ZAZX

ZAZX

Writer, Games and Industry critic.

Comments 155

Re: Nintendo Download: 17th March (North America)

ZAZX

@PanurgeJr

Oh well, I fell victim to a troll. I'm just used to people being woefully misinformed on the internet and try to help educate. I'll admit I was wrong, after searching for sources research suggests demos don't increase sales, they hurt them (though that is something you didn't mention.)

Actually, why didn't you do the sensible thing, and link some sources to back up your claim instead of resorting to trolling and thus breaking the Community Rules? Google shows several good results you could have cited.

Regardless, I thank you for enlightening me indirectly to the sales potential of demos and for reminding me to do more research before commenting in the future.

Re: Nintendo Download: 17th March (North America)

ZAZX

@PanurgeJr

"Besides there's already a demo out. I bought mine for 59.99 last year."

Oh good, mind telling me how well Hyrule Warriors Legends runs on 3DS then? Is it comfortable to play using the 3DS itself? Does it seem like it makes good use of the 3DS's features? What about the New 3DS? I'm sure the Wii U version was very telling of all of these things. Oh wait, of course it wasn't because the Wii U isn't a 3DS.

Ignoring the fact that paying for a demo pretty much defeats the entire purpose of a demo.

@manu0

That's really unfortunate to hear. Preloads are such a nice thing to have, especially if you have slow internet.

Re: Nintendo Download: 17th March (North America)

ZAZX

@MysteriousBebsi

Nintendo of America? Actually doing something that will help the company earn money?! GASP You're a madman to think that would ever happen! Edit: Sarcasm aside, I've been indirectly informed that research suggests demos actually harm sales.

Sources:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/game-demos-can-hurt-sales-suggests-research/1100-6410863/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122056-Game-Dev-Claims-Demos-Hurt-Game-Sales

Re: Pokémon Creative Director Dies at Age 42

ZAZX

@PigmaskFan You know, I'm not sure if people are still reacting to the picture you linked or they're yelling at you for asking a legitimate question. If he had any involvement in S&M it very well might, though likely nothing major.

Re: Smash 4 Receives Yet Another Patch

ZAZX

Why can't they just tell us what they updated? FFS. We always have to datamine. Honestly, you have probably 90% of games nowadays that tell you what they changed because it makes their game look even better, and then you have Nintendo who feels the need to be tight-lipped about updates for crying out loud.

Re: Pokémon Creative Director Dies at Age 42

ZAZX

@MitchVogel
Out of curiosity, why did you remove the picture of him being very happy with his wife (I presume) and replace it with a generic Pocket Monsters image? It wasn't like that when I first saw the article.

Re: Wii U Exclusive Twisted Fusion Gets a Playable Browser-Based Beta

ZAZX

@Captain_Gonru
Most homes have at least a half decent computer (Though I only speak for the US) and the Wii U's browser is incredibly limited plugin and input wise. It would have been incredibly difficult.

This next part is pure speculation on my part, but I believe it was Microsoft that charged a license fee to have a demo or game update on their X-Box platform, perhaps Nintendo does the same thing and that's why they didn't create a regular demo on the E-Shop.

@MarioPhD
I could bet money on you being absolutely right. With it so cheap and easy to release your game on the PC platform, why would an indie studio stay exclusive to what many consider a commercial failure of a game console? And before anyone gets defensive on that statement, I love my Wii U. Love isn't going to change the truth.

Re: Soapbox: It's too Early to Judge Paper Mario: Color Splash

ZAZX

No thanks. Honestly between this, Federation Force and Amiibo Festival, that's three franchises Nintendo has royally disappointed me (and MANY other people) with in the span of a single generation.

Being that out of touch with your fans is almost an achievement.

Re: Star Fox Zero Will Include An Invincible Mode For Inexperienced Players

ZAZX

I honestly have no qualms with this, as long as it's optional. Sometimes casuals need help to beat their games and don't wish to practice, and it'd also be good for little kids. Seeing a more difficult risk VS reward mode however sparks delight in me.

Still though, where's our online multiplayer? Star Fox would be perfect for it and some of us don't have the luxury of playing local multiplayer. And please let it be good netcode like Mario Kart 8 is, and not bad netcode like Smash 4 is.

Re: Weirdness: You Can Now Play 3D NES Games In Your Web Browser

ZAZX

@amiiboacid “So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” -Ernest Hemingway

Right and wrong is entirely of personal opinion. What is fact however, is that Bleem! is legal and so are emulators.

Re: Weirdness: You Can Now Play 3D NES Games In Your Web Browser

ZAZX

@FragRed Removing what, out of curiosity? They aren't hosting any games or anything that Nintendo sells. You have to load your own dumped ROMs into it. This is just an emulator, and emulators themselves are original works that are perfectly legal as long as they contain no copyrighted code.

Re: Weirdness: You Can Now Play 3D NES Games In Your Web Browser

ZAZX

Nintendo really has no legal grounds to cease and desist this. Emulators are 100% legal as long as they do not contain copyrighted code. And this doesn't as far as I can tell. Sony tried shutting down a COMMERCIAL emulator in the past, doing so to Bleem! and failed. Emulators are legal folks. Playing ROMs on them, that's still up for debate, but the emulator itself is legal. If Sony couldn't shut down a commercial emulator then Nintendo can't do shite to a free one. And for people saying emulators are for nothing more than piracy, shame on you. Some people do go the legal route and dump their own ROMs, not many I'll admit but some do. Emulators are great for hobbyist programmers and are often what people programming their new games for old consoles playtest on.

An excerpt about Bleem!:
Two days after Bleem! started taking preorders for their emulator, Sony filed suit against them alleging that they were violating their rights and that providing access for PlayStation games to run on non-Sony hardware constituted unfair competition.

Ultimately Bleem! won in court and a protective order was issued to "protect David from Goliath". Sony lost on all counts, including Bleem!'s use of screenshots of PlayStation games on its packaging. The court noted that Bleem!'s use of copyrighted screenshots was considered fair use and should be allowed to continue.

Although Sony's litigation against Bleem! led the company to bankruptcy, Sony did not manage to win a decisive victory against Bleem! and to have the product removed from shelves after their demise, which is a legal precedent for the commercial viability of emulators invigorating development of many free PlayStation emulators offering 90% or greater compatibility, and with Bleem! generally regarded as obsolete.

Re: Konami and Capcom Are Bringing Some SNES Classics to New 3DS

ZAZX

In this thread: Armchair emulation developers. You know who you are.

As for me, I have a New 3DS and I won't even be buying these as I have a backlog of excellent Steam games to play, many that cost roughly the same as a 20+ year old game emulated on modern (yet still dated) hardware. The classics are great don't get me wrong, but buying them multiple times is just silly, especially at such a high price.

Re: Video: Digital Foundry Tackles the Native Resolution and Framerate in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

ZAZX

@smashbrolink The frame rate sickness is extremely rare, I'll admit. However low field of view sickness is more common than one might think.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464152
Several commenters suffer from FoV sickness here, for example.

As much as I hate to cite Kotaku as well, I am a bit restrained for time right now.
http://kotaku.com/5869607/how-motion-sickness-can-ruin-games-and-the-meds-used-to-fight-it

Though if you want someone more credible, John Bain (Total Biscuit) suffers from it too if I recall. I'm pretty sure he calls it out on some of his port reports, Grand Theft Auto V being one he complains about low FoV and simulation sickness.

Re: Video: Digital Foundry Tackles the Native Resolution and Framerate in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

ZAZX

@Action51 It's not a joke. And I've never had a PlayStation or an Xbox. A good majority of Nintendo's games are 60 FPS and I mostly PC game where I can lower my settings to achieve 60 FPS.

Simulation sickness is a real, honest thing. A lot of people are set off by it with low field of view as well.

Also, I don't watch Television. Never have, never will for that exact reason. That, and because most of it is garbage reality shows nowadays. I'm also not a movie person for this exact reason.

Re: Hands On: Searching for Clues in Detective Pikachu: Birth of a New Duo

ZAZX

I... I want to like this, I really do. But every time I see the trailer footage I feel like The Pokemon Company has jumped the shark completely and lost their minds.

Perhaps it's just a culture thing I'm not getting. Or perhaps it just feels too alien. I almost feel like this was going to be a detective game on its own right but they forced Pokemon into it to sell more copies. Of course that isn't giving it a fair chance, so I'd like to believe that is not so.

Re: Video: Digital Foundry Tackles the Native Resolution and Framerate in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

ZAZX

@liveswired Okay, stop. Just, just stop. You have no idea what you are talking about. The movie example has NOTHING to do with video games. Movies fill in the blanks with motion blur and you are not controlling what is on screen. Reaction time isn't important.

Games are not movies, plain and simple. They aren't even CLOSE to movies.

Edit: Also, this:

The argument about ~24FPS providing a "better cinematic experience" is completely made up. The film industry adopted 24FPS as a standard because back in the 1930s, higher framerate films took up too much physical film and lower framerate films were difficult to synchronize with the audio. Games don't need framerate caps because frames are generated in realtime as many times per second as your graphics card can handle, displayed to the screen, and then removed from memory to make room for the next frame.

Edit2: Also:

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have determined through observation that not only is the difference noticeable, but player performance increases logarithmically up to 60FPS (logarithmically means the largest increases happen early on and begin to taper off, see rough example here). Unfortunately, they didn't test with framerates over 60, so we can intelligently theorize (but not scientifically prove) that this also applies to framerates beyond 60. They also concluded (since the curve is logarithmic) that framerates lower than 30 get almost exponentially worse, which is unfortunate because almost every "next-gen" demo so far has shown to dip as low as 10-20FPS while rendering heavier scenes.

Source for that: http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/fr-rez/paper.pdf

Just trying to clear misinformation here.

Re: Video: Digital Foundry Tackles the Native Resolution and Framerate in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

ZAZX

@Dave24 It depends heavily on the engine and competence of the developer. Unless you have direct information about Twilight Princess's engine you'd like to share, of course.

Some developers are moronic and hardcode their physics to 30 FPS, such as in the title Need for Speed: Rivals. Some only tie specific things to the frame rate, such as in Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition. If you uncap that using DSFix, you may clip through the ground when sliding down ladders, but that's it. And then you have developers who know to future proof their engine/game and do not hard code a lower FPS cap.

Nintendo may have pulled an oops and tied physics to the frame rate considering how old the game is, or this may just be a lack of power and prioritizing graphics over game play.

Re: Video: Digital Foundry Tackles the Native Resolution and Framerate in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

ZAZX

I guess I won't be picking this up after all, even though I was still on the fence. 30 FPS sets off my simulation sickness and makes me feel very ill after about an hour of gameplay. I believe it is a rather rare condition, much like low FoV sickness for some people.

60 FPS should be standard in 2016 anyway, but sadly it isn't.

Though I'm surprised it is 30 FPS. Am I the only one that can barely tell a difference between this and upscaled Dolphin TP? It must have been an engine frame rate cap they couldn't work around.

Re: Undertale Creator Open To Nintendo Port, But Wouldn't Be Able To Code It Himself

ZAZX

I've used Game Maker: Studio myself. People like to crap on it, but there are good projects. Just as much rubbish, if not more comes out of Unity and RPG Maker, and the jewels are never brought up.

Unless Yo-Yo games starts selling a Wii-U license (Which they won't, considering it's pretty much a dead console at this point, always has been, actually. I love mine, don't get me wrong but it's a sales wasteland for third parties.) he won't be able to port it. No exceptions.

I friggin' love Undertale, it's easily the most creative game of 2015. I'd love to see it ported to as many systems as possible, but it just isn't possible. Literally, the ONLY, ONLY criticism I have of that game is the mortal sin of 30fps in 2015/2016. And "that" section of the fanbase... You know, that one section most fanbases have.

Re: Nintendo Profits Dip as amiibo Hits Over 40 Million Sales in Nine Months

ZAZX

@Silgeach Yeah this alarmed me too. People compare Amiibo to DLC with "A bonus toy figure!" but in reality it is DLC that is more expensive than normal DLC and that you may not even be able to buy due to scalpers.

It's no wonder that Amiiqo device NintendoLife so graciously reported on last year is thriving right now. Too bad it's morally shady and expensive.

Just give me the option to buy your DLC Nintendo without the plastic toys or cards or any physical item. That's all a lot of people want and instead are going to devices like the aforementioned one. As GabeN put it, piracy isn't a money problem. It's a service problem.

I'd be delighted if Nintendo released an official device like that Amiiqo thing, and charged maybe $5 USD an Amiibo to download onto it. That'd be neat, and it'd fix the scalper and stock issues! That and I wouldn't have to have multiple Amiibo laying around taking up space, but just one unified device.

Re: Feature: Five Key Details That May Emerge From Nintendo's Financial Reports and Briefings

ZAZX

@Xenocity I'm aware. However the person I'm playing against gets 5 MB/s download speeds and I get 1.5 MB/s. That's not MiB, that's MB. Our upload isn't that but it's still plenty enough where any Steam game we play together doesn't have issues like Smash does.

My main issues with Smash aside from the obvious input lag is the voice chat sounding like it is literally coming out of a tin can, and how it is missing obvious features such as Special Smash or even Multi-Man co-op, which Brawl had.

Nintendo's network is just a joke. They straight up admitted they had never used PlayStation Network or Xbox Live and thus referencing those would be of no use. It's no wonder they're behind the curve. I'm just hoping the NX brings better online. They should be using the competition's network so they have an idea of what an online network should be like in the current age. Know your enemy.

And please do not bring up "Well you pay monthly for PSN/XBL so of course they will be better." I do not pay monthly for Steam/Steamworks and it trumps all three.

Re: Review: Final Fantasy Explorers (3DS)

ZAZX

Such a shame. I want to play this, really badly, but I have no friends who are going to buy it. Is single player still fun with the bots, or is it not worth the price if you plan to go solo?

Re: Hardware Review: We Look at a Definitive GameCube HDMI Mod

ZAZX

Gamecube definitely wasn't my first console (That'd be N64, though I played my parents' NES and SNES before then) but I remember going to Walmart and seeing the display for it.

And I saw Mario Sunshine on display. Sweet Arceus, I was taken aback. I needed. I wanted it. And you know what? I don't regret it to this day. The Gamecube was awesome.

I guess one of the perks of modern technology is getting to relive games like that with modern, upscaled resolutions (That the original system lacked the power to do) via emulation or just picture clarity modifications like this even.

Re: Talking Point: Splatoon Began With an Early Access Approach, and Has Provided a Valuable Lesson

ZAZX

Agreeing with @jariw here. Splatoon wasn't early access. Free updates to an already finished game isn't early access, sorry. If that's the case then a LOT of games in my Steam library are apparently early access. Goodness, if that's true then titles such as The Witcher 3 are bloody early access, where they clearly are not.

Early access is when you release a game that isn't finished yet, and more often than not is missing vital functions.

Moreover, calling Splatoon early access is just lumping it together in a very negative stigma surrounding the words "Early Access" which Steam has proven 9/10 times are terrible games that never get finished. There are exceptions of course, but they are few and far between. Most sadly do end up in development hell.

Splatoon doesn't deserve that. It's great.