TheMightyEthan

This. I'd be extremely nervous about getting games this way. To the point where I wouldn't be willing to risk even $12 like you said Rage is. I'd probably try it if I could get a new $50 game for $5, but I don't think I'd be willing to risk more than that.

That's a cool idea. And I don't have a problem with the world being COMPLETELY different from iteration to iteration, it's just for some reason the mirroring in TP bothers me. I'm hoping that SS is like WW and is just a completely different layout altogether.

Oh yeah it's not consistent across all the games, I just mean it was reasonably consistent between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess (GC version), and for TP Wii it's backward. Ocarina of Time: Twilight Princess (GC): The biggest layout difference between the two is that Zora's Domain and Death Mountain are switched (and there's some extra stuff, but you can chalk that up to having more to work with on the GC than the 64).

Awwwww yeah

That's what we were talking about: it's screwed up in the Wii version of Twilight Princess. In the GC version of Twilight princess the layout of Hyrule is basically the same as Ocarina of Time, with allowances made for the improved tech. In the Wii version they flipped the whole world East-West to account for Link having the wrong handedness. I was wondering if they did the same in Skyward Sword.

You mean like PC games have been doing since the beginning of time?

Yeah, for the Wii version they just flipped the whole game East-West, so anything that's on the right in the GC version is on the left in Wii, and vice-versa.

Windows is pretty open.

Yeah, they said that you can obtain the optimal ending without touching the coop. Since Galactic Readiness (is that a Bioware term or did we make that up?) affects (if not decides) the ending, presumably there's some way to boost it without touching the coop. Coop is just one of the ways to boost it. They also said in that video that your actions in the coop mode become part of your SP canon, so what I want to know is this: will the coop characters you create be somehow associated with a specific SP campaign file? Will you be able to play through the coop once and reap its benefits in all your saves, or will you have to play through it for each SP campaign separately?

Sorry, I left out the 2D ones on purpose, and in fact I meant to put a reference to the 3D ones in the title, guess I forgot. Fixing now... I left out the 2D ones because I think the jump from 2D to 3D is different enough that it's not really fair to compare styles. As for TP Wii graphics: the fact that they're identical to GC kind of proves my point. Nintendo released a Gamecube game on the Wii with absolutely no graphical enhancements (beyond support for 16:9, which the GC version doesn't have) and it doesn't look any worse than any other Wii game. On the left-handed thing: it bugs the crap out of me that they mirrored the entire Wii version so that the sword could apparently be in Link's right hand but within the game world it's still in his left. I mean, it's kind of clever, but Hyrule being backward bugs me. I wonder if they've done the same thing in SS, or if the map is like WW and so unrecognizable as Hyrule that it doesn't matter anyway.

I agree wholeheartedly.

From the video it sounds to me more like Shepard is taking the points, and in coop you're trying to hold them. By holding the points better in coop you increase their effectiveness, which gives bonuses toward the galactic readiness in SP. Based on that interpretation I'm guessing it's a kind of Horde/Firefight-type mode where you try to defend a position against attack. I doesn't sound like there's any taking of points involved in coop, that's Shepard's job.

Yeah, I know I've said this before, but the way the GameTrailers reviews are structured allows me to make a well-educated guess about whether I'll like a game or not, even if I completely disagree with everything they say about it. That's why they're my most influential.

IMHO WW holds up even better than TP, despite being for the GC, because WW's art style doesn't require either high poly models or detailed textures. Really the only way that WW's visuals were held back by the tech was in its display resolution, and maybe draw distance. But yeah, while technical requirements will continue to improve, good art design will always hold up no matter how old the system.

I would guess it's probably a little more involved than that, but yeah basically. My understanding is there's some kind of overall Galactic Readiness rating, and that the coop boosts that rating.

Gametrailers would probably be my most influential about which games to actually buy, but for more background info Joystiq is my go-to place.

So I'm definitely being shifted toward the "excited" side, away from the "worried" side.

I agree with the sentiment, but lol @ "in 5 years". The polycounts and textures were laughable at launch. Nintendo made a conscious decision in developing the Wii not to focus on graphic prowess and it definitely shows in its games (though I make no value judgments about whether that was a good or bad decision).

Yeah, but not everyone has an iPhone. Of the people I interact with on at least a semi-frequent basis 0 have iPhones, 1 has an iPad, and 0 have Apple TVs, so... *Edit* - and the one who has an iPad is my grandma, and something tells me she wouldn't be especially interested in something like this.

Master Chief is practically a mute character. He says like 3 words across the whole series.

lol, isn't that like a $2500 console right there? Granted it's a cool $2500 console, but still...

Yeah, the coop is more along the lines of the first Portal.

I watched a video about the towers, and from that it sounded more like the gang territories in GTA San Andreas. I'm not exactly thrilled to hear there's a tower-defense mode involved.

Yeah, I read that as there's nothing in the SP that you can only get by playing coop, the coop just makes certain things in the SP more likely/easier to achieve. He says in ME3 you can get the optimal ending without doing coop. In ME2 you cannot get the optimal ending without doing the loyalty missions.