James McGeachie

Yeah in the captains quarter of your ship after a few loading times. In the first game it was done in menus whenever you wanted I think.

I could say the same for most 3DS games of interest we're seeing so far. I don't think games like Resident Evil Revelations are a particularly handheld focused experience. Of course the thing with Vita too is...it streams direct to TV anyway I believe, so it's not a case of having to play it on the "small" screen, you can have it on TV anyway. Well as far as I'm aware that's an option. At what point does a game reach the point where people would rather play it on TV than handheld anyway? Is this more due to the gameplay type suiting a cinematic experience, or because it seems "spoiled" on handheld when it may as well be a full blown HD experience on TV?

I was wondering if there were other level types other than the Super Stardust style planetoid levels, good to see there's a Starfox-esque perspective as well. Not sure about the game all being about a microscopic virus theme though, sounds like it might be dull in terms of level design variety. Also, seems like there wont be any scrolling horizontal or vertical shooter stages, which is a shame, but I guess Shin'en want a break from that. I really want to hold this and see the 3D though, I'm sure this does look astounding. I think that preview to be honest probably covers pretty much all the content in the game in terms of what the guy says...I have a feeling I wouldn't pay full price for this. I've owned 2 of their previous titles and they're probably worth like £15 tops.

I have to say, the region free thing has in many ways made this console infinitely more desirable to me than a 3DS. It's like I could buy this, for the same price, have access to the massive catalogue of PSP titles I missed (via PSN) and the potential for outstanding games in the future (and undoubtedly massive support from Japanese developers if the PSP's success is anything to go by). If it was just that and both were region free though, I'd partly still swing to Nintendo out of pure fanboyism, but the fact that I could play games from anywhere on the Vita and would be limited to Europe on the 3DS...well that just really seals the deal. Well, that and multi-touch. Thanks for innovating touch screen gaming Nintendo and then insisting on keeping the technology at square one forever! Honestly, at this point, Sony kind of deserve to take the handheld market. Unless the software on this turns out to be a complete failure...somehow.

Honestly, for the casual crowd I think what they've done with MK is a good idea. The same goes for the Wii. For me, not so much and my comments relate solely to my desires as a gamer and some other people I know's desires as gamers. I'm not an entirely selfish man, but I do believe Nintendo leans a bit too heavily to satisfying the casual gamers with new entries into most franchises now. Anyway, you can say skill still wins in the end, but it's only slightly true. If you get blue shelled to fuck, then you can lose out of pure unluckyness in MKWii often enough, unless you're playing against people who're so shit that they're WAY behind.

Yeah yeah I've heard this before. Supposedly regularly beating snakers without snaking (which I'll assume is bullshit by default by the way, unless you can give me videos of it happening multiple times). Snaking wasn't some illegitimate tactic, it's simply being really good at using the mechanics of the game. Anyway, why does not having it bother me? If you've played Mario Kart DS repeatedly online with high level players who were able to snake around the entire course, then when you dont have that option it does feel like you're playing a far less competitive and intense experience. I'm sorry, but that's just reality. However, the issue isn't as simple as "snaking gone = bad". It's more that there's no alternative scope for improvement. Without snaking, you reach a peak pretty quickly. What I did want to see for new MK was more focus though on high level racing in the game and LESS of the focus they were taking in MKWii, aka the "anyone can compete with a veteran" idea...which basically involves MORE blue shells, MORE rubberbanding in singleplayer, less difficult track design (wide as hell), etc. When the tracks have easy corners which only take a few goes to master the right drift around and the straight sections just involve driving in a straight line and hoping for a good item and hoping for the miracle that you wont get hit by 2 blue shells if you're in first, then there's just far less scope for improvement.

I'm not going to be excited by this game until I see someone actually any fucking good at all playing it. Just now it's looking like it has even less room for competitive racing than MKWii, which suffered (for me and the other hardcore players I know) due to the removal of snaking. I'm hoping the boost system isn't even more gimped this time around. The game seems to be missing things which added a tiny bit of skill into MKWii (using wheelies on motorbikes at opportune times, timing tricks in the air to get as many boosts as possible) so I'm a bit worried it's going to feel extremely stale for anyone who's tried to become really good at the games. There doesn't seem to be much room for high level competition so far.

Audio

Quick reminder here that IGN is just a site name and that those sections all have entirely different staff... The current IGN Nintendo team seem kind of shit, they lost all the long-term staff over the course of the last few years.

1. Wii U reveal. 2. Luigi's Mansion 2 reveal. 3. Announcement that many third parties are onboard to bring their multiplatform titles to Wii U...properly.

Something to keep in mind about Nintendo and visual impact. They have not had any experience with programming for consoles with anywhere near this much power yet. So they literally have years of experience to catch up on. To be honest if this was made solely by NoJ, it's definitely not bad for a first attempt, but obviously we can expect far more polished games come launch.

You know I assume it's partly for 60fps and good 3D effects but I wish this game didnt visually look like a texture filtered version of MKDS. I'm aware that Mario Kart is a completely different type of game and requires a completely different type of engine...BUT you cant look at Resident Evil, then this, and wonder if Nintendo couldnt be trying a BIT harder. The gimmicks in the trailer are okay, I like driving directly underwater. It is like Diddy Kong Racing but seamlessly merged together. It just would be great if it had a strong sense of visual polish so I cold genuinely say "Game looks great".

I do like the look of this. I've played a 3D demo of it before and the 3D effect was great. Somehow the new trailer made the game as a whole look more robust too.

Hey, a game that doesn't have to just be in Other Consoles! This will be a refreshing trend for the future...as long as it lasts.

Anyone been wondering about this issue... Exactly what games are going to be playable on JUST the controller screen...when HALF THE APPEAL OF THE CONSOLE IS THE GAMEPLAY FROM CONTROLLER + TV? This is a big issue to me. It's another annoying Nintendo contradiction, where they tout one feature, but it actually detracts from something else about the system. Like the 3D effect on 3DS hogging most of the system's power, stuff like that. Basically it's like only the core traditional games will be playable on just the controller, but that means that Nintendo first party ones will have to make a choice between utilising the controller fully, or just using it as a screen and nothing else.

I approve wholeheartedly of the existence of this, but is 3DS the best choice of system over say, Wii-U? I dunno, but hopefully it's good.

The game still doesn't excite me. I'll buy it, I'll play it, but the trailers are not creating any of the sort of hype the TP trailers did.

It'd be a disaster if they made huge cast changes now. It's already a bit worrying Jack Wall is gone for music. Clint Mansell is great, but replacing key staff for a finale always risks changing the atmosphere at a bad point in time. I still find Jack Wall's reason for stopping stupid too. Something like it being "time to move on". Who the hell bails out before doing a dramatic finale?

I'm starting to think we're all getting hyped up for another disaster by the way. Every year there's overhype for E3 and it never really, truly delivers, because we all demand the following: -TONS of massive news -TONS of new game footage of cool games -Very little shitty uninteresting stuff Reality, however, even on the best of years, tends to be: -TONS of shitty uninteresting stuff -Very little massive news -TONS of new game footage of shit games Now years like 2004, 2006 and 2010, years with a prominent piece of new technology, have been stand out years, definitely, so this should at least be up there...but like they all had a lot of boring shite in the conference as well, so I think it's best to scale the hype back a bit. I'm still expecting a conference that's something like 50% focused on Wii, DS, sales and expanded audience talk, then like 30% 3DS and like a small and unsatisfying amount of Project Cafe stuff, since technically we're not really even supposed to know the project exists yet, or not in Nintendo's plan anyway.

Well it's bound to still be something that has some kind of casual appeal even if the system is more "hardcore". Random guess: Nintendo Life. Tagline: GET A LIFE.

Fantastic, Shin'en always push the technology on every Nintendo system. Loving the embracement of bump mapping and stuff. We know the tech can do it better than Wii, so it's good to see developers actually give a shit about it.

Black Knight is wrong. Secret Rings isn't really wrong, it's just that it starts off gimped and you earn better (and awesome) controls. The game has a beautiful flow by the end if you customise yourself right,l with a great deal of strategy to be had in executing the perfect runs through levels with the right techniques. By the end you're running full speed basically the second you start a level for the record! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAWnAbi_Uis Here's an example. First few steps are slow, then suddenly, watch. It's just got the stupid design flaw of extending replayability by making you earn good controls. better video, for the record, not sped up, just using certain items. The colours are inverted though.

^Anyone who doesn't like the trailers like that isn't going to like the game! Duke Nukem represents all that stuff!

Think of everything else Sega had that year as well...it's probably not a huge amount of quality titles. Also, it was probably the biggest selling non-casual third party game on Wii full stop as well by probably a decent margin. I think it still sold less than Secret Rings though.

The complexity of JRPG's is unnecessary, I agree. But does anyone honestly think the stats and items system in the original was too complex? That it was too difficult to be able to equip specific ammo types to your weapons, as well as weapon specific upgrades, armour upgrades, etc? Now before ANYONE makes the obvious complaint, it would've been perfectly easy to have that and NOT have the nightmare-ish inventory management, which was ridiculously lacking. An important element of RPG's to me in general is customisation. Yes, it's about how you interact with the world around you and choose what to do, but it's also about the level of control you have over your own character. Okay, so we still have plenty in ME2, in terms of character classes and changing your looks, but the greater depth to how much you could customise your weapons, armour and stats in general was appealing to me in the original. I don't think it needed to be any deeper, but I do think it was a bit too shallow in ME2, mainly because it meant that there was fuck all in the way of "loot" to find other than money for the most part and you end up with far more than you could ever need. I would like the perfect middle ground in ME3. I'm just worried EA have delayed it for opposite reasons.