GG Weekly Videogame News 
The Last Story Presentation
Sakaguchi and co's showing recorded for your belated convenience.
ustream.tv
Agnates
Student Faces 3 Years in Prison For Modifying Xbox 360
That sounds reasonable
choiceopinion.com news
robio
Dude Gets 2.5 Years for Pirating $700,000 in Games
Used his work e-mail, got busted.
ripten.com news
aspro
2010 in quotes
“I make videogames for the so-so company Namco Bandai Games”
robotgeek.co.uk editorial
Foolz
Miyamoto on Skyward Sword development
" for the most part, we're kind of in the final stretch at this point."
zeldainformer.com news
gamingeek
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travo (1m)
Your welcome.
And if you are going to start reading Wiki, try reading Ignosticism. My personal favourite.
They'll have a recorded stream up tommorow for those who missed it, if no third party recorded it.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
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You forgot to mention that you can make everyone fight in the nude
Steel's GoTY 2011 confirmed!
Recording can be viewed on ustream now. And YouTube:
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
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Apparantly Iwata unexpectedly showed up and started to grill some people.
Iwate is going alpha male on the Gooch.
Will watch the upstream when I get back to work
Other updates here (equipment) here (battle) and here (world). Lots of screens, but it's all in flash. Good shit.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
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The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Happy Christmas GG! All the best to you and your family. Missed you around here yesterday brother.
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Thanks Bugs, Merry Christmas to you.
Right, got DKC Returns and Halo Reach.
DKC is good, solid that is. Very nice graphics, on my SDTV it looks like those dolphin screens, super clean and I love the art style. Up to the 3rd world now, like Robio I enjoy it, but I don't see what the fuss is about though, it hasn't done anything that has wowed me yet (although the sunset level came close), it seems like a fun throwback title with great presentation.
In gameplay terms, I would give NSMB Wii the nod over this game.
It isn't as hard as the old DK games, but that is a good thing. One thing that bothers me is the speed is reduced so it doesn't feel as fluid or fast as the old games. Although, critically I would have to say that that makes the game a lot fairer and the zoomed out camera helps things too. You really can't bemoan the cheap design like you could with the old Rare games.
It does make the gameplay feel a little more sluggish this time though. Also DKs jump move has no slack, so there are a lot of times where they place the gaps in between platforms at the upper limit of how far your character can jump. It feels almost like stretching an elastic band to its limits, which I don't like. It's a solid 8/10 for sure and who knows, it might get better. I wish I could switch between DK and Diddy though.
Halo Reach, I don't like so far. I was expecting it to be awesome based on reviews and how it was Bungies last Halo game and all that. It just doesn't feel like Halo to me, something is missing. The music for a start, it's so mundane, does anyone know if they changed composers for this game or not? Graphics are great, technically, for some reason though it's not popping with me artistically, I think it might be missing out on some bright colours I am more used to. I could be mistaken here but I'm used to louder Halo colours and this seems more muted. It's also hard to get excited about more detailed renditions of character models you know so well already. Visually, to me, art and colour play a large role, particularly contrasting colours.
Also I am used to being the big bad mother****** in Halo, wading in and sorting things out where the normal humans couldn't cope. Instead I just another faceless Spartan and I'm often fighting in a squad. I like to mill about in FPS, pick my spot, pick my timing and then rush out at just the right time and take people down. Here, by the time I am ready to do that, the other Spartans have actually finished some battles for me without me getting any action. There was one point on this sniper mission an Elite was around the corner, I reload then rush out to shoot this guy and just as I'm ready to pull the trigger a bullet comes from my Spartan teamate and kills the elite with one shot to the head. I feel like they are taking gameplay away from me. The game has also taken a few COD inspirations, here it's not the good parts, they have fighting with a squad whereas I am a lone wolf FPS guy, then they have these cool looking first person cutscenes, but then the transition between cutscenes and gameplay is jarring - with a giant black screen one moment and then your hud, gun etc the next.
I am getting more used to seamless cutscene/gameplay transitions like what I have seen in Assasins Creed 2, Goldeneye or Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Also some cutscenes seem to have the No More Heroes 2 effect where in wide shots the frame rate can dip and then back to normal in the close ups or vice versa.
Also the objective indicator is here sometimes, not there other times, so I'm wandering about not knowing where to go next, desperately looking at my team mates for direction like a baby, only sometimes they do no move.
There was also this frustrating section on walkways between buildings I cleared everything out and was waiting around for the next sequence to trigger, nothing was happening, the objective indicator was wigging out or not even there. My objectives on the pause screen had been done. And then in the end like COD, it came down to wandering into an invisible trigger point for the level to progress. It was sloppy and in COD it works out because the levels are fairly linear most of the time, in Halo where there is a far greater scope for movement and larger environments to walk about it, it feels sloppy as you spend a longer period of time wondering what to do.
Other little things bug me here and there: The Sniper rifle controls in the same way it always has in Halo, I used to love it, but IR makes using an analogue for sniping feel rather clumsy. Dual analogue with machine guns is okay, when I am supposed to feel like a crack shot sniper, mechanically shifting the cursor with a stick makes me feel very clumsy compared to using IR.
What makes it worse is the AI, which has gotten a whole lot more annoying. Why have elites suddenly picked up this awful jiggly, crazy guy, jump randomly left to right, run like a man with pants on fire AI? It can be infuriating trying to line up a shot because they just jump left to right constantly and run randomly about like crazy people so it can be very hard to get a shot on them. Where is the nuanced Halo AI I used to know so well. I feel like I am holding a cream pie and some kid is standing with his back against the wall, laughing whilst he jumps intermittently from left to right.
But the biggest problem so far is gravitas, the game lacks it. Halo has always felt "epic" at moments and this just seems flat to me, a good FPS should be paced well with ebbs and flows, peaks and quiet. This game feels plateaued at a medium point. I've only played about 3 hours though. Also the story isn't clicking with me. Needs to be more obvious and in your face I guess.
Ugh, don't post NSFW out of nowhere...
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
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sorry buddy
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
last story looks awesome it nearly looks to good to be a wii game, more then ever i hope N/A gets it i need this game
I'm still not sure what I think about the Last Story. The gameplay doesn't really look like it's my thing, but that city is really amazing. Everytime I see it, the more I want to explore it.
What about the gameplay don't you like? The combat mechanics look fairly intricate and involving yet also simple to use, without tired tropes like random encounters, separate battle scenes or whatever else, and with elements not often seen in JRPGs, like cover, stealth and interactive environments. It's like fantasy Mass Effect or something (but I disliked Mass Effect's combat, too plain and contained, this looks much more entertaining and interactive). About all I didn't like outside the few glitches and low end visuals here and there, was that they didn't use pointer controls for anything. Hopefully they've adapted those aiming elements to the pointer (there was a cursor option in a menu) to make an even more complete and polished package but it's ok if that's not the case. It gives me an Icewind Dale vibe in how approach, positioning and strategy are important elements. Do it wrong and the enemies make short work of you, but do it right and it's vice versa. That was demonstrated in the presentation once or twice, with the party going down fast when left without guidance or when not exploiting tactical advantages.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's nothing that I can really point to specifically, other than I don't do particuarly well with this style of combat in games. I never have. Typically I play games of a slower pace or less intricate. Puzzlers, classic arcade, strategy, more traditional RPGs .... farming games. That's not to say that I won't like this once I actually play it. There are always exceptions. Games of high quality in genres I generally avoid (with RE4 as the classic example). This may be one, or it may not. I will likely give it a chance just to experience the city layout though. And hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by the gameplay.
Well it looks like planning and approach is a major element, not just hacking away at things. You also have the option of making the character auto attack enemies in range just by moving to their direction rather than require button presses, although you will need to manually block and evade. Then there's the command mode that pauses the battle and lets you order the next actions, although it can't be used all the time. I think there are enough slower pace elements alongside the hack and slash bits. Evading looked important in the boss fights but also not as hard to do and time as in something like Monster Hunter so you should be fine.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds
while the pessimist fears this is true.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Merry Christmas GG. Sorry you're not liking Reach so far. I hope things improve for you as the game progresses. Personally, I found Reach to be the best Halo title ever.
Guess who just braved the wind and snow to go put down money on a Nintendo 3DS!?
Yay!
Who?
ME!
YAY!