Sno

Of course, but we're talking about sequels within a given series, it can be assumed that there are going to be consistent elements throughout. The point, i guess, is that relative to how much any other series would typically change from game to game, i think Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are pretty dramatically different games. Or how about the differences between Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask? For two games that share assets and an engine, it is crazy how different those games are. If you mean i like to discuss and debate, then yeah, i do. I want to hear people's opinions, i want to better understand the ways people think about this medium. I'm not doing this to be confrontational or contrarian, and i'm not trolling you or anything so juvenile. I mean If you really have a problem with this, just say so and you will be avoided.

There wasn't exactly riotous applause for anything at any of those press briefings, and the crowd was actually booing some of the things going on at the Sony briefing. What do you really expect? Do you expect the audience to be completely stoic and silent? Compared to how insane and weird the Wii seemed, i don't see what's even that odd about the Wii U. They have some big lofty ill-formed ideas about how they want developers and gamers to use that dumb tablet controller, but they're also creating a console more in line with the competition, that is more favorable to cross-platform development. This is significantly less crazy than the Wii was. Comments like this make me just completely crazy, this sentiment is such a pet peeve of mine. Ok, hey, the last major Zelda game? Five years ago. Before that? Nine years. Yeah. Handheld games? Two in the last six years. This is not exactly eleven Call of Duty games in eight years. Those games are all original, there is scarcely anything similar about Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, let alone crazy spin-offs like Four Swords. There is more different between any two games in that series than there is in, lets say, any of the Half-Life games. Hell, Half-Life 2 even just has all the same weapons as Half-Life 1, Valve is clearly lazy and horrible for not completely reinventing their toolbox. It's a ubiquitous and long-running series, so there are a lot of Zelda games, but the idea that Nintendo just keeps constantly releasing the same games over and over is a inscrutable and engrained fallacy. Oh hey, but Ocarina of Time is being remade for the 3DS, so that's clearly the exception that proves the rule. (You know, because no company should ever be able to leverage their existing back library of games, those games should always remain buried, and services like GoG should all be shut down.) I mean, you're welcome to hate Nintendo and their games as much as you want, opinions are great. Just... Eghh... Have a better argument for it, that's what i'm saying.

All of the TES games are pretty horrendously balanced and easy to break if you wish to try. (Like the alchemy skill and infinitely stacking buff potions in Morrowind. Make an intelligence buff potion, use that potion, then while buffed make a stronger intelligence buff potion. Repeat, repeat, repeat.) It really comes down to, once you know enough about the game to abuse those systems, making a choice about which kind of experience you want to have. I've always personally tried to avoid abusing the exploits.

Are you saying you wouldn't be cheering if Miyamoto was presenting to you about Zelda? Really? For the people who were in that audience, i don't think the obligation to provide sensible and objective coverage of the event means that they should have to completely divest themselves of being completely fucking excited and passionate about video games. Why would they even be there doing that job?

-9r6J0b-2BI Been waiting so long for this. It's been finally confirmed as one of the games in Microsoft's Summer of XBLA line-up. It's supposed to be a Metroidvania-style game. Open-ended environments, puzzles, and action. Except it's incredibly beautiful, and you're a UFO.

The DS was incredibly dire for the first year or so, it took a long time to build momentum.

If that's the case, it might just fall back on the Wii-mote's "classic" controller for local dual-analog multiplayer.

They teased vaguely that maybe it stands for "utopian" or "you" the player. Egh...

Well it's backwards compatible with the existing Wii controllers, so assuming you have a Wii, you already have controllers that are going to work with the Wii U. I'm more concerned about the price tag for that new tablet controller, doesn't that thing seem like it's going to cost a ton?

I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but i wouldn't get too excited about that Zelda tech demo, .They were very explicit about these all just being tech demos. Clearly though, now that they've shown this high-definition, realistic looking Zelda, they just need to go make an HD Wind Waker sequel instead.

I thought they showed off some pretty cool looking 3DS games. The new Super Mario game looks very slick, like they're trying to do classic side-scrolling Mario stages, just with added depth. Luigi's Mansion 2 is not unwelcome, i know a bunch of people who will be incredibly stoked to see that happening. I think Kid Icarus: Uprising continues to look completely insane and possibly very amazing. Also - Free Four Swords for erebodeh! That Wii U... Sure... Alright... I guess... As i said in another thread - I got the impression they don't really have many cogent ideas about what the tablet controller really even means for the system, they just want to shove it out there and see what happens with it. I think it's too early to make any real judgements on that hardware though, a lot of the important details were absent from that press briefing, it was all about the controller.

Names don't matter, if we got used to Wii, we'll get used to Wii U. And like... That thing, that thing is pretty crazy, but... I think that's pretty much what i expect from Nintendo now, to do the most insane and unexpected thing possible and somehow still be successful with it. I got the impression they don't really have many cogent ideas about what the tablet controller really even means for the system, they just want to shove it out there and see what happens with it.

Awwww, but i like weapon degradation.

Excitebike is free until July 7th, so there's no rush. Wait for them to sort out the issues.

Sony's show was... Eh... The BioShock stuff was weird and unexpected. Every copy of BioShock Infinite on the PS3 will also have a free copy of the first BioShock included on the same Blu-Ray? BioShock Infinite will have extensive Move support? An exclusive and unannounced BioShock spin-off for the PSV? PS Vita looks weird to me, i think it's built around a philosophical fallacy of Sony's, the idea that people actually want elaborate home console-like experiences from their handhelds. I don't think that has ever been true, not in the west at least. (The Uncharted demo also reeked of unnecessary touchscreen/motion control, reminds me of all those early PS3 Sixaxis games.) The crowd booing at AT&T being the exclusive 3G provider was pretty funny. 250 for the base model though, that's pretty competitive pricing, i honestly didn't think Sony would hit that price point. That puts Nintendo in a very tough spot with the 3DS.

Anybody else actually really happy that they're getting rid of the attributes and major/minor skills division in Skyrim? I got really sick of trying to game the character stats systems in Morrowind and Oblivion to get the most out of my character building, focusing on building up minor skills to get the most out of attribute bonuses on level-up, all that weirdness. I'm glad they're making that all a little more sensible. Anyways. Yay Elder Scrolls.

I don't think you're going to get that original Halo CE multiplayer in this game. It's probably going to be like ODST, where there was a new campaign with new weapons and everything, but the competitive multiplayer was literally just the competitive half of Halo 3. ODST was two seperate games bundled together. They're saying the multiplayer in Halo CE: Anniversary will have maps from Halo CE remade, but that will probably just be a new Reach map pack, and it'll probably be made seperately available for the normal version of Reach as well. The remake half of Halo CE: Anniversary will probably just be the campaign and co-op, the competitive multiplayer will just be a gutted version of Reach without all the campaign and co-op aspects of Reach.

So Halo CE: Anniversary is being developed by Certain Affinity and Saber Interactive and it is not running on the Reach engine. It's built up off of the original game, the original code. It'll have a toggle that lets you jump between the new graphics and the old graphics on the fly. It'll also have online co-op, and it'll be budget-priced. (They've learned from ODST, clearly.) Sounds like the competitive MP is just going to be a stripped down version of Halo Reach though, like the Halo 3 Mythic disc that shipped with ODST. Essentially, the competitive multiplayer in Halo CA: Anniversary will amount to being a map pack for Reach, and will be cross-compatible with the original release of Halo Reach. (I like this approach, and i respect Microsoft for it. They're supporting and reinforcing the major Halo releases instead of diluting them. It's good for the community and it's good for the games.) Halo 4 will be 343's first game, and i have some ideas about what they might do with it, but i don't expect anybody here cares enough about Halo to want to hear it. Heh. They've all got a lot to prove though, now that Bungie has moved on. (To be fair though, Certain Affinity and 343 are actually a bunch of ex-Bungie people.)

I just finished watching that Microsoft presser. That was pretty awful. That Kinect Fable game looks awful. Gears 3 looks good. Halo 4 from 343, Halo CE: Anniversary from Certain Affinity. Minecraft making its console debut on 360 with Kinect support is very, very odd.

Hey, Microsoft was pretty much what i thought it was going to be. Staying the course and lots of Kinect. Nothing much interesting, very dull. Though after the presser was done, some sites were picking up that Microsoft is going to announce cloud saves on Live.

You're just making assumptions. I was a horrible kid with unmonitored internet access and nothing else to do.

Bondi claims that their version of the city in the game is 90% accurate to the era. It does seem like they should have sent out some comparison photos or something to showcase that fact, definitely. That would have been good press for the game, and would highlight a lot of work most people probably won't even notice.

Guys, really? Goldeneye always seemed completely absurd to me, watching it as a relative outsider while immersed in the PC FPS scene. I had already spent a couple years playing Quake online before Goldeneye even came out and people started losing their minds over its split-screen multiplayer. I can at least understand and appreciate people being amazed with Goldeneye for a lot of the foundational work it did in establishing shooters on consoles, but... Eggh... I'd like to hear somebody defend that game though, actually justify it. I don't think it's likely we'll come to an agreement on it, but i'd like to try and understand what people really see in it, if not simple first-time nostalgia. I hope i'm not picking a fight, i'm not trying to. I think i'm being amicable here, but i've definitely had people explode at me for not properly appreciating Goldeneye. ?

As it would happen, i actually also just played through this. It was the first time i've played any version of those games. Ys II left the impression of it being a pretty amazing game, while the design of Ys I definitely shows its age. (Though I had read that the Chronicles versions are based off of previous remakes that had already significantly added to the games.) Continuing with the Ys thing, now i'm playing through Ys Seven, which for me will be the last of the Ys games Xseed had localized. I'm normally fairly adverse to Japanese RPG's, but this is a pretty fantastic series, and i want to see more of these games be released outside of Japan.

http://www.giantbomb.com/id-software-unleashes-a-fresh-dose-of-rage/17-4211/ This looks so, so good. I want to play this. Though, I don't know if it's just that i've played LA Noire and that's ruined other games for me, but the facial animation looks really jarringly awful compared to how incredibly amazing everything else looks. Heh.