Posted by: etoven - 18th May 2006, 9:37 PM - Forum: Ramble City
- No Replies
I have created 2 new themes to include an invisable TovenNet radio player.
Consider switching to Tendo City X: Sunlight & TovenNet Radio, or Tendo City X: Twilight & TovenNet radio. Just select the new theme and open your buddy list.
TovenNet Radio airs from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EST.
Let me know what you think.
As most of you already know (read, have no clue about and probably don't care), the Edmonton Oilers have advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 1992. This is absolutely huge for the city of Edmonton, the province of Alberta, and the entire country in general. After every Oilers game the fans congregate on Whyte Ave, which has already become legendary. The atmosphere is insane and people from all over the province (myself included) have been going to Whyte Ave after Oilers game to get a taste of the incredible party atmosphere. I am making this thread the official EDMONTON OILERS THREAD where the board can come and cheer the Oilers on through the final two rounds of playoffs.
Actually, the only reason I made this thread was to share this spectacular video of some of the more obnoxious fans and how one person on Whyte took the celebration a little too far. Did he even know these girls?
Quote:I personally drilled a Nintendo® rep (while waiting for him to fix a Wiimote for the Tennis demo) about what was under the flap on the front of the console (any 3D projection in there?), after dodging like a Jedi knight and acting like he didn't hear me several times he got very nervous and finally said "I can't talk about it or I will get fired".
Allow me to explain. They were SO intent on including "amazing voice and handwriting recognition" they did it to the EXCLUSION of other methods.
This means one thing.
You can't reliably answer any questions. You will say "black, BLACK, I SAID BLACK!" and it'll say "uh uh" over and over until you groan and suddenly "ding dong!". THAT IS NOT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE THE WORD BLACK! And the handwriting... Yeesh... So my 9's are a little squished together. Any human can tell that is NOT a frikin' 1! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! YOU IS A MORON!
Why didn't they let us use some sort of soft keyboard? I mean the original tests these are based on are not supposed to test your handwriting skills or anything so it wouldn't affect the tests. As it stands, I'm getting a lot of false negatives and the occasional false positive.
I've been frustrated by a game before, but this is a whole new level of frustration brought about by what I can only describe as "horrid controls that don't accurately translate my thoughts into action the way I expect from an interface". That said, otherwise it seems like a fun way to fritter away the time, only this time without the frittering part. I just wish it understood me!
Katsuya Eguchi is - among other things - the man best known for being 'Mr Animal Crossing'. A director at Nintendo's EAD design division in Japan, Mr Eguchi has worked on all the various versions of Animal Crossing as well as the upcoming StarFox DS and Wii Sports titles.
We took some time out to chat to Mr Eguchi at E3, through his interpreter, about the future of Animal Crossing and the potential offered by the Wii Remote controller - beginning with the new Wii Sports title announced at E3.
Mr Eguchi, what was idea behind creating Wii Sports?
"Initially when I was told the features that would be included in the Wii, because of the motion sensor I thought that swinging is very natural. And when I was thinking about different applications for that swing I thought sport is something that everyone understands; everyone's picked up a racket at some point in their lives or swung a bat, so that's kind of how we came to use tennis, baseball and golf."
Will there be other sports featured in the game?
"Within the Wii Sports category there are action sports like tennis, baseball, golf and then we have motor sports, so you might see something like a jetski or a bike. There could be various applications within motor sports but they will all exist within the Wii Sports title.
"What's on the show floor is just kind of a sample. We don't know exactly what we'll have yet. There will probably be more action sports and motor sports."
Will the Wii Sports games be multiplayer?
"The baseball game that we have on the show floor is just a home run derby but there are also versions where one player is the pitcher and one is batting - both players using Wii Remotes. It's actually a lot of fun. I don't know if you've had chance to play it but there is a real battle between the pitcher and the batter because the pitcher could throw a fast ball and then on the next turn throw a slow ball, and throw the batter's timing off."
What can you tell us about a potential Animal Crossing game for Wii?
"Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot I can tell you right now but I can tell you that, because of the controller, you'll be chopping down trees by swinging your arm, you'll be digging holes by kind of making a digging motion at the ground, you'll be fishing just like you're holding a fishing rod.
"In addition, through WiiConnect24 even while a player isn't playing in their town, a friend could come visit them and leave them a letter or gift - so there's that aspect of the Wii that will definitely affect the game."
Can you give us any more examples of what WiiConnect24 will offer?
"If a player is playing a game where they have a score, it could be posted to a scoreboard showing all the rankings of people throughout the world. That might be one application. Unfortunately I can't really share any more than that because right now we're still very much in the planning stages.
"Also, you know the caricatures of Mr Iwata and Mr Miyamoto playing Wii Sports Tennis at the media briefing? Miyamoto-san has actually expressed a desire to allow people to create several such caricatures and send them out over WiiConnect24. That could be a possibility. Maybe if you have a member of your family that's particularly good at art, they might be able to pick up the Wii controller and create a caricature very simply. The images of Miyamoto-san and Iwata-san were also created very easily."
You're also working on StarFox DS. We were really impressed by the single-player game on the show floor. What will the online gameplay be like?
"It'll be similar to Mario Kart in that you can play online with friends and strangers, with four pilots in one match and everyone using an Arwing. So just think of Mario Kart as a guide to how StarFox will work."
As big fans of multiplayer Mario Kart, we can't wait to try it with StarFox! Mr Eguchi, thanks for your time.
For more info on StarFox DS and Wii Sports, see our hands-on previews at the Homepage.
GR showed me this, and I'm not sure if he posted it elsewhere, but it speaks volumes. It's the video of the doors opened at E3. Nintendo's Booth is on the right, while Sony's is on the left. Where do you think everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) goes?
I downloaded the preview for this game, and I am pretty excited about it. One of the characters appears to be the prince of persia, but other than that (what am I saying, partly BECAUSE of that) the game just looks plain cool.
So basically these are cards designed entirely around processing physics, with all manner of coding and circuits meant entirely to do that and nothing but. Of course games and/or the graphics layer of an OS have to be designed to use it.
Now there is one issue. They already are focusing on typical "game physics" and seem to be working towards full newtonian physics. Further since all the physics can be altered, things can get pretty cartoony or very hollywood if need be. Of course, if you want truly alien physics, you'll need to do things on your own and just use that ol' general purpose processor, but that's the price for originality in programming. I'd like to see exactly how far this can be taken.
However, I will make a prediction. Since physics ties directly into the graphics in a game, when these special "PPUs" become popular they will very likely do what "3D graphic accellerators" did, which is to say, be absorbed into a single graphics card. When 3D cards first came out, 2D cards still sold on their own and they basically linked together, in various ways, in order to provide the full experience. But, soon the steady incorporation of 2D into 3D engines, plus a few other factors, meant there was no reason to keep them seperate and every reason to combine them, so today's cards, and programming, see no difference between 2D and 3D. 2D games, after a little adjusting, are designed using 3D engines, and when someone really takes advantage of that fact, you end up with Four Swords Adventures.
I forsee the need for physics dedicated processing tying into future games, and the graphics processing to boot, in such an intermingled fasion that this too will be combined into a single card (with multiple chips). Once it's figured out, those two chips, and programming, will also tie into it. Keep in mind, simple physics can be done entirely using graphical processing.
