edgecrusher said:

I didn't know it GOT cold in Aussie....what is "cold" to you guys?

When I went to LA, 16 C was considered cold. I laughed in their faces with my British gait.

Requiem For The Hardcore

“They (core) obsess over games before they’re released and then often savagely rip apart the very thing they were so eagerly anticipating. They argue passionately about the most minor of details, and they demand to be catered to by developers.” - Forbes’ Chris Morris

That's actually pretty accurate.

"With 'Spore,' we were intentionally not targeting the core gamer. Almost all of our testing was with Sims players and casual or nongamers. … I'd much rather hit that broader group." -- Will Wright

I'm still looking forward to playing Spore on Wii.

"I think people are going to be very surprised when they hear what I'm working on. I'm sure a lot of the hardcore folks are going to be up in arms and I'm really looking forward to getting into that discussion with them. I don't believe I'm compromising on my gameplay ideals at all. [But] any artist who doesn't want his or her work in front of the largest audience possible is nuts." --Warren Spector

Oh snap! Warren "Deus Ex" Spector's gone casual too?

"I think [Nintendo] will be the first to tell you they have not expanded gaming households, but they have expanded the number of people in the household who are playing. The core consumer … represents a smaller percentage of users--but the lion's share of the revenue dollars--but the growth is coming from the casual consumer." --Kathy Vrabeck, president of Electronic Arts Casual Entertainment division.

Hardcore gamers still on top (revenue wise), but for how long? Is it the begining of the end? I'm sure glad I'm not one of those sad hardcore gamer types who hangs out in message boards and complains all the time.

"The hardcore is completely safe. They are less relevant to major publishers, but they are more relevant to independent developers." -- Warren Spector

Whew! They had me scared for a minute there.

Even more wonderful industry opinions in the full article!

ravenprose said:

"I think people are going to be very surprised when they hear what I'm working on. I'm sure a lot of the hardcore folks are going to be up in arms and I'm really looking forward to getting into that discussion with them. I don't believe I'm compromising on my gameplay ideals at all. [But] any artist who doesn't want his or her work in front of the largest audience possible is nuts." --Warren Spector

Oh snap! Warren "Deus Ex"  Spector's gone casual too?

!

He's working with Disney. No joke. He is.

iga_bobovic said:

ravenprose said:

From the Nintendo Voice Chat #25 Summary:

Brothers in Arms - Matt says make sure you don’t buy that game. Bozon says Far Cry even has better controls than the game.

Ouch!

Actually that's was the only thing Far Cry did right, the controls. People were questioning why these controls were not found in Red Steel, with those two games being made by the same company and all.

ravenprose said:

iga_bobovic said:

It's a RPG stupid! But with one difference, Paper Mario is fun! Most RPG's are inherently not fun, even battling is fun in Paper Mario. One of the better games on the system.

And if you want to curse at you tv screen, buy F-Zero GX and Mario Sunshine. You shall swear like a sailor than.

I hate most RPG's, but even I enjoyed Paper Mario:TYD . . . at least for a little while. I never did finish the damn thing. But the turn-based battles were at least interesting which says a lot since I despise turn-based games.

F-Zero GX can suck a horse Richard! God, I hate that F-ing game! Well, its difficulty, anyway. Curse like a salor, indeed.

SMS was great! I've played all the way through that game like 5 times; It's my second favorite Super Mario game right behind Super Mario World.

Oh, snap! Did someone say we are getting a forum soon? Woot!

IGN is having a Nintendo 64 Week this week. I enjoyed the N64 a lot, but I still wonder what would've happend if Nintendo had released it with a CD drive instead of those expensive, carts. . .

Yes, that's why I said that it was fun. If you ever get a DS again try Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga. The GBA version, the game is a must for all Nintendo fans. And stop lying to yourself. You love F-Zero. Deep down you love it, but it is a harsh mistress, she has rejected you too many times. You are just hurt from the inside and your hate is a mask for your pain. She beat you like a red headed stepchild over and over again. Stop being emo, and beat her now!

Raven did you read this? Stop running from your problems

Superstar saga is my favourite mario rpg (i have played both Mario and Luigis and the 3 Paper Marios but not the SNES one).  so inventive, so much fun.

I respect F-Zero more than I love it.  It puts me in my place and makes me realise how much i have to grow as a gamer

iga_bobovic said:

Here is my opinion of hardcore gamers. Fuck off.

I never knew I was a "hardcore gamer" until I heard the term on a message board when I first started coming to sites. Before that, the term hardcore either meant porn, or someone who's into hardcore music.

All I knew was that, I was a big fan of games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and Perfect Dark. I was a GAMER. I liked playing great games.

Honestly the whole segmentation of gamers into different groups these days annoys me.

ravenprose said:

I played a little bit of Far Cry Wii on a free rental, and I thought the controls kind of sucked (jumping by flicking the Nunchuck up? WTF? ), especially when compared to Metroid Prime 3. Besides, in the podcast, Matt compares the controls of BiA Wii to Red Steel; that's not a good thing coming out two years later.

Dude you can tell just watching the videos that GG posted that it controls like Red Steel. The gun's all jerking around yet the screen doesn't move.

Pfft, Gearbox should be ashamed of themselves. Really...why even do this if your not going to make an effort? Fucking stupid.

BIA Double time interview

"The devs explain why it's shit"

From the Fatal Frame preview in Tuesdays updates:

"When we heard that Fatal Frame was coming to the Wii, we were excited about the pointer being used to control your torch. But that's not quite how things have turned out. Instead, you use the Remote's tilt function to manoeuvre the beam. Though this initially seems disappointing, after a few hours with the game, it makes perfect sense. The light would be wobbling all over the place if Tecmo had used IR control, and the relatively slow movement suits the game's funereal pace.

Similarly, the Camera Obscura would be too easy to use if you simply had to point and shoot. Using the Nunchuk analogue to move left and right and the Remote to move up and down might feel clumsy, but that's clearly a deliberate design decision to increase the tension."

edgecrusher said:

ravenprose said:

I played a little bit of Far Cry Wii on a free rental, and I thought the controls kind of sucked (jumping by flicking the Nunchuck up? WTF? ), especially when compared to Metroid Prime 3. Besides, in the podcast, Matt compares the controls of BiA Wii to Red Steel; that's not a good thing coming out two years later.

Dude you can tell just watching the videos that GG posted that it controls like Red Steel. The gun's all jerking around yet the screen doesn't move.

Pfft, Gearbox should be ashamed of themselves. Really...why even do this if your not going to make an effort? Fucking stupid.

Gearbox only pretended to make it, it was ported by demiurge. The interview is total crap man:

"The result was an engine that delivers a visually compelling Wii title with technology flexible enough to be used by Demiurge in future Wii projects."

"Having small development teams means everyone's time is in high demand. We had managed to keep the team intact up until the end of the project, when we made the mistake of ramping down too quickly. As soon as we submitted to Nintendo, we reduced the team size.

The result was that members of the team ended up bouncing between projects towards the end of Brothers in Arms: Double Time as the game came back from submission and required more work. We had to shift resources to make sure we had the coverage we needed, which added to the distraction of submitting and then regaining the staff to respond to results.

We took the gamble and lost here, and the lesson we learned is to give the project lifetime its proper due in all aspects, including submission and staffing.  "

4. No long range development plan at the start.

The overall development effort "went right," but from a scheduling and planning perspective, the development production staff got lucky. This project was fueled by excitement about bringing the Brothers in Arms property to the Wii. The pre-production technical due diligence was in the spirit of "relax, everything will be juuuuust fiiiiiine." "

"From the first day of the project, we were brimming with ideas on how to use controls, the UI, and all the features that separate Wii from other platforms. In fact, we couldn't turn off the ideas. We didn't set a feature lockdown date, and as a result we were still tweaking the control scheme long after we should have. This left a lot of pieces feeling chaotic and unfinished right down to the wire.  "

I wonder which game will be better, SH5 or Fatal Frame 4... my money is on FF.