James McGeachie

This looks very different to traditional Zelda to me. Some people are saying "samey". The only thing samey is the level themes and if you seriously think Nintendo are going to avoid having fire dungeons, etc then I dunno what planet you live on. Everything else shows a shift in focus. The combat seems to be deeper and very sword slash focused, puzzles seem to have a very definite motion focus (like rotating the cube) which shows evidence that we can expect many new types of Zelda puzzle as opposed to the traditional types. Overall it seems like we can expect a slower experience from the game, with more time spent in immersive situations requiring focus and less running around slashing like a madman. That makes logical sense though. By making the game far more motion oriented, it makes sense they wouldn't want you flailing your arms endlessly, so there'll be a lower quantity of combat, but it'll take far more skill.

So I played the 3DS. Quick goes on: -Pilotwings Resort -SSFIV -Resident Evil -Kid Icarus -AR target game -Zelda -Ridge Racer -Asphault -Lego Star Wars Basic impressions is that the 3D effect works well definitely, but I'm positive I'd definitely have eye strain if I played it too long, it took some getting used to and it does feel like an "exercise" to watch it happening. Best game to employ it that I saw was err...probably Kid Icarus. I only had very quick shots of things, but it worked great in that game. Second place from what I saw would actually go to lego star wars probably! The laser fire looked really nice in that. PilotWings was fairly nice too. Driving games didn't seem very enhanced to me but it's possibly because Asphault was pretty ass and RR didn't blow me away either. Resident Evil is a great looking game and seems like it'll play very well but the 3D didn't seem like it was doing a huge amount. Same goes for Zelda in terms of 3D, it didn't strike me as special right away. Street Fighter was good and the depth was nice, though somehow the controls felt a bit awkward. The AR game is great, though seems a bit glitchy. It's certainly a spectacle though watching things happen to the scenery. Anyway my general impression is that the system does "exactly what it says on the tin" in terms of a great 3D effect on a handheld screen, but I admit I don't know if I was blown away "enough" by it for it to stand up as the main reason to own the handheld. I need to see genuinely great games on it. EDIT: Oh yeah, totally forgot, also played Monkey Ball! It was actually fucking gorgeous, amazingly smooth and some of the 3D effects were beautiful. No idea about if the gameplay stands up compared to others though (havent played them).

Just for the record the tour times from earlier in the thread have changed now (which is shite as it means I probably cant make it after all as I was going to go today!) http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/23722/news/nintendo-3ds-uk-tour-dates-confirmed-updated/

The game will never live up to the emotional promise of the trailer. It just blew its load at square one.

That one would have an issue with err...forwards compatibility. Note how many full retail games were DSi exclusive....wasn't many was it? In fact, was it any, at all? That's because developers obviously didn't want to alienate people with DS phats/DS Lites. If there was a second analogue, developers would WANT to put it to full use and design games around it. Now obviously I guess they could just advertise that as an "exclusive feature" to a revision and have a gimped touchscreen control alternative for people with the regular system, but I'm willing to bet that would mean less effort would go into making the touch screen mode any good and hence the games on the revision would be far superior. To be honest after typing this though I realise this doesn't really hold up as a good reason for why they wouldn't include a second analogue in a revision as from a corporate perspective what I said may be seen as positive, but it is something that would at least be taken into consideration.

With the system's power I'm glad the screen isn't any bigger, it's about as big as it can be without the resolution looking like shit on it and I'd rather it was pushing more detail in games than doing a slightly greater resolution. I get the feeling due to the tech screen size is probably relative to price more so than usual so perhaps if we were talking an inch bigger overall, we could be knocking a good bit more onto the price.

Don't particularly like the screenshot and also don't see the purpose of this. Cave story is defined by its visual style. It's like making a non cel-shaded Wind Waker remake or something.

If you don't instantly see Duke Nukem Forever and think "I want to own this because it's Duke Nukem Forever" then you're probably never going to get why anyone wants it and probably wont ever have a reason to buy it. I expect virtually no hardcore gamer is buying this simply because of the trailers. Just seeing this on my shelf is going to make me feel like im part of some legendary time to be alive.

Thanks for the location, although I am still a little curious about time, which is not on the link either. :| Based on previous events...is it all day? Like, 9-5 roughly?

Just saw the event list on the main page...but like...a city name on its own is absolutely no use? I could head to Edinburgh but uh...where? How do you get the exact specific location?

Yeah that's what I go by. Gannondorf cutscene is the "turning point".

There have already been more shipments and people need to stop making excuses like this every time any game doesn't sell.

Im very stingy and save cash strictly for other things, but I feel a massive desire to pay shitloads of money for this game.

^You can't honestly believe that's all the hardcore gamers that own a Wii that would play RPG's. It's the same scenario as the DS. If, on the DS, something like a port of an old hardcore RPG like Dragon Quest comes out, it sells a shitton. If a new RPG IP comes out that's high quality with great staff and a good concept, it sells like shit. The hardcore gamers on both systems are there, they just have a massive apathy towards new IP's.

In a game with 9 dungeons I'd expect the 4th one was considered first half.

Well the image is rather obviously a blatant mock up from even a moment's glance, kind of overflowing with CG there. Obviously it could potentially be a mock up of something that actually will exist i guess

01. / 00. [NDS] Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2 (Capcom) {2011.02.03} - 132.266 / NEW 02. / 00. [PSP] Macross: Triangle Frontier (Bandai Namco) {2011.02.03} - 55.513 / NEW 03. / 00. [PSP] White Knight Chronicles Episode Portable: Dogma Wars (SCE) {2011.02.03} - 40.603 / NEW 04. / 00. [NDS] Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butouden (Bandai Namco) {2011.02.03} - 31.108 / NEW 05. / 04. [PSP] Kenka Bancho 5: Laws of Manhood (Spike) {2011.01.27} - 28.000 / 86.978 (-53%) 06. / 07. [PSP] Monster Hunter Freedom 3 (Capcom) {2010.12.01} - 27.861 / 4.156.138 (-16%) 07. / 01. [WII] The Last Story (Nintendo) {2011.01.27} - 19.178 / 133.900 (-83%) 08. / 02. [PSP] Valkyria Chronicles 3 (Sega) {2011.01.27} - 17.927 / 120.705 (-83%) 09. / 10. [WII] Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo) {2010.12.09} - 16.493 / 790.386 (-14%) 10. / 03. [PSP] My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute Portable (Bandai Namco) {2011.01.27} - 11.721 / 100.214 (-87%) Disappointing.

Ehhh, okay fine, good composer, but having such a consistent trilogy in every other way then changing composer at the last minute seems kind of stupid. I really hope this wont cause a drastic change in atmosphere, it was identical between the first 2. Like...a change in the galaxy map music is a big risk in itself! Christ that virtually IS Mass Effect, so any replacement better capture the right tone.

I'd completely disagree there. The first 4 dungeons are all well designed and very consistent, each all feeling up to a good standard and polished, the 4th one probably the best in the game. From 5 onwards, the game is very inconsistent. 5 is a great dungeon, 6 is okay but the first sign of "weakness" as it's fairly short and very linear, 7 is pretty good, 8 and 9 barely exist. I'm not sure where anyone could draw "much better" from the second half, unless you're solely looking at 5 and 7, which I'd say are "on par" with the first half...

The only issue there is that OoT then spreads out into a huge world with many different things to do in it. Although im sure there's a good bit more to do in the full Pilotwings Resort, I do think it is probably all on the same island.

Heard a rumour week 2 sales were way down (something more like 20,000). Not sure if it's true. Not surprised if it is. I'd actually be interested in seeing how much the drop in sales this week compares respectively to the drops of the other new games out the same week.

Everyone knows the visual quality of games will improve. I think the issue though is the low quantity of launch games that "stand out" visually despite the machine's power being touted. Is anything even close to Resident Evil? The fighters like SFIV and DOA are pretty much the next best thing. Also, not a single first party game is doing anything particularly impressive. Yes, Nintendogs has a nice fur effect. So did Starfox Adventures and it had good environments to go with it. On Nintendo's side I think the problem is that they're playing it safe in terms of making sure the game runs just as well in 3D as it does in 2D. Third party developers are more willing to have the trade-off, use 2D mode for higher framerates and better visuals, but Nintendo aren't likely to want many people to think "Oh I better turn the game to 2D so it runs better" since they're REALLY pushing the 3D. I do wish the machine was more powerful though, simply so this trade off was pretty much a non-issue. The other annoying thing visually though is some third parties once again seem to put a lot less effort in than they did for the PSP launch, e.g. Namco with Ridge Racer.

Since this is in Wii discussion, I'll mention that the Pirate Storm level in Sonic and the Secret Rings done violent, stormy water pretty well. I havent played it but I'm hoping the water level in Sonic Colours had good water too? To be honest water has different pluses and minuses in different games. Some games get the reflections spot on, others have better wave physics, etc. As far as Nintendo games go, Sunshine still probably has the best balance of everything I think, but seeing as it's entirely about water, you'd like to hope it got something right.

Looks like yet another try of "let's try and do everything the Western developers are in this genre so we can sell more"

When I watched the town gameplay, I started thinking of it kind of like a Japanese Mass Effect and I'm glad to see that isn't entirely off the track. Really hope this is localised. Funny how it's compared to Xenoblade in that preview...and both games have a very small chance of ever coming near here.