18th September 2005, 7:59 PM
Quote:Yeah. Only a few games really utilized it well. Treasure of Tarmin, which I mentioned earlier, did. It was a very complex game for its time, and you used the keypad to open doors, wield weapons, climb ladders, and shuffle your large inventory (I think a full four buttons went just to that), saving a lot of clumsy menu navigating.
Plus, a huge 255 level dungeon generated completely at random every game doesn't hurt either. I still love this game. There isn't a single note of music in it through
Yes, it is true that very simple controllers lead to increased menu complexity... but 'we need more buttons so let's just lay out a keyboard of them on the gamepad' is not the right way to do that while making a good controller. (of course, as I said before, "let's have square corners" was no good either... NES 2 controllers may not look quite as cool as original NES ones (and the same goes to the system), but in both cases they are far more functional...
Quote:Well, that's only because the controller is designed vertically. They're still shoulder buttons. There's no room on the top for any, and if there were, they'd be too hard to reach.
They're side triggers. :) (that is, it seems like they'd be an attempt to bring joysticks to gamepads and add triggers, but without a stick to stick the trigger on like joysticks have, they put it on the side... though of course I don't know if the Intellivision was actually first to do that or if someone else did first.)
Quote:I know. I never owned a II though, or a III. I had seven machines in total, but all were either first-gen or the SYSTEM III, which was basically identical to the INTV I.
I know I'd heard those things were fragile, but wow... SEVEN? What do they do, break constantly?
Quote:I don't know... Play 2 includes the hardware. I think so far every ET game has been packaged with hardware, though some have also been standalone.
But if you already have one, wouldn't they have a package that doesn't have the eyetoy?
Quote:No, there isn't anything innovative about it. Every new feature is an improvement on previous ideas.
Wonder where they got the idea of four shoulder buttons from?
From wanting two more buttons while not making it six face buttons (a bad decision the whole industry still thinks was good, sadly). I wouldn't call that innovative by any stretch of the imagination...
Oh, and you forgot to reply to that last part... and didn't make the quote work correctly either. :)