Messages

451

Gaming / Re: Nintendo To Unveil New 3Details, Possibly In 3Disney Musical Form

« on: September 29, 2010, 07:27:32 AM »

Try some of the others I added to the OP Mirby. Meanwhile, so much awesome:

- Last Story on Jan. 27th
- Super Mario 25 DSi LL ()
- Instant Mii maker via 3DS camera
- Internet Browser and Tag Modes
- You can put the system in a cradle for faster internet downloads, apparently

452

Gaming / Re: Nintendo To Unveil New 3Details, Possibly In 3Disney Musical Form

« on: September 29, 2010, 06:04:58 AM »

Updated the initial post with a link for following IGN's Japanese correspondent Anoop (also known as Andriasang) as he types away all the new info for us today/tonight!

453

Gaming / Re: Metroid Discussion Thread

« on: September 29, 2010, 04:15:31 AM »

...man, I don't what to make of this.

http://kotaku.com/5649540/in-which-samus-aran-jumps-on-stage-and-takes-her-clothes-off/gallery/

You know, honestly, I'm actually kinda surprised in a "I thought I've seen everything" kinda of way that this hasn't been tried before.

454

Gaming / Re: Nintendo To Unveil New 3Details, Possibly In 3Disney Musical Form

« on: September 29, 2010, 03:58:49 AM »

Don't worry guys, I'll pop in and out every now and again to try and keep things moving along smoothly. And thanks a ton PB for starting the thread up and getting the folk's interest. (It would kick all kinds of ass if Nintendo went and Disney "musicaled" the whole event. )

455

Gaming / Xenoblade (Wii) - Monolith x Nintendo RPG - Amazing New Fan Trailer

« on: September 29, 2010, 03:19:47 AM »

Man, I really wish that Xenoblade had gotten localized and released when this thread was more active. A recent youtube video put out to show off the various locales of the game (set to some really amazing music from the game itself) has done nothing but add gasoline to my originally steady but dimly burning desire to play this game.

You can see it here

or take a look at the embedded video. Either way, this one's a must watch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAYBui5ghJ0#[/youtube]

456

Gaming / Re: Two new Capcom games to come, according to Twitter

« on: September 29, 2010, 02:16:34 AM »

Startropics 3DS anyone?

457

Anime & Manga / Re: One Piece

« on: September 28, 2010, 04:23:18 PM »

I. Love. These. Designs. So. Much.

458

Gaming / Re: Super Smash Bros. Thread

« on: September 28, 2010, 03:20:05 AM »

Anybody wanna Brawl now?

Posted on: September 24, 2010, 10:19:07 PMYet again, I'm gonna ask. Anyone here feel like trying a few matches tonight?

459

Fan Creations / Re: KoiDrake´s art dumping

« on: September 28, 2010, 02:40:07 AM »

I have nothing but doodles and unfinished stuff right, but I got tired of just lurking and randomly posting silly stuff. So here's another bunch of WIPs! As for the requests, I won't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do

Holy [parasitic bomb], I love this.

460

Gaming / Re: Official Nintendo 3DS Discussion Thread - Specs, Tech, Price? It's all here!

« on: September 26, 2010, 11:07:43 PM »

While i do agree that the areas look great, i still think that he could have easily ported Pit's exact model from Brawl. We all know the 3DS is capable. It does look like the Brawl model obviously, but you can tell that he appears to be a bit more "blocky" compared to that; not the quality they used for Wii. Either way, it's a small complaint.

I think this might be more due to the 3DS' polygon limit considering all the other geometry going on in game. I get the feeling that Sakurai (and other Nintendo devs) are going to have to step their game up on what a good use of shaders can do for their games (especially ones where they have avatar characters) because excellent modelling won't be enough if they still want to maintain a good level of complexity in game.

461

Gaming / Re: More teasing from WayForward. Speculation Ahoy!

« on: September 25, 2010, 07:59:37 PM »

Maybe it's just overwhelmingly good?

This. Sorry for being so unclear.

462

Gaming / Re: Official Nintendo 3DS Discussion Thread - Specs, Tech, Price? It's all here!

« on: September 25, 2010, 07:58:41 PM »

I'm actually shocked that I didn't link to the Andriasang version of that same article in the OP.

But yes, that's what was being referenced in the quotes up there about what Capcom has accomplished here.

463

Gaming / Re: More teasing from WayForward. Speculation Ahoy!

« on: September 25, 2010, 03:22:06 AM »

Shantae: Risky's Revenge official PR - no longer episodic, release will be full game

Shantae shakes and shimmies back into the gaming scene this October in her first adventure since the cult classic Shantae was released for the Game Boy Color™ in 2002. The all new sequel offers a powder keg of high octane, hair-whipping, hip shaking action, exclusively available on DSiWare™. WayForward sets the animation bar higher than ever with thousands of frames of animation, huge multi-sprite bosses, and a quest so big it’s bursting at the seams.

Product Summary: Guide “half-genie” Shantae through haunted wastes, burning deserts, enchanted forests, dripping caverns and deadly labyrinths. Discover magical attacks, brew zombie coffee, save golden babies, and master the art of belly-dancing to transform Shantae into
more powerful creatures. Use all your powers to foil the nefarious lady pirate Risky Boots and save Sequin Land from certain doom!

With its infectious characters, flirtatious humor and deliciously outlandish action, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge offers up all the hair-whipping, belly-dancing action players can handle!

“Nintendo DSi owners have been waiting for an exclusive download game that pushes the action beyond what’s possible on the Nintendo DS or
Nintendo DS Lite," says WayForward Creative Director Matt Bozon. "Which is why we see Risky’s Revenge as helping define the system for
so many players.”

Originally conceived as multiple cliffhanger episodes, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge now arrives in the form of a full-release product. The game will be available for purchase on October 4th, 2010 exclusively through the Nintendo DSiWare service for 1200 Nintendo DSi Points™.


From here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E29iOPSxF94&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

464

Gaming / Re: New Donkey Kong Country Returns Trailer of Rambi & Epic Platforming

« on: September 23, 2010, 03:22:00 PM »

I forgot, is this a Wiiware title?

Nope, full retail game.

465

Gaming / Re: New Donkey Kong Country Returns Screens of MY GOD

« on: September 23, 2010, 05:08:34 AM »

You know, I always liked Squitter



I hope he comes back.

Squitter is so [tornado fang]ing cool.

Posted on: September 22, 2010, 04:49:11 PM































[tornado fang].

466

Gaming / Re: More teasing from WayForward. Speculation Ahoy!

« on: September 23, 2010, 04:21:49 AM »

HOLYFUCKINGSHITSOBOUGHT.

467

Gaming / New Donkey Kong Country Returns Trailer of Rambi & Epic Platforming

« on: September 22, 2010, 09:39:41 PM »

Here.

Now I'll be back shortly, I need to wipe the drool off my desk after seeing this.

I'll also embed it here, but it does this game no justice. Try and watch it on YouTube at 480P or greater.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83z8e2isrI[/youtube]

468

Gaming / Re: Inafune: "I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games."

« on: September 22, 2010, 04:39:41 AM »

I feel bad because I understood everything before the "so in other words" summary.

469

News and Announcements / Re: More evidence for "DASH3" emerges, courtesy of "The Shadow"

« on: September 22, 2010, 04:31:28 AM »

This is awesome news...I still need a DASH/Legends collection on consoles first though.

How close are we to the apocalypse now btw? First it was Duke Nukem Forever actually coming out, and DASH/Legends 3 gets added to that.

In this gen alone, we crossed off a ton of them, most notably Street Fighter IV and the Gold & Silver remakes (though they were the most obvious ones on the list). If Legends 3 happens, we're only left with Startropics 3, Zone of The Enders 3 & Jet Set Radio 3. Maybe Chrono Break can be added to the list now...

Edit - Damn, Half-Life 3 or Episode 3 never even crossed my mind.

470

Gaming / Re: Official Nintendo 3DS Discussion Thread - Specs, Tech, Price? It's all here!

« on: September 22, 2010, 04:20:17 AM »

In the end, like every other machine, the life blood of the console is not purely reliant on its innards; it will definitely be the games.

So, that's what I'm most interested in, at the moment. I want to only see more of what's on the way.

Can't be said enough my friend. Even if I've always had that secret side of myself that loves understanding the innards, "It's all about the gamin' baby."

That said, I do believe that Kid Icarus & Paper Mario will make launch day. Anything else is beyond me. [/adding speculations to this thread since I forgot to mention all speculation happens here]

471

Gaming / Re: Official Nintendo 3DS Discussion Thread - Specs, Tech, Price? It's all here!

« on: September 22, 2010, 03:43:49 AM »

Well, since it seems like there's going to be a huge amount of info on the most hotly anticipated portable device since perhaps the original Game Boy, I figured RPM needed a decent catch all thread. We kick things off with a very intriguing quote on the internals of the 3DS and much to nobody's surprise, it seems to be a genuine article Nintendo design. It favors battery life and low heat solutions over raw power and grunt work. With that all said, here's the quote from IGN:

New Nintendo 3DS Hardware Info

IGN has learned that the Nintendo 3DS will pack not one, but two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, along with a 133MHz GPU, 4MBs of dedicated VRAM, 64MBs of RAM, and 1.5GBs of flash storage. The information comes from persons familiar with the hardware who spoke to us under the condition of anonymity.

While we were unable to determine which variation of the ARM11 processors the 3DS will feature, we now have a better sense of the system's capabilities. Currently there are a number of devices being powered by the ARM11, including the Zune HD, a variety of Android smartphones, and prior to the introduction of Apple's A4 processor, the iPhone and iPod touch.

"Numerous developers working on software for the platform have likened its graphical capabilities to current-generation consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, albeit on smaller, lower-resolution screens.

The handheld will also have substantially larger storage capacity than preceding models, jumping from only 256MBs on the DSi to 1.5GBs of flash memory on the 3DS. The total drive space can, of course, be expanded using the 3DS' SD card slot.

Source

For those less technologically inclined, or those who are but want the layman's terms for this all, here's a breakdown quote courtesy of one of the more knowledgeable GAF members on the subject, brain_stew:

Those specs seem eerily realistic, so yeah I'm quite happy to believe they're real.

The CPU setup is interesting but perhaps not surprising, two low clocked CPUs can often mean a lower powerdraw than one higher clocked CPUs (both Intel and AMD use this approach in their netbook chips and ARM themselves are going this way with the Cortex A9 and Eagle) and it should make BC with the NDS (which is a dual CPU system as well) a lot easier.

266mhz is a super low clockspeed for an ARM11 chip but two of them together should be more than sufficient I would think. I never expected an A8 and was kinda worried they'd go with something even simpler so two modestly clocked ARM11 is decent news in my book. Loading just two CPU cores really isn't all that difficult these days, most developers have plenty experience loading 6+ threads now and its even a skill NDS developers had to learn. The amount of L2 cache will have a big say in just how well those ARM11s perform.

64MB always seemed the most likely from what we'd seen so far but I was still hoping for 128MB.

We knew about the dedicated memory but a dedicated 4MB framebuffer is pretty damn roomy considering the modest rendering resolution.

The 133mhz GPU clockspeed tells us little really without knowing how many pipelines the chip has but its certainly not discouraging news. A 100mhz or lower clockspeed didn't seem out of the question previously

I really like the design, it seems to take all the good points of the various previous generation systems without any of the drawbacks and it should deliver fantastic battery life. I'd definitely take this design over a PS2 and GCN and probably even an Xbox as well because of the dedicated framebuffer which overcomes one of the major bottlenecks of that system.

One things clear, its certainly a gaming focused design. This really wouldn't be very good at all for a smartphone but for a machine that only has to worry about pumping out great looking games it seems to be terrifically balanced. Its not cutting edge but its a smart use of the available technology to deliver a system that should deliver the best gaming experience for the given cost and power constraints. Pretty much precisely what you'd expect from a Nintendo system.

And finally, here's an interesting tidbit that can leave you all wondering what will really be possible on the 3DS:

In general CPU performance? Absolutely
As a general computing device? Absolutely
As a dedicated gaming device? Hard to say

Honestly people that were expecting a 1GHz A9 need to get a reality check. Go run the Epic Citadel demo on your iPhone 4 until the battery runs out and I doubt that thing will last 3 hours. Sorry but Nintendo don't have some exclusive magic battery technology and Apple are already pretty damn good at optimising for battery life. If you want this thing to last 10 hours in games then something had to be sacrificed and I'm glad it was general CPU performance.

As for RAM, 64MB (+4MB dedicated) really isn't that bad at all. Its better than anything from last generation and if people were happy with the textures in Xbox games when displayed at 480p on a bog screen TV, I'm sure the same resolution textures will look just fine at 240p on a 3" screen. My desire for 128MB was mostly motivated for performance in other tasks (like a web browser) and because it would have allowed Nintendo to develop a nice and fully featured OS/dashboard that ran at all times. It would have been nice for games, sure but it isn't a dealbreaker. Anything more than 128MB really wouldn't have made any difference in games at all, I'm quite sure of that as the hardware just isn't powerful enough to take proper advantage of it.

64MB actually compares pretty damn well to the amount of memory iOS apps/renderpaths which aren't ES 2.0 exclusive have access to actually. Its only stuff like Citadel which target the high end devices exclusively that can take advantage of that extra RAM and even then the OS eats into a major chunk of it.

In terms of the effects and technology they're using, we already have the evidence of that. Decent 3DS games are packing in most of the important technology from PS3/360 games that makes them games stand out, only its ran at much lower precision, the geometary counts are an order of magnitude lower or more and not all the technology makes the transition either.

Though if Capcom can manage to produce a 3DS engine in 3 months that has decent quality dynamic shadowmaps, self shadowing, HDR rendering, colourgrading, object based motion blur, per pixel lighting, lots of normal mapping and specular highlights then its not difficult to see where that line of thinking comes from, really. Of course the hardware is no where near the 360 but that doesn't mean to say that a lot of the technology that defines the look of this generation can't run in real time on the 3DS with slightly better than PSP levels of geometary and Xbox calibre texturing.

472

Gaming / Re: Inafune: "I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games."

« on: September 20, 2010, 07:45:35 AM »

I thought I was the only one doing the time warp, but yea, he's alluded to it before. At last year's TGS no less:

Keiji Inafune: "Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished."

At a hands-on event for Dead Rising 2, producer Keiji Inafune (father of Mega Man) had some not-so-nice-words about this year's Tokyo Game Show.

After asking the crowd of attendees what they thought of TGS this year (and urging them to be honest in their responses), Inafune expressed disappointment in this year's show and its games line-up.

"Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor," Capcom's Ben Judd translated Inafune, "I said 'Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished.'"

However, he then uses Capcom's upcoming titles as an example of "kick ass" games coming from Japan. An interesting remark, as Dead Rising 2 is being handled by Canadian studio Blue Castle Games.

While Inafune's remarks may seem harsh, he's not alone in his feelings -- many we've spoken to have told us they were underwhelmed by this year's shows. It's certainly smaller in size, and many Japanese developers (some due mainly to financial reasons) have chosen not to attend this year's show.

473

Gaming / Inafune: "I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games."

« on: September 20, 2010, 07:23:07 AM »

* Note, this is a Mod Sanctioned and Moderated Debate Thread. Tread lightly and carry a good discussion piece/argument. *

NYTimes' Article: Japanese Playing a New Video Game: Catch-Up

“I look around Tokyo Games Show, and everyone’s making awful games; Japan is at least five years behind,” said Keiji Inafune, 45, head of global research and development at Capcom and one of Japan’s most prominent game designers.

“Capcom is barely keeping up,” he said in an interview at the show, which ended Sunday. “I want to study how Westerners live, and make games that appeal to them.”

Another year, another choice Inafune quote on how the east is sucking at making video games and glorious west is the only hope. Honestly, I just don't know what to say that I haven't said or made clear about how I feel in regards to this train of thought already, so I'm gonna save up some good discussion pieces and come back with a hell of a lot of good stuff to talk about tomorrow. Now RPM, I'd like to know what you think on the matter. Does it matter to you who is doing what better than the other? Is there a particular draw you have towards one type of game or the other? What helps or hurts that draw you may have to one side or the other?

For those of us who play on hard mode/are very invested in gaming and the game industry:

What is it about appealing to the west for an extra buck that has Capcom changing itself to such an extent and in the process trying to shed its amazing legacy all for the sake of appealing to this "ideal" market that may or may not pay off in the end? Why does Capcom feel as though incorporating more western philosophies into their game design means rejecting the quirks or personality given to them by being Japanese developers? Finally, how hard is it to create universal games instead of ones that pander to one side of the world's ideas of fun or the other's?

Bonus round: How come every time this silly "east is failing" vs "west is best" thing gets mentioned, Nintendo is never counted as a Japanese developer, but rather their own seperate entity?

474

Gaming / Re: Sega continues its partnership with PlatinumGames

« on: September 19, 2010, 11:54:39 PM »

StarFox. I'm actually really curious to see what he'd do with it though. (Ass long as it's fast.)

475

Gaming / Re: Sega continues its partnership with PlatinumGames

« on: September 19, 2010, 11:47:27 PM »

post

Angel. Land.

I'd love to see him do something 2D again though, be it a psuedo Viewtiful Joe 3 or a new action sidescroller.