A look at one of Paper Mario’s earliest designs
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
Making the first Paper Mario wasn’t easy for Intelligent Systems. First and foremost, the team couldn’t decide on the proper approach that should be taken for the game’s visuals.
Here’s one of the earliest designs created for the project:
As you can see, the title wasn’t known as “Paper Mario” at the time – understandably so. Instead, it was tentatively called “Mario RPG 64”. While it’s made of 3D polygons, according to Naohiko Aoyama, it features “an atmosphere like that of a picture book transplanted into a video game—with paper-thin 2D background and characters.”
Photos of the PS2 to Wii U/Wii controller adapter
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Images, Wii U | 0 comments
Wii U browser can play MP4 files from a computer
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
The Wii U browser has a bit of a secret video playback function. It would appear that most, if not all, MP4 video files should be viewable through a computer.
Essentially, all that’s required is to set up a simple web server and upload the desired files. Then visit the server by entering your IP address in the URL bar, click on the video you wish to see, and that’s it! There’s a slightly more in-depth explanation here.
Video playback is limited to MP4 files. Other file types such as AVI and MKV aren’t compatible.
Thanks to Jackson for the tip.
Wii U Chat and Nintendo TVii commercial
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Little Inferno gameplay
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U eShop | 0 comments
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 3DS delayed to February?
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Rumors | 0 comments
Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed could be seeing another delay on the 3DS. Amazon as well as GameStop are now listing the game’s release date as February 12, 2013.
This update should only be treated as a rumor for now. Officially, SEGA has yet to confirm a final date for the portable racer.
The Cave character trailer #1
Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo UK’s James Honeywell: We hope Wii U is as successful as Wii, UK launch stock is less than US
Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
“We hope to live up to the same kind of success with the Wii. As you can see, people are really excited about it. Time will tell.” – Head of Consumer Marketing at Nintendo UK, James Honeywell
I think anyone who makes anything hopes that they’d be as successful as the Wii! Except maybe Apple. Apple wants to be way more successful than that.
Honeywell went on to briefly talk about Wii U stock in the UK:
“The US has been a fantastic launch. Obviously that’s a much bigger market, and so they’ve got more stock, but we’re hoping for the same standard of success here in the UK.”
UK launch trailers for ZombiU, NSMBU, and Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
NBA 2K13 (Wii U) producer says devs shouldn’t base games around a console’s features, and instead only use them when they enhance the experience
Posted on 12 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 0 comments
“One of the main things– and it’s a philosophy I wish more people would take– is not trying to build your game around what the feature set of the hardware is, but analyze how your customer has interacted with the game up to that point and see if the hardware’s feature set can further enhance that. Because you’ve been successful for a reason, so to go and try and reinvent everything just because you want to use this feature doesn’t necessarily mean your customer is going to enjoy the new experience.” – NBA 2K13 producer Rob Jones
Much like what Jim Sterling said in a recent piece about Black Ops 2 on Wii U, sometimes you just have to let games be regular games, even when a console has specific features that make it stand out. Mr. Jones seems to understand that! He continued:
“For example, with the Wii you could use the remote as a pointer, but people don’t experience basketball games that way, so trying to change the game just to get the Wii pointer to work didn’t make a lot of sense. PlayStation Move probably had the same kind of effect. We tried to make a game that could be played simply with the peripheral, but the peripheral just didn’t match our core customer. So what you’ll see with the Wii U title is we only did what we thought would be an extension of what our customers were already experiencing because it makes sense that way.”
I like this guy! He understands how games are made! Of course, it’s a steady balance– if you (as a developer) pass up the opportunity to use a feature that would clearly improve gameplay just because you’re lazy, and then you try and pass it off as “not being gimmicky”, you’ll get into trouble. I have a feeling that’s not what’s happening here though.
