Scottus

if thats not a mario party ripoff i dont know what is

Is everyone in the world except for me insane? Before the Wii was released, a couple Nintendo execs had mentioned that there would be a clip for the Wii Remote to attach to the back of the classic controller, much like this one. The main purpose of which was to allow for a faithful reproduction of the N64 controller. If attached right behind one of the control sticks, the B button could be used as a Z button and all would be well. The console was released, the clip never showed, and nobody but me remembers it? And on top of that people are calling this a great original idea...

Since the SNES (I think), Nintendo's systems always have slots for possible attachments and peripherals that may or may not be used at some point in the system's lifespan. They were rarely put to use until the 'Cube, where there were a few that were used for the modems and the Gameboy Player. That's probably all this is, though I agree it might be used for the DVD player attachment in the future.

I've heard that it's been pretty much confirmed that with a small clip, you can attach the wii pointer to the back there, one advantage of which being that you can use the B button on the back as a Z button with N64 games.

Mark Bozon commented that the near-final dev kits were black in the most recent IGN-Wii mailbag, so I'd say that's probably what it is.

well, no Wii controller support is dissapointing, but this looks like it'll be really great (as usual). But the pics look really nice, especially the last one (though I'm not sure if it's FMV or not). Also dissapointing is that its not gonna be at launch... so pretty dissapointing but that doesn't mean it's not gonna be a great game.

One thing I'd like to know that noone's mentioned before is the speakers. Are they pretty much the same as the Phat's or are they slightly louder+better/smaller+crappier?

#18: There's a difference between immersion and realism. Sure, 100% realistic life-sims have no place in shooters, sci-fi action games, RPGs, and the like. But that has nothing to do with getting the player involved in a game.

A story-driven game is all about forgetting reality for a while and becoming part of the game's world. In my opinion, HUDs are a big obstacle in that. Often, they're just an annoying distraction from the events of the game. I think games like King Kong have it right in ditching the HUD, or at least minimizing it's intrusion.

Granted, the display is often necessary. But I think it's often used more as a crutch for game designers than an integral part of the gaming experience. Developers should look for new, more immersive ways to let players know what's going on. Sure, an HUD could possibly be explained by a futuristic helmet or PDA or something, but that doesn't really work beyond the Sci-Fi genre. It's much more suspenseful to see a character show visible signs of pain and weakness than to see a little flashing red bar on the side of the screen, just as the uncertainty of not knowing for sure how many more shots you can get off before you have to reload might add a layer of atmosphere as well as helping to get players more engaged in the role of their characters. It's touches like this that allow a game to seperate itself from reality and make the player feel like they are having a truly unique experience.

Does anyone know if you have to do this for each game?

So they're really keeping the name? That seems like a real bad decision. I mean, 5 years from now are we still going to have to refer to this as "New Super Mario Bros."?