Posts by Thrik

Small update, I've figured out a good way of allowing people to get involved with this a lot more easily — you'll be able to submit articles right via the forums. Will get this rolled out with a proper explanatory guide this weekend. This'll make it a lot easier for me to recruit people to write too as it'll be so much simpler.

Great to hear you enjoyed the features.

The roll-out last year was a little slow as the main priority was really on getting the forums converted to the new software; It was kind of a 'soft launch' in that things would ramp up as they're stabilised rather than operate at 100% from day one. I've actually still been spending a lot of my free time over the Christmas period sorting out continuing issues related to that in addition to the whole family/friends thing — so not much time to devote to organising writers and interviews.

What I can say is that two features are currently in the pipeline: an interview which I hope will be ready within a week, and a splendid technical article is on its way too. For the new year my 'MapCore resolution' was to get some momentum behind the features, so I've been working on getting some organised for the next few weeks and hopefully we can keep that going!

I did say in the 'new forums' announcements that anyone interested in contributing as a writer should get in touch with me, whether it's a one-off or regular gig. And that invite is still there! So if anyone wants to help out with this and provide content for everyone to enjoy — articles, tutorials, technical reviews, all welcome — send me a PM. If you did before and I haven't followed it up I apologise, I have more time for it now though.

I do acknowledge something needs implementing to make it more clear user content is totally welcomed and easy to submit so I'll work on that ASAP.

BTW thanks for pointing out the spam, I hadn't noticed that. Clearly need to bolster the guest posting anti-spam there.

A strange correlation has been drawn by some between 'sells well' and 'has no imagination whatsoever'. It's perfectly possible to produce an attractive cover that also draws in the mainstream. A generic cover isn't going to suddenly make the game fly off the shelves, people are more likely to respond to one that's genuinely beautiful rather than following a mantra of 'tits, sparks, guns' (or whatever formula is in play).

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Quote from Seldoon182

Hum he looks like Liam imho.

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LMAO

lol

When did you become so cynical PogoP?

Agreed. I'd happily see all of them nuked except the Steam one.

The Steam box is definitely something I can get behind. There are PC games I'd love to play, but I had to gut my gaming HTPC to keep my desktop machine alive some time ago, and also I really struggled with using a keyboard and mouse comfortable on the PC. What'd be great is something I can literally pick up and pop on my desk when I want to play keyboard/mouse games like Battlefield multiplayer, and then stick back next to the TV for gamepad games.

I actually use my laptop in this way to a limited extent, but it's only powerful enough to run a SNES emulator. Still, I've been having a great time playing the Donkey Kong Country and Mario World games via a wireless PS3 controller (which it turns out can be connected seamlessly to a PC via Bluetooth with relatively little pain). You know what? I should try Grim Fandango — does it have any gamepad support though?

I think that's a really cool photo, the only problem is the Hollywood sign is so small it makes it seem a little off somehow. Maybe if you'd used a higher focal length and stood further back (if possible) it would've flattened it a bit so the sign looked bigger in relation to the foreground, but of course it's too late for that now!

But it's still cool to look at and is a way of looking at that hill I've never seen before.

Basically a PC-based Wii U. Interesting, I didn't catch that before...!

The Hobbit: excellent film.

I went in with tempered expectations after seeing some comments about it being a bit weirdly paced and stuff, and I can honestly say that it delighted me to watch. It's the same Middle Earth we all loved in Lord of the Rings, but from a completely different perspective. For those who didn't read the books like me it's great discovering more about characters like Gandalf and the other wizards I had very little idea even existed, as well as helping to provide a bit of foundation for the LOTR to sit on (although I suspect some of this was exaggerated beyond what the book described).

Seeing some old characters return was simply lovely. I knew of some, not of others — highly recommended to go in as blind as possible so you can enjoy the same surprises. And all the new cast members are superb, the Dwarf leader dude is a terrific actor who just 5 or so years ago only really featured in shitty UK dramas. What a career break that he totally deserves. Generally great acting all round though, and I was genuinely taken aback to see so much performance from beastly creatures I just assumed were too unintelligent to speak.

Great film, but don't go in expecting a standalone epic masterpiece like LOTR. The Hobbit simply isn't a story that grand in scope, although what happens is still awesome. I'd say if anything it's a movie that gives the smaller aspects of Middle Earth more life, the smaller battles and creatures that go unnoticed in the grand world-ending dramatics of LOTR.

On a technical note, when I first started watching it I was really distracted by the slow pans of Middle Earth's landscapes. I was watching in a regular 24 FPS 2D cinema screen, and it seemed like something was off with the pans — I couldn't focus my eyes on them properly. Maybe it's because the shutter speed used for shooting is different when shooting at 48 FPS, so when you half the frame rate you end up with a bit of a mess? Or maybe I just wasn't used to it, I don't know. I can't remember it bothering me later in the film so maybe it was just that.

Quote from knj

I'm still consered that handheld gaming is shit, it starting to get AAA - with poor graphics (in compare with PC / curent gen consoles) the games are very expensive (as much as regular games) and if i want to play a big AAA game i want to play it in front of my 50 LCD in a comfortable couch not with 10inch small box in my hand. Hand holders would be OK with just casual games (like it was 1 milion years ago) at this point the games are to expensive, and are not giving me as much fun as it should for this cash.

What i'm saying is that handheld's are going in wrong direction. as far as i see it

I agree with most of this, although I think what you say is mostly limited to Sony (and now NVIDIA). Nintendo has been getting handheld gaming right for many years, with lots of games that're perfectly suited to quick sessions during train journeys, etc rather than trying to squeeze full-blown home console experiences into a small package like Sony.

Still, I think people are still generally moving away from dedicated handheld devices simply because their existing devices (phones, MP3 players, etc) can do so much. Who wants to carry a big 3DS or Vita around when they have a relatively powerful iPhone or tablet that can provide fun mobile-optimised gaming experiences? There's always the 'you need buttons and thumbsticks' argument, but do many people really want to play games that need those while on the move? Plus let's not forget that people on the move often have limited pocket room, so carrying these things around is impractical.

One thing I can say is that I don't see many people using handheld gaming devices, and I use public transport all the time. Playing games on phones sure, but it's a rare occasion that I see a 3DS or Vita out in the wild. And I suspect that even when people do have such devices, they probably use them mostly at home anyway.

Companies like Sony and Nintendo would be far better off concentrating efforts into funding excellent games for Android and iOS — and any other mobile platforms that become ultra-widespread in the future — rather than putting all their effort into making their own hardware. Lots of people would love to play the games they publish or develop, but aren't willing to invest in or carry their dedicated hardware too. Of course we know this'll never happen.

One thing I did like in recent years: that Sony-backed phone that was a proper Android phone but also had reasonable gaming controls that could pop out. That was an excellent compromise and I'd love to see more phones and games incorporate such an approach. That's the only thing that makes a huge difference between phones/tablets and handheld consoles: it's very limiting when only touchscreen interaction is possible.

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Quote from Jetsetlemming

Handhelds are not consoles.

Any gaming-centric device is a games console, that's the term historically by the industry and retailers alike. I guess all these new contenders are starting to make 'device' a popular term though, seeing as so many of them now do so much more.

It's quite a messy area when you think about it. If this is pure Android, that means it'll probably have all the other mobile stuff it has to offer — but do you class it as a gaming machine that does some extra stuff, or a tablet with gaming controls? And what about the Ouya? Is that an Android PC that happens to have a game pad and gaming-orientated apps pre-installed or can we call it an honest-to-god games console?

I don't know, I'm just going to let the incoming wave of hardware come and I'll try to ride it as best I can. One thing's for sure, though: my days of buying every major games console pretty much out of principle are over.

lol wat.

http://m.kotaku.com/5973641/nvidia…dium=Socialflow

I guess this'll be the first pure Android handheld with solid hardware, but will the game quality be good enough for people to justify carrying such a device around? Or perhaps it's targeted more at home users like the Wii U. Whatever the case, weird to see NVIDIA being the ones doing this.

I nearly broke down into tears of frustration trying to get this to work satisfactorily today, but now I am weeping tears of joy while playing through old favourites like Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island.

It occurred to me I could install all the emulation shit on my work laptop and plug it into my TV. That was the plan, which worked in the end but involved:

• Special wires needed because my laptop outputs Mini-HDMI rather than HDMI
• Bluetooth receiver needed to get my PS3 controller to work with the PC wirelessly (which is awesome when it actually works BTW); there were endless driver issues getting this to work though
• Needed even more cables because there was too much audio lag when plugging into the TV and then outputting the sound via my audio system, so now I'm going through the HDMI-enabled audio receiver
• Lots of emulator configuration required to get the right balance of speed and prettiness on a relatively average laptop

So basically: Jesus fuckin' CHRIST. But it's all worth it, and now just as I'm ready to enjoy the fruits of my labour I have to go to bed for work tomorrow. But this weekend...!

One thing emulators will always have over re-releases like on the Wii virtual console: increased quality. DKC looks so great with the smoothing filters that make the pixel jaggies look like soft lines, and the music is better than ever as the emulator can output at a far better level of quality than an actual SNES ever could. Yeah it's not quite authentic, but they would so have put out CD-quality audio if they could.

Of course I'd still have chosen to avoid all this hassle if Nintendo hadn't removed all the DKC games from the virtual console.

Don't know about you guys but I love this kind of shit. Have wasted some time this week going through various classic games from my childhood and discovering some of the stuff that was removed or in some cases left in during development. It's interesting getting an insight into the technical side of how these things were made, and cool to see new aspects of games I thought I knew inside out.

I guess I'm not the first here to come across this site, but The Cutting Room Floor is dedicated to this stuff and seems to have more in-depth WIP content and such from old games than any others.

Donkey Kong Country - lots of unused levels, animations, and dialogue; also turns out there were significant 'patches' to later versions of the game, including altered levels to make the Japanese version easier

Banjo-Kazooie - those mysterious objects shown at the end of the game can be collected after all (image)

Wind Waker - so much cool shit, for example being able to fly off the top of the Tower of the Gods into a version of the sea you're not meant to be able to access complete with a weird early-development version of a Triangle Island; also many cut levels

Super Mario World - o gad

Happy new year, everyone! Almost time to get back to work after a couple of weeks of doing very little except playing games, not something I get to do often. Unfortunately after playing DKC: Returns and Mario Galaxy 2 my appetite for Nintendo is now so insatiable I'm setting up a SNES emulator on my TV as we speak.

Congratulations!!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone, I love you all!!!!!

I've been pretty indifferent about the Wii U thus far, knowing that it's destined to go down the same route as its predecessor in terms of third-party support. Then I went into GAME yesterday and saw New Super Mario Bros U on a demo machine.

For fucks sake.

I was immediately bitten by that Nintendo bug many of us must be familiar with by now. Being the first time I've ever seen a Mario game running in proper honest-to-god HD, I was pretty much floored by how crisp and beautiful it looks. The texture to the world and the sheer craziness of everything took me back to how Yoshi's Island amazed me in similar ways. Some bits literally look like moving paintings, and it's only now it's in HD that the art style of New Mario Bros really gets to shine — I always thought it looked a little sterile and boring in its earlier incarnations, apparently due to a lack of fidelity.

Shitting hell man, this game is great. I'm not sure why this one impresses me so much in comparison to the Wii iteration. Maybe it's because it'd been relatively little time since I'd finished the DS one and so the Wii one felt like too much of a good thing in the same way Ass Creed's 'sequels' have done, or maybe it's because the leap is bigger this time and it feels genuinely fresh over its DS predecessor. Whatever the case, I want this right now and am pretty much prepared to buy a Wii U for the privilege. The fact that they've brought back a Mario World-esque overworld is just the icing on the cake.

So, yeah. Even if the third-party support is as weak as I predict, knowing I'm going to get to indulge in some HD Mario, Zelda, and maybe even Donkey Kong is actually enough for me to sink some dosh into this thing. Shit.