^^^I very much agree with this post. The Wii is like a dream for Nintendo. I mean it's a HUGE success and most of all can't be broken from a new hardware because of its philosophy. It may not be 2010 or even 2011, but eventually publishers will take the Wii seriously. It has ALOT of time.
I also agree that Microsoft will release the successor to a current gen console first. However will it swim? The 360 is already losing steam, hell even when the 360 had a price drop the PS3 still outsold it in the USA. The very problem with the Xbox is that it is so established as "the" serious gamers console and not much else.The PS3 is a me-too console yes but because it doesn't really have much of an identity it is able to ride the wave on its name without intiminating those previously with its predecessors userbase. If Microsoft would launch another console, especially so soon, they'll just wind up where they are now; having a declining console that appeals to a narrow base.
I also REALLY agree with standardization coming about next generation. I'd imagine that companies would go for the current three to find which would support which. I'd imagine Nintendo would go for some type of Flash Card medium, SONY for a medium that they've already invested in, and Microsoft for either Digital Distribution or whatever is already set with the PC.
The thing with 360 is, Microsoft's base is western style uber hardcore players and they've already bought the fucking thing. Microsoft have to drop the price on 360 down to pre-200 levels and I mean the premium 360 for anybody else to give a fuck, and instead they've been all too willing to leave prices much too high for 3+ years as long as they can milk the hardcore crowd out of every last penny. But its biting them in the ass because that well is running dry.
And the big problem with PS3 is that Sony made it too expensive for nearly ANYONE to care about for a long time. Now its down to a price the hardcore are willing to pay, so you see it catching up to and selling better than 360. But the mass-market that the Playstation brand was built on....Sony completely neglected. I love the PS3, its a great machine. But Sony possibly made the biggest blunder in videogaming history when it comes to timing of release and price-point.
Now, granted, everything in America has become about twice as expensive as it should be since Bush's regime took over. But the fact that the bundle is only 10 bucks more makes me think Sony is only selling the headset for that price because they know it will cause most people to just buy the Socom bundle and make the game sell better.
I'm probably grabbing the game myself. Socom was fun on PS2.
I can think of a dub I like. The Czech film "Alice." There's simply a single line (well many single lines that are pretty much the same, 'said the white rabit, sighed the white rabit' etc.) that is delivered by a close up to Alice's mouth, and the fact it is out fo synch, ads to the surealism. I'm not sure it would be worse in Czech, but it's pretty surreal and awesome as it is.
While the change in perspective (and gameplay, really) was absolutely necessary, I can understand why people would want to go back to the old style. RE4 was just simply not scary. There was a hell of a lot of tension, and (what's around the corner?!) but when what was around the corner appeared there was no "eek!" you just shot the bastard dead.
Oh, and photobucket is exceeding bandwidth left right and centre.
But they could remedy that problem by simply offering a harder mode with less ammo and more powerful enemies. Like those guys in RE4 who regenerated and you had to use the heat scope to take them down.
I don't think that would make any difference when it came to how scary it is. Eternal Darkness was incredibly easy, yet quite scary and I genuinely didn't want to die, even though it didn't really matter, and there was little chance of dieing. RE4, while certainly not hard, was a lot more challening than ET, yet not scary at all.
The thing with 360 is, Microsoft's base is western style uber hardcore players and they've already bought the fucking thing. Microsoft have to drop the price on 360 down to pre-200 levels and I mean the premium 360 for anybody else to give a fuck, and instead they've been all too willing to leave prices much too high for 3+ years as long as they can milk the hardcore crowd out of every last penny. But its biting them in the ass because that well is running dry.
And the big problem with PS3 is that Sony made it too expensive for nearly ANYONE to care about for a long time. Now its down to a price the hardcore are willing to pay, so you see it catching up to and selling better than 360. But the mass-market that the Playstation brand was built on....Sony completely neglected. I love the PS3, its a great machine. But Sony possibly made the biggest blunder in videogaming history when it comes to timing of release and price-point.
I agree. And that's my point with the 360. It's target is too narrow and already half way into the generation (pretending that this one will follow the usual life cycle when it probably won't) it's REALLY starting to lose steam. Not only that but counting out Banjo I just don't see much if any at all system sellers in the near future. As for SONY to me it is pretty clear that they had their eyes set on the format war instead of the console war. Was the Blu-Ray player for the PS3 necessary? I'm not sure. I mean do you really think that the PS3, selling as much as it had, had much of an effect on it?
The thing with 360 is, Microsoft's base is western style uber hardcore players and they've already bought the fucking thing. Microsoft have to drop the price on 360 down to pre-200 levels and I mean the premium 360 for anybody else to give a fuck, and instead they've been all too willing to leave prices much too high for 3+ years as long as they can milk the hardcore crowd out of every last penny. But its biting them in the ass because that well is running dry.
And the big problem with PS3 is that Sony made it too expensive for nearly ANYONE to care about for a long time. Now its down to a price the hardcore are willing to pay, so you see it catching up to and selling better than 360. But the mass-market that the Playstation brand was built on....Sony completely neglected. I love the PS3, its a great machine. But Sony possibly made the biggest blunder in videogaming history when it comes to timing of release and price-point.
I agree. And that's my point with the 360. It's target is too narrow and already half way into the generation (pretending that this one will follow the usual life cycle when it probably won't) it's REALLY starting to lose steam. Not only that but counting out Banjo I just don't see much if any at all system sellers in the near future. As for SONY to me it is pretty clear that they had their eyes set on the format war instead of the console war. Was the Blu-Ray player for the PS3 necessary? I'm not sure. I mean do you really think that the PS3, selling as much as it had, had much of an effect on it?
Microsoft are funny, because they knew that, for them to get anywhere in gaming, they had to enter into it guns blazing for the hardcore crowd, and act like they really care for the gamer while coming out with cutting edge stuff for a great price. And that's what they did on the Xbox...it worked.
Now with the 360, it was apparent from day 1 that they thought they had it in the bag. You could see they weren't interested in pretending to be the gamer's friend anymore. Now they were in milk mode. They thought they owned hardcore gaming and that it would just magically lead them into huge sales and they'd just dominate like Sony did.
A game like Banjo if its great could be a system seller if the machine wasn't just hitting the price the original Xbox launched at, but the audience that wants games like that won't spend 300 to play it on a machine that doesnt get many of those types of games when they could just get a Wii or even PS3 and get more of them. I can't see Banjo being a system seller anyway. That's more of a "Great you loved Mario, now here's your desert" type of franchise which is what it was made for in the first place.
The blu-ray definitely wasn't necessary in PS3. I totally think that was a huge mistake for them unless they were willing to sell it for the same price as a DVD equipped PS3. The funny thing is at this point I'm glad it has the blue ray player though, haha. Its nice to have. But yeah it hurt the PS brand and I agree Sony was too focused on fighting the format war at the gamer's expense.
Morning all. GG, I'm surprised you liked HOTD 3. I played the game recently and was shocked at two things. Firstly, just how easy the game is. I beat the game in a single sitting - the only advantage I gave myself was I had more credits and lives than the default. Plus, auto-reload isn't fun. Though it does hold up extremely well visually.
Secondly, just really how ineffective the shotgun is. Might have been just me, but it felt just as powerful as a handgun. It didn't seem like a proper shotgun, but perhaps I've been spoiled by Resident Evil 4.
Again, it's not a bad game, but it's certainly not the best HOTD game. I'd still say HOTD 2 is better, but that's only because of how the dialogue is not only awful, but delivered in such a way, that it becomes the greatest thing of all time. I was expecting to chuckle and laugh at HOTD 3...but I didn't get that. The oh so seriousness of it didn't appeal to me.
But hey, that's just my take.
I'm shocked that someone licensed BobobÅbo BÅbobo and translated it into English. I thought that manga/anime would have never been translated, or would have been extremely difficult to do so. So you could imagine my surprise when it's on, early in the morning, and retains some of the random and oft weird humour that it posesses.
Oh I tried HOTD 2 before 3 so I know what you mean about it being easier. But there are selectable difficulty levels and you can alter the lives and credits you have too. Whereas I found HOTD 2 to be prohibitively hard and just not as well balanced as 3. HOTD 2 doesn't give you time to reload, so you have a limited number of bullets, too many enemies on screen for the bullets you have and that means you artificially die because there is no opportunity to reload. After using the pea shooter in HOTD 2, the shotgun in 3 was noticebly more powerful, you can knock them back with it and you get more bullets to use too. HOTD 2 does have the most dreadful, awful, shockingly bad dialogue and story that I have EVER seen. It makes no sense, it's like they got random people off the street to do the voices. It is resolutely AWFUL to the highest degree. I didn't laugh so much as think.... WTF? Is this really possible for it to be so awful?
HOTD 3 is better balanced in that there are more bullets, there is time to reload, the shotgun is more powerful and that the game waits for you to finish off enemies, it doesn't just sort of throw things at you for no other reason than to test your itchy trigger finger.
Visually I love this game, you know how devs now use normal maps just to show like ruffles in clothing? HOTD 3 has the main man clearly with shadows and ruffles all over his suit through pure artistry, it's a very timesplitters sort of art, but it has vibrant colours. There was a bit that reminded me of Half Life 2.
The calibration is supreme, it asks you to click on two corners of the screen and the difference between the reticule in this and UC is stark. This is pinpoint, fast as hell aiming. The only thing I would have wanted to improve this for the home version would be to have the levels segmented and ranked (it is ranked) but segmented so you can jump into the parts you want and go for the best scores, rather than having to play the whole thing, arcade style till you die.
I had a mild interest in this new HOTD game before, but after playing this, I thought that it would be another zombie shooter, but it reminds me of how lightgun games should be designed, with fast, perfectly choregraphed camera sweeps.
dvader said:
gamingeek said:
Team Ninja are working on 3 new titles.
And they will all suck.
That's mean.
edgecrusher said:
gamingeek said:
This place is dead today.
I got HOTD 2 and 3 today for a bargain price.
This game is better than Umbrella Chronicles. HOTD 3 in particular has better graphics than Timesplitters 2 and better gameplay than umbrella chronicles.
Seriously the only thing that UC has over this game is being able to switch weapons and having the levels segmented.
Gameplay and visually HOTD3 is better. I might do a more in depth preview at some point, but if you like lightgun games and can get this at a good price, do it.
These are Xbox screens but the game looks the same if not better on Wii. What you can't see is that it runs at a silky smooth 60 FPS and it has vibrant colours and it's crisp. HOTD 3 is better balanced than HOTD 2 by far.
I didn't play much of them, but from what I did play HOTD3 is definitely the better game. The production values are about 20 times better and the game has a better feel to it. HOTD2 felt like I was playing the light-gun equivalent of DMC2.
Aren't they both just ports from the Dreamcast on Xbox and Wii? Long live the Dreamcast.
HOTD 2 is quite pixellated in places but it runs so smoothly and has nice colours so it doesn't bother me. I think they are just ports, but it's a cheap double pack and I dont need to have a light gun to enjoy them. Two player is going to be so much fun
Just listened to the IGN podcast. High Voltage said that part of their new publisher deal was that they wanted to start working on a sequel right away.
SEATTLE -- The last thing I expected to say while playing Mushroom Men was, "Wow, this is what Force Unleashed should have been like."
And yet, there I was at PAX, getting hands-on in Gamecock's booth, and lo and behold it does exactly what I thought the Wii version of the new Star Wars game should have. Among his other powers, your fungal main character has "Sporekinesis" -- he can levitate and move objects around using the Wiimote. Aim the pointer at something with spores growing on it, and you can pick it up and move it around the level with motion controls. If you want to throw it at the nearest enemy (or anywhere), just flick.
Fragile looks like one of those games that is like an experience you wont soon forget. It's as gorgeous as the screens.
De Blob looks cool and fun.
Mushroom men actually impressed me. The environments are huuuuuuge. It runs like silk and is really colourful and it has a lovely art. The platforming looked quite fun too. Now we have word that it uses elebits style physics, which not even Force Unleashed or Harry Potter tried to do.
It's cursor use is strange, you move the cursor over the environment almost like an old graphic adventure and wait for the icon to change. They need to have objects you can manipulate highlighted more easily. I read that there is a faint whiff of spores about things you can move.
Fragile looks like one of those games is like an experience you wont soon forget. It's as gorgeous as the screens.
De Blob looks cool and fun.
Mushroom men actually impressed me. The environments are huuuuuuge. Run like silk and are really colourful and it has a lovely art. The platforming looked quite fun too.
Do not forget the music. Fragile as awesomely awesome music and Mushroom Men has music which is generated by random noise.
Is that Mushroom Men video available anywhere else?
Gametrailers hates me.
Hates me too. What I do is click it and leave it till it sorts itself out. Or immediately pause it and click the download link afterwards and just do it the old fashioned way.
Is that Mushroom Men video available anywhere else?
Gametrailers hates me.
Hates me too. What I do is click it and leave it till it sorts itself out. Or immediately pause it and click the download link afterwards and just do it the old fashioned way.
I added a bit to my post above^
Hey, pausing at the start actually works, thanks!
Well MM has certainly improved a hell of a lot since the last time I sw it.
iga_bobovic said:
Foolz could not find it on youtube, but I did find this
Is that Mushroom Men video available anywhere else?
Gametrailers hates me.
Hates me too. What I do is click it and leave it till it sorts itself out. Or immediately pause it and click the download link afterwards and just do it the old fashioned way.
I added a bit to my post above^
Hey, pausing at the start actually works, thanks!
Well MM has certainly improved a hell of a lot since the last time I sw it.
Thhanks!
Yeah for some reason gametrailers stinks things up. Just immediately pause it and hit the good old download link. It's a shame that the conduit has got all this press and yet mushroom men is doing the same thing as in:
Wii is the priority, it's a new publisher a new IP, a solid engine, an original idea.
And getting so little attention. I really want to see some physics gameplay footage though.
Is that Mushroom Men video available anywhere else?
Gametrailers hates me.
Hates me too. What I do is click it and leave it till it sorts itself out. Or immediately pause it and click the download link afterwards and just do it the old fashioned way.
I added a bit to my post above^
Hey, pausing at the start actually works, thanks!
Well MM has certainly improved a hell of a lot since the last time I sw it.
Thhanks!
Yeah for some reason gametrailers stinks things up. Just immediately pause it and hit the good old download link. It's a shame that the conduit has got all this press and yet mushroom men is doing the same thing as in:
Wii is the priority, it's a new publisher a new IP, a solid engine, an original idea.
And getting so little attention. I really want to see some physics gameplay footage though.
Well I did post the making of the music video as big news. I am not sure if many people looked at the video!
Mushroom men preview (link in the updates) is quite positive
The last thing I expected to say while playing Mushroom Men was, "Wow, this is what Force Unleashed should have been like."
And yet, there I was at PAX, getting hands-on in Gamecock's booth, and lo and behold it does exactly what I thought the Wii version of the new Star Wars game should have. Among his other powers, your fungal main character has "Sporekinesis" -- he can levitate and move objects around using the Wiimote. Aim the pointer at something with spores growing on it, and you can pick it up and move it around the level with motion controls. If you want to throw it at the nearest enemy (or anywhere), just flick.
Meanwhile, Force Unleashed on the Wii doesn't offer that -- it's a port of the PlayStation 2 version, with canned gestures substituting for button presses.
Besides the fact that Mushroom Men: The Spore Warscleverly out-forces Star Wars, it's tough to get a read on whether or not this third-person action-platformer will turn out to be fun in the long-term. It certainly demoed well.
I don't play many games like Mushroom Men these days -- it's quite rare to find a cartoon-styled adventure game that borrows from Mario and Zelda but isn't a licensed kids' game. Developer Red Fly is clearly attempting to keep the disappearing genre alive, and it's tempting to want to fall in love with Mushroom Men based on that alone.
The combat is set up quite a bit like Twilight Princess; you use the Z button to lock on to an enemy and shake the Wiimote to attack. All over the place, you can find new parts with which to build weapons -- this is as easy as opening up the menu screen and clicking on any highlighted weapon once you find the junk that makes it up. For example, your first weapon is made out of a DS stylus, some gum, and a thimble.
But there's also a good deal of platforming; especially if you want to run all over the levels and collect the hidden bits and pieces that make up your weapons. The levels are quite polished -- there's plenty of parody products littering the levels, like "Jello Kitty" lunchboxes, and lots of other clever touches that make the levels much more than a random series of caves and dirt hills. You regenerate your energy by eating the spores that grow out of dead rats. It's a funny game, but that's more due to the visual gags than to the dialogue.
I enjoyed my time playing Mushroom Men, although as I said, it's tough to know whether that's because it's fundamentally entertaining or because I really want a new experience in this genre. If you feel the same way I do, keep an eye on this one as it nears its November release date. The Nintendo DS version will be out in October.
------------------
I can understand what the writer is saying. After watching the walkthrough video there is just something about the game you want to love. I love platformers, so even if SPRay for instance looks generic, there's still a part of me that wants it. How many wii platformers are there now?
Mario Galaxy
Mushroom Men
KORE
Spray
Spyborgs
Am I missing anything? Some may or may not turn out well, but it's nice to see the genre still going either way.
It's good to hear a positive response from somebody who has actually held the controller.
We will be showing a more recent build at Pax... which is ironic, considering the main character's name is actually Pax.
*** I'm taking a hiatus from responding on forums since there's not much more I can say at this point without going in circles. A lot of folks have made assumptions about the game based on bad experiences with other games. All I can say is that Mushroom Men plays like no other Wii game out there. It is not like Zelda, nor is it like Mario Galaxy. The comparisons I've heard are mostly to Psychonauts and Munch's Oddysey but that is mostly on vibe. The mechanics are entirely different.
I'll leave this thread with the following points until the game is out on shelves:
*The last thing I'll say about combat before we ship is that it is specifically designed to be strategic, yet accessible. You will need to think about what you are doing, what your enemies are doing, and what tools are available in the environment. In addition to 4 completely different types of weapons. Your choices of attacks include telekinesis and spore punisher. If all you do is waggle, then you will die often in the game.
*Being player 2 is a lot of fun. Fights go by a LOT faster and you die less if P2 knows what she/he is doing.
*I am in love with telekinesis as a weapon! My favorite moment with this is picking up a shoe and throwing it at an enemy to hurt them. Shoes are funny.
*In addition to the Claypool tracks, the audio design in the game is going to be very special. Those guys (Gl33k) are amazing, and I have never played a game with audio this good. They play games, know games, and know just how to make moments absolutely magical.
*The team has a pretty strong sense of humor, and you'll see it in subtle ways throughout the game.
![[blogspot.com]](/cache/favicons/blogspot.com.ico "blogspot.com")
^^^I very much agree with this post. The Wii is like a dream for Nintendo. I mean it's a HUGE success and most of all can't be broken from a new hardware because of its philosophy. It may not be 2010 or even 2011, but eventually publishers will take the Wii seriously. It has ALOT of time.
I also agree that Microsoft will release the successor to a current gen console first. However will it swim? The 360 is already losing steam, hell even when the 360 had a price drop the PS3 still outsold it in the USA. The very problem with the Xbox is that it is so established as "the" serious gamers console and not much else.The PS3 is a me-too console yes but because it doesn't really have much of an identity it is able to ride the wave on its name without intiminating those previously with its predecessors userbase. If Microsoft would launch another console, especially so soon, they'll just wind up where they are now; having a declining console that appeals to a narrow base.
I also REALLY agree with standardization coming about next generation. I'd imagine that companies would go for the current three to find which would support which. I'd imagine Nintendo would go for some type of Flash Card medium, SONY for a medium that they've already invested in, and Microsoft for either Digital Distribution or whatever is already set with the PC.
One of the site's forefathers.
The thing with 360 is, Microsoft's base is western style uber hardcore players and they've already bought the fucking thing. Microsoft have to drop the price on 360 down to pre-200 levels and I mean the premium 360 for anybody else to give a fuck, and instead they've been all too willing to leave prices much too high for 3+ years as long as they can milk the hardcore crowd out of every last penny. But its biting them in the ass because that well is running dry.
And the big problem with PS3 is that Sony made it too expensive for nearly ANYONE to care about for a long time. Now its down to a price the hardcore are willing to pay, so you see it catching up to and selling better than 360. But the mass-market that the Playstation brand was built on....Sony completely neglected. I love the PS3, its a great machine. But Sony possibly made the biggest blunder in videogaming history when it comes to timing of release and price-point.
So Sony is selling their official PS3 headset for the insane price of $49.99.
Or, you can just buy it with Socom for $59.99!!!
Now, granted, everything in America has become about twice as expensive as it should be since Bush's regime took over. But the fact that the bundle is only 10 bucks more makes me think Sony is only selling the headset for that price because they know it will cause most people to just buy the Socom bundle and make the game sell better.
I'm probably grabbing the game myself. Socom was fun on PS2.
I don't think that would make any difference when it came to how scary it is. Eternal Darkness was incredibly easy, yet quite scary and I genuinely didn't want to die, even though it didn't really matter, and there was little chance of dieing. RE4, while certainly not hard, was a lot more challening than ET, yet not scary at all.
I agree. And that's my point with the 360. It's target is too narrow and already half way into the generation (pretending that this one will follow the usual life cycle when it probably won't) it's REALLY starting to lose steam. Not only that but counting out Banjo I just don't see much if any at all system sellers in the near future. As for SONY to me it is pretty clear that they had their eyes set on the format war instead of the console war. Was the Blu-Ray player for the PS3 necessary? I'm not sure. I mean do you really think that the PS3, selling as much as it had, had much of an effect on it?
One of the site's forefathers.
The king is dead, long live the king.
Microsoft are funny, because they knew that, for them to get anywhere in gaming, they had to enter into it guns blazing for the hardcore crowd, and act like they really care for the gamer while coming out with cutting edge stuff for a great price. And that's what they did on the Xbox...it worked.
Now with the 360, it was apparent from day 1 that they thought they had it in the bag. You could see they weren't interested in pretending to be the gamer's friend anymore. Now they were in milk mode. They thought they owned hardcore gaming and that it would just magically lead them into huge sales and they'd just dominate like Sony did.
A game like Banjo if its great could be a system seller if the machine wasn't just hitting the price the original Xbox launched at, but the audience that wants games like that won't spend 300 to play it on a machine that doesnt get many of those types of games when they could just get a Wii or even PS3 and get more of them. I can't see Banjo being a system seller anyway. That's more of a "Great you loved Mario, now here's your desert" type of franchise which is what it was made for in the first place.
The blu-ray definitely wasn't necessary in PS3. I totally think that was a huge mistake for them unless they were willing to sell it for the same price as a DVD equipped PS3. The funny thing is at this point I'm glad it has the blue ray player though, haha. Its nice to have. But yeah it hurt the PS brand and I agree Sony was too focused on fighting the format war at the gamer's expense.
Oh I tried HOTD 2 before 3 so I know what you mean about it being easier. But there are selectable difficulty levels and you can alter the lives and credits you have too. Whereas I found HOTD 2 to be prohibitively hard and just not as well balanced as 3. HOTD 2 doesn't give you time to reload, so you have a limited number of bullets, too many enemies on screen for the bullets you have and that means you artificially die because there is no opportunity to reload. After using the pea shooter in HOTD 2, the shotgun in 3 was noticebly more powerful, you can knock them back with it and you get more bullets to use too. HOTD 2 does have the most dreadful, awful, shockingly bad dialogue and story that I have EVER seen. It makes no sense, it's like they got random people off the street to do the voices. It is resolutely AWFUL to the highest degree. I didn't laugh so much as think.... WTF? Is this really possible for it to be so awful?
HOTD 3 is better balanced in that there are more bullets, there is time to reload, the shotgun is more powerful and that the game waits for you to finish off enemies, it doesn't just sort of throw things at you for no other reason than to test your itchy trigger finger.
Visually I love this game, you know how devs now use normal maps just to show like ruffles in clothing? HOTD 3 has the main man clearly with shadows and ruffles all over his suit through pure artistry, it's a very timesplitters sort of art, but it has vibrant colours. There was a bit that reminded me of Half Life 2.
The calibration is supreme, it asks you to click on two corners of the screen and the difference between the reticule in this and UC is stark. This is pinpoint, fast as hell aiming. The only thing I would have wanted to improve this for the home version would be to have the levels segmented and ranked (it is ranked) but segmented so you can jump into the parts you want and go for the best scores, rather than having to play the whole thing, arcade style till you die.
I had a mild interest in this new HOTD game before, but after playing this, I thought that it would be another zombie shooter, but it reminds me of how lightgun games should be designed, with fast, perfectly choregraphed camera sweeps.
That's mean.
HOTD 2 is quite pixellated in places but it runs so smoothly and has nice colours so it doesn't bother me. I think they are just ports, but it's a cheap double pack and I dont need to have a light gun to enjoy them. Two player is going to be so much fun
Did 25 updates
Rygar, this game has Dvaders name all over it.
Just listened to the IGN podcast. High Voltage said that part of their new publisher deal was that they wanted to start working on a sequel right away.
SEATTLE -- The last thing I expected to say while playing Mushroom Men was, "Wow, this is what Force Unleashed should have been like."
And yet, there I was at PAX, getting hands-on in Gamecock's booth, and lo and behold it does exactly what I thought the Wii version of the new Star Wars game should have. Among his other powers, your fungal main character has "Sporekinesis" -- he can levitate and move objects around using the Wiimote. Aim the pointer at something with spores growing on it, and you can pick it up and move it around the level with motion controls. If you want to throw it at the nearest enemy (or anywhere), just flick.
Elebits potential at least attempted!^
Elebits gametrailers review: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/15766.html?cid=YSSP
Is anyone an IGN Insider BTW?
Hey I just watched some vids.
Fragile looks like one of those games that is like an experience you wont soon forget. It's as gorgeous as the screens.
De Blob looks cool and fun.
Mushroom men actually impressed me. The environments are huuuuuuge. It runs like silk and is really colourful and it has a lovely art. The platforming looked quite fun too. Now we have word that it uses elebits style physics, which not even Force Unleashed or Harry Potter tried to do.
It's cursor use is strange, you move the cursor over the environment almost like an old graphic adventure and wait for the icon to change. They need to have objects you can manipulate highlighted more easily. I read that there is a faint whiff of spores about things you can move.
Do not forget the music. Fragile as awesomely awesome music and Mushroom Men has music which is generated by random noise.
Is that Mushroom Men video available anywhere else?
Gametrailers hates me.
Foolz could not find it on youtube, but I did find this
Mushroom Men story trailer
Mushroom men gameplay trailer
Hates me too. What I do is click it and leave it till it sorts itself out. Or immediately pause it and click the download link afterwards and just do it the old fashioned way.
I added a bit to my post above^
Hey, pausing at the start actually works, thanks!
Well MM has certainly improved a hell of a lot since the last time I sw it.
Thhanks!
Yeah for some reason gametrailers stinks things up. Just immediately pause it and hit the good old download link. It's a shame that the conduit has got all this press and yet mushroom men is doing the same thing as in:
Wii is the priority, it's a new publisher a new IP, a solid engine, an original idea.
And getting so little attention. I really want to see some physics gameplay footage though.
Well I did post the making of the music video as big news. I am not sure if many people looked at the video!
Do you still have the link?
Mushroom men preview (link in the updates) is quite positive
The last thing I expected to say while playing Mushroom Men was, "Wow, this is what Force Unleashed should have been like."
And yet, there I was at PAX, getting hands-on in Gamecock's booth, and lo and behold it does exactly what I thought the Wii version of the new Star Wars game should have. Among his other powers, your fungal main character has "Sporekinesis" -- he can levitate and move objects around using the Wiimote. Aim the pointer at something with spores growing on it, and you can pick it up and move it around the level with motion controls. If you want to throw it at the nearest enemy (or anywhere), just flick.
Meanwhile, Force Unleashed on the Wii doesn't offer that -- it's a port of the PlayStation 2 version, with canned gestures substituting for button presses.
Besides the fact that Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars cleverly out-forces Star Wars, it's tough to get a read on whether or not this third-person action-platformer will turn out to be fun in the long-term. It certainly demoed well.
I don't play many games like Mushroom Men these days -- it's quite rare to find a cartoon-styled adventure game that borrows from Mario and Zelda but isn't a licensed kids' game. Developer Red Fly is clearly attempting to keep the disappearing genre alive, and it's tempting to want to fall in love with Mushroom Men based on that alone.
The combat is set up quite a bit like Twilight Princess; you use the Z button to lock on to an enemy and shake the Wiimote to attack. All over the place, you can find new parts with which to build weapons -- this is as easy as opening up the menu screen and clicking on any highlighted weapon once you find the junk that makes it up. For example, your first weapon is made out of a DS stylus, some gum, and a thimble.
But there's also a good deal of platforming; especially if you want to run all over the levels and collect the hidden bits and pieces that make up your weapons. The levels are quite polished -- there's plenty of parody products littering the levels, like "Jello Kitty" lunchboxes, and lots of other clever touches that make the levels much more than a random series of caves and dirt hills. You regenerate your energy by eating the spores that grow out of dead rats. It's a funny game, but that's more due to the visual gags than to the dialogue.
I enjoyed my time playing Mushroom Men, although as I said, it's tough to know whether that's because it's fundamentally entertaining or because I really want a new experience in this genre. If you feel the same way I do, keep an eye on this one as it nears its November release date. The Nintendo DS version will be out in October.
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I can understand what the writer is saying. After watching the walkthrough video there is just something about the game you want to love. I love platformers, so even if SPRay for instance looks generic, there's still a part of me that wants it. How many wii platformers are there now?
Am I missing anything? Some may or may not turn out well, but it's nice to see the genre still going either way.
Mushroom men dev seems to have posted on Neo.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=324710&page=3
Few more updates up