Will

"Its only scalping if its tickets and its at the event. This is capitalism."


Are you saying 'this is capitalism' like it's a good thing?

Heh. A year ago, EGM gave PDZ a 7.8. Now it's one of the 10 worst launch games ever.

PDZ was a good game. Not great, but good. Saying it's one of the 10 worst launch games ever is like some sort of reverse hype. De-hype, I suppose.

What's the big deal about this? The unlockables are still available the old fashioned way if you don't want to pay for him.

Plus, it's not like you have to buy everything all together. Maybe someone really wants that 2006 Viper in the game, and is willing to spend the dollar to unlock it.

I mean, really, what's the big deal? The same content is in the game, the same to unlock the content is in the game, all they did was make it so you could spend a few bucks to unlock specific bits of that content should you choose. There's a lot not to like about microtransactions, but bitching about this is just over the top.

I'm wondering where you guys are getting the $37.50 number. From what I've seen, the Vs. CPU and Mission/Puzzle pack will both be less than the Advanced pack, putting the whole thing around $31.75, which is a bit more in-line with other versions of the game.

http://www.videogametalk.com/read.php?ID=503

If they would have just sold it normally for $30, there would have been no adverse reaction. But because they split it up the way they did, there's been this backlash.

Microsoft should have either found a way to sell a version of Lumines on the Arcade for $15-20 or they should have just sold Lumines Live through standard means for $30. Hopefully they learn their lesson.

Personally, it doesn't bother me much, but that's because I'll know ahead of time it'll be $30 for everything. But for people who thought they were getting a phenomenal deal at $15, I can understand how they'd be miffed.

"Erec, the other thing you keep forgetting about when you say it won't attract new players is that some games will be targeted to the old people, and some other will be targeted at the hardcore.

Wii Madden is targeted at the hardcore. Its not SUPPOSED to attract your grandfather into playing football."

I'm not forgetting that at all. I've said, pretty clearly I think, that the control scheme alone won't attract new gamers. It was going to have to be the games that would do that.

And I'd absolutely disagree that Wii Madden is being targetted at the hardcore. A lot of people, from Nintendo fanboys to the EA guy in the video, are saying that this Madden will be a football game that everyone can intuitively pick up and play. People are saying that about the vast majority of the Wii games. I'm saying I don't think that will be the case, and that if Nintendo relies mostly on the same games with different control schemes, they're not going to be nearly as successful pulling in non- or casual-gamers as they're telling everyone they will be.

"Hmm, what is more intuitive about passing a ball than literally MAKING A BALL-PASSING MOTION???"

Have you ever played football? You don't throw a football like you were casting a fishing line.

And that's probably the most intuitive Madden control. The others, much less so. Both hands straight up to catch any pass? Flick your left hand up to snap a ball? Flick your right arm to the left to juke?


"Have you played it? Because I had the same concerns until I played 5 different games at the Nintendo store in Sept. After playing with the darn thing for a few hours I believe in the system and will definitely pick it up. I see where you’re going with this and I may agree that on certain levels you're right... but again, it’s not only about it being intuitive but also about truly sucking in the gamer..."

Nope, haven't played it, but I've seen enough videos of developers explaining their controls to know that the games won't be as intuitive as the press releases make it sound. That absolutely won't be a problem for me, but considering that Nintendo apparently thinks the hurdle keeping non-gamers from becoming gamers is having to learn buttons, I don't think having to learn half the buttons and a bunch of different motions will help non-gamers over that hurdle at all.

Again, to be clear, I'm not saying the Wii won't be fun. I bet it will. My buddy, who has played it for a few hours, has assured me as much. But I don't think it will be this breakthrough to non-gamers that a lot of people like to say it will be.

If Nintendo is banking their success on attracting non-gamers, they need to make sure developers make *a lot* more games that deal with things other than adolescent male fantasies, because that, not control schemes, is what is by far keeping Mr. and Mrs. Schmoe from playing the vast majority of non-casual games.

"While I've got no problem associating A with pass, there are lots of people who do."

And you think those people are going to find comfort in Madden for the Wii?

*Ok, I flick the right remote up to snap. Then I use the stick on the left remote to move. Then I flick the right remote forward while holding one of 5 different buttons to pass to a receiver. Then I hit another button to switch to the receiver and flick both remotes up to catch the low pass. Once I start moving, I flick the right remote to the left to stiff arm a guy on my left, and then I flick the left remote to the right to juke to my right.*

I don't buy all the talk about the Wii's amazingly intuitive controls. For each and every game people will have to learn which motions replicate which actions, as well as learning what the various buttons do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Wii won't be fun. I think its value will depend almost entirely on the quality of the games on the system. Despite the hype from the Nintendo marketing department and Nintendo's fanboys, I don't think the Wii will attract as many grandfathers or casual gamers as we're being led to believe. Instead of learning control schemes that simply involve buttons, people will have to learn control schemes that involve some buttons and a bunch of gestures that vary for each game that may or may not even replicate the associated "real gestures".

Like I said, I don't think the Wii does anything in and of itself to lessen the learning curve for the vast majority of games, and as such, it won't be as accessible to the other 90% of the population as we're being led to believe.

I think for some games, it won't be a problem. But for some other games, tiredness will absolutely be a problem. Has anyone had the misfortune of playing TotemBall yet? I'm a pretty athletic guy, I play tennis regularly, but I was finding that having to hold my arms out only making very small movements got pretty tiring pretty quickly. The developers realized it, too, because they put rest pickups everywhere so people could get 10 seconds or so to rest their arms.

So I think for games like Wii Sports, where your arms are moving constantly and in different ways, tiredness won't be a problem. But for games where the vast majority of the time you'll have your arm out in front of you pointing at the screen, I definitely think it could be a problem.

My buddy played some Gears multiplayer at the GameStop conference last week, and he said it was very good. Thing is, he's not really a fan of shooters. So if he said he enjoyed playing it, I'm on board. From almost all accounts, the game sounds like it's going to be great fun. It won't be flawless, but it will be fun.