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tapedeck

N-E Staff
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Posts posted by tapedeck


  1. Yeah, spoke to pub owner today and he is thinking a £1 entrance fee with winner takes a cut of it...Anyone think this is a good amount. I was thinking it should be £2 if the prize is pretty amazing. A game of normal bowling is about £5 at my local alley. Setting this up i more difficult than I thought :(


  2. RRR2 is what happens when the developers themselves start to have FUN. Thanks Wii...Only you made this possible for Ubi. The Rabbids are an absolute 'genial' character design. One of the best designs I've seen in recent years. And giving them a masochistic outlook and almost gremlins/lemmings-inspired lust for death and mischeif has only made them more popular. I hope ubi get the recognition they deserve with RRR2. Rayman himself will need his own games after this. The Bunnies don't need him anymore. The bunnies are the real stars now. Let Rayman go back to platforming.


  3. I'm holding a one-night event (initially)..I'm looking to start around 6pm and run it until around 12pm. I can have the pub till 2am. Which is nice. The main problem I'm deciding over is whether to prebook names by leaving a phone number on leaflets dispensed at pub/gamestation/student halls etc..Or to just have an open night and those names down by a certain time on the night are in.

     

    GAME FORMAT:

     

    I was looking to have it on an individual basis. Especially if there is a prize. I have contacted Nintendo about posters, t-shirts, games, Wii console etc and have told them I've contacted the newspapers, tv stations about this too. As I said, any further suggestions would be welcome.

    The recent wiimbledon event in the USA was easily ran as an individual event as tennis lends itself to it (bowling could too with highest average on (3?) games going through?) and they borrowed TV's and Wii's from friends and family. I've got 2 Wii consoles and 5 wiimotes. Obviously looking for more, as I need to work out number of games to ppl who enter ratio (anyone spread any suggestions on this?) but if pre-payment is made; this could cover the cost of me buying a couple. The gamers themselves can also bring wiimotes of their own (obviously welcomed due to their cost and susceptability to breakages off walls when drunk!) There are 3 TV's available to me, and a projector which I will use to show the final game. I'm waiting for Nintendo's reply and have asked Chips, Gamestation and GAME to promote anything they have in return for free advertising. (Where possible). Any more ideas people? I want this to become huge and start running it as an ongoing event around the region.

     

    WHERE IT IS:

     

    The Venue is a pub called The Golden Calf in a village called Hesleden. It is near Hartlepool in the North East, which is a turn off on the A19 motorway. The pub has rooms available for around £20 for a night too..Only 5 rooms though. Although 3 can fit in one room I'm sure. (families welcome). There is also a restaurant and food can be eaten in the bar. Usual things and also takeaway food served too. The drinks are also cheap. Bonus!

     

    As previously mentioned, I hope to run this at the end of August and have already started production of flyers, posters etc for places of interest, like bowling alleys in Durham etc... Now I need your help on the format... :)


  4. I'm running a Wii bowling league in my local pub for anyone to enter with cash prizes as there will be an entrance fee. Winner takes a cut. I'm sure it will be a 'bit' good so I'm looking for your ideas as to the format...Anyone have any ideas about teams or if you think it is better for ppl to go alone? I've so many ideas and was thinking it would be teams of three, randomly selected and the games would be one game only with the loser being knocked out. As this will be a one off event I want an outcome there and then. If popular it will become (hopefully) a league format with a long running design. Any ideas please present...I want this to be huge and want to start doing more pubs in the local area. (North East UK).


  5. Personally I think it's good we are getting wii-makes. I remember playing Metal Gear Solid on the Gamecube and thinking back then it was a brilliant idea. It's only when developers are lazy and add nothing new that it becomes disgruntling/pointless. Recent news such as Bully coming to Wii with additional content arouses my interest too. It revitalises interest in the franchise..JUST for the control possibilities. Wii only!

     

    However, I do worry about the sales of these games more than anything. If we can pick up vast amounts of cheap consoles/second hand games in Gamestation for less than the "NEW!" Wiimake then the idea will become redundant. Bully is £12 in Gamestation at the moment...Will the wiimake justify me forking out double that price? I think Resi 4 got it spot on. Add wiimote functionality add some other whistles and bells and make it cheap as chips. I bought Scarface last week for £24 in ASDA and I don't mind paying that at all. It's almost an impulse buy. It was right next to the XBOX version too which was £20. So £4 for additional, NEW controls and some slight graphical tweaking? Count-me-in.

     

    The more the merrier really. As long as it doesn't become a trend setter or a means for publishers to see if original content will or will not sell on Wii, I'm more than happy. And yes, The Godfather feels absolutely perfect. If any of you are in the position of not playing this then please play it on Wii. The controls are well worth the remake.


  6. I agree that reading an old magazine can have wonderful sentiments. The previewing and consequently reviewing of old games is insightful to look into with the pleasure of hindsight. Seeing beta shots can also be interesting when you've finished the game and seen everything on offer. Looking back at magazines circa 1990 can even give humorous insights into Sega/Nintendo relations...Always a merry situation in the face of the present. It's nice how I can pick up a magazine from 1997 and see the NEW! 3D Zelda on the N64 and read the buzz surrounding the title. But will we get this with the internet...? I think it's like a HTML graveyard sometimes. We see news pasted, chopped, copied and passed around, digested and then deleted. On paper it's cemented on paper, inked forever. It seems better to savour literature on the bed of a spine, almost intrinsic, natural. If we are to see lightweight, bendable PDF, DOC readers in the future with uploadable content, I hope we have some kind of iPod feature in which we can stock thousands of articles. Maybe then writing will be treasured and those NEW! 3D Zelda titles can once again be oggled over.:love:


  7. Well, nRevolution has piqued my interest actually. I had a brief encounter with the contents of a recent issue and found it to be quite unique. Unique in the mannerism of page layout and almost cartoon, comic-style layout. May have to give this a try come the next issue. It will be interesting to see if this price point forces the hands of the other magazines.


  8. I don't know what to think of Dave Perry anymore. He was a highly respected individual in the 90's with his productions of Gamesworld and Shiny entertainments output. And he helped develop 'animotion' in titles like Cool Spot, Aladdin and finally Earthworm Jim. Yet his sheer arrogance for himself and towards other games developers means he is a deeply flawed individual. As someone who also took a complete hissy fit on Gamesmaster when falling from the snow slide on Mario 64's Cool, Cool mountain - I lost all respect for him. The old developed games were indeed good; and as a motivator and spokesperson for games, he is, no-doubt talented. Yet as an individual he states things which are so devoid of truths that it scares me to think that he is a success in the industry. He is a dinosaur yet as a developer he sticks only to where the 'most power' is. Whether that be the Megadrive, the PS1 or the XBOX360 or by using his business sense to make the Matrix trilogy. You've got talent Dave and by making your sweeping statements it seems your still as arrogant as ever.


  9. Having played SMG yesterday on my Wii through said cable I can confirm "YES" it looks fabulous. Of course, I'm only being utterly sarcastic here and can only say...it will look better than anything else currently occupying your Wii regardless of what cable you use. Composite FTW!


  10. After reading the interesting Martin Mathers interview here on the site I was dewy-eyed remembering how much money I used to spend on games magazines. (And Mathers Virtua Cop failure on TV). Still to this day I've got them all in the loft. Over 200. These days I rarely buy magazines. The internet is indeed partly to blame with fast-access, varying material and the almost "personalised" experience offered. But the social aspect a magazine offers, such as discussing screenshots on your old school desk obviously doesn't happen with adults so it's a tough area to look at as lots of games magazines seem to be aimed at a teen crowd (Possibly apart from EDGE) plus I'm older now! But there are times I still buy a magazine (usually NGamer or EDGE) if only to reaquaint with old "friends" and to once again enter that childlike, comfortable world of a games magazine (almost akin to picking up a Beano whilst eating the free drumstick lolly). It's easy for magazine editors to blame the internet for the decline of the paper industry yet they rarely do, like Mathers. They have a responsibility for their industry afterall. Yet I still feel there is a deeper, underlying issue at hand.

     

    The price of magazines are incredibly steep in relation to what the new-fangled interweb offers. The pricing now seems archaic. Would you rather spend £5 on a magazine or log onto N-Europe etc as part of a £15/£20 monthy Broadband connection? Do you get more enjoyment for your £5 or from checking the web whenever you want?

    Maybe £2.50-3 would mean an 'instant' buy or subscription to many. Obviously staff need to be paid and printing costs, travel expenses to fund. Yet I still feel that a lower price point would increase sales. Magazines need to do something unique as Mathers said. And why don't they just try a price point lower than usual? Try a cheaper, fortnightly magazine perhaps. There are many avenues and ideas to be tried yet publishers probably don't want to risk what they currently hold (a small percentage of gamers interest in relation to the internet). Why can't I pay £2-3 every month to get "the thoughts of...(insert journalist here)" sent to my Wii? Something unique has to happen and bringing back something like FoSoYa (uniqueness) may not be enough afterall.

     

    I recollect that thousands of UK N64 gamers bought N64 magazine and that was partly because of the poor competition. Plus the market wasn't exactly (and still isn't) saturated. However, the magazine was prolifically well written (justifying staff wages) and they were constant with their review standards/scores. (Which, unfortunately a magazine seems to live or die by). It's easy to see that N64 magazine was popular in its day by the readership amount. With comments such as Clayfighter 63 1/3 (N64) getting 24%: and being described as being "as painful as having red hot needles shoved into your eyes"; the magagine was independant and not scared to print what they wanted. This honesty and British humour hit a chord with the readership. Many magazines can seem too series now (An arena EDGE has, commendably and professionally covered for years now.) Even NGamer doesn't seem to contain the same "fun" as the old N64 team. Or when it does it's almost cringe-worthy. Maybe I'm being too critical. But when they have tried to recapture past glory by recycling staff members :nono: it smacks of ideas running out.

     

    So what is the answer? I honestly think the answer lies with (as Mathers states) MORE quality, unique writing. More unique content and using the readership to its full capacity. Get the readers involved as much as possible. I obviously can't increase the magazine sales alone and what I've posted are only my feelings on the issue....How can magazines be as popular as they used to be? Or, with the internet is that now impossible? How can games magazines become a stable, profitable, successful business avenue again? Do we need to rely on the NGJ (new games journalism) technique of writing more? Is the core cycle of reveal/preview/review tiring fast? The future of journalism is 'now'. We buy the magazines, we are the interested. Why do we buy gaming publications? Or do you buy them at all anymore? If not, why not?

    Personally, I would love to write for any gaming publication...So I guess I'll have to keep on trying to be unique too, like all of us here. Writing about what we hold dear.

     

    Rant over....

     

    Connection closed.:wink:


  11. Slightly off topic:

     

    After playing ISS to death on the N64 and playing ISS 2000 every now and then to this day, I was REALLY looking forward to ISS2 on the GC.

    It was sluggish in comparison to ISS 2000 but therein lay its purity. It was the thinking mans game. I wasn't used to that...it scared me as I feared Konami had ruined ISS...Eventually we all knew about KCEO and KCET merging and Pro Evo becoming Konamis standard. But ISS2 left a mark on me. The stadiums were good, the game had a charm to it and 2 player was always great fun. The shaky cam goal-frame still stands out to me as something unique and the (bump mapped?) pitch, and distance blur blew all my mates away when it came out.

     

    I was devastated by ISS3 but it still had some elements which I enjoyed. I adore the music from the edit mode in ISS3 to this day..(bizarre I know). But it's just Pro Evo now...1,2,3,4,5,6,7. And therein lies the biggest shame..No more arcade ISS. ISS on the N64 and ISS2 will always be special to me.

     

     

    TOP THREE ON GC (which means they changed gaming in their generation):

     

    Animal Crossing - So unique it hurt, with added NES!

     

    Wind Waker - Disney must have sh** themselves. Showed Nintendo for what they are. True innovators and never afraid to change anything.

     

    Smash Bros Melee - Best value for money, and use of IP's ever!


  12. I've been getting into Beyond Good & Evil again...This just HAS to be played. What a beautiful game it still is. I even like the stealth sections due to the domz wierd robot thing which shoots out its red rays and scans...It's fabulous and the juxtaposition of using modern technologies against the simple ethos of truth, family and home is a heavy emotional tag. There is some masterclass designs going on there. Sheer wonder. The beauty and scope of the underlying mystery into what is going on and the way in which you are moving the journo-type story onwards is still refreshing. The controls aren't anything special but they do a good job and never feel counter-inituitive. Wow, I'm ranting. Just play this game people. Play it again and talk about it here! Carlson and Petersoon out!!


  13. Boobah scare the sh** out of me. They are like alienz or sommat lol. Imagine the meeting in which Boobah were created...There must have been some class A material on the table right there. Pure freaky. But wickedly insane drug enduced website right there. If there had been something like that in 1960 the drugs wouldn't have been needed. All I'm saying is that a dark room and that Boobah website could kill a man.


  14. If you have one why don't you get some gaming like GBA emulation on it, or even play some megadrive on it? Calling and texting...Aint that what a phone's for too lol? I understand your stated gripes in the face of the iPhone but with N73's firmware updatable online, you can just upgrade it yourself, put some cracking apps on it like tomtom, guitar tuners, ebook readers, smartmovie, youtube player etc..And realise that symbian software has had one hell of a start on the iphone. For about 200 notes less lol. Only thing you can't make it is touch screen.. :o


  15. It depends on what genres you are into...

     

    Any of the mario platormers series and your looking at grade-A quality. Especially Yoshi's Island, mario All-Stars and then Mario Kart. Any of the street fighter games (super street fighter 2 or street fighter alpha 2 (if you find it) are good.) There are also Mortal Kombat games like MK3 there too. Handy.

     

    There are so many RPG's on the system, yet if you like Final Fantasy pick any of them up --Or even better Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana.

    There is then Zelda for the SNES which is 'still' astounding and considered to be the pinnacle of the series.

     

    If you like EA they have a massive back catalogue of sports games like FIFA, MADDEN, NHL which are all pretty good. They then had other great games like Desert/Jungle strike series. Konami also released ISS on the SNES and there are various PGA games (not too shabby neither).

     

    Some other notable mentaions are games such as uniracers, zombies ate my neighbours, Starwing, the Donkey Kong Country Series, NBA Jam series, Earthworm Jim games, R-Type games and finally Doom. There are also hundreds of movie tie-ins which can vary in quality but some are quite good. Your best bet is Disney based licences like Lion King, Jungle Book, Aladdin. Which brings my rant to a close. Happy hunting - The SNES is a beast of a machine. And Im sure I've missed many, many more classics out.


  16. In relation to comments previously stated about the N73 being poor there is now firmware for the phone which makes it incredibly stable and thus making crashes a thing of the past. The flashing blue light can also be disabled by not having the phone on sleep mode (which doesn't really make a difference to battery power)...Other than that, put the phone face down - - The joystick control makes the screen stay clear of surfaces.

     

    I'm loving my N73, with a 2gig mem card in it including over 200 songs, series one of family guy on it with various movies on it too. I've also got a megadrive, SNES and GBA emuator running sweetly on it too. Resulting in my N73 being a fine piece of phonage with gaming leaking out of it everywhere. The screen is also perfect for all the above. If anyone wants proof of this just ask, I'll post some pics. It's a great phone now the new firmware is out, and due to the symbian and java platforms being heavily supported by many developers, there are always new apps, games available.


  17. Ok, this is killing me. I've not got the best laptop admittedly but it's tuned to its best. I've recently been having major problems with the speed of my laptop when I start to run the internet. Only Opera (my browser) gets crucified. Everything else runs as smooth as butter but the internet takes an AGE to load and then crashes between pages before loading again. I have 2 laptops running Opera and the other one is A-OK. It's not my internet in other words. I uninstalled Opera and re-installed it and the problem remained. I tried going online via IE7..Same thing. I'm totally lost. I even ran a registry check/booster and it corrected things and it still remained the same. Right now I'm typing and it doesn't appear on the screen but then all of a sudden (when the fan stops running on the laptop) the text all appears as if it crashed momentarily. I ran virus checks (AVG) and nothing was found. Here is a pic of the CPU usage when I run the internet. As I said, it's not RAM or anything related as everything else runs fine. Any ideas? Am I missing something here?


  18. I still see the chance for 99% of Nintendo games to sell well. The place where Nintendo could make more money and become ultimately at one with the hardcore and casual crowd is with Wiiware. We could see titles such as a "NEW!" Mario World or "NEW!" Excitebike...Things which wouldn't look out of place in the SNES or N64 era but are cheap downloads. If Wiiware is done right Nintendo could be doubling their current profit. And so too could other developers with the correct software.

    If Nintendo developed a new Zelda on the engine of Ocarina Of Time would it sell? Would it's franchise roots make the graphics redundant? Is a good game really still a good game regardless of graphics? Would it shake up the industry and create new playing fields? I'd love to see Wiiware and VC as one, with new games with graphics ranging from NES, SNES and the N64. The money to be made there could be vast...tapping into the hardcore crowd promising new mega drive games for god sake! Imagine a Sonic game on Wiiware in the style of Sonic on the megadrive...Would this really be a bad thing...Would it be moving backwards? I really hope Nintendo don't licence the roof out of Wiiware. We will see soon enough but if done correctly, Wiiware could break all boundaries - Merging old with new. This is what I would like to see. With the history of IP's Nintendo have, they are in the best position to develop this idea. Am I alone on my retro-becoming-present love? Should the past just be left in the past? Has the VC proven that people's affination for an old title is a marketable venue? Should Nintendo leave it there? So many questions as ever!!!

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