Kael

Add me too, guys! 
 
2535-3616-0691

Looks fantastic, as always.

It has indeed out-Metroided Metroid. As fun as Other M may or may not turn out to be, I don't know of any Metroid fans that were clamoring for a linear, mission-based game starring Samus, featuring of distinct and seperate brawler segments, platforming segments, and first-person shooter segments. All I ever hear in the comments of a Metroid-related news item is how awesome it would be for Nintendo to get off their butts and do a modern 2D Metroid. Scratch that freakin' itch. A lot like what Shadow Complex is doing.  It's about time!

Great video. Went to buy the app, found out I need 3.0. I'd buy your guys' app if I could, but I'll never pay for a firmware update. It's insulting, anti-consumer behavior and I'm not going to reward it.  Would you consider releasing a version that works for Touch users like myself? There's at least $1.99 in it for you.

I wonder if I'll get lucky and win!

While the demonstrations were impressive, the most exciting things Natal can deliver weren't shown or talked about. The dude who did that sorta-famous Wii head-tracking mod is supposed to be working on Natal for MIcrosoft (http://www.lazygamer.co.za/xbox-360/head-tracking-wizard-johnny-lee-on-natal-team). In that video, he tells how his Wii mod required that you put the wiimote on the screen and attach infra-red lights to your head for the wiimote to see you, to then provide that excellent 3D illusion. Project Natal, however, will require nothing more than to be turned on for it to track your head. And since it always knows where your head is when you're playing the Xbox, it can provide that amazing 3D effect for ANY GAME you're playing, AUTOMATICALLY. And, as I'm sure they said Natal will simultaneously recognize multiple people in your living room, split-screen multiplayer games can also provide the 3D effect for EACH PLAYER. Watch that head-tracking video and tell me this isn't an exciting technology. Remember, with just a bit of additional code to support Natal, this could work with any game. Real 3D. No glasses. Automatically.

Another idea I had is... well, have you ever had a friend come over to play a game split-screen (vertically), but sit on the wrong side of the couch? Well, since Natal can recognize faces AND positions, it can, automatically, without any input from you, tell whatever game you're playing which side of the screen to put which player. Yeah, that's a little thing, but that's the kind of automatic improvement Natal can offer to every single game on the system in the future. What they showed at the conference, as impressive as the technology is, wasn't much more than a couple of Wii Sports-ish minigames (and a weird life simulator thing for which I can't imagine a purpose). If that's all Natal will ever offer, then I doubt I'll ever spring for one. Sony's like-the-wiimote-but-way-better thing (I hereby dub it... the ps3mote) seemed much more interesting as it relates to actual games (You can't shoot a gun without a trigger... true words!), but you can't do head tracking with that unless you affix the ps3mote to your hat, and I'd much rather play, for example, Splinter Cell Conviction in jump-out-of-the-screen 3D using Natal.

Very interesting. The ironic thing about this is Vinny's line "It's guaranteed that this game is going to be pirated, regardless of any DRM...", which is true. It's true because DRM is totally impotent. It does nothing to pirates. It doesn't even slow them down as much as a warm summer breeze. It can inconvenience and enrage legit users pretty effectively, but there's no tradeoff; no benefit from that. A CD check does as much to stop disc-swapping, and online pirates wouldn't be able to tell which games had what DRM if they didn't see the outrage from people who payed for them.

Don't misunderstand; I advocate killing piracy as much as the next guy; I believe the game makers should get duly compensated for their works. But when trying to kill piracy, don't shoot the customer; point the gun in the right direction. With this, Ubisoft is lowering the gun and just not shooting anyone; that won't do any more or less to stop piracy than before, but at least it's an improvement. Vinny's cynical assesment of the situation feels right on target, though, sadly.

My solution to piracy involves attacking the demand, not the supply:

Some pirates just love to crack things, to do things backwards, to get around the norm: I knew a guy who modded his Xbox 180 and bought several huge hard drives to fill up with nearly every game that came out for the system. He never played any of them. You'll never be able to stop or change these guys, but if they toil away in obscurity, the industry can continue to ignore them, because I believe most pirates aren't like that; they're mostly the kind that really just can't justify spending the kind of cash on games that they'd like to. They love games, but games are really expensive at around 50 to 60 bucks plus tax; it's hard to stomach, especially when they're not completely excited about a particular game. They could wait until next year for a lower price and then maybe find the game discounted a mere ten dollars, or they could take the time to pirate it and get it right now when it's a hot new game for free. They have to do without online multiplayer, of course, and patches, but it's well worth it to them most of the time. In this case, the game makers get nothing.

But piracy isn't as easy as flipping a switch; you have to find the right download or torrent, download tons of gigabytes, extract things to the right places in the right order, run untrustworthy .exes written by hackers who like to steal things, and pray they stop short of your computer and you don't contract an incurable case of malware. Even when you get it up and running, you're still probably going to have to do without online multiplayer and patches, like I said earlier. The question companies should be asking is: As a pirate, how much would skipping all that hassle and also being able to play online and get patches be worth to you? Obviously not 50 or 60 dollars. What about $15? Imagine if every brand-new game retailed for $15 like DVDs do. I know I'd go out and buy a TON of games right now that I had to let slip by this year and last; then those companies would get to make some money from me, hundreds of thousands of people like me, and hundreds of thousands of pirates, instead of getting nothing from those people. Companies think they have to keep raising game prices so that fewer and fewer groups of increasingly hardcore fanatics get to pay for development costs and everyone who didn't buy it. Start selling games for six hundred dollars, and you might still get enough stupidly-rich people to buy it that you could turn a profit. Well, no, actually you'd definitely lose money that way. But get every gamer on Earth to buy your brand-new, AAA game, even for only $15, and you're going to make ends meet. No DRM required, and all parties are happy; piracy would be all but dead, I get to own more games than I could ever play without feeling like I spent so much that I have a serious problem, and the game makers not only get paid, but can earn way more money than they do now, not to mention their good games get wider recognition from the many more pleasantly surprised customers that wouldn't have ever considered the game at $60. Movies with much bigger budgets than a lot of games but selling to the same demographics do this exact thing all the time and make plenty more money. Movie piracy is big, but game piracy will be much smaller, everything else being equal, because like I said above, it's so much more of an inconvenience, and you often don't get the whole experience.

Anyway, sorry for going on about it for so long. I know I don't have the credibility or clout to make any real change, but I just get driven to rant sometimes. It's a future I'd really love to see, and I am certain it can work to everyone's advantage. I'll just keep dreamin'.

2D lives on! And not just on tiny, handheld screens. This looks awesome.

Looking at my games history, I've gotten 1000 or more points from Dead Rising, Halo 3, Tomb Raider Legend, Dead Space (beating the game on insane with naught but the plasma cutter wasn't as bad as it sounds), Mass Effect, and Oblivion. I'm closing in on getting 1000 in Fallout 3 now, but the one I'm most proud of has got to be Dead Rising. That game is such an awesome, broken mess, but I love it, and those tough, tough achievements gave it so much more great time in the console's disk drive.

You nailed it!

I'd love to buy a new full-price, triple-A 2D Metroidvania for real consoles. Were I in charge of the project, I'd give it top-quality 3D graphics, four-player, drop-in online co-op through the entire game, a sophisticated level generation algorithm for an essentially random world each time you start again, multiple attack buttons for a bit more variety in the combat, and in addition to spells and subweapons, I'd probably go for a four or five main-weapon system where you can power up each weapon for better damage and combos, and maybe throw in a class system (wizard, vampire hunter, etc.) to boot. Oh, there are so many possibilites.

Don't think that a 2D game has to be low-budget and on the hand-helds, PSN or XBLA to sell well; just look at Super Smash Brothers. That proves beyond a doubt there is a huge market. If it's a good game, of course it will sell. I can't wait for IGA to realize that there's certainly more of a market for that than the 3D waggle-fighter, Castlevania Judgement. How did they think that would be a better gamble? They're throwing that money away.