I highly dissagree with your assessment of Metroid Prime, and I think it stems from your perception of its genre. I would put Super Metroid and Link to the Past (released a few years apart), as being in the same genre: action adventure. The main differences: one's a side scroller, the other's a top view; one's sci-fi, the other's fantasy. But from a perspective of the progression of the games, they're adventure games, NOT action games. I'm not saying that you don't do any killing in either... sure you do, but most of the skill in the games come from navigation and puzzles. No part of either game was particularly difficult in the reflexes department, but could kick your ass in the brain-twisting department. Similarly, you can really draw a lot of parellels between Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime, of which I consider to be even closer than their SNES predicessors. The decision to make Metroid's 3D incarnation from a first person perspective was more of an artistic direction, than anything else: as having a giant orange robot suit in the taking up a significant part of your screen at all times does a fairly good job of destroying the organic atmosphere that helps to make Metroid games what they are. I hate FPSs, and I was really worried when I heard it was going to be first person... but I realized that my reasoning for hating FPSs had nothing to do with the camera perspective, but the style of play. Metroid Prime may be first person, but it plays like a sci-fi Zelda, not a space shooter.
So, if you think of Metroid Prime as an FPS, and like FPSs, you're likely to be let down, as the creators, themselves, swore up and down they they didn't want people to think of it as an FPS, because they wouldn't be satisfied. I'm not saying its impossible to make a Metroid/Zelda/Castlevania genre adventure game that has good FPS qualities, but the emphasis was not on the precision reflexes that FPS fans take pride in developing, but development of good FPS traits is bound to take away from the adventure game traits, which I believe to be TOP NOTCH in Metroid Prime. In fact, until Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime was my favorite action/adventure game.
I will agree that Echos was a dissapointment... but probably not for the same reasons you think. I loved MP, so "fixing issues" was not one of my main concerns for the sequal, I was just hoping for more development, maybe an even more epic adventure, possibly some new directions for the series, I just wanted something that was inspired and inspiring. What I got felt like a group who was creatively spent, and used the same formula again, with little inspiration. The map is even smaller, and more linear than Metroid Prime, the story is a total Zelda ripoff, to the point where I like to call Twilight Princess: "Metroid Prime Echos done RIGHT."
Yeah, you have to admit, 11th of ALL TIME isn't exactly a terrible spot to be in. Being statistically tied with Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4, and being one spot above Grand Theft Auto III isn't exactly a bad thing.
Also, a few years down the line, when people have stopped trying to determine whether it was revolutionary or not, it'll probably float back up again when you start seeing all time favorite lists not based on launch reviews. Out of all of my years of playing, it's currently sitting at #1 on my favorites list, and I'll just say that no game has taken that spot since 2001, when I played FF8 for the first time (my former favorite, though admittedly flawed). I don't give out "best game ever" scores very easily, but this one deserves it. I'm about 3/4 the way through... I think.
But the problem is, for all the power increase you get, you have to spend that much more time and money to actually take advantage of it. To make bigger, more immsersive worlds, you have to invest in more programmers, more art designers, more architects, etc. The question is, are game companies ready and willing to take advantage of this power to its full extent? Or will it simply be a distraction from what's really important: making a good game.
I would disagree, actually, about OoT being more groundbreaking. For videogames in general, possibly; for the Zelda series, not quite so much. TP may not be groundbreaking for videogames in general, but it's a hell of a lot more groundbreaking for the Zelda series. OoT was the first 3D action/adventure game, but it still had most of the basic storyline and gameplay held over from Link to the Past. TP is a very evolutionary jump, but the increased detail in story, characters, and atmosphere is very new to the series.
You're right, though, it is difficult to argue that TP is more revolutionary than OoT, which practically created a new genre... but there is a definite place for games that strive to polish already created genres and styles... and TP does an exceptional job at that, it's a shame that it doesn't get as good of reviews as a truly revolutionary game... seeing as though it's purpose is to be evolutionary.
I dunno if I would agree that everyone who played Wind Waker loved it. Most of us got over the "but it looks like it's for little kids" bullshit, the artistic style was the least of my worries (as well as most other people who finally played it, that I've talked with), but the "huge boring ocean" does really cut into the enjoyment factor quite a bit, it turns what could have been an "excellent little game" into a "excellent but extremely flawed little game".
Twilight Princess is neither flawed nor little, though. Sure, the OoT references are many, and the traditional dungeon progression is back, but it's not OoT for the sheer reasons that the story is about 10x as deep, the atmosphere is darker than Majora's Mask (my previous favorite in the series), and its character portrayal could go give a contemporary Final Fantasy a run for its money, any day of the week... not typical for Zelda.
I now understand that when Nintendo was talking about making Zelda a more mature game, they weren't talking about adding gore or death or sexual references, they weren't talking about making Link into the 15-year-old male's teen idol... they were talking about making the whole experience more sophisiticated, for lack of a better term, and I think they outdid themselves in this regard.
Unfortunately, it's holding at 11th best game at GameRankings.com, when OoT has always remained #1... strangely, however, almost everyone who pits it against OoT agrees that it is a far superior game, so I don't know how they get off with that. I think TP is even more gutsy, breaking away from its traditionally 2-dimensonal (story and character-wise) roots, then OoT was for its time.
Noone would buy a Mac if it simply had Windows installed on it. People buy Macs because they love OSX, and its integration with the hardware. OSX is to Apple what Zelda and Mario are to Nintendo. People wouldn't buy a Nintendo, anymore, if Nintendo stopped selling great games, and stop trying to create an inspired atmosphere for developers to do the same. People wouldn't buy Macs if Apple stopped making OSX and stopped pushing developers to be more consistant, interface friendly, and created a framework for them to create better software.
It's all about infostructure, and both Nintendo and Apple have very similar philosophies when it comes to their developer frameworks.
The only real difference is how they ACTUALLY get their money. In the gaming industry, hardware is sold at a loss or at only a small profit (even Nintendo wouldn't stay in the game if they ONLY had their hardware profits to live off of). In the computer world, hardware is sold at a huge profit, and software is used to promote the hardware (iTMS and the iPod being a good example).
Simply because Apple, itself, doesn't "do games", per-say, has very little relivance. They don't do games because the Macintosh lost the gaming war LONG AGO, and it would be futile for them to put a lot of money into trying to win back that market. Also, Apple's plug-n-play, and hard-nosed infostructure is much better suited for the console market than the Computer Gaming market, which are very different.
So, you're right, Apple doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell in the Computer Gaming market. They have about as much chance as Nintendo does in the PC gaming market. Both have an attitude very well suited to the console gaming market.
Now, from a business perspective, there probably is very little insentive to collaborate, so I'm not keeping my fingers crossed. And the world works just fine with these two companies separated, and in existance, anyway. It's just that sometimes the resemblence is uncanny.
However, the suggestion of an iTMS Wii channel is an awesome prospect... I do hope that they at LEAST have the foresight to do that.
Actually, Mac gamers are a huge part of the game industry... they're called "Console Gamers".
No, but seriously, we already have an Apple in the game industry: it's called Nintendo. They share almost identical business, interface, and design philosophies. If Apple were to have made the perfect handheld back in 2004, it would have been a DS. If Nintendo had made a digital media player back in 2000, it would have been an iPod. Sometimes I even start to forget which company is which, anymore, they've been so obviously cross influencing eachother for quite some time now.
The best thing that we could hope for would be a merger of sorts, in the area between gaming and portable entertainment: a cross-developed iPod/DS would be both very nice and make a lot of sense. But I just can't see Apple entering the gaming market and having anything different to offer from Nintendo, they're infostructure and design philosophies are just too similar.
Sure there were crappy games on the Gamecube, but the ratio of crappy games was probably lower than any other system in history. The fact that the GCN has very few games total, yet has about as many games (and good games) on my shelf than PS2 games really says something. Nintendo did a great job enchoraging developers to make good games, that generation, they just had a tough time getting as many developers, due to their lower market share.
You're kidding, right? Sonic 3D Blast? That was quite possibly the worst sonic game ever, and has gone down in history as one of the biggest dibacles of a series. It was slow, uninspired, impossible to tell where you were, virtically, due to goofy isometrics. I would go as far as to say that the Sonic Adventure games were even slightly better (even though I think they're absolutely terrible). I've heard great things about Sonic Rush, though.
You make some really interesting points. Dragon Quest would fit incredibly well on a Nintendo system: they tend to be, sort of the Zelda (pre-Twilight Princess) of RPGs: innocent, cartoony, commonly cell-shaded, no tendancy toward photo-realism. It would be a great match, actually. After the style of DQVIII, it almost seems like a given natural progression for them to take it to the Wii (well, fuck, at least we wouldn't have the horrid load times that DQ8 had). Like many Americans, I had not followed the DQ series until DQ8, and still I have no idea what's in the works (besides the DQ: Swords spinoffs).
As for Final Fantasy's popularity in Japan. I think you're defining its popularity strickly in comparison to Dragon Quest's, which, yes, is more popular in Japan. However, Final Fantasy is not far behind and is still a very close second-popular RPG series in Japan. We're not talking about a 50% sales difference, we're talking about, maybe, a 5% difference in sales. Also, Final Fantasy is huge in Europe (more popular than Dragon Quest, as well) where the 360 is also incredibly successful. Worldwide, the Final Fantasy series is much more wellknown than Dragon Quest, and it shows in Square's constant divotion to the series. There are 8 Dragon Quest games, many of which haven't been released outside of Japan, there are 11 mainstay Final Fantasy games (12 if you count X-2), all of which have been released worldwide since the series' 6th itteration.
The difference here is that this time around, screens of FF13 are being widely distributed, Square has been talking up how amazingly realistic the graphics will be on the PS3, and Sony is counting on them to deliver. RPG fans don't tend to be your typical graphics hogs, but we do like our "pretty", and the Wii may not be able to deliver what's expected of a top-of-the-line RPG in a few years. I, personally, don't care. I'd love for the FF games to come out for the Wii. The RPGs that came out on the GameCube were amazing, anti-aliasing being the saviour of graphics for this generation. Bottom line, anything for the Wii is going to look WORLDS better than the PS2 (the GameCube already did), but when people have already had a taste of 1080p PS3 graphics, it's going to be hard for them to go back.
Bottom line is, at this point, Final Fantasy XIII could either save or kill the PS3. A large percentage of people (including almost everyone I know) is waiting until after FF13 comes out to get a PS3. If Square were to suddenly "pull a 360", it could litterally KILL the PS3, as most people would probably choose a 360 over a PS3 if it had the games they wanted. Therefor, it wouldn't surprise me if huge amounts of $$$ are being exchanged, under the table, to ensure FF13s exclusive release... but if things get ugly for the PS3, who knows how long that will last.
Squeenix has no loyalty to anyone. They've been currently loyal to Sony because the PS2 was such a smash hit among RPG gamers, and totally owned the Japanese market, where their games do the best. They started on FF13 LONG before anyone had any idea that the PS3 launch was going to be so bad, and before the possibility that they will achieve a low market share (and more importantly to a game manufacturer, low unit sales, period). Currently, they've released FF11 for PC and XBox (and 360?), and are finishing up a sequel to FF12 for the Nintendo DS, as well as having just released FF3 for the device. The Wii is getting both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy spin-off titles, pretty soon.
So, currently, Squeenix has a few different options:
They continue on the same track of releasing their mainstay series games for the PS3, and risk taking a huge loss if console unit sales are low.
They port all of their games over to the 360, which, while doing well in the rest of the world, does quite terribly in Japan, where their sales are the highest. Although, a major Final Fantasy release on the XBox could find the 360 a winner in Japan, virtually overnight, so it may not be as bad as current figures look.
They take a huge hit to graphical goodness, and port their series to the Wii, which will have high numbers in Japan, and everywhere else, for that matter... but there's still that huge loss of graphical power, who knows how fans would take such a decision. Still, there's no question that a Wii port would sell to a large percentage of Wii households, which is significant.
Their best bet: screw exclusivity and release for all three systems. RPGs are 95% artwork/design anyway, coding is usually very minimal, and the time porting would be a drop in the hat compared to the time and money spent in the art department. The Wii version would simply be 480p versions of the games, with slightly lesser graphics and revised interfaces. You can be sure they won't drop PS3 version, until when/if the console totally goes under, but porting could result in over 4-5x in unit sales, and gives them a huge market advantage.
That said, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they haven't been working on a 360 version of FF13 in secret, for a while now, just in case the PS3 falls on its face, similarly to how Apple developed OSX for intel chips for years in case the PPC chips failed.
I'd venture to call Zelda: Twilight Princess the best launch title ever released. When you think about launches, they don't always have the greatest games. Any Zelda at release would have a good chance of getting this honor... but TP is far-and-away the best Zelda made (sorry Ocarina, TP makes you look like a joke), kicking down FF12 and Okami for game of the year, IMHO. So, if you're into this type of game (Adventure / Action / RPG), you're probably going to have a lot better luck with the Wii launch then any other. And yet the PS3 somehow pulls out ahead... with what? Ultimate Alliance? Tony Hawk? Seriosly, wtf does the PS3 have to offer?
No shit Happy Feet is going to blow, it's a game based on a movie, and we all know how AMAZING those are. I'm with the guy who suggests taking a standard deviation: pit Twilight Princess, Excite Truck, Rayman Raving Rabbits, Monkey Ball, and Red Steel, against the PS3s best, and see what you come up with.
There's a difference between music connoisseurs and audiophiles. Many Audiophiles I know take pride in only listening to the quality of the recording (not even the balance of the production), the quality of the music totally goes out the window. Seriously, I can listen to the crappiest audio production, if the composition and musicality is solid. Obviously, I'd prefer great production... and as someone who has a degree in audio production and electronic composition, it means a lot to me. But so many people go overboard. My feeling is that if audio quality hinders your ability to listen to good music, then you've got your priorities messed up. I think it's along the lines of being a wine-connoisseur, but refusing to drink out of anything but the finest crystal, you're bound to miss a lot of great wines that way.
Oh, and BTW, I appologize for flipping out. I innitially thought your post was a reply to the other repliers of my post, so when you said "complaints like his", I thought you were talking about ME, not to me. I see now what you were saying, sorry for the confusion.
I've never seen a 1337 gamer get excited about Metroid Prime. It's all part of the Metroid/Zelda/Castlevania triumverate of similarly constructed action/adventure games (you can now add Okami to that). The fact that the creators decided to make the 3D Metroid games first person was a stylistic decision, as they realized that having a big orange robot suit in 3D would essentially kill the organic atmosphere of the game... it had little or nothing to do with what kind of game they intended to make. Thus, Metroid Prime is no more like an FPS than Zelda is to a TPS. The only difference is that in one I shoot energy bullets, and in the other I shoot magic arrows. Their gameplay still follows a similar enough path to be considered well within the same genre. And more importantly, their fan bases hugely overlap. Calling Metroid Prime an FPS/Adventure is fine... but I've never heard Zelda refered to as a TPS/Adventure.
You make a good point here, about Mistwalker and Squeenix. If the PS3 does poorly, worldwide, and there's questions of whether there will be a PS4, Squeenix will have to go XBox720 (or Nintendo WiiHD, or whatever). If Mistwalker Studios is already well established on the Microsoft end, Squeenix is going to have some feirce competition for the first time in a while. The only thing is that, really, RPG manufacturers really aren't in competition with each other, so much. As long as they have staggered releases, the sale of one game will not profoundly have an effect on the sale of another.
It wouldn't surprise me, at all, if Square has been developing FF13 for the 360 in secret for a while now, in the same way that Apple developed MacOS X for Intel. RPGs are about 95% art work, and 5% coding anyway, so that's just a small added expense for a potentially HUGE safety net, not to mention the 360 is supposed to be easier to code for.
We already saw Squeenix slip a little in this past generation, as they went GBA and now DS on a few games (including an upcoming FF12 sequel), as well as FF11 for the XBox. They would be stupid NOT to jump ship if things started looking grim for Sony. Basically, the Japanese market follows Squeenix, if they were to go Nintendo or Microsoft, you can pretty much kiss Sony's market dominance over there (and most everywhere else) goodbye.
WTF??? I'm not even CLOSE to a 1337 gamer. I mostly play RPGs, Adventure games, and platformers, I hate standard FPSs. I just want to be able to have decent control of the cursor (not even gun sight). Why the hell would a 1337 gamer be talking about an adventure game like Metroid Prime, anyway?
Is in the lack of settings for the Wiimote. Asking whether the sensor bar is above or below the TV is great, but if I have the the intest, let me get in and fine tune the mother fucker: adjust how FAR above the TV it is, and how large the TV is. So far, the horizontal accuracy of the Wiimote is perfect, but the vertical is not very close. It would be nice to be able to tweak it to your perticular game style. I understand that Nintendo is trying to make things simple, but that's what "advanced options" buttons are for. Maybe in a future firmware update. But this is a much smaller complaint than you would think. I'm absolutely loving Zelda (which has a few additional Wiimote options, btw), and my few minutes on WiiSports Tennis was lots of fun. I've heard way too many complaints about Red Steel, and some concern over Metroid... which I hope they fix before its release.
Well, it was a balmy -25F here in Fairbanks, Alaska. GameStop had sold out preorders, and I have no idea what was going on down at WalMart, but my choice (and the choice of most Fairbanks residence) was the Northwestern based, Kroger owned chain, Fred Meyers, of which there are two Super-center sized box stores in town. The one I went to reported having 100 Wiis and the other reported having 90. Just for your info, they reported having 8 PS3s at launch.
They close at 11pm, but for the Wii openned at 12:01am for an hour. Since it's so cold, lauches up here aren't exactly the same kind of thing they are down in the states, noone camping for hours on end, partially because everyone knew that NOONE else was going to be crazy enough to do that. I got there at about 10:40pm, and stood in line with some guys. It was a really nice, relaxed atmosphere, some people brought chairs, but most stood around and gabbed, trying to keep themselves warm and taking turns going back and forth to warm up in near-by idling cars (noone was going to be an ass about it... it's called "survival"). Nintendo DSs were out of the question, since it's kinda hard to push buttons with thick, canvas and wool gloves.
At just after 11pm, "Freddy's" shoed out it's remaining customers and did something wonderful we didn't expect, they openned their doors, gave people numbered tickets, and let people line up inside. There were many people there (a number of my buds) who weren't even buying that night, but just wanted to join in the festivities. After going inside, some Nintendo DSs broke out, but we were having a good enough time just hanging out that I didn't really have much interest in playing mine.
At midnight, there was a joyous cheer as the line started moving a bit. The staff (all of which were wearing "Wii Play" shirts), had set up a few islands in the middle of the front isle, which had games and accessories. The Wiis were handed out in order of ticket number (I was #44 out of 100), at a window, and everyone (surprisingly calmy) went for games and accessories. When I got there, there were a number of copies of Zelda left (one of which I nabbed), something like 3 VC Controllers left (also one of which I nabbed), but unfortunately they had long since run out of extra Wiimotes and Nunchucks, but that'll be okay for the moment, especially since one of my other friends bought a system, so we'll have two controllers for the moment. Copies of Red Steel were long since bought out, but I hadn't planned on getting one, since Zelda will keep me well enough occupied for a while, and FF12 and Okami are still running strong on my PS2. Overall, a very pleasant and successfull launch experience.
Now, onto my impressions:
I had a little trouble, at first, getting the sensor bar setup in the right place, considering my TV setup, but when I came up with works fairly well, and I'm planning on getting a new TV soon anyway. I was able to get up online instantly, although I noticed that besides the shopping channel, none of the other channels were currently up yet. It's really nice to have the controllers separated for Zelda, I never noticed how ridged a one-piece controller could be. When not having to use the pointer features of the Wiimote, it's wonderfull to just lay your hands down on the couch on either side. My only real gripe is the speaker in the Wiimote... I won't mince words: it sucks. I wasn't expecting anything stellar, but I was hoping that they would be smart enough to use it for only very simple sounds: clinks, and swipes of swords, things like that. But they're trying to use it for too much: voices, menu sound effects, various atmospheric-based sounds that don't even make sense to be coming from your hand... just not smart, and feels a bit gimmicky. I imagine that down the line, companies will become more intelligent about WHEN to use the really really basic speaker in the Wiimote... but it seems they're not, yet. Also, the lack of volume control, or mute on the Wiimote totally baffles me. My only other gripe is th
Slashdot Mirror
I highly dissagree with your assessment of Metroid Prime, and I think it stems from your perception of its genre. I would put Super Metroid and Link to the Past (released a few years apart), as being in the same genre: action adventure. The main differences: one's a side scroller, the other's a top view; one's sci-fi, the other's fantasy. But from a perspective of the progression of the games, they're adventure games, NOT action games. I'm not saying that you don't do any killing in either... sure you do, but most of the skill in the games come from navigation and puzzles. No part of either game was particularly difficult in the reflexes department, but could kick your ass in the brain-twisting department. Similarly, you can really draw a lot of parellels between Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime, of which I consider to be even closer than their SNES predicessors. The decision to make Metroid's 3D incarnation from a first person perspective was more of an artistic direction, than anything else: as having a giant orange robot suit in the taking up a significant part of your screen at all times does a fairly good job of destroying the organic atmosphere that helps to make Metroid games what they are. I hate FPSs, and I was really worried when I heard it was going to be first person... but I realized that my reasoning for hating FPSs had nothing to do with the camera perspective, but the style of play. Metroid Prime may be first person, but it plays like a sci-fi Zelda, not a space shooter.
So, if you think of Metroid Prime as an FPS, and like FPSs, you're likely to be let down, as the creators, themselves, swore up and down they they didn't want people to think of it as an FPS, because they wouldn't be satisfied. I'm not saying its impossible to make a Metroid/Zelda/Castlevania genre adventure game that has good FPS qualities, but the emphasis was not on the precision reflexes that FPS fans take pride in developing, but development of good FPS traits is bound to take away from the adventure game traits, which I believe to be TOP NOTCH in Metroid Prime. In fact, until Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime was my favorite action/adventure game.
I will agree that Echos was a dissapointment... but probably not for the same reasons you think. I loved MP, so "fixing issues" was not one of my main concerns for the sequal, I was just hoping for more development, maybe an even more epic adventure, possibly some new directions for the series, I just wanted something that was inspired and inspiring. What I got felt like a group who was creatively spent, and used the same formula again, with little inspiration. The map is even smaller, and more linear than Metroid Prime, the story is a total Zelda ripoff, to the point where I like to call Twilight Princess: "Metroid Prime Echos done RIGHT."
Yeah, you have to admit, 11th of ALL TIME isn't exactly a terrible spot to be in. Being statistically tied with Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4, and being one spot above Grand Theft Auto III isn't exactly a bad thing.
Also, a few years down the line, when people have stopped trying to determine whether it was revolutionary or not, it'll probably float back up again when you start seeing all time favorite lists not based on launch reviews. Out of all of my years of playing, it's currently sitting at #1 on my favorites list, and I'll just say that no game has taken that spot since 2001, when I played FF8 for the first time (my former favorite, though admittedly flawed). I don't give out "best game ever" scores very easily, but this one deserves it. I'm about 3/4 the way through... I think.
But the problem is, for all the power increase you get, you have to spend that much more time and money to actually take advantage of it. To make bigger, more immsersive worlds, you have to invest in more programmers, more art designers, more architects, etc. The question is, are game companies ready and willing to take advantage of this power to its full extent? Or will it simply be a distraction from what's really important: making a good game.
I would disagree, actually, about OoT being more groundbreaking. For videogames in general, possibly; for the Zelda series, not quite so much. TP may not be groundbreaking for videogames in general, but it's a hell of a lot more groundbreaking for the Zelda series. OoT was the first 3D action/adventure game, but it still had most of the basic storyline and gameplay held over from Link to the Past. TP is a very evolutionary jump, but the increased detail in story, characters, and atmosphere is very new to the series.
You're right, though, it is difficult to argue that TP is more revolutionary than OoT, which practically created a new genre... but there is a definite place for games that strive to polish already created genres and styles... and TP does an exceptional job at that, it's a shame that it doesn't get as good of reviews as a truly revolutionary game... seeing as though it's purpose is to be evolutionary.
I dunno if I would agree that everyone who played Wind Waker loved it. Most of us got over the "but it looks like it's for little kids" bullshit, the artistic style was the least of my worries (as well as most other people who finally played it, that I've talked with), but the "huge boring ocean" does really cut into the enjoyment factor quite a bit, it turns what could have been an "excellent little game" into a "excellent but extremely flawed little game".
Twilight Princess is neither flawed nor little, though. Sure, the OoT references are many, and the traditional dungeon progression is back, but it's not OoT for the sheer reasons that the story is about 10x as deep, the atmosphere is darker than Majora's Mask (my previous favorite in the series), and its character portrayal could go give a contemporary Final Fantasy a run for its money, any day of the week... not typical for Zelda.
I now understand that when Nintendo was talking about making Zelda a more mature game, they weren't talking about adding gore or death or sexual references, they weren't talking about making Link into the 15-year-old male's teen idol... they were talking about making the whole experience more sophisiticated, for lack of a better term, and I think they outdid themselves in this regard.
Unfortunately, it's holding at 11th best game at GameRankings.com, when OoT has always remained #1... strangely, however, almost everyone who pits it against OoT agrees that it is a far superior game, so I don't know how they get off with that. I think TP is even more gutsy, breaking away from its traditionally 2-dimensonal (story and character-wise) roots, then OoT was for its time.
Noone would buy a Mac if it simply had Windows installed on it. People buy Macs because they love OSX, and its integration with the hardware. OSX is to Apple what Zelda and Mario are to Nintendo. People wouldn't buy a Nintendo, anymore, if Nintendo stopped selling great games, and stop trying to create an inspired atmosphere for developers to do the same. People wouldn't buy Macs if Apple stopped making OSX and stopped pushing developers to be more consistant, interface friendly, and created a framework for them to create better software.
It's all about infostructure, and both Nintendo and Apple have very similar philosophies when it comes to their developer frameworks.
The only real difference is how they ACTUALLY get their money. In the gaming industry, hardware is sold at a loss or at only a small profit (even Nintendo wouldn't stay in the game if they ONLY had their hardware profits to live off of). In the computer world, hardware is sold at a huge profit, and software is used to promote the hardware (iTMS and the iPod being a good example).
Simply because Apple, itself, doesn't "do games", per-say, has very little relivance. They don't do games because the Macintosh lost the gaming war LONG AGO, and it would be futile for them to put a lot of money into trying to win back that market. Also, Apple's plug-n-play, and hard-nosed infostructure is much better suited for the console market than the Computer Gaming market, which are very different.
So, you're right, Apple doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell in the Computer Gaming market. They have about as much chance as Nintendo does in the PC gaming market. Both have an attitude very well suited to the console gaming market.
What's a "Revolution"? Wasn't that the predicessor to the Wii?
What a silly name. Glad they changed it.
Now, from a business perspective, there probably is very little insentive to collaborate, so I'm not keeping my fingers crossed. And the world works just fine with these two companies separated, and in existance, anyway. It's just that sometimes the resemblence is uncanny.
However, the suggestion of an iTMS Wii channel is an awesome prospect... I do hope that they at LEAST have the foresight to do that.
Actually, Mac gamers are a huge part of the game industry... they're called "Console Gamers".
No, but seriously, we already have an Apple in the game industry: it's called Nintendo. They share almost identical business, interface, and design philosophies. If Apple were to have made the perfect handheld back in 2004, it would have been a DS. If Nintendo had made a digital media player back in 2000, it would have been an iPod. Sometimes I even start to forget which company is which, anymore, they've been so obviously cross influencing eachother for quite some time now.
The best thing that we could hope for would be a merger of sorts, in the area between gaming and portable entertainment: a cross-developed iPod/DS would be both very nice and make a lot of sense. But I just can't see Apple entering the gaming market and having anything different to offer from Nintendo, they're infostructure and design philosophies are just too similar.
But I read that as "Wii, DS, Not Cannabis"
Sure there were crappy games on the Gamecube, but the ratio of crappy games was probably lower than any other system in history. The fact that the GCN has very few games total, yet has about as many games (and good games) on my shelf than PS2 games really says something. Nintendo did a great job enchoraging developers to make good games, that generation, they just had a tough time getting as many developers, due to their lower market share.
You're kidding, right? Sonic 3D Blast? That was quite possibly the worst sonic game ever, and has gone down in history as one of the biggest dibacles of a series. It was slow, uninspired, impossible to tell where you were, virtically, due to goofy isometrics. I would go as far as to say that the Sonic Adventure games were even slightly better (even though I think they're absolutely terrible). I've heard great things about Sonic Rush, though.
You make some really interesting points. Dragon Quest would fit incredibly well on a Nintendo system: they tend to be, sort of the Zelda (pre-Twilight Princess) of RPGs: innocent, cartoony, commonly cell-shaded, no tendancy toward photo-realism. It would be a great match, actually. After the style of DQVIII, it almost seems like a given natural progression for them to take it to the Wii (well, fuck, at least we wouldn't have the horrid load times that DQ8 had). Like many Americans, I had not followed the DQ series until DQ8, and still I have no idea what's in the works (besides the DQ: Swords spinoffs).
As for Final Fantasy's popularity in Japan. I think you're defining its popularity strickly in comparison to Dragon Quest's, which, yes, is more popular in Japan. However, Final Fantasy is not far behind and is still a very close second-popular RPG series in Japan. We're not talking about a 50% sales difference, we're talking about, maybe, a 5% difference in sales. Also, Final Fantasy is huge in Europe (more popular than Dragon Quest, as well) where the 360 is also incredibly successful. Worldwide, the Final Fantasy series is much more wellknown than Dragon Quest, and it shows in Square's constant divotion to the series. There are 8 Dragon Quest games, many of which haven't been released outside of Japan, there are 11 mainstay Final Fantasy games (12 if you count X-2), all of which have been released worldwide since the series' 6th itteration.
The difference here is that this time around, screens of FF13 are being widely distributed, Square has been talking up how amazingly realistic the graphics will be on the PS3, and Sony is counting on them to deliver. RPG fans don't tend to be your typical graphics hogs, but we do like our "pretty", and the Wii may not be able to deliver what's expected of a top-of-the-line RPG in a few years. I, personally, don't care. I'd love for the FF games to come out for the Wii. The RPGs that came out on the GameCube were amazing, anti-aliasing being the saviour of graphics for this generation. Bottom line, anything for the Wii is going to look WORLDS better than the PS2 (the GameCube already did), but when people have already had a taste of 1080p PS3 graphics, it's going to be hard for them to go back.
Bottom line is, at this point, Final Fantasy XIII could either save or kill the PS3. A large percentage of people (including almost everyone I know) is waiting until after FF13 comes out to get a PS3. If Square were to suddenly "pull a 360", it could litterally KILL the PS3, as most people would probably choose a 360 over a PS3 if it had the games they wanted. Therefor, it wouldn't surprise me if huge amounts of $$$ are being exchanged, under the table, to ensure FF13s exclusive release... but if things get ugly for the PS3, who knows how long that will last.
Without Question... and yes, Super Mario World was a great game.
Squeenix has no loyalty to anyone. They've been currently loyal to Sony because the PS2 was such a smash hit among RPG gamers, and totally owned the Japanese market, where their games do the best. They started on FF13 LONG before anyone had any idea that the PS3 launch was going to be so bad, and before the possibility that they will achieve a low market share (and more importantly to a game manufacturer, low unit sales, period). Currently, they've released FF11 for PC and XBox (and 360?), and are finishing up a sequel to FF12 for the Nintendo DS, as well as having just released FF3 for the device. The Wii is getting both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy spin-off titles, pretty soon.
So, currently, Squeenix has a few different options:
Their best bet: screw exclusivity and release for all three systems. RPGs are 95% artwork/design anyway, coding is usually very minimal, and the time porting would be a drop in the hat compared to the time and money spent in the art department. The Wii version would simply be 480p versions of the games, with slightly lesser graphics and revised interfaces. You can be sure they won't drop PS3 version, until when/if the console totally goes under, but porting could result in over 4-5x in unit sales, and gives them a huge market advantage.
That said, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they haven't been working on a 360 version of FF13 in secret, for a while now, just in case the PS3 falls on its face, similarly to how Apple developed OSX for intel chips for years in case the PPC chips failed.
I'd venture to call Zelda: Twilight Princess the best launch title ever released. When you think about launches, they don't always have the greatest games. Any Zelda at release would have a good chance of getting this honor... but TP is far-and-away the best Zelda made (sorry Ocarina, TP makes you look like a joke), kicking down FF12 and Okami for game of the year, IMHO. So, if you're into this type of game (Adventure / Action / RPG), you're probably going to have a lot better luck with the Wii launch then any other. And yet the PS3 somehow pulls out ahead... with what? Ultimate Alliance? Tony Hawk? Seriosly, wtf does the PS3 have to offer?
No shit Happy Feet is going to blow, it's a game based on a movie, and we all know how AMAZING those are. I'm with the guy who suggests taking a standard deviation: pit Twilight Princess, Excite Truck, Rayman Raving Rabbits, Monkey Ball, and Red Steel, against the PS3s best, and see what you come up with.
There's a difference between music connoisseurs and audiophiles. Many Audiophiles I know take pride in only listening to the quality of the recording (not even the balance of the production), the quality of the music totally goes out the window. Seriously, I can listen to the crappiest audio production, if the composition and musicality is solid. Obviously, I'd prefer great production... and as someone who has a degree in audio production and electronic composition, it means a lot to me. But so many people go overboard. My feeling is that if audio quality hinders your ability to listen to good music, then you've got your priorities messed up. I think it's along the lines of being a wine-connoisseur, but refusing to drink out of anything but the finest crystal, you're bound to miss a lot of great wines that way.
Oh, and BTW, I appologize for flipping out. I innitially thought your post was a reply to the other repliers of my post, so when you said "complaints like his", I thought you were talking about ME, not to me. I see now what you were saying, sorry for the confusion.
I've never seen a 1337 gamer get excited about Metroid Prime. It's all part of the Metroid/Zelda/Castlevania triumverate of similarly constructed action/adventure games (you can now add Okami to that). The fact that the creators decided to make the 3D Metroid games first person was a stylistic decision, as they realized that having a big orange robot suit in 3D would essentially kill the organic atmosphere of the game... it had little or nothing to do with what kind of game they intended to make. Thus, Metroid Prime is no more like an FPS than Zelda is to a TPS. The only difference is that in one I shoot energy bullets, and in the other I shoot magic arrows. Their gameplay still follows a similar enough path to be considered well within the same genre. And more importantly, their fan bases hugely overlap. Calling Metroid Prime an FPS/Adventure is fine... but I've never heard Zelda refered to as a TPS/Adventure.
You make a good point here, about Mistwalker and Squeenix. If the PS3 does poorly, worldwide, and there's questions of whether there will be a PS4, Squeenix will have to go XBox720 (or Nintendo WiiHD, or whatever). If Mistwalker Studios is already well established on the Microsoft end, Squeenix is going to have some feirce competition for the first time in a while. The only thing is that, really, RPG manufacturers really aren't in competition with each other, so much. As long as they have staggered releases, the sale of one game will not profoundly have an effect on the sale of another.
It wouldn't surprise me, at all, if Square has been developing FF13 for the 360 in secret for a while now, in the same way that Apple developed MacOS X for Intel. RPGs are about 95% art work, and 5% coding anyway, so that's just a small added expense for a potentially HUGE safety net, not to mention the 360 is supposed to be easier to code for.
We already saw Squeenix slip a little in this past generation, as they went GBA and now DS on a few games (including an upcoming FF12 sequel), as well as FF11 for the XBox. They would be stupid NOT to jump ship if things started looking grim for Sony. Basically, the Japanese market follows Squeenix, if they were to go Nintendo or Microsoft, you can pretty much kiss Sony's market dominance over there (and most everywhere else) goodbye.
WTF??? I'm not even CLOSE to a 1337 gamer. I mostly play RPGs, Adventure games, and platformers, I hate standard FPSs. I just want to be able to have decent control of the cursor (not even gun sight). Why the hell would a 1337 gamer be talking about an adventure game like Metroid Prime, anyway?
Is in the lack of settings for the Wiimote. Asking whether the sensor bar is above or below the TV is great, but if I have the the intest, let me get in and fine tune the mother fucker: adjust how FAR above the TV it is, and how large the TV is. So far, the horizontal accuracy of the Wiimote is perfect, but the vertical is not very close. It would be nice to be able to tweak it to your perticular game style. I understand that Nintendo is trying to make things simple, but that's what "advanced options" buttons are for. Maybe in a future firmware update. But this is a much smaller complaint than you would think. I'm absolutely loving Zelda (which has a few additional Wiimote options, btw), and my few minutes on WiiSports Tennis was lots of fun. I've heard way too many complaints about Red Steel, and some concern over Metroid... which I hope they fix before its release.
Well, it was a balmy -25F here in Fairbanks, Alaska. GameStop had sold out preorders, and I have no idea what was going on down at WalMart, but my choice (and the choice of most Fairbanks residence) was the Northwestern based, Kroger owned chain, Fred Meyers, of which there are two Super-center sized box stores in town. The one I went to reported having 100 Wiis and the other reported having 90. Just for your info, they reported having 8 PS3s at launch.
They close at 11pm, but for the Wii openned at 12:01am for an hour. Since it's so cold, lauches up here aren't exactly the same kind of thing they are down in the states, noone camping for hours on end, partially because everyone knew that NOONE else was going to be crazy enough to do that. I got there at about 10:40pm, and stood in line with some guys. It was a really nice, relaxed atmosphere, some people brought chairs, but most stood around and gabbed, trying to keep themselves warm and taking turns going back and forth to warm up in near-by idling cars (noone was going to be an ass about it... it's called "survival"). Nintendo DSs were out of the question, since it's kinda hard to push buttons with thick, canvas and wool gloves.
At just after 11pm, "Freddy's" shoed out it's remaining customers and did something wonderful we didn't expect, they openned their doors, gave people numbered tickets, and let people line up inside. There were many people there (a number of my buds) who weren't even buying that night, but just wanted to join in the festivities. After going inside, some Nintendo DSs broke out, but we were having a good enough time just hanging out that I didn't really have much interest in playing mine.
At midnight, there was a joyous cheer as the line started moving a bit. The staff (all of which were wearing "Wii Play" shirts), had set up a few islands in the middle of the front isle, which had games and accessories. The Wiis were handed out in order of ticket number (I was #44 out of 100), at a window, and everyone (surprisingly calmy) went for games and accessories. When I got there, there were a number of copies of Zelda left (one of which I nabbed), something like 3 VC Controllers left (also one of which I nabbed), but unfortunately they had long since run out of extra Wiimotes and Nunchucks, but that'll be okay for the moment, especially since one of my other friends bought a system, so we'll have two controllers for the moment. Copies of Red Steel were long since bought out, but I hadn't planned on getting one, since Zelda will keep me well enough occupied for a while, and FF12 and Okami are still running strong on my PS2. Overall, a very pleasant and successfull launch experience.
Now, onto my impressions:
I had a little trouble, at first, getting the sensor bar setup in the right place, considering my TV setup, but when I came up with works fairly well, and I'm planning on getting a new TV soon anyway. I was able to get up online instantly, although I noticed that besides the shopping channel, none of the other channels were currently up yet. It's really nice to have the controllers separated for Zelda, I never noticed how ridged a one-piece controller could be. When not having to use the pointer features of the Wiimote, it's wonderfull to just lay your hands down on the couch on either side. My only real gripe is the speaker in the Wiimote... I won't mince words: it sucks. I wasn't expecting anything stellar, but I was hoping that they would be smart enough to use it for only very simple sounds: clinks, and swipes of swords, things like that. But they're trying to use it for too much: voices, menu sound effects, various atmospheric-based sounds that don't even make sense to be coming from your hand... just not smart, and feels a bit gimmicky. I imagine that down the line, companies will become more intelligent about WHEN to use the really really basic speaker in the Wiimote... but it seems they're not, yet. Also, the lack of volume control, or mute on the Wiimote totally baffles me. My only other gripe is th