The Gamer's Quarter

[Cycle]

this trailer for it is pretty awesome, compares the PC, genesis and 360 versions.

PoP 360 trailer

I've heard mixed things, most have been favorable though. The new 3D intro kinda sucks. the hints you see in the trailer can be turned off!
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[dessgeega]

wow, it looks pretty ugly, especially compared to the clean appearance of the original game. it looks like they just drenched everything in lighting effects. also what's up with the glowing icons on switches and that "butterfly"? do they think players are idiots?

maybe i'll try the demo!
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[Cycle]

you can turn the icons and butterflys off! they are for idiots!

although, yeah, i don't really like how it looks either. i like the original PC graphics over anything else.
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[Mr Mustache]

God, it really looks terrible. The Sands of Time aesthetics really missed the mark. Seeing them grafted on to the first game is almost comical.
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Straight up

[SuperWes]

Yeah, I don't think it looks terrible, terrible, but it's not as charming as the original. Honestly, I didn't really like what I played of it. I like the more forgiving controls and I actually don't mind the butterfly, but there's just something about it that gives it a cruddy aura. I was pumped about it before I played it, but now that I've tried it I think I'd be fine skipping out on this one.

-Wes
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[dessgeega]

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[dessgeega]

wow.



gack.



i guess i should turn it on.
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[Intentionally Wrong]

[dessgeega]

where were you when dessgeega got an xbox?
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[dessgeega]

let it be known to the ages that the first xbox game i bought was doom, and the first i played was pac-man. wow, it's really good. then i played through episode 1 of doom. i've got the prince of persia demo downloaded. i will play it later.
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[dessgeega]

so prince of persia is awful. it's hideous and awkward, and even if you turn hints off, switch plates still glow - orange for ones that open doors, red for ones that close them. the gameloft really does think players are idiots. they don't think players are very persistant either - there are checkpoints in the middle of stages now.

so, the xbox. the dashboard is clunky to navigate and pretty ugly - and, most damningly, it plays ads. the d-pad is worthless, and i've been using the left analog stick to play pac-man. the sticks are actually very nice, but pac-man is clearly a game designed for digital control and sometimes the stick just isn't precise enough for what i want to do.

the virtual keyboard is an incredible pain to use. smartly, you can use the free microphone to send voice messages instead of "typing", but they only let you record like ten seconds!

the xbox really stands out from my other hardware, being the only "current-gen" console i now own. it's interesting. i like having a console that is online, one that lets me communicate with people and download games. doom and pac-man are great.


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[simplicio]

[Ethoscapade]

people keep trying to do something with a concept that was basically a compromise in the first place (hi gunpei). in the age of pac-man 360 and whatever else (whatever else being new games journalism) it's really beginning to seem like d-pads should be left by the wayside about as much as it seems like games companies ought to stop being celebrated for making regressive 2D "action platformers" (were the ducktales game released in 2007 it would need at least two words to describe its genre; maybe three) when there's not a soul on the planet that's played every fun game in the NES library and the designers could be trying something new for a change.

[JasonMoses]

[dessgeega]

[dessgeega]

i just finished extra mode 3 for the first time, and that was heart-thumpingly, exhileratingly great.
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[dessgeega]

played some demos.

shadowrun is sort of interesting. clicking through menus while being shot at is too much for me to deal with. probably the better part of the criticism directed at the game will be that, as basically an fps, it's not a very thorough implementation of the shadowrun world. i'm okay with that, though - the game is more important than the license. (see ghost in the shell, and wes's article on it.) and if i want to play a videogame version of pen and paper shadowrun, there's always the genny game.

time pilot is hideous, it's also 400 points which is exactly how many i have left. apparently i can turn the original graphics back on and there's multiplayer? hmm.

worms. i will play someone at worms. that is a perfect game for live arcade multiplayering. how do i buy online time, anyway? i assume it's here in the dashboard somewhere.
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[helicopterp]

[dessgeega]

there are two challenge modes, and then three extra modes. extra mode 3 was the last one i finished - the mazes are small and it gets very fast at the end (the goal, at least initially, is to survive for ten minutes). there's another mode where the mazes are wide open. the extra modes are really just themed sets of mazes, but they're pretty neat to play through.
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[dessgeega]

crystal quest. i hate how they turned it into just another lackluster live arcade robotron shooter. it's extra terrible when they let you play the original game and it's just so much tighter than the remake could hope to be.
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[dessgeega]

something weird about doom: the tower in episode 2 doesn't get built. even when you finally reach it, it's only half-finished.

i spent my last 400 points on geometry wars. it's still hard to dodge enemies because the screen tends to fill with unintelligible sparkly vectors. it's still probably the best shooter on live right now, at least until they let jeff minter but llamatron up for download (this is not a rumor but a furtive wish). i should try smash t.v. at some point.
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[fish]

[dessgeega]

too bad the combat in sands of time is terrible.

i enjoyed the non-fighting bits, though. jordan mechner makes anything he touches that much more charming.
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[dessgeega]

finished doom (at least, the original episodes), and picked up the nightmare achievement while i was at it. who wants to play me online?
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[dessgeega]

bought: used copy of half-life 2, online. (six bucks.) considering purchase: serious sam, panzer dragoon orta. provide feedback, offer further suggestions, etc.
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[SuperWes]

[Wall of Beef]

[fish]

[dessgeega]

[dessgeega]

[SuperWes]

[Wall of Beef]

[dessgeega]

[fish]

i remember whatever i version i had on some old black and white mac to be absolutely unplayable.

true story: prince of persia next gen was almost a first person game.
for immersion's sake.
because you know, cant be immersive in third person.

fuck i hate ubisoft.

also, dessgeega, check your messages.
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you cant spell selfish without fish

[SuperWes]

[dessgeega]

[SuperWes]

[fish]

vampire's rain!
HAHA!
HAHAHA!
HAHAHAHA!

oh man, that thing was one of the most elaborate joke i've ever seen.
it tries SO hard to be slinter cell with vampires.
right down to pretty much every little animation.
a friend of mine who worked on a bunch of SCs showed it to me.
its really quite amazing.
id love to see a side by side comparison one day.
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you cant spell selfish without fish

[SuperWes]

[fish]

[Six]

[SuperWes]

[Six]

Yeah, it just occurred to me that they probably only work on debug boxes. I think I tried to transfer the one I had, once, and I couldn't get it to work.

[Cycle]

[fish]

fable is garbage, as far as im concerned.
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you cant spell selfish without fish

[simplicio]

[Mr Mustache]

[kirkjerk]

That was a great link, thanks.

I kind of like the original white-suited character. I always thought he looked a bit like Luke Skywalker from the first movie, and without the turban, he's a bit more of a cipher the player can project on, ala "Understanding Comics"' take on "Tintin". Then again, he was the first one I met (had time I had to kill on a trip to Portugal in 1992, got through Prince of Persia (on my own! no help around back then... ) and a surprisingly great port of Ironman Offroad Racing) so maybe I'm biased.

Back to the link... the plethora of old ports reminds me of a (perpetually stalled?) effort to port the game to the Atari 2600:
http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=64948
There was some argument about whether the goal was to be as close to the original with the frames of animation, or get a more iconically atari look into it.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[dessgeega]

so i guess the shadow and the flame prince is based on the mac prince, then?

further questions: am i the only person who finds the snes port really ugly?

i've actually been playing the original prince in dosbox for the past few days, and i can't for the life of me get past level 8.
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[SuperWes]