SiN

I was literally LOLing by the end of that trailer. The tagline, especially, is priceless.

I've been playing it and having a blast! I play shmups quite often, so I'm not a complete noob, but I'm not very good at them either. Like you Miffy, I found that it had a really nice difficulty curve. I started out playing the levels on the second difficulty, and it felt challenging without being too frustrating. The art style is obviously gorgeous, but what gets mentioned less is that the music (and sfx) are really good too. The best part though, is that it's very interesting from a mechanics POV. And that's really why I love shmups. The spread/special fire, triggering vaunt, maintaining it, and trading vaunt for extra shields are all really great. And actually, the mechanics and difficult level work really well together. So on easiest, all you need to know is "fire". As you climb the difficulty levels you go from "need to be familiar with the mechanics" to "must use the mechanics very well" all in a fairly smooth manner. In short: two thumbs up from me, for hardcore shmup players and noobs alike.

Seriously, if I were Mobigames, I'd ask Langdell to remove the blurb from his website. Nothing good can come from being associating with Langdell/EDGE.

Have we ever heard complaints out of Rockstar North? I remember complaints about RDR, and now LA Noire, but not for any of the GTA games. I know the Houser brothers are dicks, but I suspect on the whole, they treat their employees well. This LA Noire stuff though, is ridiculous. I work in business software development, and yeah, we do crunch, but I've NEVER worked a 12-hour day, and I've NEVER been in crunch for more than a month or so. It's straight-up unsustainable! 12-hour work days for months or years at a time is not a sustainable development environment. If the hours were more reasonable, there would be less turnover, and higher morale. With that there would be less re-learning/re-factoring/bugs/etc. And given all that, LA Noire would have been a BETTER game, that got released SOONER, with LESS crunch! I'm not sure there's a single valid argument against that. What's worse though, is that McNamara has the audacity to downplay the role of his team. Notice how often he uses "MY" in that interview. The only time he says "we/they" is as a means to his own ends. In other words, when he needs THEM to develop HIS game. Where is the incentive to work 12-hour days when your "visionary" leader thinks you're disposable? Moreover, given what an obviously broken game LA Noire is (I don't understand the critical acclaim, but I imagine the sales won't hold up), why would anyone work for him again?

I watched the trailers, read minimal previews, read none of the reviews, but of course I have it ordered. No Kinect here, but might borrow a friends. Will report back.

Wot Denial said. There was nobody to scam. Take2 had a minimal investment in DNF, less than $10 million. The whole thing was self-funded by 3D Realms, off their profits from Apogee, then Duke3D, then from producing the Max Payne games (and the movie, I'm guessing). It seems insane, but DNF was almost-entirely self-funded. What annoys me about the general commentary around DNF is the whole "how did 14 years amount to this?" The answer is: it wasn't 14 years. I'm guessing 12 of those years amounted to scrapped assets. Realistically, the final build of DNF has only been in development for 2-4 years. Rephrasing the question as: "how did 2-4 years of self-funded development amount to this?" is a *very* interesting question, though. The general consensus is that George Broussard was a perfectionist to a fault, as Denial said above. However, how did he maintain that same workflow for FOURTEEN YEARS without going, "hmmm, maybe this isn't the best development strategy" is a mystery to us all. And yeah, I think the Duke Nukem franchise will *really* start with the next game. I think Gearbox released DNF to give us a sense of closure. What Gearbox come up with next, will really be make-or-break for the franchise.

Railroad Tycoon = Sid Meier Transport Tycoon = Chris Sawyer Sad about Sawyer basically bowing out of game development after Locomotion. I wiki him every so often hoping to find out what he's working on, but there's nothing.

I think they've got the screen size/pixel density just right. The size is somewhere between a phone and tablet, to balance of being able to hold it like a controller and use it like a tablet. The pixel density is similar to an iPhone, but will be used at a further distance than an iPhone, which means most people won't even see the individual pixels at all. Personal preference will vary, but by-and-large I think most will agree they are in the right ballpark. It's more than that though. The problem with resistive screens is that they're just more effort to use. You need to apply more pressure for it to register a touch and, as you touched upon, the touch resolution isn't nearly as high. For things like buttons it works pretty well (by making the buttons huge), but for drag/swipe gestures I find that the DS stops registering the gesture half way through because I let up on the pressure. Also, don't forget the multitouch thing. It's a big deal IMO. I think it's still pretty expensive, actually. Something about capacitive screens requiring rare earth metals. Also, remember that the screen needs to be glass too. I argue though, that it's worth the expense because of the huge net win game mechanic wise.

Yeah, I was too lazy to do the dpi path, but it seems surprisingly high res to me too. The New Controller definitely comes with a stylus. Now, it is possible to use a resistive screen with your finger, it's just not a great experience compared to a capacitive screen. You can try this today by comparing finger use on an iPhone versus a DS. I think the difference is significant enough for even casual players to notice, especially since they'll approach the New Controller with iPad/iPhone-esque expectations.

And the Wii Balance Board? Another miracle? I'm not convinced Nintendo's strategy is to "put out some wacky shit and [expect it to] turn into a miracle". I think they put much more thought into their usability design than they let on. They're just being vague about the possibilities to spark the imagination of consumers and developers. The Wii and DS, for all their faults, are actually remarkably well designed consoles. Once the initial "wacky" factor wore off, I really came to appreciate the subtle, thoughtful design decisions that went into them. (If you're not sure what I mean, I could elaborate) This is my biggest concern. I think they should definitely use a capacitive screen, just because of the game mechanic implications it brings. Multitouch and finger friendliness opens up a lot of possibilities. However, while it sounds like a good idea, a capacitive stylus is a not a solution. I have one (for my iPad) and the problem is that you can't draw because the screen picks up on your wrist resting on the screen. Honestly, I don't think a stylus is that important. They should just scrap the drawing/sketching aspects of the Wii U. Can't agree with this though. Why does it matter? With the capacitive screen, there are clear benefits to the game itself. A higher res screen just adds extra cost, lower battery life, and more bandwidth overhead for the Wii U console. 480p is a good resolution for a screen that small, I think. Also: how much does that smartphone cost, non-subsidized? Exactly. Cheers, Mo [edit] Reading that over, I hope I didn't come off a a complete douche, JonCole. It's nothing personal, but you just happen to bring up all the points I've been hearing around the internets that I really wanted to discuss! [/edit]

It's called "innovation". Look, I don't know how the Wii U is going to turn out. But all in all, Nintendo have a proven track record of coming up with batshit insane ideas and then actually pulling it off. Nintendo at E3 was a refreshing change from "oh, a man is shooting another man, how novel!"

I haven't played AC:B, but have you finished GTA4? That credit list went on so long that my Xbox controller shut itself off! I think it went for 20 minutes or so!

They obviously knew what they were doing. Regardless of their goals, they knew that, by far, the most common use of their hack was going to be pirating retail games. I guess. But why side with geohotz? The current business model really is a win-win. Sony & Microsoft win because they sell a lot of consoles, and make profits on the vast number of games that are sold. Consumers win because we got a cheap console with tonnes of great games! Is there anything at all we gain from a cocky hacker sticking it to "the man"? Again I don't think Sony handled the situation appropriately at all, but that doesn't make geohotz' position excusable or right. I don't understand the relevance to the argument above, but I'll bite. A developer who checks code into a BSD-licensed library/application knows what the implications are, and wouldn't check code into said library/application unless they were willing to accept the fact that their code was going to be used in a commercial application without compensation.

Sorry I wasn't clear, I guess I should explain. The reason why Sony & Microsoft can afford to sell their very technically sophisticated hardware* for such a cheap price is because the whole thing is subsidized. Basically, they make a loss on the hardware, but for every software title sold they make $10 regardless of whether they published the game or not. (* at the time!) By circumventing Sony's DRM, customers no longer have to buy games for their system, and Sony is left selling a powerful system at a loss, with no way to make that money back. I'm not saying you're a pirate, but in general, circumventing DRM leads to piracy, and the customers who strictly use it for homebrew purposes are in the minority. If you believe in the "right to tinker", then you have to pay for an un-subsidized console. It would cost a little more than a top-of-the-line PC, because you'd have to factor R&D and marketing into Sony's expenses. $1000 is not an unreasonable sum. I believe in the right to tinker too... I've been writing code since I was a kid. But that's why I have a PC and a Mac to write desktop games/software on, and an iPad & iPhone to write mobile games/software.

Why? I don't get this angle. You think you should have the freedom to do whatever you want with the devices you buy? No problem, but freedom comes at a price. Would you be willing to pay $1000 for a PS3? (this wouldn't have been a ridiculous amount at launch) I totally agree that Sony litigated in a matter that bordered on being illegal, but that doesn't make geohotz right.

So I thought that too until I started looking into what launch day titles I wanted. I'm up to 4 games, of which only 1 is a port, and it's not even a handheld port: - Super Street Fighter 4 is the port, but come on! Console quality fighter on a handheld? Sold! - Steel Diver. Don't write this one off. It's a Miyamoto game, and having played the original DS demo/prototype, I'm fairly confident this'll be good. - Pilotwings Resort - Tom Clancy's Whatever That Game Julian Gollop Is Developing. Dude who made X-Com is making a turn-based strategy. 'Nuff said. I have a 3DS, Steel Diver & SSFIV in my Amazon cart. I'll give it a few days before I pull the trigger, but it's looking like a day 1 purchase Mo

fyi: they're back in the store, on backorder.

I got one.

I was actually thinking about Halo a couple of days ago ... like Patters said, it worked because it was (re-)designed for the platform. Now I want to know: where the hell is my PSP-designed FPS? And I mean a properly designed one, not a "mapping mouse-look to the face buttons" FPS. "Back in the day", Doom worked fantastically by mapping move/turn to the dpad and strafe to the shoulder buttons. Vertical aiming was automatic. Combine that with Halo-esque skirmishes and checkpointing. That is, contained battles which play a bit differently every time and checkpoints right before & after every battle. Now throw in levels that are mostly (but not completely) linear, and tonnes of enemies, Doom style, and you've got yourself one hell of a game. And yet, nothing... I'm sure Dead Space iOS is a great game and sold incredibly well. But you know what sold better? Doodle Jump, Angry Birds, Brain Age, etc... There's definitely a market for "bigger" portable games. But I think that's just the usual vocal minority of hardcore gamers speaking out. The majority of people want portable games to be portable. The games that play to the strengths of the platform are wildly popular.

It has nothing to do with graphics or technology, this is purely a design issue. I don't think you fully understand our argument, but I'm not sure how to explain it better than Patters and Miffy already did. That's like saying, "your console is powerful enough to run Starcraft 2, why not port it?" There are plenty of design issues that have nothing to do with technology.

Chinatown Wars is conceivably the most epic handheld game ever, AND is the most portable friendly.

I love how this thread has turned into the exact opposite of: "'Ben There, Dan That!' - my freeware game"

Sorry, you misunderstood. I think the PSP is a good platform overall. What I think is a bad idea is dual analog sticks. On my PSP-1000 sleep mode wouldn't survive a work day. I seem to recall playing 20 mins of LCS on the subway, going to work, and then coming home on a dead battery. Sure, 5 mins is a bit short. But again, I used my PSP on 20 minute subway rides on a near-daily basis, and found it wasn't up for the challenge. The old joke used to be, "I can turn on the DS and play a full game of Meteos in the time it takes the PSP to load a Wipeout level" When 5-7 minutes of your 20 minute commute are consumed in loading & cutscenes, that's a bit fail. Two points: (1) There's no reason why GTA on the PSP couldn't do both: render the game in full 3D for the 'real experience' AND have features to make the game more portable friendly. I wouldn't call CW a stripped down game by any means. (2) I haven't played GoW, but I'll take your word for it. It's a good port. But if I'm buying a system, there better be an abundance of good games for it. Comparing my DS collection to my PSP collection, it's no contest. Even at this point, if you're not into JRPGs (I'm not), I wouldn't call the selection of great PSP games huge.

I'm totally down with a "tap L to snap the camera" and the occasional "Hold L and push directions to rotate the camera". What I'm not down with is having to adjust the camera all the freaking time. And I honestly wasn't trying to be a dick with the "gamers don't know any better" statement. It's a bit like when Apple said, "hey, there's no hardware keyboard on the iPhone" and everyone going, "OMG, IMPOSSIBLE!" It's hard to challenge the status quo.

MEGA REPLY, GO!! It makes the device less approachable. I feel the same way about analog stick buttons (L3, R3) ... I think they're an awful, awful idea, because they're useless as buttons and less experienced gamers don't even know they exist. But they exist, so developers use them. That's (one of the reasons) console controllers are so difficult to use. I worry about the same thing on the NGP. However, if Sony can ease players into the controls with a hallmark game (similar to what Wii Sports did), or teach it implicitly through the UI, it'll be fine. Centuries ago, 3D games existed on this ancient platform known as the N64. Back in those days, 3D games didn't need two analog sticks, they just needed camera programmers who slaved over their work. Snideness aside (sorry about that), it's possible. It's hard work, but it's possible to make great 3D games without having to resort to a second analog stick. As an added bonus, your game will be much more accessible. Win-win! Honest question here, do you own a PSP? I ask because I know it sounds like a good idea, but as I'm a part of the same niche and I play tonnes of handheld games, I can tell you that it's not a good idea. Design-wise, it doesn't make sense to port PS3-esque games to the NGP. Just like it didn't make sense to port PS2-esque games to the PSP. See above. Honestly, I think gamers don't know any better, and that game developers aren't trying hard enough. The problem with them sticking out is that it makes the device even less portable. That said, I think we're well beyond the NGP being practical from a portability POV, so maybe it doesn't matter? The nub wasn't a bad idea, btw. It sucked for three reason: (1) there wasn't enough give on it, as in, you couldn't push it far enough. (2) It was hard to grip. Notice how the 3DSes nub is concave... the PSP should have done that. (3) it was really badly positioned. Using the nub left no room for you thumb to rest. Explanation by example. Let's compare two handheld games: GTA Liberty City Stories (PSP), GTA Chinatown Wars (DS/PSP). LCS was basically GTA3 on a handheld (different city layout, story, but same mechanics). Playing it involved 5 minutes of boot up time. Then you'd walk to a mission... loading... watch a 2 minute cutscene... loading... play the mission for 5 minutes, and upon completing it, you'd have to go back to your safe house, GTA3 style, to save the game ... another 5 minutes. My commutes would involve almost finishing a mission. CW boots up instantly & you can save whenever. The cutscenes are short and punchy. The missions cut away all the fat. If you drove from x to y once, you don't need to do it again. Larger missions are split up by checkpoints. There's plenty going on in the streets, so even if you have 2 minutes, you can advance a bit. Is LCS a deeper game than CW? Nope. Is CW dumbed down? No, in fact, it probably has more content than LCS. The difference is that CW cuts away all the filler, gets you in the game quickly, and lets you get out whenever. It's not about a 5-10 minute experience. It's about an experience that can scale from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. Cheers, Mo