Thrik

You seem to have extraordinary expectations from a game, toblix. I mean, what? You just implied that defeating a boss in one or two lives is to be expected. I don't know about you, but games have always been pretty hard. You die in them -- a lot. I don't think I can recall any game I've played in recent history where I haven't died a whole bunch of times, and the end bosses of some games such as Beyond Good and Evil and been so infuriating I was literally almost in tears. But that's what makes it so satisfying to kill them, when after the 8th try and the prospect of going right back to the beginning looms, you get that killer blow in just in time. To give up and deem the game and its unreleased 'sequel' because you can't kill its end boss in one or two tries seems like a seriously stupid thing to do. I can see why you seem to basically like no game. You don't seem to enjoy what makes a game a game.

Yeah, the Nintendo 64 was more powerful than the PS1. It was, however, a more difficult beast to program for and thus a lot of games looked a bit nicer on the PS1. The DS should theoretically be able to match either system's graphics, storage space withstanding. A quick look on Wikipedia does say that the DS has a hard polygon limit though, which means it can only use so many polygons before having to look into other ways of prettifying the games.

I've never played this game, but while doing some generic hardware research a while ago I saw some people saying that changing the conformant texture clamp in the Nvidia drivers settings can fix a stuttering issue that commonly affects players of this game. No idea if stuttering would describe your problem, though. Or if you even have an Nvidia card. That aside though, this game does look really nice and also sounds fun. Considering I haven't played a PC racing game in fucking years I think I might have to get it. Edit: While on the subject, are there any other particularly noteworthy PC racers coming out soon? And how many people does Test Drive Unlimited actually have online in the MP mode? Usually.

"However, seven years after development started rolling, EA awards our patience with a possible delay until the beginning of 2009’s fiscal year. However, this is only big honkin’ execuspeak for “Q2, 2008″. That’s still too far away, man! I understand that games like Spore take time to develop, but, come on. I have an incredible urge to make a butt-shaped creature with butts for hands, butts for feet, and butts for eyes. It poops to see." And thus my ":)" at just upgrading my computer becomes slightly ":(". http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2007/05/09/spore-is-delayed-again/ Of course it'll probably be better as a result, but jeeze.

Heh, someone at the BBC is clearly looking forward to Spore.

Yes feel free to just wee all over the minuscule silver lining I had guys. ;(

I spotted this last week and was extremely close to ordering it; however, I had a look at the games available for the various systems and decided to go with the PC upgrade for the time being as there're more games that I find appealing doing the rounds at the moment. Amazon do tend to have really good 360 deals though. When I was interested in one some months back they had some mental deal where you buy a premium console and get like five games of your choice for £25. If you want a 360, Amazon is clearly the place to go first.

Yeah, probably. Though to be honest I didn't actually notice it wasn't cell-shaded until you pointed it out; they've done a really good job of emulating the look. I'd imagine the small size helps this a lot. Don't overlook the fact that the actual game world in Wind Waker wasn't cell-shaded though, and instead used highly stylised hand-drawn textures all over the place (even the sea). It might be the hand-drawn aspect that drew you to Wind Waker rather than the cell-shading if you love 2D art so much (although they did work together beautifully). This is also why I suspect toblix would enjoy Wind Waker a lot.

Well, I finally decided to get past the tension and hit that "Order Stuff" button. I'm very excited as there're loads of PC games I've basically just ignored since early 2005 due to my computer being an absolute bag of shit. Plus, Quake Wars is on its way soon. Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz Socket 775 FSB1066 4MB Cache Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX 2x1GB Asus P5B Deluxe WIFI Socket 775 Core 2 Duo P965 FSB1066 DDR2 SATA Audio ATX BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OverClocked (600MHz) 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI PCI-Express Some 320GB 7200rpm Samsung hard drive Vista Ultimate DVD (but not being used for six months or so) I wasn't kidding when I said my set up was like Thunderpeel's. For reference, I'm on a trashy AMD 2800+ XP whatever with an AGP 6600GT and 1gb of DDR RAM at the moment. Of course I'll probably end up wanting to move up again a year from now as running games on 1920x1200 is a bone-crushing endeavour.

And I take it the anger is because you told them to go fuck themselves for taking advantage to unacceptable levels and then subsequently got fired?

I honestly don't know what you're expecting. They went for the 3D style of Wind Waker (albeit nowhere near as overwhelmingly beautiful), and probably maxed out what that little DS is capable of doing since that's what Nintendo generally does with its games. The reason it looks like a 90s PC game is because it's running on the equivalent of a mid-90s home console's hardware. On a small screen it should look absolutely fine, which is an important factor here. I mean if you're expecting the full-blown graphical experience, then shit, don't play the version on a handheld console with fairly weak hardware. Get the GameCube original that Four Swords, Minish Cap, and Phantom Hourglass are all based on, because no matter what they do with these handheld versions they're never going to look as good as the big daddy itself. I personally doubt any of them play as well or are as generally good, either.

By the looks of it the gameplay is quite thickly interspersed with moments that simply could not happen in 2D. This is fairly obvious from watching the linked video above alone, but has also been something mentioned in previews and whatnot over the eternity it's been in development. You do seem a little obsessed with graphics though. You're raining down on Phantom Hourglass ahead of time without even taking the gameplay implications of being a 2D/3D hybrid into account, which is fairly unchartered territory for the series. Okay, the core detail and artistic beauty may not be as intense (This is largely a DS restriction as Wind Waker remains the most attractive Zelda game ever, period.), but as an exchange you get much more fluid animations and movement, and more depth to the game world. More of the same is all well and good to an extent, but come on guy -- there've been loads of 2D Zeldas. I don't think the world really wants too much more of that, and you can't say Nintendo haven't given it much more of a run than most other series get. The extra dimension and the stylus mixed in with primarily 2D gameplay makes for a lot more potential interesting gameplay. I'd take that over more desirable static graphics any day of the week.

Rocky Balboa was the finest film released in the 2000s.

Yeah, Phantom Hourglass looks wholly fantastic. I'm going to say this again though: you should play Wind Waker. You know, the game that Minish Cap kind of based its art style on and probably a lot of its tone/atmosphere too. It does not at all feel like Ocarina of Time, and to discount all the 3D games because the first ever one that came out a decade ago seems a bit outdated for some reason is madness.

Sounds like I might have to pick this belter up. It's one of those games that's just sat on my "Maybe I should play this" list for an eternity. .You really should play Wind Waker, though. It is great and extremely pretty.

Would you want to smell the most beautiful-smelling rose in the world all day long, every day, all year?

Haaahahaha! Okay, no further attempt can possibly better Dan's. Good show. :tup:

I haven't really got any idea what it's like for exporting to the US, but I know that a lot of US e-shops avoid shipping to here because of the costs involved. I assumed there'd be similar costs both ways, though I could be 100% wrong on that point. I don't know what Amazon UK would have to pay to get stuff imported into the US, but it's probably enough for them to just stick to the intended market and leave all US business to Amazon US.

I think they'd also get slammed with typically heavy export charges if they shipped out, just like they do when they import (apart from some places like Jersey, which is where most Amazon UK stuff ships from). Plus, imagine having to deal with returns and stuff with those import/export charges on top -- it'd be financial suicide. Well, it would be if it wasn't Amazon. But yeah, the most predominant issue is most stuff here being incompatible. If it isn't a different plug/voltage/etc then it'll be different standards (NTSC/PAL). You might be better off trying to get some wanker from the UK to send it over to you, duly compensated of course.

LED LCD screens basically last longer, are brighter, use less energy, provide more saturated colours, and because of the way the color phosphors or whatever work you get a pure white rather than the slightly tinted look that essentially any typical LCD unavoidably has (You want warm whites or cold?), which of course carries over into all other colours. It's not a total revolution, but it's sure a better option if you can wait for it -- especially if you do graphical work. It's getting rolled into desktop monitors throughout the year two, with a 24-inch Samsung one already unveiled. There've been rumours about Apple using them in the next Macbook Pros, which would make sense since they tend to stay towards the cutting end of display technology. Plus, LED LCD screens are easier to make for smaller devices than larger ones. Edit: This is a decent explanation: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1739404

Man, don't you know the laws of video games? There has to be at least one (and preferably only one) obscure way to beat each attack pattern of any end-of-level boss. If you can't it is because the boss has attack patterns that are too superior for your mind. Perhaps you should stick to mid-level sub-bosses. Edit: lolz misspelt word

Speaking of Macbook Pros, I really fancy one of those for non-game nonsense (ie: can be taken to work too) but they seem to be a bit too expensive for me to want to bother with right now. Are there any cheat codes or tips for getting them cheaper without going second-hand? If not I'll just fuck off the temptation for now, although I'll wait for the refresh with superior LED-based screens (supposedly and likely).

Eh, I can't say much for C&C3 as I haven't played it yet but I've always found levels where you actually have to sweat a bit while fighting off attacks pretty fun. It's really satisfying in Dawn of War for example to have a large army, and have it be absolutely fucking obliterated by an overwhelming enemy but eventually pull through and barely beat them. It's all about keeping focus while things look horrific. Just sitting in a corner and building up a huge base and tank swamp is also fun, but it can't be the whole of an RTS for me. I need a level or few where I have to hold back a seemingly never-ending and annihilating force, and boy does it feel satisfying once you get the upper hand and start to push them back. I've often looked back on RTS/C&C missions and thought "How the fuck did I even do that? That could have gone totally wrong at about a million points". It's a nice feeling though.