Fable. It was originally supposed to come out soon after the launch of the Xbox. It was touted as one of the major reasons why you, as a gamer, absolutely had to have an Xbox. It was much talked about and it seemed it's release was close at hand. But it was not to be. The shadow of delay fell over this beloved jewel of programming genius. At first it was a only a slight delay.
"Just wait a few months", they told us. But a few months turned into half a year. Half a year turned into a year. A year turned into two years. Now the release is tentatively set for Winter 2003. But with winter quickly approaching will we see two years grow into three? Will we finally be able to play this game, which according to it's creator, will be beyond our imagination? Or will continuing delays sink it into oblivion?
All doom and gloom aside, well most of anyway, people have been waiting a long time, me being on those, for this game and if it isn't one of the greatest games ever then I will be very dissapointed. I hope it doesn't end up like Malice, which was delayed into oblivion, because if Fable turns out the way Peter M. says it going to be one heck of a game.
Details about Fable, for those who care:
Forge a Hero Based on Your Actions: Age and evolve a hero or villain through the actions you choose and the path you follow ¡V be it for good, evil or in-between. Ply the way of the sword and see your muscles bulge. Weave the dark arts and witness power crackle at your fingertips. Skulk in the shadows and watch your skin bleach.
Engage in Intense Real Time Combat: Collect battle scars as you duel with a world of cunning foes and deadly creatures. Master an array of deadly weaponry as you hone the art of blade-craft. Hunt your quarry using subterfuge and stealth. Weave death from the elements as you harness the dark arts of the arcane.
Build Your Living Legend: Through deeds and actions, build a name for yourself across the land. Recruit allies and followers. Gain glory or notoriety. Make friends and enemies. Interact with a living world of people, places and event all reactive to you. Hero or butcher? Who will you be?
Explore and Shape a Living, Evolving World: Champion or manipulate an ever-changing land with competitive and cooperative heroes, dynamic weather systems and deformable environments. Interact with teeming cultures, creatures, and citizens from various towns and cities.
Hone Your Character with Scores of Unique Skills and Extras: Master new abilities and add possessions as you develop.
Never Play the Same Game Twice: Once you finish your adventure, go back and try the experience again, forging your character and thereby a new tale with unexpected twists and turns, new skills, powers, influences, allies and enemies.
Megaman & Bass is a step back, in the right direction! Back to the days of simple, yet challenging platforming fun. 6 new robot masters, and 2 robot masters revived from Mega Man 8. The big difference is, you can either play as the hero in blue or the villain in black. Auto is back again to make you an arsenal of new power-up and items, including incredibly useful ones like an auto-charger for Mega Mans Buster, and simple yet extremely useful ones like one-time-use guards which protect you from instant death on spikes.
Each character has distinct skills, as well. Mega Man has the usuals: a slide, a chargable Buster, and Rush. Bass can perform double jumps, rapid fire shots, and Treble. Not to mention the plethora of extra stuff you can buy with bolts from Auto. Of course, you also acquire enemy skills once they kill the respective Robot Masters.
To make things interesting, Dr. Wily is not the antagonist of this game, it's a new villain named King. King calls himself the most powerful robot in the world, and is spreading the philosophy that powerful robots should rule over the earth. Mega Man can't have that, and Bass is quite sure that HE is the most powerful robot in the world. So both of em have a bone to pick with King, yet only one can succeed.
Also, there's more than energy and weapon capsules and bolts to find, King has stolen 100 CDs from Rolls CD collection, and each one contains information on robots from previous games, as well as other important characters from the series. You see robot data from Mega Man 1 straight up through the Playstation games (only numbered, not X). They're pretty cool to hunt down and find, and each one brings up nostalgic memories from days past.
Your Robot Masters!
Cold Man - Launches walls of ice towards you while jumping around and forming annoying little clouds which slow you down, prevent you from shooting, and restrict your jumping.
Astro Man - Remember him? He formes holographic copies of himself and flies around. He is also very difficult to hi since only hits on this top half count.
Ground Man: One of the most stubborn bosses, he jumps mostly, but also tunnels underground and comes up to surprise you, also climbs into the ceiling and comes down with a gigantic drill attack.
Burner Man - He's really fast and does a lot of damage, so you kind of need his weakness weapon to defeat him. He lays mines, throws grenades, and uses a flamethrower, among other things.
Pirate Man - He throws homing mines and jumps around a lot. If you have the weapon which hurts him, though, he's a breeze.
Dynamo Man - I take back what I said about Ground Man, Dynamo Man is the most stubborn boss. He has a lightning attack which hits the whole screen, and when his health is low, he jumps into a recharging station to regain health. If you don't destroy both sides quicky, he'll completely replenish hs health and your job gets much tougher.
Tengu Man - He's back too. He spends much of his time airborne, and throws blade and cyclones at you. You'd better have quick reflexes to beat Tengu Man.
Magic Man - Throws cards at you which, if they hit you, they replenish Magic Man's health. Also tosses balls of energy at you which drop annoying little robots which hold you and make you a target. Tough to beat.
In conculsion, it would be absolute heresy to miss out on this game, you don't even need to be a series fan to have a ball with this game. I give Mega Man and Bass a 9.0! BUY IT NOW!
I guess this is to start us off. IGN gives Wario World a 7.1, which is pretty decent. I was never impressed by any of the E3 showings, although I assumed it would be a bit longer than 5 hours.
Oh and some talk about the next Nintendo system. From GAF:
Quote:Gamefront reports that Mario 128's developement concentrates on new ideas which haven't been done before. This is the reason that no actual footage was shown at this year's E3; they feared that their ideas would be stolen.
The work on a Gamecube successor is on course and Nintendo is in contact with many software producers. Nintendo is making improvements ideas and taking criticism opinions to ensure that it will take the lead in the next console war.
Source: Gamefront
Posted by Serafitia on 6.19.2003
God I hope that's true. And I really hope it comes out before the N-whatever does.
On the subject of MM... WW got me to play some MM. I didn't get anywhere (it took me quite a long time to figure out how to do what I've done before to get to the next part... and only remembered with the help of GameFAQs...), but did clear a Spider House. Other than that all I did was say "I really should do that next step" (which is to go into the music-box house after turning on the river, then getting a mask from the guy in the basement, then finding a fish and 5 magic beans (uh, WHERE DO YOU BUY THOSE THINGS? I have no clue anymore, and don't want to spend two hours wandering around trying to find where you get them... ) to be able to clear that stupid well.
It reminded me how great that game is in some ways.
Graphically... amazing. If I forget nostalgia, I'd say that it probably beats OoT... it doesn't have the size or epic scope of that game, but most of the five areas it has are better than their OoT counterparts in design, 'coolness', style, etc... I'd take the MM town, water area, Goron area, and hills/desert/whatever over their OoT equilivants. OoT only has the advantage with Hyrule Field and the Kokiri area -- I'd admit that the swamp in MM has a LOT more to do in it, but I just didn't like it all that much... and the Kokiri area of OoT is a great part.
I have to say that MM is probably a great candidate for 'best graphics on the n64'.
But why was I annoyed so much that I quit? Its all the things I've mentioned before -- how everything resets when time does. I save the world (or part of it...) but an hour later its all back to the way it was. I open the river in Ikana... and have to do it every time. I find the items I need for the well... but don't get down there in time so I have to reset time and I lose them all, thus making me waste a lot more time getting them AGAIN. I hurry though dungeons with the aid of a walkthrough just so I don't have to start them over from scratch. I always have this time limit hanging over my head, and know that I can't stop to look at the scenery for very long because I'll run out of time on the tasks I'm trying to do and will have to spend another while collecting items again. Its remembering that once again you forgot to deposit money when you had a lot of it and your bank account is thin...
Its all those things and more, and they just add up. It just gets so, so frusterating that the greatness of the game itsself was, for me, almost lost...
Have any of you played the new GC store demos yet? They have playable demos of Mario Golf and PN 03, among others. I'm sick of this never-ending debate crap so I thought it would be nice to have a regular conversation about video games.
Mario Golf looks great and plays fine, but the camera is horrendous. IGN and everyone else mentioned how bad the camera was at E3, and it doesn't look like they fixed it for the new store demo which is a real shame since it will turn a lot of people off. I really want this game but if they don't fix the camera before release I probably won't get it. :(
PN03 was pretty fun, and I'd actually consider buying it if it wasn't so short and repetitive like all of the reviews have been stating. The dancing stuff looks cool and the controls aren't quite as bad as I thought they would be. Maybe I'll get it when it drops down in price.
