Crazy parody anime... all anime fans must watch this now. :) Magical Shopping District Abenobashi (Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai) tries, but doesn't manage to be half as good as this (though I enjoyed that show, it's clearly inferior by a good margin)...
I just watched the whole series... in a week... I'd rather have broken it up some, but I had to if I wanted to watch it before school starts, since I was renting it... great series. This is another anime that makes me wish animes went multiple seasons more often, though... I like stories that continue, and it's always sad to see things end, especially when, like this one, there is so little structure that it'd be easy to make it a lot longer... :(
Great show, though. Very well done... the "short stories with a cast of set characters" formula works very well. This show doesn't have much in the way of character development... it makes it feel more like a comic strip, where everything always stays the same (even though in this case time does pass, but the characters' looks don't change to reflect that). Which is also fine. :) It's just a great show... simple and easily understandable, but lots of fun to watch. Certainly one of the better animes out there... far better than Record of Lodoss War and Martian Sucessor Nadesico, of which I watched some episodes recently (though I also rented disk 1 of Inuyasha (eps 1-9) and liked it just as much as I like it on Cartoon Network... (and I like it on CN)).
If I had a complaint, though, I guess it'd be 'why have a 7th character (Kaorin; not counting the teachers) when you barely use her'... oh well. Oh yeah, and the ending is appropriately sad-yet-happy... but I was kind of wishing for the final episode to do something totally weird, like the crazy final episode of Excel Saga... :D ... okay, maybe not like THAT... it was just an example, okay? :)
Here's truly one of the best games ever made, and yet I for one give it far too little credit. So many great, vast levels...
my favorite levels were Dire, Dire Docks (they really are so dire!), the giant Clock one, Hazy Maze Cave, Big Boo's Haunt, and... three or four of the latter-most ones... but God help me, I've forgotten what they were called.
I never like Shifting Sand Land or the lava world.
By using the screen warp glitch I was able to get all the weapons/items from all 8 dungeons with only 3 hearts (and zero instruments). I am currently unable to beat the game because to get into the egg you have to have the instruments, and I haven't found a way to warp into the egg yet. (I am sure it's possible because if you screen warp while in a cave, you find out that all the underground areas are connected, and if you swim from the fishing pond, you get to see LOTS of different cave screens in no apparent order. All I have to do is find the right way to warp into it.)
Anybody else acheived all the items in Link's Awakening with only 3 hearts?
Easily best game ever made. Now, I'm sure that I must have done a similar thread to this before, but what the hey, twice around we go!
Favorite Dungeon: Very hard--they're all so good--but probably the Forest Temple.
Least-Favorite Dungeon: Water Temple.
Favorite Theme: Boss music.
Favorite Boss: Bongo-Bongo!
Least-Favorite Boss: Mirror Link... or Ganondorf.
Favorite Site: Hyrule Castle Town... I love hanging out there during night time.
Best Character: Me.
Favorite Memory: The first time playing it (out of 8 times), right after you beat the Dodongo's Cavern, and I appear with a few other Gorons, and give the player a big, warm Goron hug... haha, I'm swell.
Quote:Why wait so long to release a new installment of Mario? The wait is frustrating players everywhere...
Mario is and always has been a concept title from his birth. We are always looking for new ways of playing with him, manipulating him, to create something new and unique. We're in the midst of preparing something special for his future, something never before seen. You'll understand when you see it that we can't quite release it right away. The new Mario game will surprise many people. Give us the benefit of the doubt. I think we'll present you with a new way to have fun. There's even a new character by his side.
Mario 128 will be released for Revolution then?
Yes, of course! It's no surprise, but of course we will rename it, obviously. That won't be the only surprise of next year though. We based the Revolution around this new type of game. Mario 128 played a large role in the Revolution's conception, much like Mario 64 in it's time. But we won't just be focusing on Mario. We're working on some very impressive games which push interactivity to the max. Games of a new era.
The new Zelda, it's not really good news that...
Please allow me to interrupt you by saying that you will have to be patient, really. This will be, without a doubt, the last Zelda game as you know it in its present form. I worked on it personally, moreso than Wind Waker! I haven't invested as much into any game as I have this one. Our goal was to make the best Zelda game ever. The most rich/satisfying and melancholy. We've really improved it in just a few months. Everything's coming together much quicker. We may have some last minute ideas...
You're going to move it to Revolution?
No, it is a Gamecube title.
In any case, you want to preserve the air of mystery around Nintendo?
We will be revealing many details soon. It's true, we do like surprises (laughs). While our gamers are sleeping, we're busy thinking up new ideas. But while they're playing - we're playing as well.
New preview. It's looking great... this and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance are clearly the big holiday titles (Mario Golf and Mario DDR... eh...), and both look like they'll be pretty good games that are definitely worth getting... sure, it doesn't make up for the lack of Zelda, but it's not like we've got nothing good coming this holiday season. :)
Batallion Wars: Great cartoony graphics that capture the spirit of the AW games quite well... and the action/strategy gameplay looks pretty cool too.
Fire Emblem GC: Mediocre graphics that do not live up to the GBA graphics... I wish they'd either gone 2d or made them look a lot better. Both in qualityy and, more important, in style... the gameplay shine through obviously, but still, it's somewhat dissapointing. Still a must-buy though...
Quote:Although the release date of the PlayStation 3 remains a closely guarded secret, Sony has been less reticent in drumming up developer support for the nascent format. This afternoon session at the Game Developer Conference Europe event in London was relatively short on new information but provided a useful overview of the system architecture and the development tools Sony intends to provide for its developers.The sole speaker for the session was George Bain, the Developer Support Manager at SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) Technology Group. He started by giving a quick recap of the PlayStation 3's technical specifications, apparently using figures taken directly from press releases originally released at E3. Bain joked about the description on one of his slides, describing the new console as a “system utilizing the Cell processor with super computer like power”, but insisted that despite the marketing spiel the description was accurate.
After running through the statistics for the Cell processor and NVidia's RSX GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), Bain paused to discuss the new controllers in more detail. He reiterated that the new boomerang designs were concepts only and were not necessarily representative of the final retail models. He clarified too, that the odd numbered limit of seven wireless controllers per console were a product of the way in which Bluetooth 2.0 operates, where the console itself is considered to be the eighth device in the network.
In answer to a later question from the audience Bain admitted that the wireless signal could be interfered with by another nearby PlayStation 3 console and in those instances where many consoles would be close by, such as at a LAN party, it would be necessary to default to using wired controllers via the console's USB ports. It was also mentioned that keyboards, mice and other devices could also be used as games controllers but that Sony would always insist that any game could also be controlled with the default controller.
Bain also touched upon the PlayStation 3's removable hard drive, confirming that Sony did consider it an important peripheral, but saying that the company had not yet decided its price, its size or – most importantly – whether it would be bundled with the console or available only as a stand alone extra.
Moving on from the basic technical specifications of the PlayStation 3, Bain referenced the Cell Broadband Engine documentation recently made public by IBM and Sony. In doing so he emphasized the impressive bus speed of greater than 200GB/sec or 25.6GB/sec for each device, making for an external bandwidth faster than current high specification PCs.
Concerning the individual SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements) of the Cell chip, Bain emphasized that it was no longer necessary to program in assembly language to achieve superior performance, although this did still exist as an option. In response to an audience question it was also confirmed that although each Cell chip will feature eight SPEs this was purely to guarantee seven working elements – even if the eighth SPE did work it would be fused during the manufacturing process and could not be used in any way.
As Bain began to move on to the topic of actual development techniques for the PlayStation 3 he quoted the famous Spider-Man line of “With great power comes great responsibility”, in apparent reference to Sony's determination to provide as much technical support as possible to developers. As Phil Harrison had said earlier in the day, he acknowledged that the PlayStation 2 had proven difficult to program for and assured the audience that Sony had learnt its lesson. Bain suggested that this was one reason for using NVidia's graphics technology, since it would enable the use of more widely familiar APIs. OpenGL ES, described as a lightweight subset of OpenGL, was being used for the same reason and was part of what was explained as a very different approach to graphics when compared to the PlayStation 2.
Although no PlayStation 3 development kit was present at GDC Europe, Bain did show a few slides from the E3 duck demo before moving on to the topic of development tools. This was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the session with a major SDK update promised that would include all existing PlayStation tools as well as fully licensed versions of physics tools Havok Complete and AGEIA's NovodeX. These will be available free to use for developers and will require no additional licensing fee to publish games using the technology.
After admitting that the early versions of the PlayStation 2's default compiler were “rubbish”, Bain also indicated that SN System's new compiler would also be included in the SDK, along with support for (but not free licensing of) Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. He emphasized that the Unreal Engine 3 demo shown at E3 was “real” and proceeded to display some new screenshots using the engine which if they were, as claimed, real-time were certainly on a par with the kind of imagery seen in the infamous E3 Killzone demonstration.
Bain ended the session by encouraging the attendees to register as PlayStation 3 developers, suggesting that current PlayStation developers talk to their local third party account manager and that those European developers new to the PlayStation range should visit the SCEE developer website or the more general SCE site.
Quote:The DS has to date now sold 3,015,894 units in Japan since its launch. This year's sales have now surpassed the huge number of DS consoles sold last year (when the DS sold almost one and a half million units in its first five weeks).
Once again, the DS outsold all other consoles in Japan this week, selling nearly double the amount of PS2s (the DS sold 57,313 units, the PS2 - second place in the hardware charts - sold 27, 161). In comparison, the PSP sold 20,322 units.
Overall, the PSP has now sold 1,652,728 units in Japan since its launch, meaning the DS has sold 1,363,166 units more. A cause for celebration, although the situation is quite the reverse in the USA, and it remains to be seen how the DS will fare against the PSP in Europe now Sony's handheld has reached these shores.
We'll have the full Japanese hardware and software charts up soon.
