Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

If you’re one of the folks waiting patiently for Zen Pinball 2, you shouldn’t have to wait much longer according to the game’s developer:

The game was supposed to come out back in December, and now the tentative release date is “January”. My guess is that it’s going to be early February though, because I don’t think they can finish it up, send it to Nintendo, get it approved, and get a release date before the end of the month. It just doesn’t seem like it’d happen!

Via Nintendo Life

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

It all sounds like technical mumbo jumbo at first– after all, why should you care about the refresh rate of a console?– but when you watch the following video you should notice a difference between the left and right images:

It’s not terribly striking, is it? I didn’t think so either, but the one on the right is using a visual refresh rate of 50Hz (standard for older PAL releases) as opposed to the NTSC standard of 60Hz. What does this mean? It means, essentially, that the European version literally runs slower (visuals and music included) than the other versions of the game because their televisions used to only refresh at a rate of 50 times per second. You notice in the video that the NTSC player gets much farther much faster than the PAL player– that’s due to the PAL version’s slowdown.

It also apparently makes the image slightly blurrier and more compressed looking… apparently. Someone should capture it in full HD so I can decide whether that is worth getting up in arms about or not!

Via Eurogamer

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, 3DS eShop, DS, DSiWare, News | 0 comments

The 3DS and the Wii U are both out, but that isn’t stopping CIRCLE Entertainment– a ridiculously prolific support of WiiWare and DSiWare– from continuing on with plans to support “outdated” services well into the future on top of bringing new games to the eShops of 3DS and Wii U. Here’s the low down on everything the company plans to do in the coming months:

“Witch & Hero” (3DS eShop)
– 8-bit style, retro sound
– A hero and a witch go on an adventure
– Monster fighting, magic using
– 20 levels, two difficulty settings
– “Trial” and “Infinite” modes

Ah! Heaven (DSiWare)
– Ink painting visual style
– Platformer
– 24 stages

Achilles War (DSiWare)
– Tank battle game
– Set in the year 21XX
– Three tanks to choose from, break through enemy defenses

Goony (DSiWare)
– Top down view
– “Endless runner”
– Move left and right to avoid danger
– Exchange course layouts through QR codes
– Same-system multiplayer

Via Nintendo Life

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, News, Videos | 0 comments

Went ahead and captured this footage for you all, just in case you want to see it in action!

Notes:

– Controls are completely customizable, button for button
– The only buttons that can’t be customized are the control pad(s)
– Virtual Console games are played in 4:3 as opposed to 16:9 (not widescreen)
– Restore points can be set via the Virtual Console menu (accessed by pressing ZR using default controls)
– Quitting a game via the home menu will also create a restore point, just like on Wii/3DS
– Dual-Gamepad support is hinted at, but I can’t confirm that yet
– Something I missed in the video is that the game automatically shows up on the TV and Gamepad at the same time, like NSMBU

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

“This being our first launch title, we did not know what to expect. And we’re still puzzled by the dynamics of this launch. I can’t deny that I had higher hopes but this has more to do with my personal attitude than with the performance of the game itself. As for the game, the Christmas sale did really well and the eShop is hitting his stride now. We’re still learning how to operate in this new and exciting environment.

“Obviously, we’ve got the technology in place and the capability to make another Wii U title. Yet as a small studio we have to chose very careful what platforms we’re targeting. From the current perspective we plan to bring our next game to the Wii U. But I can’t see into the future, so I can’t guarantee anything at this point.” – Broken Rules’ Martin Pichlmair

Yea, the Miiverse community for Chasing Aurora is among the smallest on the whole service, so it’s no surprise the game didn’t sell so well. Most of the reviews I’ve seen have been average at best, and the game just didn’t seem like something a lot of people needed to pick up with all the other eShop and retail titles available! Hopefully their next game does better– and is better!

Via NintendoLife

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

“What we experienced with the Wii U is probably what a lot of developers experienced with the Wii U, which is, ‘What do we do with it?. It was this really neat secondary controller that has a screen and you can do different things on it. When I talked to my friends who were designing games for the Wii U, it’s like, ‘We don’t quite know what to do with it’. It’ll probably be about a year before you start to see games just completely nail exactly what that controller is for.” – ‘The Cave’ dev Ron Gilbert

I can understand his point and he’s probably right, but if you’re a game developer who can’t think of things to do with the Wii U Gamepad then I’d say don’t do anything with it beyond menu scrolling and item selection! Nothing wrong with a game just being a regular ol’ game.

Via My Nintendo News

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

– Graphical improvements are not just an upscale to HD
– Models have been changed, updated, etc
– For example, a first aid kit that Chris carries in the mountains now shows scissors, medical equipment on its model instead of a bland box
– New creature type that was in the trailer will cause players to make decisions about what the best way to approach the situation is
– Takenaka hinted at the creature being a recurring encounter
– New weapons, HUNK confirmed for ‘Raid’ mode
– Enemy positions have been fine tuned for ‘Raid’
– The team is working on ways to implement the Streetpass functionality

Via Polygon

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast Stories, Videos | 0 comments

But Austin, what am I about to watch!?

This week on TPPGBE4, Austin and Aysha take on the fickle Professor Oak, trying their best to fulfill his devilish requirements for Pokémon photography. They don’t do very good, but they had a lot of fun even though it took them 10 hours to put this episode together.

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, Podcast | 0 comments

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Gaming, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

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The birth of the internet has brought about the death of “secretive” game design, but what is it, and can a few developers keep it on life support long enough for a resurgence?

Author: Austin

It might be the most common legitimate complaint among game-players this side of DLC being exploited to high heaven: Games nowadays are just too easy. We used to live in a golden age of toughness, and now our hands are held through even the most simplistic of tasks. We used to spend weeks or months trying one particular part in a game before we beat it. We used to get satisfaction from figuring these things out. Now you never spend more than half an hour on any given task before looking up the answer online and continuing on with the game. After all, anything that gets in the way of you having fun right this second is bad for the game, right?

Maybe. There’s no use starting off on a tirade about how easy games are bad, or how games built for constant stimulation are degrading the industry. There is then, similarly, no use in preaching the power of difficulty, or making the falsely “bold” claim that every game needs to be as hard as Mega Man 2. They don’t, and they aren’t. Any declaration of any type of game being intrinsically superior to any other type of game should be– though usually isn’t– ignored in lieu of fostering somewhat more positive discussion about a hobby and/or passion most of us share.

No, the problem is not that ridiculously easy games exist. The problem isn’t really even that ridiculously hard games don’t exist. The problem is that ridiculously hard games don’t exist in the same way that they used to.

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