Viewing Thread:
"What a line-up.....!"

I've just been looking through the new XBM mag, issue 22, and the line-up of new X-Box games for this year and the beginning of next looks fantastic.

Project Gotham 2
Half-life 2
Freedom Fighters
Colin McRae 4
Conker: Live and Uncut
Driver 3
True Crime
Armed and Dangerous
Star Wars: KOTOR
Soul Calibur 2
Broken Sword
Mafia
Worms 3D
Dead or Alive 4 and DOA online
MOH: Rising Sun
Doom 3
Halo 2
Fable
Shenmue 3
Full Spectrum Warrior
Splinter Cell 2
Tony Hawks Underground

Everyone of those games look to be winners and extremely enjoyable games, and if the rumours are true we could also see a port of Vice City on the way to X-Box, and in this particular mag, they say that GTA3 will be included with Vice City. So to me the future of the X-Box looks very bright indeed and I'm really glad I got it now.

Main Stream gaming could not survive on its own. Franchises like GTA would take over games like Metroid Prime which was supposedly a hardcore title for fans of the series.

Shenmue isn't a game which you can just pick up and play and you have to be a pretty big fan of the series to want to sit through the long conversations and story.

Shenmue is not for hardcore fans, because the hardcore does not exist except in the minds of those who believe that is what they are. Importing games does not make a person hardcore, blind faith in a franchise is not hardcore, liking obscure Japanese titles is not hardcore.

Take Steel Batallion, every magazine insisted this was the ultimate hardcore game, it wasn't. It was a game for anyone who fancied splashing out £129.99 on something different. The sooner gaming moves away from this obsession with hardcore and mainstream the better off we'll all be.

Practical Magic wrote:
> Surely if Shenmue is as great as some would believe then you'd play it
> no matter what it was on, anything else sounds fanboyish in the
> extreme.
>
> It's be like me saying, if Halo 2 came out on the PS2 it'd be a pile
> of crap.... it wouldn't be of course.

If Shenmue was just released for PS2 then I would still buy it. All I want is to continue with the story, it's just that I feel the X-Box would allow the game to be pushed to it's limit.

The whole point of Shenmue 2X on the Xbox was to see how well it would be received. Due to a better reception than what it received on the Dreamcast AM2 decided to go ahead and give the green light for Shenmue 3. Although they haven't said it will be an Xbox exclusive it is highly unlikely that they will go back on what they originally said and make it a multi format game.

A game on this nature could really benefit strongly from the Xbox hardware and LIVE support. The first Shenmue title showed that AM2 wanted to make some online functions available and with the Xbox hard drive they can concentrate on some strong downloadable content.

It seems that the general feeling about the PS2 is more casual than anything else. Shenmue is definitley a title for hardcore fans of the series. The majority of PS2 owners avoided picking up a Dreamcast as they were waiting for the PS2. When you consider all these factors I can't really see AM2 and Sega taking the game any where else but the Xbox.

Surely if Shenmue is as great as some would believe then you'd play it no matter what it was on, anything else sounds fanboyish in the extreme.

It's be like me saying, if Halo 2 came out on the PS2 it'd be a pile of crap.... it wouldn't be of course.

> Dwarf_Pr0n wrote:

> I will definately be buying Shenmue 3 if it goes on Xbox, if it goes
> on PS2 I won't as I refuse to own one of those over hyped, under
> powered machines. The Dreamcast is STILL a better machine than that
> and mine still gets played.

Maverick42 wrote:
> Over hyped? Under powered? Dreamcast better?
>
> And you refuse to buy evidently one of your favourite ever games if it
> becomes PS2 exclusive? That's the biggest load of fanboy bullsh*t I've
> read in ages. Have you ever played or owned a PS2?
>
> Gah!

I've got to say, I do kind of agree with Dwarf-Pron there, if Shenmue 3 was to be a PS2 exlusive then I don't think it'll be as good as it could be. I do own a PS2 but I still think an X-Box version will work best, and I also agree that the Dreamcast is still better than the PS2, in fact, to be honest I like the PS1 more than the PS2 because there just aren't many games for PS2 that I like.

:(

Practical Magic wrote:
> PG2 is the same game, live - and we've seen online racing games before
> - with better graphics, which incidentally aren't a great deal above
> Gran Turismo 4's - yet that's a less powerful console.


PGR2 looks as if it will be a lot better than PGR because it has a lot more cars, over 100. A much more improved Kudos system that allows you to get 1000+ combos, much improved graphics and a new way of unlocking cars. Instead of just unlocking cars you can save up Kudos points and buy new cars and parts, there's a virtual showroom to let you browse the cars in first person perspective mode and you can take a test drive. There are many more cities available too, and of course it will be Live enabled. There are a host of other new features available so I do reckon PGR2 will be much much better than the first.

Counter Strike won't work on the Xbox. The controls will be too faffy for the type of game which it is. I play the PC version on a frequent basis and sometimes even the mouse and keyboard can become quite annoying. For pure FPS games like Halo and Half Life etc I am all for playing the console version over the PC version. However for a game this specific and where you need to be lighting fast I just don't think it will work.

That is of course unless they hurry along with a decent mouse and keyboard package and then of course it will be tres bon.

Don't forget Counter-Strike too. When Halo 2 comes out, Xbox Live is soooo mine! Dude! To be fair, about 3/4 of the games listed in the first post might possibly warrant a purchase. I can't think of perhaps more than 3 or 4 PS2 games I want or even 1 or 2 GameCube games.

*bows head in shame*

Sorry. I wrote that before coffee.