Comments 304

Re: Sony President Thinks 3DS is Just an Updated DS

Mandoble

Looking at raw power alone, NGP is something like a 3DS x 5. So I guess that, again, it wil be happening the same as with the PS3/XBOX vs Wii, most third party ignoring the 3DS in the long term and 3DS relying only on Nintendo software + tons of shovelware.

Re: Japanese Gamers Put Off by High Price of 3DS

Mandoble

Well, big N is famous by overpricing everything by far while at the same time try to build the cheapest possible way, 3DS is not any exception. Probably you already knew that by 2009 the building cost of a Wii was a bit less than 60$.

Re: Japanese Hardware / Software Sales Show the 3DS Needs a Boost

Mandoble

OOT/Pokemons will not save the 3DS, nor the 3D effects neither the gyros. Nintendo must come with a new outstanding family of games, and not just based on and abusing of the the "new" 3DS features. If PSP is already beating the 3DS then the problem is even worse than expected, as the big enemy is and will be the family of iPads and new smart phones.

Re: Iwata: "Kinect Has Made Little Impact on Wii Sales"

Mandoble

"@16 Seriously, are there any developers taking the Move seriously?"
I would say, are there any developers taking Wii seriously at all? For sure Kinect had an impact, while smart phones + Ipads had and will have even more impact and dont forget to add their own 3DS. Iwata already perceived the danger and Wii replacement might happen even this year.

Re: Miyamoto: A Link to the Past Could be Reworked for the 3DS

Mandoble

So now Super Mario 3DS is not a remake, oh, well ... ... and Mario Kart Wii was no a remake of Game Cube Double Dash. Definitively I need to revise my concept of "remake". Anyway, might be in the future Nintendo will become creative again, not that this seems to be in their lazy plans for the moment.

Re: Nintendo's Profits Show a Significant Drop, This Year Should Improve

Mandoble

@Highwinter, fully agree with you. Add the fact that the typical Wii mini-casual game type is more and more present in the smart phones, and way cheaper than for the Wii. Add Microsoft assaulting the fortress of family games and also including the last "wow" factor with the Kinect. Sony with the PSMove surpasing by far the accuracy of WM+. 3DS launch with a set of few and pretty poorly rated games and with sales levels not even close to Nintendo expectations, announced Nintendo 3DS games that are mostly remakes or direct ports from old consoles.

Re: Talking Point: Can Nintendo's Next Console Top Wii's Success?

Mandoble

Considering that casual games are now almost monopolized by 3 gen phones/pads and that family games are now a main target of Microsoft, I pretty much doubt the new console will have any success close to the Wii. Said that I believe success of the Wii was based mainly in the fact that it was the cheapest home console in the market, which might not be the case with its replacement. But with the announcement of Nintendo profits going down as brutally as 66% the only option to survive was to release a Wii replacement ASAP, probably way earlier than originaly planned.

Re: Iwata: Wii Successor to "Offer New Ways to Play In the Home"

Mandoble

Why so many people here believes that developpers want more horsepower just to create more and more FPS? FPS are usually GPU intensive but with not such a big usage of the CPU at all. If you want to create really complex logics to develop a really smart AI, if you want to create a hi fidelity flight model, if you want to create a masive strategic game, if you want to resemble real physics, then you will need a more than decent horsepower. Add the fact that the more powerfull the machine, the less the cost of the developments. It is far easier to add an existing detailed model of the Eiffel tower to a map, than to add one and then start removing polys until you get a decent FPS while keeping a decent looking model or to create one from scratch. It is easier to apply existing real-physics formulas than to try to elaborate simplified versions in order to have something "credible" in-game, it is easier to do not waste time with all kind of tricks in order to reach a decent frame rate, etc. Wii is far more powerfull than the SNES, and there is a reason for that (not FPS related), just go and extrapolate.

Re: Review: Conduit 2 (Wii)

Mandoble

It seems this game got a poor score because adds little or nothing over the previous one. This is a fair way to score a company but not a game, a game should be scored without comparisons with any previous version. If we do, then 3DS Pilotwings should be scoring a 3 or 4 at its best.

Re: Nintendo Confirms New Console

Mandoble

With the Wii they targetted to new gamers, mostly casual and social ones. And for these to satisfy there is no need to outperform the PS3, no need at all to even replace the Wii. Do you need a PS3 to create Wii Party/Sports/Mario-like games? No.

Is that Nintendo is now aiming for a different type of users?

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

@Romulux, I said not a single word against Super Metroid, it just suffered the tech limitations of its time. These limitations were definitively broken by the combo of new consoles/Retro. You are talking about similarities between what you see in these videos and wrecked ship in corruption. Well, they might be even the very very same (which of course they are not), the main difference is that in Corruption you are "feeling" everything in first person, while here you see everything from a far distance over Samus. And this is true even for sounds, with Prime you hear them in your front, back, above, but now what? The player itself is flying 50 meters over Samus. Immersion is now definitively gone.

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

You need to learn to read better, as what I said is that having the father of the game in the project (Makoto), the contribution of Sakamoto might have been much less critical than what you think for Super Metroid. Situation is different with Metroid other M. Read and understand first, post later.

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

Super Metroid had all the "ground" already explored by previous versions. Kanoh designed the original one, concept and idea. And anyway, in "my world" youtube plays videos the same as in yours, so just go, watch, and and enjoy the "big" step forward that this new metroid will provide to you.

And what is as hilarious as ridiculous, so in Adam's world Fusion and Zero Mission provide more and better exploration experience than Prime series?

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

So what? Go and watch all the videos avaiable, also these gameplay ones with normal players testing it. Now compare what you can see there with what we already have thanks to Retro. What I see in all of them is the confirmation that, at least for my taste, Metroid has gone way down in all aspects. And all of this thanks to the "genius" Sakamoto and his particular view of that old and orignal 2D game designed by Makoto Kanoh and not by him.

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

IMO Sakamoto doesnt have any background/experience to try to renew and refresh the outstanding work done by Retro. He might have participated in a very old 2D Metroid, that's all. What Retro did is lightyears ahead of that in all and every aspect, and it seems he now wants to go back to the times of super metroid with a false 3D sensation. What I saw in the videos is way behind Retro creations in quality, freedom, movement, handling and immersion. Add also that "outstanding" autoaiming to the mix, the static first person view, the wiimote as single controller, etc.

Re: New Metroid: Other M Footage Looks Intense

Mandoble

@DaveMaN
Sakamoto, the "famous" producer of WarioWare Smooth Moves (2006) and Card Hero DS (2008), these two are his latest creations and can give you an idea about the "capabilities" of this guy.
Many years ago he was the director of Super Metroid for SNES. And for those fans of Super Metroid, its designer was not Sakamoto, but Makoto Kanoh, the original concept designer of first Metroid. I really dont know which was the contribution of Sakamoto to Super Metroid, but having there Makoto, probably just the selection of the colours for Samus suite.

And I miss Retro too.

Re: E3 2010: Miyamoto Unexcitedly Scopes Out Xbox Kinect

Mandoble

I dont know any single XBoX user excited bout Kinect, quite the opposite. And I share their feelings, I see this device absolutely pointless for gaming. You need to keep moving physically all the time and facing the camera, you cannot be laying in a comfortable sofa just pressing buttons and pads here and there, you need to play in a well illuminated room and with more than enough space, and probably it will get desync if illumination changes abruptly with lights switching on/off. It might be good for some party with friends after the tenth beer, and for no more than 10 mins, and might be for kid games.

Re: Interviews: Ryozo Tsujimoto - Monster Hunter Tri

Mandoble

MH3 takes no advantage at all of normal wii controls, quite the opposite. On the other hand, classic controller works like a charm for MH3. I guess it was never designed for Wii, might be PS3 was too expensive to develop. But this game is really good and the obsolete Wii is not worth of it, the Wii is just a major limiting factor for an excellent game concept like this one.

Re: Red Steel 2 Blunted After Poor UK Chart Debut

Mandoble

Sword + WM+ should be just another tool to make a game interesting, not just the only focus and excuse for a game. Even more true for a game with a so much ridiculous environment as this one trying to mix in one west and oriental flavours. I bet this will not please the japanese audience and of course if will please even less the western one.

Re: Sony: Publishers Pulling Resources From Wii Development

Mandoble

Oh yep, Nintendo did create a new generation of players, and takes care of them. But Im not reperesented at all by this "new" generation of players, and I dont care at all about this "new" generation of wii-fit fans.

Not considering the company names, if I have an idea to implement in a game, I would always prefer the system that imposes less limitations for my idea. ATM Wii is the system that imposses most limitations, and that implies to use most tricks to have something almost decent, almost playable and with an almost good frame-rate. OR, I do quite basic casual games where the resources of the machine are irrelevant. Just an example, none of my prefered PC games would be able to run/load on Wii even with the minimum detail level, while many of them are already ported to XBoX and/or PS3, Oblivion and Fallout3 are two good examples of that.

Re: Reggie: No New Console Successor Anytime Soon

Mandoble

The funny part is that there is no Nintendo forum where people doesnt speculate with the need of a Wii replacement as soon as possible. This doesnt happen in PS3 or XboX boards, BTW.

Sadly Nintendo business go quite well (which is the very worst possible news for the customers), which directly means Nintendo will not have any reason to push forward with new HD consoles. The best possible news for us is seeing Nintendo going down in sales/flames, this would force them to release more and better games as well as possibly a powerful replacement of the Wii, better and cheaper motion controls,etc. But this is what happens in a market without competitors ...

On the other hand, this is pretty good news for most of you, fans of boxing/mario/wiifit minigames and similars, you will have lots of these nintendo or 3party shovelware forever, so lets celebrate ...

Re: Reggie: No New Nintendo

Mandoble

Where is the problem? None of us is married with Nintendo, everybody here can buy a PS3 or XBoX, and might be the time to do that will arrive as soon as these release motion controls.

Re: DS and Wii "Year's Worst Platforms"

Mandoble

BTW, this is not an opinnion, this is a fact. Considering only two relatively old games that are present (I think) for both, 360 and PS3 which are Oblivion and Fallout 3 (Bethesda softworks), only these 2 will be 2 points higher than anything the Wii has and anything the Wii might have for any non-biased reviewer site. We can keep singing our games are the best or our Wii is the best forever, the rest of the world thinks the opposite, period. As a good measure point I always check "GAME", in my case www.game.es where the players vote for the games, and Wii ones are usually far far below the others.

Re: DS and Wii "Year's Worst Platforms"

Mandoble

Too many fanatic fan boys all around. The fact is that possibly the best gaming platform atm is the Nintendo DS (between portables), and the worst gaming platform for your big TV is the Wii, obviously this doesnt mean that all Wii games are plain crap, but 90% or more of them are.

Re: Get Ready for Macho King's Story!

Mandoble

One of my three most top rated games for Wii. Definitively a must to have. It is an adventure game with bits of rol, strategy and tactical combat, all mixed up with an outstanding combination of atmosphere and music. This game is a blast. The only "but" might be that its world is rather small.