edgecrusher said:

GG I don't know how you managed all those updates...it would take forever to go through all that. Is that Wii headset actually 1st-party?

I've been updating for hours, literally.

Missed a ton of stuff. The headset is made by a 3rd party in collaboration with Nintendo. So it's sort of officially licenced.  

E3 2010: GoldenEye - Wii vs. N64

IGN

Being a ridiculously huge fan of the original game, I was busting to see how Activision's GoldenEye reimagining delivers. Is it a perfect remake of the original or a shameless pretender (like EA's GoldenEye: Rogue Agent)? We saw the new version of the famous Russian Dam opening level and have broken down just how closely it matches the original classic. The Dam level keeps a lot of the elements of the Nintendo 64 original (we'd say about 60-70% of the elements) but then it also injects in a large amount of new scenes, primarily designed to ramp the action up.

The same: The opening scene is structurally very similar. The layout where you begin is almost identical and you have the same silenced pistol to take out the patrolling Russian soldier, who's packing the classic AK-47 machine gun. And yes, the first tower opposite the tunnel also has the infamous sniper rifle sitting there for you.

It brings back so many memories.

The new: You're now playing Daniel Craig instead of Pierce Brosnan. Agent 006 also accompanies you through this section (and the rest of the level). Activision said this was so that you could get to know him better and it would be more meaningful when he later betrays you. What? Oh, come on, if you haven't seen the GoldenEye film or original game yet you deserved to have that spoilt. The way you kill the first Russian soldier is also different because you now have the option to lean over the concrete barrier and subdue the soldier silently by grabbing his mouth and knocking him out. Stealth plays a far larger role in the new game and you'll be encouraged to choose between stealth and all-out action often.

Once you've picked up the sniper rifle you'll notice it also now has a thermal vision mode so you can spot the enemies through the fog (and this time the fog's used to add atmosphere, rather than to hide a lack of performance). And rather than sniping the soldiers at the end of the tunnel, you now jump in a truck with 006. This truck sequence adds a new action-packed sequence to the level, where 006 drives the truck and you madly kill soldiers along the way. By smashing the windscreen with the butt of your rifle, you can blast away at passing soldiers. Next up, a soldier jumps onto the side of the truck and opens the door to try and pull you out, allowing you to kick him out and watch him come to a brutal stop as his body smashes into a passing concrete wall. The action-packed truck sequence also sees you barge an enemy truck off the cliff before your truck comes to an explosive stop when a soldier hits you with a rocket.

The same:While the middle part of the level with the guard post - where you put a device on the satellite dish and unlocked the gate - is now absent, there are many more similarities when you get to the dam itself. Firstly, the structure of the dam and the surrounding terrain is very similar. Yes you can go down to the concrete jetties beside the lake, and yes, you still get to head inside the dam itself. These are hardly the biggest deals, but there were also other nods to the original including a padlock you get to shoot off (although it's in a different part of the level), the same curved, red health bar returns and, yes, you still get to dive off the front of the dam.

Dam this looks good.

The new:Most of the action inside the dam is quite different. For a start, a new chopper sweeps over head and lands atop the dam. As you get to the jetties a couple of gunboats power into view. You have to blast away at these and then kill the nearby soldiers by shooting the explosive barrels near them. Next, you climb down the cable of an elevator shaft and then breach some locked doors, with a cool slow-motion sequence as you shoot everyone inside. Your smart phone can also now be accessed to scan data and complete objectives.

Although the new GoldenEye makes quite a few changes to the classic template, I'm still very keen to play through it. In an ideal world, I'd have loved to have seen a more faithful recreation - and it'd be even better if this game was coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as Wii - but the bottom line is this is a top-notch looking Wii shooter, with plenty of nods to my most cherished shooter of all time. Never say never again when it comes to GoldenEye.

So it strikes me that the new Rare is working on Avatars and making Kinect Wii sports type games. Having Kameo 2 and other core projects nixed. And then on the other hand companies like Retro Studios and Eurocom are playing off nostalgia for old Rare classics with Goldeneye and Donkey Kong Country.

How must the Rare guys feel at this point? I'd be pretty miffed.

Agnates said:

1up GoldenEye preview sucks. Do journos really know that little about game development?

" It's easy enough to explain that they've aged a bit over the last decade or so and probably wouldn't be quite right for facial capture, but it's still a bit weird seeing Daniel Craig in place of Brosnan."

Yeah dude, totally, every face you ever see in a video game has to be face mapped. It's not like they have actual artists that can (or should be able to) create whatever they want, real or fictional, possibly using photos as a guide if they don't have access to the person... Lol... Brosnan aging is the only reason he could come up with him not being in the game? Sheesh...

Yeah.

Hideo Konno on 3DS said:

When I was directing Luigi's Mansion on the GameCube we experimented with placing a 3D panel on the screen and making Luigi's Mansion play in 3D. However, at that time we had screen resolution issues. And cost issues. And to separately sell a panel for 3D gameplay wasn't a practical idea as a mass-market product.

When I became the producer of our next hardware, the Nintendo 3DS, I first started to consider whether maybe now this is the time when we can bring 3D gaming into gameplay. What I first did was an experiment with Wii games. I showed Mario Kart Wii and Animal Crossing: City Folk using the 3D panels. I also experimented with Wii Sports Resort's golf, and I directly presented that to Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Iwata. Both of them were challenging 3D for a very long time -- but we needed to show them more than explaining it. I think there is a phrase in English, "A picture's worth a thousand words." I had to show them how it would move smoothly in order to convince them. And they agreed that this might be the era of technology that supports the 3D capability. So Nintendo decided to make it into a product.

IGN: I've got just a couple more questions. Of all the games that are out there, what's the one Nintendo property that you'd like to see in 3D that isn't there yet?

Konno: There are so many!

IGN: It doesn't have to be just one.

Konno: I think Luigi's Mansion, that I created for GameCube, would be a good game for the 3DS. The lighting of the game, and the dollhouse-like environment of the game I think would be very suitable for 3D. I think the depth and the width of the environments, like a box, that we had in Luigi's Mansion would be a very good match for the effects of the 3DS.

Dang.

Would you guys be interested in a home console that came with a dedicated 3D panel? Maybe 19 inch? It would have to cost a lot less than the 3DTVs out there.

Ubisoft's Detoc Talks Kinect, 'Player Projection

Much of Ubisoft's attention in the emerging high-end motion control space is concentrated on Kinetic, however, and Detoc says the company doesn't have the same sort of focus on Sony's PlayStation Move.

"It's not the same type of support, because it's not the same type of design," Detoc explains. "We have something very unique in the case of [Kinect] -- the 3D camera capability." The realm of the camera is one of the main provinces for Ubisoft, a company that's always seen a smooth spectrum between games, film and animation.

"We were working on that three years back," he reveals. "We've been working with some of the startups that were exploring in the business, but it only became a good thing for us when Microsoft did this."

"We're playing on that edge, and because we thought we had an advantage, we're going to use technology that's different than what Microsoft has proposed."

Ubisoft's contribution? "A projection system that tracks a person's image," suggests Detoc. "Player projection technology; we werre working down that path before Microsoft came to us with their solution."

The revelation here, as Ubisoft recently revealed, is technology whereby a player's silhouette is projected directly onto the game screen, not through an avatar; the company says this focuses the experience more directly on the user.

Ubisoft will debut this tech with newly-announced Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, a fitness game that uses Kinect to let players try a variety of individual and family training modes. According to the company, the game tracks the player's real body throughout the session, and the game can provide direct feedback to help players correct their positioning -- some of the same features that led the success of Wii Fit, only without the balance board.

"We will obviously support Move; we have several games for that as well," Detoc says. "I'm just a believer in the accessorization of the motion controls that brings accessibility."

"It's about making the real-world experience better," he adds. "There's a lot to be said for that, for trying to enhance the real world and make it better."