Wow... this is now my #1 most-anticipated DS game

[OB1]

The site for Another Code is up now: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/anoj/index.html

Check out that video! Looks amazing. Nintendo should really be hyping this up because it simply looks terrific. Best of the dual screens so far, definitely. Love the visuals and music, too.

Awesome. Hope it gets localized soon!

[A Black Falcon]

I predict it comes out a few days after Magical Vacation...

[OB1]

HA! It's actually been confirmed for a US release, actually.

[A Black Falcon]

That's good... it seemed like the kind of game that they'd drop here.

[Great Rumbler]

*cough*OldNews*cough*

[Dark Jaguar]

Ya know, I like Myst type puzzles pretty well and all, and I suspect a lot of clues found elsewhere will need to be remembered to solve them, but I hope they also decided to focus a little on more item based puzzles. You know, like, "Hi, I'm Waldorf the Boatsman. I enjoys the high seas and would be happy to escort you to the island, but currently my boat is stuck. If I had a crane I could move it..." And then you find the crane, but you need the key to start it, which can only be found inside a clock which you need to solve a weird riddle just to open, or use the hammer. Then, like right after that, you hear someone say "hey what was that noise?" since you had to sneak into someone's attic just to get to the ONE clock in town :D, and now you have to find an item to use as a distraction fast or be thrown out and have to break in all over again.

[Great Rumbler]

Okay, I just saw the video clip. You're right, it's got great music. Also, I like the interface, having a 3D overhead represenation of the world on the bottom screen and you're free to walk around in it and a 2D image of what you're facing on the top screen. The graphics are really good too.

[A Black Falcon]

The movie does make it look pretty good, doesn't it...

[Dark Jaguar]

Ya know, there is no reason that interface couldn't be done on like a super wide or super tall screen :D. Just saying...

Also, it seems the DS really is capable of showing 3D on both screens at once (really, why, on a technical level, would that not be possible?). I mean, I played Mario 64, and specifically, one of the minigames where you have to bounce a bunch of Marios all over the place. The backgrounds are 2D, but Mario is certainly 3D, and he's 3D on both screens, and you can get one on the top and one on the bottom. Maybe it's because there is only a few Marios and the trampolines to render in 3D, but I'm pretty sure the system is capable of 3D on both screens at once.

[Great Rumbler]

Why would you want a really tall screen?

Also, it seems the DS really is capable of showing 3D on both screens at once.

Another Code doesn't do that, though. The top screen displays 2D renderings.

(really, why, on a technical level, would that not be possible?)

It would drain too much of the resources to show display 3D on both screens. Say, if in Mario 64 it had the same things on both screen, the 3D world, essentially the part of the system that renders 3D would have to render everything TWICE which would bog everything down and make the game unplayable.

[Dark Jaguar]

Not exactly. The system need not even realize that there ARE two screens. Only the part that sends the finished image needs to know what screen is doing what. Before that, the entire thing only needs to be rendered as one really tall image, if done that way. The question is if that's just too much to do at once. I just wanted to point out that the physical reality of there being two screens is something the main graphics engine, up until that last part, doesn't need to even know.

Why would I want one really tall screen? Why would I want two screens anyway? If it's to show a bunch more stuff due to extra space, then might as well make it one really tall screen. Why? Because then if a game wants to it can show one large undivided image of gameplay. Think overhead scrolling space shooter for just one example of this. I mean, they can do that anyway, but there will be that bit of plastic in the way, and it'll have to be designed with that in mind for EVERY game that wants to do something like that.

The reality is the duel screen setup was entirely because they wanted to keep the system small, something I understand. I mean, the system would look like a tetris piece if they put the long screen on the horizontal system. And, doing it vertically would make for something you also couldn't fit in your pocket. They had to go clamshell, and ya can't just fold up a screen, so they split it. It was needed by design, so I understand. What I don't like is being told that the two screen setup allows for some sort of innovation, which it doesn't. The touch screen does, sure, and the advertising is focusing on that here in America (should have been called the TS), but not the duel screen aspect. That was just an engineering solution to a problem.

[A Black Falcon]

Of course it is... there never was a hard-and-fast split, just two processors, one much stronger, so that that was suggested, as far as I know. Putting 3d on the lower screen probably takes some power from the main processor... but if it's only a little there's probably no problem.

[OB1]

If it were one giant screen then the entire thing would have to be a touch screen, and it would make holding the playing the unit cumbersome. Can you imagine holding a handheld with one tall, flat screen?

*cough*OldNews*cough*

I wasn't here when you posted that.

[Great Rumbler]

I wasn't here when you posted that.

[OB1]

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[Dark Jaguar]

Actually ABF either screen can show full 3D. They tend not to have both show full 3D at once though. Bottom or top, each could show Mario 64 equally well. And, as in the case of that minigame, they can show 3D on both screens at once. However, since showing more means processing more, they just go ahead and limit how much 3D is being done at times like that.

Oh and, from what I can tell, that second weaker processor is actually the GBA inside the system. I mean, is it? I'm not sure, didn't really read the specs. On the one hand, just like how the GBA actually had the GBC hardware all on one chip so as to allow nearly perfect GBC and GB emulation (not even really emulation since it was the actual hardware), I can see how they would put all the GBA's abilities on one processor, the weaker one, so that they wouldn't have to emulate GBA games but actually play them on the normal hardware. If that's not the case, then the second processor could just be for when the games really are processing two totally different images. Wait, that makes sense now. It's not that each one is assigned to a screen, it's that each one is assigned a specific rendering task. This means that the rendering of 3D scenes would not be limited by also rendering other 2D scenes. The weaker one would just be the 2D one. In theory that means they could just as easily split it horizontally, with 3D on the left of both screens and the 2D processor on the right of both screens, but for obvious reasons, no they won't be doing that :D.

Anyway I think I get how it was designed better now.

[Great Rumbler]

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[OB1]

Dogwaffle is so great.

[Great Rumbler]

Explodingdog is better.

[OB1]

Dogwaffle is the name of the drawing program I used to "paint" that, silly.


And this:

[Sacred Jellybean]

Nintendo... is actually going to make a game... that has emphasis on story and storytelling? *faints*

I might get a DS just for this game. Instead of, you know, that PS2 I'm always talking about buying for the Silent Hill games.

[OB1]

Hey contrary to what Miyamoto and Iwata are always talking about, Nintendo has made games with a well-done story. Wind Waker, Minish Cap, Eternal Darkness, Paper Mario 1 & 2 (in the sense that the dialogue is great, so it's kind of like a Tarantino picture or something... minus the cursing), and some others.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Well, Nintendo doesn't seem to think it was a problem that the story in Metroid Prime: Echoes was poorly told...

[OB1]

Give Retro time, man. Give them time.

[Great Rumbler]

Explodingdog is a better website than Dogwaffle is a painting program.

[OB1]

Dogwaffle is the cheap alternative to Adobe Illustrator! You are MAD, man! MAD!!!!

[Great Rumbler]

How can you not like stuff like this?

[OB1]

Dude I'm the one who showed you that site!


BTW you missed one of the funniest Arrested Developments ever last night. Martin Short played a 90-year-old ex-radio-drama-voice-actor-turned-cripped-body-builder and I laughed so hard that I think I peed a little. No show is as funny as AD. Nothing even comes close.

You did have to see a lot of season two to get a lot of the jokes, though. The show uses a lot of long-running jokes that make it even funnier.

[Great Rumbler]

Dude I'm the one who showed you that site!

No you didn't! You post an image from that site once, and never once said where you got it!

BTW you missed one of the funniest Arrested Developments ever last night. Martin Short played a 90-year-old ex-radio-drama-voice-actor-turned-cripped-body-builder and I laughed so hard that I think I peed a little. No show is as funny as AD. Nothing even comes close.

AGH! I had it in my mind to watch AD, but I went off to do something else and I forgot! *pulls own hair out*

[OB1]

No you didn't! You post an image from that site once, and never once said where you got it!

I posted it a bunch of times and even gave you the link!

AGH! I had it in my mind to watch AD, but I went off to do something else and I forgot! *pulls own hair out*

Yeah that was a pretty dumb move on your part, I must say. But you wouldn't have gotten some of the funniest bits since you haven't watched any of season two (for SHAME). Like the chicken stuff and the wolf call. Such a funny show...

[OB1]

*cue "The Final Countdown"*

[OB1]

A long-running season two joke that you had to have seen before to really get. Funniest part of the whole episode:




"Buster threw what he thought was her favorite toy at what he thought was her car"

[Great Rumbler]

Heh. :D

[OB1]

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[Great Rumbler]

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[OB1]

And now I don't have time to beat that! Tarnation!

[Great Rumbler]

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[OB1]

Hahaha... damn I wish I weren't at work right now.

[Great Rumbler]

This is one of my favorite so far:

[OB1]

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[Great Rumbler]

Hmm...

[OB1]

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[Great Rumbler]

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[OB1]

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[OB1]

Back on topic, Another Code received a 9/10/8/8 from Famitsu! Awesome!

[A Black Falcon]

Good scores... :)

[Great Rumbler]

Excellent, now I know I'll have to get it when it comes out. So when exactly is that?

[OB1]

FOrty!

[Great Rumbler]

What?

[OB1]

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