darkjak

I've stated the opposite. On the Wii you DON'T need any absurd ammounts of cash to create a high quality game. On the HD formats it's a different matter. Nintendo have done it before. Goldeneye crapped in Dooms, Quakes and Duke Nukems face when it came out. Excitebike 64 owned all other motorcycle games, and really do you remember any snowboard games before SSX, beyond 1080? Nintendo have so many cunning people that they could easilly create something that'll change a genre forever. Actually yes. The game cost about 30 milion Euros to develop. I believe that number was named in the latest Game Reactor. They did? As far as I remember, Goldeneye sold 8 milion copies, and MGS, 1080, Excitebike 64, Perfect Dark all came out into the Players Choice series. Sony have only kicked Nintendos asses in a select few genres, like racing. But that's because Nintendo DIDN'T try to get an equivelant, despite lots of Nintendo fans wanting it for a decade. When I read Nintendo magazines, there were allways people sending in letters asking if Nintendo are developing a Gran Turismo beater. First it was explainable: the cartridges can't fit the 600 cars of GT2, or even the 150 cars of GT1. But on the GC it became a lot more questinable. Neither did Nintendo get an equivelant to Tekken or Virtua Fighter. Nintendo were NEVER competing propperly. Developing these types of games would generate quite a bit of proffit, plus it could restore Nintendo's reputation. And well, at least I don't recall the N64 being considered a kiddy console. I don't at all remember stubling across the debate until after the WW release.

I got mine a month after release, and I'm not thinking about selling it. HOWEVER, I bought a 360 on the side because Nintendo just seem to be messing around, rather than giving us quality games. I only own 5 Wii games. Partially because I spent my first year of Wii ownership in the army, and partially that I'm currently studying at the university, suddenly finding it expensive to pay 500-600 krona for a decent game. I'm gonna get Smash Bros and Metroid, then it's just gonna be gathering dust untill Nintendo release maybe Zelda or Starfox. Just because you like Nintendo, you shouldn't blinly love anything they do. As a matter of fact, it is because I loved Nintendo's previous work that I'm so bummed out right now.

The gaming audience has aged so to speak. Statistics say that the standard age for a gamer rises by about a year every year. Back then, most kids were Fjortis, IE fourteen year olds. I remember opening Nintendo Official Magazine when they interviewed a bunch of kids, and one quite openly stated "I like them wit blood and goore". Kids of that age think that everything forbidden is cool, so they seek out games with blood, violence, nudity, swearing and so on. If it didn't have blood, swearing or titties, it was for kiddies. I don't consider the N64 kiddie at all. It was the no 1 console for first person shooters back in the day, with Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Turok, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Rainbow Six and a shiteload more. Also I remember that for a long time, the most common type of game being released for the format was wrestling games. Nintendo released extreme sports games such as Excitebike and 1080, which whupped the competitions arse, and because the extreme lack of racers, Nintendo made sure we'd get a Ridge Racer game. Rumours even suggested that Nintendo had hired Rare to beat the only good Sony game out at the time: Gran Turismo. During the GC days it wasn't really bad either. We got a bucketload of RE titles, we got Eternal Darkness, MGS, Rogue Leader and Soul Calibur. Nintendo even tried to buy Dice to get Battlefield 1942 exclusively. Nintendo made sure we got Geist, they gave us Metroid. The actual kiddie debate didn't start until Wind Waker got shown. The problem today is that Nintendo are doing very little. Reggie supposedly talked to Rockstar about getting us GTA, but apparently failed missarably.

Actually, no. HD games need to sell a lot more than any Wii game because of the high development costs. If I remember correctly, for Killzone 2 to BREAK EVEN it needs to sell a fair bit over six milion copies. Nintendo have cash hanging out their butt, but they don't seem to know what to do with it. Why not create a spiritual successor to Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, a racer that will kick Gran Turismo and Forza in the nuts, an Excitebike that will make it seem that the competition had never existed, a 1080 that will wipe the floor with SSX. Nintendo have the cash, the know how and a console that allows them to make kick ass games with fairly small ammounts of cash, and make money despite mediocre sales. Really, what's stopping them?

Is that your mate or YOU!?! What if the game's like Code Veronica, where there are two modes, one on rails shooter and one full blown RE4 style !?!

The sad truth! Before, Nintendo were much more keen on being the best. When Goldeneye got released, it was a square kick in the scrotum towards all developers on the face of the planet, because it was the best FPS out there! When Zelda:OoT got released, Nintendo gamers were laughing their ass off when PSOne players were claiming that Medievil was worth two shits, and when they said that cartridges can't fit good games. When Nintendo released 1080, all other extreme sports games out there seemed to have been developed in scrotumville, by someones bowel bacterial flora. When Excitebike 64 was released, there was no better motocross game out there. When people wanted MGS, Nintendo MADE SURE we'd get MGS. When Capcom didn't want to release a scratch made RE game for the N64, Nintendo ordered Eternal Darkness (even though it did get released at a time when Capcom wanted to release GC exclusive remakes of ALL RE games, and a bunch of scratch made ones). Nintendo are slacking. Sure, we're looking forward to Sin and Punishment 2, and Nintendo now have an official idea to not announce games until right before release, but we haven't actually seen that many mindblowing games. Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime are the only ones I can come up with at the moment. A company selling hardware can't go "and now we'll do what we wanna do, and then other companies will do the other stuff for us", which is what Nintendo have done now. People keep claiming that Nintendo are being innovative, but really?

Nintendo are constantly increasing the production so that you'll be able to buy a Wii in a game store (a couple of weeks back I was in a game store, when a woman came in and asked if they had a Wii, and guess what: the answer was "no"), and such investments cost money.

Great... Just forking great!

I was more referring to this being a Mario Galaxy clone than complaining about the lack of spherical worlds and gravity puzzles.

Yes, the Clone Wars is a bit of a sellout, and it is wrong. At least Lucasfilm had the decency to make it clear it's a deviation from the real movies, by not giving it an episode number. However comparing Excitebots with Excitebike or Excitebike 64 is impossible. Excitebike 64 has more in common with Gran Turismo than Excitebots! The two games have nothing in common. Excitebike being transformed into Excitebots is like Ferrari starting to manufacture a car that looks like a Smart Fortwo, but calling it Testarossa.

Fun is a subjective factor. I mean, it's like comparing a leopard tank with a BMW. They're both "expensive". But they have nothing in common beyond that and being manufactured in Germany. What if 20th century fox would make a movie about street racers, and because they think it's simply good enough, they call it Star Wars.

Errr...yay, Mario Galaxy with worse graphics, no spehrical world and gravity related puzzles and a theme for food. Just what everyone wanted. Looks original, and incredible chibi, but why on earth would anyone buy this when Mario Galaxy is out there? PERHAPS for those whom have finished the game and want to play more.

Dude, when you take an existing franchise and turn it into something it's not, then that ain't art. I'm not complaining about the blob, even though that's a "kiddy" game. Why? Because that's a part of the Blob's identity, that game IS the Blob's identity. I'd get pissed of if they'd release a sequel where you're supposed to paint the entire world with images of your penis and kill hookers. Because that wouldn't be the Blob! In the same way, the Excite franchise isn't about cartoony robots, or even trucks jumping over a morphing world. It's about, for their respective eras, realistic motorcycle racers. Sure, they COULD swap vehicles, but the fact remains that the roots are realistic. In other words, Nintendo could release Excitetrucks, a racer where you race trucks across jungles, and struggle so the cars won't sink into the mud and get stuck etc. Or they could release Excite GT, a competitor to Gran Turismo. But Excitebots? I've got nothing against this game coming out, but why is it in the Excite series? The only thing in common it's got with Excitebike is that you're racing vehicles. It could might as well have been called FZerobots or Granturismobots, or Needforspeedbots (heck, that's the most fitting so far). Like someone else said, it COULD have been called Stuntrace:Bots or something, because the gameplay probably will be reminiscent of that game. That's why I disslike Windwaker. Had it been it's own franchise, I'd be more than happy to buy it. But Wind Waker didn't feel or look Zelda, and it wasn't what Nintendo had promised on E3 2000, so that's why people dislike it.

Fingers crossed that they'll run it on the RE4 engine. In other words, same game in every respect, EXCEPT the camera is behind your characters, and you can aim however you want. Perhaps with better character models and removed fog. It IS possible, the surroundings allready are in 3D, there even was an unlockable first person mode. Sure, more numerous zombies would be necessary, but hey, the Wii is a fair bit more powerful than the PS3/Dreamcast!

The reason the VB failed was that Nintendo rushed it out. Gumpei Yokoi wanted to wait a year so they'd be able to get colour monitors and more powerful hardware. There are experimental games that are controlled by the mind, and the F-35 and JAS 39 Gripen both have mind controlled features.

Mind controlled gaming isn't that far off, and I think it's the natural evolution of games, although I'd find it awkward not to use my hands while playing. I more like think it'll be like in fighterjets, where most controlls are controlled via levers, sticks and buttons, but certain actions, like swaping objects or weapons will be controlled by the mind/voice. I think that the XB360 and PS3 will continue to be their companies flagships. I however think that Nintendo should release a new console circa 2010-2011, quite simply a Wii with the power of a PS3 or more. By then it should be cheap to develop and produce such a machine.

Excitebots? I guess it's a forum spam program, kinda like xbots :P No, but seriously, I hope it's going to be like Excitetrucks, only with motorcycles, trucks and smaller rally cars. Then it would whup Motorstorms arse!

I don't have the original classic controller, so I might buy this. I'll have to wait and see if it's more ergonomic than the GC controller. A definite bonus would be if it would double as a wireless GC controller.

What made the game industry collapse last time arround was the fact that it was impossible to tell a good game from a shite game, and the fact that tere was so much shite out there. And of course it had to do with developers being overoptimistic with sales. Atari for example bought the ET and Pacman licenses for a s**tload of cash. Then they quickly churned out the games in record time and And also it had to do with there being too many consoles, making parents and retailers unable to tell which game that worked with what. Developers need to step away from todays cash cows and be reasonable. It's straight out stupid to count on a game selling 2+ milions just to break even.

Like I said, sharing engines is good, and it is happening already, but many, if not most games are made from scratch. Even if many developers still would prefer to create their own gameplay engine, since their gameplay would be too costly to implement on an existing engine, they could still buy a physics engine, graphics engine, AI engine, sound engine and so on. Today, bar the Havoc physics engine, you buy the engines whole and modify. Developers should be able to mix any way they want. And yes, a lot of the costs come from the art, however what's lacking in modern games is design work. I'm studying design, and it's really sad how developers keep underusing designers. Because of that we end up with uneven challenges, poor stories and overall bad gameplay. The gaming industry needs to move away from reinventing itself (make programmers program something that's already been done and could potentially be bought for a fraction of the money), rather than making good, well balanced games with deep stories and gameplay.

So what that it sells well? The Bratz and Barbie games sell well too. Do you consider them good games? The game has a crappy combat system, stupid AI and repetitive missions. Unfortunately, nowadays some publishers buy reviews. I've talked to several people whom have played it more than me, and many say that the best part of the game is climbing up on a roof and jumping into a haystack. MGS4 is a good game, no question. But it's got more cutscenes than gameplay, in other words it's more eyecandy than a good game. From what I've heard, the actual game is under 5 hours. Why do many of the cars within GM or Volkswagen share parts? Because it's expensive to develop parts. If several companies or car models share the same parts, said companies or models have shared the costs. If 20 companies buy a certain engine and use them in 40 games, then the company that's developed the engine will be filthy rich, while the companies whom use the engine have saved a substantial amount of money. And also, that would mean that several companies would like to join such a luscius market. If there's competition, you can't have any price you want, and even if that were the case, companies still WOULD be able to develop their own engines. The Unreal engine is a complete package of physics engine, graphics, etc. It's nearly only suitable for first person shooters, in other words it's not an universal engine, nor does it have interchangable parts. That is partially true, but still a lot of companies rather develop a new engine for every game, which is why the costs of games are rising. My question is the following: why make something that already exists? Rather than making the programmers do stuff that already exists, why not just make them focus on what makes the game unique. Modern games have less and less actual content. Remember Goldeneye? 20 missions, nearly as many multiplayer maps, 40 guns and an absurd ammount of unlockables, some of which weren't discovered until 2001. No first person shooter can compare to it when it comes to quantities. That's because the costs of graphics and programming have increased. The problem is partially the mentality of programmers. They have complete disregard for costs or the real world. For example the Duke Nukem team nearly only consists of programmers. And hence they've been swapping, modifying and making engines from scratch for fourteen years. They allways think that they can do everything better, but by the time they've succeded, some other programmer's done it better than that, so they want to start over.

The problem is that many developers have completely forgotten about what makes a quality game. Assassins Creed and MGS 4 are more eyecandy than good games. There are many hugely hyped games that turn out to be crap. Saying that casual gaming is the future is quite false. The casual games of today need to approach the core games in terms of variety and immersion. The casual game of today can't sustain the game industry. The Military has usually pioneered with technology. The army developed channel hopping technology, which has enabled the modern cellphone. The army developed the jet engine, 4 wheel drive. Arpanet was developed in the 60's and is the precursor to the modern internet. The army developed the GPS among other things. The gaming industry needs to look more at what the worlds armies are up to. For example, in the 60's it was clear that Sweden wouldn't afford to develop new bombers, fighterjets and reconnaisance aircraft. So they decided to make one aircraft that can do all of this: However, in the 1960's the technology to make a true swingrole fighter was unavailable. It wouldn't be untill 1979 when the Thornado was introduced that a true Swingrole aircraft was put into service. But the Viggen existed in several versions, and appart from a select few parts, almost all parts were interchangable between the planes. In 1997, Sweden finally put the plane they wanted in the 1960's into service: Sweden has run into the same problem with ground vehicles. Sweden needs APC's, ambulances, terrain vehicles, among others. The result is the SEP program: If the SEP goes into production it will be available with four, six or eight wheels, or tracks. It will be available with different kinds of weapons and interiors, but it will still be the same vehicle, with computers, engines, navigation, armour and so on being interchangable. The same should be applied to the games industry. A development for an at least partially universal game engine would be higly beneficial. Or like with the SEP: one platform where you easilly can swap different engines. You can for example throw in the graphics from cryengine, the AI from MGS4 and the Havok physics engine. I study games development so I know that the most expensive work force is the programmers. So by buying finished game engines and letting the programmers focus on what makes the game unique you can save a lot of cash.

I for one hope that it WON'T turn out to be Killer 7-ish gameplay. RE4 gameplay would suit the game much better. I mean, moving on a rail, but having to swap cameraangle depending on if you want to shoot or walk is just annoying. The trailer looks really good, I hope the gameplay will be OK.

AM got negative critique for the PS2, because the cars supposedly handled like refridgerators.

Now when you mention it, feels a bit similar to Dead Phoenix. But I wouldn't have anything against Kid Icarus looking like that.