More like more Jade Empire. Closed Fist and Open Palm wasn't a declaration of being good or evil, but rather how you thought the problems of the world should be addressed. The game had both good Closed Fist believers and evil Open Palm followers and the ending was clearly different depending on whether you were good or evil, as well as which philosophy you choose to follow.
I'd prefer a moral choice system like Walking Dead, where you see the consequences of each of those actions. There's very little consequences and blue vs. red moral choices.
Zelda - Skyward Sword: Yup, I hate this game. I'd rather dig out the N64 and go through Majora's Mask than play another minute swinging my arm around ... which isn't saying much, since Majora's Mask is awesome. Well, I guess it says I'd like to play Majora's Mask.
Point is, fuck motion controls, I'm out.
Point is, fuck motion controls, I'm out.
There is also a 95% chance that Fi is an annoying character and worse than Navi. At least you can ignore Navi.
Meh, I liked the motion controls. It has a huge learning curve since it's playing in a way nobody's used to, and the game forces you to get it pretty quickly.
It's a shame, too, because despite the game's painfully slow start and quick ramp up in expectations (possibly the cause of the slow start?), the aesthetics and overall feel of the game are fun and unique, and the Zelda-Link relationship is handled great.
It's a shame, too, because despite the game's painfully slow start and quick ramp up in expectations (possibly the cause of the slow start?), the aesthetics and overall feel of the game are fun and unique, and the Zelda-Link relationship is handled great.
I just watched Yahtzee's review and apparently there were a bunch of other annoying things to come, so ... not gonna be sad about missing out.
It's no surprise to me that Nintendo's follow-up Zelda projects were Ocarina remake, Wind Waker remake, and a Link to the Past remake that became a Link to the Past sequel.
To be fair, that's because they already DID a Link to the Past remake with Four Swords. Or close enough to it anyway.
Honestly, I can't wait for some of the folks at Nintendo to die and for the new blood to actually realize how much money they would make selling their VC games at half of what they are now. Or fuck, just making the Virtual Console library the same for all the systems and shared like Steam.
figmentPez
Staff member
In an ideal world, Nintendo would get out of the home console market, and develop for all platforms.
I would seriously love to see Pac-Man Vs. on the PC using an iOS/Android app for the player controlling Pac-Man.
I would seriously love to see Pac-Man Vs. on the PC using an iOS/Android app for the player controlling Pac-Man.
A big HELLZ NO.
The Wii and the WiiU have plenty of faults, sure, but think about how much innovation Nintendo has forced into the home console market just by being their crazy selves. They brought back console gaming after the gaming crash with the NES, were such a success that they inspired the likes of Sega, Sony, and Microsoft to all enter the market as well, revolutionized the possibility of handheld consoles, and even the current next gen consoles would look a lot different if they weren't having to one up those crazy Nintendo bastards.
Stay strong, Nintendo. We need you in the gaming world.
Nintendo stays Nintendo. Otherwise it's going to be diluted into shit. Look at Sonic the Hedgehog.
figmentPez
Staff member
Personally, I disagree, because I think that innovation is going to be increasingly driven by software, and not hardware. Right now gaming consoles are still a big deal, but I don't think they will be forever. As the use of computing extends more to tablets, VR glasses (Oculus Rift, Google Glass, etc.), interactive tables, cellphones, all sorts of motion control interfaces and more, what the world will need is not companies to make these devices, but to create the games that best use these devices. Nintendo can still be Nintendo, but instead of creating hardware to drive the industry, they'll be creating software that will challenge and drive the industry.
It may not be next generation that this happens, but I think it will at some point. Especially as the lines between devices start to blur, and people come to expect that all their myriad screens and interfaces will work together more-or-less seamlessly. Unless Nintendo wants to get into the PC, tablet, cellphone, smart-house, appliance, peripheral, etc., etc. markets, at some point they'll have to start making software that plays nice with systems other than their own. I'd rather them do that sooner, and be a leader in that respect, rather than be forced out by not adapting to a world that will move past systems that keep tightly to their own ecosystem.
Interfacing is a more likely route. One head at Nintendo had said they'd sooner end their franchises than put them on others' devices, although that may have been the same president who said hell would freeze over before Square put games on Nintendo consoles after Final Fantasy 7, and Nintendo went right to doing that the moment that president stepped down.
figmentPez
Staff member
Yes, Apple keeps a tight reign on their systems, but even they have had to make concessions, and they will have to make many more as tech advances, or they won't survive. Their current strategy works because iPhones don't have to play nice with every other type of device and system out there. No one expects a seamless experience across all the devices they use, but that will change, and companies can either fight it by expanding their proprietary standards and trying to be the best at everything (and I mean everything), or they can play nice and realize that the reason USB "won" over Firewire is not because it's the better spec, but because everything used it (in part because it didn't charge the same exorbitant licensing fees.)
I can't imagine Nintendo ever dropping console development. Regardless of how the WiiU might be doing, they've always completely dominated the handheld market. As long as they continue to recieve Pokemon and Monster Hunter titles, they're not going anywhere.
Without a full collapse of the gaming industry, console development is here to stay. We'd either need to be flooded with systems or the prices would need to skyrocket to the point it's just not feasible to buy a new system and games.
Without a full collapse of the gaming industry, console development is here to stay. We'd either need to be flooded with systems or the prices would need to skyrocket to the point it's just not feasible to buy a new system and games.
They actually did it in the past and the results were disastrous. See: Phillips CD-I. I'm fairly certain it's one of the main reasons that Nintendo has since kept an extremely tight reign on their properties.
I completely disagree with your assessment of the future of console gaming. If any company has a hope of surviving on the home console system, it's Nintendo. And, as has been already mentioned, they're still the most dominant force in the handheld market, despite the misstep of adding 3D to it. As for the iOS type of market, people keep saying that things are going to completely transition to those types of systems and I simply don't see it happening. Those platforms still remain the domain of the hyper-casual gamers.
Nintendo remains innovative, and should continue to. If every company just rested on their laurels and kept doing the same thing over and over again and chased what other companies are doing, nothing new would ever be produced.
figmentPez
Staff member
Those weren't developed by Nintendo. Those were Nintendo characters licensed to another company, not Nintendo making games for other platforms.
Nintendo has successfully licensed it's characters since then, most notably in the Mario Party series which was devloped by Hudson Soft, initially.
This isn't just my assessment of the future of console gaming, I'm looking at the use of computing hardware, period. You're right that phone gaming is currently very casual. That's because the interface isn't there yet. Touch screen just can't do what buttons can. (Also, when I said that I thought Nintendo should get out of the console market, I meant the home console market specifically, handhelds are not consoles.) There are still reasons for consoles to exist, but only for a time. The advantages of a dedicated console are fading, and it's possible that the advantages of a dedicated portable gaming device will fade as well.
And, as I said, I think that, when we reach a point where the boundaries between discreet devices blur almost to the point of non-existence, that the real innovation for game developers will not come from the ones making dedicated gaming hardware, but from those making the software to take advantage of hardware that's being sold for a variety of purposes besides gaming.
Think about the major innovations that have driven past consoles, and how often they were exclusively useful to gaming, or primarily useful for gaming. The SNES's graphics and controller weren't suited to anything but gaming. The Wii's motion controls weren't suited to any other sort of use. Then you look at the WiiU... and it's a tablet. Granted, it's a gaming tablet with dedicated buttons, but it's not that different from other products on the market, and there aren't a lot of games that make full use of it. Unless a gaming company can come up with a console that centers around some sort of interface or capability that will be part of every console sold, and isn't going to be something that's part of the general gadget landscape otherwise, then there's not a lot of point of developing dedicated hardware. Not if the competing devices are already going to be integrated to the point that a person's computing use, peripherals, screens, data, etc. are all one big connected experience.
The WiiU isn't a reflection of tablet design, it's a reflection of the design concept of the DS, which pre-dates tablets by almost a decade. The design of the WiiU has nothing to do with Nintendo's current under-performance. It has to do with the fact that they, in their hubris, decided that people would buy their console even without any idea of what sort of software lineup would be available. They assumed that people who purchased Wiis would automatically buy WiiUs, but the success of the Wii in the general market was somewhat of an aberration in the gaming industry. It hooked a broader market than usual.
Nintendo will continue to make new consoles, and they will continue to be at least marginally, and occasionally wildly, successful.
Proprietary ecosystems aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Nintendo will continue to make new consoles, and they will continue to be at least marginally, and occasionally wildly, successful.
Proprietary ecosystems aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
But then no one's innovating hardware for the purpose of gaming.
figmentPez
Staff member
Not for the sole purpose of gaming, no, but I'm not sure that's necessary if gaming can get what it needs from other fields. Right now gaming can't fully do that, but in the future I'm willing to bet it will not only be easier for gaming to find what it needs already on the market, but it will more difficult to make a console that can justify it's place without extending far beyond gaming.
Yeah, I wouldn't bet on that horse. You're ignoring market audiences, competition between different companies making different hardware, and realistic capabilities of a hardware. There is never going to be one gadget that does everything, because to get an edge over it, someone will come up with a gadget that does something else instead. And when you have that competition, another way to get the edge on each other is exclusive software. It's really the same thing that's playing out now between consoles, and even if they're called something else in the future, it's going to continue so long as there's an economy and consumer society to sustain it. While people play games as a hobby, there is going to be hardware specific to gaming. Even though computers can do a range of things, specifically "gaming" PCs are still sold to cater to gamers. Come to think of it, this isn't the first time I've read what you're saying. For multiple console generations there's been talk among PC gamers about the fall of consoles being just around the corner, because you can do just what you want with a PC plus the games on the side, but when people specifically want to play games, a console is still easier. People aren't getting more tech-savvy at large; they're just obtaining more pieces of technology.
figmentPez
Staff member
Personally I think that, when it comes to managing information and interfacing with computers, we're currently using the equivalent of hand tools. When we reach a point where we have the equivalent of an industrial revolution with regards to how we handle information, at that point all the merits of "it's just easier to do it on a console" will become moot. The difference will be so negligible as to be academic.
After we're dead.
Asura's wrath: Its God of War meets Star Fox meets Dragon's lair and I LOVE IT! Now do I HAVE to pay for the extra episode, or is that just for people who don't want to get S-level on five missions?
Bravoman: CRAP this is hard, I love it! 22 stages and if you run of lives- START ALL OVER!
Bravoman: CRAP this is hard, I love it! 22 stages and if you run of lives- START ALL OVER!
Beat Broken Age the day it was released to backers, it was freaking amazing. I love the art style so freaking much the orchestral score is sososososo good, the story is engrossing and fun and you really feel connected to the characters. Cannot wait for act 2.
After Broken Age I decided to finally play through Psychonauts since I bought it on Steam a while back, I am about 6 hours into it and it's awesome so far.
Also playing LoZ: A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon Y, and Animal Crossing New Leaf on 3DS but I haven't been putting very much time into those.
After Broken Age I decided to finally play through Psychonauts since I bought it on Steam a while back, I am about 6 hours into it and it's awesome so far.
Also playing LoZ: A Link Between Worlds, Pokemon Y, and Animal Crossing New Leaf on 3DS but I haven't been putting very much time into those.
Why is it over? Why did it have to end?
IMO, Double Fine hasn't really put out anything less than quality work. Despite the low sales due to incorrect marketing of Brutal Legend, I thought it was an awesome game. The problem is that they didn't sell it as an action/RTS hybrid ala Sacrifice (which it is HEAVILY influenced by and is a criminally underrated game). Even their flops (The Cave, which I also liked contrary to popular opinion) are marginally better than most games.
It doesn't hurt that Tim Schaefer is one of the best hype-men in the games industry.
It doesn't hurt that Tim Schaefer is one of the best hype-men in the games industry.
Everyone should play Asura's Wrath. It's the best episode of Dragon Ball Z ever.
Seriously, it plays out like a pretty cool action sci-fi anime. It even has episodes and previously-ons.
Tried the demo, but I was turned off by the lack of influence I had over anything that was happening, including my character's movement and actions. It felt like Quick Time Event's Wrath. Also heard it was only 6 hours long.
Except it doesn't end, then charges you to buy the DLC with the ending. Scummy.
Wait, I thought you had to get five levels on S-rank? Or do I have to clear five levels on S-rank and THEN buy it? Or is buying it just for cheaters?
The final chapter is DLC only. Though, I don't know if it's just bundled in with the current versions. Yeah, it's the main reason I never got the game.