Dcubed

Been a while since I bought anything from the catalogue... 3,000 stars is surprisingly affordable too! Ugh, but it reminded me of how much I hate doing the surveys on the site... It's so slow and glitchy! (THAT BLOODY INVALID INPUT ERROR!!!! ARGH!!!"!^"!%"R"*!^" :mad: ) That's what puts me off buying anything more than anything else on there. I've got loads of games that I haven't registered yet, but I just can't be arsed to deal with that crappy site!

No matter how you slice it; that was hilarious though. Someone at Capcom clearly had a sense of humour about the whole thing (especially when it was said to be Volnutt in the future). Cruel, but hilariously cruel :p

God the US version's logo is so much better than ours LOL! Nice!

Yeah true. That splat animation and sound had me and my friend in stitches (we just ended up doing it on purpose again and again for about 5 mins or so afterwards ) Overall I pretty much agree with you, but outside of that one crippling flaw (the lack of context and explanation of anything), I thought it was a really solid game. I feel that its other flaws are really overblown and that the actual gameplay (once you finally figure it out, no matter how hard the game tries to hide it) is really fun. The automated sections never really bothered me that much as they were pretty short (and no doubt also conveniently hide loading times - much like the launch stars in Mario Galaxy). They also actually gave you much more control over the rail sections as well - something that always annoyed me in previous Sonic games, where they always felt mostly pointless as they just took control away from you (I cracked a smile as soon as I discovered that you could freely jump and skip across two rails whenever you wanted ) Also you're spot on about the soundtrack, it kicks arse!

BEST DIRECT EVER!!! I need this game, NOW! (June 6 is waaaaayyyyy earlier than I was expecting! )

It shouldn't be one or the other; both can, have previously and should (from an ongoing perspective) co-exist. Eschewing the stage show last year was a huge mistake that proved very costly for Nintendo's image ("They Skipped E3" "They turned their tails and ran" and so on...). A bit of pomp and circumstance makes a huge difference. People want to see a show and they want some memories to take away from an event like E3. A pre-recorded can never have the same impact as a live event, no matter how well produced it may be. People want to see on stage demos, crazy costumes, audience reactions (no, seriously, look at how many Youtube videos have been made of people recording their own "live reactions" to the last few sets of Directs...) and legendary fuck ups happen LIVE! Nintendo can't seriously be thinking that replacing the live streamed stage event with a Nintendo Direct again is a good idea!? Not after the enormous backlash they got from performing such a "cowardly" act last year...

TBH I actually prefer the US version's design. Not that I have anything against androgenous characters, but I prefer the simplicity of the US version over the JPN one. Grazza does make a good point about the animation though. The ponytail does make for nice secondary motion (which in turn may actually make the feedback more satisfying for whenever you jump or shoot, get knocked etc). I wonder how they'll design around that...

We're still due one some time this month. The last one was in Feburary and major Directs happen every two months...

It's not a matter of the Wii U game getting "delayed" though, since most reasonable people expected it to hit around November at best anyway , but rather that the 3DS game is coming far sooner than anyone expected! Namco are a production powerhouse! Me thinks that Nintendo will be keeping them on speed dial when it comes to future art asset and programming manpower requirements!

The 3DS and Wii U games are completely separate games that happen to share characters and link together (not unlike the Zelda Oracle games on GBC). They're not just two different versions of the same game like a typical multiplatform title. It's just a matter of the 3DS game being ready for release sooner than the Wii U one. Not unsurprising, considering the additional manpower requirements for a HD game. What I and many others were expecting was to see staff pulled off the 3DS game in order to get the Wii U one out quicker. The fact that this hasn't happened is what is surprising! (Nor did I think they could get the 3DS one out so early and still get the Wii U game out within 2014. I severely underestimated Namco/Nintendo!)

Not entirely related to the Wii U VC... buuuuttt... The guys working on the DS emulator for PC have managed to figure out how to emulate DS games in high resolution! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=798812 I always thought that this would be impossible, given the weird way that the DS renders polygons... This means that it's possible (and very likely - given that Nintendo always love to render N64 games in high res when they emulate them) that the DS games that come out on the Wii U VC will actually be rendered in HD when they get released! (and if rendering in high res is possible, then I imagine that an option for texture filtering is also possible too )

Yeah I saw those. They look pretty clever. Nice to see that Namco got some representation here; even if one of their characters don't end up making it in. They've done a great job in terms of grunt work (graphics engine, art asset creation etc)!

It's gonna be weird knowing the entire character roster (including hidden characters) months in advance of the Wii U game's release... I wonder if they have any plans to rectify this?

I lost it when he did the Palutena tease Perfection. Just needs a "Fuck... you... CAAAAPPPCCCOOOMMM" caption now for full impact

The Final Destination forms and customisable movesets do smack of Project M. I get the feeling that if that mod hadn't been released, then we may not have seen them add these options...

GRENINJA!?!?!? HOLY SHIT!!! YES! THEY PICKED THE RIGHT GEN 6 STARTER!!! HOLY SHIT CITY TRIAL MAKES A RETURN HOLY SHIT YES ALL OVER MY FACE!!! Well I'm glad to be wrong about the release date. This Direct delivered the goods, hardcore! Hopefully all those Fox Only Final Destination guys will shut up and go away into their own little corner for all eternity now

How on earth is that too expensive!? It was a full price retail game in Japan! Hell the un-discounted price alone is cheaper than I was expecting! £10.79 is a bargain for a game that would otherwise be £29.99-34.99 at retail! My God! People's perception of value has been warped so badly that it just fills me full of sadness

When I say "nothing", I don't literally mean nothing. Surely that was obvious? And even then, they still have the likes of Bayonetta 2, Yarn Yoshi and X of course... but Smash Bros is their biggest guaranteed hit due to release this year; and a delay for that game would be disastrous for them. But they're committed to not pushing games out of the door before they deem them to be ready (the ghosts of the GCN era with Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine still haunt them to this day - it's a big reason why they really wanted to do Wind Waker HD rather than any other Zelda; a chance for them to rectify the mistakes they always wanted to rectify) and what other realistic option would they have if a delay became unavoidable? Pressuring Sakurai to rush Kirby's Air Ride out early on the Gamecube is also the main reason why he left HAL/Nintendo in the first place. The last thing Iwata wants to do is have that happen again (this time for good). He (and Nintendo's other staff) are their biggest asset and Nintendo cannot afford to lose him! They need Smash this year (at least on Wii U - 3DS can afford to wait if need be) and this is the only way they can do so if they can't get it out in time at the quality they want...

There's a first time for everything and desperate times call for desperate measures... The alternative is to either just have a delay and then have nothing for the Wii U for the rest of the year, or to rush the game and release it unfinished... A discount on the digital version of the full game is a distinct possibility though...

After the success of Ground Zeroes and GT5 Prologue? Not a chance! It would also be a good way of earning back more revenue on this game, considering that it almost certainly won't sell as well as Brawl did. It's not like they haven't pulled last minute delays out of their hat before... (Cough; Mario Golf World Tour getting delayed an entire year just a month after it was announced for a Summer 2013 release, Cough!) Those guys running the Facebook account probably wouldn't even know about such a delay...

You know what? I reckon you might actually be right... I'm starting to think that they're gonna announce a delay for both games to 2015... But they're gonna announce the release of a "prologue" version for Wii U (ALA MGS Ground Zeroes/GT5 Prologue) that will be released in June/July 2014. A cut down version with all of the characters/stages we've seen so far, released at a cheaper price (probably £29.99/$29.99); with the full version set to release in March 2015 on Wii U. Even November 2014 always seemed optimistic to me, considering that Brawl had a roughly 3 year dev cycle and that was just the one game, for Wii. This time around they're making two seperate games at the same time (with one of them being a HD game too - even without Sunspace Emissary, I wouldn't be surprised if the manpower requirement was larger than Brawl, just for the Wii U version alone) and people are expecting them to make two games in less time than it took to make Brawl alone (assuming a Nov 2014 release date, that would mean a 2.5 year dev cycle - since development on SSB4 started as soon as KIU released). Yeah, I reckon a delay is gonna happen and they're gonna announce this prologue version today in order to tide us over till next year...

Huh? Where did you hear this? Can't see there being much point in having a Nintendo Direct just for smash bros if there's no release date being given...

Those boxes contain our hopes and dreams... Someone smash them open already!

And what stops people from using their fingers on a resistive screen? I use my fingers all the time on the 3DS and Wii U touch screens when tapping menu icons and typing letters and it works just fine Even dragging stuff around like the map in Pikmin 3 works just fine with my finger (resistive screens have come a long way since the days of the original DS)...

That's just amazing! You go girl! Speaking of Rhythm Heaven related videos, this one's always been a favourite of mine... (Yeah yeah, it's from the GBA game, but eh, whatever! :p) I know a lot of you have probably seen it before, but it's just so cool that I can't not share it again! (The way he sheathes the sword after every slice really is the cherry on top!) An oldie, but still a goodie!