Oh, I seee, now I must look away in horror!!! Oo
I should just split this into multiple posts, it's long, but then again...
0:
Yeah, that ticked me off. I griped about that for about 3 weeks and even noticed a wireless GBA connector accessory in stores, so why no DS connectivity was more than frustrating.
I'll have my PSP, it's just on hold.
I found a Genesis emulator for the Touch yesterday, but of course the controls look non-tactile.
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The Genesis emulator is a good enough excuse for me. And since I've been seeing WiiSP games, * shudders * I might as well buy the system that some of these 'lazy' developers have been using as the starting point for their Wii games.
Chili Con Carnage looks funny. I had never even heard of it.
2:
When I made the comparison to the PS3, I was by no means stating that a Wii is as powerful/fast as a PS3, I was pointing out that the Wii's hardware, being newer, shares traits with other modern components, liked the PS3's GPU, and thus it's capable of doing similar tasks -- just scaled down. It's already clear that a Wii is capable of Antiscopic filtering, which the Cube was not. You can see this in games like Prime 3.
What I'm getting at, is that a GameCube with its nineties tech can not handle modern GPU effects. it would not be able to duplicate anything a PS3 can dish out, even at a much smaller scale, where as Factor 5 stated a Wii can. If I shove a DX8 card in my PC and some how over-clock it by even a 100 fold, it still won't be able to display a DX9 game correctly, if at all. Factor 5 states they could reproduce their PS3 engine on the Wii, that has to be proof enough that the Wii is simply not over-clocked dated-tech.
Here's a definitive difference between the Cube and Wii for starters and t's a known fact; Its GPU is allot bigger and it was manufacture at 90 nm. If it were just an over-clocked Flipper manufactured at 90 nm, it would be smaller than the Cube's 180 nm GPU, but this is not the case. So there's clearly more to the Wii's GPU, than just extra MHz.
The supposed leaks mention that the Wii has more TEV units and double the pipelines to make up for the extra girth of its GPU.
It's also known that it has a 128-bit memory interface, something a Cube did not.
I blame your skepticism on all of those lazy developers that have vomited PS2 games onto the Wii. I was the same way towards the PS2, thinking it was nothing more than an over-clocked PS1.
Anyways, 6 years had past between each console. 6 years...
That's a huge leap in performance and features for any GPU and any CPU.
The conclusion from this article from 2004 is relevant to what I'm trying to convey;
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2195&p=10
Even the newer low-end cards are better than the high end-cards from a couple of generations past and the Wii's GPU is based on a newer design than the GPUs they mention in the above article.
3:
I love the art for Wind Waker, but not in a weird way. In some areas it was really like being in a cartoon and its weather system really conveyed the different elements so wonderfully, because of the simplicity. I still rub it in my friend's nose that he didn't bother playing it.
It's more relevant now, because he's enjoying Phantom Hourglass.
Mario Party is cheese, but for cheese and wacky graphics, it's been so much fun. My friends are ages that vary mostly from their early thirties to mid forties and we've had a blast with it. It's fun that my their kids and sometimes our wives, can/will also join in. Anyways, I think if you were given the opportunity and you were with the right group, you might like it, but then again, it would probably bore you.
I played Brawl Wii for the first time on Tuesday night. My friend's nephews are in tow this week and I got my arse handed to me by the youngest. =o. To me it's like the Cube game, just tons of button mashing and chaos. I'm a Street Fighter nut, I believe in skill.
But obviously their is some skill in Brawl, because the 8 year old won every game, even against his uncle/my-friend -- who has always owned others in arcade fighting games.
4:
I'm jealous of your O2. I remember them at work, but I wasn't privy to one in the art department. I had a 9500 MP 180 at the time though.
But still.. Just not the same as having a SGI. ~i~
Elf-vomit was heavily advertised on tech-tv. It's EVIL and frustrates me, because it's not even worthy of mediocre.
I don't recall the doom thing.
I just thought it was a joke on the SNES, since I had my UBER 486 DX2 66, then my UBER P-90 @ 100Mhz.
5:
I never played Paper Mario on the Cube, only on the Wii version and I like it! You are bitter.
I don't really know how it differs from the Cub, but it's like the classic platformers, just with a few puzzles. To me it's worth about $30. Galaxy is fun, but I have yet to finish it. I've only played it for maybe 2 days. I actually went back and finished Super Mario DS instead.
OLED is awesome, I've been waiting for it ever since Popular Mechanics mentioned it. Blah. I figured it would be mainstream by now.
And if you're ever interested in trading your 60" for my 14" CRT, or 19" LCD TV, I would be willing to depart with either. I would just have to move my light-desk or something to make room.
I'm still too fickle about HD content and frugal, OK cheap, when it comes to my entertainment, this is why I'm looking at a 300 ton CRT widescreen set, besides the inherent distortion, I know they handle most content nicely. I figured that since they're discontinued, I'll get a good transition TV at a good price as people dump them for the newer sets, and that if it's like my current CRT and others that I've owned, it has at least a decade of life.
The bowling pins look jagged even on a nice SD CRT. I played Brawl on a SDTV, so I didn't see it there, but I could see the facets on some of the polygons. I know 480p has its pixel limitations, but when I can see the developer has put in the effort to work with those limitations, I'm happy. I would like Nintendo to bump it to 720p via firmware, but even then there's only a moderate difference in quality, so I'd rather have 60 fps with all the purdies -- which developers are slowly warming up to.
The times I get frustrated with the Wii's visuals, are when it's obvious that developer didn't even bother. When I hear about a Wii game being developed by the "other" studio, of which they're also conveniently developing the the PS2 and PSP version of a game, I cringe. It leaves me irritated and even though I won't buy the game, it still resonates with me, since it gives developers an excuse and belief that it's OK to not to put any extra effort in on the Wii and do things right.
It's just like the PS2 last generation, developers puked out some nasty looking game for the first years as they struggled to learn what works.
6 -- it's the 7:
Congratulations! But don't compromise on the console.
Just hold the engagement ring over her head as a deterrent. =O OK, I kid, that would create issues most likely. I've been married 11 and half years now. It has its.. Its.. Its good at times.
I just paid my corporate tax, so after I get one other expense out of the way, I'm going to finally get new portables. I've been waiting for a really long time. The two Ti-Books here finally died over the last year and if not for the whole Intel switch by Apple, I would have bought new books 2 years back. Just more excuses.
But I'm glad I waited, because even last year's models are nice!
8:
My component cable was $60 at Circuit City. It's extra long... My LCD TV bastardized Zelda TP so badly and I wanted to play it in widescreen, so I bought the first component cable I could find during that stupid shortage. It certainly helped and I could then happily play Zelda.
I was going to wait for Zelda Cube also. The only reason I jumped earlier, was because of Metroid Prime. I wasn't remotely interested in Metroid BTW, not until playing it for 3 hours at my friend's place. Then I bought a Cube that week. It was black and came bundled with Brawl, which I gave to my friend's kid.
UT supports it. So I was surprised that Orange Box did not -- lazy developers and that doesn't even make sense, since it's on the PC and it has mouse support. So what gives?!!
Shooters are usually intense adrenaline games... Especially when gaming with friends.
And if you like stories, I can guarantee you'll like System shock -- graphics aside, it has an awesome story. But you probably wouldn't be able relax. I used to run into the elevator and wait there as I tried to calm my nerves. The game was freaking scary, if not for the story, I would have stopped playing just to save my heart from exploding! O.O
9:
System Shock isn't really a survival horror in the sense of todays' console games that fit that description. It's a FPS adventure, in the flavor of Cyberpunk, but it doesn't suck. It's like reading a great, but scary sci-fi novel. Even with horrid controls, it's still so much better than most of this newer pampered stuff, enough that I can't shut-up about it.
It was released on PC and Mac back in 94. You're in luck, it's FREE now. Here's the link to
System Shock portable.
I still have my CD case, but I can't find the CD.
Note that the younger guys like System Shock 2 and it seems to get the most press. But I can tell you that it wasn't as good as the first -- which was so wonderfully balanced, but it's still an excellent game. If SS2 had been my first experience, I would have also been praising its merits -- it certainly had way better controls, but since it tried to be too many things and had some really stupid flaws, like monster-respawn
(They suck for this, and BIG-TIME) and super-fragile weapons of the future, it just didn't hold up to the first.
10.
I haven't even played that far with Dungeon Man 3. I took the monk's stein and let him stew me. :]
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I agree with mrgreen, good art direction is king. Games like Lost Wind are the kind of Wii games I look forward to playing. I personally like the art of games like World of Warcraft over Oblivion.
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You're going to miss out on some great games then.
I want it all also, but as I rambled, the best games I've played visually look like turds today. I except that not everything can be 100%. As long as the art style is right for the game and I can see they didn't puke it out, I'm usually happy and won't be bothered. I just don't like mediocrity, especially for controls. HD gaming to me is not a big deal, mainly because I've been gaming on PCs since the mid-eighties. I just got to a point where everything started to look the same , and even worse, play the same. When I play on my PC here, I game at 2560x1600, but when I go to a friends to play, sometimes I end up on 1024x768 screen, it really doesn't bother me. I've been spoiled with PC controls over the years, so of course my grumpy side has never liked playing any PC type game with a console controller. Even before I got my Cube, I was gaming at 1280x1024 on my PC. I had my stage when I was really excited about what was next with graphics, but that was when 3D accelerators were first introduced and games switched from 256 to thousands of colors -- now that was exciting. I still have my 2x Voodoo cards.
If I pay $60 for a game and it only lasts me 5 hours, it better be repayable, if not, I'll be annoyed. That's not much money, but when it comes down to what I like, I'd rather spend that on a reference book instead, which I buy more than games and there's never a hesitation about doing so, but with games, I always re-think if I really need to buy it or not, even if it's only $20. I guess it's priorities.
<]=)
