A standard game of Dungeons and Dragons is one dungeon master and five players. Pre-built encounters are meant for 5 people. You -can- make encounters smaller to balance things out for fewer players. More than five is usually harder only because it is turned based so things can get really slow and your players might find themselves doing other things like using their laptops and not paying attention. (I was DMing and had a demon randomly rape a friend of mine who begged to play DND and then decided that chatting and downloading music was more important. Haha)
You -can- find DND groups all over the place. One things to do is simply google them, there's almost always a figurine shop that plays that, or look up card shops. I also play Magic: The Gathering a bit and that's a lot of what led me to start playing DND.
A bunch of my friends played in the dorms but they never invited me in even though I asked. A bit miffed about that, as I really wanted to play. Feels like something I really would have enjoyed.
I've never had a fake game, but in my business, we see fake stuff all the time. Cisco Systems network gear is HEAVILY counterfeited. Companies literally make hundreds of millions of dollars a year pedaling this stuff. They can fake anything. I saw a really good special on a nightime news magazine about fake stuff. THey highlighted Reebok shoes and Callaway golf clubs. The funny thing about the gold clubs was that the cheap steel fakes hit almost as well as the expensive alloy/carbon fiber callaways.
Gotta love it when gamers make fun of DnD players! I've never actually played DnD myself but I've always been interested. Some of my friends would get together and play every week in high school but I never ended up joining them. On that note, is DnD something you really need a few friends around for? It's always seemed that way to me.
I've never actually purchased a bootleg myself, but I've definitely seen some in the used GBA game cases at Gamestop. I thought maybe they were re-release versions or something like that with different cartridge stickers, but later I realized they were probably bootlegs.
Yeah, the young Link sounds got pretty annoying in the GBA version of LttP. Still, I enjoyed the rest of that game enough, so hearing that this one is much like it makes me interested enough to check it out sometime.
I kicked my Pokemon addiction to the curb after Pokemon Stadium 2. It helped that I never owned a GBA. But HeartGold almost caused a relapse, considering it's a remake of what I found to be an incredible game. Few gaming moments were more rewarding to me than hatching a Lv. 5 Squirtle that immediately knew Hydro Pump and Mirror Coat. And all I had to do was force a turtle-tank to breed with a piece of coral. Still, I think it's best I got out of the game before Shinies and IV/EV-training and online battling, because I'd probably never never see the sun again.
Great wrap up! While our predictions may have been mostly wrong, I think we were pretty true to the feel of the show. Who saw all those Nintendo surprises huh? Not me. It was like every "wishful thinking" prediction about Nintendo came in one big show (accept ditching friend codes, but I'm calling that for next year!) I thought it was a pretty good show all around.
And thanks for pointing out my lasso prediction. I couldn't nail down what it would be but I just had a feeling that they would introduce some new swinging mechanic. When they showed the video of the whip, I was like "Nailed it!". :)
I also enjoyed Excite Truck a lot. It was a different kind of racer that was fun at parties but had some pretty solid depth, too. It didn't rely on licensed cars or zany items to get noticed, and the focus on points and hang time made it feel unique. And people who complained about the floaty steering didn't play long enough to appreciate just how crucial that loose feeling is to succeeding at the game.
That said, Excitebots is basically the same thing, only better. The little minigames throughout the race add some WTFLOL and the extra features like online play and in-game achievements really add extra incentive to play. The lack of customizable soundtracks is a shame, but the sequel defnitely adds more than it takes away, for sure. It might not be worth double-dipping since the games are so similar, but I'd recommend Bots to those who haven't played either.
...I'm pretty surprised that the one I seem most interested in is Skyward Sword. I've never been a huge Zelda fan, and I honestly couldn't tell you WHY I'm anticipating the game more than any other, but I just feel like this one's going to be fantastic. Maybe it's the motion controls, which looked pretty great in...uh, motion. Outside of Miyamoto's little blunder, of course.
people will buy a wii just to play this game; that is not a lie. Fans of Marvel vs Capcom series and all other 2D fighting fans; this game is a god send, and just happened to land as a Wii exclusive. I dont think there is a question as to whether you should buy this game, if you are a fighting fan, old schooler, or even new school SF4, this game HAS IT ALL including online ranked play. The system choice (fact that its on the Wii) is meaningless and irrelevant in terms of those who are likely to compare it to being less of a product than the other systems. It doesnt get any better than this fighter. Buy this game now, if you dont have a wii, buy one and then buy this game. Take a look at User Reviews Of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars Peaople there agree with me..
There were so many games announced this week, it's hard to keep track of them all. That said, from your list above, I'm most interested in Super Scribblenauts because they fixed the controls and added more words. I think that's all they needed to do to make a better game. Not mentioned here is Kirby's Epic Yarn with its cutesy and quirky style, as well as...Fallout 3: New Vegas. Well, that's wasn't announced at E3, but it sure got some good coverage there.
I hope I'm still alive and kicking when this 3D hooplah fades away. I just don't get it.
A few forums I read/comment on have unearthed a bit of confusion over at Sony. Apparently, it's only the FREE membership content that you lose at the end of your subscription. Any content you purchase outright from the sony store is yours forever. Examples of content you lose would be the free monthly game, or free gamer pics/themes, etc. Expect further re-defining of this as more of us evidence our confusion in the days following E3. And yes, MoH looks exactly like MW2 looks exactly like KZ3. The "realistic" shooter category is officially homogenized to the point of irrelevance in my mind.
Thanks for the reply, great to see people are doing creative things with the series! I hope that once Sanderson is finished with the Wheel of Time he'll return to this world to flesh it out a bit more, there are still a ton of metals he's barely touched on. Good luck with your campaign!
Rereading my thoughts, it looks like I did enjoy the beginning, yeah, my comment about the turn based battles looking just like Final Fantasy might have been a bit sarcastic, but I think the game started off really well. It's when the random battles start and when you realize your character is just a shell of a man when I think things started going downhill.
It's been a year and a half and I will admit I haven't played this game anymore. I think the idea of four discs and random battles puts me off a bit. Hopefully I'll get to it someday though.
First, let me say that Excite Truck was a really great game, perhaps my favorite racer of this generation. (Note: I prefer Mario Kart to Forza or Gran Turismo). It played amazingly well, proved the Wii remote was sensitive enough for something like a racer and offered an experience unlike any other on the console. As for the sequel, it took the original to zany new levels of bizarre quirkiness. I don't know that I'd say the game was better, but it was certainly more strange. I really enjoyed it.
If anyone has not played Excite Truck and has a Wii, I highly recommend it. Also, in the beginning, you'll struggle with the controls, but stick with it, hold the controller so the buttons are level with the floor and you'll get the hang of it. It really controls like a dream once you get the hang of it.
Also, I think its one of the only games on the Wii that lets you play your own soundtrack from the SD card. Awesome! (partly because you'll almost certainly not like the cheesy metal background tunes) I was so upset they removed this from ExciteBots. Why on earth would they do such a thing?
A few things I'd like to add:
Criterion, developer of the Burnout series, is creating the new Need for Speed. This makes it go from a "don't care" to a "gotta play" in my mind very quickly.
The new Medal of Honor looks almost exactly like Modern Warfare 2, but supports 24 player multiplayer, which is pretty impressive on a console.
Should be noted that Child of Eden is playable without Kinect on both Xbox 360 and PS3.
Ubisoft's Project Dusk is being developed by Eric Chahi, who created Another World (aka Out of this World), the guy's been out of the industry for a while I believe so this is pretty cool.
I think the PS Move performed really well and seemed to handle one-to-one the best. A Harry Potter copycat is a great place to start.
Generally impressed that Sony was able to nab Valve, I wonder how big a check it took to get Gabe Newell out on stage and talk about how the PS3 would be the best console to play Portal 2 on?
The new paid PSN seems really concerning to me, all I heard was "for the life of your subscription" over and over again. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's paying for digital content that I can't later resell myself, but PSN Plus sounds even worse. Ugh, hope people don't fall for this, unless I'm just mis-interpreting it.
Nintendo's nostalgia lineup really blew me away, I want to play almost all of those games. Kind of surprised that Retro has just been working on a new Donkey Kong Country though, seems... below their level of talent, no offense to anyone but to go from one of the most original shooters ever to a platformer seems odd.
Would have liked to see something for the 3DS come from them instead.
I'm generally a bit skeptical about the whole 3D thing, because I'm afraid it's just going to be used as a gimmick to get crap out the door. I hope I'm personally wowwed when I see this thing for real someday.
All in all, great set of conferences, awesome writeup. My question: Where was Beyond Good and Evil 2 and The Last Guardian??
That game's BRILLIANT!
By the way, you have to roll through the porcupine, that flips them over =D I've only recently got a Mega Drive (I only had a Master System II as a kid) and The Lion King being my favourite film ever I decided it should be the first game I bought. Love it! "Simba's Return" was a pain the first few times having to memorise the caves, but other than that I can get through it in about 30-45 minutes now, lol.
It's sad this game barely sold. I thought it was great, certainly one of the better racers on Wii, particularly as a party game. I thought it made better use of the Wii Remote than Mario Kart, which was really only fun with a GC controller or Classic Controller IMO.
What a fantastic little article! I've actually taken the Mistborn series and translated into a DnD Campaign for my players. While we do not go through the novel scene by scene, instead jumping back in time to before the start of Mistborn's first novel.
The Allomancy especially lends itself to some really fun and creative battles.
I've yet to introduce a playable Feruchimist, if only because I want to encourage my players to work together, using eachother's strengths. Feruchimist's would be interested if only because they would have to suffer great moments of weakness in order to be able to perform their feats. Eventually I might allow a new player to play one, once I figure out a tracking system for just how much the Feruchimist has saved up. Keeping track of each players individual metals and metal spending is had enough!
I think that Mistborn would work really well as either a movie (Sanderson's scene set up lends itself perfectly to a big screen production), or a stand along game much like Assasin's Creed gameplay with a more story driven element like Mass Effect. I don't think that switching characters would be as much of a hindrance, as while Vin herself is powerful, it's made clear that the other characters had their own strengths. Thinking of how Heavy Rain handled the changing characters, I think they could do the same should they ever take the first book at least and make it into a game. The first novel I think stands very well on it's own in terms of adaptability.
I haven't heard of the game, let alone even imagined such an idea being implemented within a racer. Sounds interesting to say the least, kind of sad how good ideas like this get trapped in an unplayed game like ExciteBots.
It seems like from the minute you started you didn't even like the game. From the opening sequence it's action very much through - anything that the game tries doing, it either fails in your eyes, or it's not original. Maybe they didn't want to go for anything extremely new - this IS the final fantasy branch after all :)
A standard game of Dungeons and Dragons is one dungeon master and five players. Pre-built encounters are meant for 5 people. You -can- make encounters smaller to balance things out for fewer players. More than five is usually harder only because it is turned based so things can get really slow and your players might find themselves doing other things like using their laptops and not paying attention. (I was DMing and had a demon randomly rape a friend of mine who begged to play DND and then decided that chatting and downloading music was more important. Haha)
You -can- find DND groups all over the place. One things to do is simply google them, there's almost always a figurine shop that plays that, or look up card shops. I also play Magic: The Gathering a bit and that's a lot of what led me to start playing DND.
So, overall, you need several people.
Never play one on one DND, it's just weird.
A bunch of my friends played in the dorms but they never invited me in even though I asked. A bit miffed about that, as I really wanted to play. Feels like something I really would have enjoyed.
I've never had a fake game, but in my business, we see fake stuff all the time. Cisco Systems network gear is HEAVILY counterfeited. Companies literally make hundreds of millions of dollars a year pedaling this stuff. They can fake anything. I saw a really good special on a nightime news magazine about fake stuff. THey highlighted Reebok shoes and Callaway golf clubs. The funny thing about the gold clubs was that the cheap steel fakes hit almost as well as the expensive alloy/carbon fiber callaways.
Gotta love it when gamers make fun of DnD players! I've never actually played DnD myself but I've always been interested. Some of my friends would get together and play every week in high school but I never ended up joining them. On that note, is DnD something you really need a few friends around for? It's always seemed that way to me.
I've never actually purchased a bootleg myself, but I've definitely seen some in the used GBA game cases at Gamestop. I thought maybe they were re-release versions or something like that with different cartridge stickers, but later I realized they were probably bootlegs.
Yeah, the young Link sounds got pretty annoying in the GBA version of LttP. Still, I enjoyed the rest of that game enough, so hearing that this one is much like it makes me interested enough to check it out sometime.
I kicked my Pokemon addiction to the curb after Pokemon Stadium 2. It helped that I never owned a GBA. But HeartGold almost caused a relapse, considering it's a remake of what I found to be an incredible game. Few gaming moments were more rewarding to me than hatching a Lv. 5 Squirtle that immediately knew Hydro Pump and Mirror Coat. And all I had to do was force a turtle-tank to breed with a piece of coral. Still, I think it's best I got out of the game before Shinies and IV/EV-training and online battling, because I'd probably never never see the sun again.
Hey Nate,
Great wrap up! While our predictions may have been mostly wrong, I think we were pretty true to the feel of the show. Who saw all those Nintendo surprises huh? Not me. It was like every "wishful thinking" prediction about Nintendo came in one big show (accept ditching friend codes, but I'm calling that for next year!) I thought it was a pretty good show all around.
And thanks for pointing out my lasso prediction. I couldn't nail down what it would be but I just had a feeling that they would introduce some new swinging mechanic. When they showed the video of the whip, I was like "Nailed it!". :)
I also enjoyed Excite Truck a lot. It was a different kind of racer that was fun at parties but had some pretty solid depth, too. It didn't rely on licensed cars or zany items to get noticed, and the focus on points and hang time made it feel unique. And people who complained about the floaty steering didn't play long enough to appreciate just how crucial that loose feeling is to succeeding at the game.
That said, Excitebots is basically the same thing, only better. The little minigames throughout the race add some WTFLOL and the extra features like online play and in-game achievements really add extra incentive to play. The lack of customizable soundtracks is a shame, but the sequel defnitely adds more than it takes away, for sure. It might not be worth double-dipping since the games are so similar, but I'd recommend Bots to those who haven't played either.
...I'm pretty surprised that the one I seem most interested in is Skyward Sword. I've never been a huge Zelda fan, and I honestly couldn't tell you WHY I'm anticipating the game more than any other, but I just feel like this one's going to be fantastic. Maybe it's the motion controls, which looked pretty great in...uh, motion. Outside of Miyamoto's little blunder, of course.
people will buy a wii just to play this game; that is not a lie. Fans of Marvel vs Capcom series and all other 2D fighting fans; this game is a god send, and just happened to land as a Wii exclusive. I dont think there is a question as to whether you should buy this game, if you are a fighting fan, old schooler, or even new school SF4, this game HAS IT ALL including online ranked play. The system choice (fact that its on the Wii) is meaningless and irrelevant in terms of those who are likely to compare it to being less of a product than the other systems. It doesnt get any better than this fighter. Buy this game now, if you dont have a wii, buy one and then buy this game. Take a look at User Reviews Of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars Peaople there agree with me..
There were so many games announced this week, it's hard to keep track of them all. That said, from your list above, I'm most interested in Super Scribblenauts because they fixed the controls and added more words. I think that's all they needed to do to make a better game. Not mentioned here is Kirby's Epic Yarn with its cutesy and quirky style, as well as...Fallout 3: New Vegas. Well, that's wasn't announced at E3, but it sure got some good coverage there.
I hope I'm still alive and kicking when this 3D hooplah fades away. I just don't get it.
A few forums I read/comment on have unearthed a bit of confusion over at Sony. Apparently, it's only the FREE membership content that you lose at the end of your subscription. Any content you purchase outright from the sony store is yours forever. Examples of content you lose would be the free monthly game, or free gamer pics/themes, etc. Expect further re-defining of this as more of us evidence our confusion in the days following E3. And yes, MoH looks exactly like MW2 looks exactly like KZ3. The "realistic" shooter category is officially homogenized to the point of irrelevance in my mind.
Check this out. Ridiculous.
Thanks for the reply, great to see people are doing creative things with the series! I hope that once Sanderson is finished with the Wheel of Time he'll return to this world to flesh it out a bit more, there are still a ton of metals he's barely touched on. Good luck with your campaign!
Rereading my thoughts, it looks like I did enjoy the beginning, yeah, my comment about the turn based battles looking just like Final Fantasy might have been a bit sarcastic, but I think the game started off really well. It's when the random battles start and when you realize your character is just a shell of a man when I think things started going downhill.
It's been a year and a half and I will admit I haven't played this game anymore. I think the idea of four discs and random battles puts me off a bit. Hopefully I'll get to it someday though.
First, let me say that Excite Truck was a really great game, perhaps my favorite racer of this generation. (Note: I prefer Mario Kart to Forza or Gran Turismo). It played amazingly well, proved the Wii remote was sensitive enough for something like a racer and offered an experience unlike any other on the console. As for the sequel, it took the original to zany new levels of bizarre quirkiness. I don't know that I'd say the game was better, but it was certainly more strange. I really enjoyed it.
If anyone has not played Excite Truck and has a Wii, I highly recommend it. Also, in the beginning, you'll struggle with the controls, but stick with it, hold the controller so the buttons are level with the floor and you'll get the hang of it. It really controls like a dream once you get the hang of it.
Also, I think its one of the only games on the Wii that lets you play your own soundtrack from the SD card. Awesome! (partly because you'll almost certainly not like the cheesy metal background tunes) I was so upset they removed this from ExciteBots. Why on earth would they do such a thing?
can any body says how to save this game...... ?
A few things I'd like to add: Criterion, developer of the Burnout series, is creating the new Need for Speed. This makes it go from a "don't care" to a "gotta play" in my mind very quickly.
The new Medal of Honor looks almost exactly like Modern Warfare 2, but supports 24 player multiplayer, which is pretty impressive on a console.
Should be noted that Child of Eden is playable without Kinect on both Xbox 360 and PS3. Ubisoft's Project Dusk is being developed by Eric Chahi, who created Another World (aka Out of this World), the guy's been out of the industry for a while I believe so this is pretty cool.
I think the PS Move performed really well and seemed to handle one-to-one the best. A Harry Potter copycat is a great place to start.
Generally impressed that Sony was able to nab Valve, I wonder how big a check it took to get Gabe Newell out on stage and talk about how the PS3 would be the best console to play Portal 2 on?
The new paid PSN seems really concerning to me, all I heard was "for the life of your subscription" over and over again. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's paying for digital content that I can't later resell myself, but PSN Plus sounds even worse. Ugh, hope people don't fall for this, unless I'm just mis-interpreting it.
Nintendo's nostalgia lineup really blew me away, I want to play almost all of those games. Kind of surprised that Retro has just been working on a new Donkey Kong Country though, seems... below their level of talent, no offense to anyone but to go from one of the most original shooters ever to a platformer seems odd.
Would have liked to see something for the 3DS come from them instead. I'm generally a bit skeptical about the whole 3D thing, because I'm afraid it's just going to be used as a gimmick to get crap out the door. I hope I'm personally wowwed when I see this thing for real someday.
All in all, great set of conferences, awesome writeup. My question: Where was Beyond Good and Evil 2 and The Last Guardian??
That game's BRILLIANT!
By the way, you have to roll through the porcupine, that flips them over =D I've only recently got a Mega Drive (I only had a Master System II as a kid) and The Lion King being my favourite film ever I decided it should be the first game I bought. Love it! "Simba's Return" was a pain the first few times having to memorise the caves, but other than that I can get through it in about 30-45 minutes now, lol.
It's sad this game barely sold. I thought it was great, certainly one of the better racers on Wii, particularly as a party game. I thought it made better use of the Wii Remote than Mario Kart, which was really only fun with a GC controller or Classic Controller IMO.
What a fantastic little article! I've actually taken the Mistborn series and translated into a DnD Campaign for my players. While we do not go through the novel scene by scene, instead jumping back in time to before the start of Mistborn's first novel.
The Allomancy especially lends itself to some really fun and creative battles.
I've yet to introduce a playable Feruchimist, if only because I want to encourage my players to work together, using eachother's strengths. Feruchimist's would be interested if only because they would have to suffer great moments of weakness in order to be able to perform their feats. Eventually I might allow a new player to play one, once I figure out a tracking system for just how much the Feruchimist has saved up. Keeping track of each players individual metals and metal spending is had enough!
I think that Mistborn would work really well as either a movie (Sanderson's scene set up lends itself perfectly to a big screen production), or a stand along game much like Assasin's Creed gameplay with a more story driven element like Mass Effect. I don't think that switching characters would be as much of a hindrance, as while Vin herself is powerful, it's made clear that the other characters had their own strengths. Thinking of how Heavy Rain handled the changing characters, I think they could do the same should they ever take the first book at least and make it into a game. The first novel I think stands very well on it's own in terms of adaptability.
Thank you for not spoiling the game at all, I had to read through it as your editor and I appreciate you keeping the game's secrets out of the review!
I haven't heard of the game, let alone even imagined such an idea being implemented within a racer. Sounds interesting to say the least, kind of sad how good ideas like this get trapped in an unplayed game like ExciteBots.
It seems like from the minute you started you didn't even like the game. From the opening sequence it's action very much through - anything that the game tries doing, it either fails in your eyes, or it's not original. Maybe they didn't want to go for anything extremely new - this IS the final fantasy branch after all :)
There's an excellent GUI for NetHack called "Vulture's Eye" that makes it look almost like a modern isometric game.