Quote: Nintendogs: Lab & Friends
Can a bunch of juvenile canines make the Nintendo DS a need-to-have system? Our full review.
by Craig Harris
August 19, 2005 - So it's been more than a half year, and Nintendo has yet to convince you that its double screen, touch sensitive system can offer unique videogame experiences, huh? Nintendogs might just finally change your mind. This unique package is one of those "non game" games Nintendo hopes will bridge the non-gamers to its systems by presenting a never-ending experience that anyone can grasp right from the start. Look, it's pretty obvious that Nintendogs and its cute and cuddly experience, isn't for the hardcore action gamer, but you'd be missing out if you didn't at least give this DS card at least one shot. There's a good chance this adorable set of puppies will romp their way into your hearts and your active game collection.
Nintendogs comes in three flavors: Nintendogs: Dachshund & Friends, Nintendogs: Lab & Friends, and Nintendogs: Chihuahua & Friends, but they're essentially one and the same. The only difference between the three is the set of six puppies that are available to the user at the start of the Nintendogs experience. The choice of which Nintendogs to pick up is simply a matter of which breed you want to begin your virtual life together -- all 18 standard breeds are in all versions of Nintendogs, and when you work together with your puppy the other breeds become available in the kennel for adoption.
Nintendogs isn't anywhere near a new concept. This idea goes back as far as the Tamagotchi and probably even further than that, but no virtual pet has had as much put into its production as Nintendogs does. This experience was tailor made for the Nintendo DS system so much that it almost feels like that it was the other way around: that Nintendogs was influential to the R&D of the Nintendo DS hardware itself. Everything that the Nintendo DS is has been utilized in some fashion in the game design, from touch-screen interactivity to "pet" your puppy to the built-in microphone used to give vocal commands for tricks. And while the concept doesn't go all that far beyond a simple pet sim, it at least opens a whole new world of potential on the Nintendo DS and shows even the system naysayers that the Nintendo handheld can do so much new stuff right out of the box.
Essentially players take care of their choice of puppy and do what you would do with a real dog without the hassle of any real responsibility. Pet it, play with it, wash it, take it for a walk, enter it into competitions. What you do with your dog affects its personality, which, in turn, can affect other points in your experience with him. For example, if your dog is absolutely rambunctious around other puppies, bringing another dog into your family might make it impossible to train the new arrival. Your dogs can never grow up or die, living in a reality where they don't age, leave their owners, or get hit by cars.
The most prominent Nintendogs bullet point is the design's speech recognition technology. Without it, the game wouldn't be half as fun or interesting because, quite frankly, half the experience with a real dog is interacting verbally. The tech is capable but clearly limiting, but it does its job well in the proper environments. Any trick requires players to speak the command at least three times, and sometimes more depending on how much differently each command has been spoken in turn. The game turns those three spoken phrases into a waveform that the dog will recognize, and while it's best that the same person who recorded the command uses them, the system can certainly recognize someone else's attempt at speaking the particular phrase; and this comes into play in the game's fun "Bark Mode." The voice recognition isn't perfect, and sometimes it isn't clear why a phrase isn't registered. Was it too much outside noise? Is it because you have a cold? Is the dog just being bad? Sometimes it's all three, or none of the above, but you'll never know for sure. And it's something about the design you'll have to accept.
Though Nintendo's usually downplayed the Nintendo DS system's graphical capabilities, no one can say that Nintendogs can't keep up with current generation visuals. This product features some seriously impressive 3D that really make the puppies come alive on the Nintendo DS screen. These guys (and gals), though adopting a slightly stylized look, appear incredibly lifelike thanks to the attention to detail both in their modeling and in their animation cycles. The developers clearly looked at the behavior of real puppies and employed them in Nintendogs. It's hard not to become emotionally attached to these dogs right from the start because they truly act the part of looking adorable and latching onto their owners.
What's also very impressive about Nintendogs is the physics engine employed in the environments. There are literally dozens of objects that can be found on the puppy's walk around the neighborhood, from balls to bones to toys like remote controlled helicopters. And players have the ability to use these items to interact with their pet by throwing them or moving them around the enclosed room. Each of these items reacts in their own, very realistic way, behaving as a tennis ball, soccer ball, rubber toy, stick, or other dog toy would after it's thrown and knocked around. Hopefully Nintendo can put this physics engine to use in other DS games, because even when limited, it's pulled off extraordinarily well in Nintendogs.
This virtual pet game does offer a lot of little things to discover, but as a whole there's not a lot to Nintendogs. There are only three different competitions to enter your dog in, and once the different difficulty settings have been mastered you can simply retire that dog in the Dog Hotel and work on a new puppy. So, while there's a bazillion little trinkets to collect across the hours you can invest in playing with and training your dog, you'll hit a brickwall of progression pretty early on in the gameplay.
Nintendo does extend the experience with "Bark Mode," a function that you can set your Nintendogs in that will seek out other puppies using the Nintendo DSwireless capabilities in its battery saving "Sleep Mode." This clever mode enables players to anonymously connect to other players and build up their friends list as their Nintendogs hook up automatically. Here, the other player's dog will visit your system and interact with both you and your dog. By building up the friends list, players can collect gifts traded from visiting dogs, as well as unlock the other dogs in their kennel for future training. You're obviously limited because other Nintendogs players have to be in this mode for it to work, but it's still a neat idea that adds another level of interaction to the overall product.
Closing Comments Nintendogs is clearly focused on the mainstream market than the truly hardcore, but no matter who you are there's a lot of enjoyment to be had out of this unique Nintendo DS product. The interaction with the virtual dog is done extremely well on the Nintendo DS, and even if you pride yourself in your masculinity it's hard to resist these adorable critters romping around on the handheld. With all the things that you can do and collect in Nintendogs, though, it doesn't feel like it's enough, and you might find yourself expecting and wanting more out of the experience. But it's a great time until you've capped out all the play modes, and even when you do there's still a little more fun with Bark Mode to see if you can attract random puppies into your world.
Quote:Lionhead's Peter Molyneux briefly mentioned Nintendo's Revolution controller at the recent Leipzig Gaming Conference, and was quoted as saying that: "There is a line at the end of the book 'Game Over' and it is: 'Never underestimate Nintendo'. That is all I can say about the controller".
It appears he has inside information we don't, or he has seen the controller for himself! More teasing anecdotes as we get them!
NEWS
Walmart.com has announced that it will begin selling a line of PCs without an operating system. The move is being made as an attempt to grab marketshare of the more advanced technical users. Walmart.com is using the new line as a test to gauge demand by the tech-savvy public.
Walmart.com is selling Microtel PCs for prices ranging from US$399 to around $870. None of the PCs ship with the most common desktop operating system, Microsoft Windows, or a monitor. Critics of the move believe that the OS-free PCs could confuse average consumers into believing that they are purchasing a plug-and-play type solution.
Users will be required to purchase an operating system individually, or obtain a free OS such as Linux.
I'm always the only one who ever knows how to find the cow image, so I decided to try and make it easier.
You'll notice a new button on the post screen now, on the very right of the editor. It uses the new COW tag.
Basically, I had to cheat to make this work, so what you do is either click the button or do a [ cow ] [/ cow] tag. Something has to go in-between the tags (that being the problem I encountered), but it doesn't matter what. Type anything. Once you do, you'll have a cow!
hi all i didnt know where to post this do i thought here was as good as any, i am new.
*drum roll* i am Captain Rush, the randomness at work, and i hope to enjoy this place.
Quote:Courtesy of Media-Create, we have the most recent sales figures from Japan.
This week's sales, while not as strong overall as last week's surge where buyers snapped up a myriad of new releases, nevertheless were robust. As everyone and their babysitter had expected, Jump Super Stars (JSS) led the way with sales of over 200k. While PS2 soccer juggernaut World Soccer Winning Eleven remained strong, it was followed by 4 consecutive Nintendo platform titles (all previous releases.)
Somewhat surprisingly, and likely spurred on by the gravitational forces put in motion by JSS, DS cerebral favorites Gentle Brain Exercises and Brain Training staged a mighty comeback in the charts. Wow...special software indeed: whereas Exercises made a significant jump from last weeks sales, Training returned to the Top 10 from where it had been absent for the last two weeks.
Representing the GC was Pokemon XD in its second week of sales. Meanwhile, the GBA had its champion in the form of the popular beetle-battling game Mushiking. The full top 10 is below...have a look:
No. System Title Publisher
1 DS JUMP Super Stars 220,912 Nintendo
2 PS2 World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 102,048 Konami
3 DS Gentle Brain Exercises 46,973 Nintendo
4 GBA The King of Beetle Mushiking: Greatest Champion 36,309 Sega
5 GC Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness 34,108 Nintendo
6 PS2 Medal of Honor European Assault 33,361 EA
7 DS Brain Training 30,518 Nintendo
8 PS2 Mobile Suit Gundam - Girren's Greed "Blood of Zeon" 28,460 Bandai
9 PS2 Grandia III 27,378 Square Enix
10 PS2 Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 26,567 Banpresto
The fundamental order of the charts has not changed...but this week did indeed bring some shakeup as over 100k new DS' flew off the shelves, outselling all other platforms combined. Many of those new DS' likely sported the shiny new red color, but of course the main factor leading to the sales explosion was the release of JSS. Actually, most of the other consoles saw sales boosts as well, perhaps affected by the coming of Japan's Bon holiday...the good ol' GBA SP itself sold nearly 20k units. Nintendo Handhelds...indeed Japan still loves you.
Here are the figures in detail:
No. Console Week Sales Last Week Sales Year Sales
1 Nintendo DS 103,095 43,665 1,382,040
2 PlayStation 2 37,041 34,057 1,289,389
3 PlayStation Portable 25,100 20,571 1,126,231
4 Game Boy Advance SP 19,958 12,107 466,615
5 GameCube 3,799 4,445 144,385
6 Game Boy Advance 708 419 16,508
7 Xbox 202 228 9,584
Quote:Nintendo-Revolution.blogspot.com have spoken to Yuji Naka at the Leipzig games convention, where he was asked just how revolutionary the upcoming Nintendo console really would be. He replied that he was "under a strict NDA, so I can´t really say much. But I have seen the Revolution and I think everyone will be very pleasantly surprised, when Nintendo reveal everything."
Encouraging comments from him aside, it shows Nintendo are revealing the technology to some of the people who need to know about it in advance. Chances are that we will see a Sonic title sometime on Revolution due to Sega's support of the GameCube with that particular franchise.
Though for now, we'll just have to speculate how it will end up looking on Nintendo's mysterious upcoming console.
