While cleaning thru my old krap I realized that many moons ago I had uploaded some videos I made to Tendo City. One contained an important message from the future and another was about Darunia's father and I do believe Canada exploded killing Wolf Blitzer and millions of other unimportant french-things. There might have been some other stuff too.
Does any of it still exist? I dun haf teh ef tee pees access so I ask you fine women for help
With the release of Metroid Prime 3 less than 2 months away I've been thinking about the future of Retro Studios. Besides a few projects that were canceled early on all that Retro has worked on is the Metroid Prime series since they've been with Nintendo.
IGN Wrote:It plays better than any first-person console game ever... really. And it's one of Wii's best lookers, too.
With comments like these it's obvious that Retro has the controls down with nice graphics to boot. Which brings me to my point. One game type Nintendo's systems have lacked of late is a great multiplayer FPS. The last one was Perfect Dark. I suggest Retro's next game should be a multiplayer FPS using the Metroid Prime 3 engine. It would have MP3's controls and at least as good if not better graphics. It would be built from the ground up for online multiplayer.
This game could be a flagship title for the Wii in a genre that it is sorely lacking. More than that it would be a sign to the core gamers that they have not been abandoned and Nintendo is still interested in creating new traditional games. While it could not compete graphically with the other systems flagship FPS games it could have the best control of any console FPS ever.
Supposing Retro were to make this their next game what type of FPS would you like to see on the Wii? Modern day, Sci-Fi, WWII?
As for myself I would love to see Retro to try their hand at an epic Sci-Fi shooter.
Overlord is, essentially, a diablolic mixture of Pikmin and Fable, with the addition of the Dungeon Keeper-esque twist that you play an Dark Lord who fights against the forces of good.
You, as the newly awakened Dark Lord of a run down and empty castle, are tasked with rebuilding your former glory through any means necessary. You can kill anyone who get in your way or help out helpless farmers...for your own benefit of course.
To do this, you are given control over minions who carry out your every whim with no complaints. There are four types of minions: brown, red, green, and blue. This is where the Pikmin element comes in. Alone, you can do almost nothing. However, with the minions you can do everything. Brown minions are your standard fighters and workhorses, reds are your "archers" and they can travel through fire, green can travel through and neutralize poisions, and the blue can travel through water. You can control all four types of minions at one type, but you are constrained by how much influence you have [stone statues gathered from various areas give you control over more minions]. Minions, on top of fighting, also can carry large objects back to your base, which help bring it back to its former glory.
The setting, art style, and level designs are all very reminiscent of Fable. It's fairly standard fantasy stuff with a linear path, for the most part, that you are set on. I'd say that it's probably larger overall than Fable, with four large areas that have several different dungeons each. The first area has three dungeons so far and I've been playing on it for slightly over three hours. There's trolls, halflings, elves, farmers, castles, villages and so on, just as you'd expect. Nothing really standout here, aside from the level design which is done very well.
So it seems Europe has a gimped PS3 that lacks the emotion engine, meaning it has trouble with PS2 games without emulation. Now they are rolling that lack of emotion out into other regions.
This really seems like a bad move, certainly for the consumer. I imagine that eventually the 60GB model will get downgraded as well, as I can't imagine the justification for spending an extra $100 to LOSE a feature.
If any of you were considering getting a PS3 and actually perhaps getting to put your PS2 away, now's the time. Otherwise, get a used one somewhere by searching system model numbers.
At any rate, this really seems like a good way to fracture the software development team working on the firmware updates. At least, it'll really screw things up on that end. Now they have to design firmware for two different models, and they still need to fix some issues with BC on the systems that actually support the software natively. How many people are they going to have to hire, for programming, testing, designing the new model, and so on, just to drop the cost of the PS3 production by a bit? I wonder if this move saves them more money than they lose... Certainly it's not good as far as features go to ditch something like that, considering how good a move BC was in the PS2 at the start. Further, consoles just don't ditch features, not without a price to pay in the consumer's minds. In the end, your bottom line depends on whether or not the consumers actually want what you are making.
Nintendo's GBA Micro, for example, isn't exactly the hottest selling item, in spite of it's teeny tiny size going for it, namely because Nintendo ditched the BC with GB and GBC games as part of getting it that small (and it was also more expensive for less capability). At least with the 360, it was lacking that ability from the start, they weren't losing anything. When I go into stores, the micro isn't even on the shelves any more, but the GBASP is still selling like crazy. Good move on Nintendo's part sticking a micro quality screen on remodelled SPs at least. Best of everything right in there.
Oh anyway, as you might expect the compatibility list isn't the greatest. In fact it has trouble with different versions of the same game according to the european compatibility list I checked out. I don't want to have to read a serial number off a game disk to make sure I have just the right release, I just want to play a game Sony.
After a long time staring at broken smilies, I decided to prune out the ones that were dead. Most of them led to Great Rumbler's old page. If he wants to reupload them, that's fine, but they were dead at the time. This'll force his hand at least.
I'll add that it might be a good idea to upload the smilies to this server so there's no worry about them dying.
Quote:Game On
Nintendo Is Star of E3 Show as Rivals Scramble to Catch Up
By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2007; Page D01
SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 11 -- For many analysts and fans, Nintendo was something of an afterthought at the video game industry's annual E3 trade show in recent years.
But after a blockbuster launch of its Wii console and its ongoing dominance in the portable game market with its mobile DS handheld game console, the company that brought the world Mario and Zelda is now the company that others are trying to catch.
Nintendo's competitors, meanwhile, are playing an expensive round of brinksmanship with each other to win back some of the attention. This week Sony cut the price on its PlayStation 3 console by $100. Microsoft recently announced an expanded warranty program for the Xbox 360 console, which could cost the company more than $1 billion.
Neither Microsoft nor Sony is making money in the game industry, since both are selling their consoles at below cost in their attempt to boost interest. Nintendo, meanwhile, which introduced the $249 Wii six months ago, can barely keep up with demand for the profitable product.
Microsoft and Sony even scaled back their annual parties at the E3 show. In years past, Microsoft held events at such glamorous Los Angeles venues as the Orpheum Theater, the Shrine Auditorium and Grauman's Chinese Theater. This year, its event was at a Santa Monica high school. Sony, which previously held events that featured such concert acts as Macy Gray and Beck, settled for a low-key sushi shindig this year.
Nintendo says it is not paying a lot of attention to Sony or Microsoft.
Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said the bigger question was how to get the non-gamers of the world interested in Nintendo systems.
"There are 24 hours in every day, and only a small time is available for leisure," he said at a news conference Wednesday. "We intend to steal more of that time for video games."
Fils-Aime, as expected, showed off some more Mario and Zelda game titles, the franchises for which Nintendo is most famous. His focus, however, was on how Nintendo products have won fans among senior citizens and women at levels well above the norm in the young-male-dominated industry.
For years, as the video game industry battled for dominance in the living room, the best graphics typically beat the competition. The popularity of the Wii's motion-detecting controllers has changed that notion, popularizing the life-like simulation of games, not their high-end computing aspect.
As a result, game companies are now trying to think of new ways to get players feeling like they are inside the game, designing realistic add-ons.
The Wii balance board, for example, lets players lean one way or another to control their game characters. The board is to be part of Wii Fit, the fitness program that Nintendo has in the works, illustrating that the "Wii workout" craze among those trying to get in shape by swinging fake rackets has only just begun.
Quote:E3 VIDEOGAME CONFERENCE
Sony Draws Yawns
Rachel Rosmarin, 07.11.07, 7:49 PM ET
LOS ANGELES -
If the best Sony has to offer is a Darth Vader-branded PlayStation Portable, it may be in trouble.
Having already announced its big news July 9 — a $100 price drop on the PlayStation 3 — Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people )'s event at the E3 video game convention Wednesday didn't leave room for many surprises.
However, Sony made a point of picking a hardware fight with Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY - news - people ) on the portable front. Sony redesigned its PlayStation Portable into a slimmer shape, offered two new colors (one silver, and one etched with Star Wars' Darth Vader) and gave it the ability to export video to high-definition televisions, all to better compete with Nintendo's DS. Nintendo sells about 423,000 portable devices per month, while Sony sells only 221,000, according to NPD.
Sony executives made it clear that they know they need to do more than lower prices to woo consumers back to its flagging video game brand. Tepid audience response at Wednesday's event suggests the company hasn't yet done enough.
“Our accomplishments bring no guarantees for the future,” said Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton. “We want to earn each and every one of our customers.” While Monday's price cut is already reaping rewards — Tretton said sales of the just-reduced PS3 have already doubled at the company's top five retailers — it won't juice sales enough to give the company the “installed base” that it wants.
Sony tried to impress its bread and butter customers — hard-core gamers — with a slew of exclusive violent action games from third-party publishers and Sony's in-house studios. Footage of gruesome knife battles in Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4 drew cheers, but it might be too little too late: the game will be released later than expected in early 2008.
The company can't promise PS3 owners exclusive access to Grand Theft Auto 4 from Take-Two Interactive (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) — it will appear on Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )'s Xbox 360 as well — so Sony's taking a stab at creating a game called Infamous, which features a similar style of play known as the “emergent gaming sandbox.”
Price cuts and new colors on hardware will only go so far to help Sony catch up to Nintendo, which is moving to take an even bigger lead. Earlier on Wednesday at Nintendo's E3 event, the company attempted to prove that it could expand upon its successful strategy of appealing to nontraditional gamers, while at the same time encroaching on Sony's hard-core gamer demographic.
Nintendo aims to get traditional gamers interested in the Wii with a new gun-shaped controller and a few “first-person shooter” games. For everyone else, Nintendo intends to capitalize on the Wii's motion-sensing features by selling a new suite of health-conscious games called Wii Fit. It requires the purchase of a floor-pad controller that looks a lot like a bathroom scale.
![[Image: Scottcartman.gif]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Scottcartman.gif)
