The lost dungeons (or adding new dungeons if the lost dungeons have already been used) seems like a missed opportunity. Other than that, I'm all for the remake. I cannot stand black bars on the side of the screen to play games in their original aspect ratio, and I cannot stand images stretched out to get rid of the black bars on modern TVs, so a widescreen, HD re-release is fine by me. The original game looked great, but I don't want to play it on an old TV to see the graphics at their sharpest.
@SetupDisk I don't have an issue with who reviewed it as his points were all valid. Had the game been fleshed out more, it would have been better which is why a lack of a sequel is disappointing.
Here's the thing, the game is marketed at the "core" audience of gamers as moms theoretically wouldn't or shouldn't be buying this for their 8-year-old. The core gamers can read reviews and know that this game is a gamble of a purchase, and it's best to wait for a price drop. Ubisoft seems to want to punish gamers for being prudent with their purchases, and rather than right their wrongs with a sequel that remedies the problems of the original, they'd rather just blame the consumer.
@WiiURockz You could have stopped at reason number 1. Reviewers started to come around later, but the early reviews (like IGN giving it a 6.3) stopped people from buying it at launch. I remember reading the review the weekend of the system launch and letting out an audible sigh when I saw disappointing scores.
@aaronsullivan As a kid, I always prided myself on being able to beat all of the games I owned (except Battletoads, screw you, Battletoads). DK 64 was the first time, I said "screw it." I don't care enough to go back to the same area again with a different Kong that I don't care about. In an effort to be a bigger game than Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, it just ended up as a bloated game.
@brucelebnd That's just it. The Wii U sold last Christmas to hardcore Nintendo fans and some parents smart enough to distinguish it from its predecessor. X1 and PS4 will sell to hardcore fans, but few parents will spend $400-$500 on a gift for a kid. Drop the price of the black unit to $250, include Nintendoland, exclude stands and charging stations if necessary, but if it can sell for $150-$250 less than the competition, that's a big win for Nintendo. They should also do an ambassador package for the early adapters and give us something to feel special like being able to download Earthbound or GameCube games months before new system owners.
If they want to avoid confusion, discontinue the Wii. Repackage Wii Games as Wii U games like they did with Wii Remote Plus, and market them as "Wii Classic" games with a lower price if they want to keep selling them. Don't give people an option. If you want Nintendo games, you need a Wii U.
It's timed to beat the May 21st XBOX reveal to the punch. It's their way of saying, sure, there are no games now, but we will have a ton of games coming out when new XBOX and PS4 owners are complaining that they have no games for their new consoles.
To be clear, you only get one town per cartridge/download, correct? It's not like the Gamecube version where you could save multiple towns per memory card, and then visit your friends town and take a cherry or two. I'll gladly play this with my wife and daughter, but I'm not sure I can justify buying the same game three times
The rumors have a 3D Mario, Mario Kart, and Smash Bros. as playable. You'd have to think Pikmin, Bayonetta, Wonderful 101 will be fully playable as well as well as a surprise or two. Nintendo maintains that you have to play the Wii U to understand it. This gets the press playing the Wii U rather than watching it be played.
The criticism that will be thrown at MS and Sony will be, "Hey, more shooters!" If Nintendo only shows Mario, the reaction will be, "Hey, more Mario." If Nintendo lets people play Mario in a way that only the Wii U allows, then you give the media something to sink their teeth into.
I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a few times when it seems like they release a good game early when they could have released a great game later. I remember Wind Waker felt shorter and then we found out a few levels were scrapped. Skyward Sword was long, but it felt like we had to revisit areas in order to save time making new areas. It was this or make the game a Wii U launch game. The most blatant example is Super Mario 3D Land. The initial game was short, but then artificially lengthened by making you redo earlier levels with Shadow Mario or a timer.
Step 1: Release a gimmicky control scheme on Madden for the Wii (failure) Step 2: Release a cartoony graphical style Madden on the Wii (failure) Step 3: Use same unpopular cartoony style, on a striped-down, bare bones 3DS version. When it fails, blame the unpopularity of 3D Step 4: Help Nintendo develop their online infrastructure. Brag about the strong partnership between the two companies Step 5: Try to backdoor EA's proprietary Origin program into online infrastructure giving EA unprecedented control over Nintendo's online offerings. Step 6: Get shot down Step 7: Pout Step 8: Pout Step 9: Release gimped versions of previously promised games, watch them sell poorly Step 10: Pull support, blame Nintendo.
@RikuzeYre GTA games are fun. People might dismiss them because they are controversial, but they are fairly well put together. The content of the game isn't much worse than what you'd see in Goodfellas or on The Sopranos, but people got bent out of shape because it was a video game. If video games are about letting you do things you either never could or never would do in real life (be a super hero, fight in World War II, win a Super Bowl, fight a dragon, etc.), then GTA is that game that lets you pretend you are involved in organized crime.
The game can be funny both intentionally such as something characters do or say, or it can be funny with the situations that are created by game play. Some of the best games allow you to experiment with "What happens if I...". This game is chock full of "what happens if I..." situations.
I don't think this game is selling well because of the new "Casual" mode, I think it's doing well because they did a better job of marketing it and because it's been getting rave reviews. I've been playing Nintendo systems for over 25 years and this was the first Fire Emblem game I played, and I did so because review after review said that this game was a reason to own the 3DS.
Wow, I'm seeing no love for some games on my list. 1. Tecmo Super Bowl 2. Battletoads 3. Super Mario 3 4. Mike Tyson's Punchout 5. RC Pro AM 6. Mega Man 2 7. Legend of Zelda 8. Maniac Mansion 9. Super Mario Bros. 2 10. TMNT 2: The Arcade Game
I ranked based on how much I loved them at the time. Historically, I would rank Super Mario Bros in the top 10 NES games, but as a kid, I viewed it as "it's a free game, it's not that good."
@SpaceApe, in video games, "Mature" generally means targeted at 14-year-olds, in the same way as when I was 14, a movie meant for a mature audience (Rated R) was really targeted at me (Van Damme, Seagal, Stallone, Schwarzenegger movies).
Isn't it the job description for a guy like Spector? Shouldn't they be figuring this out? It's easy to make an adult movie because it only needs to last 90 to 180 minutes. A game needs to last 10-40 hours to be worthwhile. How do you fill in that time between the life-changing or story-defining moments in the game?
I was reading Kotaku's write-up about how unnecessary the gratuitous violence is within Bioshock Infinite. In it, they describe how the game does a good job introducing the story, the characters, and the environment, but the over-the-top violence takes you out of the beautiful world the game created. The developers even said that because they game was a shooter, they just threw in the violence because it was familiar. Rather than take a risk with game play, they played it safe.
Take another game like Heavy Rain which tries really hard to be "grown-up." Spoiler alert: in it, you have a story about a father trying to recover his kidnapped son. In the early stages it feels like Silence of the Lambs or Mystic River. It gives you the same discomfort as you had watching those movies where you're thinking, the bad guy is sick and messed up, but believable. Now in real life, when kids get kidnapped by strangers, the sad reality is it's probably to fulfill some sick sexual vice by the perpetrator. I'm not saying I wanted Heavy Rain to go there (and parents groups would have freaked out over a game in a way they wouldn't for a movie with the same subject matter), but the villain's motive was a cop-out - he wanted to prove a point about good parenting because his dad sucked. If the game had tried to pull off a plot that would have been acceptable in a movie, the game would have been a revelation in making a game for adults. Instead, it played it safe. The game gets further damaged when in an effort to feel mature, it wastes an entire level on "make the female character shower" and let's make two characters have sex. Do a half circle on the right analog stick and tap the triangle button to unhook her bra. Here the game mistakes mature content for a mature game. These levels are completely unnecessary and could have been handled with a quick cut scene. I'm fine with nudity or sex in a game if it's relevant to the story you are trying to tell.
In both games, they play it safe, and when they try to be mature, they do it in the wrong areas. In the former, by not pushing for new game play, in the latter by not pushing the boundaries of a video game story. The reason for this is they have to worry about sales. Fittingly, with Ebert's passing yesterday, you have to use this as an argument against video games being art. In movies, you can put out utter crap that will make money like "The Chipmunks" movies, and then reinvest those earnings towards a movie that would be critically acclaimed but a potential failure at the box office like say "Life of Pi" which did well, but the risk was there that it wouldn't. When game companies are willing to invest in the art of a video game while not worrying about commercial success, that's when games will grow up.
Comments 116
Re: Soapbox: Why We Should Expect More From The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker HD
The lost dungeons (or adding new dungeons if the lost dungeons have already been used) seems like a missed opportunity. Other than that, I'm all for the remake. I cannot stand black bars on the side of the screen to play games in their original aspect ratio, and I cannot stand images stretched out to get rid of the black bars on modern TVs, so a widescreen, HD re-release is fine by me. The original game looked great, but I don't want to play it on an old TV to see the graphics at their sharpest.
Re: Ubisoft CEO Admits ZombiU Sales Were Disappointing, No Plans For Sequel
@SetupDisk I don't have an issue with who reviewed it as his points were all valid. Had the game been fleshed out more, it would have been better which is why a lack of a sequel is disappointing.
Here's the thing, the game is marketed at the "core" audience of gamers as moms theoretically wouldn't or shouldn't be buying this for their 8-year-old. The core gamers can read reviews and know that this game is a gamble of a purchase, and it's best to wait for a price drop. Ubisoft seems to want to punish gamers for being prudent with their purchases, and rather than right their wrongs with a sequel that remedies the problems of the original, they'd rather just blame the consumer.
Re: Ubisoft CEO Admits ZombiU Sales Were Disappointing, No Plans For Sequel
@WiiURockz You could have stopped at reason number 1. Reviewers started to come around later, but the early reviews (like IGN giving it a 6.3) stopped people from buying it at launch. I remember reading the review the weekend of the system launch and letting out an audible sigh when I saw disappointing scores.
Re: Phil Fish: Animal Crossing: New Leaf Not Having Microtransactions is "So Special And Precious"
If they charged for microtransactions for Animal Crossing, the game would cost $2,000 as it's primarily a game about microtransactions.
Re: Donkey Kong 64 Required Expansion Pak to Prevent Game-Breaking Bug
@aaronsullivan As a kid, I always prided myself on being able to beat all of the games I owned (except Battletoads, screw you, Battletoads). DK 64 was the first time, I said "screw it." I don't care enough to go back to the same area again with a different Kong that I don't care about. In an effort to be a bigger game than Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, it just ended up as a bloated game.
Re: Talking Point: The Wii U's Next-Gen Challenge Starts to Take Shape
@brucelebnd That's just it. The Wii U sold last Christmas to hardcore Nintendo fans and some parents smart enough to distinguish it from its predecessor. X1 and PS4 will sell to hardcore fans, but few parents will spend $400-$500 on a gift for a kid. Drop the price of the black unit to $250, include Nintendoland, exclude stands and charging stations if necessary, but if it can sell for $150-$250 less than the competition, that's a big win for Nintendo. They should also do an ambassador package for the early adapters and give us something to feel special like being able to download Earthbound or GameCube games months before new system owners.
If they want to avoid confusion, discontinue the Wii. Repackage Wii Games as Wii U games like they did with Wii Remote Plus, and market them as "Wii Classic" games with a lower price if they want to keep selling them. Don't give people an option. If you want Nintendo games, you need a Wii U.
Re: Nintendo Direct Confirmed For 17th May, Covering Summer Titles on Wii U and 3DS
It's timed to beat the May 21st XBOX reveal to the punch. It's their way of saying, sure, there are no games now, but we will have a ton of games coming out when new XBOX and PS4 owners are complaining that they have no games for their new consoles.
Re: Feature: The Neutered Malevolence of Animal Crossing: New Leaf
To be clear, you only get one town per cartridge/download, correct? It's not like the Gamecube version where you could save multiple towns per memory card, and then visit your friends town and take a cherry or two. I'll gladly play this with my wife and daughter, but I'm not sure I can justify buying the same game three times
Re: Pachter: Nintendo Made The Right Decision In Skipping E3 This Year
The rumors have a 3D Mario, Mario Kart, and Smash Bros. as playable. You'd have to think Pikmin, Bayonetta, Wonderful 101 will be fully playable as well as well as a surprise or two. Nintendo maintains that you have to play the Wii U to understand it. This gets the press playing the Wii U rather than watching it be played.
The criticism that will be thrown at MS and Sony will be, "Hey, more shooters!" If Nintendo only shows Mario, the reaction will be, "Hey, more Mario." If Nintendo lets people play Mario in a way that only the Wii U allows, then you give the media something to sink their teeth into.
Re: Rumour: Nintendo Planning a 3D Mario Release on Wii U Before October
I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a few times when it seems like they release a good game early when they could have released a great game later. I remember Wind Waker felt shorter and then we found out a few levels were scrapped. Skyward Sword was long, but it felt like we had to revisit areas in order to save time making new areas. It was this or make the game a Wii U launch game. The most blatant example is Super Mario 3D Land. The initial game was short, but then artificially lengthened by making you redo earlier levels with Shadow Mario or a timer.
Re: Madden NFL Is Skipping Nintendo Systems For The First Time Since 1991
Step 1: Release a gimmicky control scheme on Madden for the Wii (failure)
Step 2: Release a cartoony graphical style Madden on the Wii (failure)
Step 3: Use same unpopular cartoony style, on a striped-down, bare bones 3DS version. When it fails, blame the unpopularity of 3D
Step 4: Help Nintendo develop their online infrastructure. Brag about the strong partnership between the two companies
Step 5: Try to backdoor EA's proprietary Origin program into online infrastructure giving EA unprecedented control over Nintendo's online offerings.
Step 6: Get shot down
Step 7: Pout
Step 8: Pout
Step 9: Release gimped versions of previously promised games, watch them sell poorly
Step 10: Pull support, blame Nintendo.
Re: Rumour: GTA V Has Been Tested On Wii U Dev Kits For Some Time
@RikuzeYre GTA games are fun. People might dismiss them because they are controversial, but they are fairly well put together. The content of the game isn't much worse than what you'd see in Goodfellas or on The Sopranos, but people got bent out of shape because it was a video game. If video games are about letting you do things you either never could or never would do in real life (be a super hero, fight in World War II, win a Super Bowl, fight a dragon, etc.), then GTA is that game that lets you pretend you are involved in organized crime.
The game can be funny both intentionally such as something characters do or say, or it can be funny with the situations that are created by game play. Some of the best games allow you to experiment with "What happens if I...". This game is chock full of "what happens if I..." situations.
Re: Talking Point: Fire Emblem: Awakening - The Big Casual Mode Debate
I don't think this game is selling well because of the new "Casual" mode, I think it's doing well because they did a better job of marketing it and because it's been getting rave reviews. I've been playing Nintendo systems for over 25 years and this was the first Fire Emblem game I played, and I did so because review after review said that this game was a reason to own the 3DS.
Re: Vote: Pick Your Favourite NES Games
Wow, I'm seeing no love for some games on my list.
1. Tecmo Super Bowl
2. Battletoads
3. Super Mario 3
4. Mike Tyson's Punchout
5. RC Pro AM
6. Mega Man 2
7. Legend of Zelda
8. Maniac Mansion
9. Super Mario Bros. 2
10. TMNT 2: The Arcade Game
I ranked based on how much I loved them at the time. Historically, I would rank Super Mario Bros in the top 10 NES games, but as a kid, I viewed it as "it's a free game, it's not that good."
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
@SpaceApe, in video games, "Mature" generally means targeted at 14-year-olds, in the same way as when I was 14, a movie meant for a mature audience (Rated R) was really targeted at me (Van Damme, Seagal, Stallone, Schwarzenegger movies).
Re: Talking Point: Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
Isn't it the job description for a guy like Spector? Shouldn't they be figuring this out? It's easy to make an adult movie because it only needs to last 90 to 180 minutes. A game needs to last 10-40 hours to be worthwhile. How do you fill in that time between the life-changing or story-defining moments in the game?
I was reading Kotaku's write-up about how unnecessary the gratuitous violence is within Bioshock Infinite. In it, they describe how the game does a good job introducing the story, the characters, and the environment, but the over-the-top violence takes you out of the beautiful world the game created. The developers even said that because they game was a shooter, they just threw in the violence because it was familiar. Rather than take a risk with game play, they played it safe.
Take another game like Heavy Rain which tries really hard to be "grown-up." Spoiler alert: in it, you have a story about a father trying to recover his kidnapped son. In the early stages it feels like Silence of the Lambs or Mystic River. It gives you the same discomfort as you had watching those movies where you're thinking, the bad guy is sick and messed up, but believable. Now in real life, when kids get kidnapped by strangers, the sad reality is it's probably to fulfill some sick sexual vice by the perpetrator. I'm not saying I wanted Heavy Rain to go there (and parents groups would have freaked out over a game in a way they wouldn't for a movie with the same subject matter), but the villain's motive was a cop-out - he wanted to prove a point about good parenting because his dad sucked. If the game had tried to pull off a plot that would have been acceptable in a movie, the game would have been a revelation in making a game for adults. Instead, it played it safe. The game gets further damaged when in an effort to feel mature, it wastes an entire level on "make the female character shower" and let's make two characters have sex. Do a half circle on the right analog stick and tap the triangle button to unhook her bra. Here the game mistakes mature content for a mature game. These levels are completely unnecessary and could have been handled with a quick cut scene. I'm fine with nudity or sex in a game if it's relevant to the story you are trying to tell.
In both games, they play it safe, and when they try to be mature, they do it in the wrong areas. In the former, by not pushing for new game play, in the latter by not pushing the boundaries of a video game story. The reason for this is they have to worry about sales. Fittingly, with Ebert's passing yesterday, you have to use this as an argument against video games being art. In movies, you can put out utter crap that will make money like "The Chipmunks" movies, and then reinvest those earnings towards a movie that would be critically acclaimed but a potential failure at the box office like say "Life of Pi" which did well, but the risk was there that it wouldn't. When game companies are willing to invest in the art of a video game while not worrying about commercial success, that's when games will grow up.