Carnick, I understand where you’re coming from. It seems to me we just like certain types of games and that’s all there is to it.
I love cinematic games because I guess I’m just a lazy person at heart. With games like Metal Gear Solid, it’s almost like I’m just playing the game to be watching the cutscenes.
When I was younger and first got Metal Gear Solid 2, I just skipped through all the cutscenes - skipped straight to the action. All I wanted to do was shoot guys. What happened? I got frustrated with the gameplay (it takes a lot of patience to pull off the stealth) and just gave up on the game and moved on to another one.
Then, years later, I bought Snake Eater, and decided to watch all of the cutscenes this time. I got so captivated by the story that I put up with the often frustrating gameplay because I looked forward to the cinematics that I knew would be coming after progressing in the game. I grew to appreciate the insane level of detail in the cutscenes, all the elements of design in the clothing and environments and so forth - in essence, I began treating the game as a playable movie.
So I personally love that kind of game. But if you don’t that’s cool. To each his own, and all that. The Wii is then a great system for you because it has a lot of high-energy, fast moving games. But if you ever come over to my house, I’ll kick your ass at Myst multiplayer.
In Link to the Past (SNES) and Ocarina of Time (N64/GCN), hitting a chicken with any weapon resulted in an eraged “cluck” from the chicken; feathers (or sweat beads?, on SNES) would fly as the chicken tried to escape. You could corner the bird and continually attack it; the sweet little bird would keep clucking desparately. After a certain number of blows, however, the chicken summoned its little friends; a dozen or so birds would fly in to attack Link, occasionally with fatal results if he couldn’t move away fast enough. (There was a noticable speed lag on the SNES when the large flock was moving around.) Chickens could not be defeated. You could also pick them up and carry them around.
Windwaker (GCN) replaced the chickens with pigs. Attacking a pig resulted in an attack by the pig itself – they would turn red, squeal, and charge at Link. Pigs could be picked up and thrown off of cliffs into water; apparently they can swim.
As mentioned, in Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, the chicken would get mad and summon its friends to hurt you. In Twilight Princess, after enough blows, you control the chicken you were hitting for a little while. I suspect there is probably a heart piece or some other secret to be found that relies on being able to control the chicken, but I don’t know for sure.
There’s also a title coming called Wii Play which will use your Mii’s in a set of about a dozen Wii Sports style minigames. Wii Play will come in a package with another Wiimote.
I took the insinuation that anything not “gritty” enough to have gore as “kiddy” as being condescending. I guess I overreacted. Wii will be the first console I own since N64, I skipped the PS1/PS2/Xbox generation because I just didn’t like the type of games they were best at. That’s a taste thing, and Carnick pretty well sums up my reasons for getting the Wii (several months after launch anyway).
Could someone who owns or has played Red Steel comment on IGN’s review? Specifically how the control works out. According to them, aiming is fine when you’re just shooting people on screen (i.e headshots galore) but in order to “turn” the view, you have to move the cursor to the side of the screen. Thus it’s not possible to whip your head around as we’re all very accustomed to in FPSs. I’m curious about how it really is in practice.
Having spent Thanksgiving weekend Wii-less (and no luck in getting one), anyone have any tips on how to secure one before Christmas? Short of paying overinflated prices on eBay, I mean.
You can do it that way, sure. If you create a Mii and use it when you play Wii Sports, the game will track your progress over time and react accordingly – as you get better at Tennis, the computer opponents get tougher, etc. Other Miis will also show up in random places, such as the stadiums watching your games. And a rumor is that future games can take the templates for your Miis and create appropriate-looking game characters as well, such as an Animal Crossing character based on your Miis.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been hearing. I’ve also heard that folks who take the time to learn the Red Steel controls find it superior, since you can quickly whip your cursor around the screen and shoot targets without having to turn and center each shot. Reviews for Red Steel have been across the board – some folks really hate it, and others really like it.
Supposedly Gamestop is resupplying each week and Best Buy is resupplying every 10 days. I can’t confirm this, so it’s only speculation. I do intend to check Best Buy every morning this week, though. Some stores may tell you when the next shipment is scheduled, but I haven’t tried asking yet.
I got the Wii I bought offa eBay, and having fun! Wii Sports is a nice introduction on how to work the Wii controllers and is fun in itself, and Rayman Raving Rabbids is kooky fun and also uses the Wii controllers to good effect. I can’t wait till my Wi-Fi connector comes so I can go online and download games from Virtual Console! (Speaking of which, MTVnews.com has an interesting interview with NOA head Reggie Fils-Aime, who talks about the Wii. Two of the interesting things he stated regarding Virtual Console are that he realizes the library of games is lacking at the moment, but Nintendo plans to release spotlight games during months when they have no big Wii releases coming out. Also, he says that Nintendo is looking into licensing games from other developers in cases where “the pain is worth the gain,” and says that Nintendo is looking into a deal with Activision and Microsoft that would allow GoldenEye on the Wii.)
There is only one A+ game out at the moment, and that’s The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. If he enjoys action adventure or any of the prior Zeldas, he’ll love this one. You pretty much can’t go wrong with this game unless he particularly doesn’t enjoy action adventure. It’s also very kid friendly, and it’ll last him a long time - I’ve heard around 20 hours for an average gamer.
Bah, they always say that. That’s if you collect all the doodads and complete every sidequest, which the average gamer doesn’t have the patience for. Maybe I was a tad conservative, though… I think more like 30 hours is appropriate.
Geez, I’m at 22 hours and I don’t feel like I’m close to finishing. Even tacking on a few hours of leaving the console on while I do other things its a reasonably lengthy game. If you’re following a guide around I could see it being done in twenty but for figuring it all out it’s probably closer to forty for reasonably skilled players.
If you drop your hands to your side, does the fighter drop his hands?
If you throw a faster punch IRL, does your fighter throw a faster punch?
How do you move side to side?
In reality, standing up, throwing “shadow punches” for 3 minutes with a minute break is a pretty decent workout. A real boxing simulator game would be very interesting, especially if your avatar fighter slowed down as you got more tired.
Oh, I’m no moron. I follow the safety instructions. Sometimes I forget to tighten the wrist strap, so I’m glad each game starts with a “remember to tighten the wrist strap” screen.