You are actually arguing pure technology against technology as your standpoint here? "It's a portable PS2 versus a portable N64" and that's your entire argument?
Wow. While we're being nonsensical, let's call Metroid Prime a gimmick by dismissing the ENTIRE GAME and focusing on something THAT IS A BONUS, but refuse to call the PSP's movie playing gimmick - which is ALL it is and SADLY the biggest selling point.
Please come back when you can attempt to make a coherent point. Don't make a bunch of assumptions and wild tangents when none of them hold water.
In my experience, it works best with Umjammer. I love the game and I played it to death, and still occassionally go back to play it just for fun.
The improvisation never seemed to be understood. I used to check gamefaqs and try random searches on the net, but people basically discovered the same thing I learned on my own - you can hit less buttons to change up the rhythm, use different buttons, etc. But the actual mechanics are still very much a mystery. For example, play any of the Umjammer levels with Rammy and put her on level 4. It's insane what the computer does. And no matter how many times I watched it, I could never figure out what the hell it was doing. I assume it's just sequencing and that a human could figure it out, but it was far beyond me.
Anyway, Umjammer is by far my favorite. I think the guitar mechanic works far better for free styling than rapping ever did.
Bejeweled = Zookeeper
As for killer apps, the PSP has GTA on the way. After that I can't think of another killer app, unless a Final Fantasy game (not UMD movie) is in the works.
Meanwhile, DS has Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Castlevania, Metroid:Hunters, Zelda DS, Viewtiful Joe DS, Meteos, Nintendogs, Mario DS, Sonic Rush....the list is pretty extensive.
The portable war will be interesting when GBA2 drops. I'm curious about how Nintendo plans to deal with that. Originally their stance on the DS was very iffy and executives were quoted as saying "If even 10% of the market buys it, we'll be happy." GBA makes for 100+ million worldwide, so with the DS reaching past 5 million, I'm curious if they think they will exceed that goal, especially given that the thing is only 6 months old.
And yes, people, for the umpteenth time, the DS != GBA2. GBA2 is a separate system, and again, I'm really anxious to see how they'll market it.
Stop with the bullshit argument "scam to buy a GBA." It's ludicrious for several reasons.
1. Nintendo was banking on the fact that the GBA has and incredibly large user base installed in the world. They were trying to tap that by bringing them into the console arena. The fact is that if person A bought it, they probably knew more than several people who had a GBA. There was no "scam" to be made here - it was simple rule of averages at play. This is one of the most retarded comments I've ever seen in my whole life because people KNOW its a weak and stupid argument.
2. Let's assume it WAS a scam. Can you think of a better one to be a part of? The GBA has a huge base of games and tons of AAA titles. It's not like you're getting tricked into an ass raping. It's like "OMFG, You mean I have to buy a system that has a ton of awesome games on it, excellent battery life, and multiplayer capabilities? God Nintendo, you suck ASS."
It's so utterly retarded that people didn't even give the goddamn game a chance.
3. IF, and I'm speaking to every idiot saying this, you'd even PLAYED the game, you'd realize it was vital to the gameplay experience. Absolutely VITAL. And it was a hugely innovative form of gameplay. Same with FF:CC. But you're too busy crying like a baby about idiotic things like "omG ITS SKAMZ!!!!!!!!111" that you didn't even for once try the game.
4. Penny Arcade said it best. http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-08 -25&res=l
5. Shut up now, useless argument. "Zelda doesn't have a jump button!" BECAUSE ITS NOT A PLATFORM GAME EITHER YOU SHITS.
First off I have to wonder why FF-X2 would enter into an argument with Zelda, considering one is pretty princess dress up maker and the other is a 3D adventure game.
Absurdities aside, you're comparing a menu-based RPG versus a 3D adventure game. I don't know if that has escaped you or not but you might as well compare Zelda to Madden.
I swear I have no idea where this "jump puzzles" idea comes from. The only jump puzzle area I can even think of was in the tree and using those plants to propel you higher and higher up.
After that, the rest of the dungeons functioned with far more emphasis on puzzle solving, and not just block pushing or key finding, which populates so many other games. I confess it has been a long while since I played the game but all I could remember at the time was "This is far more engaging than Ocarina was," because the dungeons felt so fresh. The Earth Temple, especially, had this absolutely amazing old school flavor to it - dark, mysterious, menacing, a real sense of solitude that the original Zeldas pioneered. I remember having to use companions, activate triggers/switches in obscure locations, reflecting light, etc. All the things, you know, that every other game immediately utilizes? That Nintendo through up first? We're all getting sick of the "light the torch" idea too but guess where it came from?
I can't speak for FF-X2 or KOTOR because on the former I don't care to play another Square rpg in my life, as they've become abyssmal shells of their former glory back on the SNES. KOTOR I wanted to play, but I'm still having a problem with the fact that you are comparing two separate genres of games and trying to say the second one doesn't compare to the first, when they both accomplish different things. True, KOTOR does have the whole allignment thing, which is pretty nice, but even that gets downgraded because everyone either goes all bad or all good. There's not a damn player in the world that acts like "Oh man, I want to be soooo like, 90% good and 10% evil."
As for the sailing thing, it was tedious at times, which is why they GAVE YOU A WARP FUNCTION. And don't say that's evidence of a flawed system, it's evidence of the fact that ANY game, in general, where there are several hubs of activity function on that. I can't think of any off hand, but I know more than one game has the option to just bring up a map and select a city and be there instantly, eliminating all the travel.
As for Kingdom Hearts's so called depth in battle system, my response to that is the same one I use for every Square game - did you honestly use more than a set few commands? In every Square game they give you 50-60 skills/spells, and you end up using maybe 4-5 of them repeatedly. Some might come into play at certain times, and others are fun to use maybe initially, but you realize that more than half of the time they don't work, so you go back to your brute force attacks. For example, any FF game? Just keep using blizzard until you get it's successor. Why waste time with stop/confuse/poison/stone/warp/death/slow/blind, and all the other endless has-been-in-roughly-every-rpg-ever-made-spell when you could just do some massive summon, or throw meteors at them? Even with techniques, who the hell uses anything outside of steal and maybe some form of a heal spell, like...group hug or whatever the hell it is Square games incorporate now?
So don't talk to me about this supposed "depth" when it's really not there. If you give me 100 skills and I only use 4-5, then you haven't accomplished anything. The only game I can even think of off hand that might utilize something even remotely close to that amount of customization would be Pokemon, and even then you can brute force your way through it, or just rely on using a few specialized cross breeds (e.g. a leaf/dark type, etc).
In essence you keep talking about all these features in other games and calling them candy, then saying they aren't found in Zelda, which hurts Zelda's credibility. But the
I have NO IDEA why people love this game so much. Calling Wind Waker nothing more than fetch quests and fedex missions, but then mentioning KH? You HAVE to be kidding.
EVERY damn level in KH was the same. Get to area A. Find character B. Talk to character B. Character B moves to new location. You have to fucking find him AGAIN. Then he tells you to meet his friend C, so, omg, is under attack by...demonic monkeys and fat balloon clowns. Sonuvabitch it was boring. By the time I got to Tarzanland and had to go from the forest to the treehouse to the cliff outskirts BACK to the treehouse BACK to the campsite and BACK to the cliff outskirts and BACK TO THE DAMN TREEHOUSE, I'd had it. The entire game functioned on this principle of finding some character, having some dialogue, and then finding them again down the road.
The animation, the settings, the graphics, even the music. It was all top notch. And the battle system itself was fun, if a bit random in terms of an attack working or not.
But GOD was the actual "game" itself nothing more than a lot of random encounters all leading up to a boss, and then moving on to a new area and doing it all over again. The NPCs were terrible at pointing you at exactly where you needed to go, so most of the time you just wondered around aimlessly until you found another door or some character to talk to or some enemy to fight.
I respect the game and I hope to get KH2 when it comes out, but not if I find out it's little more than an upgraded Secret of Mana, minus a lot of the things that made SoM great. I had better find out the gameplay is more engaging than some weak puzzles and a lot of hide and seek.
In fact, that's pretty much how any Squaresoft game has been lately - a weak attempt to live up to past greats, but by doing so by stripping away vital elements and upping the graphics to try and make up for it.
The problem with "we'll focus on online at E3" idea is that they are focusing on something that's been around for YEARS in the console market and eons in the computer market. No one is going to care if Nintendo holds up a big sign that says "OH GEEZ ONLIENS!" and acts like they invented the f*cking wheel.
I mean, c'mon. How fully fleshed out and well maintained is XBL? Or, for that matter, something like Battlenet? MMORPGs?
There's absolutely no point to showing off online capability unless it's something so...*cough* revolutionary that it's going to change the way online gaming works. We'd have to be talking about something never seen before - ideas that no other developer, hardware or software, has implemented. Showing me Animal Crossing online is a nice idea and all (something I'm very hyped for), but shoveling it onto me at the biggest game show in the world and calling it ice cream isn't going to cut it.
Stop with this "copy us" mentality, please. The Xbox 360 is essentially done. The controller is set, the console is set. We have specs for god's sake. So even if Nintendo showed off something so outrageously awesome that other companies would froth at the mouth and quickly try to incorporate it, it would delay systems of their respective releases. I can imagine Microsoft going "OMGS ZERGLINGRUSH" when Nintendo shows off something new and then tries to put it into their system, and backlog their release another 6 months. Likewise, my guess is that the PS3 is further along in development than the Revolution. So even Sony would be crazy to scale back development because "we gotta get r dun from Nintendo."
I mean, hell, the Nintendo controller wasn't, and isn't, all that different from a Dualshock, and people hate the button layout. The digital click was COMPELTELY underutilized. But Nintendo thought they were giving us ambrosia. The controller is nice, yes, but it wasn't something supremely evolved and Sony and Microsoft didn't even bother to copy it. They just added more buttons, and as a result, some multiplatform games have more functions than the Gamecube copy (Beyond Good and Evil immediately comes to mind).
There's a good side to holding back, but from a pure console wars mentality, it's ridiculous. Nintendo can delay the system all they want, but at LEAST tell us what it can do. Or at LEAST show us something that it can do. We're all tired of waiting.
C'mon Reggie. Go kick some ass in Japan. I'll pay for your ticket.
Slashdot Mirror
You are actually arguing pure technology against technology as your standpoint here? "It's a portable PS2 versus a portable N64" and that's your entire argument?
Wow. While we're being nonsensical, let's call Metroid Prime a gimmick by dismissing the ENTIRE GAME and focusing on something THAT IS A BONUS, but refuse to call the PSP's movie playing gimmick - which is ALL it is and SADLY the biggest selling point.
Please come back when you can attempt to make a coherent point. Don't make a bunch of assumptions and wild tangents when none of them hold water.
MORE delays for MORE content!
/already pre-ordered Hunters months ago...
Duke Nukem to be a playable character!
Now all those "bitch" lines will have an added layer of irony to them.
Is to determine if the Dreamcast logo was first found on top of a hamburger (prior to applying the top bun, of course).
With the rate and time it takes Congress to complete investigations, we'll be up to the PS5 with GTA62: HO KILLAZ.
In my experience, it works best with Umjammer. I love the game and I played it to death, and still occassionally go back to play it just for fun.
The improvisation never seemed to be understood. I used to check gamefaqs and try random searches on the net, but people basically discovered the same thing I learned on my own - you can hit less buttons to change up the rhythm, use different buttons, etc. But the actual mechanics are still very much a mystery. For example, play any of the Umjammer levels with Rammy and put her on level 4. It's insane what the computer does. And no matter how many times I watched it, I could never figure out what the hell it was doing. I assume it's just sequencing and that a human could figure it out, but it was far beyond me.
Anyway, Umjammer is by far my favorite. I think the guitar mechanic works far better for free styling than rapping ever did.
Bejeweled = Zookeeper As for killer apps, the PSP has GTA on the way. After that I can't think of another killer app, unless a Final Fantasy game (not UMD movie) is in the works. Meanwhile, DS has Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Castlevania, Metroid:Hunters, Zelda DS, Viewtiful Joe DS, Meteos, Nintendogs, Mario DS, Sonic Rush....the list is pretty extensive. The portable war will be interesting when GBA2 drops. I'm curious about how Nintendo plans to deal with that. Originally their stance on the DS was very iffy and executives were quoted as saying "If even 10% of the market buys it, we'll be happy." GBA makes for 100+ million worldwide, so with the DS reaching past 5 million, I'm curious if they think they will exceed that goal, especially given that the thing is only 6 months old. And yes, people, for the umpteenth time, the DS != GBA2. GBA2 is a separate system, and again, I'm really anxious to see how they'll market it.
Stop with the bullshit argument "scam to buy a GBA." It's ludicrious for several reasons. 1. Nintendo was banking on the fact that the GBA has and incredibly large user base installed in the world. They were trying to tap that by bringing them into the console arena. The fact is that if person A bought it, they probably knew more than several people who had a GBA. There was no "scam" to be made here - it was simple rule of averages at play. This is one of the most retarded comments I've ever seen in my whole life because people KNOW its a weak and stupid argument. 2. Let's assume it WAS a scam. Can you think of a better one to be a part of? The GBA has a huge base of games and tons of AAA titles. It's not like you're getting tricked into an ass raping. It's like "OMFG, You mean I have to buy a system that has a ton of awesome games on it, excellent battery life, and multiplayer capabilities? God Nintendo, you suck ASS." It's so utterly retarded that people didn't even give the goddamn game a chance. 3. IF, and I'm speaking to every idiot saying this, you'd even PLAYED the game, you'd realize it was vital to the gameplay experience. Absolutely VITAL. And it was a hugely innovative form of gameplay. Same with FF:CC. But you're too busy crying like a baby about idiotic things like "omG ITS SKAMZ!!!!!!!!111" that you didn't even for once try the game. 4. Penny Arcade said it best. http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-08 -25&res=l
5. Shut up now, useless argument. "Zelda doesn't have a jump button!" BECAUSE ITS NOT A PLATFORM GAME EITHER YOU SHITS.
First off I have to wonder why FF-X2 would enter into an argument with Zelda, considering one is pretty princess dress up maker and the other is a 3D adventure game.
Absurdities aside, you're comparing a menu-based RPG versus a 3D adventure game. I don't know if that has escaped you or not but you might as well compare Zelda to Madden.
I swear I have no idea where this "jump puzzles" idea comes from. The only jump puzzle area I can even think of was in the tree and using those plants to propel you higher and higher up.
After that, the rest of the dungeons functioned with far more emphasis on puzzle solving, and not just block pushing or key finding, which populates so many other games. I confess it has been a long while since I played the game but all I could remember at the time was "This is far more engaging than Ocarina was," because the dungeons felt so fresh. The Earth Temple, especially, had this absolutely amazing old school flavor to it - dark, mysterious, menacing, a real sense of solitude that the original Zeldas pioneered. I remember having to use companions, activate triggers/switches in obscure locations, reflecting light, etc. All the things, you know, that every other game immediately utilizes? That Nintendo through up first? We're all getting sick of the "light the torch" idea too but guess where it came from?
I can't speak for FF-X2 or KOTOR because on the former I don't care to play another Square rpg in my life, as they've become abyssmal shells of their former glory back on the SNES. KOTOR I wanted to play, but I'm still having a problem with the fact that you are comparing two separate genres of games and trying to say the second one doesn't compare to the first, when they both accomplish different things. True, KOTOR does have the whole allignment thing, which is pretty nice, but even that gets downgraded because everyone either goes all bad or all good. There's not a damn player in the world that acts like "Oh man, I want to be soooo like, 90% good and 10% evil."
As for the sailing thing, it was tedious at times, which is why they GAVE YOU A WARP FUNCTION. And don't say that's evidence of a flawed system, it's evidence of the fact that ANY game, in general, where there are several hubs of activity function on that. I can't think of any off hand, but I know more than one game has the option to just bring up a map and select a city and be there instantly, eliminating all the travel.
As for Kingdom Hearts's so called depth in battle system, my response to that is the same one I use for every Square game - did you honestly use more than a set few commands? In every Square game they give you 50-60 skills/spells, and you end up using maybe 4-5 of them repeatedly. Some might come into play at certain times, and others are fun to use maybe initially, but you realize that more than half of the time they don't work, so you go back to your brute force attacks. For example, any FF game? Just keep using blizzard until you get it's successor. Why waste time with stop/confuse/poison/stone/warp/death/slow/blind, and all the other endless has-been-in-roughly-every-rpg-ever-made-spell when you could just do some massive summon, or throw meteors at them? Even with techniques, who the hell uses anything outside of steal and maybe some form of a heal spell, like...group hug or whatever the hell it is Square games incorporate now?
So don't talk to me about this supposed "depth" when it's really not there. If you give me 100 skills and I only use 4-5, then you haven't accomplished anything. The only game I can even think of off hand that might utilize something even remotely close to that amount of customization would be Pokemon, and even then you can brute force your way through it, or just rely on using a few specialized cross breeds (e.g. a leaf/dark type, etc).
In essence you keep talking about all these features in other games and calling them candy, then saying they aren't found in Zelda, which hurts Zelda's credibility. But the
"Do you live some puppy?"
Shine get!
I have NO IDEA why people love this game so much. Calling Wind Waker nothing more than fetch quests and fedex missions, but then mentioning KH? You HAVE to be kidding.
EVERY damn level in KH was the same. Get to area A. Find character B. Talk to character B. Character B moves to new location. You have to fucking find him AGAIN. Then he tells you to meet his friend C, so, omg, is under attack by...demonic monkeys and fat balloon clowns. Sonuvabitch it was boring. By the time I got to Tarzanland and had to go from the forest to the treehouse to the cliff outskirts BACK to the treehouse BACK to the campsite and BACK to the cliff outskirts and BACK TO THE DAMN TREEHOUSE, I'd had it. The entire game functioned on this principle of finding some character, having some dialogue, and then finding them again down the road.
The animation, the settings, the graphics, even the music. It was all top notch. And the battle system itself was fun, if a bit random in terms of an attack working or not.
But GOD was the actual "game" itself nothing more than a lot of random encounters all leading up to a boss, and then moving on to a new area and doing it all over again. The NPCs were terrible at pointing you at exactly where you needed to go, so most of the time you just wondered around aimlessly until you found another door or some character to talk to or some enemy to fight.
I respect the game and I hope to get KH2 when it comes out, but not if I find out it's little more than an upgraded Secret of Mana, minus a lot of the things that made SoM great. I had better find out the gameplay is more engaging than some weak puzzles and a lot of hide and seek.
In fact, that's pretty much how any Squaresoft game has been lately - a weak attempt to live up to past greats, but by doing so by stripping away vital elements and upping the graphics to try and make up for it.
The problem with "we'll focus on online at E3" idea is that they are focusing on something that's been around for YEARS in the console market and eons in the computer market. No one is going to care if Nintendo holds up a big sign that says "OH GEEZ ONLIENS!" and acts like they invented the f*cking wheel. I mean, c'mon. How fully fleshed out and well maintained is XBL? Or, for that matter, something like Battlenet? MMORPGs? There's absolutely no point to showing off online capability unless it's something so...*cough* revolutionary that it's going to change the way online gaming works. We'd have to be talking about something never seen before - ideas that no other developer, hardware or software, has implemented. Showing me Animal Crossing online is a nice idea and all (something I'm very hyped for), but shoveling it onto me at the biggest game show in the world and calling it ice cream isn't going to cut it. Stop with this "copy us" mentality, please. The Xbox 360 is essentially done. The controller is set, the console is set. We have specs for god's sake. So even if Nintendo showed off something so outrageously awesome that other companies would froth at the mouth and quickly try to incorporate it, it would delay systems of their respective releases. I can imagine Microsoft going "OMGS ZERGLINGRUSH" when Nintendo shows off something new and then tries to put it into their system, and backlog their release another 6 months. Likewise, my guess is that the PS3 is further along in development than the Revolution. So even Sony would be crazy to scale back development because "we gotta get r dun from Nintendo." I mean, hell, the Nintendo controller wasn't, and isn't, all that different from a Dualshock, and people hate the button layout. The digital click was COMPELTELY underutilized. But Nintendo thought they were giving us ambrosia. The controller is nice, yes, but it wasn't something supremely evolved and Sony and Microsoft didn't even bother to copy it. They just added more buttons, and as a result, some multiplatform games have more functions than the Gamecube copy (Beyond Good and Evil immediately comes to mind). There's a good side to holding back, but from a pure console wars mentality, it's ridiculous. Nintendo can delay the system all they want, but at LEAST tell us what it can do. Or at LEAST show us something that it can do. We're all tired of waiting. C'mon Reggie. Go kick some ass in Japan. I'll pay for your ticket.