4th November 2003, 5:49 PM
(This post was last modified: 4th November 2003, 6:31 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
Haha, not enough info to start a fight eh OB1? :D
I'll say this. I was upset with the idea of that transfer pak on the N64, where it was almost always used exclusivly to open up something ALREADY IN THE GAME'S CODE. Sorry, but I still consider that evil and slimy as a business practice. Consider Mario Tennis and Perfect Dark for instance. Everything the hookup unlocked was ALREADY IN THE GAME. Making us PAY for something we ALREADY OWN is just wrong. They even are doing this on the GCN! Look at the Metroid Prime connection. That game is almost flawless in my opinion. I say almost because to me it's tainted by greed in ONE area. You have to buy Fusion in order to unlock something ALREADY IN THE GAME. Now, it may just be me, but I see NO POINT, and NO satisfaction from unlocking that stuff that way! Maybe if you unlocked it within the game somehow, or if it was unlocked from the start, I wouldn't take issue. However, the built in advertising they slid in there didn't sit right with me (if you couldn't tell by now :D). Flawless otherwise, but that taint just sits there festering in the back of my mind.
On the other hand, I do give the connectivity features a bit more value than this fellow. I find that there's more than just the screen to keep it interesting. There's plenty that connectivity can potentially do that I feel makes it worthwhile (though the whole unlocking of things already in the game part I think should not ever be done again EVER). As an example, Animal Crossing I feel is one of the best. It shows promise in 2 ways I think. First off, one can download little mini-games to the GBA for on the go play. This can't be done otherwise, and as a result I believe one gets MORE, rather than having to DO more for less. The ability to take a system with nothing in it and toss in a multiplayer experience from some NES game is great alone, but I feel the greatest potential comes from the OTHER thing Animal Crossing does. You can also download little tools like a pattern creater to the GBA. This ability is already in the game proper, so the GBA isn't outright NEEDED, but when you want to be on the go, it's great to be able to take your GBA along and create some nice pattern while on the bus or something. More than that, you can actually go about trading patterns, something that really adds to it, with others you meet out in that big world this way. I feel that adds great potential. One flaw I find with Animal Crossing is the actual REQUIREMENT to use a GBA to go to Animal Island in the game. That's not right at all. LL had to wait a while before he got a GCN/GBA cable so he could get to the island, and that makes everyone at TC sad! They should have allowed access and full interaction with the island without the GBA. Allow me to say this though. I also feel that ASIDE from that one flaw, I consider the concept of the GBA aspect of the island to REALLY be great. To me, that whole concept was just very lovely. I loved being able to take my little island with me and play around with a part of the main game on the go, occasionally interact with other's islands via link-up, and then upload the changes I made back INTO the game. I think that little island's on-the-go abilities all together represent the greatest aspects of this connectivity. It's just so coool :D. Pokémon Stadium is also a good example, as it also shows how nothing needs to actually be UNLOCKED via the cart to get something out of the link. One was just able to take their trained monsters and take them into this other game, play around with them, possibly train them some more there, and drag them back. If you ask me that game showed how well the connectivity could work in the OTHER direction, but I still find the Animal Crossing abilities to be better, except that part about actually NEEDING the link-up to get to the island anyway. I think Nintendo has used the link-up well a few times, but overall it seems to me like the link-up is being used just for making money sometimes, like in Metroid Prime...
As far as the E-Reader stuff, I have to say I actually like the concept of the E-Reader now more than before SMB3 was released (calling it SMA4 just seems too awkward to me...). Before, I eventually got it because I kinda got caught up in the gadgety nature of it. (I like gadgets :D.) However, soon enough I started seeing it as just a cheap way to release games and not really offering anything unique to gaming at all. It wasn't too big a deal, except I'd much rather have bought some NES game collection cart than a bunch of NES games in card form. Also, I started seeing the unlocking of items in Animal Crossing as just another form of the link cable thing, the part I thought was bad above, the part about unlocking stuff already in the game's code. I had thought that the cards might add whole new items. Since the cards can hold all manner of animated sprites and sound effects, I had assumed maybe they could fit a lowly detailed model in there for like a new chair or something they hadn't included before, so I could collect some whole new set like a "Fire Emblem" set or something, though I would hope it would be cheaper than getting a whole lot of cards... However, rather I found, well, what I said above. I found that very, well, annoying. I just didn't want to have to buy a bunch of card packs just to unlock stuff already coded into the game. This was my opinion, that I had bought something useless, until I heard that SMB3 would support these cards. I thought "hmm" until I heard it would actually allow one to scan in new levels and items that weren't even coded INTO the game (which of course the cards are fully capable of doing, since they can store a decent amount of data in those dots, ya know, like whole mini-games like on the pokémon cards). That's a VERY enticing thing, to me at least. A game that otherwise wouldn't be able to get online in any way being able to get expansions and extended playing out of it is something I just like the idea of, especially with it being Super Mario Bros. 3 :D. I just love how the cards are adding all manner of new levels, new items like a feather or yoshi, and new abilities like maybe a back flip or something. However, it could get a tad expensive as things go on. I think the one failing is these new things, while very cool, are a lot more expensive to get than the extras one can get for other systems. In any case, my overall view of the e-reader is that with SMB3 out, it's existance is justified in my eyes. Though, if the GBA ever got online, my need for it would shrink down to a singularity, which would eventually evaporate away via the process of the random appearence of virtual particle pairs, some of which get seperated and one anti-particle falling in, ending in a massive explosion once the gravity becomes too weak to overcome the repulsive nature of particles from each other, about a google years from now.
As for the rest of it, regarding online play, kinda a tinted view of how things actually are pretty much.
I'll say this. I was upset with the idea of that transfer pak on the N64, where it was almost always used exclusivly to open up something ALREADY IN THE GAME'S CODE. Sorry, but I still consider that evil and slimy as a business practice. Consider Mario Tennis and Perfect Dark for instance. Everything the hookup unlocked was ALREADY IN THE GAME. Making us PAY for something we ALREADY OWN is just wrong. They even are doing this on the GCN! Look at the Metroid Prime connection. That game is almost flawless in my opinion. I say almost because to me it's tainted by greed in ONE area. You have to buy Fusion in order to unlock something ALREADY IN THE GAME. Now, it may just be me, but I see NO POINT, and NO satisfaction from unlocking that stuff that way! Maybe if you unlocked it within the game somehow, or if it was unlocked from the start, I wouldn't take issue. However, the built in advertising they slid in there didn't sit right with me (if you couldn't tell by now :D). Flawless otherwise, but that taint just sits there festering in the back of my mind.
On the other hand, I do give the connectivity features a bit more value than this fellow. I find that there's more than just the screen to keep it interesting. There's plenty that connectivity can potentially do that I feel makes it worthwhile (though the whole unlocking of things already in the game part I think should not ever be done again EVER). As an example, Animal Crossing I feel is one of the best. It shows promise in 2 ways I think. First off, one can download little mini-games to the GBA for on the go play. This can't be done otherwise, and as a result I believe one gets MORE, rather than having to DO more for less. The ability to take a system with nothing in it and toss in a multiplayer experience from some NES game is great alone, but I feel the greatest potential comes from the OTHER thing Animal Crossing does. You can also download little tools like a pattern creater to the GBA. This ability is already in the game proper, so the GBA isn't outright NEEDED, but when you want to be on the go, it's great to be able to take your GBA along and create some nice pattern while on the bus or something. More than that, you can actually go about trading patterns, something that really adds to it, with others you meet out in that big world this way. I feel that adds great potential. One flaw I find with Animal Crossing is the actual REQUIREMENT to use a GBA to go to Animal Island in the game. That's not right at all. LL had to wait a while before he got a GCN/GBA cable so he could get to the island, and that makes everyone at TC sad! They should have allowed access and full interaction with the island without the GBA. Allow me to say this though. I also feel that ASIDE from that one flaw, I consider the concept of the GBA aspect of the island to REALLY be great. To me, that whole concept was just very lovely. I loved being able to take my little island with me and play around with a part of the main game on the go, occasionally interact with other's islands via link-up, and then upload the changes I made back INTO the game. I think that little island's on-the-go abilities all together represent the greatest aspects of this connectivity. It's just so coool :D. Pokémon Stadium is also a good example, as it also shows how nothing needs to actually be UNLOCKED via the cart to get something out of the link. One was just able to take their trained monsters and take them into this other game, play around with them, possibly train them some more there, and drag them back. If you ask me that game showed how well the connectivity could work in the OTHER direction, but I still find the Animal Crossing abilities to be better, except that part about actually NEEDING the link-up to get to the island anyway. I think Nintendo has used the link-up well a few times, but overall it seems to me like the link-up is being used just for making money sometimes, like in Metroid Prime...
As far as the E-Reader stuff, I have to say I actually like the concept of the E-Reader now more than before SMB3 was released (calling it SMA4 just seems too awkward to me...). Before, I eventually got it because I kinda got caught up in the gadgety nature of it. (I like gadgets :D.) However, soon enough I started seeing it as just a cheap way to release games and not really offering anything unique to gaming at all. It wasn't too big a deal, except I'd much rather have bought some NES game collection cart than a bunch of NES games in card form. Also, I started seeing the unlocking of items in Animal Crossing as just another form of the link cable thing, the part I thought was bad above, the part about unlocking stuff already in the game's code. I had thought that the cards might add whole new items. Since the cards can hold all manner of animated sprites and sound effects, I had assumed maybe they could fit a lowly detailed model in there for like a new chair or something they hadn't included before, so I could collect some whole new set like a "Fire Emblem" set or something, though I would hope it would be cheaper than getting a whole lot of cards... However, rather I found, well, what I said above. I found that very, well, annoying. I just didn't want to have to buy a bunch of card packs just to unlock stuff already coded into the game. This was my opinion, that I had bought something useless, until I heard that SMB3 would support these cards. I thought "hmm" until I heard it would actually allow one to scan in new levels and items that weren't even coded INTO the game (which of course the cards are fully capable of doing, since they can store a decent amount of data in those dots, ya know, like whole mini-games like on the pokémon cards). That's a VERY enticing thing, to me at least. A game that otherwise wouldn't be able to get online in any way being able to get expansions and extended playing out of it is something I just like the idea of, especially with it being Super Mario Bros. 3 :D. I just love how the cards are adding all manner of new levels, new items like a feather or yoshi, and new abilities like maybe a back flip or something. However, it could get a tad expensive as things go on. I think the one failing is these new things, while very cool, are a lot more expensive to get than the extras one can get for other systems. In any case, my overall view of the e-reader is that with SMB3 out, it's existance is justified in my eyes. Though, if the GBA ever got online, my need for it would shrink down to a singularity, which would eventually evaporate away via the process of the random appearence of virtual particle pairs, some of which get seperated and one anti-particle falling in, ending in a massive explosion once the gravity becomes too weak to overcome the repulsive nature of particles from each other, about a google years from now.
As for the rest of it, regarding online play, kinda a tinted view of how things actually are pretty much.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)