Category: Features
Irregular Columns
3DS Impressions – Unbiased
I’m sure you’ve read nothing but positive impressions about the 3DS, but they are all lies. Nintendo 3DS is the biggest scam of all time, lies based on hype, fueled by lack of information and deception on Nintendo’s part. All these websites have been tricked by Nintendo into thinking the 3DS is something it’s not. There’s a very good reason Nintendo has been hiding the 3D screen and not allowing photos, and only letting people play the system for a pitiful amount of time. They are forcing people to fill in the blanks with their own wet dreams, when in actual fact, the system has nothing interesting to offer. It’s nothing more than Nintendo propaganda, and journalists are falling for it left and right. Our sites very own Grubdog even forgot to mention that he attended the event wearing Nintardo fan goggles. They probably had screenshots of OoT taped on the inside. Wow, it’s popping out of the screen! Nintard. I decided to attend an event too, and now i’m here to give people an unbiased look at the new Nintendo.
3DS Impressions – Myer
Myer in Australia held a 3 hour demonstration of 3DS on Thursday for the public, and I was lucky enough to get there in time to play it. The line was huge: when I got there I was number 242 and had to wait an hour to get to the front of the line. It curved around the store into obscure aisles and I spent half the time looking at backpacks and Lego. Then I got 15 minutes to play a few games on the system and it was definitely worth it.
Wii Sniper Rifle Videos – HotD: Overkill
Live gameplay footage of The House of the Dead: Overkill using my “CTA Digital Sniper Rifle Gun for Wii” with calibrated aim. I checked a “popular” internet video site to sample other players using the accessory, and came back underwhelmed. I didn’t find any legitimate gameplay videos. Gamers, industry, you all suck. No wonder most rail shooters and accessories are designed for “dumb” customers – there’s no motivation/demand to advance the software or hardware, just an endless cycle of publishers assuming everyone is lazy while gamers REALLY ARE too lazy to aim a casual non-gun and instead complain about 12-digit codes. Even Sony’s Move is a broken, lag-plagued alternative with even dumber-looking accessories exclusively designed for gullible customers (has it been used in “regular” games yet?), and they’re willing to charge more for all of it.
(HotD: Overkill video link at end of post)
Gameplay from “Ghost Squad” and “HotD 2/3”. See Wii Sniper Rifle Gameplay
I’ll save my serious “review” of the accessory for later, but I will say it’s the best Wii rifle I’ve tried so far – the printed crosshairs on the fake scope do a good job of sighting targets, and the main trigger works great like some of the better handgun shells (the awesome part is it’s a RIFLE); on the downside, the main grip SUCKS (it’s not really shaped for a grip), but the trigger is still reachable with some improvisation (oh crap, I started reviewing it). Actually, these videos were made to address the shortcomings of Overkill’s gunplay. Please excuse the audio quality: it was late at night and I didn’t have the game volume up very high and my camcorder was literally inches away from my hands so the clackity noise of the trigger seems way louder than it really is.
F***heads – A New Victor
“Durp!” – David Jaffe: [Insert not-so-classy comparison here]
Hello, and welcome to another edition of “Durp!” This time we cover our favorite developer (to make fun of), David Jaffe. With the NGP announced, surely he’s had time to come up with some sort of riveting, yet orthodox, opinion on the “Next Generation Portable” (that happens to just do things that current systems already do, but worse), right? No. No he has not.
So let’s make this a little game. Can you guess what David Jaffe compared the NGP to? CAN YOU POSSIBLY GUESS?
Continue reading ““Durp!” – David Jaffe: [Insert not-so-classy comparison here]”
F***heads – RPGs in the West
Friend Codes
Friend Codes are a controversial online schematic that can mildly be described as cumbersome. The IDEA behind Friend Codes is a good one, but the execution of this idea has until recently been poorly lacking.
However, with the announcement of the universality of Friend Codes for the 3DS, the Friend Code system rises from unwieldy to a viable alternative that’s even superior in many ways to alternate online systems.
Nintendo 3DS? Does anyone care?
Nintendo are in a state of fear, the complete destruction of Nintendo DS last year at the hands of PSP has backed Nintendo into a corner. PSP was the highest selling system of 2010, and also had the highest selling Monster Hunter game. The overwhelming presence of iPhone and the looming danger of the mighty Playstation Phone now have Nintendo scrambling around hopelessly in the dark. Nintendo crapped their pants, and 3DS is what came out. This mere evolution of DS, with it’s ridiculous gimmick attached, will be completely forgotten by the end of the year, and here’s why.
“Durp!” – Capcom: “Durrr, no one plays handhelds anymore!”
Welcome to “Durp!”, a feature based around what there is far too much of: members of the gaming industry making completely and utterly retarded and/or unsubstantiated comments that make those with even the most minute amount of common sense or respect for gaming cringe in disgust.
And we’re going to start this with an absolute doozy from Capcom Interactive’s (a subsidiary of Capcom U.S.A. that produces mobile games) president and COO, Midori Yuasa…
Continue reading ““Durp!” – Capcom: “Durrr, no one plays handhelds anymore!””
Conduit/GoldenEye Wiimote Controls
Note: These control settings were personalized for my bloated widescreen (16:9) TV that I sit fairly close to. You may get undesirable results if you use these settings on a fullscreen (4:3) TV setup, or if your Wii’s cursor behavior is already unstable due to poor sensor bar visibility, specific lighting conditions in your room, and/or your seating distance and position. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – Reflex Edition is not a significant part of this discussion becuz the shoehorned FPS mechanics and single-player campaign are nonsense; it wasn’t worth the effort to customize the controls nor play past the tutorial stage. Call of what? Modern what? (Update: Conduit 2 controls here)
I’ve seen some player comments declaring the Wii “Pointer” controls in The Conduit and GoldenEye 007 are great or crap, or never getting them to feel “right” – ALL without adequately explaining why nor sharing their settings in detail as if it’s only a futile, individual effort they’re doomed to suffer (curse you, game! curse you, non-Nintendo developer!). What was the purpose of their interweb comments, their “discussion”? To WHINE? Yeah. To exchange ideas/info and support each other’s gaming experiences? HAH! Hell no.
So I have some info that’s useful to me and could be useful to others… =o
– The Conduit
(click to enlarge)
Handgun gameplay clips using the above settings – headshots preferred. Conduit handles it well; GoldenEye is just a trainwreck.
“Durp!” – “Epic Games”? Try EPIC FAIL
Epic Games’ CEO Mark Rein has been long known to have some unfathomable grudge against Nintendo for reasons unknown, most likely due to reasons surrounding Nintendo not buying their god-awful Unreal Engine license. Late last year, Mark made a rather amusing comment when asked about Nintendo’s 3DS.
“It’s below our [minimum specifications], from what we can tell. We don’t have a 3DS, so there’s no way for us to verify that. Everything we’ve been led to believe is that it’s below our min-spec. You couldn’t do a game that looks like [Epic Citadel] on it, for example.”
It’s pretty amazing that Mark Rein, someone who has no technical knowledge whatsoever, has the ability to tell what they can and cannot do with the system without actually playing around with it. Surely he must have some sort of basis behind this statement, right?
F***heads – Friend Codes
Animal Crossing 3DS: A Thinly-Veiled Wish List of Never Happenings
Alright, quiz time! Can you name a franchise that was suddenly demoted to the status of “casual game” when Ninty started winning and the term “kiddy” started going out of style? I bet you can’t gu…Wait, where are you looking? HEY, STOP CHEATING!
Yes, the answer is Animal Crossing. The franchise no “hardcore gamer” ever had an issue with until the casual gaming plague hit the industry.
So those new to the franchise, or maybe gaming in general (don’t tell Mike if you are), Animal Crossing is one of Ninty’s top-selling franchises, introduced in Japan in 2001 for the Nintendo 64 under the title “Animal Forest.” The game wasn’t released outside Japan until it was ported the next year to the GameCube.
The premise is simple. You have moved to a village full of (SHOCK) animal villagers, and are set up in a home by the village’s thieving merchant, Tom Nook. You are forced to do odd jobs and sell garbage in order to pay back the loan on your house, and as you earn more money can increase the size of your home (which you have to pay even more money for), all while collecting furniture and items to fill it with and show off to your friends. There’s a little more to it than that, but if you care that much you can look it up yourself you lazy bums!
Due to the profitability of the franchise, it surprised exactly zero people that Ninty revealed Animal Crossing alongside the 3DS. It also didn’t exactly wow anyone either, due to franchise issues that delve much deeper than whether or not the franchise is casual or not. This, of course, being the fact that there have been minimal changes to the base game over the three released installments. So is there anything worthwhile about this new installment? Anything at ALL?
Continue reading “Animal Crossing 3DS: A Thinly-Veiled Wish List of Never Happenings”
F***heads – Steel Diver
Pietriots 