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"State Of Play"

After I read that Nintendo have got rid of Left Field it was, for me, the icing on the cake. This new era for the mighty Nintendo, this new attack on its competitors, all these changes has left a sour taste in the mouths of the die hard Nintendoids such as myself. Resident Evil was confirmed as a Gamecube exclusive in September of last year, now many Nintendo fans will see the good in that, but Sony have won a much larger war there as they have the Devil May Cry series. Devil May Cry is the next generation of gothic titles horror titles, action packed, fun and damn scary as well. This game is the modern Resident Evil. Now this game will never sell as well as the Resident Evil series but for gamers it is a much better move. Once upon a time Nintendo would have gone for Devil May Cry as opposed to Resident Evil, you see Silicon Knights spent 4 years trying to give Nintendo fans their very own Resident Evil and then Capcom go and give it to us anyway. Would it have not been better to go for the more original Devil May Cry, Resident Evil is yesterday’s news! And when Nintendo got rid of Left Field I ask why? It was a sports developer on the Gamecube, making excellent racing and basketball titles.

It is all about the money now for Nintendo; once upon a time the launch games we’d see would be games that would go down in history as the best games ever. Mario Brothers, Mario World, Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and then a port of Mario Brothers 2 and Luigi’s Mansion see a difference between the main GBA and Gamecube launch games and the NES, SNES, N64 and Gameboy Color ones? Yep that’s right the older ones are the best games ever and the GBA and Gamecube one’s quite frankly suck. It is a general trend of Nintendo appealing to the mass market and leaving their roots behind, Shiguru Miyamoto said that Mario is being developed by a “small team” and also implied it as being a small game, this is so Nintendo can push more of their big names out quicker ruining the games we all know and love. I don’t care if we only see one Mario or Zelda if these are the pinnacles of gaming excellence as they have been then I don’t care but if they are shadows of their former selves so Nintendo can make more money then I won’t be impressed. And talking of Zelda why the new look? Yes Cel-shaded has its advantages but Zelda was all a game that possessed feeling, the music, the storyline and in particular the looks. A Living cartoon may work with Mario but look at Link, a character who used to posses so much mystery, so serious and so special, in this game he seems silly, winking and doing outrageous acrobatic stunts it is all well and good but it isn’t link. I don’t want a Disney game for Zelda I want a serious, moving tale of love, hate and bravery as they have been in the past, Cel-Shaded is capable of such a game but not the way Nintendo have done it, and in the only way possible childish.

And then there is all this third party games, since when have we needed a truckload of crap on a Nintendo console? Since Nintendo became money hungry like Sony that’s why, and we all know casual Nintendo fans are more likely to fall for the trash that appears on the Gamecube being children. Soon enough more rubbish like Tarzan will appear like, maybe Bob the Builder and hundreds of little Mario fans will go and buy it as it stars their favourite character. Oh please! Since when has the Nintendo seal of quality stood for crap. I want the Nintendo I love not some new age Sony rival that is trying to be something it isn’t. Once upon a time Nintendo used to be a proud company, sticking by its principle at decent gameplay and family entertainment and this maybe true today but it isn’t the same principle as it was. Squaresoft tried to ruin Nintendo, this proud stubborn company that a large fan base had known and loved would have never given into the companies plea but now with the prospect of further money for themselves they jump to the chance. Same with Namco and Free Radical Design a company that did wonders for Nintendo in the west and then buggered off (Goldeneye probably saved the N64 in Europe and America) leaving Nintendo and now they want to come back with Timesplitters 2!!!! And then there is the move to CD’s, Nintendo have always appealed to the minority and that minority liked Carts, they could be as big as you wanted them, you didn’t have to load and piracy was impossible and they felt like PROPER games and then they switched to discs so they can fight with Microsoft and Sony.

Why do Nintendo feel like going mainstream, cheap console, discs, more 3rd party support and a change in the way Nintendo make games it is all to appeal to the mass market and I feel left out. I first learnt to play games on a Nintendo system but it is starting to look as if Nintendo have changed, as Shigsy said the N64 was a revolution and the Gamecube is an evolution, devolution more like. Now let me play on my Gameboy Advance so I can remember what Nintendo used to be like.

Here’s to the future

Dringo.

Flipside

I am mighty impressed with the Nintendo Gamecube, the great Shiguru Miyamoto said that the N64 was an revolution and the Gamecube is an evolution, well I disagree I think the Gamecube is as much a revolution as the N64 was. After pressure from all fronts they finally converted to discs, desperate not to keep the old fans out they made it as close to carts as possible, low loading times for one and what I am massively impressed with is their size, if anyone has seen a Gamecube disc or got the recent Nintendo Official Magazine you’ll know what I mean. And quite frankly everything Nintendo have ever done wrong has been rectified.

The N64 was an expensive machine the most expensive on the market but the Gamecube is a cheap machine the cheapest on the market. And it gets better, Nintendo have finally sucked up their pride and for the good of the gamers have let back in the 3rd party developers that left them to rot in the first place, in particularly Capcom and Squaresoft. So at last the biggest horror company and biggest RPG Company, two game genres the N64 missed so much are finally being experienced as well as Namco’s beat ‘em ups. So what’s with this shorter Nintendo titles? Well what with them? These games are mere stand ins for the later games, it was obvious the N64 was supposed to last longer than it did, Dinosaur Planet, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 0 and so much more were supposed to be the real finale to the N64 but the release of the PS2 and X-box forced the Gamecube to release early about a year early. If it were delayed Mario Sunshine would have been the launch title we’d expected. But it wasn’t and so Nintendo developed some stand ins but these are not pathetic stand ins. As short as Luigi’s Mansion is and as quick Pikmin may take to finish these are gaming greats, they are evidence of Nintendo’s ingenuity at its best, a ghost busting game and a real time strategy with plant people? It is absolutely incredible how one man can come up with such brilliant ideas (although Nintendo are filled with others such as the Kirby creator and good old Satoshi that Pokémon designer), they may be short but if they were any long they my of got boring (Luigi’s Mansion would Pikmin wouldn’t).

Some say the new look Zelda will ruin the atmosphere well I disagree, I was not impressed overly with the cut scenes but it was the in game play that I was more interested in and quite frankly it looked like Majora’s Mask but cel shaded and runs more smoothly (and of course looking much better). If this really is the return to the original Zelda adventure then it may be a wise move by Mr. Miyamoto and he has basically confirmed this is a long expansive game like its prequels by informing us of the large development team. The future titles do look good, some may insist getting rid of Left Field was a bad idea but I agree with Nintendo their games were crap and Nintendo tried to get EAD to help but Left Field refused and this lack of communication with Nintendo is not what the Big N is all about. Retro Studio’s are relying on EAD in a big way, it caused major redundancy but at last it looks like the greatest and most original First Person Shooter is on its way! Silicon Knights an absolute storming company, a big well done to Dennis Dyack for making Silicon Knights a horror specialist so close with Nintendo, he alone may show the world that his games are like Nintendo games but Adult orientated and can prove to the adults that Nintendo area great company.

Resident Evil maybe yesterdays news but not to Nintendo fans, it is a new game to Nintendoids and there is a reason why it is one of the most popular Japanese games, the series is absolutely brilliant. The other day I completed Resident Evil: Code Veronica and I will be getting it again, mark my words as it was incredible (and the Dreamcast version so I can still get the full one). It is a game-playing epic of an adventure, what Nintendo are and always will be about not short repetitive and crud games like Devil May Cry, which is great for the first 2 levels. Nintendo have changed but they always do, never have Nintendo ever stayed the same it is just that their games keep to a similar standard of quality. Luigi’s Mansion, Doshin the Giant, Animal Forest, Pikmin etc… are all some of the most original and best games ever made Animal Forest is a game not often talked about on here but is Nintendo’s newest AAA title as it paves the way for games like it. Originality is what Nintendo are all about and these new games are original and just as good as the old ones the GBA link up is further proof of Nintendo’s re-domination of the market a completely original idea that like the Gameboy link cable will be marketed and implemented so well that it will be essential. And who cares if Nintendo is showing a little competition (ok a lot) in this cruel industry, it is about time people are aware they are missing out on a whole load of fun.

I’ve always loved Nintendo games, they are always brilliant and always stay in my memory, and the Gamecube has the brilliant Mario, Zelda, Smash brothers etc… that I so adored on the N64, and whilst I feared Nintendo wouldn’t be able to top games like Paper Mario for originality I was proved wrong. With a splash of my favourite Playstation game ever (Resident Evil) the Nintendo Gamecube will be the best thing Nintendo have made since the Super Nintendo.

Here’s to the future

Dringo.

He's not there personally to direct it, but he is sort of overseeing it and making all the major decisions.

Anyway Dringo, find a Snes/emulator and pick up the Super Metroid Rom/Cart.
It's one of the best Snes games ever and you HAVE to play it.

pop... to erm the head of this forum of prime thingies.

Thought I'd say something to you Strafex before you say this to more people... Miyamoto is a Japanese games designer, Retro Studio's is an American Development house. Miyamoto is the face of Nintendo and he keeps the world informed the fact is a lead designer is missing from metroid prime so unlike Eternal Darkness there is no designer to show off his game that is why Shigsy does it and may i add HE ISN'T MAKING THE GAME! Shiguru has been keeping a close eye on it though and he has made sure it doesnt turn into Perfect Dark, Halo or Doom a western game as he calls it, he claims it is all about exploring and fighting and incoperates all the moves samus used to have!

And finally i have seen many 3rd person samus shots whatever they mean and Edgy Amen!

(If you want to quote someone properly you have to do it yourself...)

Dringo wrote:
"You haven't played Metroid Strafex don't judge it, then again i never owned a previous metroid title so i won't see the problem."

In reply I am writing:

I've seen enough of the new Metroid to know what I'm talking about.
It's FPS only with brief sections where you can roll and use the grappling beam.

Shigsy has gone as far to say that Metroid is not about jumping.

That is how I know that it'll be to the Metroid series, what DK64 was to the Donkey Kong series. A reasonable game, it just went about implementing the franchise in 3D the wrong way.

I don't think that Shigsy even liked the previous Metroid games or wanted anything to do with the project. Naturally he was going to mis-perceive it.


Now I trust what Miyamoto has done to Zelda for 3 reasons:

1) It's Miyamoto's game series and he knows what he's doing.
2) He's an expert at that sort of game.
3) He's only changed the graphics. The Gameplay remains untouched.

None of these can apply to Metroid.

Now when you take a platforming shooter and turn it into a pure shooter you've obviously missed something along the line.
I know that Miyamoto has his excuses like "First Person is easier to explore with", but why not make the FPS an option to go into, instead of forcing the player with it through the entire game.

The thing is, that would make the game complex.

Miyamoto does not like complex games.

Turning a platforming shooter into 3D is a complex job.
Especially when you need to mix third person platforming with first person shooting. Rare nearly managed it with Jet Force Gemini (the control set up was fine, although the character's movements weren't quite sharp or smooth enough to make it perfect...).

It's clear that Jet Force Gemini was the way to combine platforming and shooting, even if it needed a fair bit of patching up.

And if Shigsy didn't like Jet Force Gemini (which, according to NGC mag, he didn't), it was obvious that making a platforming shooter wasn't his style.
Nintendo shouldn't have forced him to do it.

(If you want to quote someone properly you have to do it yourself...)

Dringo wrote:
"You haven't played Metroid Strafex don't judge it, then again i never owned a previous metroid title so i won't see the problem."

In reply I am writing:

I've seen enough of the new Metroid to know what I'm talking about.
It's FPS only with brief sections where you can roll and use the grappling beam.

Shigsy has gone as far to say that Metroid is not about jumping.

That is how I know that it'll be to the Metroid series, what DK64 was to the Donkey Kong series. A reasonable game, it just went about implementing the franchise in 3D the wrong way.

I don't think that Shigsy even liked the previous Metroid games or wanted anything to do with the project. Naturally he was going to mis-perceive it.


Now I trust what Miyamoto has done to Zelda for 3 reasons:

1) It's Miyamoto's game series and he knows what he's doing.
2) He's an expert at that sort of game.
3) He's only changed the graphics. The Gameplay remains untouched.

None of these can apply to Metroid.

Now when you take a platforming shooter and turn it into a pure shooter you've obviously missed something along the line.
I know that Miyamoto has his excuses like "First Person is easier to explore with", but why not make the FPS an option to go into, instead of forcing the player with it through the entire game.

The thing is, that would make the game complex.

Miyamoto does not like complex games.

Turning a platforming shooter into 3D is a complex job.
Especially when you need to mix third person platforming with first person shooting. Rare nearly managed it with Jet Force Gemini (the control set up was fine, although the character's movements weren't quite sharp or smooth enough to make it perfect...).

It's clear that Jet Force Gemini was the way to combine platforming and shooting, even if it needed a fair bit of patching up.

And if Shigsy didn't like Jet Force Gemini (which, according to NGC mag, he didn't), it was obvious that making a platforming shooter wasn't his style.
Nintendo shouldn't have forced him to do it.

So I click on quote Dringo's Message and look what came up!

*****

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***

WTF?? :-D

As Miyamoto said about 'The Legend of Zelda' on the GameCube: "I think it's not wise to talk about something before having the chance to test it."

Fair enough, if no one talks about games they've not played, no one will know of their existance. However if you decide to talk about the games without actually judging them good or bad, until you've played them anyway, then you'll keep a more open mind when it comes to gaming.

Many gamers see the GameCube with negative eyes. They don't stop to consider that it might be a fun system to play games on. They don't stop to consider that Luigi's Mansion may not be "Just another Mario game" and they don't stop and even think to consider that Nintendo may be concentrating on making fun and decent games instead of the stereotypical view that gamers have given Nintendo of being a "kiddies company".

I agree they're not perfect, not ever game meets my own personal standards, and not every decision Nintendo make is the right one in my eyes, but there is a reason the company has survived for over 110 years, and that's that Nintendo aren't afraid to take risks to give us gamers what we deserve whether they make a bit of a loss or not.

And what is it we deserve? Decent quality games. We spend a lot of money on consoles and games. Just to buy the three latest consoles at launch prices would set you back £750 or more! If you buy a new PC to keep up with PC games too, you could be spending around £2,500 in total (depending on the model PC you choose). So we're spending all this money, we're bound to want decent quality games, especially those that have a good replayability factor.

People talk about how games used to be so much more expensive in the late 80's and early 90's. But they're just as expensive now! I found that in the late 80's and early 90's when the ZX Spectrum was still going strong, though starting to lose to the high-speed NES, I could buy games for a mere 10p! (from Trago Mills in Newton Abbot). A while later my brother got a SNES and the most he ever paid for a game was £20! Later, getting a PC the most expensive game I bought was £25, though things got a bit more expensive when it came to the N64, paying up to £40 for a game (didn't buy anything more expensive out of principle).

The thing is, why buy expensive games when you can buy many, just as good, older games for either the same system, or another system you own? You can have just as much fun, if not more in doing so! Nintendo know this and that is why they have tried to keep costs down. You can now buy a console for cheaper than ever before on launch, you can buy realatively cheap launch games (in comparison to high street X-box game prices and N64 game prices), and the hardware to improve your gaming experience on the GameCube is much cheaper than before (for a Nintendo console that is).

It all boils down to risk. Nintendo are taking risks because they need to to stay the best at what they do. A wise ships captain once said: "You gotta take risks if you want to sit in that chair!" - Captain Kirk to Captain Picard in Star Trek Generations. It's true! If you sit around on your backside all day, you'll waste away and your life wont be worth living! But if you get out of the house, cross that busy road, and work hard, you'll be rewarded. You're taking risks by doing so, you could be ran over by the number 72 bus, kidnapped by some craized psychotic, mugged by a petty theif or even murdered for just being there! However, surviving those risks means you can come home at the end of the day, sit and rest whilst relishing on the thought that you've earned some good money.

Nintendo can't earn money by churning out the same rubbish that other developers release. If Nintendo released the game 'Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor" instead of Konami, they'd be the laughing stock of the games world! Nintendo take their time, though not very convienient for us ever growing impatient fans who have been waiting for a long time, to allow us to play brilliant quality games, now at a lower price, which is a risk for Nintendo. If the GameCube sold as poorly as the Wonderswan Color in Japan, Nintendo would be in devastatingly bad trouble. But their risks paid off, and Nintendo are growing ever more popular in Japan, as they are in America. There are some risks Nintendo want not to take though, no matter how hard the public pleas. Many have said they would buy the 'Q' if it was released in the UK, and many articles have suggested the same for America. People want DVD players and because the Playstation 2 offers one, and the X-box does also (at an extra charge) then they expect the same from Nintendo. However, Nintendo and Panasonic for some reason will not release the 'Q' in western shores. Maybe Nintendo wouldn't make enough profits in the worldwide markets? Maybe they just don't think it would sell? Nintendo have probably got many a reason for not allowing it's sale in this country.

Whatever people's views, Nintendo wants to make us gamers happy. However, they also want to make money in the process, so following the example of money-hungry Sony and Microsoft to some extent will aid Nintendo in the process. However, Nintendo proved they can do it their own way with the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy Color. Sure, they've made some mistakes along the way. The Virtualboy and the very rarely seen Game Girl (only made because people complained about the name of the Game Boy).

So roll on May 3rd, I want Nintendo to make me as happy as they have done in the past, and if games like 'The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past' on the SNES, 'Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land' on the Game Boy and 'Super Mario 64' on the N64 are anything to go by, keeping me happy is exactly what the GameCube will do.

You haven't played Metroid Strafex don't judge it, then again i never owned a previous metroid title so i won't see the problem.

Despite a several paragraphs of pointing out Nintendo's mistakes and messing up franchises, you STILL failed to mention Metroid Prime...

Although they changed Zelda's graphics, atleast for that franchise they didn't take out half of the gameplay elements!

Still, atleast you didn't rave about Metroid in the flipside! :-)

In my opinion, the problem Ninty will have with the Gamecube and the N64 is that 3D games in the mould of Mario and Zelda are different types of games to their 2D versions, and so the adventure element has overtaken the platformer. The extra demands of 3D technology means that games are invariably shorter because of increased focus on graphics over gameplay.

Unfortunately, gamers are both the victim and the problem. Let me explain. On the one hand, there is no way Ninty can release a big-name 2D platformer again, because gamers want big 3D sprites and their friends to come over and wow over it. So with that in mind, more attention is put on the graphics than before. Equally however, we are the victims of this, because the minority of Ninty's faithful that will always go back to the classics, and will never let the SNES gather dust, are not representative of everyone.

There is no point in Ninty releasing another Zelda game of the length or difficulty of A Link to the Past, because the time spent on the last 50% of the game could have been spent developing a new game, and fewer and fewer gamers are going to see such a long game through to the end. With games at £35-40, depending on where you look, kids can go through games like water, and they have the money. When I used to buy games for my beloved SNES, it took what seemed like ages to graft and save for them, but they lasted that much longer. I remember Street Fighter 2 costing something like £65 when it came out.

As for the cartridge/cd issue, well this relates to my last comment. So they'll be easier to produce, they'll be more of them, so what, big deal. I'd rather spend £50 any day on a cartridge than two £25 games on cd that are lazily-thought out. And there's a sentimental attachement between Nintendo and cartridges- remember having to blow on them to get the older ones to work? And loading times are awful, but the worst thing for me would be if the gamecube descended into Playstation territory with lots of FMV no-one really wants.