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Comments
The Wii would have benefited quite a bit from introducing a Gamecube-like controller with an additional shoulder button on the left side. That said, the WiiU gamepad looks like it has all the necessary bits and bobs for standard console gameplay in addition to its touchscreen and Wiimote compatibility.
Also, it's probably worth noting that the WiiU announcements and such were closely followed with news of "hardcore" releases. Although I am kind of salivating over the idea of Dark Souls II on the WiiU, but not in any reasonable sense. No doubt FromSoftware would do something fantastic with the touch screen, but Dark Souls II won't have been designed with that kind of hardware in mind, so it couldn't benefit from it. Or at least not much; since the game doesn't pause, having the menu stuff permanently on the touch screen would be handy if nothing else.
But anyway, Dark Souls II. Fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes. Since I didn't get an opportunity to say it before. I am over the goddamned moon. This will be the best game ever released for any console in any era of gaming and cure cancer while singing sweet lullabies when I'm sad. It will dismantle illegal predator drones and distribute medicine to the needy. Its code will be written in Latin prayers and contain the universal equation plus all possible solutions. The blind will see, the lame will walk and the dumb will speak again. It will probably be very pretty to look at also.
I can see this working nicely for turn-based systems, but I think it would be too slow and imprecise for real-time systems. My favoured solution to the directional sword-swinging thing is thus:
edit: lol mod doubleposting
anti-life will make you whole
Yeah, that's pretty much how I'd want it. Very useful, doesn't get in the way of the game. Gimmick-system devs, take note.
I don't think From Software would actually want to do that in Dark Souls though. Though it'd probably be good for other games.
But it's clear that they wanted you to have to pay for the convenience of being able to switch weapons quickly (since secondary weapons still count toward your equip burden even if you're not actually holding them at the time), and that wouldn't really work if the menu system was actually easy and quick to navigate (and more importantly, if it didn't require any buttons that were actually used in gameplay). Though I guess they could work around that easily enough.
That's true, although perhaps they could use a system where equipping different items to your slots requires some kind of control shift -- like you click a button on the touch screen and your regular control buttons have to now be used to navigate your equipment. So you can't fight and equip different stuff at the same time.
It wouldn't be quick and easy. It would take just as much time, and your hands would actually have to leave the buttons to do it.
Nintendo is currently in a conundrum with this kind of stuff.
They do a crappy job with multiplatform..."hardcore" (ugh) games, then when they decide that they are gonna get better with it, people are like "Nintendo isn't for those games, fuck them."
Examples include Bayonetta 2.
I will say though, I'm already seeing signs of Nintendo improving. I have the new port of Ninja Gaiden 3 Sigma for the Wii U. It fixes many problems with the Xbox and PS3 versions, including adding back blood and decapitations. But here's the cool part.
In the start of 2013, Nintendo is releasing FREE DLC for the game, to allow you to play as Akane and Kasumi. That's pretty cool.
When someone says "play Ninja Gaiden" these days what do they usually mean?
Because I'm pretty sure the recent NG games are nothing like the GB game Ninja Gaiden Shadow.
Most likely the more recent ones unless context suggests otherwise.
What sorts of games are they like?
Is Velvet Assassin any good?
I've heard it's pretty meh, but I haven't heard much about it overall.
The Ninja Gaiden games (the newer ones) are Action games, similar to Devil May Cry, with lots of weird monsters, gore, and tough bosses.
Oh yeah, and Alex?
CT gets WAY less fun when you get to the endgame.
Sorta.
I've used the actual Chrono Trigger and it's shunted me into a freeform open world format. I'd say it's less "fun", but that's kind of worth it for how the emotional context of the game has changed. While the game up until now certainly had moments that punched you in the feels, they're coming faster and stronger than ever. It's like, everything up until the Blackbird came to nothing -- for all my efforts, I couldn't change history in any meaningful way, and the best I could do was make up for mistakes caused by the player characters. Overall, history has only been preserved, not improved -- until now.
I haven't defeated Lavos, but now my actions are having an effect on the game. Seeing a forest spring up where once there was wasteland, seeing Robo after the effect of four-hundred years and trying to understand how long that was from his perspective... and then peering into Lucca's own history and the tragedy I failed to avert, even though I now recognise how I might have. "Lara". Hah.
So yeah, Chrono Trigger has become somewhat less mechanically engrossing since it's no longer lighting a fire under my rear side and keeping things going on those grounds, but its character narrative just shot through the roof. What a marvelous game.
I guess this probably isn't a good opinion to hold but I tried to play Chrono Trigger once and I stopped as soon as the first battle started and I learned it had an ATB system as opposed to a normal turn-based system.
But... You've said before that narrative should always be supported by mechanics in order to be an excellent game. Which is what I take 'marvelous' to mean.
Could you like... give me some context on how the mechanics being less engaging still allows them to be a part of the narrative and not a seperate experience altogether?
^^ You monster.
Usually I dislike ATB systems as well, although even I have to admit that Chrono Trigger pulls it off well. More than "well", really -- it validates the whole approach in my opinion. Because yeah, most of the time, I find that ATB systems are basically just turn-based systems that force you to think in real time, so you may as well go the whole nine yards with a real-time system or true turn-based. Chrono Trigger uses the ATB system along the lines of its real potential, though, because the dual tech system forces you to consider the relative timings of each of your characters and make decisions based on that.
Or, in short, it uses the ATB system to ensure that you have choice in what you select. Most games don't have choice, just calculation where you always choose the most powerful option.
^ I have to leave shortly, so I'll leave a small answer and elaborate on it later if you find it insufficient.
Basically, most of the game is constantly pushing you forward through a linear path, which is unusual for a game where the narrative is based on time travel. The endgame content subverts the structure of the rest of the game, though, since you can now have a significant effect on the happening of the world through manipulation of time. So it's less engrossing because it's not actively pushing you towards challenges, but rather gives you a variety of options, including skipping directly ahead to the final boss.
So even though the gameplay isn't quite as tight as it used to be (which kind of just comes with an open world setup as opposed to a linear one), the narrative and the gameplay continue to find synchronicity. It's a part of the first two acts of the game leading to a false conclusion and actively subverting the concept of time-travelling as a tool of worldly influence. Basically, the first two acts of the game are lying to you through the implications the game has set up about the influence you can have over it. The third act makes good the promises of a time-travelling game, though, as well as specific promises the game made towards the beginning.
I'll probably have to elaborate on this, but it'll have to wait.
@DYRE: You can set ATB to "wait" so that as long as you're in a menu (anything other than the main Att./Tech/Item menu) time freezes on the opponents.
I am too tired to really make sense of your response anyway, so an elaboration would probably hurt more than help.
So, at the VGAs, there was a really weird trailer for a game called The Phantom Pain by the never-heard-of Moby Dick studios, designed by someone named Joakim Mogren.
Turns out, it's actually Metal Gear Solid V.
Hard ones.
So...The Secret World, which I thought looked pretty interesting, dropped subscriptions.
And of course, I'm currently juggling 2 MMOs, a review column I can never get done on time, and a slightly-fewer-hours-than-would-make-it-full-time job.
Steam is now testing their "community market." I don't know about you, but there's chance that players will now have finally the ability to sell their games if this catches on. I just sincerely doubt that it will be used exclusively with TF2 items.
To be fair, that's not entirely your fault. The game handles that particular input in a really weird and finicky way. IIRC it won't recognize just typing it in sequence, and you have to still be holding the shoulders when you hit A. Or something. It was far more of a glitchy pain in the ass than it had any right to be.
So, GOG.com is starting its holiday sale and is giving away Duke Nukem 3D for free.
^^ I think that's part of the point. It probably wants you to fail.
I just bought a decal tool off that market. Observations:
1. The item remains tradeable even after being sold.
2. The item is transferred without any direct contact with the other person.
3. According to the TF2 thread on TVTF, expect prices to stabilize rapidly, especially for key commodities such as...well, keys.
4. For some reason, the frontpage listing does not differentiate between different series of crates. However, the prices do, nota bene.
Yo, CU. I don't know if you've seen this yet, but here's a video about the TES MMO.