The Gamer's Quarter

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 10:43 pm Post subject:

_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

AAAAAARRRRRGGHHHH There are so many spoilers in IGN's spoiler-free twilight princess review.

What is the frigging MATTER with some people.

Laco · Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:43 am Post subject:

purplechair · . Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 378 Location: in my pants

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

It was linked to from another site

And it had a Zelda review on it.

Lockeownzj00 · . Joined: 16 Aug 2005 Posts: 214

According to Gamespot, Red Steel is a 5.5.

Is anyone surprised? What a stupid, stupid move, Nintendo, that will only tarnish your reputation.

xvs07 · . Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 160

To anyone who's reading this, Radio Shack is doing Wii preorders *right* *now*. I just scored one. I'd move fast if the timestamp on this is less than ten minutes old.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

See the title of this thread.

GSL · Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:48 pm Post subject:

purplechair · . Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 378 Location: in my pants

Generating a lot of hype over a mediocre game (probably just because it's your only FPS at launch)?

I lost interest in Red Steel the first time I saw the bullet time staple gun special move. There's nothing even remotely cool about pausing your game in order to call shots at people. If they really needed to do a slow motion effect, they should have done it like Viewtiful Joe and allowed you to do ridiculous tricks like shooting people's guns out their hands.

Anyway, I have a question: The Virtual Console can't play multiplayer games over the net, right? (Because that would be an excellent and worthy new feature, and we're talking about the only company who still don't put ethernet sockets on their consoles.)

player 2 · . Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 585 Location: Madison, WI USA

Ethernet ports suck.

Also, netplay is hard.
_________________
Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I just saw my first Wii advert on TV. It was exactly like the Japanese ones but with the voiceover dubbed by an English woman. YAY

GSL · Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:41 pm Post subject:

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

SuperWes · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 8:36 am Post subject:

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

xvs07 · . Joined: 22 Sep 2005 Posts: 160

So... did anybody actually *get* one yet? Probably a stupid question because the individuals who might affirm are occupied...

Lestrade · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:29 am Post subject:

FUCKING WIIIIIIIIIIII

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Is this a caption contest?
_________________
"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Mr. Mechanical · Friendly Stranger Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276

chompers po pable · . Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 142

josephine hart wrote a book called Damage. it's a good book.

B coma · . Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Posts: 279

whoa, wrong thread, trying again.

I got my Wii after an all-nighter and had enough time to play one match of Tennis with a friend before heading off to work, where I am typing this post

It was really fun though. I picked it up in seconds.

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

Yeah, Wii GET, after 8 hours wait at the Fred Meyer. I was number 16, and they had 52 units. I was so freaking tired when it was all done that I had to wait to set it up until mid morning today. But overall Fred Meyer (a local department store/Target type place/grocery store) did a great job with the midnight launch for a place that hasn't done midnight launches previously, and the only real downside was that it was terribly cold and windy. Tennis and Bowling were both fun-- bowling is much less 'patterny' seeming than other video game bowling I've played. It feels pretty real. We didn't crack Zelda yet.

Plus! I designed my Mii to have super weird intense eyes.

Toto · 4th Man Joined: 21 Mar 2006 Posts: 122

Requesting more Wii photos from Lestrade. That is a sassy looking machine.

GSL · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 8:45 pm Post subject:

Scored mine this morning from the local Wal-Mart. It opened at 7, girlfriend and I showed up at 6:30 and were #15 out of 18 units. Ironically, I was 15th out of 14 preorders at the local EB earlier this month.

I'm sure glad I didn't rely on the numbers from that Wiiseeker.com, though--they had the local Wal-Mart at 53 units.

I had time for about 20 minutes of Wii Sports before going to work today; I'm still struck dumb at how utterly awesome both the execution of that game and the general concept of the Wii are. I mean, I half expected it to not quite live up to the hype, but it totally does and then some.

Happy freaking 23rd birthday, indeed.

dessgeega · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject:

happy freaking twenty-third birthday, greatsaintlouis!
_________________

Lestrade · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:14 pm Post subject:

GSL · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:04 am Post subject:

That's some sexy Wiimote modelling!

So I'm still trying to whip Wii Sports into shape. The controller presents an interesting dillemma: it allows the user to approximate a normal movement and translate that into a game movement; swinging the racquet in Tennis, for example. However, I'm not entirely sure how my real-life movement translates into the game; my Mii character has a fairly similar tennis swing animation each time, yet I'm beginning to discern a relation between things like the angle of my swing, if I twist my wrist, etc. and how the ball flies. It's truly like playing a game of tennis in which you can't see your racquet. I'm having a lot of fun slowly getting the hang of it. Now Golf is another matter entirely--I think I was something like 10 over par on my first hole because I just kept blasting the damn ball back into the rough.

Red Steel I haven't put as much time into, but I liked what I played so far. It's going to take me a while to get used to the whole Wiimote-as-FPS-mouse concept, though. The little touches in the game were what immediately grabbed me; during a shootout in a restaraunt kitchen, one of my poorly-aimed bullets hit the burner of a propane stove, causing the whole thing to explode and reducing the kitchen's enemy count by about three. I was quite impressed. Still need more time on it, though.

And in a really strange turn of events, the Wii actually runs Freeloader discs! My Gamecube is one of the newer versions that has the Digital Out port removed from the back; it also refuses to boot my Freeloader disc which had worked perfectly on the earlier revision of the system that still had the Digital Out port. To my surprise, the Wii loaded the disc right away, and soon I was playing Shikigami no Shiro 2.

So does anyone have any reports about some of the other launch titles? I'm especially interested in hearing how Metal Slug Anthology and Trauma Center are. Heck, I might even be just a tad interested in Twilight Princess!

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

So, I have half a Wii. Sort of.

A friend of mine waited in line, picked one up, and probably right after Thanksgiving I'm going to buy it off of him.

Quick thoughts:
I don't like the design. This glossy white plastic thing dual layer thing worked ok for an iBook, but for a Wii it just looks like a toilet. I think I will be owning mine with stickers, my protest against industrial design I don't dig. I loved the GC's design, and the N64 was ok.

Making a Mii was surprisingly satisfying.

Battiing practice was cool, and boxing was energetic.

So this thing is 100% GC compatible? Kewl... It's funny how I'm less aware of these issues these days.

Other slowly dawning awreness: SD memory cards??? SWEET. Mostly for this reason: increasingly, I resent having to master a game in a single player kind of way in order to unlock multiplayer fun. But I've never quite mustered sending away for a device for that. 100% complete downloads, here I come...

Playing Zelda, I guess I see what people mean by the system feels less next-gen.

Overall I'm less psyched than I've been for previous launches, at least the GC; but the GC had Star Wars and Smash Brothers almost on launch.

Part of it is just me getting older, and having fewer friends who can make time for gaming.

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

Should we consider a new Wii-specific thread or is one probably enough?

Anyway, furhter Wii thoughts:

the new controllers present some interesting vocabulary challenges, both in the "mental vocabulary" and in how to intelligibly communicate w/ other gamers, as in a FAQ. Roll, pitch, yaw.... it's kind of crazy. With a traditional controller, the # of possible moves were well-bounded, and I was aware of those boundaries, but now I'm not sure. (For instance Wii-Sports baseball; all my pitches turn into fastballs, and I haven't researched it but it seems like a txt faq might be hard pressed to describe the swing...)

Making it worse, of course, is the lack of pushback.... it's kind of weird that the player, in general can flail wildly, but the mapping to the movement on screen is likely much more constrained. My friend claims that I oversteer in ExciteTruck a lot, maybe because of this.

I really enjoyed the Wii-Sports boxing, but it was a little but unsatisfying because there isn't that one to one mapping between the fighter's fists and the players.... the boxer has some concept of recharge time. I think games that manage to preserve a 1-to-1 mapping between the control's position and someting inside the game should be commended.

(Plus does the thumbstick part of the nunchuk have a position sensor, or just an accelerameter?)

Someone pointed out that one area of improvement is not so much the mapping w/ the onscreen avatar (ala acting as an Excite Truck steering thing) but as a pointer, like the fairy in Zelda; in a way, that opens up the same kind of mapping that the DS touchscreen features.

GSL · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:38 pm Post subject:

So, what's the deal with the Wii LAN adaptor? Is it out yet, or is that something that's coming soon?

Giving Nintendo the benefit of the doubt once more, I re-installed my WiFi USB dongle, thinking that the updated software from their website would fix all of my previous woes. I was able to update my Wii and get access to QVC or whatever their online shop is called (WTF, I thought they were providing Opera as a free download? Where is it?), but I still had the same issues with the adaptor as I did upon Mario Kart's release; namely, I could only connect if I completely disabled my firewall (different firewall program this time, so I know that's not the case) and the Registration Tool would freeze up and become entirely unusable upon rebooting my PC. I took a look at the forums on NintendoWifi.com, and noted a number of people that seemed to have problems connecting to the adaptor as well. Unfortunately, the moderators employ a mantra of "Oh, look at the FAQS and troubleshooters on the site, they'll fix everything." Obviously, they don't, and the combination of miserably unhelpful 'service' with an abysmal product that I have yet to see work properly once means I'm just not going to screw with it anymore. I've never had problems with wired internet and I'm glad that Nintendo is giving us this option. I'm not sure where that leaves my DS as far as playing with people online, but I have yet to do so even once and can't really say there's any sort of must-have killer app yet that makes me want to invest the time in it.

Fred · . Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 99 Location: Iowa

Lestrade, that is some fine Wii-tography and a Public Good for all. Good show.

In separate news, I don't necessarily know what's going on here but I support it nonetheless. All credit goes to some dude on myspace what is friends with a buddy's daughter.

GSL · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:48 am Post subject:

Lestrade · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:02 am Post subject:

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

I jsut want another Wii-mote and nunchuk pair...

re: the graphics... I haven't really seen much on 360/PS3, but it's still kind of annoying how, say, the ground is shaped in Zelda, like in the village, just a bit clunky.

Also, how does this generation do with circles? I'm amused at how like in Super Monkey Ball on the GC you can still count the sides, more or less...

purplechair · . Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 378 Location: in my pants

You jerks are now officially living two and half weeks in the future.

SuperWes · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 1:18 pm Post subject:

Zelda is so freaking good. I got stuck somewhere in the pre-Twilight World stuff at the very beginning, but as soon as that stuff happened the game's really taken off. It's really something special. Why hasn't anyone mentioned to the anti-Ocarina, pro-Majora's Mask people that the game basically flips back and forth between the two games' motifs? Good shit.

-Wes
_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Based on everything I've read, I don't think I need to buy a Wii. I mean, i already own a gamecube!

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:03 pm Post subject:

so here's a question. how does the magic wii network work? let me rephrase that: if i import a japanese wii can i play japanese wii virtual console games? because the japanese virtual console has some good stuff coming out for it.

(and doesn't require me to look at the turbographx-16 logo.)
_________________

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

There was no setup at all required for the network, short of entering the key for my Airport wireless. That leads me to believe that a Japan region Wii might just connect to the Japanese Virtual Console store. But of course you would then need to pay for your Wii points through the J-store, right? Or are the J-version VC games priced the same? I'm not sure.

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

It's possible that wii points are region locked too (since they cost different amount in different regions) and to use the Japanese Wii store you'd need a Japanese credit card. This is how itunes handles it, in any event. I'd hope that nintendo wouldn't do something like that, but I also wouldn't put it past them.