TheMightyEthan

With Call of Duty I guess Activision figures it's worth it. Call of Duty is like the biggest franchise ever in terms of $, so it can probably support the costs of adapting the game where other games might not be able to. As for Dead Space: Extraction, it's an on-rails shooter, not a semi-non-linear game like the others. Also, it's entirely possible that they decided to do an on-rails shooter and chose the Wii for it's light-gun-like controller rather than saying "We need a Dead Space game for the Wii, so come up with something". Any time a company is deciding whether to release a game on multiple platforms it has to do a cost/benefit analysis, and with the Wii the fact that its capabilities are so much different really drives the cost side of that up. That's not to say that it won't sometimes be worth it, just that it's less likely than with more comparable systems.

I think it's just that it's more work than it's worth. You would have to generate all new low res textures, new low poly models. You'd probably also have to rework the AI and physics to account for the system's limitations, change the numbers of enemies, etc. Background stuff besides graphics takes a lot more processing power than I think a lot of people realize.

Well this is irritating: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/20/l-a-noire-the-complete-edition-coming-to-ps3-360-this-novembe/ I mean, I know that games drop in price and that GOTY editions with all the DLC come out, but fuckin seriously? It hasn't even been 6 months yet. Ordinarily I'm okay with paying the premium to get the content earlier, but this is a little ridiculous.

Warner seriously fucked up and is handling this terribly. Having to prove to them you bought the game new is bullshit of the highest degree. However, I agree that the fact that they fucked it up has nothing to do with the practice of "project $10"-type things. It's a flaw in execution, not a flaw in premise. This is Warner's fuck up, no one else's. Not that I support project $10, I'm just not really opposed to it either. I'm indifferent.

It's sad but true: the only way to get significant 3rd party support (not counting shovelware) is to be sufficiently compatible with the other platforms that the third parties can release their games multiplat. Otherwise they just won't get the sales necessary to support development of higher quality experiences, especially when the system manufacturer is targeting a casual gamers who simply don't buy as many games to go with the system.

Yeah, I thought the difficulty spike sounded cool, until I heard the counter symbols were gone. Then again, I'm terrible at game combat systems that have any kind of depth. I never get beyond button-mashing stage.

I agree that the exclusives on the other consoles aren't enough either. Thing is, the PS3 and 360 have good 3rd party support in addition to their exclusives. Practically all the Wii has are its exclusives, and they just aren't enough. None of the consoles can justify a purchase purely on the exclusives, but unlike the PS3 and 360 the exclusives are all the Wii really has.

What Johnny said. The only reason I even have a Wii at all is because my brother never played his and said I could have it. I would have gladly bought SMG 1&2 and Twilight Princess (if my brother hadn't already had them), but that really is the extent of my interest in the Wii, and I have tried most of the games people give as examples of other great titles (getting ready to try Monster Hunter after I finish TP). I've also preordered Skyward Sword. Nintendo makes some great games that I really want, but that don't in themselves justify the purchase of a console. Now, maybe I'll luck out again and stumble into a free Wii U somehow, but I doubt it, and if not I'll be faced with either missing some pretty freakin killer apps or buying an entire console for at most like 4 games. THAT's why I want Nintendo to start publishing for other plats.

You're an evil, evil person.

When I said "go the way of Sega" I just meant I wanted them to move from a system manufacturer to a pure publisher. I know there's more to Nintendo than those two series, but I don't see why publishing on other people's hardware would automatically mean their games would have to suffer. When you get right down to it, from a game development perspective what difference does it really make whether the studios are developing for a Nintendo owned platform or some other company's platform?

Don't forget making you use the Wiimote on its side instead of letting you use the Classic or Gamecube controller. Noooo, that would just make TOO MUCH GODDAMNED SENSE!

That's kind of my point though: the only games worth playing on Nintendo consoles are Nintendo games. I'm not saying Nintendo doesn't make great games, I'm just saying I wish I didn't have to buy a whole separate console just for them.

Yeah, but Sonic kind of floundered around the transition to 3D and never really recovered. Mario and Zelda have both already successfully made the transition (depending on who you ask, anyway), so there's no reason they wouldn't be able to continue to have the same quality level on other consoles.

The only thing I ever used my PSP for was emulated NES-SNES-GBA games on car rides or plane trips. And Mercury.

I haven't played the DS titles, but I love TP, so

I think a tweet of mine from 2 days ago sums up my feelings.

Sure there is, like the fact that the various Link's all seem to be The One True Hero, with the power to wield the Master Sword (or do some other specific magical thing), or that many of them are compatible with the Triforce of Courage, or in TP's case Link comes pre-loaded with the ToC, so to speak. Or that Zelda often comes pre-loaded with the Triforce of Wisdom. Now, I'll agree there's nothing to suggest this is more likely than the Zeldas just being descended from the royal family and given a traditional name, and the Links just being some random guy who happens to be worthy, but there's not really anything that refutes it either, or makes it any less likely than that interpretation. As for the Hero's Shade, it's not really clear in the game what exactly he is, but I took it to be some kind of spirit that maybe guides the Hero but isn't necessarily a past Hero. My other idea would be that it really would be a past Link, in which case it's Link's past self teaching his current self things, but doesn't rule out the reincarnation. Kind of like the Avatar in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

My theory: people are irrational and stubborn, especially when it comes to admitting they're wrong.

Well in theory an endurance map/mode adds infinite gameplay time to the game...

It's not releasing until Nov 18 on PC. I was hoping to get it done before Halo: Anniversary, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Zelda: Skyward Sword all come out. Guess that's not happening...

I would be in agreement with you, but I got Arkham Asylum for $1 in one of those GFWL sales, so that makes me more willing to pay more for the sequel since my total investment in the series is still pretty low. Buying AA for $1 and AC for $35 (through that Green Man Gaming deal) averages out to $18/game, and I'm happy with that.

I've always thought the Links and Zeldas are different incarnations of the same person. So the Link and Zelda in TP or WW aren't really the same people as from OoT, but they are the reincarnations of those people. They're not the same "person" but they're the same metaphysical being (soul, spirit, whatever). *Edit* - But my understanding is that Ganon is always the same actual person, that he never really dies, at most he gets reduced to a near powerless spirit, kind of like Sauron or Voldemort. *Edit Edit* - Seriously Chrome, you recognize "Voldemort" as being a word, but not "Sauron"?

FUCK! Lost a long-ass post... Summarized version: I don't 100% ascribe to it either, but for pure entertainment things like Zelda I'll go with whatever interpretation I like best and makes the most sense to me. So I might interpret little hints at connections between games either as easter eggs or that the games are thematically related without necessarily being one continuity. Bigger things like the backstories to TP and WW I interpret as meaning those are in the same continuity as OoT (or the split continuity, anyway), but small inconsistencies go to the "legend" idea that the story has evolved over time and may not be 100% consistent. To me the only thing that's "canon" is what's actually contained within the work, and just because a creator interprets/intends it a certain way doesn't mean that that's the only valid interpretation. Not to say that creator intent can't be interesting or meaningful, it's just not dispositive.

I included Twilight Princess in the super arc, and I'm not familiar enough with LttP to speculate there. However, I will say I follow the death of the author theory, and so regardless of what Word of God is, if I have an interpretation that I like better or makes more sense to me I'll go with that.

How does this work? As you can see in my post above I find what I consider pretty clear evidence within the games themselves that the arcs are connected. Wind Waker is probably the most "in your face" about it out of all of them. I would consider Wind Waker to be part of the Ocarina of Time super-arc that also includes Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks (and apparently Skyward Sword, though we'll see for sure when that game comes out). *Edit* - Honestly it seems to me that they really only started trying to develop a cohesive overarching timeline around the development of Wind Waker, building off of Ocarina of Time, and so any ways that the older titles fit in are more shoehorn ret-cons than anything that was ever intended when they were made.