Robbie Cooke

Apologies that this isn't a direct reply - but I do have a burning question about ATV and Boxee and i figured that the readers of TUAW are the best teachers!

I'm in the UK and want an apple tv to get music/artwork/photos through my TV. Obviously I'd love to show video too as I don;t have a regular tv licensce. I've got a tonne of downloaded shows in a variety of video-formats (none of which are probably suited to ATV's restrictions) .... will Boxee or any other plug-ins allow me to play these? if so I'm definately going to buy one ... Unfortunately my ageing powemac takes about 5 days to convert these video files into the ATV format or rip my dvds....

Cheers for the help!

Medal of Honor 2 Heroes

Fantastic controls, good weapons but shame about the game. Desperate for some FPS action that might get with 50 miles of my old Xbox games, I gave this a shout when I saw it half price.

I sold it on in a week: Poor graphics, no AI to speak of (just pre-recorded paths), enemies that vanished before your eyes in mid-air, soldiers clipping into objects, rubbish level design, invsible walls a-plenty and my online wouldn't work.

Just awful. Another example of not using any of the Wii's power.... I mean come on guys, my Bro's old PS2 ran the huge environents, graphics and Physics of Half-Life 2 half a decade ago.

I'm starting to think that the Wii is less powerful than the PS2 and Xbox. and YES power does count for something as it allows innovation and immersive gameplay without any waggle.

Lucky I had the brilliant Metroid and No More Heroes to cover, even if the latter was a technical mess

You make some good points there to be fair. Conduit does look like a lot of fun and I may well buy it just so as to try and help support ‘risky’ releases on the Wii. It certainly does have Time Splitters feel pace wise, but I prefer the latter’s art-style and humour to the Conduits rather cool but generic alien fest.

I don’t agree that scripted A-B points is that fun though … I had Medal of Honor Heroes and although it was smooth, it was boring because soldiers just went to one spot and then emptied their clip until they died. Now the Wii should be more powerful than last-gen consoles (even if not by much) which doesn’t bother me because my old Xbox produced the AI from Halo and the Physics from Half-Life 2 … what does bother me is that nothing on Wii has come close to even bothering these games technically which are years old – they’re not huge or particularly complex but are still brilliant. That’s what I’m hoping for. Hopefully Conduit will have the excellent multiplayer, and without the ridiculous language of the Xbox 360 community! Actually, I may take a peek at the new Call of Duty on Wii ….

It's got to be MadWorld, HOTD: Overkill and precious little else. As an Xbox 360 owner as well, The Conduit looks like a great effort, but what's the point when the machine doens't have the grunt to match the AI and physics (i.e. the gameplay, not just the graphics) of other FPSs?

Overkill should be a cracking Lightgun shooter, and MAdworld is likely to go down the 'the cool but seriously flawed' way of No More Heroes.

As someone who early adopted a Wii as only a very casual Xbox gamer (Halo, Fifa and out) I've had a real love-hate relationship with it. RE4, Galaxy, Kart and Metroid making it just about ok for the other 10 games that I traded that were plain terrible. But lets face it, these could easily have been on the cube.

With the exception of a new Wii sports (and preipheral) the E3 line-up was dreadful. TGS wasn't much better ... how can anyone get really excited about a bunch of random Japanese RPGs with meaninless names? Name me one Japanses RPG thats been good on the console sicne it launched. SaP2 is onrails and lacks any originality, and to be honest after RE: UC, Ghost Squad and HOTD I'll ahve had my fill!

Come-on Nintendo, lets hear a wii-speak enabled Time-Splitters 3, a Galaxy 2 and no more Wii-Music titles! Or how about a DEEP, feature-laden Wii-sports MMO that could cross the huge divide between their casual and core markets in a way that neither Galaxy or SSBB could

Wow, my first ever console (bar the grey gameboy) gave me plenty of ups and downs.
Ups:
- It made me one of the first people in my school to have a DVD player (Aliens special edition) my first purchase
- The face on my PS2 owning brother when he saw the grass in Halo's second level
- The cool graphical interface as you turned it on, and the mp3 storage, at a time when they didn't even mention 4GB because in that dya in age, no one knew you could fill it!!
Downs
- waiting 2 years for a decent game that wasn't halo
- seeing Edge magazine declare the Xbox the next dreamcast two weeks after i bought it!!

I'm seriously considering not buying this game for one reason : (ironically) the marketing.

This game should be a visceral account of part of parts of WW2 that many people forget (at least in teh UK) - the island deathtraps of the pacific, and Russia's brave but vengeful and retributional taking of Germany.

If you watch the launch trailer it shows massacre, execution and all sorts of horrible death to an awful pumping heavy metal soundtrack in slow-mo. It makes me laugh when you think how mature and perfectly pitched the launch trailers were for Halo and Gears - both great games with little real seriosness.

The marketers (like in previous WW2 CODs) should be highlighting how the tech of the PS3/360 allows you to replicate the feeling - the fear of being ambushed, not knowing your enemy, or the uncontrollable and guilt-laden urge to revenege freinds deaths by executing prisoners. I.e. immersion and respect for the horror of war ... Band of Brothers, did it perfectly for example, as did Brothers in Arms to some extent, even tho they were entertainment products first and foremost.

Instead we get a riduculously innapropriate 'nasty tricksy asians' stereotype right out of a C19 pantomime and (probably) some marketing blurb on the back of the box saying 'do real gory executions man'.
Disgusting. Espeically given that the proximity to Armistice day for WW1.

A great game no doubt...but I won't buy into it.

Although those comments are clearly biased, he does have point. The lack of power in the wii means that the AI in all wii FPSs is incredibly poor.

Say what you want about gameplay vs power; in reality power often equals gameplay. It still annoys me that nothing on the wii comes CLOSE to the AI or setpieces, or level design of years-old shooters like half-life and Halo. In those cases it was the power of the technology that drew you in.

I really like my wii for games like Galaxy, MK, da blob, but its FPSs are incredibly poor (excluding MP3 which is more Zelda than Doom). And the whole issue of dead bodies disappearing? Its lazy if they do. Look at Medal of Honor Heroes 2...the bodies disappereaed AS YOU SHOT THEM - perhaps the least immersive experience I've had on wii.

Can't wait to be able to afford to play Bioshock, Orange Box et al on a 360.

Come on N - get you act together.

It looks and sounds brilliant, but I'm still worried about the controls.

I think I recently read that to pull off an uppercut, you pulled the nunchuck and remote AWAY from each other. There were other equally un-related gestures. How on EARTH is that intuitive? I've got all my limbs crossed for decent 'force unleashed' style slashing and four-way movements (like, hold the guy in the air by lifting the controllers, throw him by flicking them...can;t be that hard right??)

they could go No More Heroes on us and make most things button presses, which is fine by me (aint nowt wrong with analogue sticks and buttons) except whats the point in having it on wii?

Please SEGA, nail simple, intuitive motion controls

Even though I'm no really a core gamer (altho maybe i now am considering i'm reading this blog...) the wii has seriously let me down.

I mean before this generation, i was a standard Halo and Pro-Evo casual student gamer. When I saw the wii, i thought 'wow, this'll be great for shooters, and great for sports games'

Its been awful at both.

Granted I have been introduced to more abstract playing styles, and that I'm thankful for: i never played 3D Mario games, or Metroid , or RE4 before.

But look at the poor choice of games, and even poorer use of the hardware. Nothing is even close to pushing the technical achievements of the original Xbox: graphics are average (except where genius art direction is involved), gameplay (and by that i DONT mean waggle) is average, and AI atrocious. All this on a system supposedly 2-3 times more powerful than its predecessor?

Yes Conduit looks great, yes Madworld looks cool, but we all know what the IGN review scores will be - '7.9/10' : looks great, but too much waggle' or 'best shooter on wii ... not saying much'

the only hope is wii motion plus, and a big FPS coup like Time Splitters, or a Zelda where sword fighting is one on one.

Until i see evidence of either, I'm saving for a 360 which has 10 times the number of platinum titles, if not the variety. Whats the matter with dual analogue anyway??