Debate News, Debate Features

Debate opens: is this a glitch or just a skill?

This one will probably divide opinion, but this video of a Super Mario Galaxy 2 speedrun exploits a trick for extending Yoshi's flutter jump to previously unheard-of lengths. It doesn't appear to be a glitch but rather a combination of moves that allows Yoshi to repeat his hover ability, but we'll let you be the judge of whether that constitutes a..

BBC debate results in surprisingly level-headed conclusion

Violent video games like Madworld, Grand Theft Auto and House of the Dead: Overkill are often blamed for society's ills but in a BBC Radio debate today common sense prevailed as the UK-based organisation Mothers Against Violence decided that parents must shoulder the burden of responsibility when it comes to allowing their kids access to..

Expert assures us that games do, in fact, tell us stories that engage our minds.

Dr Souvik Mukherjee of Nottingham Trent University believes video games should be regarded as a storytelling medium that can stand along with traditional literary texts. Of course as a computer game narrative expert he has conducted an arbitrary research study to make these incredible findings... well, more credible..

Game designer predicts poor sales performance for high-profile FPS

With past ‘hardcore’ failures like No More Heroes, House of Dead: Overkill and (more recently) Madworld, the Wii is getting a reputation for being a casual gamers’ machine first and foremost. This certainly doesn’t bode well for Sega’s upcoming FPS title The Conduit...

Hollenshead isn't sure the Wii is a viable platform

Following on from last week’s worrying report that third party development on the Wii is a risky business, id Software head man Todd Hollenshead has added his own two cents to the debate. Speaking to Gamespot, Hollenshead had this to say: If you look at the data, the Wii is Nintendo—and then...

Outspoken producer mounts swear-tastic attack on the Big N

Peter Wanat, Big Time Games producer and developer behind such titles as Scarface, Chronicles Of Riddick and the upcoming 360/PS3/PC game Wanted: Weapons Of Fate, pulled no punches against the state of third-party development on Nintendo's Wii console during an episode of Gametrailers.com's Invisible Walls segment. You can view the episode..

It seems that many diehard Cave Story fans have recently become divided over the slightly updated artwork that will be used in the upcoming WiiWare version of Cave Story. Many fans have already expressed their dislike of the more detailed look Daisuke Amaya has given Toroko, feeling that it takes away from the classic old-school look the game has always featured.

Nicalis recently provided a side-by-side comparison of both the old and new artwork to show these subtle differences. They blew the artwork of Toroko up 800 times to show these changes pixel by pixel. You can take a look at the picture below to see the differences...

Over on Microsoft’s XBLA, there is an action puzzler called Braid doing the rounds at the moment. It has attracted rave reviews all over the place. I keenly downloaded it and completed it 100% and can verify that this is a top notch game providing hours of entertainment.

Sadly according to Jonathan Blow the game’s creator it has no chance of being made available on WiiWare, even though it is..

As we reported earlier today Luc Bernard plans to take a break from the videogame industry for personal reasons. Given the mixed reception around the release of his debut game Eternity’s Child on Steam he feels it is time to hang up his golden joypad for now and move on to other things in life.

Could Luc be being too hasty however? Whatever your opinion on Eternity’s Child it did have beautiful..

Some rather upsetting news has reached our ears today. Luc Bernard – the creator of WiiWare title Eternity’s Child and a firm friend of the site – has announced via his blog that he is quitting the videogame industry. He will be pursuing a career in graphic novels instead.

Bernard has recently been on the receiving end of some rather bad press...

Frontier Developments maestro David Braben has rained praise on download services like WiiWare, commenting that LostWinds would probably have been cancelled had it been earmarked as a traditional retail release.

Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, UK, Braben had this to say: It's a fantastic way of de-risking publishing. This is a game...

Microsoft's Chris Satchell must be an easily confused guy, because he’s recently gone on record to state that he’s downright stumped by Nintendo’s WiiWare service and the strategy the company is employing when it comes to nurturing developers.

Satchell, who is general manager of Microsoft’s game developer group, unsurprisingly believes that...

Ever wanted to know the time gamers spent playing one of your favourite WiiWare titles, or how many times played? Well now you can in the Nintendo channel (and live in North America!)

Not only can you find out info about WiiWare, you can view stats on all Nintendo games, including Virtual Console. For those who have opted into the service (most likely a large minority) you can now view all the data..

We only reported a few hours ago that Nintendo of Europe’s Managing Director Laurent Fischer’s recent ‘Geeks and Otaku’ comment had caused God of War creator David Jaffe a certain amount of annoyance, and if the news we’ve just received is anything to go by, it would appear that Jaffe’s subsequent tirade has worked. Fischer has issued an apology, which runs as follows:

I have huge..

Did this news story annoy you? Of course it did. It also annoyed God of War creator David Jaffe, who went as far as to post a cutting reply on his blog page.

As well as using some pretty strong language, Jaffe also goes off on a tangent about a terrible movie and eventually comes to this conclusion: Now look: I like Nintendo. And I LOVE old Nintendo. And both old and new Nintendo have brought SO..

Xiotex - the small indie developer that was the focus of our rather shocking news story recently – has posted another entry on its/his blog page regarding this sorry state of affairs. It would appear that the tiny devco didn't expect the original blog post to cause such a kerfuffle.

When I started the ‘WiiWare is a lie’ blog post I had no idea it would go as far as it would. Instead of just..

When we first brought you the news last month that a game based on Beer Pong would be coming to WiiWare many of you had a good laugh at the stupidity of it all.

Lisa Lombardozzi of the Greater Herndon Community Coalition is not laughing however. In fact she is outraged! Her concern is that this game will encourage kids to play the college drinking game for real. It is easy to see her point, the..

If you asked the average Wii owner what they wanted most of all from life, a large percentage would probably say something like “heaps of cash” or “a naked mud fight with Angelina Jolie”, but there’s a chance many would also say “a Goddamn hard drive to store all my Virtual Console and WiiWare games on, please” before ranting and raving about how much Nintendo is screwing them over.

If you consider yourself to be one of those people then for the sake of your sanity (and possibly your crockery) please look away now, because Nintendo’s European Managing Director of Marketing Lau...

Remember when Nintendo announced WiiWare? Do you recall the grand spiel? WiiWare is a platform for small developers to really get their products out there and truly shine, you don’t need to be a big studio, yadda, yadda, yadda. Of course you do. It’s for this reason that many people got excited about the service; after all, smaller devcos are more likely to create fresh and innovative ideas.

Ho..