Diogo Ribeiro

Ah ha. I just find it funny that Gamespot readers complain about some game not being there, but then vote in with suggestions that are as bad as the site's editors.

And the Psychonauts avatar just gives it an air of unparalleled legitimacy.

And if we can't get straight to the disease we can always start with the disease carriers.

On Ninja Gaiden Uh, no. Ninja Gaiden was considerably slower than its later iterations. The second (and especially the third) title in the series was more intuitive, had better graphics, less hap hazard level design and was much more fast paced. On Megaman 2 And Mario hangs in the air for several seconds when collapsing the bridge under Bowser before Megaman ever got stuck on piss poor side scrolling transitions. Your point? Because your lead ass being too heavy to stay on the chair is actually relevant to the game. Christ. None of them even go into what's good about the game in terms of gameplay. When they do talk about it's things that have been there since day one. If you want to make some case about the game being better than its prequel and a reasonable contender for best NES title, here's some of the things you forgot to mention: Password feature Energy Tanks Addition of more special items to use across the levels Difficulty selection Unfortunately it was also easier than your drunk, underage sister. But hey, no game is perfect. On Final Fantasy ...Yeah, the complexity. Let's just forget for a minute that both games require a princess to be saved in the first moments yet somehow Final Fantasy "outdid" Dragon Warrior, which just shows someone didn't really play the game. What's so complex about adding a secondary quest? Or more than two? Dragon Warrior had you rescue the princess, prove you were Eldrick's descendant, perform a handful of odd jobs to get cool gear or places (like finding the three guardians of Phat Loot, and create a Rainbow Bridge), and kill the Dragonlord or somesuch. Yet Final Fantasy is more complex because it has exactly the same structure but instead of keeping it short and sweet like Dragon Warrior, it wastes hours shoving players around through even more pointless errands? If that's revolutionary you're in for trouble. Mario has you all beat again, as it requires players to keep saving Toad until you find the real Princess. There, pointless errands for you. Still, he goes one step further by having you skip pointless castles through special tubes, whereas in Final Fantasy you're forced to go somewhere out there and kill stuff to get an item/cutscene/engrish and nonsensical phrases (I think that's what was called story back then). Where the frack is Tetris, you mooks?

Llyranor.

And with that, it's time to hit the road.

Of course it sounds like a judgement, but here's the difference... Are we clear on this? Being the lead means that you have a large amount of control over everything that is happening with the game's development insofar as your team is concerned; but add to it that he was a reputed developer in the eyes of the gaming industry working on a title that drawed much gamer anticipation and media coverage, and that he worked on previously critically acclaimed videogames - and you almost certainly get someone who has more than the average control over a game development cycle. Not absolute control, but large enough. I know, I remember watching those videos as well; and I understood where you were coming from. However, when we're talking about AI that supposedly decides for itself, we are - in most cases, if not all - still talking about scripted situations, because any AI 'deciding' what to do just has a large variety of predetermined scripts in its database and decides to use one based on given circumstances, as opposed to just having one single script kick in (which seems like what most people refer to scripted).

I just want to say something very quickly. First, I'd like to extend thanks to anyone who showed even the slightest interest in me participating in the ongoing campaign, and to Eldar for having been supportive of my absences. Second, I'd like to apologize to those very same people because I won't be able to participate in them in the immediate and near future, as I'm taking an extended leave from... Pretty much everything around me, and I'm not really sure when I'll be coming back. I may linger around here a day or two at best, but that's it. Not that many of you actually care, but hey, this way we all can pretend you do. Cheers.

Stop grasping at straws. For the last time, I wasn't judging the road not travelled. In your previous post you asked me why did I thought he had enough room to exercise his creative vision which, had you paid attention, had been retroactively replied. I'm sure Spector wasn't working alone but as the game's Producer and Project Director, he called pretty much all the shots.

Your posts do not become relevant simply because you want them to. Telling me "there is no way to realistically judge the road not travelled" is irrelevant for the very simple reason I wasn't judging the so called "road not travelled", but rather suggesting that he could have very well went through that road - or went with something very close to it - if he wanted to. I'm not going to repeat myself, given I've made it quite clear in my previous post. Any and all unfulfilled plans Spector had for the game very well come to mind.

Obviously, but then again not only was my point not aimed at developers in general, it was also focused on a portion of development rather than an entire cycle. Also, we weren't talking about some junior developer was being whiplashed by a publisher constantly changing deadlines and plans, we were talking about a game developer who wheter justified or not, has enough credit to be given enough room to develop the game he wanted. And he had more than enough room to create the game that fit his vision. That sounds like excellent fortune cookie material, but not very relevant to what was being discussed.

At $5 each in mint condition they're probably worth it. Personally I couldn't get into them because of several reasons: the first title left so many bad impressions that I just ignored the second one. For one, the constant and bothersome blathering of the party members - who are pretty lifeless - asking me what I felt regarding the current events with "Yes" and "No" being the only choices is pretty pointless. It's also got this throwback to console RPG combat mechanics - if the monster a party member was targetting gets killed, the character will just waste its turn instead of moving to the next monster; even Final Fantasy games stopped doing this years ago. It's also got another annoying quirk in the form of asking you to decide on what is your course of action but having the path predetermined thus rendering your decision null. It's a kind of barely average game that would have likely been good during the SNES days, but at this point in time I've probably already played all the games which gave birth to the cliches Golden Sun uses. Maybe the second title is better, I don't know. Maybe someone could go into depth about it.

Yes, those poor designers and all that creative work they have to do. They should probably do something more related to their skills and to what they're being paid for, like fetching coffee and navel gazing. This only has to happen if the developers want it to happen. You don't have to double the amount of physical spaces when entity reactions and interactions can be handled by scripts which track down player choices. You don't have to create entirely different maps to accomodate player decisions. Or, let's use the force of example. Go play Deus Ex. Start the first level, Liberty Island. Make a save at the beginning, then go around killing all NSF troops, don't promise to use non-violent means to capture the NSF leader in charge of the operation to Harley Filben, don't rescue Gunther Hermann, kill the NSF leader. Reload, then do the opposite. Use non-lethal ways to incapacitate NSF troops or simply don't even touch any, promise Filben to take it easy on the NSF leader, rescue Gunther, and don't kill the NSF leader. Reload, and just do what you want regarding any of the above options. Exactly what kind of information required two or more different maps? None whatsoever. Or, go play Baldur's Gate 2. Start the game and play up to the point where you have to choose wheter to affiliate yourself with the Shadow Thieves or with the Vampire Guild. Make a save. Play for either side then see through all of their quests. Reload, then play for the opposing side and see through all of those quests. Exactly what kind of information required two or more different maps? None whatsoever. And these aren't even the only games where this happens. Far from it. The use of scripts as means to track player actions and present different entity reactions based on them have been around for a long time now, and that's pretty much what's being used in these cases. Deus Ex requiring oh so many new and different maps to handle player actions made throughout the game is fallacious, especially considering how many player choices the game reacts to while providing the same amount of maps and reactions to those choices in said maps. Even *if* additional maps were required (and at this point we would be willingly rejecting the possibility of having all of the game's maps remain the same but to give the players different sets of objectives based on their affiliation), removing filler levels from the game - like the entire Ocean Lab sequence, where everyone already knew where the story was going but had to suffer through another set of empty hallways with pointless and arbitrary encounters with mutated stuff and shallow objectives - would work just fine. Repetitive art direction and the faux necessity to create different maps based on each and every player decision are two different things and not necessarily related.

Metroid Fusion Rebelstar: Tactical Command Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones Astro Boy: Omega Factor Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Reasons for replayability aren't constant; trying to narrow down several possible plot points into one single path isn't guaranteed to have the desired effect on it. Spector had full control over the game's development; his 'wish' could very well have found its way into the game's design if he wanted to. Hell, it's already plastered all over the game, only on various situations and in smaller scales. All it takes is to stop focusing on trivial things which don't have an effect on gameplay and move on up to what he really wanted to do.

Sure, if you want to add radically different path points. Except you don't have to create radically different path points - based on player choice - that are so different from each other as to require the often used apology of 'it would take too much of X resource - trust us, we know what we're talking about'.

Oh, I bet you will sweet meat

Get a room.

Nintendo has launched the site for their upcoming console, the Wii. In it, you can see various information on their console philosophy, the controller, and on upcoming software releases. Uhm, Nunchuk controller?

But your shame will live on in our memories.

No, it's meta that's broken.

Probably. I'm not so sure Mass Effect is going to be released on the PC, even if further down the line. But in any case being Xbrick exclusive doesn't really bother me now, as at this point I have less interest in it than in Jade Empire.