http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08/26/...05794.html
Quote:Oct. 5
NBA Live 2005 (Electronic Arts)
Oct. 11
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo)
Oct. 12
Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (THQ)
Oct. 14
Midway Arcade Treasures 2 (Midway)
October
The Incredibles (THQ)
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie (THQ)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus (Konami)
October Ten Pin Alley 2 (XS Games)
Nov. 2
Spyro: A Hero's Tail (VU Games)
Nov. 8
Mario Tennis (Nintendo)
Nov. 15
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Nintendo)
Nov. 16
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Namco)
Nov. 23
Viewtiful Joe 2 (Capcom)
November
Get On Da Floor (XS Games)
Get On Da Mic (XS Games)
Need for Speed Underground 2 (Electronic Arts)
The Polar Express (THQ)
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (Ubisoft)
Dec. 6
Mario Party 6 (Nintendo)
Pre-Holiday
King Arthur (Konami)
Fall 2004
FIFA Soccer 2005 (Electronic Arts)
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (Electronic Arts)
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (Electronic Arts)
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue (Electronic Arts)
The Urbz: Sims in the City (Electronic Arts)
Q4
Call of Duty: Finest Hour (Activision)
Intellivision Lives! Arcade Classic (Crave)
Lemony Snicket's A Series (Activision)
Mini-Golf Mayhem (Crave)
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (Activision)
World Championship Poker (Crave)
GAME BOY ADVANCE
Oct. 4
Mario Pinball Land (Nintendo)
Oct. 5
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge (THQ)
Mega Man Zero 3 (Capcom)
Rave Master: Dual Explosion (Konami)
Boktai: Solar Boy Django (Konami)
Oct. 18
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (Nintendo)
Oct. 19
Grand Theft Auto Advance (Rockstar)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (Konami)
Oct. 25
Classic NES Series 2: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Dr. Mario, Metroid and Castlevania (Nintendo)
Oct. 26
Ice Nine (BAM!)
October
All Grown Up! Express Yourself (THQ)
Disney Presents a Pixar Film The Incredibles (THQ)
Golden Nugget (Majesco)
LEGO: Knight's Kingdom (THQ)
Monster Trucks Majesco Pac-Man World (Namco)
SD Gundam Force (Bandai!)
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie (THQ)
Strawberry Shortcake Majesco Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (THQ)
Texas Hold 'Em Majesco WWE Survivor Series (THQ)
Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler (Konami)
Nov. 2
Barbie Super Spy (VU Games)
Duel Masters 2: Kaijudo Showdown (Atari)
Nov. 9
Mega Man Anniversary Collection (Capcom)
Nov. 15
Donkey Kong Country 2 (Nintendo)
Nov. 16
Yu Yu Hakusho: Tournament Tactics (Atari)
Nov. 29
Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (Nintendo)
November
Beyblade G-REVOLUTION (Atari)
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2005 (Activision)
Dead to Rights (Destination)
Gundam Seed: Battle Assault (Bandai!)
I-Ninja (Destination)
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (Electronic Arts)
Need for Speed Underground 2 (Electronic Arts)
The Polar Express (THQ)
Prince of Persia Warrior Within (Ubisoft)
Santa Claus saves the Earth (Telegames)
The URBZ: Sims in the City (Electronic Arts)
Dec. 6
Mario Party Advance (Nintendo)
December
Hardcore Pool (Telegames)
Q4
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Activision)
Tokyo Xtreme Racer World (Crave)
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (Activision)
Fall 2004
Disney's Lilo & Stitch 2 (Disney)
Disney's Lizzie McGuire 2 (Disney)
Disney's That's So Raven (Disney)
FIFA Soccer 2005 (Electronic Arts)
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King (Buena Vista)
TRON 2.0 (Buena Vista)
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue (Electronic Arts)
Holiday 2004
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (Square Enix)
Key things to note are Star Fox, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and Geist are delayed to '05 and official names for Grand Theft Auto Advance, Final Fantasy I & II: Chain of Memories, and, probably, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
Not one single screen of GTA Advance has been released. Don't expect too much from it...
The fact that they're releasing it at all is the most interesting part...
Yeah but it'll probably look like the pre-GTA 3 games, and despite what you may think the shift in perspective changed everything for that series.
Wait, FF1&2: Chain of Memories? That's an odd crossover, since the whole Kingdom Hearts franchise IS a big crossover. Kingdom Hearts should... um... be a cross of EVERY SINGLE THING EVER THOUGHT OF! Yeah, that'd be cool :D.
Dr. Wily: Mwahaha! With the power of Darkness I can finally rule all reality!
Solid Snake: Get out of here! I'll hold him off!
Trix Rabbit: Until now I never knew what was important.
Paper Mario 2, Mario Tennis, Baiten Kaitos, and Metriod Prime 2. I'll be busy for a while.
Don't forget about Fable, San Andreas, MGS3, Halo 2, Kirby, etc.
... huh. If you squint just a little, "Halo 2 Kirby" kinda looks like it reads "Hello Kitty".
I'm bored...
Stupid me, it's actually "Final Fantasy I & II - Dawn of Souls"...
Quote:Yeah but it'll probably look like the pre-GTA 3 games, and despite what you may think the shift in perspective changed everything for that series.
I've played GTA1 and GTA3 and the gameplay is the same. The perspective changes how you view the gameplay, and how you percieve it happening, but what is actually happening is pretty much the same. Very similar to Jedi Knight when you switch from third to first person, except more extreme. :)
The gameplay is largely the same, but the experience is completely different. In GTA 3 you feel like you're in a living, breathing city, while in GTAs 1&2 you most certainly do not. Games are a visual medium so perspective can have an incredible effect on a game. Metroid Prime plays essentially the same as Super Metroid (not as similar as GTA 1 and 3, but the gameplay is still extremely similar), but they are two very different experiences.
Metroid is not anywhere near as similar... that adds a whole new dimension with the new game. GTA3 doesn't add something like that... GTA really does play very similarly. Well, with the exception to the first/third-person on-foot shooting segments, those are very differently.
Super Metroid is about running, jumping, shooting, exploring, and finding new items to reach different areas of the game. Metroid Prime is about running, jumping, shooting, exploring, and finding new items to reach different areas of the game. A better example might be LttP and OoT, but it's still a good one.
But in those games A WHOLE NEW DIMENSION is added! To driving in GTA that is not true. You are still on the same 'driving around on the ground' thing, you know... so the gameplay changes are significantly less major. The changes mostly center around the third-person-walking-around part of the game and the differing player experience with it being 3d instead of 2d. But not most of the gameplay itsself.
Brian, you make no sense at all. "IT ADDS ANOTHER DIMENSION!"? GTA 1 is a
2D game!!! GTA 3 is a
3D game!!! Which part of this don't you get here??!!?
So going by your logic, Micro Machines plays the exact same as say, San Francisco Rush, because top-down games play identical to 3D games.
As in, it's a driving game. When driving, there isn't really another dimension. You're still driving on the same 2d ground surface! The "new dimension" in GTA has a huge affect on the out-of-car stuff, but relatively little effect on the driving part, which is most of the game. Outside of how it looks of course.
Micro Machines went from 2d to 3d with virtually no gameplay impact, for instance. Indeed, Micro Machines V3 was effectively ported to GBC... Yes, the game stayed top-down, while GTA moved the perspective. Which is where the comparison to Jedi Knight comes in -- the perspective change is as much mental (mostly in the player's head) as anything.
Yes, GTA3 is looks and feels quite different. But the underlying gameplay is the same, just about, and that shouldn't just be ignored...
The fact that a car can't leave the surface is, by topological definition, reducing it to the dimensions of the surface. It's why a torus (a donut or tire, hollow inside in other words) is considered a 2D universe model embeded in 3D space.
So if it's a game like GTA the 3d element, for driving, is mostly just graphical. Now if you had a gun in the car and a target it'd be much more than that because you'd suddenly have that third dimension to deal with, but as long as it's just driving...
From what I understand, you do have to shoot helicopters while driving or something like that, or am I mistaken?
That's not true because there are dips and hills in GTA3. The ground in Micro Machines and GTA 1 are perfectly flat. You drive in three dimensions, not two. The gameplay is still essentially the same, but so is the gameplay of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. Same damn gameplay, different controls and viewpoints. The example with Jedi Knight is not a good one since you're still looking at the game from the same perspective level, in one you just have a guy in front of you. But anyhow, the perspective makes a massive difference, much, much more than you want to admit. It's the difference between seeing a mountain from high up in a low-flying airplane and actually hiking through it from the surface. So don't tell me that perspective means nothing.
But do the hills REALLY affect gameplay that much, OB1? I wouldn't really say so...
Hell yeah! It changes how much acceleration you need, how the cars handle, and of course jumps, which play a very important role in GTA3 and VC. Most important of all, however, is the perspective. Refer to my mountain example. That's perfect.
All this coming from the same person who said that Jedi Knight is identical from the first and third person perspectives? Umm... I see those as very contradictory positions...
Anyway, my point is that the game design is the same. The changes in GTA3 do not result from changing the format of gameplay (challenges, missions, etc) dramatically, but by the impact of the new perspective. They didn't innovate, really, with GTA3, since the game design is just 'GTA in 3D'. You overstate how big the actual gameplay (and here I don't mean the impact on what the player percieves but the impact on the actual gameplay itsself) was impacted by 3d, probably because of how much you obviously prefer that perspective.
The controls are 100% identical, and the only difference in the viewpoint is that in the FP mode your "guy" is invisible. That's it.
First, expanded post a bunch.
Second, on JK... that's not true. Not at all. You're behind the character instead of being in their head. That means that now you can see your actions as you take them instead of just taking them. Also, it's harder to aim. In first person you have a much better view of targets while in third that is dramatically different. You can see the effect of your weapon attacks better, especially with hand-to-hand combat weapons, but precision goes down. So the controls are the same, but the gameplay is definitetly not even if we ignore the huge difference that it makes in your perception of the game.
Quote:Anyway, my point is that the game design is the same. The changes in GTA3 do not result from changing the format of gameplay (challenges, missions, etc) dramatically, but by the impact of the new perspective. They didn't innovate, really, with GTA3, since the game design is just 'GTA in 3D'. You overstate how big the actual gameplay (and here I don't mean the impact on what the player percieves but the impact on the actual gameplay itsself) was impacted by 3d, probably because of how much you obviously prefer that perspective.
I never said that it was a huge leap in terms of gameplay over the previous games, just like Metroid Prime still plays essentially like Super Metroid. I'm saying that the perspective shift makes for a far greater difference in the overall game experience than you think. If you're playing Mario World and I jump up in front of the tv, the gameplay is still going to stay the same, but your view of the game will change. However, that viewpoint change greatly affects
how you play the game. Do you get what I'm saying now?
Quote:Second, on JK... that's not true. Not at all. You're behind the character instead of being in their head. That means that now you can see your actions as you take them instead of just taking them. Also, it's harder to aim. In first person you have a much better view of targets while in third that is dramatically different. You can see the effect of your weapon attacks better, especially with hand-to-hand combat weapons, but precision goes down. So the controls are the same, but the gameplay is definitetly not even if we ignore the huge difference that it makes in your perception of the game.
That's your mind ruining things for you. If there's a crosshair then the only difference in aiming will be that the enemies are now a bit farther away from you. The controls are still
identical to each other in every conceivable way. All the third-person view does is add a character model in front of you and change the zoom of the camera. That's it, that's how it's programmed and that is all that changes. In this case it's a slight difference of zoom and obstruction, whereas in GTA the difference is far greater because you're not even seeing things from the same angle! In JK you are!
Quote:I never said that it was a huge leap in terms of gameplay over the previous games, just like Metroid Prime still plays essentially like Super Metroid. I'm saying that the perspective shift makes for a far greater difference in the overall game experience than you think. If you're playing Mario World and I jump up in front of the tv, the gameplay is still going to stay the same, but your view of the game will change. However, that viewpoint change greatly affects how you play the game. Do you get what I'm saying now?
Mario of course had a massive change in gameplay when it moved to 3d. Metroid? It was significant, certainly far, far larger than GTA, but yeah, less than Mario... it was still recognizably quite similar in theme and design.
Quote:That's your mind ruining things for you. If there's a crosshair then the only difference in aiming will be that the enemies are now a bit farther away from you. The controls are still identical to each other in every conceivable way. All the third-person view does is add a character model in front of you and change the zoom of the camera. That's it, that's how it's programmed and that is all that changes. In this case it's a slight difference of zoom and obstruction, whereas in GTA the difference is far greater because you're not even seeing things from the same angle! In JK you are!
Wha... are you trying to DENY that it's harder to aim precisely from third person? That's crazy, if it's what you mean! That is one of the biggest complaints with 3d shooters, you know, unless they do something like autoaim to compensate... the perspective may have the same controls but the gameplay is very different. Identical controls don't mean an identical play experience...
Yes, of course the difference between GTA and GTA 3 is greater than third to first in JK. I said as much. But my point was that while the degree is quite different the theme is the same..
Quote:Mario of course had a massive change in gameplay when it moved to 3d. Metroid? It was significant, certainly far, far larger than GTA, but yeah, less than Mario... it was still recognizably quite similar in theme and design.
If Metroid's core gameplay wasn't identical to Super Metroid than it would have been a failure. Obviously it was not, and it got immense praise for doing what seemed like the impossible: Making a first-person shooter that still shared the same gameplay as Super Metroid. As a matter of fact, Metroid Prime was more like Super Metroid than Metroid Fusion was(thanks to its linearity and core gameplay change).
Quote:Wha... are you trying to DENY that it's harder to aim precisely from third person? That's crazy, if it's what you mean! That is one of the biggest complaints with 3d shooters, you know, unless they do something like autoaim to compensate... the perspective may have the same controls but the gameplay is very different. Identical controls don't mean an identical play experience...
Yes, of course the difference between GTA and GTA 3 is greater than third to first in JK. I said as much. But my point was that while the degree is quite different the theme is the same..
That doesn't make any sense. If you still have a crosshair then the aiming is not different from third-person to first-person. The mouse doesn't suddenly start to lose accuracy when you switch to third-person, that's ridiculous. The only thing that changes is the distance from the enemies. And if there
is something wrong with a third-person perspective in a FPS, you can easily compensate for it by changing the mouse sensitivity.
It is not more difficult to aim in Max Payne than it is in Half-Life.