Hard drive? No. But Nintendo chose to go with the inexpensive industry standard: SD cards
There has been talk about USB harddrive in the past, which should be quite doable, latest news however sadly suggest that USB harddrive won't be supported at least not for release.
Price for the Classic one will be $15, which is quite cheap. However I am wondering what features the classic one will have. Will it have rumble? Will it be wireless? Will it be compatible with the Gamecube controller? Can it be plugged into the Wiimote or does it go into the Gamecube-ports on the Wii? And last not least of course will it have to Z-buttons or only one (the ones shown on playable at E3 had one Z-button, the one on the press photo however has two) and what are the attachment-ports for on the back, looks you can either dock it to something or something to it (microphone, wiimote?).
The last comment I read about Wii's computing power came from Reggie himself and read like
"If you want power, you're going to go somewhere else.". Sorry, but that doesn't sound exactly like the "redesigned" GPU will be able to do anything remotly impressive and as said, none of the current games does. If the Gamecube has shown as one thing it is that its easy enough to program that developers are able to use it to close to its maximum potential, right from the beginning (RougeLeader is still one of the best looking GCN games around and was a launch title). So assuming the Wii won't have some fundamental new GPU feature that none of the current games use, we simply have to live with the graphics that the current Wii games provide, which are not bad, but not exactly fantastic either.
Wait, you're saying that paying slightly more money for a console that, as you said, is slightly improved doesn't make any sense?
It would make sense back in 2001, we however have 2006 today. Hardware has improved, a lot, Nintendo hardware in the form of Wii on the other side, not so much. Given current Gamecube pricing $150-$200 would be a good price for the Wii, $250 are really quite a bit above what I'd call "good".
Show me a single Wii game that proves that the Wii to be substantially more powerfull then the Gamecube, so far there simply are none, all are in the range of the Gamecube or just slightly above. Looking for example at MarioGalaxy one can see that they are however not very much above, the game suffers from horible aliasing artefacts, something that wouldn't be the case if the Wii really would be much more powerfull. A single look at Dead Rising on the other side easily proves that the XBox360 has a lot of power, no console before could render such *huge* crowds of good looking zombies, even Pikmin doesn't come close, neither in count and especially not in looks.
From a pure hardware point of view it really doesn't sound like a good deal. The Gamecube cost $200 back then in 2001 when it was released and now we shall pay $250 for something that is just slightly improved? That just doesn't add up very well, especially when the far more powerfull XBox360 starts at $300. Now luckily hardware doesn't matter much for a console, games are what matters in the end, but it still feals like Nintendo is ripping us of a little bit, with PS3 at $500 they probally saw the chance to cash in some extra money and used it.
Re:still supprised at the $250 price tag.
on
The Wii Takes NYC
·
· Score: 1
$250 is still a good deal given the second controller
Which second controller? According to Gamespot the Wii will come with only one controller, second controller cost $40 + another extra $20 for Nunchuk.
Re:still supprised at the $250 price tag.
on
The Wii Takes NYC
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Wii Sports doesn't really look worth $50, especially not since they are only shipping one Wiimote with the sytem and Wii Sports seems to be pretty much like a game where you need multiplayer to get any fun out of it. It gets even worth when one actually looks at the price tag for a second Wiimote, which is $40 + an extra $20 for Nunchuk. If you factor in another pair of classic controllers, which you might also need sooner or later you are at a price for which you could get a XBox360 Core and a second wireless controller. Wii really doesn't look cheap any more, its actually the most expensive Nintendo console in history (ignoring inflation).
But I have to say that the bundle is rather exciting and to me very much worth it.
Not so sure if its worth it, I mean having a title bundled that demonstrates the Wiimote is a good thing, but Wiisports really doesn't look to be worth $50, its more a mini/demo/party game kind of thing. I also miss a second controller in the bundle, especially with Wiisports, I don't see how one can have much fun with it without having a second player. Big deal one could say, just buy another one, second controller however costs $60 ($40 Wiimote + $20 Nunchuk). So to get fully going with the Wii we are already in the $300 range, which also happens to be the price you have to pay for a XBox360, not exactly a good thing for a console that is meant to be "cheap". NES games at $5 is also a little bit much.
The build in webbrowser and messaging stuff could mean that Wii ends up actually having a solid online thing going, but beside from that the news can't really impress me, quite the opposite. Zelda and Metroid getting delayed is of course also a downer.
Aehm, N64 had the first true 3D jump'n run (Mario64), first game with lock-on fights (ZeldaOoT), analog-stick, rumblepack, dedicated controls for the camera and tons of other stuff. Its probally the most innovative console around since the beginning of console gaming.
You are wrong, Ikaruga, at least the Gamecube version, gives you more and more continues the longer you play, up until a point where you have unlimited continues, so given enough time (~7 hours) everybody should be able to complete the game. Some of course while dieing a lot more then others.
Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc.
Not when you want to use OpenOffice and Firefox. I am not sure if they really want to, but todays applications simply require quite a bit more CPU and RAM then yesterdays applications, even for the very same jobs. So unless they also write the low-spec software, they better make sure that they have enough power to run current days applications.
Troll? I'm trying to explain some of the skepticism surrounding the Wii controller
Yes, thats why you got modded 'Troll', skepticism of the Wiimote isn't welcome here, only pointless hype is, at least that the impression I got from all the postings in the past that tried to critically comment on the Wiimote.
In the end we simply have to wait and see, so far it seems nobody had real hands-on experince with it, sure, plenty of people had their five minutes with it on E3, but you can't really judge either the game or the controller in that time. So it will be interesting to see how it will be if we got the first reports of somebody having at least a few hours with the Wiimote.
Anyway, one thing I am reasonably sure of is that in the long run the controller simply won't matter, it really never did for anything in the past. The games are what matters. Even the Wiimote doesn't have the power to turn a boring game into a great one, yet great games are still possible with good old standard controllers. So if Nintendo fails to deliver the right games, the Wiimote will simply end up being wasted potial, it of course could also end up opening a new style of game, but for that it really has to be used right and so far I don't think anybody really has figured out yet how to do so.
I've seen videos of people swinging the Wiimote in Red Steel; if the method is okay for that game, why wouldn't it be okay for Zelda too?
The first demo that was shown of Red Steels sword fighting extremly primitive, kind of like the knife minigames in ResidentEvil-DS, ie. you have a handfull of predefined swings that you can trigger, nothing else. Neither your own sword or the enemy reacts in an remotly realistic fashion, in fact the enemy looks like its being pinned to the screen, so if you move, the enemy moves as well, which looks really kind of stupid.
After the bad press the first demo got the developers decided to rework it completly, not sure how far they got with that or if what was shown at the GamesConvention was the old demo or the new stuff, since it looked terrible I can only hope it was the old one. So far no good sword fighting as been seen on Wii in action.
Anyway, this is just one example that shows that dreams about what Wii could be and what the Wii actually will be can be far appart. How it really turns out we have to wait, but I really wouldn't get my hopes to high, especially not for first generation games.
A Metroid FPS which has the potential to actually have some decent aiming capabilities
Should be difficult to beat the auto-aim of the previous MetroidPrimes... beside that, since when was a simple improvment of "precision" innovation?
Zelda where you can swing the wiimote to swing your sword.
You must have missed all the talk about how you won't be able to swing your sword with the Wiimote, swinging sword will be done by pressing a button, swinging with Wiimote simply turned out to exhausting in testing.
Super Smash Bros (don't worry they're not trying wiimote controls with this, which is probably for the best).
Last thing I heard was that it will use the classic controller, not the Wiimote. Anyway, that game is still a long way down the road, not even remotly finished.
Excite Truck (hold the wiimote sideways and turn it like a steering wheel!).
Yeah, analog-control that doesn't auto-center, great way to increase precision... or maybe not. Free-holding steering wheels have already been their in the past, they all tanked, maybe for a good reason.
The Wiimote itself definitvly is interesting, Nintendo current lineup however for most part is build out of light-gun games, mini-game collections or games that really don't use the Wiimote for anything remotly interesting, from the reports so far, some even play a lot worse then with standard controller (Tony Hawk Downhill). So far Nintendo couldn't really impress me, the potential is there, but it also has to be used.
This is the worst idea I've ever heard. The whole idea behind a console is control over your platform, and a single target. Any differences SHOULD NOT AFFECT GAMES, otherwise, you're just a Console-Wannabe Windows PC.
This is actually nothing new, if you had an MemoryPack on the N64 some games could run at a higher resolution, if you had a rumble pack you got rumble and similar stuff. Not having those items didn't stop you from playing those games (well, actually it did with some later games).
Anyway, as long as they keep the HD-DVD content optional I don't see much problem, less compressed videos, higher resolution textures could be easily done with HD-DVD without losing backward compability. If they of course add more levels or other critical items to the games on HD-DVD they would be in throuble, but a hybrid disc which works on both drives would be quite cool, since it would give you the benefit without any loss and you could upgrade to HD-DVD whenever you want or simply never and always have the same games.
Cross-platform support with a title on the PC? I hear that Sony runs one or two tiny MMOs that nobody's ever heard of.
Ok, I don't know what exactly XFire does, but doesn't on MMO game by its nature doesn't need match-making and stuff like that because all of those actions can take place in the game world itself, not in some lobby-chat window thing that XFire provides?
Gamecube still has virtually no load times and especially when compared with PC the load times on consoles are still often a lot less. Exceptions are of course PC games which got ported to consoles, these often have noticable loading times, but still, compared to the time I have to waste with installation, copy-protection schemes, reboots, crashes and stuff on a PC consoles still come out as the winner in terms of 'time till the game is ready for play'.
One major thing that is holding back Linux in my opinion is the lack of a portable binary/packaging standard, LSB kind of tries that, but with rather little success (anybody ever spotted a LSB-conforming binary in the wild?). Without such a standard, I really don't see how any normal person can survive the packaging chaos under Linux.
Peoples desire to use software doesn't stop with what the distribution provides, they want games, commercial applications and such and those must be easy to install and today they simply aren't. Instead you get.zip's with binarys that you have to chmod manually, tar.gz with binaries, autopackage packages,.run files,.sh files, rpms, debs and stuff, and sometimes, even if you manage to get the software installed the containing binary will simply be incompatible with your distribution.
With such limitations most people will sooner or later run into huge problems with using Linux and simply drop it or not install it in the first place, which really is a shame, since Linux really does a lot things much better then a normal Windows installation. Having all drivers included makes installing a Linux must faster then a Windows, so does having most software included, but as said software that people want to install doesn't stop with what the distributions provide and that won't change anytime soon. Just look at how many games are released for Windows every month, that is both an order or two of magnitude more then anything Linux can provide, both in terms of quantity and quality and that has not only todo with companies ignoring Linux, but also a lot with Linux being a hostile environment for third party applications.
Linux as it is, is great for the geeks and great for the cooperations that have a administrator to manage stuff, but an average homedesktop isn't run by either of those.
There is however a big difference: They are modding Command&Conquer and not Halo.
C&C is EAs property, not Microsofts. So if this mod would have become successfull, it would mean more C&C copies sold and EA makes more money, not exactly in the interest of Microsoft, since they get zero out of it.
BUT I can't bring myself to do this because I feel it would be wasteful.
It actually isn't really wastefull, trees are a regrowning resource, so as long as we plant new ones for those we cut for the paper production there should be no problem, no matter how much paper we use. And in terms of CO2 emmisions it might actually be better to not recycle the paper and just dump it instead, because that way we can catch some CO2 in the form of good old paper, the more paper we use, the less CO2 ends up in the athmosphere.
PS: I am no expert on the topic, so if am totally wrong feel free to correct me.
Re:But does it have a useable file-save dialogue?
on
GNOME 2.16 Released
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
What is confusing?
In its default look it doesn't show where it is going to save the document, but instead only the name of the very last folder (so if you have foo/images/ and bar/images/ you can't tell the difference), I'd call that pretty confusing, a click on "Browse for other folders" of course changes that, but fullpath somewhere visible would be quite usefull. Beside from that however I am very happy with the filedialog, simply, clean and effective.
A game like half life 2: episode 1, which has a set script, can really never be made any different way than with a massive amount of triggers.
There is nothing wrong with a bunch of triggers, the throuble that I had with Half Life 2 (or better the Ravenholm Demo, since I haven't played the full game) however was that the triggers where all to obvious. It looked and feld like a tour in a theme park, you visit some interesting places, have some fun, but you aren't allowed to leave the trolley. There simply was little to no freedom on where to go, you had to follow the path, since it was really the only thing you could do. Interaction with NPC was also very lacking, they interacted with you, but you had no way to interact with them, you had to follow their orders, again without any freedom. All of this made the whole experince rather empty for me, since it simply didn't feel like I am part of the game, the game acted along and I could walk by to have a look, but wasn't allowed to intervene.
Now maybe thats just the way Half Life is, I already had the same issues with the first part, but its certainly a style of game that can't get me all that excited. I normaly don't mind linearity, but with Half Life that linearity just felt way to obvious.
I don't buy this argument. Gameplay-wise, if you want crowds on weaker hardware all you have to do is simplify each member of the crowd.
Sooner or later you have the throuble that CPU simply can't keep up with all the crowd (pathfinding, AI, etc.) and you have nothing left to simplify, so you are simply left with less characters moving around at once. Pikmin had 100 Pikmins at once, Wii might be able to handle more, but Dead Rising already seems to be way bejoint that with human-like characters, not with tiny low-poly creatures.
Beside that crowds are just one example that I spotted in quite a lot of nextgen games, there are dozens of other things that one can do with more CPU/GPU bejoint just fancier graphics (dynamic animation/character behavious as shown by LucasArts for example). For me it looks like XBox360 is slowly developing to a point where graphics are good enough and developers free to think of new gameplay, Nintendo might, ironacally, traped by the low power of the Wii.
Slashdot Mirror
From the look of the backside of the machine: Yes, a fan will be included.
There has been talk about USB harddrive in the past, which should be quite doable, latest news however sadly suggest that USB harddrive won't be supported at least not for release.
Price for the Classic one will be $15, which is quite cheap. However I am wondering what features the classic one will have. Will it have rumble? Will it be wireless? Will it be compatible with the Gamecube controller? Can it be plugged into the Wiimote or does it go into the Gamecube-ports on the Wii? And last not least of course will it have to Z-buttons or only one (the ones shown on playable at E3 had one Z-button, the one on the press photo however has two) and what are the attachment-ports for on the back, looks you can either dock it to something or something to it (microphone, wiimote?).
The last comment I read about Wii's computing power came from Reggie himself and read like "If you want power, you're going to go somewhere else.". Sorry, but that doesn't sound exactly like the "redesigned" GPU will be able to do anything remotly impressive and as said, none of the current games does. If the Gamecube has shown as one thing it is that its easy enough to program that developers are able to use it to close to its maximum potential, right from the beginning (RougeLeader is still one of the best looking GCN games around and was a launch title). So assuming the Wii won't have some fundamental new GPU feature that none of the current games use, we simply have to live with the graphics that the current Wii games provide, which are not bad, but not exactly fantastic either.
It would make sense back in 2001, we however have 2006 today. Hardware has improved, a lot, Nintendo hardware in the form of Wii on the other side, not so much. Given current Gamecube pricing $150-$200 would be a good price for the Wii, $250 are really quite a bit above what I'd call "good".
Show me a single Wii game that proves that the Wii to be substantially more powerfull then the Gamecube, so far there simply are none, all are in the range of the Gamecube or just slightly above. Looking for example at MarioGalaxy one can see that they are however not very much above, the game suffers from horible aliasing artefacts, something that wouldn't be the case if the Wii really would be much more powerfull. A single look at Dead Rising on the other side easily proves that the XBox360 has a lot of power, no console before could render such *huge* crowds of good looking zombies, even Pikmin doesn't come close, neither in count and especially not in looks.
From a pure hardware point of view it really doesn't sound like a good deal. The Gamecube cost $200 back then in 2001 when it was released and now we shall pay $250 for something that is just slightly improved? That just doesn't add up very well, especially when the far more powerfull XBox360 starts at $300. Now luckily hardware doesn't matter much for a console, games are what matters in the end, but it still feals like Nintendo is ripping us of a little bit, with PS3 at $500 they probally saw the chance to cash in some extra money and used it.
Which second controller? According to Gamespot the Wii will come with only one controller, second controller cost $40 + another extra $20 for Nunchuk.
Wii Sports doesn't really look worth $50, especially not since they are only shipping one Wiimote with the sytem and Wii Sports seems to be pretty much like a game where you need multiplayer to get any fun out of it. It gets even worth when one actually looks at the price tag for a second Wiimote, which is $40 + an extra $20 for Nunchuk. If you factor in another pair of classic controllers, which you might also need sooner or later you are at a price for which you could get a XBox360 Core and a second wireless controller. Wii really doesn't look cheap any more, its actually the most expensive Nintendo console in history (ignoring inflation).
Not so sure if its worth it, I mean having a title bundled that demonstrates the Wiimote is a good thing, but Wiisports really doesn't look to be worth $50, its more a mini/demo/party game kind of thing. I also miss a second controller in the bundle, especially with Wiisports, I don't see how one can have much fun with it without having a second player. Big deal one could say, just buy another one, second controller however costs $60 ($40 Wiimote + $20 Nunchuk). So to get fully going with the Wii we are already in the $300 range, which also happens to be the price you have to pay for a XBox360, not exactly a good thing for a console that is meant to be "cheap". NES games at $5 is also a little bit much.
The build in webbrowser and messaging stuff could mean that Wii ends up actually having a solid online thing going, but beside from that the news can't really impress me, quite the opposite. Zelda and Metroid getting delayed is of course also a downer.
Aehm, N64 had the first true 3D jump'n run (Mario64), first game with lock-on fights (ZeldaOoT), analog-stick, rumblepack, dedicated controls for the camera and tons of other stuff. Its probally the most innovative console around since the beginning of console gaming.
You are wrong, Ikaruga, at least the Gamecube version, gives you more and more continues the longer you play, up until a point where you have unlimited continues, so given enough time (~7 hours) everybody should be able to complete the game. Some of course while dieing a lot more then others.
Not when you want to use OpenOffice and Firefox. I am not sure if they really want to, but todays applications simply require quite a bit more CPU and RAM then yesterdays applications, even for the very same jobs. So unless they also write the low-spec software, they better make sure that they have enough power to run current days applications.
Yes, thats why you got modded 'Troll', skepticism of the Wiimote isn't welcome here, only pointless hype is, at least that the impression I got from all the postings in the past that tried to critically comment on the Wiimote.
In the end we simply have to wait and see, so far it seems nobody had real hands-on experince with it, sure, plenty of people had their five minutes with it on E3, but you can't really judge either the game or the controller in that time. So it will be interesting to see how it will be if we got the first reports of somebody having at least a few hours with the Wiimote.
Anyway, one thing I am reasonably sure of is that in the long run the controller simply won't matter, it really never did for anything in the past. The games are what matters. Even the Wiimote doesn't have the power to turn a boring game into a great one, yet great games are still possible with good old standard controllers. So if Nintendo fails to deliver the right games, the Wiimote will simply end up being wasted potial, it of course could also end up opening a new style of game, but for that it really has to be used right and so far I don't think anybody really has figured out yet how to do so.
The first demo that was shown of Red Steels sword fighting extremly primitive, kind of like the knife minigames in ResidentEvil-DS, ie. you have a handfull of predefined swings that you can trigger, nothing else. Neither your own sword or the enemy reacts in an remotly realistic fashion, in fact the enemy looks like its being pinned to the screen, so if you move, the enemy moves as well, which looks really kind of stupid.
After the bad press the first demo got the developers decided to rework it completly, not sure how far they got with that or if what was shown at the GamesConvention was the old demo or the new stuff, since it looked terrible I can only hope it was the old one. So far no good sword fighting as been seen on Wii in action.
Anyway, this is just one example that shows that dreams about what Wii could be and what the Wii actually will be can be far appart. How it really turns out we have to wait, but I really wouldn't get my hopes to high, especially not for first generation games.
Should be difficult to beat the auto-aim of the previous MetroidPrimes... beside that, since when was a simple improvment of "precision" innovation?
You must have missed all the talk about how you won't be able to swing your sword with the Wiimote, swinging sword will be done by pressing a button, swinging with Wiimote simply turned out to exhausting in testing.
Last thing I heard was that it will use the classic controller, not the Wiimote. Anyway, that game is still a long way down the road, not even remotly finished.
Yeah, analog-control that doesn't auto-center, great way to increase precision... or maybe not. Free-holding steering wheels have already been their in the past, they all tanked, maybe for a good reason.
The Wiimote itself definitvly is interesting, Nintendo current lineup however for most part is build out of light-gun games, mini-game collections or games that really don't use the Wiimote for anything remotly interesting, from the reports so far, some even play a lot worse then with standard controller (Tony Hawk Downhill). So far Nintendo couldn't really impress me, the potential is there, but it also has to be used.
This is actually nothing new, if you had an MemoryPack on the N64 some games could run at a higher resolution, if you had a rumble pack you got rumble and similar stuff. Not having those items didn't stop you from playing those games (well, actually it did with some later games).
Anyway, as long as they keep the HD-DVD content optional I don't see much problem, less compressed videos, higher resolution textures could be easily done with HD-DVD without losing backward compability. If they of course add more levels or other critical items to the games on HD-DVD they would be in throuble, but a hybrid disc which works on both drives would be quite cool, since it would give you the benefit without any loss and you could upgrade to HD-DVD whenever you want or simply never and always have the same games.
Ok, I don't know what exactly XFire does, but doesn't on MMO game by its nature doesn't need match-making and stuff like that because all of those actions can take place in the game world itself, not in some lobby-chat window thing that XFire provides?
Gamecube still has virtually no load times and especially when compared with PC the load times on consoles are still often a lot less. Exceptions are of course PC games which got ported to consoles, these often have noticable loading times, but still, compared to the time I have to waste with installation, copy-protection schemes, reboots, crashes and stuff on a PC consoles still come out as the winner in terms of 'time till the game is ready for play'.
One major thing that is holding back Linux in my opinion is the lack of a portable binary/packaging standard, LSB kind of tries that, but with rather little success (anybody ever spotted a LSB-conforming binary in the wild?). Without such a standard, I really don't see how any normal person can survive the packaging chaos under Linux.
Peoples desire to use software doesn't stop with what the distribution provides, they want games, commercial applications and such and those must be easy to install and today they simply aren't. Instead you get .zip's with binarys that you have to chmod manually, tar.gz with binaries, autopackage packages, .run files, .sh files, rpms, debs and stuff, and sometimes, even if you manage to get the software installed the containing binary will simply be incompatible with your distribution.
With such limitations most people will sooner or later run into huge problems with using Linux and simply drop it or not install it in the first place, which really is a shame, since Linux really does a lot things much better then a normal Windows installation. Having all drivers included makes installing a Linux must faster then a Windows, so does having most software included, but as said software that people want to install doesn't stop with what the distributions provide and that won't change anytime soon. Just look at how many games are released for Windows every month, that is both an order or two of magnitude more then anything Linux can provide, both in terms of quantity and quality and that has not only todo with companies ignoring Linux, but also a lot with Linux being a hostile environment for third party applications.
Linux as it is, is great for the geeks and great for the cooperations that have a administrator to manage stuff, but an average homedesktop isn't run by either of those.
There is however a big difference: They are modding Command&Conquer and not Halo.
C&C is EAs property, not Microsofts. So if this mod would have become successfull, it would mean more C&C copies sold and EA makes more money, not exactly in the interest of Microsoft, since they get zero out of it.
It actually isn't really wastefull, trees are a regrowning resource, so as long as we plant new ones for those we cut for the paper production there should be no problem, no matter how much paper we use. And in terms of CO2 emmisions it might actually be better to not recycle the paper and just dump it instead, because that way we can catch some CO2 in the form of good old paper, the more paper we use, the less CO2 ends up in the athmosphere.
PS: I am no expert on the topic, so if am totally wrong feel free to correct me.
In its default look it doesn't show where it is going to save the document, but instead only the name of the very last folder (so if you have foo/images/ and bar/images/ you can't tell the difference), I'd call that pretty confusing, a click on "Browse for other folders" of course changes that, but fullpath somewhere visible would be quite usefull. Beside from that however I am very happy with the filedialog, simply, clean and effective.
There is nothing wrong with a bunch of triggers, the throuble that I had with Half Life 2 (or better the Ravenholm Demo, since I haven't played the full game) however was that the triggers where all to obvious. It looked and feld like a tour in a theme park, you visit some interesting places, have some fun, but you aren't allowed to leave the trolley. There simply was little to no freedom on where to go, you had to follow the path, since it was really the only thing you could do. Interaction with NPC was also very lacking, they interacted with you, but you had no way to interact with them, you had to follow their orders, again without any freedom. All of this made the whole experince rather empty for me, since it simply didn't feel like I am part of the game, the game acted along and I could walk by to have a look, but wasn't allowed to intervene.
Now maybe thats just the way Half Life is, I already had the same issues with the first part, but its certainly a style of game that can't get me all that excited. I normaly don't mind linearity, but with Half Life that linearity just felt way to obvious.
Sooner or later you have the throuble that CPU simply can't keep up with all the crowd (pathfinding, AI, etc.) and you have nothing left to simplify, so you are simply left with less characters moving around at once. Pikmin had 100 Pikmins at once, Wii might be able to handle more, but Dead Rising already seems to be way bejoint that with human-like characters, not with tiny low-poly creatures.
Beside that crowds are just one example that I spotted in quite a lot of nextgen games, there are dozens of other things that one can do with more CPU/GPU bejoint just fancier graphics (dynamic animation/character behavious as shown by LucasArts for example). For me it looks like XBox360 is slowly developing to a point where graphics are good enough and developers free to think of new gameplay, Nintendo might, ironacally, traped by the low power of the Wii.