loonyboi

Spoken like someone who has friends in relative proximity who play games. None of my friends are gamers. Nah, I don't want that crap either. Which is why I like XBLA, where the games are the same, just with cool extra stuff like leaderboards + online play. Gunstar Heroes is just *screaming* for leaderboards.

It's solid emulation. I don't know about anything else, but Mario 64 runs at a higher resolution than it used to. Playing in progressive scan you'll see scan lines from time to time, but that's to be expected. XBLA emulation is excellent, but it depends on the game, because there is no stock emulator. It's up to each company to do it themselves. Contra is ass, but that's Konami's fault, not Microsoft's. I still don't get the arguments against enhancing these older games. I don't see how adding online multiplayer to games that already have multiplayer takes away from the experience. I bought Bomberman, and it's awesome...it supports five players (4 Wii + one GameCube controller or any combination thereof), but it'd be ten times better if I could play it online -- as I will be able to with the XBLA release.

XBLA is a much, much better implementation than the Wii store. For one thing, all games on XBLA must have a free playable demo, while all Nintendo gives you is a paragraph summary and a couple of screenshots. Also, as of a couple of updates ago, you can background download stuff from XBLA, where the Wii makes you sit and watch Mario hitting blocks. Also you can only download one at a time. The emulation is fine on the Wii, but as I've said before, I would have preferred to have some kind of enhancement to these games. I've bought a couple of games so far (Gunstar Heroes, Bomberman, Mario 64) and they're all cool, but it all seems like a first crack at this system, not the well defined system that Microsoft has.

I'm 7011 0986 2136 7788. Send me Miis!

Bethesda's game isn't an MMO. Interplay hung on to the MMO rights when they sold the rights to Fallout 3 to Bethesda. This is part of their last-ditch attempt at making a comeback. I doubt it will work.

Because the largest franchise in Japan isn't going to be exclusive to Sony anymore, and the core series may not appear on PS3 at all. It's like if Halo 3 went to PSP instead of 360. It's a big deal.

I was completely shocked by this. A spinoff, sure...but the next major DQ game as a handheld-exclusive? Good GOD, that's nuts. If it had been a Wii-exclusive, that would have been a little more understandable...but this is just mind-blowing. After the waits between DQ6 and 7 (never did play 7...by the time it came out, I didn't care anymore) and then 7 and 8 (which was fantastic), this is somewhat encouraging. But still, quite surprising. And it will have long-lasting effects on the industry. Outside of Japan, we really can't appreciate just how popular DQ really is. In Japan, it's the biggest franchise in gaming, period. Bigger than Final Fantasy, bigger than Zelda, bigger than Mario.

I've played a little bit of Raving Rabbids and I thought it looked excellent. The polycount may be lower than a 360 title, but the visuals are stylized enough that it doesn't matter. Now Red Steel, that's a game that just looks like ass.

If you're thinking of moving to stay in the industry, I would suggest moving to either the US west coast or Vancouver. With all due respect to all the UK people here, the UK industry scene is not very healthy at the moment. I'd be scared if I lived there. (I also wouldn't recommend the east coast, as there are only a couple of companies here). Oh come on. I'm not going to say that I'm scared of the UK because I watched Trainspotting. It all has to do with where you live. The majority of the poeple who live in any of the major gaming cities are nothing like that.

If you want to get a job in the industry, I'd suggest visiting GameCareerGuide.com (located, oddly enough at http://gamecareerguide.com/). My path to my current job was a long and strange one, and I wouldn't recommend it to most people. I've been in this industry for almost a decade, in one form or another, and I'm only now in a position with an actual upward career path. But yes, it totally helps to know people. I'd been a journalist for seven years before getting hired by rockstar, so I had a lot of contacts to draw on. Of course, it also helps if you live in an area near several companies. In NYC it was pretty much R* or bust (and by "bust" I mean Acclaim or Majesco). Companies rarely relocate people for an entry-level position.

I went and deleted anyone on my list who doesn't have a 360 (sorry chumps, you had a year to upgrade), so I should have room for new people now.

I'll die before I pick up one of those monstrosities ever again.

It's slow as molasses right now. Actually, it was slightly better last night, but on launch day it took me hours just to download the required firmware update (and that's after many, many false starts). I haven't bought any virtual console games yet, because I can't find the classic controller anywhere (also none of the games appeal to me yet).

I haven't tried multiplayer yet...it's two player splitscreen only. I wish it had online support. I imagine multiplayer's kinda cool though. The racing is so over the top that it would be pretty fun.

Try using manual settings on your DS. I couldn't get my DS (and now Wii) to work with mine until I manually set everything.

As I posted above, I got Zelda and ExciteTruck. ExciteTruck is lots of goofy, brainless fun. Very happy with it. Zelda is...Zelda. It looks like a GameCube game and the gameplay is the same as every other Zelda ever made. What makes it tolerable to a Zelda hater like me are the controls, which I'm digging. But it's tedious like all Zelda games. I suspect I'll end up agreeing with GameSpot's assessment. It's a polished and moderately fun game, but it's not the greatest game ever made (and certainly not worth the 10 out of 10 that 1UP gave it).

I'm getting Excite Truck and Zelda. I've disliked every Zelda game I've ever played (yes, yes, I'm an inhuman monster...get over it), but that seems to be the game to get at launch, so I'm giving it a shot.

I've been playing the game for about a week or so, and I still can't get past the fifth or sixth skin. Maybe I suck, but i'm having fun. I've also had absolutely no desire to buy anything else, since I'm so far off from having exhausted the initial content pack.

She was hot. End of discussion. And I doubt that Erica Durance (Lois on Smallville) is anything but naturally well endowed. There's always an easy way to tell: gravity has taken its toll.

I caved and downloaded and subsequently purchased LL!. I'm enjoying it. I'm sticking with the base pack for now, as I still more or less suck at the game, but it's fun regardless.

No, the difference is that you like the games enough that you're willing to accept shovelware, where I'd prefer a little effort go into re-releasing these games. I think they deserve more. For a game like DKC you're right, online leaderboards aren't going to be terribly useful (although they would be cool...I'd like to see how fast some people made it through the game). Support for widescreen would be nice, though. Again, this is something that all XBLA games are required to support, even if it's only by adding a background image to pad out the 16:9 ratio.

For the amount of money they're charging? Yeah, I expect features like increased resolutions, online multiplayer, online leaderboards, etc. You forget that those kind of changes are required by Microsoft for XBLA titles. You cannot take a game, dump its rom and throw it on XBLA. Microsoft has standards for those things, and yes, I think it's worthwhile. Gauntlet, MK3, Pac-Man, Galaga, etc on XBLA all have online multiplayer, leaderboards and other modern features. And they still only cost $5 - $10. Nintendo pulled this crap before, charging $20 for individual NES roms on GBA carts with no changes whatsoever. It's too bad people were willing to do that, because it set a precedent. And for the record, this is different than 360's backwards compatibility. Completely different. It's not like I can take my existing N64 cart and pop it into my Wii. I am completely at Nintendo's mercy if I want to play those games on their new system. You can feel free to overpay for something that can easily be bought on eBay for a buck, but I fail to see the value there. If Nintendo's going to sell them again, they should do more than provide shovelware.

Yeah, you can. But it's still not going to be the same as Live Arcade without serious work. And Nintendo has given no indication that they're going to do that.

That kinda sucks. Actually, that really sucks. And blows. I'll stick to XBLA until they start releasing new games over VC.

I'm pretty sure that's been confirmed. Games that were not released in a particular region will not be available on VC. Incidentally, I have yet to see anyone confirm whether or not these are straight emulations or not. I am really not interested in buying straight emulated copies of older games. XBLA is not straight emulation...all games have been edited to support XBL in some way, most with online multiplayer.