously, I don't mind that Glorfindel was replaced, but Frodo was supposed to be all alone facing the riders.
Besides that of course, holy shit, what a fantastic movie.
Oddly enough, that was really the only scene I was happy with in the 1978 animated LOTR. Funny, huh?
What this sounds like is digital pickups for electric guitars. So then some controller on the guitar sends a signal through cat5 to a computer describing the name of the instrument and the raw digital audio. That's it. Definately convenient, but not a midi replacement.
Midi is a protocol for describing how an instrument has been played. A piano midi controller exports which key has been pushed down, for how long, how forcefully it has been pressed, among a few other things. Midi is not audio at all until it is translated by some sort of tone generator like your soundcard.
I don't claim to be an expert on this, so if I'm wrong about this, let me know.
Archfeld sent a strange piece of technology called the Senseboard which is a portable keyboard, except that there's really not any keys (Archfield used Federal Express to get it to the Slashdot editors overnight? Or did he submit an article about it? Oh, and this is a run-on sentance.). Or a board (Verb?). And it can communicate via RF for all your strange wearable applications (Really? The Virtual Board can communicate via RF in place of all my strange wearable applications?).
Most major video game developers have people on their staff called art directors. You need artists to create the graphical content for your games. For your concepts, sprites, backgrounds, and textures you need illustrators. For your models, you need modelers.
The same would be true for things like websites though or any graphical interaction with a user. Go to
www.microsoft.com. I guarantee you an artist designed the layout. But I wouldn't consider that art. There is a big difference between making something pleasing to the eye and creating art.
Probably the best example of something similar to video games is cinema. At what point do you consider movies art? What's the difference between Pearl Harbor and Pi?
Then add the interactivity. How does the interactivity of a game contribute to the artistic vision of the piece?
Just go the cheap route - buy an exercise cycle and ride on it while you play. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't need my character in quake slowed down because I can't pedal fast enough. I suck enough as it is.
So then everyone will need to buy new dvd players that can play these new dvd's? Correct me if I'm wrong. Might as well go for an all new data storage format altogether like FMD discs.
The new dvds may hold more space, but its too late for this new technology to become a standard in households.
Joe Consumer needs to believe that the dvd player he buys today will not be completely useless a few months from now.
Same goes for dvd publishers too. Even if you could fit every episode of The Simpsons onto 2 or 3 discs, you wouldn't publish the set until there were enough consumers out there with the dvd players that could play them.
You're right about that - isn't there any way they could have made the screen have a matte finish? I played a friend of mine's with the wormlight, and honestly, I could see more without the add-on light. I've played the GBA at Gamestop and it has the same problem. Still, I'm positive I'm going to buy one - the SNES has been by far my favorite console system, and the idea of a portable snes is very appealing to me (I'm upset about the omission of the X and Y buttons though) To hell with all these 3d systems!
When do you think they'll make one with OLED's? That might make it possible to have a luminuous display without too much draw on the battery supply. It would make the units cheaper too.
That brought tears to my eyes. I've been waiting years for this movie. Just seeing a bit of my favorite scene (flight to the ford) gives me goosebumps.
Slashdot Mirror
I love everything about this game. I bought the last copy at my local Gamestop last week. My girlfriend and I have played the crap out of Katamari Damacy and we finished it today. Extremely simple, but constantly rewarding. All wrapped up with a quirky art style and eastern religious undertones. And the soundtrack is amazing.
If you like games, you owe it to yourself to go pick this up once stores get restocked.
Well, follow the link, and you'll see the actual title of the article is, "Heart Condition Strikes Girl Down At Arcade". If you read the article, it doesn't blame the game for anything.
Whoever wrote the title for slashdot is the one that put the spin on it.
I played both the DS and the PSP at E3, and they were both a lot smaller than you'd think. Both about the same size as the original GBA.
Though I'd be nervous about the PSP in my pocket without something to protect the screen.
The PSP definately looks a whole lot cooler up close, especially the screen. Its very large, and comparitively, the DS screens seem a bit washed out, as far as color. DS screens look exactly like GBA SP screens.
Still, based on the games, I will certainly buy a DS the day it comes out (another animal crossing!). I'll probably wait a few months on the PSP. The only PSP game that interests me enough to buy the system so far is Makai Wars.
Yeah, but this game was being made by Level 5, a Japanese company and the creators of the Dark Cloud series.
I for one was excited about this game, and I'm sad to see it go. Oh well, at least Dark Cloud 3 is still in development for PS2.
The trouble is that there is a great deal of movement between these tribes, and a great juggling of different enthusiasms. Could it be that a nerd is defined not so much by his specialist genre than by the nature and intensity of his interest?
Wow, this guy's a total nerd.
I've been using Gamefly for about 4 months or so. So far, the experience has been pretty good, with my only complaint being the turn-around time. Once I put a game in the mail, the result is sporadic, taking a range of 4-9 days to get a new one back. Spacing your mailings out can help a lot (keeping one game while the other one's in transit).
I've contacted gamefly 3 times since joining (always wondering what's taking so long for my games), and they always respond to me within 24 hours, and are very nice and helpful. I complained about the speed of delivery in comparison to Netflix, and Gamefly pointed out that Netflix has distributing centers all over the US, while Gamefly only has a California office, and that they're working on ways to speed things up. One method they have been considering is a "tell them when you've put a game in the mail, and they'll send you a new game immediately" policy, which of course would have zero tolerance for any abuse of the system.
Anyway, like I said, I've been pretty happy with it so far, though I'd still change over if I found something faster. In any case, while I buy a bunch of games myself, a rental service like this is the only way I can play all of the games that I'm interested in without going bankrupt.
I've got a Sharp 27F631. Its one of the few 4:3 TV models that will shrink a widescreen signal down to the correct aspect ratio, which is required for widescreen games (games aren't anamorphic). It was this feature that I bought the TV for, as I wanted to play games in widescreen without having to buy a widescreen television.
A significant number of games actually do have a widescreen option, however the only games that I have found that really are enhanced through widescreen are racing games. The extra peripheral gives you an edge on sharp turns and opponents (I love playing F-Zero on widescreen).
Movies are made in widescreen because they are meant for a 16:9 movie screen, and therefore directors will actually use the extended width with purpose. But as a game developer, your widescreen audience is extremely limited, so gameplay will not be implemented to take advantage of the added width. In some games the widescreen mode makes for some odd visual anomalies (In GTA:Vice City, the moon is flattened).
One game that is an exception is Beyond Good and Evil, which is apparently entirely in widescreen (hopefully they will actually support widescreen tv's as well).
All the same, it will be released soon.
Check out the shooter Blowout. Brand new value title game for $10 for ps2 and $20 for xbox. Gamecube release coming soon as well. I was on the development team that made it.
Contra-like action with metroid/castlevania style levels.
Also, I'd like to see a review site with more on 3rd party budget games, ones that cost 9.99, kid games, educational, more complete, and links to buy
Try Blowout. Its only $9.99 for ps2. Its pretty cool, especially for the price. Be warned though - I'm a little biased because I was one of the developers.
No kidding. I now have more Gamecube titles than any of my other [currently supported] consoles. In my opinion, there are plenty of really good games on other consoles, but the best games are found on Gamecube (though they're mostly first party). I'm really looking forward to Tales of Symphonia and Crystal Chronicles as well.
All the gamecube really needs is more memory and a better advertising campaign. Maybe Nintendo will get that right next time.
For a good sidescroller/jumper in the age of 3D, check out Viewtiful Joe, being released by Capcom in September.
I've also heard of a Castlevania project in the works by Konami as well - let's hope this one is a 2D sidescroller along the lines of Symphony of the Night
The other reason nintendo can't do this is that they don't own the rights to most of the games released for the NES. They would have to keep track of the rights of all the games and then send small royalties out to all those companies...
By the way, nothing against Super Mario 3 (definately one of the best in the series and one of the best NES games ever), I am really glad they are releasing Yoshi's Island like this. Have you played it before? Its an amazing game, and definately a worthy member of the series. It always seemed like it was released and marketed more as a offshoot of the series instead of a bone fide sequel. I'm looking forward to it being in my portable library. Besides, a Mario All Stars for GBA is almost assuredly on the way.
Another thing - if you want SMB3 on your GBA now, head over to lik-sang, get yourself a flash cart and linker, and then download the PocketNes, a GBA NES emulator.
Maybe if companies spent a little more on their manuals, and making them easier to read or more entertaining, then they wouldn't have to spend so much money on tech support.
Why wasn't the deadline put in the headline for this article? There is nothing in this headline or the Slashdot text that conveys a sense of urgency! I had to read the linked article or reader comments before I was aware of the deadline.
I agree with you on the Flight to the Ford. That scene was my only real gripe with the film. For being the climax of the first book (Book 1, not FOTR), the movie treatment of the scene was a real letdown. To make matters worse, when I complained about it to a friend who hadn't read the books, she said, "Oh, you mean that part when the elf lady makes the river flood and kill those black riders?" I almost cried. I mean, seriously, I don't mind that Glorfindel was replaced, but Frodo was supposed to be all alone facing the riders.
Besides that of course, holy shit, what a fantastic movie.
Oddly enough, that was really the only scene I was happy with in the 1978 animated LOTR. Funny, huh?
Dear God, I hope you're just kidding...
What this sounds like is digital pickups for electric guitars. So then some controller on the guitar sends a signal through cat5 to a computer describing the name of the instrument and the raw digital audio. That's it. Definately convenient, but not a midi replacement.
Midi is a protocol for describing how an instrument has been played. A piano midi controller exports which key has been pushed down, for how long, how forcefully it has been pressed, among a few other things. Midi is not audio at all until it is translated by some sort of tone generator like your soundcard.
I don't claim to be an expert on this, so if I'm wrong about this, let me know.
Archfeld sent a strange piece of technology called the Senseboard which is a portable keyboard, except that there's really not any keys (Archfield used Federal Express to get it to the Slashdot editors overnight? Or did he submit an article about it? Oh, and this is a run-on sentance.). Or a board (Verb?). And it can communicate via RF for all your strange wearable applications (Really? The Virtual Board can communicate via RF in place of all my strange wearable applications?).
This is too easy.
Most major video game developers have people on their staff called art directors. You need artists to create the graphical content for your games. For your concepts, sprites, backgrounds, and textures you need illustrators. For your models, you need modelers.
The same would be true for things like websites though or any graphical interaction with a user. Go to www.microsoft.com. I guarantee you an artist designed the layout. But I wouldn't consider that art. There is a big difference between making something pleasing to the eye and creating art.
Probably the best example of something similar to video games is cinema. At what point do you consider movies art? What's the difference between Pearl Harbor and Pi?
Then add the interactivity. How does the interactivity of a game contribute to the artistic vision of the piece?
Just go the cheap route - buy an exercise cycle and ride on it while you play. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't need my character in quake slowed down because I can't pedal fast enough. I suck enough as it is.
So then everyone will need to buy new dvd players that can play these new dvd's? Correct me if I'm wrong. Might as well go for an all new data storage format altogether like FMD discs.
The new dvds may hold more space, but its too late for this new technology to become a standard in households.
Joe Consumer needs to believe that the dvd player he buys today will not be completely useless a few months from now.
Same goes for dvd publishers too. Even if you could fit every episode of The Simpsons onto 2 or 3 discs, you wouldn't publish the set until there were enough consumers out there with the dvd players that could play them.
You're right about that - isn't there any way they could have made the screen have a matte finish? I played a friend of mine's with the wormlight, and honestly, I could see more without the add-on light. I've played the GBA at Gamestop and it has the same problem. Still, I'm positive I'm going to buy one - the SNES has been by far my favorite console system, and the idea of a portable snes is very appealing to me (I'm upset about the omission of the X and Y buttons though) To hell with all these 3d systems!
When do you think they'll make one with OLED's?
That might make it possible to have a luminuous
display without too much draw on the battery
supply. It would make the units cheaper too.
That brought tears to my eyes. I've been waiting years for this movie. Just seeing a bit of my favorite scene (flight to the ford) gives me goosebumps.