sounds good to me! I'm at 340 coins so far this year so I've got my gold status already. I have 1120 total coins so I'll be able to nab the Game & Watch Ball. Still, I really like that Starman messenger bag, giant Mii AR card, and the reversable DS Pouches...which altogether come out to be about the same as the Game & Watch.
Unfortunately Metroid is one of the few Nintendo franchises have I not been able to get into. I really want to like it but then I have to backtrack through a major part of the game to find the one door I can use my new weapon for for the third or fourth time and I just lose interest. This isn't a problem unique to the Metroid series. I really dislike the Metroidvania Castlevanias partially because of this same reason. To be fair though, I didn't stop playing the last two Metroid games, Prime 3 and Other M because I lost interest but because I got hijacked by other games. I should probably pick them back up. Other M in particular seems like a Metroid game I'd actually finish.
Well first, I do hope they're planning on getting some third party games on the list. Maybe that's why they only announced half the list; those are the games they're contributing now they gotta see what games they can pull from third parties. My list is made in the hopes that we're getting some third party games thrown in the mix.
GBA: Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising Tactics Ogre Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town Klonoa: Empire of Dreams Rayman 3
NES: Pro-Wrestling Manic Mansion Shadowgate Metal Gear Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
My GBA got so little love (I was poor back then, 'kay!) so I don't own any of the currently announced GBA games. I also really want the NES Metal Gear games. Sure purists will complain that they ruined the original and that Kojima didn't have anything to do with Snake's Revenge, but its exactly because of that that they rarely see re-releases or even acknowledgement, despite not being bad games.
My GBA never got as much love as it should've so I actually don't own any of those games, nor have I ever owned a copy of Yoshi's Island so this is great for me!
I gotta say it sucks a little that the Wii U won't support GCN discs and I'm sure a lot of people will rage about that but the way I see it, if you have a significant collection of Gamecube games as I do, you probably already have a device that plays them, be it a Gamecube or a Wii (I have both) so they're not making you rebuy anything. For those that don't, I just hope Nintendo prices the games competitively. Right now my guess is that GCN games will cost like $20, which is too much for me.
I personally loved Sonic and the Secret Rings. It really felt like it was everything we needed a Sonic game to be since it lacked the extended cast, except for the narrative cutscenes, incredibly fast, tough as nails levels, and a fun customization mechanic. Sure backing up was a pain, but that was really my only complaint, oh and that tacked on party mode but there was enough in the single player that you could avoid that part entirely.
Sonic and the Black Knight was several steps back, unfortunately. The sword could've been an interesting addition but the combat just stopped the gameplay in its tracks and really prevented you from feeling any sense of momentum. Eventually I just jumped over all the enemies and had a decent enough time. They brought some of the extended cast back into the game, which isn't bad in and of itself; since they all played more or less like Sonic we didn't have the Sonic Adventure schizophrenia where we had treasure hunts, shooting levels, and...Big...god I hate Big. The levels themselves were also incredibly tame and unexciting. I do believe the game lacked a single inversion. Still it also had some good points. I did enjoy the final boss, and I really liked the art direction, especially for armored Sonic and company.
I'd personally welcome a new storybook game if it was closer to Secret Rings in terms of difficulty and approach. Black Knight was just too watered down to be wholly interesting while Secret Rings really nailed so many of Sonic's important points and help start the series on its road to recovery.
I honestly prefer the individual courses in tricky to the Big Mountain approach of the latter games. I will concede that the actual snowboarding mechanics and whatnot were improved in later games, but they did lose a lot of the quirkiness that made fall in love with the series through Tricky.
I did like how the Nintendo Channel handled user-reviews: requiring users to have spent an hour with a game before being allowed to review it. Given that the 3DS logs your game hours I don't see why they couldn't use a similar system.
@30 oh man, that would be an awsome AR game. Screw travelling around the fake Kanto or wherever the current games are set. Make it a full fledges AR Pokemon game where you need to actually travel around town or something to find and capture new pokemon, fight only other players and their caught teams. Basically play Pokemon in real life. Maybe make the gym leaders NPCs that pop up after you've caught a certain number pokemon of a specific average level...
I can think of a couple of reasons why they'd go with the costume idea instead of the original characters.
1) it helps unite the visual feel and attitude of the game. Sure Kingdom Hearts mashed everything together but this allows them to create a unique art direction and attitude for the game, entirely independant of the trappings and conventions of each individual property, while at the same time making use of those recognizable Disney elements. Half the wacky stuff they did in that trailer would've been entirely out of character for a character like Alice for example but it works here because its clearly not Alice but a character in costume.
2) gameplay-wise it allows various types of characters to co-exist in a single level. For example, how would playing as Nemo work in what is certainly mostly an above-water game?
Honestly, for all its faults, and trust me, I realize the 3DS has many, I don't think the launch lineup was any better or worse than Nintendo's prior launches.
No the launch games weren't amazing but people say that if the DS' launch lineup was glowing. Hell, the DS' launch lineup in North America consisted of Asphalt Urban GT, Feel the Magic, Madden 2005, Ping Pals, Ridge Racer, Spider-Man 2, Sprung, Mario 64 DS, Urbz, and Tiger Woods. How many of those are worth buying?
The 3DS had 5 must-have games according to NintendoLife's buyer's guide. That alone is over half of the DS' launch lineup. NintendoLife goes on to name another 6 games as Worth Playing. That's more games worth playing on the console than the entire launch lineup of the DS.
Sure the DS also included the Metroid Prime Hunters demo but the 3DS also includes Face Raiders, Find Mii, and the AR Games. Yes the 3DS' launch could have been better. Every system launch can be better but how many system launches can you remember having 11 games worth playing?
The Virtual Console is one of the best ideas this generation and probably the most disapointing in its execution. It started off okay with Nintendo releasing games weekly to help support sporadic Wii retail releases. However, releases quickly went from classic games everyone wanted and were obviously going to see release (i.e. Super Mario Bros, LoZ, Metroid, etc) to games ranging from obscure to "horrible even as a kid."
Still, Nintendo threw us bones every so often; expanding the service to cover Commodore 64, TurboGrafx 16, and Arcade games were all great news when they were announced but few every really panned out. On top of that, its been disappointing how Nintendo is unwilling to modify the games at all to preserve even the features that were available in the original game. No memory pack support for Mario Kart 64 and no rumble support for Star Fox 64. Still, for some reason they added a feature to Pokemon Snap that saves your photos as image files on your sd card so its clear that its not that Nintendo can't fix these problems, they're choosing not to.
I've long since stopped writing up lists of all the great classic games that I'd love to see rereleased since I doubt very few of them ever will. Only two/three games really remain in mind and those are Castlevania 64/Legacy of Darkness, my favorite games in the Castlevania series and Castlevania: Bloodlines, a game I've owned for years but never played because I never owned a Genesis. I honestly don't understand why Bloodlines hasn't been released since the Sega Genesis is one of the more prolific consoles on the service and most of the classic Castlevania series is already available. 64/Legacy of Darkness I can see a major problem with since it requires a memory card to save your progress. However, the Japanese version of Legacy of Darkness allowed you to save your game on the cart itself, in addition to supporting the rumble pack. Perhaps the Japanese text/assets could be replaced with the english ones but we haven't really seen that much effort put into a Virtual Console release and I doubt a now-reviled N64 game would command that much work to be re released.
Man, the Virtual Console was so promising at first. Not to say it was a total failure as we did get Rondo of Blood and Sin & Punishment, probably my two most wanted titles for the system but after four years it definitely leaves much to be desired. I hope that the 3DS' Virtual Console will help spur work on the Wii's Virtual Console but Nintendo isn't known for giving people what they want, they try to give you what you don't know you want, which is also nice, but in this case, I do wish they'd just do the obvious thing.
Honestly I wouldn't mind if they kept the main Pokemon games on the handhelds but that doesn't mean a Pokemon RPG wouldn't be good on home consoles.
Personally, I've always wanted a game that follows the first season of the TV show. I know Pokemon Yellow kind of did that, but I mean a proper story-based RPG where your pokemon team is built up according to the story, Team Rocket is there with all their silly antics, you meet up with all those odd supporting characters, and event-style matches that don't follow the typical pokemon formula, like Charizard and Magmar 1-on-1 on top of a volcano, etc.
Unfortunately I'm expecting something along the lines of Pokepark or Pokemon Channel instead of something noteworthy. Hopefully Nintendo proves me wrong.
I really don't see this as a problem since every console holder has limits on your downloads in some form or another. Even on the 360 you're only allowed to transfer the license from one console to another once a year.
It seems to me that it was Team Meat's hubris that really spelled the downfall of the WiiWare version. You can blame the WiiWare file restriction all you want, and yes that's an unfortunate result of Nintendo's design of the Wii, but when you have to design a car for a one-lane tunnel and you build it two lanes wide, its not the tunnel-builders' fault your car won't fit.
Team Meat has said they were aware of the size limit on WiiWare but ignored it because they assumed Nintendo would raise the size limit just for them. Game development is all about working within limitations and ignoring those because you assume you'll be an exception is never a smart thing to do.
While their attempt at getting a retail release is admirable, I honestly don't see how any sane publisher would pick it up, regardless of how many awards they've won. How many people here have said they picked this up on Steam for under $4? How then is any publisher going to expect to sell this for at least $20 at retail? Especially after production, retail, and development costs? That's why there's no profit in it, not necessarily because third party Wii games can't be profitable. Its the nature of the game and the added costs of a retail release that destroy its viability as a retail product.
Super Meat Boy looks like a great game and fortunately it has found an avenue for release but Team Meat knew the limitations on WiiWare and let their game grow beyond it assuming they would get a pass and that's what killed the WiiWare release.
While I agree that more could've been done with the package, we all knew what was included since before it was announced for the US, so none of us here that bought it should feel like they've been cheated or that Nintendo ripped them off.
Its worth whatever its worth to you. Considering buy-it-now prices on ebay for the original cart range from $15 for a bare cartridge to over $100 for a boxed copy, I'm happy with my purchase. Would I have preferred it if they included the Super Mario World version? Of course. But just because its not everything I wanted it to be or everything it could possibly have been doesn't make what I got any less worthy of the price.
And for the record, contrary to the review, the booklet is not staple-bound. Its perfect-bound and even has the title going down the spine.
This looks great, I know I'll be getting this as soon as I have the money for it. My biggest disappointment with the first game wasn't the plot itself, which I rather enjoyed, but the way it was presented. Everything, aside from the revealation of the alien, seemed to happen away from you and never in front of you. Instead of seeing anything happen you were informed of it either in the inter-level briefings or via radio communication. Looks like there will be more storytelling in front of the camera this time.
The Limited Edition has just about the same contents as the original Conduit SE: Multiplayer skin (Agent/Gold Armor) ASE Skin (though this new one seems to actually affect gameplay) Art Book
The only thing missing is awesome alternate box art. I loved how the Conduit SE replaced the character art with the far more iconic Trust logo. Now its just the same box art with "Limited Edition" written in small letters. Oh well, here's hoping the unlocks (ASE and multiplayer skin) don't use universal unlock keys like the first and instead use one-time codes like Goldeneye's promotional codes.
I had to go with Super C because of all the great memories (of never making it past the first level) I have from when I was a kid and since I have Mario All-Stars pre-orderd so getting a Mario game wouldn't make much sense.
Anyways, I think it'd be interesting to see what the other 24 winners chose for their game.
@skywake I appreciate what you were trying to do comparing the games owned on Backloggery with average attach rates but that probably wasn't the best place to start checking. Backloggery allows people to list individual games in a compilation and will count it as such. My own backloggery shows me at 127 Wii games when, in actuality, I have 105 Wii disc-based games, so I'm sure that will throw some of the numbers off.
Then the very nature of the site (keeping track of the games one hasn't completed yet) attracts people with larger collections. The site would be pretty much useless for people that have less than 10 games.
Still, I understand that its one of the few options available. IGN and Cheapassgamer both have collection trackers for users but I don't think either of them give you the stats for the whole user base the way Backloggery does.
I'm not fighting game afficionado so I personally don't care if its not on the cutting edge with massive move lists, rosters, and frame-reliant gameplay. I'm happy just beating the crud out of other fighters so this sounds like a game I'd enjoy. Unfortunately, I'm broke and still have some other Wii games I'd like to pick up, Sin & Punishment 2 being at the top of the list and I've been waiting for Secret Files: Tunguska for years, so unless I get a job tomorrow, I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to pick this up.
@barneygumble I doubt that's what it would mean commercially, after all, the 360 has had this feature for some time; you pop the disc in, hit install, 15 minutes later the contents of the disc are on the hard drive. The simple solution they went with is that even if you install the game to a hard disk, you need to have the disk itself in the drive.
Heck, even Nintendo's been dealing with the issue with their virtual console and WiiWare games which you can transfer to an SD card. It could be easily copied at that point but Nintendo's solution was to make WiiWare and Virtual Console games only playable on the systems they were originally purchased on.
If Nintendo wants to do it, there really isn't anything stopping them. There are reasonable anti-piracy measures that can be taken (though pirates will be pirates and will surely find a way to crack it, if they bother with the device at all considering they already have a working solution).
I don't really care either way. On the 360 its a godsend because some games have killer load times, the 360 makes plenty of noise, and helps generate less heat (decreasing the chance of hardware troubles). The Wii is typically pretty good at keeping load times down and the heat and noise is nothing on the level of the 360's so the only real benefit (aside from having your collection in one place, which isn't a big enough deal for me) is the reduced wear on the hard drive, which most people won't really notice. So unless there's some other big feature I think I can save my money.
@slapshot82 some games, maybe yes, can't be ported to the Wii because the gameplay itself simply can't be handled, but I would say that that limitation isn't present in most games. Take for example, the original Dead Space. The developers have said that they certainly could bring it over to the Wii it'd just take time and money. Why couldn't Oblivion be ported? Morrowind ran on the original Xbox and there's very little difference in terms of gameplay mechanics. What about Mass Effect? Two Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire were released on the Xbox to wide acclaim and use very similar mechanics. Street Fighter IV? There was a version released for the iphone and Tatsunoko vs Capcom was an amazing game. There is no reason that game couldn't have been made on the Wii. Resident Evil 5? Mechanically nearly identical to Resident Evil 4, which saw its finest days on the Wii. Arkham Asylum is an action game divided into reasonably-sized maps, I find it hard to believe that the gameplay could not be faithfully represented on the Wii. What is there in Bioshock that prevents it from being released on the Wii? Will the games look the same as their HD counterparts? No, of course not, but most HD don't have inherent base mechanics and gameplay that can't be handled on the Wii.
Its also really simplifying my argument to reduce it simply down to "I want these games on the Wii." No, the point I started off with is that third parties don't put the effort into producing a Wii title that they do into producing an HD title. You mentioned that some of the titles I mentioned were pushing the limits of the HD consoles. Well, why don't third parties put more effort into pushing the limits of the Wii?
As it is, when making a multiplatform game, the Wii version tends to be handed off to a less experienced developer and I'm willing to bet that their budget is reduced to match. Comparing the HD version of one to the Wii version of another often reveals, not only that the obvious that the Wii version looks worse, but more importantly, the design of the game is far weaker. Alone in the Dark was an ambitious game on the HD consoles which had the Wii version released alongside. The Wii version looked bad, not just "oh its a wii game so it won't look as good"-bad, it was, without hyperbole, first-generation PS2 game bad. But that's the obvious. Beyond that, the Wii version actually represented some of Alone in the Dark's main features (combining items) fairly well. While there's nothing wrong with the Wii version being different, the quality of the design was inferior to what was seen in the other versions. It was easy to get lost at time and you weren't always sure what you needed to do or where you needed to go. Furthermore, the production values suffered further. The quality of the voice acting and the direction of the cutscenes was inferior, both aspects that really have nothing to do with the power under the hood but are instead representative of the effort (or lack thereof) being put in by the developers to produce a good game.
This happens with many Wii game. Tomb Raider Underworld lacked many features (some of which were present in the previously released Tomb Raider Anniversary) that made it less interesting than its HD incarnations. The Wii version of multiplatform titles often feel like afterthoughts because the publishers tend to ignore them and they're often handled by less capable teams.
@JimLad You do bring up a good point about building franchises. After all, Resident Evil has sold well on the Wii, partially because the games were great, but also the fact that it has the name behind it. The question really though, if franchises are really grown or if they have to be made? Dead Space was a household name after its first game and the second one is much anticipated by the industry as a whole, but Dead Space got there after a huge marketing push by EA, something the original Conduit, and now Conduit 2, lacked. After all, Conduit 2 is only a few months away but all we've really gotten is the announcement and a few details here and there. Modern Warfare 2 began revealing information, trailers, providing interviews, etc over a year before its release and continued until after the game was released. The Conduit 2 wasn't announced a year before its release and hasn't been working to provide that level of anticipation that guarantees great sales and, probably more important, audience acceptance.
To be honest, third parties never took big risks when developing for the Wii. When was the last time there was a game on the Wii on the scale of something like Fallout, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Resident Evil 5, Final Fantasy XIII, GTA, Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed, or any of an ongoing list of titles.
Don't get me wrong, no one loves the Wii more than I do, and developers have turned out some excellent games for the system, but no developer has put the kind of investment in both production and marketing that the HD consoles have. The fact that they can release a single project on two consoles is surely a factor, of course, but the investment in Wii development hasn't been anything near what it should be if publishers want to see big returns.
Yes, every game I listed is multiplatform, but they've also had large budgets, a ton of marketing, and sometimes years of build-up. Its no wonder they sell in the millions. It definitely gets frustrating when developers try to use games like MadWorld and DeadSpace Extraction as barometers for "core" Wii audience. Don't get me wrong, I personally enjoyed Extraction more than the original Dead Space, but I do realize that the production of the former is nothing compared to that of the latter, nor was the media build-up remotely comparable. The original Dead Space was a relatively lengthy game in a popular genre preceeded by a comic book mini-series, an animated film, a viral game, trailers, and developer diaries over the span of a year. It was a new IP and managed to sell over a million units across the two HD consoles combined; not extraordinary sales by today's standards but the game had become so ingrained in the public's mind that it didn't matter. Then they try to convince people that Extraction is just as important a game for them. They make it a rail shooter, a genre that hasn't been important in the console space in over a decade, they make the game shorter, and they give it none of the build up the original did and then they wonder why they didn't see amazing sales and write it off as a lack of an audience. Don't get me wrong, there is some blame on the Wii-owning audience, but not to the point where you can simply write off a game's failure by placing the blame squarely on their shoulders.
The same goes for games like MadWorld. Great game, sure, but when was the last time a brawler was a significant release on a console (not a DMC-type action game, but an old school brawler)? Was it the Bouncer on the PS2? The industry and audience as a whole have declared these kinds of games as shallow, short, and repetitive and they really expected it to breakthrough? Its a miracle the game did as well, critically, as it did, but anyone expecting it to be a million-seller was fooling themselves.
Games like Cursed Mountain, Deadly Creatures, or the Conduit are done by small teams that have nowhere near the experience or the financial backing to really churn out a breakthrough product. Passion and dedication sure, but unfortunately that's rarely enough to make an impact in such a fickle industry where even games with 90% review averages are widely derided by critics and audiences.
I will admit that Capcom has put in a great amount of effort into their Wii releases. Darkside Chronicles was a top notch effort and sold fairly well, but again, an unpopular genre and a production nowhere near the scale of its contemporary, RE5. Capcom put in a tremendous effort in localizing Tatsunoko vs Capcom, but in the end, its release was overshadowed by a re-release of a year-old game, Street Fighter IV. Okami was a brilliant game, but it didn't sell very many copies on the PS2, the de facto "hardcore" console, it was a miracale that the Wii version sold as well as it did, but was there really a chance that it would have turned the game into a million-seller?
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers was an impressive effort by Square in a production cycle that took place over five years (though I wonder if it was that same team that produced My Life As A King, My Life as a Dark Lord, and Echoes of Time in the meantime) but if the traditionally critic-proof Final Fantasy series proper can get crucified for straying from expected gameplay conventions, then what chance did a game who's gameplay is as abstract as Crystal Bearers? Then there's the fact that there was no awareness for the game as Square was focused on pushed Final Fantasy XIII. Hell, many people didn't know Crystal Bearers existed, much less that it had come out in December.
I'm not trying to say that all the core gaming failures on the Wii are entirely the fault of the developer since I believe the traditionally "hardcore" gamers can be some of the most ignorant and fickle audience when they should be the most knowledgable and widely-played segment. They complain about only owning 3 Wii games or that their Wiis are gathering dust while conveniently ignoring or simply not bothering to go out of their way to discover the well of great games on the Wii. Hell, people complain about only owning a handful of Wii games, I bought 11 Wii games at launch, and I bought 29 retail games released in 2009; there is no shortage of playable games on the Wii. The "hardcore" audience likes to dilude themselves into thinking that they know the good games and that they know the industry and that they're widely-played, but the truth is that they only play what is pushed and marketed. Demon's Souls is one of the darlings of the "hardcore" audience but it wasn't marketed and it didn't sell, at least not as much as the word on the grapevine would have to believe. In six months the game moved just over .25 million copies and that not-so-amazing number was 4 times the company's expectation.
Then there's the media that likes to report on sales failures according to ridiculous standards. There was one article I read that called Red Steel 2's 50k units in its first week disappointing compared to God of War III selling over a million in two weeks. Remember, this is the sequel to a much maligned launch title that requires an additional peripheral compared to one of Sony's most hyped flagship properties. That's like saying a movie like say Kick-Ass is a disappointment because its box-office didn't come close to Iron Man 2. The media reports on the monster sales of much hyped properties that we begin to accept them as the standard instead of realizing that they're, by far, the exception. If 20 games released in a year sell a million copies their first week, great, but its not a standard. Not compared to the total number of games released and their first week sales. If we compared Red Steel 2's sales to the whole of the video games released, I'm certain we'd find that its far closer to the average than say God of War or Halo, which are outliers on the far end of the graph instead of the lines on which we and game publishers should base our expectations.
Given this pension for distortion, I really wonder how horribly some games have sold. Even today, its difficult to find solid sales figures for games like Dead Space Extraction. The figure of 9,000 units sold the first week (five days by some some reports) is still what's quoted in articles over 8 months after the game was released. No sales figures to date, we're simply told that the number of sales was disappointing, but by what measure? EA somehow expected the game to be a flagship Wii title so I wonder how reliable they are when they tell us the game sold horribly.
Sales for games like Madworld, House of the Dead Overkill, and the Conduit aren't praised for having sold 66k, 45k, and 72k copies in their first months but if you notice, those numbers are fairly close to what Atlus predicted their unknown action game to sell in several months. So are they failures or are they average? Did they sell poorly or did their publishers (and the gaming audience as a whole) have unrealistic expectations as to what every game should be selling?
Anyways, I'm sorry for the rant, but I think the Wii third-party/hardcore game sales is such a tricky subject and one that I don't think has been examined with quite the breadth it really needs. People are quick to say these games don't sell because X game didn't sell, or that there's no audience, or that the games just aren't good. I think the whole thing is a blend of all of that and more and I do believe that if handled right, you can have a truly successful third-party/hardcore title on the Wii; I hear Modern Warfare Reflex has been doing very well for itself and this is 2 years after its original release. Could it have been even more successful had it been released at the same time the original Modern Warfare was? Could Modern Warfare 2 have sold impressively on the Wii had a competent version been released on the Wii alongside the other versions?
Awesome! This is probably better than any news from Microsoft's press conference as far as I'm concerned. The Rabbids are probably my favorite new IP (spun off from an existing IP)
The original Raving Rabbids was a classic as far as mini-game compilations go and while the two follow-ups weren't nearly as good, the humor was always there, and then Rabbids Go Home used the characters for what they probably should've been used for in the first place.
@Smoke39 I completely agree with you about rail shooters. Especially after playing RE: Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction, I have a newfound respect for the genre and I feel that there is a lot that could be done with it if developers would use it form more than simply a shooting gallery.
Anyways, what I'm really curious about is Nintendo's online publishing policies; things like how they decide how much a game should cost and particularly patching. I forget which game it was that was basically "patched" though you had to delte the game from your system and download an updated version. Makes me wonder if that was just a specific case or if Nintendo allows such actions but developers don't take advantage of it.
@JamieO You see that version of the castle (inspired by Mont St. Michel) in things like blurry 2D images on the horizon as you're working your way towards the Castle, but the game itself doesn't conform to that shape. The game world is just far, far larger than the model of the Castle would suggest. Also, the classic stairway from the clocktower to the Castle Keep returns beautifuly, but isn't represented in that depiction of the Castle. Its best not to think about it too much.
The NTSC covers for both games use CG renders while the PAL versions used traditional illustrations. The Japanese version of LoD also isn't very special, but its cover for Castlevania 64 is fairly nice.
And thanks, I'm looking forward to hear what they say. I'm hoping the reason the game's so expensive nowadays is because people are realizing it was never as bad as they were lead to believe (maybe the build up to Lords of Shadow has something to do with it as well. Backloggery.com had a live stream of Cornell's game not too long ago and the person playing it admitted that it wasn't as bad as the grapevine would have you believe.
@JamieO Wow that is quite expensive. Even the prices in the US have gone up significantly, now that I look at it. I bought my copy when the N64 was still current for $30 brand new. A few years ago I was trying to pick up the PAL versions of the two N64 games because I loved the box art so much. They both retain the feeling of the classic CV games.
I hope you can find a copy within your budget (I too know the what its like to spend too much on games) and thanks for the compliments. The N64 games are something of a passion of mine since I feel they've been unfairly treated as the black sheep in the series. I've been a huge Castlevania fan until recently as I've become more and more disillusioned with the direction Igarashi's taken the series, but that's a whole other can of worms that I won't get into right now.
Good luck finding a copy of the game though, most people that have played it really liked it. There's only one thing you're really missing out on by getting LoD over CV64 and I'll give it to you here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lvWL0TCGc
@JamieO The N64 Castlevania games don't have the same feel to them as Rondo/Symphony, not because they're not great games, but its just a different artistic direction that the designers wanted to take with the game. I think one reason the N64 games are so looked down upon is that they were the first console Castlevania games released after Symphony of the Night had brought the new gameplay style to the series. People, I guess, were expecting that gameplay and art direction but in 3D.
I've personally always felt that the N64 games had more in common with the "classic" Castlevania games, like 1-4, than the modern, post-SotN, games had. The character archetypes are similar and I think especially the gameplay. The N64 games aren't really about combat, which if you think about it, the old games weren't either. Instead, the biggest enemy in the N64 games was the environment themselves, punctuated with a few battles here and there.
Another reason the N64 games may be looked down on is that they're a bit more atmoshpheric and ambient than prior game. As beautiful as Symphony of the Night was, I never really felt like I was in the castle, so much as I was watching a sprite move through, admittedly beautiful environments. The N64 games definitely work towards putting you in the environment, often by using music that is much more subdued than what Castlevania players were expecting. To this day, the Villa is an incredible location, and I have never been more frightened in a Castlevania game than I was wandering the hedge maze at [the game's] night, nor have I ever felt the immensity of the Castle as I did standing on the clockface and looking down. This is one of the major things the latter 3D Castlevania games were missing. Though made a generation later the games show that Igarashi really doesn't understand the finer points of designing a game in 3D since the levels, though beautifully decorated, were monotonous and boring to play through since they were basically just squares and hallways for you to fight enemies in (epitomized by the Tower of Eternity in CoD, 50 identical floors/rooms of enemies) instead of giving the environment a presence all its own.
Lament of Innocence may have received similar reviews to Castlevania 64, but I honestly feel that those scores are mostly slanted upwards because the feel of the game is closer in line to what they want post-SotN, despite the mediocre combat system and repetitive level design. By Curse of Darkness, the honeymoon period had worn off and they were much more critical of Curse of Darkness' defficiencies, which were all present in Lament of Innocence to begin with.
Anyways, if you plan on picking up one of the N64 games, skip the original "Castlevania" and just buy "Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness." The latter is something of a director's cut that includes four playable characters: the two from the original N64 game plus two additional ones. There are very minor differences between the levels in CV64 and their equivalents in Legacy of Darkness. There's also some very brief voice acting in the original that was removed from LoD.
What I love about LoD is that, unlike the additional playable characters in the SotN style games that are basically thrown in without a story and are "just for fun," all the characters in LoD have their own well written and well presented stories with an interesting cast of characters that take them through different parts of the Castle. Cornell's tale takes place prior to all of them and the ending directly links to Reinhardt, and Carrie's story. Henry's game is more of a sidequest and while it doesn't have the narrative the other characters do, his story is nonetheless related to the other characters.
I've honestly never been on board with the whole "there's never been a good 3D Castlevania" game. I loved the N64 games and if you read the game's initial reviews, they were pretty positive at the time, mostly around 8's out of 10 and many publications proclaiming that it was a good start for the series in 3D. Even looking at the user reviews for the game, both games' reception was overwhelmingly positive. Hell, Legacy of Darkness is my personal favorite game in the series for several reasons.
Then who knows what happened but the entire world seemed to turn on the two N64 games and suddenly what was considered a good start for the series in 3D became Castlevania's shame, leaving the door open for Igarashi's lame attempt at 3D Castlevania where platforming gave way to incredibly repetitive level design and derivative combat.
lol, I got 2 of the Monster Hunter Wii Points card. One when I put my money down for the game (which came out the next day) and then another one when I picked up the game. Same thing happened with the Ocarina of Time Master Quest disc. I still have one sealed (though the plastic's torn in one corner)
I'm hoping to get enough cash to pick this up though and the poster and points only sweeten the deal.
Well, at least I have a month to save up for this. This is one of the games I've really been looking forward to. Probably moreso than Triple A game X on any of the other systems. Its a shame Nintendo doesn't do much to publicize its smaller games. Not that they would convice the "I haven't bought a Wii game since Brawl" camp, but it would at least raise greater awareness of some of its more obscure games.
I'm looking forward to it, I loved it on the Original Xbox. The additions may be small so I'm hoping they don't think they can charge full price for this game. $20-$30 would be fair, I think.
Well, it looks like I'm picking up the 360 version, mostly for the tournament moments thing. Its a shame the Wii version doens't have that feature because I really wanted the Dream Team feature, but not at the expense of the past and present tourney moments. That and the lack of precision the review notes.
Oh well, I'll just have to get this on the 360 and Pro Evolution on the wii
This is great news. I still find it kind of sad that Tatsunoko vs Capcom has been overshadowed, first by Super Street Fighter IV and now Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Oh well, I do hope MvC3 makes it to the Wii somehow. This news might make some form of difference.
I have the Xbox version and I loved the game. I still have it so I'm not sure if I'd buy it again for the Wii (depends on the price). I guess we don't know for sure if its the Xbox release or an older port. I think it'd be interesting if they made a new WiiWare version or something.
Anyways, one of my favorite pirate games was Pirates of the Caribbean on the Xbox. It was originally Sea Dogs II and it kind of reminds me of something like the Elder Scrolls but out at sea (it was made by Bethesda so it'd make sense).
I've bought a bunch of new Wii games so far this year, pretty much every major release and a lot of under the radar title, and I really can't afford anything else so soon.
May sure sounded far away two months ago but now I need some time to breathe and play.
Comments 250
Re: 3DS Ambassador Titles Earn You Club Nintendo Coins Too
sounds good to me! I'm at 340 coins so far this year so I've got my gold status already. I have 1120 total coins so I'll be able to nab the Game & Watch Ball. Still, I really like that Starman messenger bag, giant Mii AR card, and the reversable DS Pouches...which altogether come out to be about the same as the Game & Watch.
Re: Talking Point: Your 25 Years of Metroid Memories
Unfortunately Metroid is one of the few Nintendo franchises have I not been able to get into. I really want to like it but then I have to backtrack through a major part of the game to find the one door I can use my new weapon for for the third or fourth time and I just lose interest. This isn't a problem unique to the Metroid series. I really dislike the Metroidvania Castlevanias partially because of this same reason. To be fair though, I didn't stop playing the last two Metroid games, Prime 3 and Other M because I lost interest but because I got hijacked by other games. I should probably pick them back up. Other M in particular seems like a Metroid game I'd actually finish.
Re: Talking Point: The GBA Games You Want on 3DS Virtual Console
Well first, I do hope they're planning on getting some third party games on the list. Maybe that's why they only announced half the list; those are the games they're contributing now they gotta see what games they can pull from third parties. My list is made in the hopes that we're getting some third party games thrown in the mix.
GBA:
Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
Tactics Ogre
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams
Rayman 3
NES:
Pro-Wrestling
Manic Mansion
Shadowgate
Metal Gear
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
My GBA got so little love (I was poor back then, 'kay!) so I don't own any of the currently announced GBA games. I also really want the NES Metal Gear games. Sure purists will complain that they ruined the original and that Kojima didn't have anything to do with Snake's Revenge, but its exactly because of that that they rarely see re-releases or even acknowledgement, despite not being bad games.
Re: NES and Game Boy Advance Games Coming to 3DS Virtual Console
My GBA never got as much love as it should've so I actually don't own any of those games, nor have I ever owned a copy of Yoshi's Island so this is great for me!
Re: Three New Rewards Hit Club Nintendo in North America
bit with the giant AR card its gonna look like I'm falling when I try to shoot the target down the hole! D:
Re: GameCube to See New Downloadable Life on Wii U
I gotta say it sucks a little that the Wii U won't support GCN discs and I'm sure a lot of people will rage about that but the way I see it, if you have a significant collection of Gamecube games as I do, you probably already have a device that plays them, be it a Gamecube or a Wii (I have both) so they're not making you rebuy anything. For those that don't, I just hope Nintendo prices the games competitively. Right now my guess is that GCN games will cost like $20, which is too much for me.
Re: Rumour: SEGA Preparing a Third Sonic Storybook Game
I personally loved Sonic and the Secret Rings. It really felt like it was everything we needed a Sonic game to be since it lacked the extended cast, except for the narrative cutscenes, incredibly fast, tough as nails levels, and a fun customization mechanic. Sure backing up was a pain, but that was really my only complaint, oh and that tacked on party mode but there was enough in the single player that you could avoid that part entirely.
Sonic and the Black Knight was several steps back, unfortunately. The sword could've been an interesting addition but the combat just stopped the gameplay in its tracks and really prevented you from feeling any sense of momentum. Eventually I just jumped over all the enemies and had a decent enough time. They brought some of the extended cast back into the game, which isn't bad in and of itself; since they all played more or less like Sonic we didn't have the Sonic Adventure schizophrenia where we had treasure hunts, shooting levels, and...Big...god I hate Big. The levels themselves were also incredibly tame and unexciting. I do believe the game lacked a single inversion. Still it also had some good points. I did enjoy the final boss, and I really liked the art direction, especially for armored Sonic and company.
I'd personally welcome a new storybook game if it was closer to Secret Rings in terms of difficulty and approach. Black Knight was just too watered down to be wholly interesting while Secret Rings really nailed so many of Sonic's important points and help start the series on its road to recovery.
Re: Review: SSX Tricky (GameCube)
I honestly prefer the individual courses in tricky to the Big Mountain approach of the latter games. I will concede that the actual snowboarding mechanics and whatnot were improved in later games, but they did lose a lot of the quirkiness that made fall in love with the series through Tricky.
also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRzD-JIKnE
Re: Review: Pokédex 3D (3DSWare)
Is Nintendo gonna nickel and dime us for the other regional Pokedexes? Cuz I've got 15¢ right here!
Re: Netflix has Another Nintendo Console Queued Up
Triple post fail
Re: Netflix has Another Nintendo Console Queued Up
Double post fail
Re: Netflix has Another Nintendo Console Queued Up
That's nice to know, but what'd also be nice to know is when its finally coming to the 3DS
Re: Even Mercenaries Need a Fresh Change of Clothes
Can I has STARS Wesker?
Re: Talking Point: Where Nintendo Went Wrong with the DSi Shop
I did like how the Nintendo Channel handled user-reviews: requiring users to have spent an hour with a game before being allowed to review it. Given that the 3DS logs your game hours I don't see why they couldn't use a similar system.
Re: More Details on Pokedex 3D Come into Focus
@30 oh man, that would be an awsome AR game. Screw travelling around the fake Kanto or wherever the current games are set. Make it a full fledges AR Pokemon game where you need to actually travel around town or something to find and capture new pokemon, fight only other players and their caught teams. Basically play Pokemon in real life. Maybe make the gym leaders NPCs that pop up after you've caught a certain number pokemon of a specific average level...
MAKE IT HAPPEN, NINTENDO!
Re: More Details on Pokedex 3D Come into Focus
sorry, double post
Re: Disney Universe to Blend Worlds on Wii This Fall
I can think of a couple of reasons why they'd go with the costume idea instead of the original characters.
1) it helps unite the visual feel and attitude of the game. Sure Kingdom Hearts mashed everything together but this allows them to create a unique art direction and attitude for the game, entirely independant of the trappings and conventions of each individual property, while at the same time making use of those recognizable Disney elements. Half the wacky stuff they did in that trailer would've been entirely out of character for a character like Alice for example but it works here because its clearly not Alice but a character in costume.
2) gameplay-wise it allows various types of characters to co-exist in a single level. For example, how would playing as Nemo work in what is certainly mostly an above-water game?
Re: This Zelda: Ocarina 3D Trailer Would Make a Great Advert
Honestly, they could just run the original 1998 commercial and I would totally buy the game again (which I already am, but still)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JntHVUp7m4E
Why doesn't Nintendo use Riders of Doom anymore? They used it for OoT, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. I really miss it
Re: Talking Point: How 3DS Can Thrive at E3
Honestly, for all its faults, and trust me, I realize the 3DS has many, I don't think the launch lineup was any better or worse than Nintendo's prior launches.
No the launch games weren't amazing but people say that if the DS' launch lineup was glowing. Hell, the DS' launch lineup in North America consisted of Asphalt Urban GT, Feel the Magic, Madden 2005, Ping Pals, Ridge Racer, Spider-Man 2, Sprung, Mario 64 DS, Urbz, and Tiger Woods. How many of those are worth buying?
The 3DS had 5 must-have games according to NintendoLife's buyer's guide. That alone is over half of the DS' launch lineup. NintendoLife goes on to name another 6 games as Worth Playing. That's more games worth playing on the console than the entire launch lineup of the DS.
Sure the DS also included the Metroid Prime Hunters demo but the 3DS also includes Face Raiders, Find Mii, and the AR Games. Yes the 3DS' launch could have been better. Every system launch can be better but how many system launches can you remember having 11 games worth playing?
Re: Ubisoft Goes Out on a Limb to Bring Rayman Origins to Wii
Do I want this?
oh God yes!
Re: Wait, Did Majesco Just Announce the First Wii 2 Game?
@35
crosses fingers
New Super Mario World
Re: Rumour: Wii Successor Won't Have a Traditional Hard Drive
if they'll let us use any random external hard drive then I can't say I care.
After all, that's basically the low-end 360. 4 Gigs of flash memory and you can purchase hard drives separately. I wouldn't mind that arrangement.
Re: Tales of the Abyss 3DS Coming to North America
I approve this
Re: Features: Games That Should Already Be on Virtual Console
The Virtual Console is one of the best ideas this generation and probably the most disapointing in its execution. It started off okay with Nintendo releasing games weekly to help support sporadic Wii retail releases. However, releases quickly went from classic games everyone wanted and were obviously going to see release (i.e. Super Mario Bros, LoZ, Metroid, etc) to games ranging from obscure to "horrible even as a kid."
Still, Nintendo threw us bones every so often; expanding the service to cover Commodore 64, TurboGrafx 16, and Arcade games were all great news when they were announced but few every really panned out. On top of that, its been disappointing how Nintendo is unwilling to modify the games at all to preserve even the features that were available in the original game. No memory pack support for Mario Kart 64 and no rumble support for Star Fox 64. Still, for some reason they added a feature to Pokemon Snap that saves your photos as image files on your sd card so its clear that its not that Nintendo can't fix these problems, they're choosing not to.
I've long since stopped writing up lists of all the great classic games that I'd love to see rereleased since I doubt very few of them ever will. Only two/three games really remain in mind and those are Castlevania 64/Legacy of Darkness, my favorite games in the Castlevania series and Castlevania: Bloodlines, a game I've owned for years but never played because I never owned a Genesis. I honestly don't understand why Bloodlines hasn't been released since the Sega Genesis is one of the more prolific consoles on the service and most of the classic Castlevania series is already available. 64/Legacy of Darkness I can see a major problem with since it requires a memory card to save your progress. However, the Japanese version of Legacy of Darkness allowed you to save your game on the cart itself, in addition to supporting the rumble pack. Perhaps the Japanese text/assets could be replaced with the english ones but we haven't really seen that much effort put into a Virtual Console release and I doubt a now-reviled N64 game would command that much work to be re released.
Man, the Virtual Console was so promising at first. Not to say it was a total failure as we did get Rondo of Blood and Sin & Punishment, probably my two most wanted titles for the system but after four years it definitely leaves much to be desired. I hope that the 3DS' Virtual Console will help spur work on the Wii's Virtual Console but Nintendo isn't known for giving people what they want, they try to give you what you don't know you want, which is also nice, but in this case, I do wish they'd just do the obvious thing.
Re: Wii Unlikely to Catch a Traditional Pokemon RPG Title
Honestly I wouldn't mind if they kept the main Pokemon games on the handhelds but that doesn't mean a Pokemon RPG wouldn't be good on home consoles.
Personally, I've always wanted a game that follows the first season of the TV show. I know Pokemon Yellow kind of did that, but I mean a proper story-based RPG where your pokemon team is built up according to the story, Team Rocket is there with all their silly antics, you meet up with all those odd supporting characters, and event-style matches that don't follow the typical pokemon formula, like Charizard and Magmar 1-on-1 on top of a volcano, etc.
Unfortunately I'm expecting something along the lines of Pokepark or Pokemon Channel instead of something noteworthy. Hopefully Nintendo proves me wrong.
Re: There's a Limit on Transferring Software from One 3DS to Another
I really don't see this as a problem since every console holder has limits on your downloads in some form or another. Even on the 360 you're only allowed to transfer the license from one console to another once a year.
Re: WiiWare Super Meat Boy Gets Canned
It seems to me that it was Team Meat's hubris that really spelled the downfall of the WiiWare version. You can blame the WiiWare file restriction all you want, and yes that's an unfortunate result of Nintendo's design of the Wii, but when you have to design a car for a one-lane tunnel and you build it two lanes wide, its not the tunnel-builders' fault your car won't fit.
Team Meat has said they were aware of the size limit on WiiWare but ignored it because they assumed Nintendo would raise the size limit just for them. Game development is all about working within limitations and ignoring those because you assume you'll be an exception is never a smart thing to do.
While their attempt at getting a retail release is admirable, I honestly don't see how any sane publisher would pick it up, regardless of how many awards they've won. How many people here have said they picked this up on Steam for under $4? How then is any publisher going to expect to sell this for at least $20 at retail? Especially after production, retail, and development costs? That's why there's no profit in it, not necessarily because third party Wii games can't be profitable. Its the nature of the game and the added costs of a retail release that destroy its viability as a retail product.
Super Meat Boy looks like a great game and fortunately it has found an avenue for release but Team Meat knew the limitations on WiiWare and let their game grow beyond it assuming they would get a pass and that's what killed the WiiWare release.
Re: Review: Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition (Wii)
While I agree that more could've been done with the package, we all knew what was included since before it was announced for the US, so none of us here that bought it should feel like they've been cheated or that Nintendo ripped them off.
Its worth whatever its worth to you. Considering buy-it-now prices on ebay for the original cart range from $15 for a bare cartridge to over $100 for a boxed copy, I'm happy with my purchase. Would I have preferred it if they included the Super Mario World version? Of course. But just because its not everything I wanted it to be or everything it could possibly have been doesn't make what I got any less worthy of the price.
And for the record, contrary to the review, the booklet is not staple-bound. Its perfect-bound and even has the title going down the spine.
Re: New Conduit 2 Trailer Heavy on Talk, Light on Action
This looks great, I know I'll be getting this as soon as I have the money for it. My biggest disappointment with the first game wasn't the plot itself, which I rather enjoyed, but the way it was presented. Everything, aside from the revealation of the alien, seemed to happen away from you and never in front of you. Instead of seeing anything happen you were informed of it either in the inter-level briefings or via radio communication. Looks like there will be more storytelling in front of the camera this time.
Re: Dive into Conduit 2's Special Edition Only at Gamestop
The Limited Edition has just about the same contents as the original Conduit SE:
Multiplayer skin (Agent/Gold Armor)
ASE Skin (though this new one seems to actually affect gameplay)
Art Book
The only thing missing is awesome alternate box art. I loved how the Conduit SE replaced the character art with the far more iconic Trust logo. Now its just the same box art with "Limited Edition" written in small letters. Oh well, here's hoping the unlocks (ASE and multiplayer skin) don't use universal unlock keys like the first and instead use one-time codes like Goldeneye's promotional codes.
Re: Competition Winners: Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary
Yay! I won!
I had to go with Super C because of all the great memories (of never making it past the first level) I have from when I was a kid and since I have Mario All-Stars pre-orderd so getting a Mario game wouldn't make much sense.
Anyways, I think it'd be interesting to see what the other 24 winners chose for their game.
Re: Review: The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABCs (WiiWare)
If they released the original book as a WiiWare title where all I do was flip the pages, I'd totally buy it for $5
Re: 3DS Anti-Piracy Measures are Too Sophisticated for Human Brain
@skywake I appreciate what you were trying to do comparing the games owned on Backloggery with average attach rates but that probably wasn't the best place to start checking. Backloggery allows people to list individual games in a compilation and will count it as such. My own backloggery shows me at 127 Wii games when, in actuality, I have 105 Wii disc-based games, so I'm sure that will throw some of the numbers off.
Then the very nature of the site (keeping track of the games one hasn't completed yet) attracts people with larger collections. The site would be pretty much useless for people that have less than 10 games.
Still, I understand that its one of the few options available. IGN and Cheapassgamer both have collection trackers for users but I don't think either of them give you the stats for the whole user base the way Backloggery does.
Re: Review: Tournament of Legends (Wii)
I'm not fighting game afficionado so I personally don't care if its not on the cutting edge with massive move lists, rosters, and frame-reliant gameplay. I'm happy just beating the crud out of other fighters so this sounds like a game I'd enjoy. Unfortunately, I'm broke and still have some other Wii games I'd like to pick up, Sin & Punishment 2 being at the top of the list and I've been waiting for Secret Files: Tunguska for years, so unless I get a job tomorrow, I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to pick this up.
Re: Nintendo Files Patent for Wii Hard Drive
@barneygumble I doubt that's what it would mean commercially, after all, the 360 has had this feature for some time; you pop the disc in, hit install, 15 minutes later the contents of the disc are on the hard drive. The simple solution they went with is that even if you install the game to a hard disk, you need to have the disk itself in the drive.
Heck, even Nintendo's been dealing with the issue with their virtual console and WiiWare games which you can transfer to an SD card. It could be easily copied at that point but Nintendo's solution was to make WiiWare and Virtual Console games only playable on the systems they were originally purchased on.
If Nintendo wants to do it, there really isn't anything stopping them. There are reasonable anti-piracy measures that can be taken (though pirates will be pirates and will surely find a way to crack it, if they bother with the device at all considering they already have a working solution).
I don't really care either way. On the 360 its a godsend because some games have killer load times, the 360 makes plenty of noise, and helps generate less heat (decreasing the chance of hardware troubles). The Wii is typically pretty good at keeping load times down and the heat and noise is nothing on the level of the 360's so the only real benefit (aside from having your collection in one place, which isn't a big enough deal for me) is the reduced wear on the hard drive, which most people won't really notice. So unless there's some other big feature I think I can save my money.
Re: de Blob 2 is Going Underground and Multiplatform
@slapshot82 some games, maybe yes, can't be ported to the Wii because the gameplay itself simply can't be handled, but I would say that that limitation isn't present in most games. Take for example, the original Dead Space. The developers have said that they certainly could bring it over to the Wii it'd just take time and money. Why couldn't Oblivion be ported? Morrowind ran on the original Xbox and there's very little difference in terms of gameplay mechanics. What about Mass Effect? Two Knights of the Old Republic games and Jade Empire were released on the Xbox to wide acclaim and use very similar mechanics. Street Fighter IV? There was a version released for the iphone and Tatsunoko vs Capcom was an amazing game. There is no reason that game couldn't have been made on the Wii. Resident Evil 5? Mechanically nearly identical to Resident Evil 4, which saw its finest days on the Wii. Arkham Asylum is an action game divided into reasonably-sized maps, I find it hard to believe that the gameplay could not be faithfully represented on the Wii. What is there in Bioshock that prevents it from being released on the Wii? Will the games look the same as their HD counterparts? No, of course not, but most HD don't have inherent base mechanics and gameplay that can't be handled on the Wii.
Its also really simplifying my argument to reduce it simply down to "I want these games on the Wii." No, the point I started off with is that third parties don't put the effort into producing a Wii title that they do into producing an HD title. You mentioned that some of the titles I mentioned were pushing the limits of the HD consoles. Well, why don't third parties put more effort into pushing the limits of the Wii?
As it is, when making a multiplatform game, the Wii version tends to be handed off to a less experienced developer and I'm willing to bet that their budget is reduced to match. Comparing the HD version of one to the Wii version of another often reveals, not only that the obvious that the Wii version looks worse, but more importantly, the design of the game is far weaker. Alone in the Dark was an ambitious game on the HD consoles which had the Wii version released alongside. The Wii version looked bad, not just "oh its a wii game so it won't look as good"-bad, it was, without hyperbole, first-generation PS2 game bad. But that's the obvious. Beyond that, the Wii version actually represented some of Alone in the Dark's main features (combining items) fairly well. While there's nothing wrong with the Wii version being different, the quality of the design was inferior to what was seen in the other versions. It was easy to get lost at time and you weren't always sure what you needed to do or where you needed to go. Furthermore, the production values suffered further. The quality of the voice acting and the direction of the cutscenes was inferior, both aspects that really have nothing to do with the power under the hood but are instead representative of the effort (or lack thereof) being put in by the developers to produce a good game.
This happens with many Wii game. Tomb Raider Underworld lacked many features (some of which were present in the previously released Tomb Raider Anniversary) that made it less interesting than its HD incarnations. The Wii version of multiplatform titles often feel like afterthoughts because the publishers tend to ignore them and they're often handled by less capable teams.
@JimLad You do bring up a good point about building franchises. After all, Resident Evil has sold well on the Wii, partially because the games were great, but also the fact that it has the name behind it. The question really though, if franchises are really grown or if they have to be made? Dead Space was a household name after its first game and the second one is much anticipated by the industry as a whole, but Dead Space got there after a huge marketing push by EA, something the original Conduit, and now Conduit 2, lacked. After all, Conduit 2 is only a few months away but all we've really gotten is the announcement and a few details here and there. Modern Warfare 2 began revealing information, trailers, providing interviews, etc over a year before its release and continued until after the game was released. The Conduit 2 wasn't announced a year before its release and hasn't been working to provide that level of anticipation that guarantees great sales and, probably more important, audience acceptance.
Re: de Blob 2 is Going Underground and Multiplatform
To be honest, third parties never took big risks when developing for the Wii. When was the last time there was a game on the Wii on the scale of something like Fallout, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Resident Evil 5, Final Fantasy XIII, GTA, Bioshock, Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed, or any of an ongoing list of titles.
Don't get me wrong, no one loves the Wii more than I do, and developers have turned out some excellent games for the system, but no developer has put the kind of investment in both production and marketing that the HD consoles have. The fact that they can release a single project on two consoles is surely a factor, of course, but the investment in Wii development hasn't been anything near what it should be if publishers want to see big returns.
Yes, every game I listed is multiplatform, but they've also had large budgets, a ton of marketing, and sometimes years of build-up. Its no wonder they sell in the millions. It definitely gets frustrating when developers try to use games like MadWorld and DeadSpace Extraction as barometers for "core" Wii audience. Don't get me wrong, I personally enjoyed Extraction more than the original Dead Space, but I do realize that the production of the former is nothing compared to that of the latter, nor was the media build-up remotely comparable. The original Dead Space was a relatively lengthy game in a popular genre preceeded by a comic book mini-series, an animated film, a viral game, trailers, and developer diaries over the span of a year. It was a new IP and managed to sell over a million units across the two HD consoles combined; not extraordinary sales by today's standards but the game had become so ingrained in the public's mind that it didn't matter. Then they try to convince people that Extraction is just as important a game for them. They make it a rail shooter, a genre that hasn't been important in the console space in over a decade, they make the game shorter, and they give it none of the build up the original did and then they wonder why they didn't see amazing sales and write it off as a lack of an audience. Don't get me wrong, there is some blame on the Wii-owning audience, but not to the point where you can simply write off a game's failure by placing the blame squarely on their shoulders.
The same goes for games like MadWorld. Great game, sure, but when was the last time a brawler was a significant release on a console (not a DMC-type action game, but an old school brawler)? Was it the Bouncer on the PS2? The industry and audience as a whole have declared these kinds of games as shallow, short, and repetitive and they really expected it to breakthrough? Its a miracle the game did as well, critically, as it did, but anyone expecting it to be a million-seller was fooling themselves.
Games like Cursed Mountain, Deadly Creatures, or the Conduit are done by small teams that have nowhere near the experience or the financial backing to really churn out a breakthrough product. Passion and dedication sure, but unfortunately that's rarely enough to make an impact in such a fickle industry where even games with 90% review averages are widely derided by critics and audiences.
I will admit that Capcom has put in a great amount of effort into their Wii releases. Darkside Chronicles was a top notch effort and sold fairly well, but again, an unpopular genre and a production nowhere near the scale of its contemporary, RE5. Capcom put in a tremendous effort in localizing Tatsunoko vs Capcom, but in the end, its release was overshadowed by a re-release of a year-old game, Street Fighter IV. Okami was a brilliant game, but it didn't sell very many copies on the PS2, the de facto "hardcore" console, it was a miracale that the Wii version sold as well as it did, but was there really a chance that it would have turned the game into a million-seller?
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers was an impressive effort by Square in a production cycle that took place over five years (though I wonder if it was that same team that produced My Life As A King, My Life as a Dark Lord, and Echoes of Time in the meantime) but if the traditionally critic-proof Final Fantasy series proper can get crucified for straying from expected gameplay conventions, then what chance did a game who's gameplay is as abstract as Crystal Bearers? Then there's the fact that there was no awareness for the game as Square was focused on pushed Final Fantasy XIII. Hell, many people didn't know Crystal Bearers existed, much less that it had come out in December.
I'm not trying to say that all the core gaming failures on the Wii are entirely the fault of the developer since I believe the traditionally "hardcore" gamers can be some of the most ignorant and fickle audience when they should be the most knowledgable and widely-played segment. They complain about only owning 3 Wii games or that their Wiis are gathering dust while conveniently ignoring or simply not bothering to go out of their way to discover the well of great games on the Wii. Hell, people complain about only owning a handful of Wii games, I bought 11 Wii games at launch, and I bought 29 retail games released in 2009; there is no shortage of playable games on the Wii. The "hardcore" audience likes to dilude themselves into thinking that they know the good games and that they know the industry and that they're widely-played, but the truth is that they only play what is pushed and marketed. Demon's Souls is one of the darlings of the "hardcore" audience but it wasn't marketed and it didn't sell, at least not as much as the word on the grapevine would have to believe. In six months the game moved just over .25 million copies and that not-so-amazing number was 4 times the company's expectation.
Then there's the media that likes to report on sales failures according to ridiculous standards. There was one article I read that called Red Steel 2's 50k units in its first week disappointing compared to God of War III selling over a million in two weeks. Remember, this is the sequel to a much maligned launch title that requires an additional peripheral compared to one of Sony's most hyped flagship properties. That's like saying a movie like say Kick-Ass is a disappointment because its box-office didn't come close to Iron Man 2. The media reports on the monster sales of much hyped properties that we begin to accept them as the standard instead of realizing that they're, by far, the exception. If 20 games released in a year sell a million copies their first week, great, but its not a standard. Not compared to the total number of games released and their first week sales. If we compared Red Steel 2's sales to the whole of the video games released, I'm certain we'd find that its far closer to the average than say God of War or Halo, which are outliers on the far end of the graph instead of the lines on which we and game publishers should base our expectations.
Given this pension for distortion, I really wonder how horribly some games have sold. Even today, its difficult to find solid sales figures for games like Dead Space Extraction. The figure of 9,000 units sold the first week (five days by some some reports) is still what's quoted in articles over 8 months after the game was released. No sales figures to date, we're simply told that the number of sales was disappointing, but by what measure? EA somehow expected the game to be a flagship Wii title so I wonder how reliable they are when they tell us the game sold horribly.
Sales for games like Madworld, House of the Dead Overkill, and the Conduit aren't praised for having sold 66k, 45k, and 72k copies in their first months but if you notice, those numbers are fairly close to what Atlus predicted their unknown action game to sell in several months. So are they failures or are they average? Did they sell poorly or did their publishers (and the gaming audience as a whole) have unrealistic expectations as to what every game should be selling?
Anyways, I'm sorry for the rant, but I think the Wii third-party/hardcore game sales is such a tricky subject and one that I don't think has been examined with quite the breadth it really needs. People are quick to say these games don't sell because X game didn't sell, or that there's no audience, or that the games just aren't good. I think the whole thing is a blend of all of that and more and I do believe that if handled right, you can have a truly successful third-party/hardcore title on the Wii; I hear Modern Warfare Reflex has been doing very well for itself and this is 2 years after its original release. Could it have been even more successful had it been released at the same time the original Modern Warfare was? Could Modern Warfare 2 have sold impressively on the Wii had a competent version been released on the Wii alongside the other versions?
Re: E3 2010: Raving Rabbids Travel in Time Revealed
Awesome! This is probably better than any news from Microsoft's press conference as far as I'm concerned. The Rabbids are probably my favorite new IP (spun off from an existing IP)
The original Raving Rabbids was a classic as far as mini-game compilations go and while the two follow-ups weren't nearly as good, the humor was always there, and then Rabbids Go Home used the characters for what they probably should've been used for in the first place.
Re: Interviews: Mateusz Makowiec & Piotr Łatocha - Heavy Fire: Special Operations
@Smoke39 I completely agree with you about rail shooters. Especially after playing RE: Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction, I have a newfound respect for the genre and I feel that there is a lot that could be done with it if developers would use it form more than simply a shooting gallery.
Anyways, what I'm really curious about is Nintendo's online publishing policies; things like how they decide how much a game should cost and particularly patching. I forget which game it was that was basically "patched" though you had to delte the game from your system and download an updated version. Makes me wonder if that was just a specific case or if Nintendo allows such actions but developers don't take advantage of it.
Re: Lords of Shadow to Feature Classic Nintendo Castlevania Music
@JamieO You see that version of the castle (inspired by Mont St. Michel) in things like blurry 2D images on the horizon as you're working your way towards the Castle, but the game itself doesn't conform to that shape. The game world is just far, far larger than the model of the Castle would suggest. Also, the classic stairway from the clocktower to the Castle Keep returns beautifuly, but isn't represented in that depiction of the Castle. Its best not to think about it too much.
The NTSC covers for both games use CG renders while the PAL versions used traditional illustrations. The Japanese version of LoD also isn't very special, but its cover for Castlevania 64 is fairly nice.
And thanks, I'm looking forward to hear what they say. I'm hoping the reason the game's so expensive nowadays is because people are realizing it was never as bad as they were lead to believe (maybe the build up to Lords of Shadow has something to do with it as well. Backloggery.com had a live stream of Cornell's game not too long ago and the person playing it admitted that it wasn't as bad as the grapevine would have you believe.
Re: Lords of Shadow to Feature Classic Nintendo Castlevania Music
@JamieO Wow that is quite expensive. Even the prices in the US have gone up significantly, now that I look at it. I bought my copy when the N64 was still current for $30 brand new. A few years ago I was trying to pick up the PAL versions of the two N64 games because I loved the box art so much. They both retain the feeling of the classic CV games.
I hope you can find a copy within your budget (I too know the what its like to spend too much on games) and thanks for the compliments. The N64 games are something of a passion of mine since I feel they've been unfairly treated as the black sheep in the series. I've been a huge Castlevania fan until recently as I've become more and more disillusioned with the direction Igarashi's taken the series, but that's a whole other can of worms that I won't get into right now.
Good luck finding a copy of the game though, most people that have played it really liked it. There's only one thing you're really missing out on by getting LoD over CV64 and I'll give it to you here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00lvWL0TCGc
...man I love that intro
Re: Lords of Shadow to Feature Classic Nintendo Castlevania Music
@JamieO The N64 Castlevania games don't have the same feel to them as Rondo/Symphony, not because they're not great games, but its just a different artistic direction that the designers wanted to take with the game. I think one reason the N64 games are so looked down upon is that they were the first console Castlevania games released after Symphony of the Night had brought the new gameplay style to the series. People, I guess, were expecting that gameplay and art direction but in 3D.
I've personally always felt that the N64 games had more in common with the "classic" Castlevania games, like 1-4, than the modern, post-SotN, games had. The character archetypes are similar and I think especially the gameplay. The N64 games aren't really about combat, which if you think about it, the old games weren't either. Instead, the biggest enemy in the N64 games was the environment themselves, punctuated with a few battles here and there.
Another reason the N64 games may be looked down on is that they're a bit more atmoshpheric and ambient than prior game. As beautiful as Symphony of the Night was, I never really felt like I was in the castle, so much as I was watching a sprite move through, admittedly beautiful environments. The N64 games definitely work towards putting you in the environment, often by using music that is much more subdued than what Castlevania players were expecting. To this day, the Villa is an incredible location, and I have never been more frightened in a Castlevania game than I was wandering the hedge maze at [the game's] night, nor have I ever felt the immensity of the Castle as I did standing on the clockface and looking down. This is one of the major things the latter 3D Castlevania games were missing. Though made a generation later the games show that Igarashi really doesn't understand the finer points of designing a game in 3D since the levels, though beautifully decorated, were monotonous and boring to play through since they were basically just squares and hallways for you to fight enemies in (epitomized by the Tower of Eternity in CoD, 50 identical floors/rooms of enemies) instead of giving the environment a presence all its own.
Lament of Innocence may have received similar reviews to Castlevania 64, but I honestly feel that those scores are mostly slanted upwards because the feel of the game is closer in line to what they want post-SotN, despite the mediocre combat system and repetitive level design. By Curse of Darkness, the honeymoon period had worn off and they were much more critical of Curse of Darkness' defficiencies, which were all present in Lament of Innocence to begin with.
Anyways, if you plan on picking up one of the N64 games, skip the original "Castlevania" and just buy "Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness." The latter is something of a director's cut that includes four playable characters: the two from the original N64 game plus two additional ones. There are very minor differences between the levels in CV64 and their equivalents in Legacy of Darkness. There's also some very brief voice acting in the original that was removed from LoD.
What I love about LoD is that, unlike the additional playable characters in the SotN style games that are basically thrown in without a story and are "just for fun," all the characters in LoD have their own well written and well presented stories with an interesting cast of characters that take them through different parts of the Castle. Cornell's tale takes place prior to all of them and the ending directly links to Reinhardt, and Carrie's story. Henry's game is more of a sidequest and while it doesn't have the narrative the other characters do, his story is nonetheless related to the other characters.
Re: Lords of Shadow to Feature Classic Nintendo Castlevania Music
I've honestly never been on board with the whole "there's never been a good 3D Castlevania" game. I loved the N64 games and if you read the game's initial reviews, they were pretty positive at the time, mostly around 8's out of 10 and many publications proclaiming that it was a good start for the series in 3D. Even looking at the user reviews for the game, both games' reception was overwhelmingly positive. Hell, Legacy of Darkness is my personal favorite game in the series for several reasons.
Then who knows what happened but the entire world seemed to turn on the two N64 games and suddenly what was considered a good start for the series in 3D became Castlevania's shame, leaving the door open for Igarashi's lame attempt at 3D Castlevania where platforming gave way to incredibly repetitive level design and derivative combat.
Re: Preorder Sin and Punishment, Get Bonus Points and Poster
lol, I got 2 of the Monster Hunter Wii Points card. One when I put my money down for the game (which came out the next day) and then another one when I picked up the game. Same thing happened with the Ocarina of Time Master Quest disc. I still have one sealed (though the plastic's torn in one corner)
I'm hoping to get enough cash to pick this up though and the poster and points only sweeten the deal.
Re: Review: Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
Well, at least I have a month to save up for this. This is one of the games I've really been looking forward to. Probably moreso than Triple A game X on any of the other systems. Its a shame Nintendo doesn't do much to publicize its smaller games. Not that they would convice the "I haven't bought a Wii game since Brawl" camp, but it would at least raise greater awareness of some of its more obscure games.
Re: Sid Meier's Pirates! Sets Sail in Autumn
I'm looking forward to it, I loved it on the Original Xbox. The additions may be small so I'm hoping they don't think they can charge full price for this game. $20-$30 would be fair, I think.
Re: Review: 2010 FIFA World Cup (Wii)
Well, it looks like I'm picking up the 360 version, mostly for the tournament moments thing. Its a shame the Wii version doens't have that feature because I really wanted the Dream Team feature, but not at the expense of the past and present tourney moments. That and the lack of precision the review notes.
Oh well, I'll just have to get this on the 360 and Pro Evolution on the wii
Re: Oh Look, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Sold Better Than Expected
This is great news. I still find it kind of sad that Tatsunoko vs Capcom has been overshadowed, first by Super Street Fighter IV and now Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Oh well, I do hope MvC3 makes it to the Wii somehow. This news might make some form of difference.
Re: Sid Meier's Pirates! Pillaging Its Way Onto Wii
I have the Xbox version and I loved the game. I still have it so I'm not sure if I'd buy it again for the Wii (depends on the price). I guess we don't know for sure if its the Xbox release or an older port. I think it'd be interesting if they made a new WiiWare version or something.
Anyways, one of my favorite pirate games was Pirates of the Caribbean on the Xbox. It was originally Sea Dogs II and it kind of reminds me of something like the Elder Scrolls but out at sea (it was made by Bethesda so it'd make sense).
Re: Nintendo's Upcoming U.S. Release Schedule Gets Updated
OH THANK GOD!!!
I know it sounds awful, but damn, I'm tapped out.
I've bought a bunch of new Wii games so far this year, pretty much every major release and a lot of under the radar title, and I really can't afford anything else so soon.
May sure sounded far away two months ago but now I need some time to breathe and play.