It's all about Dream Theater, man. I'm hoping I can get some Metropolis action in the next guitar hero game. It's just shameful they haven't had any Petrucci-rippin' tunes in the series up until now. If it did, I'd probably actually buy the game. YYXs a good start, though.
Even better. Square just announced that they're doing 3D remakes of FFIV V and VI for the DS... which is wierd, seeing as though they JUST re-released them for GBA. I don't care so much for IV and V, but VI DESPERATELY needs a 3D remake, as it was designed with more 3D architecture in mind. Much more needed than simply a FF7 "clean up". FFVI is a far better game anyway.
Yes, it's being released in a week or so, actually. And... the music is the same as FF12? EH! Crap... I may not buy it afterall. I hated the music in FF12, just so lame and lacking in soul. Status quo wannabe-classical soundtrack background music, almost as bad as FFT.
FUCKING FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK!
Now I'm never going to go to that site. When you can't tell the difference between god old thoughtful, intelligent, witty progrock, and hair metal, you have NO TASTE.
True, but I'm not talking about a world without liberty either, just with some limitations. There ALWAYS will be limitations on liberty, there always has to be, for various reasons. It's just a question of how much.
It's clear that I believe that there should be more limitations than you do. Although, in the grand scheme of things, we're probably thinking along the same lines. I'm not a communist, and you're probably not an anarchist.
Definitely, I'm going to be interested to see if there's some major backlash. This game is basically saying, "okay, you want intelligent design? I'll GIVE YOU intelligent design!"
It'll have a bunch of fundies yelling, "Hey... wait a minute... we don't mean THAT kind of intelligent design, we mean... ummm, like... creationism... uhhhh... fuck"
And then we will all point our fingers and laugh because they used the taboo word that we've all come to shun, and they've used "intelligent design" as a euphemism for.
Firstly... have you played Super Paper Mario? It's nothing like any of the other games. As far as I'm concerned, it's probably the most innovative game I've seen in a long while, regardless of its connection to a previous franchise. Is it a perfect game? No way, but it's still very good and I wouldn't deduct ANY points for it being not innovative. If anything, it's too innovative, and a little unpolished, sorta like the original Super Mario Bros when compared to Mario 3.
It's sorta like saying Curby's Canvas Curse isn't innovative because it's a Curby game. CCC is easilly the most innovative platformer since sidescrolling was invented back with SMB... and even then, I might give it the edge. CCC, however, is polished as hell. Cutesyness aside, that game is remarkeable. Anyway, I degress.
Twilight Princess stole the soul that FF12 lacked, IMO. I played them at the same time. TP is now my favorite game. Sure, it's not innovative by any sense of the imagination... but it's a great game, and its elements are so perfect and flawless. It is definitely the Mario 3 of the Zelda series. Finally, a Zelda game where I actually FEEL for the characters!
As far as Final Fantasy... I liked FF12, but it's no longer the king of the hill. Tales of the Abyss wiped its ass with FF12 this year, as far as I'm concerned... with about a quarter of the graphics and production budget. TooA is an UGLY GAME, and it made FF12 look bad in comparison. With Bandai back on the Wii bandwagon, there's a very good possibility of the next Tales game coming out for the Wii (as if Bandai could EVER make use of the PS3s graphical capabilities).
Also, I still stand by my assessment that there's no logical reason why FF13 won't be ported to the Wii. If they can do the sequel to FF12 on the DS, they can port FF13 to the Wii. I don't care how much people dump on the Wiis specs, but it's a lot closer to the PS3 than the DS is to the PS2.
I have a feeling we're gonna halfto chalk up this debate up to a gross difference in taste, in terms of video games. I could give two shits about graphics, myself. In fact, I flat out hate 90% of photorealistic games, I think, in some cases, the battle for photorealism takes away from the creation of unique stylistic creations. My favorite graphics, to date, are in Okami... a low budget PS2 game with a polygon count that would have quite possibly been shamefull on the DreamCast (okay, maybe an exaduration, but it's still a very low horsepower game). If that's my favorite graphics of this era... I can't really see why the Wii can't satisfy what I'm looking for in games.
Well, as a gamer I care if a console will get good games and little else.
It's Nintendo, I think that's the least of our concerns. Unless you don't like Nintendo's offerings, in which, well... we're just gonna dissagree in terms of game style.
You have some real points. I don't think the "year or two" arguement is all that important, though, since I think the Wii is probably going to be replaced somewhere around 2010 (it's obviously a short lifecycle console). Still, I don't think that game design, even last generation, took advantage of all the horsepower available. My thoughts is basically that the technology is moving faster than the concepts that are being developed that require that technology. Instead of game designers calling for newer, more sophisticated technology, the technology is simply being created because... well... "it's time to sell another system, right?" I saw late PS2 games that didn't come close to utilizing the full potential of the system, even more so with GameCube games. So, if game designers weren't even needing all of what the PS2 had to offer, what are they going to do with the PS3?
When the SNES and Playstation came out, they openned up new possibilities to game designers, things that simply could never be done before, could now be done. But ever since the PS2 era, I don't think game designers have had a clear concept of what new things they can do that they haven't been able to do before. I think the Wii is able to do more completely new things, because of its input device, in a similar fashion to the earlier generations.
After a certain point, the mind isn't as capable of determining the difference between one button and another, and it takes more time to connect specific actions with the right tactile response. I'd go as far to say as that even 4 buttons have their woes, unless they're setup properly. The only gamepad that I've ever though was able to map the 4 face buttons in a way that could be IMMEDIATELY recalled was the GameCube controller, since each button is shaped differently. In fact, I'd say that the GameCube controller is far and away the best game controller in terms of memory recall, as its aesemmetry (two shoulder buttons on one side, one on the other... very nice), and differences in button shape, not to mention even A-stick shape, make specific action instantanous. Playing a game with a GameCube controller becomes a pure extension of ones thought process, every action is carried out immediately after it's thought-up.
On a keyboard, every button feels identical, it's the same size and shape. Every action taken by a key, then, does not have its own unique tactile feel and can't be recalled as quickly. Typing, as some may counter with, is a completely different animal, however... since we spent months learning how to type, and letter recall comes from the same part of the brain. Where-as the concept of doing a sword slash, and the decision to perform a sideways-roll come from very different sections of the brain. For actions that are grouped together in the brain (like letter recall), it is easiest to have buttons that are grouped together spacially and tactily, but for actions that are distinct, it's fastest to recall them by giving them a different feel.
The bottom line is that less is more. I don't know how many times I've had to think, for a good 5 seconds on which button to press to bring up the map, even after hours of play. I've worked with advanced A/V software with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, and usually shortcuts only start becoming automatic, one at a time, after months of use. On Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, I now have about 5 single button keyboard shortcuts that I would be happy to say are completely and utterly automatic... and i've been using them for years. On a gamepad, especially something with tactile feedback like the GameCube controller, I can become that fascile in a number of minutes.
Are we talking about style or quality? Because I can't think of any "style" of graphics that the PS3 can do that the Wii can't, but just at lower resolutions with simpler lighting/shading effects and less polygons.
Note, I've never been suggesting that the Wii could ever come close to looking as good as the PS3, but games made for the PS3 could be ported just fine... they'd only have "Wii level graphics", which for the person who bought the Wii, is obviously JUST FINE. I can't think of any reasonable situation, graphically, that you couldn't port a PS3 game over to the Wii. It won't look as good, for sure, but that really isn't the point, is it?
I'm actually in agreement with most of what you say here. Although, I never said anything about giving up freedom, I said I'd give up some of my more extremist viewpoints in favor for stability, that has nothing to do with my personal freedom, it has to do with "getting my way", which is not always the best solution.
And yes, as I said, congress goose-stepped along with Bush for at least the first 6 years... even in the short time the dems had power during '05, they just whined a lot.
The one thing I'll say, and I know you're going to dissagree with me, but there is a balance between quality of life and freedom. I don't believe that unlimited freedom produces the best outcome for ones existance. unlimited freedom is anarchy, which while workable in theory (like just about every other political philosophy), usually leads to chaos. If you think about it, hardly ANYONE believes that absolute freedom is the best way to go, so we're all speculating on some middle ground here.
I think we're actually pretty much in agreement on this, we just have different ideas about what level of freedom is best for our culture.
But the early adopters really very reliavent. Even if they screem and yell, eventually the rest of the populace will follow suit, and when they do... they'll see it as a huge imrovement over traditional broadcast television, regardless of whether they can FF through commercials or not.
The bottom line is, there is no right or wrong here. We all have different levels of trust in centralized or localized governments, and so did the founding fathers, btw. I'll also add that we shouldn't turn to the founding fathers for anything but the bear inspiration of what their ideas represented, our culture and our world is SO vastly different from theres that quoting what the founding fathers had in mind is rarely meaningful.
I, personally, tend to trust centralized government more, as it tends to be freer of outliers. I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time. Larger bodies tend to be more stable and slower to change than smaller ones, thus they tend to represent longer-term social change, and not so much, knee-jerk reactions. That's not always the case, as we've seen in the past 7 years, but for the most part, I personally prefer to see a large central convernment. What, exactly, the founding fathers had in mind is irrelivant to me, and as I've said before, even they had large dissagreements in this subject.
However, I can totally see reasoning for smaller, more localized governments. Their worth is not to be underestimated. Sometimes I agree more with a local government than a centralized one. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I come from a state (Alaska), which tends not to reflect my own viewpoints, and I often look to the national government to put it in its place. If I lived in California or Vermont, I might feel differently.
Regardless, though, I think it's healthy to view this as difference in political philosophy. There are very few right and wrongs in politics, and this is an excellent example.
No doubt. I think we can view the Wii as an experimental, "interim" system. It's cheap to manufacturer, low-power, and a good way of getting a new technology off the ground. In 2 years, it's lifecycle will be over, and Nintendo will be able to launch a system far more powerfull than the 360/PS3, at half the price, and will be, then, half a generation ahead in terms of graphical power.
Sony and Microsoft are in bad possitions, right now. They've invested in systems that have no less than a 7 year lifecycle (or 10 years, as Maryll Lynch calculated with the PS3). If Nintendo were to release a new system in 2 years, Microsoft and Sony would be caught with their pants down.
Agreed. And as much as I love the Wii, I think developers have taken completely the WRONG direction when it comes to FPSs. The "bounding box" system of turning (pointing the controller to the side of the screen to turn) is just, flat-out, a dead-end. Some have dressed it up to be more usable than others (the comments for Metroid Prime 3 suggest that people are liking it).
What I want to see is a system that uses the motion sensor in the Nunchuck as a turning/looking mechanism: turn by twising your wrist laterally, and look up/down by tiliting your hand up/down. This frees up the Wii to do only aiming, and deligates all turning/moving to the nunchuck (which also has the A-Stick).
Until game manufacturer's realize I'm right, FPSs will never be close to anywhere as good as keyboard/mouse.
Sony are already losing something like $400 per unit, I'm not convinced that blue diods will automatically cause Sony to lower their prices. Does someone have any evidence to back this up? Not that I don't want the price to drop (as much as I enjoy seeing horrible companies squirm), but until I hear more than pure conjecture, I'm not going to trust it.
A) a controller designed with gaming in mind B) a coutch C) games made in other countries besides the US (which couldn't make a good game to save its life) D) not having to worry about hardware requirements all the time
As a former PC gamer, I'm very jaded. I saw the light about 4 years ago, have you?
LOL, I think it's cute how people constantly say that the Wiis graphics are better than the PS2s, because I was one of the few that had a GameCube... and IT'S graphics kicked the shit out of the PS2s. For instance, it's really tough going and playing Tales of the Abyss (PS2) after having played Tales of Symphonia (GC), because the GameCube's graphics are just so much cleaner and more polished looking, due to the antialiasing.
Even if the graphics aren't as sophisticated and high resolution as the PS3 and 360, they're just as clean and polished looking, if not more so. I saw Need for Speed: Carbon playing on a PS3 in the store, and it looked so jaggy and crummy, while Twilight Princess and Rayman Raving Rabits look so pristine, for what their graphical style calls for. On the flipside, I sat, in awe, in front of the Genji (PS3) demo, and THOSE looked clean and polished. So it really is all in the developer's ability to handle graphics correctly. The stats may be wildly different, but I'm not convinced that the PS3s graphics are inherently better, they just ALLOW them to be better.
Oh, and I detest most photo-realism, so maybe I'm biased.
It should be noted, that I'm totally joking, and I think you realized that. You are exactly right, however. Ads are many-times a welcome distraction, even if people complain about them. They are the equivelent of an intermission in theatre. People love to bitch about them, but most sit and bear it. I actually prefer that then people who fidget with the remote, and watch 10 seconds of 30 other channels while the ads are going... that drives me crazy.
I don't, however, think that not-being able to FF through ads is going to be a big deal. Most people are still used to the traditional model, where they can't FF through ANYTHING, so in many ways, it's not all that different. Now, I might be wrong, eventually this could change, but I think it's not the end of the world, as far as advertising goes.
Thank you. Some people think that just because the PS3 and 360 support the same resolution, and could be considered comparable in horsepower, that they are somehow easy, or even "easier" to port between. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The PS3 and 360 are totally different animals, and what's more is only their tallied horsepower stats are comparible, but in individual areas, their graphical handling is completely different. One might be vastly superior in lighting effects, while the other's texture handingling is more sophisticated.
I think a lot of stupid people would be dissapointed to realize that neither prorammers, developers, or marketting staff think in the same terms they do.
I got into a discussion with my friend last night about whether FF13 could/would be ported to the Wii. It's my belief that the marketting staff will push it werever they can sell the most units, seeing as though FF (even though not as big as DQ) is huge in Japan, and the Wii is dominating there, and is slated to pull even with the 360 around the time of FF13s release, worldwide, it seems like a likely choice. His arguement was simple, "but why would the developers want to develope for it?" This line of thinking is utterly rediculous, IMO, and really no reflection of the reality of the game industry. For one thing, the developers have little say over what hardware they get to use, secondly, at SD/ED resolutions, the differences between the Wii and PS3/360 all but dissappear, since so much of the added horsepower of the higher-powered systems simply goes into processing HD.
I ask you this, however. If you were a fan of jRPGs, and FF13 came out for the Wii, and you had one... would you NOT buy it, simply because another system ran it at higher resolution with more graphical effects? NO. Once you realize this, you realize that there's absolutely no reason why games like this should exist on the Wii. That's the only question that really matters, "will it sell?"
Hey, Twilight Princess was the best selling (and best recieved) launch title, Metroid Prime 3 is one of the most anticipated games... those strike me as exactly the kind of games we're talking about. I fail to see how your comment that "there is no market", holds any water.
The Wii isn't for casual gamers, it's for everyone, many different demgraphics and psychographics. Nintendo has been saying this over and over again, but quite a few hardcore gamers, like yourself, think that every time the word "everyone" is mentioned, it automatically is meant to alienate us. I just don't see it. The Wii is getting MORE games than any other system, and quite a few aimed at the hardcore crowd.
I speak as a pretty serious gamer, I've been playing for many years, my base tends to be action/adventure and jRPGs... epic 80 hours games, usually. I bought a Wii primarilly because I realized it would be an inspiration to many game developers, and evolve a lot of new ideas in the industry. Twilight Princess was EXACTLY what I was looking for, MP3 is looking to be stellar, and Square seems to have one of the FF13 games up its sleeve, among other things.
If you think the Wii has no hardcore fanbase, you're grossly incorrect. It's inviting new people in, sure, but the base is still the same.
This idea that the Wii is limited to only "simplistic games" or "low-end games" is just idiotic. At this point in time, that's definitely how it looks, but there is no reason to expect that it will stay that way. Game developers will go to whatever system will move the most amount of units of their products. All three consoles have the ability to do the same style of game. So if you're a developer, setting out to do a substantial product in any genre, unless you really NEED that high escellon of graphical power (which many game companies can't afford, anyway), the choice really is yours.
So yes, the Wii is currently getting spinnoffs, gaidens, things like that... but that came from a mis-assessment of the market, early on. There is no underlying reason why the Wii, inherently, is limited to B titles, that is simply the way the market viewed the race about 6 months prior to launch. But A LOT has changed since launch, and the tables have completely turned (I always suspected that the Wii would sell beautifully, but many others didn't).
But the fact is, the Wii is selling itself, regardless of the titles, and companies are now scrambling to get their big AAA teams on board, but it will take time. Thankfully, the market seems to be very happy with what the Wii has to offer at the moment, so us hardcore fans just have to wait until the titles begin coming out. My PS2 is still at the ready, for th moment. I don't expect the Wii to get more play than it for another 6 months or so, but that's fine with me, until then.
Slashdot Mirror
It's all about Dream Theater, man. I'm hoping I can get some Metropolis action in the next guitar hero game. It's just shameful they haven't had any Petrucci-rippin' tunes in the series up until now. If it did, I'd probably actually buy the game. YYXs a good start, though.
Even better. Square just announced that they're doing 3D remakes of FFIV V and VI for the DS... which is wierd, seeing as though they JUST re-released them for GBA. I don't care so much for IV and V, but VI DESPERATELY needs a 3D remake, as it was designed with more 3D architecture in mind. Much more needed than simply a FF7 "clean up". FFVI is a far better game anyway.
Yes, it's being released in a week or so, actually. And... the music is the same as FF12? EH! Crap... I may not buy it afterall. I hated the music in FF12, just so lame and lacking in soul. Status quo wannabe-classical soundtrack background music, almost as bad as FFT.
FUCKING FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK! Now I'm never going to go to that site. When you can't tell the difference between god old thoughtful, intelligent, witty progrock, and hair metal, you have NO TASTE.
True, but I'm not talking about a world without liberty either, just with some limitations. There ALWAYS will be limitations on liberty, there always has to be, for various reasons. It's just a question of how much.
It's clear that I believe that there should be more limitations than you do. Although, in the grand scheme of things, we're probably thinking along the same lines. I'm not a communist, and you're probably not an anarchist.
Definitely, I'm going to be interested to see if there's some major backlash. This game is basically saying, "okay, you want intelligent design? I'll GIVE YOU intelligent design!"
It'll have a bunch of fundies yelling, "Hey... wait a minute... we don't mean THAT kind of intelligent design, we mean... ummm, like... creationism... uhhhh... fuck"
And then we will all point our fingers and laugh because they used the taboo word that we've all come to shun, and they've used "intelligent design" as a euphemism for.
Okay, so maybe not, but one can dream.
I wondered why after moving into my 4ft high cabin, all I could think about was sex and urination. Now I know.
Firstly... have you played Super Paper Mario? It's nothing like any of the other games. As far as I'm concerned, it's probably the most innovative game I've seen in a long while, regardless of its connection to a previous franchise. Is it a perfect game? No way, but it's still very good and I wouldn't deduct ANY points for it being not innovative. If anything, it's too innovative, and a little unpolished, sorta like the original Super Mario Bros when compared to Mario 3.
It's sorta like saying Curby's Canvas Curse isn't innovative because it's a Curby game. CCC is easilly the most innovative platformer since sidescrolling was invented back with SMB... and even then, I might give it the edge. CCC, however, is polished as hell. Cutesyness aside, that game is remarkeable. Anyway, I degress.
Twilight Princess stole the soul that FF12 lacked, IMO. I played them at the same time. TP is now my favorite game. Sure, it's not innovative by any sense of the imagination... but it's a great game, and its elements are so perfect and flawless. It is definitely the Mario 3 of the Zelda series. Finally, a Zelda game where I actually FEEL for the characters!
As far as Final Fantasy... I liked FF12, but it's no longer the king of the hill. Tales of the Abyss wiped its ass with FF12 this year, as far as I'm concerned... with about a quarter of the graphics and production budget. TooA is an UGLY GAME, and it made FF12 look bad in comparison. With Bandai back on the Wii bandwagon, there's a very good possibility of the next Tales game coming out for the Wii (as if Bandai could EVER make use of the PS3s graphical capabilities).
Also, I still stand by my assessment that there's no logical reason why FF13 won't be ported to the Wii. If they can do the sequel to FF12 on the DS, they can port FF13 to the Wii. I don't care how much people dump on the Wiis specs, but it's a lot closer to the PS3 than the DS is to the PS2.
I have a feeling we're gonna halfto chalk up this debate up to a gross difference in taste, in terms of video games. I could give two shits about graphics, myself. In fact, I flat out hate 90% of photorealistic games, I think, in some cases, the battle for photorealism takes away from the creation of unique stylistic creations. My favorite graphics, to date, are in Okami... a low budget PS2 game with a polygon count that would have quite possibly been shamefull on the DreamCast (okay, maybe an exaduration, but it's still a very low horsepower game). If that's my favorite graphics of this era... I can't really see why the Wii can't satisfy what I'm looking for in games.
It's Nintendo, I think that's the least of our concerns. Unless you don't like Nintendo's offerings, in which, well... we're just gonna dissagree in terms of game style.
You have some real points. I don't think the "year or two" arguement is all that important, though, since I think the Wii is probably going to be replaced somewhere around 2010 (it's obviously a short lifecycle console). Still, I don't think that game design, even last generation, took advantage of all the horsepower available. My thoughts is basically that the technology is moving faster than the concepts that are being developed that require that technology. Instead of game designers calling for newer, more sophisticated technology, the technology is simply being created because... well... "it's time to sell another system, right?" I saw late PS2 games that didn't come close to utilizing the full potential of the system, even more so with GameCube games. So, if game designers weren't even needing all of what the PS2 had to offer, what are they going to do with the PS3?
When the SNES and Playstation came out, they openned up new possibilities to game designers, things that simply could never be done before, could now be done. But ever since the PS2 era, I don't think game designers have had a clear concept of what new things they can do that they haven't been able to do before. I think the Wii is able to do more completely new things, because of its input device, in a similar fashion to the earlier generations.
more buttons != better
After a certain point, the mind isn't as capable of determining the difference between one button and another, and it takes more time to connect specific actions with the right tactile response. I'd go as far to say as that even 4 buttons have their woes, unless they're setup properly. The only gamepad that I've ever though was able to map the 4 face buttons in a way that could be IMMEDIATELY recalled was the GameCube controller, since each button is shaped differently. In fact, I'd say that the GameCube controller is far and away the best game controller in terms of memory recall, as its aesemmetry (two shoulder buttons on one side, one on the other... very nice), and differences in button shape, not to mention even A-stick shape, make specific action instantanous. Playing a game with a GameCube controller becomes a pure extension of ones thought process, every action is carried out immediately after it's thought-up.
On a keyboard, every button feels identical, it's the same size and shape. Every action taken by a key, then, does not have its own unique tactile feel and can't be recalled as quickly. Typing, as some may counter with, is a completely different animal, however... since we spent months learning how to type, and letter recall comes from the same part of the brain. Where-as the concept of doing a sword slash, and the decision to perform a sideways-roll come from very different sections of the brain. For actions that are grouped together in the brain (like letter recall), it is easiest to have buttons that are grouped together spacially and tactily, but for actions that are distinct, it's fastest to recall them by giving them a different feel.
The bottom line is that less is more. I don't know how many times I've had to think, for a good 5 seconds on which button to press to bring up the map, even after hours of play. I've worked with advanced A/V software with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, and usually shortcuts only start becoming automatic, one at a time, after months of use. On Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, I now have about 5 single button keyboard shortcuts that I would be happy to say are completely and utterly automatic... and i've been using them for years. On a gamepad, especially something with tactile feedback like the GameCube controller, I can become that fascile in a number of minutes.
Are we talking about style or quality? Because I can't think of any "style" of graphics that the PS3 can do that the Wii can't, but just at lower resolutions with simpler lighting/shading effects and less polygons.
Note, I've never been suggesting that the Wii could ever come close to looking as good as the PS3, but games made for the PS3 could be ported just fine... they'd only have "Wii level graphics", which for the person who bought the Wii, is obviously JUST FINE. I can't think of any reasonable situation, graphically, that you couldn't port a PS3 game over to the Wii. It won't look as good, for sure, but that really isn't the point, is it?
I'm actually in agreement with most of what you say here. Although, I never said anything about giving up freedom, I said I'd give up some of my more extremist viewpoints in favor for stability, that has nothing to do with my personal freedom, it has to do with "getting my way", which is not always the best solution.
And yes, as I said, congress goose-stepped along with Bush for at least the first 6 years... even in the short time the dems had power during '05, they just whined a lot.
The one thing I'll say, and I know you're going to dissagree with me, but there is a balance between quality of life and freedom. I don't believe that unlimited freedom produces the best outcome for ones existance. unlimited freedom is anarchy, which while workable in theory (like just about every other political philosophy), usually leads to chaos. If you think about it, hardly ANYONE believes that absolute freedom is the best way to go, so we're all speculating on some middle ground here.
I think we're actually pretty much in agreement on this, we just have different ideas about what level of freedom is best for our culture.
But the early adopters really very reliavent. Even if they screem and yell, eventually the rest of the populace will follow suit, and when they do... they'll see it as a huge imrovement over traditional broadcast television, regardless of whether they can FF through commercials or not.
The bottom line is, there is no right or wrong here. We all have different levels of trust in centralized or localized governments, and so did the founding fathers, btw. I'll also add that we shouldn't turn to the founding fathers for anything but the bear inspiration of what their ideas represented, our culture and our world is SO vastly different from theres that quoting what the founding fathers had in mind is rarely meaningful.
I, personally, tend to trust centralized government more, as it tends to be freer of outliers. I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time. Larger bodies tend to be more stable and slower to change than smaller ones, thus they tend to represent longer-term social change, and not so much, knee-jerk reactions. That's not always the case, as we've seen in the past 7 years, but for the most part, I personally prefer to see a large central convernment. What, exactly, the founding fathers had in mind is irrelivant to me, and as I've said before, even they had large dissagreements in this subject.
However, I can totally see reasoning for smaller, more localized governments. Their worth is not to be underestimated. Sometimes I agree more with a local government than a centralized one. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I come from a state (Alaska), which tends not to reflect my own viewpoints, and I often look to the national government to put it in its place. If I lived in California or Vermont, I might feel differently.
Regardless, though, I think it's healthy to view this as difference in political philosophy. There are very few right and wrongs in politics, and this is an excellent example.
No doubt. I think we can view the Wii as an experimental, "interim" system. It's cheap to manufacturer, low-power, and a good way of getting a new technology off the ground. In 2 years, it's lifecycle will be over, and Nintendo will be able to launch a system far more powerfull than the 360/PS3, at half the price, and will be, then, half a generation ahead in terms of graphical power.
Sony and Microsoft are in bad possitions, right now. They've invested in systems that have no less than a 7 year lifecycle (or 10 years, as Maryll Lynch calculated with the PS3). If Nintendo were to release a new system in 2 years, Microsoft and Sony would be caught with their pants down.
Agreed. And as much as I love the Wii, I think developers have taken completely the WRONG direction when it comes to FPSs. The "bounding box" system of turning (pointing the controller to the side of the screen to turn) is just, flat-out, a dead-end. Some have dressed it up to be more usable than others (the comments for Metroid Prime 3 suggest that people are liking it).
What I want to see is a system that uses the motion sensor in the Nunchuck as a turning/looking mechanism: turn by twising your wrist laterally, and look up/down by tiliting your hand up/down. This frees up the Wii to do only aiming, and deligates all turning/moving to the nunchuck (which also has the A-Stick).
Until game manufacturer's realize I'm right, FPSs will never be close to anywhere as good as keyboard/mouse.
Sony are already losing something like $400 per unit, I'm not convinced that blue diods will automatically cause Sony to lower their prices. Does someone have any evidence to back this up? Not that I don't want the price to drop (as much as I enjoy seeing horrible companies squirm), but until I hear more than pure conjecture, I'm not going to trust it.
A) a controller designed with gaming in mind
B) a coutch
C) games made in other countries besides the US (which couldn't make a good game to save its life)
D) not having to worry about hardware requirements all the time
As a former PC gamer, I'm very jaded. I saw the light about 4 years ago, have you?
LOL, I think it's cute how people constantly say that the Wiis graphics are better than the PS2s, because I was one of the few that had a GameCube... and IT'S graphics kicked the shit out of the PS2s. For instance, it's really tough going and playing Tales of the Abyss (PS2) after having played Tales of Symphonia (GC), because the GameCube's graphics are just so much cleaner and more polished looking, due to the antialiasing.
Even if the graphics aren't as sophisticated and high resolution as the PS3 and 360, they're just as clean and polished looking, if not more so. I saw Need for Speed: Carbon playing on a PS3 in the store, and it looked so jaggy and crummy, while Twilight Princess and Rayman Raving Rabits look so pristine, for what their graphical style calls for. On the flipside, I sat, in awe, in front of the Genji (PS3) demo, and THOSE looked clean and polished. So it really is all in the developer's ability to handle graphics correctly. The stats may be wildly different, but I'm not convinced that the PS3s graphics are inherently better, they just ALLOW them to be better.
Oh, and I detest most photo-realism, so maybe I'm biased.
It should be noted, that I'm totally joking, and I think you realized that. You are exactly right, however. Ads are many-times a welcome distraction, even if people complain about them. They are the equivelent of an intermission in theatre. People love to bitch about them, but most sit and bear it. I actually prefer that then people who fidget with the remote, and watch 10 seconds of 30 other channels while the ads are going... that drives me crazy.
I don't, however, think that not-being able to FF through ads is going to be a big deal. Most people are still used to the traditional model, where they can't FF through ANYTHING, so in many ways, it's not all that different. Now, I might be wrong, eventually this could change, but I think it's not the end of the world, as far as advertising goes.
Thank you. Some people think that just because the PS3 and 360 support the same resolution, and could be considered comparable in horsepower, that they are somehow easy, or even "easier" to port between. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The PS3 and 360 are totally different animals, and what's more is only their tallied horsepower stats are comparible, but in individual areas, their graphical handling is completely different. One might be vastly superior in lighting effects, while the other's texture handingling is more sophisticated.
I think a lot of stupid people would be dissapointed to realize that neither prorammers, developers, or marketting staff think in the same terms they do.
I got into a discussion with my friend last night about whether FF13 could/would be ported to the Wii. It's my belief that the marketting staff will push it werever they can sell the most units, seeing as though FF (even though not as big as DQ) is huge in Japan, and the Wii is dominating there, and is slated to pull even with the 360 around the time of FF13s release, worldwide, it seems like a likely choice. His arguement was simple, "but why would the developers want to develope for it?" This line of thinking is utterly rediculous, IMO, and really no reflection of the reality of the game industry. For one thing, the developers have little say over what hardware they get to use, secondly, at SD/ED resolutions, the differences between the Wii and PS3/360 all but dissappear, since so much of the added horsepower of the higher-powered systems simply goes into processing HD.
I ask you this, however. If you were a fan of jRPGs, and FF13 came out for the Wii, and you had one... would you NOT buy it, simply because another system ran it at higher resolution with more graphical effects? NO. Once you realize this, you realize that there's absolutely no reason why games like this should exist on the Wii. That's the only question that really matters, "will it sell?"
Hey, Twilight Princess was the best selling (and best recieved) launch title, Metroid Prime 3 is one of the most anticipated games... those strike me as exactly the kind of games we're talking about. I fail to see how your comment that "there is no market", holds any water.
The Wii isn't for casual gamers, it's for everyone, many different demgraphics and psychographics. Nintendo has been saying this over and over again, but quite a few hardcore gamers, like yourself, think that every time the word "everyone" is mentioned, it automatically is meant to alienate us. I just don't see it. The Wii is getting MORE games than any other system, and quite a few aimed at the hardcore crowd.
I speak as a pretty serious gamer, I've been playing for many years, my base tends to be action/adventure and jRPGs... epic 80 hours games, usually. I bought a Wii primarilly because I realized it would be an inspiration to many game developers, and evolve a lot of new ideas in the industry. Twilight Princess was EXACTLY what I was looking for, MP3 is looking to be stellar, and Square seems to have one of the FF13 games up its sleeve, among other things.
If you think the Wii has no hardcore fanbase, you're grossly incorrect. It's inviting new people in, sure, but the base is still the same.
As a TV commercial producer, this makes me very happy ;)
This idea that the Wii is limited to only "simplistic games" or "low-end games" is just idiotic. At this point in time, that's definitely how it looks, but there is no reason to expect that it will stay that way. Game developers will go to whatever system will move the most amount of units of their products. All three consoles have the ability to do the same style of game. So if you're a developer, setting out to do a substantial product in any genre, unless you really NEED that high escellon of graphical power (which many game companies can't afford, anyway), the choice really is yours.
So yes, the Wii is currently getting spinnoffs, gaidens, things like that... but that came from a mis-assessment of the market, early on. There is no underlying reason why the Wii, inherently, is limited to B titles, that is simply the way the market viewed the race about 6 months prior to launch. But A LOT has changed since launch, and the tables have completely turned (I always suspected that the Wii would sell beautifully, but many others didn't).
But the fact is, the Wii is selling itself, regardless of the titles, and companies are now scrambling to get their big AAA teams on board, but it will take time. Thankfully, the market seems to be very happy with what the Wii has to offer at the moment, so us hardcore fans just have to wait until the titles begin coming out. My PS2 is still at the ready, for th moment. I don't expect the Wii to get more play than it for another 6 months or so, but that's fine with me, until then.