Interview with Hiro Yamada on the 3ds port.

http://www.nintendol...ew_nintendo_3ds

Yeah, I saw that. It does sound quite impressive a technical achievement. I hope the fact that they seem to have sacrificed some graphical quality in order to maintain the draw distance ends up being a worthy sacrifice. The epic views were a big part of this game, from what I'd played and seen.

I'm not an expert on such things but I would've thought the technical barrier to emulation is actually tied to the fact that dedicated hardware-based functions are just in principle faster than software. Rather than people just struggle to efficiently reverse engineer the software. Although obviously that does play a part too.

It's more like NiGHTS than Sonic

Yeah, I realised that. Although I never played that game. I just meant the kind of thrill of fast-paced smooth-flowing action mixed with cool music. That's what always defined sonic for me. Or at least the good parts of Sonic.

Cool, thanks. Can't see it on the UK amazon yet. 

I think this is something I'll definitely be waiting for reviews on. It strikes me as something that it's very easy to mess up! Especially a smaller developer.

Hopefully they can capture that Sonic Adventure vibe though.

the screen turns in the direction you aim, which is perfectly viable, and often times preferable to run'n'gun play styles simply because it lets you aim, and react much quicker than the other 2 control scheme, but sacrifices ease of use, as the player needs to track their courser in relation to the player and the camera. 

 

The screen turning from your aim does make the wii-mote as a whole harder to use effectively, and one of the reason's the sensitivity options are much more complex then a bar, with dead-zones, turn speed, acceleration based-on distance from the dead-zone/box/center of the screen, ect.  It does make the control scheme a little harder to use competently, but it doesn't sacrifice from the precision or effectiveness of the controller as a whole. 

 

other note, the lack of the camera responding to where i was aiming on the scheme through me off and it made it a little harder to respond to things like getting flanked, though it does make the control scheme easier to use for people new to wiimote aiming, i would have added the option for more traditional ir aiming where it controls the camera, and had floating scope for the snipers, as having them fixed on screen made snipers only useful as pre-magnum magnums. 

 

Here is a example, this is of COD and there is much room for improvement to the IR in this game, but it is a example, atleast until (if one is even made) there is a well made shooter with IR controls on wiiU.  This player can also benefit by resting his arm/wrist on something to help stabilize his aim. People who are used to the control scheme also tend to crank the sensitivity.  If turning with the mote throws you off, just make big dead-zones so you rarely do it while you are aiming.

 

Well I do own COD on the Wii U so I'll give it a try at some point. My only memory so far was of trying it on the Wii and finding it an absolute nightmare. I think it was Goldeneye I played.

When did you specify this was about western games? He doesn't say that anywhere in his article. That's what I was responding to!

But either way, I accepted that it's a fairly accurate description of the business side of things. Jim Sterling pointed out in a recent video how many times Peter Molyneux had said that his previous game was crap just before his newest came out. The part I was criticising was this as a description of gamer's attitudes. When it comes to actual attitudes, it doesn't seem particularly relevant where the games are coming from (unless you're suggesting people systematically have different attitudes depending on the game's origin). I'm fairly sure you can point to the exact same phenomena with western games. I could link to any number of articles or videos that argue how much worse FPSs have got in the last decade (more or less the analogous argument you hear about JRPGs) and those are some of the most heavily hyped games in existence. Total Biscuit did a good one 

I just don't buy the idea that if people don't know everything about past games, they're defenseless idiots ripe for controlling by marketing departments. I think your knowledge of the past is largely orthogonal to such gullibility.

I don't really know what Mighty Switch Force is, but at those prices.. haha. I agree that Shantae still seems a little steap.

Mighy Switch Force is a fairly light pick-up-and-play puzzle platformer that I thought was really quite excellent. It's only downside is that it's fairly short (e.g it takes about 1/100th of the time of Pushmo to complete, a game at the same price). But when you've got 1&2 available so cheap, definitely go for it! They're the kind of game you'll probably blaze through but after you've finished them and left them for 6 months or something, you'll be up for playing them again.

as for ff12 PAL versions of the game still seem to have trouble, with performance dropping around groups and wendigoes. NTSC versions seem to be able to reach full performance and up to 200%/300fps with Wait Loop 

I would've thought regional standards would be one of the easiest hurdles for emulation to cross.

Well they tend to just stick their new ideas into existing IPs, so it's not that meaningful a question.

Mario Galaxy could've easily been done with a new IP and the main mario series could've remained more 'Cartesian', if you will. It had hardly anything to do with Mario after all.

Not to get off topic but if you want to build a pc, look up Austing Evans on YouTube. He has a ton of vids for pc related stuff.

Lol this was already off-topic!

I'm a web developer and at my current job I sometimes have three virtual machines running depending on what I'm working on (3 apps that live in different places but communicate with each other). *shrug* At any rate, I didn't pay for it.    

 

I'm starting to think I'd like to build a PC at home for gaming. Maybe I'll make another thread to ask for advice. 

Does that ever get anywhere near to 16GB? What are you simulating on virtual machines, all of google?

What about MacBook Pro 2014? 2.6 Ghz Core i5, 16GB RAM. Graphics is Intel Iris, which I haven't heard of (1536 MB)

What on earth is the point of having that much RAM but no dedicated graphics card? I guess there are some non-visual tasks that might use that much memory but surely the main one that would necessitate that amount would be gaming.

Hard to imagine how it would be. You surely need twin sticks for a shooter. Ok you don't NEED twin sticks but it's definitely the optimum method.

Floating point doesnt just affect your physics, it affects the accuracy of your polygons vertex placement as well. For example, the reason the psx had wobbly polygons that warped and juttered all over the place was because it didnt have accurate enough floating point precision.

I noticed that a lot when playing the Spyro trilogy. I always assumed it was just a really bad kind of LOD.

By the way, since you seem knowledgable on the emulation scene. Can you give a similar summary of PCSX2? Has that seen any improvements like Dolphin?

I used to use that a while back but its performance was hugely varied depending on the game. FFX worked a dream, which no longer matters as I have it on Vita, but FF12 had a lot of framerate issues. 

I'm keen for populated areas like clock town or twilight's castle town

I like those too. I hope they have a fairly big settlement this time. Something equivalent to New LA in XCX would be cool. I like that sort of thing because it creates a greater contrast between civilisation and the wilderness.

Seriously I'm happy for the people who are exciting for it.

Weirdest comment on the internet today.

Lol did you write that article on gamasutra? Or can I be rude about it?

I started the Elder Scrolls at Morrowind and I still think Skyrim's the best in the series.

Mmmm I could never get into Monster Hunter I'm afraid. It just didn't reel me in like Dark Souls. I may have to try this Kings Field though. It's on the PS1 right? Does it look hideous if you play it now then?

Speaking of the devil. Gamesradar recently redid their top 100 games of all time. Guess what came in top? Quite a shock actually: http://www.gamesrada...est-games-ever/

5 is thankfully easier than 10. After 5 I start worrying if I'm forgetting something. So top 5 of 7th gen:

1) Mass Effect 2

2) Mario Galaxy 1/2

3) Dark Souls

4) Portal 2

5) Xenoblade Chronicles (still haven't finished but I'm confident enough based on what I'd played)

Yeah but pretty much everyone who buys all these games on sale never play them so they are wasting money.

Sssshhhhhhh. Don't tell anyone. You'll make the entire industry crash if people start to realise it.

Haha, I still buy DVDs!

And I still have a VCR.