James McGeachie

It does sound like bullshit, unless it was because they really wanted the games to sell more or something. Never the less then I guess it's possible that decision was made after those key staff left, but I dunno. Maybe they had some kind of contractual obligation to release another Metroid title on Wii in some form or something.

No, because I'm talking about the kind of people who've fucking hated the games and not really played any of them for the last 6+ years as they're long since past the point of tolerating Sega's bullshit. Then of course the obvious point is "well they'd hate the game anyway" but some of the people in question ARE hyped for Colours, Sonic 4 was just genuinely too bad for them to like. I played the whole game and although I "enjoyed" it, I can easily admit the game is a fucking mess compared to what you'd expect for a glorious continuation of the classic games. The physics are just not fucking right at all. This video is from the final build. The big issue too is the game was by Dimps who've made every 2D Sonic game since Sonic Pocket Adventure. Somehow, despite all those years of experience, they still couldn't deliver decent physics, despite there being little to no physics issues in the handheld games.

Can you honestly blame them when you've done nothing but make Metroid games for like 6+ years and then Nintendo are all "yeah we want you to port 1 and 2 to Wii now too".

Or...if you dont mind the shame of doing it... Repeatedly pause and unpause to adjust your trajectory so you never hit the goal barrier things.

Seriously? Do people not realise that, just like Sonic 2, if you make Robotnik drop at the far side of one room, then run to the other side, none of his projectiles can actually reach you?

Within casual gamers and about half the gaming press, yes, possibly. But most core gamers have had plenty of issues with Sonic 4. I've seen many Sonic fans find the physics completely unforgivable to a point where they see the game as being as bad as Sonic 2k6.

Some of the early 360 games have poor achievements, or at least poorly balanced. The main example I can think of is the original Geometry Wars. You can do a ton of awesome stuff in the game, be good enough to get every achievement in GW2, yet end up with barely any points whatsoever for the first game. All the later achievements carry the most points and a shitload of them would come all at once basically.

Well it's a heavily story based game clearly and we're watching a trailer entirely in Japanese with no subtitles. It's not entirely surprising the game's main points of interest aren't coming through to us due to that. Yes though, it is unfortunate that the game has quite a "dull" palette as that never plays to the Wii's strengths, but the engine itself is at least pretty impressive.

Blasted through the whole game + emeralds in one sitting tonight. Err...I enjoyed it more than I didn't. There's many bullshit design choices throughout and most of the levels are completely soulless...but there were enough moments that felt fun and impressive to warrant playing it. All of Mad Gear Zone was good, act 2 of casino street is great, lost labyrinth 1 has some nice parts. I dont think I or most people can forgive the physics still being shite though. I really genuinely dont understand Sega. In the old games, if you're flying off into an unknown space, you can kind of let the momentum carry you to where you're probably "supposed" to land, when you cant actually see where you're going. In Sonic 4 it's almost always impossible to judge what kind of speed you're meant to be flying through the air at from most ramps, the only thing that felt natural to do was try and propel myself as far as possible and "hope for the best". I don't fucking understand why you cant spindash up some surfaces too but like run really slowly standing and make it around them fine. I really dont get why Sega just completely ignored that stuff.

So did Nintendo license out the Galaxy engine or is this just one of those rare examples of a developer that actually puts in effort? Well, early in the trailer has a huge Galaxy vibe is what I mean basically.

I am fairly positive that Nintendo could sell it (and still make a very comfortable profit) at a noticibly lower price. Noticeably lower enough anyway to change the general perception that the launch price is currently quite expensive. I don't have strong evidence of this hardware cost wise I admit, but I don't see any reason why they'd have changed their business approach now. They certainly overpriced the Wii significantly, with the intention of making a large profit margin on old technology by heavily marketing its new features. It basically paid off for them, so I expect they want to take the same approach with 3DS (which I'm aware has far more impressive technology for its time than the Wii, but is likely still pretty conservative when it comes to hardware costs for the guts of the machine). I do think too that in 2010, many people's attitude (at least where I'm from) to buying something "expensive" is different than it was in 2004 or 2006 due to being in a tighter financial situation. I think older gamers especially are less likely to buy something expensive now than in the past. This is probably going to give Nintendo difficulties in recapturing its "expanded audience" again. At this price level so far it's mainly going to cater to hardcore gamers who'll pay any price for the system and those among the casual crowd who have a decent chunk of cash to spare. If Nintendo really want massive sales at this kind of price point then they're going to need one hell of a marketing campaign. Considering that they can't actually show the 3D effect in most ads without some kind of Reggie-face-being-burnt-off gimmick, this is going to be seriously difficult. I hope they've got strong plans lined up to get real 3D adverts in cinemas before virtually every family or teen oriented 3D movie in the near future. They really need to build hype as early as possible.

It's fucking amazing that after spending months to refine the game, because people complained it was slow and buggy and full of flaws, it turns out it's still at the very least slow and buggy in many people's opinion.

The front page story about Japanese gamers not liking the 3DS price is interesting. Maybe Nintendo will realise they cant get away with setting ridiculously high profit margins this time.

Never. They'd rather forcefully make sure people need to own both systems to play the entire back catalogue.

The general aesthetics make me think more of F-zero than Wipeout honestly, at least the track design. I just hope it can even capture like a tenth of the quality of GX in terms of overall production values (quality of track design, soundtrack, intensity, difficulty) Of course that's an unrealistic expectation right from the get go. I seriously want another game like GX. it's one of the best racers I've played. It's an exhilarating game.

So they can make money out of Super Mario Allstars again?

Wow that looks fucking boring

^Remember the whole idea was that episode 1 was basically created as a nostalgia fest to get people back into playing a 2D Sonic game on console, then episodes 2 and 3 would be the ones trying to be more diverse. I forget where this was mentioned but it was very early on. Also, the Sonic 1 boss at least changes his attack pattern as it goes on right? I dunno if maybe you killed him too quickly to notice. I think that's the theme of all the bosses "Like you remember, but with a twist".

Established as in, Nintendo actually said this?

Someone fucking tell them to tone down the HUD, seriously. I am not playing the game with that shit all over the screen.

If this came to the west that would be ace! This is really the only Tales game other than Symphonia I genuinely wanted to play.

Right, which wasn't gameplay. I'm surprised anyone would make any expectations of a system's power based on one third party video. Anyway, watched the full video now. It's funny how unbelievably inconsistent it it. Like, one second Resident Evil is running, displaying amazing technical effects and running smoothly, then next there's some awful dynasty warriors esque game looking like early ps2 era running at a bad framerate. A lot of these games scream "lazy third party launch titles rushed out the door". Honestly Capcom look like the only people other than Nintendo that are putting in any effort just now. I'm especially disappointed with say, Ridge Racer, which looks like shit and seems to run like shit too. Well I guess Dead or Alive is okay too...and Metal Gear honestly but surely there's only so much you can fuck up a port (even if replacing visual assets).

Assuming the specs had truth to them, then you could put it roughly around "PS2 level" in terms of processing power, but with more modern lighting, bump-mapping,etc capabilities and the like due to the feature set of the GPU (the one that was talked about earlier in the thread I believe). Due to the 3D effect requiring each screen to be rendered twice though (I think?) it'll be harder for developers to really utilise the full power of the system. I think though that's why the first party games are mostly basic. I think Nintendo probably urged caution on their teams to remember that they want to make sure all the early 3D games are running as smoothly as possible and not to take too many risks visuals wise.

This is nothing we didn't see when the system was announced. All the screens are of the same games looking virtually the same. What is shocking you? We already (probably) know the system specs (very likely to be true at least) and it is significantly more powerful than the DS. It can, without question, do much more than the DS. But here's some things to think about: two of the games shown here are ports, another game has the "Wii sports" deliberately basic style, animal crossing always looks the same (even on Gamecube) and Paper Mario also sticks to that style. That leaves us with Mario Kart, Kid Icarus, Nintendogs...and well Steel Diver. The first 3 are the best looking ones on the site, we've seen Kid Icarus in motion and know it looks good. Mario Kart looks similar to the Wii version and will likely run at 60fps even with 3D effects. Nintendogs is basic in style, but no one can deny the fur shading is nice. Steel Diver is too much of an unknown to really comment. Anyway for the record, most of the screens there have been there the entire time. For example, there are no new screens up there of Mario Kart, the same ones since the reveal.

The price is a shocker considering this is meant to be part 1 of 3, each with 4 zones each. 1200 for the whole game would be nice. 1200 for one part (suggesting 3600 in total) is not so nice. I wonder if Sega originally had an 800 mspoint price in mind but the added development time has made them push the price up to recuperate the extra cost. 1500 for the Wiiware version is completely laughable. Turns out standard definition costs more these days!