I just picked up New Leaf, and it is all the fun of Animal Crossing I could want, only now I'm the MAYOR. (Accidentally...)
Nintendo is doing some sort of promotion deal involving the 3DS "Nintendo Zone". The "Nintendo Zone" is supposed to be a special set of content only available at specific stores hosting the zone. However the Nintenzone is rather silly. ALL the content of the Nintenzone is hosted on Nintendo's servers, NOT locally at any stores, so really there is no reason at all that I should need to head outside to access a frickin' WEBSITE. (It's one of those little things that says "okay, Nintendo sometimes doesn't really "get" the internet.) It runs deeper though, because of how Nintendo actually "checks" to see if you are accessing the site from an approved store or not. No, there's no special signature the store's wifi is sending to Nintendo, the check is done ENTIRELY on the 3DS itself. The 3DS only checks one thing: the name of the SSID. THAT is the "security mechanism". Simply put, if you name your own SSID to one of the preapproved ones the 3DS checks for, then the 3DS will conclude you're linked to the Nintenzone. That... that doesn't even count as a security mechanism.
So all I did was set my phone as a tethered hotspot named "attwifi" and bam, I was in the Nintenzone. ... And there wasn't really anything there. Same ol' demos and stuff I could get through the eShop.
However, for this promotion, you have to name your SSID to "Bestbuy". Do that, and when you play Animal Crossing and go to the post office, you'll be able to get the various timed exclusive items. Well, my tolerance for timed exclusive items is basically nonexistent at this point, so I really didn't care for this at all. I'll work around this because it's such a small amount of effort that it makes it worth it to get the stuff, but there's no way I'd travel all the way out to a Best Buy on the off chance their wifi setup is actually working just to get one of these items. This is the sort of thing Nintendo needs to stop doing. I'm happy to congregate at one spot for something like a tournament, but not for promotional exclusives based around artificial scarcity.
Also, the Nintendo Zone just made me think of this:
Very interesting... I thought that MS would just weather the storm and hope that people bought XO systems anyway, but I guess that they've decided that the degree of hatred is too much, and they have to give up. So, they are. The 24-hour check is gone. Disc-based games will now require the disc to run, so no playing disc-based games without the disc in the drive (that'll be the DRM, instead of 24-hour checks to see if you've traded or sold back games).
However, also gone is that "Family share plan" that they'd been pushing. No sharing without sharing actual discs, and no sharing at all with downloadable titles; those are now locked to your account only. Speculation that publishers were less than pleased with the "family share plan" option might be accurate, who knows... apparently it would have allowed any 10 people to form a "family". Then anyone in that group could play any game any of them bought, anywhere, without needing a disc (just download it). The only restriction was that only the purchaser and one other person could play each game at any time. Still though, that was a pretty interesting option... maybe publishers thought that it was too generous. I mean, keeping the family share thing for digital-only purchases (though not also disc games of course, there'd be no way to do that with disc games without requiring installs that are locked to your account, requiring an online connection, and getting rid of used games, as they were planning on doing) certainly could still fit in this new, current-gen style of the DRM. That they're getting rid of it says something.
Overall though, this is very interesting news... it looks like the massive popular outcry worked! Losing the family share thing is too bad, but if publishers didn't like it, maybe it was doomed anyway. And losing the required 24-hour online DRM checkin is fantastic; sure most systems will be online most of the time, but that's not true everywhere, and it's a very blatant attempt at going for corporate profits and awful anti-consumer, "you own nothing you thought you bought" stuff. There's no reason for that check except because of corporate paranoia about piracy and used games, after all.
What would be the best system? Well, that digital games can't be resold, not even back to Microsoft or Sony, on their next consoles is horrible. I very badly hope that the EU's attempts to force some kind of resale into digital sales of software works, and MS and Sony are both forced to give in on this point. Resale of digital games is a right that must be won. I think this whole XO debacle shows that people still care about ownership of physical goods. PC gamers did give up a bit too much there, sadly, but maybe that can be won back as well... ownership is a right that we must defend. "It's a temporary license only and not a purchase" is not okay.
For physical games though, allowing resale with a disc check is a reasonable compromise. PC games abandoned that over the course of the last generation in favor of one-time-use keys for most titles, which is unfortunate. PC gaming never had the kind of used-games culture that console gaming did, so losing a lot of what used games marketplace the PC had didn't make nearly the same level of impact, but still, it's unfortunate. Of course on the PC worries about losing games forever aren't nearly as bad, since everything can be pirated, but legal resale should be an option as well. There is some evidence that Steam might actually add some variant of that "family share plan" in the future (though with MS abandoning it, we'll see), but still no sign of resale. What you should be able to do is to sell the game back or to a digital trading store or what have you, or alternately "un-register" the key you used so that if you then sell the physical copy whoever buys it can then use that key. Pirates can get around any of that DRM anyway, so there's no use in worrying about whether that'd enable more copying; anyone who wants to can do that already anyway. This wouldn't really change anything much on that front.
They ported the game to the 3DS very recently. The graphics are almost unchanged, excepting interface changes and the lower resolution of the 3DS screen (which is starting to become the system's Achilles heel, aside from the lack of a second stick, heck it can have two heels, most people do).
There are a few big changes. The big bullet point from Nintendo is an additional "lost world" full of new levels. That's good, but what gets swept under the rug are the controls. The Wii version was a 2D platformer that, like a lot of Wii 2D platformers, had wiggle and waggle dumped into it where it wasn't wanted. Otherwise awesome games like Kirby's Return to Dreamland and New Super Mario Bros. Wii had rather important control features assigned to "shaking about the wii remote with no rhyme or reason". While NSMBW and KRTDL (wow, those are unwieldy acronyms) used it pretty sparingly, DKCR ended up being the worst offender, with 4 rather important moves being assigned all at once to shaking the controller about. These moves, like "rolling", were used often and with precise timing, and as such you just didn't get the precision you needed for a lot of challenges, which had to be attempted over and over again anyway due to the game's pleasantly high difficulty.
Well no more! The 3DS does have motion controls built into the system, but fortunately the 3DS version assigns ALL of these functions to L and R instead (or X and Y, depending on your control scheme). This is a welcome relief. Suddenly parts that were incredibly frustrating due to control issues are now much easier. (Others are still tough for waggle-unrelated reasons.)
Also, the 2 player game was done very well, but the camera was somewhat annoying. Someone can shoot too far ahead of you and you're running entirely blind, partly because of the level design which kept them from coming back for you half the time. The new game is on the 3DS, so camera issues are negated. The fault here is that both players need a copy of the game for co-op to work. No "download mode" to be found here.
In short, the game looks as amazing as it did on the Wii (the 3DS is a portable Wii in terms of power, aside from a lower screen resolution), has better controls, and better camera management during multiplayer. Oh, and an extra lost world. If you didn't get the game on the Wii, this is the version to get. If you DID get it on the Wii, these changes might be enough to warrant picking up this version. I for one would love to see "New Super Mario Bros. Wii 3D" and "Kirby's Return to Dreamland 3D" to fix similar control issues, but those games weren't nearly as bad with the wiggle and waggle as DKCR was.
Yes, after more than a few (and more than a few too many) years of working on revising my thesis, I'm finally done with my masters' degree (in History)! It's been quite a while, but I'm very happy to finally have finished it, and thus written a thesis that my committee would accept. I've done two major revisions of the paper since late last year, including the most recent one which took up most of April and May (lots of work there!), but I got it finished, and it's all done now. Pretty satisfying.
Bad News, Rare has nothing to do with it (not surprising, considering Rare is currently run by a skeleton crew that are too busy making XBox Avatar accessories to care about much else).
It is being made by Double Helix. They are responsible for a number of rather bland and uninspired movie cash ins, and also Silent Hill Homecoming. I wonder if they have what it takes to do a new Killer Instinct.
At any rate, MS is intent on packaging Killer Instinct as a "free to pay" system, where you can download ONE character for free (basically a demo) and have to pay for each individual character past that. So, in the end, the game's total cost may exceed $60 in a nice classic scam. Yes, some people "only get good with one or two characters". The problem with their logic is that friend that just came to your house is good with a DIFFERENT "one or two characters" than the ones you bought, and thus, competitive play between friends dies.
Okay...so in the conferences, we saw a bunch of games. I put the DRM stuff in one thread, and Nintendo's in another, but how about one for games.
In the Microsoft conference, Quantum Break looks like it could be interesting. I hope it ends up on platforms other than X1 sometime (PC port!). Also I hope it doesn't take as long as Alan Wake. :p (7-8 year project, that was...) Killer Instinct... maybe, but probably not; that series was never my thing, I'm terrible at combos. It's interesting to see it finally return though. There were a few other interesting ones as well. The Insomniac game has a good art style, but the gameplay looks like it could be generic. Oh, there was also a very short Halo teaser. The reveal that it was Master Chief was well done, but it said nothing about the game (not that I care very much, not being someone who ever found the Halo games interesting). There was also Forza and Drive Club. I don't care about realistic racing games. There was one indie game which they said very little about (a dungeon crawler or something?). Could be decent, who knows. Oh, there was also Dead Rising 3. Looks like the kind of game I don't find interesting. Uh... I'm forgetting the rest. Oh, MS showed a few 360 games. None were memorable enough for me to remember them (mostly third party stuff I think?). I don't know if MS showed even one single game with a playable female character seen on screen. All guys, lots of shooting.
From EA, Dragon Age 3 was nice to see, though Fall 2014 is quite a ways off. I really, REALLY hope that it'll play more like Dragon Age 1, which is a great game, and not that actioney Dragon Age 2" thing... but there was no gameplay here, only CG/trailer stuff, so we don't know about that. I just hope they do the right thing... I'm just not entirely expecting it. Also, of course I'm looking forwards to Mirror's Edge 2. The first one was quite good, it's fantastic to see a sequel underway. The new Need for Speed could be okay too, though we'll see; it's not Criterion, so it could be not so great (theirs have been the best, of the recent NFS games). Otherwise, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare has a good art style, but I wouldn't actually play the game. Peggle 2... I didn't get hooked to the first one like some people did. Oh, and Titanfall (which was at both the MS and EA conferences)? Sorry, looks pretty uninteresting. I do not care much about multiplayer FPSes. Overall, EA had a much better presentation than last year. The fakeout at the beginning with PvZ was good stuff, and ending with Mirror's Edge 2 was great.
As for Ubisoft, their conference was entertaining as usual. They obviously go for the silly and kind of weird, and they nailed that again. As for the actual games though... eh. Assassin's Creed is that series that I've always thought that I SHOULD care about and play, because of how much I like history, but just never have. That remains true. Maybe I'll finally get myself to play some of them in the future, and see if I like it or not. The Crew does look fun, though. It looks like a simple, fun racing game, not that tediously boring sim stuff that's far too common these days. The huge world to drive in looks nice as well. Ubi's last driving game, Driver San Francisco, was fantastic, so hopefully this one will be just as good. Rayman Legends also looks great; though of course that's something we've seen before it was here again. Two new Trials games? Haven't played those before, so I don't know if I care. As for Watch Dogs and their new title, Tom Clancy's The Division, the former looks like it could be okay but I doubt very much I'd stick with it, and the latter looks like an uninteresting cover-based shooter/MMO thing. Both have somewhat similar near-future bad-case-scenario storylines.
And finally, Sony. As always Sony had a long, somewhat boring two hour conference (MS was 90 minutes, Nintendo's Direct 45 mins). It had some boring parts, including the part about TV. The Vita section was silly, they said how great the platform is... and then talked about very few games. Yeah, they'll be relying on that PS4 Remote Play thing a lot for games for the poor Vita, I think, though they should have talked more about first-party titles. As for the PS3, they showed Gran Turismo 6 (again, I don't care) and some third-party stuff. Then it was on to the PS4. Beyond: Two Souls... a cover-based shooter... from the Heavy Rain/Indigo Prophecy team? Really? Couldn't they do something more unique? At least it does have a good-sounding story and some unique elements, but .. cover-based shooting, really? Ah well. At least it has a female lead, which makes it a bit unique for the genre. Sony also showed the games they've shown before, that will be there for launch, including Knack (which looks fun) and the new Killzone (who cares). There was also a new, longer trailer for Infamous: Second Son. No gameplay though, all cutscene/CG. They also showed Destiny, Bungie's new game. It looks like a Halo reskin with some MMO elements. Nothing that interested me at all. Nice art design though, particularly outside. Sony also showed the first trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3, and the first one for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, or as it's now known Final Fantasy XV. Both games will also be on Xbox One, though, we now know; only the PS3/PS4 versions of Final Fantasy XIV -- yes, they're still coming -- are Sony-exclusive, for the three people who actually want to play that game. Still though, I guess it's good to know that Versus isn't complete vaporware, as The Last Guardian continues to be (Sony insists that it's still in development, but no news, nothing at all). It looks like an action-RPG, as it always has been. That Noctis guy is still the lead character. And yes, Sora's in Kingdom Hearts 3. How surprising. I think Sony had some more games as well, but that's what I remember offhand. Of course, they also had that hardcore MS-bashing used games section, which was broken up by some LONG applause periods after each statement of Sony's about how they're doing the same thing they did on PS3. They milked it, but it was deserved... no, MS, games should not be a "service". We should actually own things we have purchased.
Nintendo did have a traditional E3 conference, but they also had the Nintendo direct. Hello new games! I love you all forever!
What do they have?
Mario Kart 8: F-Zero Edition - In this game, we've got hover carts and insane tracks that go vertical and double sided. The speed may not be at F-Zero levels, but the inspiration is clear. I love it. Mario Kart 7 was good and I expect 8 to have some incredible track design.
Super Mario 3D World, now in 2D! - Super Mario 3D World looks incredible! I absolutely loved Super Mario 3D Land, and this one appears to be even better. Mario has a cat suit now, and he can climb walls! It's the meowr of power! Also, they have the full gang from Super Mario Bros. 2 back in action! Yes, instead of a palette swapped second Toad, we've got Peach again! Yaaaaaay! I expect I'll use and abuse that floating ability many times. Yes, you heard that right, the individual characters have unique abilities again! All of them look adorable in cat suits. I expect the storyline will be something other than "Peach gets captured!" About that, it's true I don't expect much to get into a Mario story, but Peach herself was really being turned into a running gag. She's got more potential than that, and frankly, at least in previous Mario games there was the pretense of some other storyline going on. The last several "New Super Mario Bros." games though have simply been pure "Peach is captured and that's it" storylines. Heck, even Super Mario Bros. 1 had a storyline explanation that Toadstool was the only one who could undo the koopa tribe's evil magic. Well, this looks like the way to go. I'm glad they resolved whatever issue they had rendering Peach's dress. (I do have to say this though. The "3D" in 3D Land was clearly meant to reference the 3D display of the 3DS. 3D World, unless they're holding something back, does not appear to support 3D TVs, so the "3D" in the title is a bit misleading, and explaining that "it means the gameplay is in 3D" is a bit of a cop out, since we all knew what they were referring to with Land. Minor nitpick, but I am GETTING this game!)
X (The Eliminator) - A game that I would normally expect Weltall to love, but he'll probably hate it because the X is clearly meant to refer to the various "Xeno" games, namely Xenogears (same font and everything). Well, screw that. X (may just be the project name) looks to be an amazing "open world" style RPG in the vein of the modern hits like the more recent Elderscrolls and Fallout games (only I expect it'll be far less glitchy). The game is third person though, and has a much better combat system from the looks of it (so more like Dragon's Dogma). An open world game with fun combat, and flying around in giant Gears? Yes! (Well, they won't be called gears, but look at them. They're Gears.)
Wii U Party (Mario will not be attending this party due to previous engagements.) - It's Mario Party, but with Miis. Looks fun.
Wind Waker HD (Tingle has never looked so glorious.) - What can I say? Wind Waker may be easy, but it is still a great game. They claim there's some as yet unannounced changes, but they did reveal one thing. Tingle Tuner is being "updated" to a message in a bottle system where you can take pictures or write notes (or draw stuff), put it in a bottle and throw it into the sea, where it will wash up on the shores of other players across the interweb. It adds a sense of community to the Zelda games without actually making the game multiplayer. It is surprising how little notes like those can make the player base feel more connected in these games. The key is a light touch, and messages in a bottle seems just right to me. However, I have to say I wonder if the Tingle Tuner mode proper will still be in the game. As they said in the reveal, no, the Wii U can't link up to a Gameboy Advance, but it certainly could use the Wii U gamepad to exactly replicate the Tingle Tuner features. They may be doing exactly that, but the weird wording of the "message in a bottle" feature suggests that was meant to replace tingle tuner entirely. Still no word on whether or not they'll be finishing the unfinished dungeons for the game, or making the hunt for triforce pieces more fun.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (The frogert is also cursed.) - Retro did a great job with Donkey Kong Coutry Returns. It did have a different "feel" to the original games, but it was a very satisfying feel and the game was amazing. Not sure if I'll pick up the 3DS version of the game though... I am not certain there's enough extra content to warrant it. I will say this though, Tropical Freeze is returning two missing elements:
Dixie Kong (Yay! Well, due to the different style of these new games, Dixie isn't directly playable, but instead is a switchable "sidekick" like Diddy Kong.)
Underwater Areas (Swimming! I don't care what they originally said, the slower pace and calming music of the water stages in DKC, and in Mario games for that matter, are nice relaxing shifts from the more hectic above ground levels. Well, except in Sonic the Hedgehog, where the drowning music gives me nightmares. Anyway, they've got some neat tricks to pull off with Donkey Kong's underwater controls.)
No wait three things, the original musical composer for the original Donkey Kong Country games! (I want something as amazingly catchy as the Jungle theme, something as amazingly soothing as the underwater music and ice cave music from DKC1, and something as amazingly... amazing as the Bramble Vines music from DKC2. Then we all win.)
Pokémon X & Y: Fun with Algebra! - New game in true 3D, first time since the Colosseum game for Gamecube, only much more developed. There's some interesting new features, but in the end, it is pokémon, so the basic fight mechanics haven't changed too much. They've added a new "fairy type". There were rumors about a new type coming along, but the theories were that they'd add "light" and "sound" types. Fairy type does make sense though, as a lot of pokémon were already described as "fairy types" in their 'dex data.
Super Smash Bros. (No title given. I really hope they didn't pull a "reboot" thing and give it a confusing identical title to the original Smash Bros.) - MEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMANMEGAMAN .... Mega Man is in the game now. I am pleased.
Also, The Villager from Animal Crossing. Yay! However, I really hope that there is both the male and female version (alternate costumes of each other). Collect ALL THE THINGS!
Also, the Wii Fit trainer? Okay, odd considering no one anywhere wanted that ever, but alright, she seems fun enough. Still, I'd rather they had focused on some other character. I suspect Nintendo made a poor judgment call here. "Wii Fit is our biggest selling game ever, so let's put that in there." "Um, that's not really a game though..., it was popular exercise equipment." "Sales show people want more of that character." "No, they show people wanted to lose weight." "Look, just stick the trainer in there. It'll be fine."
What do I want to see besides the 3 reveals? Little Mac, Simon Belmont, King K. Rool, Geno, Sora, Warrior of Light (or some Final Fantasy character), and while I'm dreaming right off the pipe, King Graham would be cool. Those are characters that are progressively long shots, but here's an impossible one, Banjo and Kazooie. I can dream can't I?
The Wii U and 3DS versions will be different from each other, unlike the PS Vita and Playstation 3 versions of Playstation All-Stars. While this means there won't really be persistent transferring between games, it also means unique experiences, and further, Nintendo just took all my money. I'll be getting both. I wonder if the game is a little faster like Melee, and if they finally ditched random tripping? Edenmaster, I choose you! Return to us so we can play more Smash Bros.!
--
So there it is. Watch the videos for those games. I simply WANT THEM. The only bad side is just how far off all these games are. There's going to be some dead space between here and the deluge to come... In the mean time, I'm also looking forward to the piratey goodness of Assassin's Creed 4: The Secret of Monkey Island. Remember, you can't spell pirate without irate!
$399 (versus $499 for the Xbox One), and the DRM is the same as the PS3, with one exception -- you now need to pay for PS Plus in order to play multiplayer games online. Yeah, that's not good. However, the PS4 does have full standard used games support, so you can sell, lend, rent, etc. PS4 games no problem. Sony really, really milked this at the press conference, and understandably so with how MS is trying to "move everyone into the future" in anti-consumer ways. Then Sony released this video to Youtube.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/stiYAbaJY1w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yes, that's an official Sony video.
Microsoft press conference is first, at noon Eastern, followed by EA, Ubisoft, and Sony later in the day. I'll watch them all live, of course, as I have for several years now. Nintendo's Nintendo Direct goes up at 10am Eastern Tuesday, just before the show floor opens that day.
It would seem that in England, parliament is seriously considering calling a cull on badgers, to pick a scape goat (badgers aren't goats, quit messing with my head!) for the Bovine TB that had been enough of a problem to threaten their beef industry.
While dealing with the disease is a must, this is a heavy handed and frankly barbaric method of handling the problem. Yes, America has been guilty of the same things, but let's not fuss about that right now we've got Brits to be angry at,
