Comments 694

Re: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon Figurine Spooked Off Club Nintendo

skywake

It hasn't been put on the Australian Club Nintendo and I'm wonder whether it will or not now. The general wisdom was that we would get it sometime early this year. Either way I have a heap of stars saved up and am waiting.

I really hope that I don't miss out on the Hanafuda cards while waiting for this.

Re: Nintendo Acknowledges Network Issues and Suggests Patience

skywake

I got the shiny Zelda special edition 3DS yesterday. Ran the system transfer and downloaded Zelda + the free 3D Land in their promo no problems. Good thing Australia runs ahead of the rest of the world. By the afternoon the eShop was giving errors every now and then, this morning it's dead.

@JoeysGirl
Except the first thing your games ask when you put the disk in is to update. Then when you load the game you want to use their online services. Plus yesterday I got a digital copy of 3D Land for nothing because of a promotion they were doing. Why complain about that?

Re: Nintendo Download: 26th December and 2nd January (Europe)

skywake

If you haven't played Mario Tennis on the GBC then do yourself a favor and get the 3DS VC version immediately. That game is fantastic and is basically a full Tennis RPG that just happens to have Mario in it. If it doesn't get a high score in the review I'll be shocked.

.... and then wonder what the nostalgia glasses have done to me yet again

edit: IGN review from 2001 http://au.ign.com/articles/2001/01/25/mario-tennis-4

Re: Video: Just Look For The U On The Box, Nintendo's New Wii U Promotion Helpfully Suggests

skywake

I don't know why everyone here is raving about this video. Seems like the sort of bland video you'd see playing on repeat in the back corner of a shop somewhere. It addresses all of the things every armchair analyst have been complaining about but it doesn't really excite.

They really, really shouldn't be putting this on air. Keep it for the stores and trade shows. At most take some of the ideas in this video and turn it into a series of ads with a similar theme. Bring back Non-Specific action figure or something. This video though? No, not on TV, keep it away.

Re: Platinum Games Producer Hates "Pedantic Port-Begging" Regarding Bayonetta 2

skywake

Exclusives are not a new thing even with Nitnendo's platforms and "core" games. I don't remember the same level of whine when the Wii got Red Steel, MadMen, No More Heroes and Xenoblade. I equally don't remember the same whine about The Last of Us, Uncharted or Halo and Gears of War.

That's just how things are, if you want to play the games you invest in the platform that has them. If they don't want to invest in the platform then clearly they're not that interested in the game

Re: Video: Here's Another Chance to Check Out Nintendo's VGX Appearance

skywake

@Kirk hehe, "such an occasion" indeed. Worth noting that this "awards show" didn't even give out all of its awards during said show. The "big announcements" other than Cranky Kong included a port of Tomb Raider and a robot in Titanfall. Also remember at E3 this year Activision spent most of their time hyping up Dogs in CoD.....

So please don't pretend that Nintendo has somehow committed a crime against humanity here. It was a crappy show and what they showed was on par with what every other dev thought the show warranted. They didn't hype it up and what they showed was, IMO as a long time Nintendo fan, pretty cool. It's freaking Ducktales controls in DKC, if you don't think that's cool there's something wrong with you.

Re: The 3DS YouTube App Has Finally Gone Live

skywake

The article is wrong defending them for the lack of 3D. There's no technical reason why it couldn't have supported 3D videos. I've been able to rip 3D videos from youtube and convert them to play on the 3DS Camera software fairly easily. The tech it uses doesn't matter it's just two videos side-by-side.

So there's no excuse for not having 3D support. They've really dropped the ball here.

Re: Talking Point: The GamePad and its Role Defining the Wii U

skywake

I think it's about on par with the Kinect being manditory. When I look at the XBOne vs PS4 I'm personally swayed towards the XBOne because of Kinect being both better than the PS Camera and included in the price. So if I want an all-round device with awesome wide-angle-lens Skype etc I'll go with the XBOne. That's an added value.

With the Wii U it has remote play included in the box whereas the PS4 has it as an extra feature you have to buy a Vita for. This is a feature I'd happily pay extra for but it's included in the Wii U box as an integrated and better performing feature.

Really I think the naysayers will come around once they realise the local game-streaming isn't a fad. It looks to be one of the big features of this generation and the Wii U is in the box seat. Killing it would be like killing the Kinect on the XBOne, it's something some will demand to drop the price but it's a bad idea given it's a key point of difference and a compelling feature. PS4 has value gaming performance, Wii U has Nintendo and off-TV play, XBOne has all-round device status.

Re: Pokémon Developers: Paid DLC Could "Ruin The Worldview" of The Franchise

skywake

I'd have less of a problem with Pokemon Bank if there was more space for Pokemon on the actual game. Given the first month is free I could have easily moved over all of my old Pokemon. Without the space on the game though I can't.....

As for paid DLC for Pokemon I could see ways it would work. When you buy plushies in the shop they could include a unique QR code for downloading a special version of the Pokemon you just brought. Maybe even make some Pokemon exclusive to that sort of method.

The GTS is so open that I'm sure they'd filter through to people who didn't want to pay. So I don't see what the problem with that would be.

Re: Nintendo Download: 10th October (Europe)

skywake

I would have downloaded Pokemon X/Y (not sure what version I'm going for yet) but some retailers are selling it for $44AU and all of the major players are selling it for under $60AU. When the eShop price is $69.95AU it's hard to justify the digital version premium......

Re: Poll: Would You Buy Grand Theft Auto V On Wii U?

skywake

Can I check all the options? I'm not that interested in GTA anymore and I'm not sure if I could get it. However if I was going to get it I would probably want to get it on the PC instead because I think the game is best suited to that platform. I also think the Wii U would be much better off if it did exist on the platform and I'd be very happy if I was given that option.

I happily got Chinatown Wars on the DS so I do disagree with the main argument here.

Re: Wii U Name Isn't To Blame For Poor Sales, Says Reggie

skywake

The Wii U's name is LESS confusing than the XBox One or Apple's decision to call the iPad 3 the iPad. Plenty of "bad" names for products that ended up doing very well indeed. All you need is a good reason to buy the thing and people will know they want to buy it.

I'm sure we all remember the labels on old games reminding us that it only worked on their new console. Gameboy Color games that could be played on the Gameboy Advance and the Gameboy Color but not the Gameboy Pocket or original Gameboy. And we think "Wii U" being "confusing" is a problem? :S

Re: Exclusive: Zelda's Aonuma: We're Looking Into Going "Beyond The Disc" With DLC

skywake

You know I'm thinking more along the lines of Majora's Mask here. Same engine, same assets, different game entirely. Same thing with Spirit Tracks after Phantom Hourglass. They could do that with DLC and it's basically what they're doing with New Super Luigi U. If it's that extensive I'm sure nobody would have a problem with it....

and if they did they need their head checked.

Re: Nintendo Download: 2nd May 2013 (Europe)

skywake

@Angelic_Lapras_King
Well for comparison the Wii VC launched one month after the Wii's launch with 17 games in the EU. Compared to that 7 VC games almost six months after the Wii U's launch seems pretty average.

At this rate it'll be E3 2014 before there's 100 VC games on the Wii U VC......

Re: Nintendo Download: 2nd May 2013 (Europe)

skywake

Wow, that's pretty weak for the Wii U VC in the second week. Not saying those aren't great games but I was kinda hoping for them to really push the early VC. Get at least three or four out every week so that by the end of the year there is a sizable collection....

Apparently not

Re: Rumour: Nintendo Land May Not be Bundled With Wii U

skywake

They've literally had this up for months at my "local" JBs with that same price, same box and everything. EBs have the same but with a $108 price. The only promise they make is that when the product launches you'll pay the lower of the two prices (if it ends up being cheaper).

All this confirms is that they assume it will cost less than or equal to $99AU at launch. Presumably all the people pre-ordering this are also pre-ordering the console so if it ends up being bundled they'll just combine the two deposits. Confirmation of nothing really.

Re: Blitz: Forget The Specs, Wii U Is Getting Developers Excited

skywake

Things don't change as fast in computing in terms of actual gains from more power as much as they used to. If in 2002 you had what was a mid-to-high-range computer from 1998 (which'd be like a 1Ghz Athlon with 64MB RAM) and wanted to play, I don't know, Halo on PC you'd have some headaches. Try that in 2012 with Mass Effect 3 on a 2008, 2.5Ghz C2D and 4GB system and you'd be pretty fine.

It's not like you hook a gaming console upto 5x 1080p monitors with 3D and then stop to encode a 1080p video while browsing flash heavy webpages and talking to someone over HD skype. They're one use devices with a single screen which is currently limited to 1080p and viewed at from a couch. You're not going to get that much out of more power....... or at least not quickly.

Re: Could The Wii U GamePad Suffer From Latency?

skywake

A tiny bit? Sounds like the sort of latency you'd expect to experience ... when there isn't any but you assume there must be some given it's wireless. Like the latency introduced by WiFi that people panic about despite it being less than the lag introduced by most screens.

Re: Talking Point: DS Games Deserve Digital Distribution on 3DS

skywake

Nintendo don't make any money from the grey market and I doubt they are producing that many new cartridges especially of some of those old games. The way I see it it's pretty much pure profit if they did this. There's also the benefit of being able to get the obscure titles, some which go for a bundle, with little to no effort.

Win-win-win

Re: Rumour: Blockbuster UK Lists 25 Wii U Games

skywake

There aren't that many things on this list that I'd be surprised with. Aside from the cross platform "HD console" games and a slightly better selection of top-tier exclusives this looks pretty much identical to the 3DS launch. What launch would be complete without Ubisoft milking the early game drought?

@billy-beauts iPads and Wiis aren't exactly identical products... infact they're entirely different. If you had said DS/3DS and iPhone/iPod Touch then sure because why buy a gaming machine when you already carry one with you? but iPads and Wiis? Not by a long shot.

Re: Download Your Wii U Games Overnight

skywake

A few things
1) External USB2 HDDs are ~4-5x faster than DVD drives and about as fast as a modern Blu-Ray drive when the disks are running at full speed. That's only after optical disks have spun up to full speed.
2) HDDs are cheap as chips and I'm sure many people have a spare one lying around.
3) Not all games will be ~10GB, some will be more but many will be less.
4) At 10Mbps, a standard-ish BB speed, you'll be able to download 4.5GB/hour. At 10Mbps you could start downloading a "Super Mario Galaxy HD" at 5PM, have tea and it'll be waiting for you at ~7:30PM.
5) The ability to download overnight does not mean you'll HAVE to download overnight it just means that that will be an option. It's a great option if you have peak/offpeak quota or don't want to annoy everyone by hammering your 'nets when everyone is using it.
6) Lastly... many ISPs have partnerships with various companies. In Australia my ISP gives me iTunes, XBox Live and ABC iView (Australia's version of BBC iPlayer) off quota. Other ISPs do similar things and I'm sure it's the same in other countries. I wouldn't be that surprised if Nintendo follows...

Re: Talking Point: What New Super Mario Bros. 2 Means for 3DS and Nintendo

skywake

When I first heard about the 3DS a New SMB that looked as good as New SMB Wii was the first thing that came to mind. I've been looking forward to the idea of a 2D Mario in full stereoscopic 3D for a long while it seems. It's that prospect of that sort of game which got me interested in the idea of the 3DS even if games like Kid Icarus and OoT were what eventually won me over.

Having said that, and maybe this is a double standard, but the idea of New SMB on the Wii U doesn't excite me at all. When I first heard about the Wii U it was HD gaming and the DS style gameplay of having a tablet there that got me interested. RTS games and similar as well as the idea of having your items sitting there ready to use in a Zelda or Metroid. New SMB does nothing exciting on the Wii U.

...... I'll probably get it on both but I'm much, much less likely to get it on the Wii U.

Re: Miyamoto: "Angry Birds Would Have Been Better on DS"

skywake

A story about Angry Birds and Waltz getting the rant machine going. What a surprise.

There is no reason why it couldn't have worked on a Nintendo machine. I disagree with Miyamoto about it being possibly better on the (3)DS but it wouldn't have been horrible. There are a couple of minigames in New SMB on the DS that have a similar sort of idea, they work fine. It would have worked. WiiWare would have also worked but the real system to put it on would be the WiiU.

Think about it, bird on the touchscreen and the whole scene on the TV in full 1080p glory. The best way you can possibly play that game, a tablet, combined with a full display of the damage on your TV. Perfection.

Re: Rumour: Wii U Components Cost $180, Will Retail at $300

skywake

@mastersworddude Except that the anon devs saying it wasn't very powerful were contradicting the named developers who were saying it was. Making it look a lot like professional troll-bait used to get ad-revenue.

This story? It's on price. There's not much to gain from saying it'll cost $300US and therefore presumably about $400AU. That's pretty much as expected. The low cost of the tablet? Not a surprise either. Those components are in everything these days including the excluded gyros. You get more tech in a $30 burner phone these days.

Re: Gearbox: Wii U Out-RAMs Xbox 360 and PS3

skywake

@NeonSh3llz exactly

On a PC you'll typically have a media player, browser and virus scanner running all at once all the time. On top of that it's not crazy for people to want to do things like edit video which chews up a heap more system RAM than a typical game. 750MB of video RAM with 512MB of system RAM? That'd be one hell of an upgrade and more than enough by itself. Could they go further? Definitely.

Get ready for high-res texture heaven.

Re: Kid Icarus: Uprising Fails to Fly in UK Charts

skywake

It's strange, I remembered the game from the demo I played before the 3DS launched. Remembered the controls being pretty awesome and not having any trouble holding the 3DS. Then the previews and reviews come out and everyone was bitching about how impossible it was to control.

Get the game because it still seemed like a unique game... no problems with the controls. I play using the screen, holding the 3DS in my left hand. No special technique, stands, circle pad pros or anything. It works pretty damn well. I have no idea what people are talking about.

On top of that the online modes surprised me with how great they were. Free-for-all is worth getting this game for alone. It really is a must have game for "core" gamers who own a 3DS.

Re: Kid Icarus: Uprising AR Cards Now Available on Club Nintendo Europe

skywake

@Zero123 The Australian Club Nintendo isn't as great as some of the others but it isn't that bad. You seem to forget that the blooper fan is a fairly new item (the first two fans were Animal Crossing and Mario) and that some items have dissapeared from the store. There was the Kirby pouch a while ago for example and the SNES Classic Controller before that.

Oh, and the Zelda Posters and G&W2 are both very recent additions.

Re: Mathematics Proves That Mario Games Are Difficult

skywake

As some have said this is not the same as the hard people are thinking. In a nutshell it's possible to quickly verify whether a level is possible to be finished if someone has finished it regardless of how complicated. At the same time it could potentially take billions of years for a computer to prove either way whether it's possible to finish.

The million dollar prize is about something a bit different. That's about whether it is possible to solve these hard problems in the same time it takes to verify them.

Re: Michael Pachter Suggests That Wii U Could Struggle

skywake

@Waltz
I think you really have to look at Pachter as a personality on a show designed to get views more than a professional analyst giving investment advice. Who do you think the target audience of that show are? I wouldn't be taking his views on that show too seriously.

To the point I was making this is an unpredictable market. The 3DS was pretty much DOA and look what happened there. So really the best approach to this sort of news should be "meh". At the end of the day we're buying consoles to enjoy the games we like so if there are games you like... buy the console to enjoy the games. Simple as that.

Re: Michael Pachter Suggests That Wii U Could Struggle

skywake

I gave up trusting predictions on what would happen with Nintendo consoles after the 3DS. People had it dead before it was out because of iPhones and iPads and it's future looked horrible before I got mine. Then I got it anyway because of OoT and Mario Kart..... and all of a sudden it's doing ridiculously well.

I think it's best just to ignore whatever people say and stop trying to guess how long a console will live. If it launches and it looks crap wait, if it has the games you want jump on board. Enjoy it for what it is. If it fails like the Dreamcast at least you can be one of those smug barstewards in 2025 who will say "I owned a Wii U, it was great".

Re: Wii Sensor Bar Works Using Heat, Claims UK Newspaper

skywake

@jibberldd5 Learn to science. Candles emit a whole range of light from Thermal IR all the way through the visible spectrum. That's why fire both emits heat and is visible. The Wii sensor bar LEDs emit a very limited range of light between TIR and Red which is why you can't see them AND they don't emit much heat.

Re: Rayman Origins 3DS Has No Multiplayer

skywake

You know what? I almost never played the multiplayer modes on Donkey Kong Country Returns or New SMB Wii so I don't see how this would've been much different. It's not a good thing that it's missing but it doesn't bother me nor does it surprise me that it didn't make it.

Now if there are framerate issues or less levels.... then I'll be annoyed.

Re: Nintendo Working On New Zelda Game

skywake

I'm going to go out on a limb and say they might even be currently working on a 3DS Zelda, a Wii U Zelda and a 3DS port of Majora's Mask. I mean, that's what happened with Skyward Sword, OoT3D and Spirit Tracks.

Re: 3DS Ambassador Game Boy Advance Games Revealed

skywake

@21 damn straight. So far we have Zelda 1 & 2, OoT, Spirit Tracks, Phantom Hourglass, Link's Awakening, Four Swords. Now there's Minish Cap AND the chance of Majora's Mask and Seasons/Ages is pretty high.

Not much missing.....

Re: Kirby's Block Ball Bouncing to 3DS Virtual Console

skywake

Kirby's closer to their fifth pillar.... sixth maybe... is pillar even the right word? Kirby is great but do people BUY Nintendo consoles for Kirby? If Nintendo didn't make a Kirby game for five years would people say "where's the next Kirby?"