Jamba

Oh I'm sure there are those that aren't and a lot of the games you mentioned do innovate, I'm just in a place where I don't give a rats for the nostalgia anymore and as so much of Nintendo's selling point is based on that, I am quickly going off their games. I think most of the portrayal of those "elements" has been quite varied but the section I've bolded just has to change. I really enjoyed the DS Zeldas but this was the worst part, only really forgiven due to the limitations of the system.

I didn't say anything about bias towards Nintendo, I was talking about the type of games you play, which account for about half of the market on non-Nintendo platforms (i.e. fighting and sports, does this include the killing game you talked about?). I'll give you Wii Sports and Nintendogs, 2 of the small percentage of new IPs that Nintendo has made in the past 6 or 7 years. But compare that with the very large number of titles that hardly used the features of their console to any great extent and it is disproportionate. They rely heavily on established mechanics and tried and tested formula, using the IPs' reputation to allow it to sell. That's good for sales but gives me little reason to buy them. My favourite games on the DS are all 3rd party and my Wii got sold because I didn't want to play anything it had to offer accept for MG2. (P.S. Thanks about Rhythm Heaven btw, that's a happy surprise!)

Oh shut up. Your bias of your game preference has stopped you from actually thinking. Let's have a look at the Wii shall we: deBlob, Zack n Wiki, No More Heroes and Red Steel (less so here) all made a good effort and trying to achieve something a bit new with the hardware. Nintendo's games whilst good would have been just as good on another system. And the DS: Rhythm Heaven, Project Rub, Hotel Dusk, Another Code, Professor Layton, Trauma Centre and Scribblenauts are all 3rd party games that really use the features of the DS. And yes I do think that games like Assassins Creed (new for this generation) should be recognised for their innovations as they are a different experience, hell I'd put Uncharted in that category for sure. Echochrome, Braid, Portal and many more are examples of shiny new game design and mechanics that Nintendo isn't really willing to explore any more. Don't even get me started on gems like Crush on PSP... But as people have said, this isn't about innovation, it's about not getting bored of the same old shit. And frankly Nintendo is boring me right now and I'm getting sick of their incremental design updates to games where the franchise power alone would allow them to explore.

Ummmm Wii Sports, until recently had no competition in that sense. Also if we look outside of this generation then yes their software WAS more revolutionary. Mario 64 was one of the first 3D explorable worlds and OOT was an entire completely connected 3D world. Was the original Donkey Kong the first ever platformer? And can I just say that Metroid Prime is it's own genre. Nothing has tried to replicate it, unfortunately. But yeah recently I don't feel that their design has been coming on leaps and bounds apart from Mario Galaxy. 3rd parties have tried much harder in that respect.

I know.... wee need to get down to what Zelda is all about not replicate how we got there. For me it's curiosity, tricks, puzzles and the danger of combat. MM did that very well I thought and I got that feeling every time I hit a new isle in WW. Without the feeling of the unknown or a sense of danger it all feels a bit limp.

Ummm is there a problem with this? They are all really good games and they sell well Nintendo haven't exactly been being original lately bar Other M. Well said. 3rd parties need to be on multiple platforms to sell. Nintendo don't care enough about 3rd parties to put themselves there as they actually profit from their hardware. Oh and can I recommend that people actually watch the Bonus Round Episode that goes with this. Patcher's views are actually well balanced and have logic behind them.

I think that Zelda needs to have a bit of a cool off. It needs to be something different soon be it on a console or a handheld. I'm quite tired of the current feel and I'm pretty disappointed with where they have gone with SS. Maybe the handheld could be the place for something new. On a side note, who would love to control the Goron, Deku or Zora with tilt controls? I would!

Hey this is a REALLY cool set of concepts. Well done mate. Not to piss on your fire but I have met someone who used to work for Nintendo designing Pokemon. His name is Adi Granov and is now an artist for Marvel with his work including some of the more recent Xmen stuff and he is almost entirely responsible for the look of Iron Man in the comics pre-movie and in the movie itself. Now I talked to him about working at Nintendo and he said it was driving him insane. He said that he had to pretty much factory-farm pokemon designs. At the end of the day the owner (of GameFreaks I suppose) would bring his kid daughter around and she would pick the one (yes only one) that she like out of a whole bunch. He said it's one of the most soul destroying things ever.

I hope they dump the XMB. I hate everything about it and I still find it difficult to change the fucking settings on me PS3. Someone really needs to show them how to make a UI.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make. According to what you have said, you agree with me. And everyone here was talking about playing on N64....

I think that those "old" images are actually taken using an emulator. I don't think that the N64 could render the characters that well so the background would have blended with it more.

Being the cynical person that I am I just thought of a horrible possibility. Imagine the 3DS is not as successful as we all want. Nintendo could easily produce the equivalent of the micro by making a 2DS.

Looks pretty but I'm totally underwhelmed. So far there is nothing for me to get excited about. I like playing my console games on a tv and frankly that pose using the touch screen looks.painful.

Not necessarily edit the code. Maybe add some on though. Each layer of sprites in all of those games has an order just like they would in photoshop. It's just a case of assigning a z-depth to the layer. I honestly think that it will have very little effect until you get some parallaxing going on and I'm not sure even the better GB games have that.

Would be nice to have something different to the main game. They could REALLY cash in on the cards idea by combining it with an AR game. I'd love to see to scale versions of the pokemon in augmented reality with some nice animations. But as always... 3d with god knows how many is practically a NO straight up.

Thanks Retro, should be a good thread. I'm highly interested to see if this is worth spending money on this year...

Woah woah woah..... I take it they don't mean the system as it stands now?

Worst argument against a corporation ever. Nintendo have had a very hard line against cross-region selling for a long time. They were very forceful to retail especially companies like CeX and I'm surprised that Chips hasn't had it's hand smacked yet. I don't know the ins and outs myself but I know that the grey market created by that kind of activity has enough of an impact on companies for them to take major action against it. They don't just do it for laughs.

Can you get drunk on curiosity cola?

They have lots of parts but yeah... even for them this is a lot. I've lost count of what they are working on at the moment.

As happy as I am that the studio is getting lots of work, I have a feeling that this seems out of their comfort zone. Their skill has been mostly in their animation and humour from what I have played of their games. I don't know if a "serious" game fits them very well.

So this kicks ass. Another decent fighter hitting the 3DS. Apparently this is due out in spring in Japan and I really hope that it makes it to the West. For those who have played Calamity Trigger then you know how good this is going to be.

As much as I agree with you about OOT I think that Lylat Wars is looking a hell of a lot better not to mention will directly benefit from 3D. You should check out the latest videos.

Yeah can we get the title changed maybe? But I'm also with Moogle about the 90s thing. I think it's more about when you grew up. I don't think that there are many shows that people would watch out of the context of childhood and say "that's fantastic". Can I suggest that we expand this concept to discussing whether shows like Family Guy and the Simpsons are really kids shows but aimed at a broader audience?

OK... interesting. I have honestly not read up on BlackOps because I'm totally COD'd out. So how do you initially friend up with people? And also, lets make the point that what you do in this game doesn't carry over to any other games. Sure it sounds like a massive step in the right direction but my problem is that as Nintendo haven't done this Nintendo are less likely to do it in the future.