Gallery: 5 Great Wii Mods

[Via GameSniped]

Some guy put a Nintendo 64 in his Wii originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gallery: Guitar Hero World Tour

Chad Kroeger asks you to stop playing Guitar Hero originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll admit it, we tried to give the Afro Samurai animated series a chance, we really did. We’re big fans of our late-night animation line-up, and as such we try to find the best in each of the shows they choose to provide for us in the cold, late hours of the evening. Still, there was something about Afro Samurai that we just couldn’t really click with. The animation was neat, and the storylines were decent, but the show itself just left a bad taste in our mouths. Regardless of that, Namco Bandai decided to go forth with creating a game based on the Afro Samurai license, and so far we’re mighty glad they did. The game features a gorgeous cel-shaded aesthetic that serves the franchise well. Not to mention the fact that there is approximately 12,000 gallons of blood on tap, and that’s just the trailer! We look forward to hearing more about this bloody brawler as we near its Jan. 27 release date.

I'll admit, I had no idea that the PC version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV (set to ship on December 2) included a full-featured video editing program. 

The Video Editor feature will let you grab in-game footage, make real-time edits, and then output the clips to WMV movie files. You can also edit the clips, add effects like music, text, transitions and more. Once complete (or incomplete, depending on how lazy you are), the videos can be shared on the new Rockstar Games Social Club TV site, which just went live today. I can already hear machinima fans moaning in ecstacy.

Rockstar has passed along some screens of the video editor, along with some impressive looking examples of videos produced with the tool, and a long FAQ on its use. Hit the jump to check out the videos, which look like they were put together with as much care and vision as some of Grand Theft Auto IV pre-release trailers and spots. I can't wait to see what people come up with on their own.

However, sometimes the best ideas are born out of inner confusion and turmoil. Unsatisfied with the state of WAR, people have been setting their brains to the task of coming up with a number of interesting ideas to “fix” the game. Here are some of them I found particularly thought-provoking and worth a mention.

I’m not saying every one is a spot-on save the game idea… but they are very interesting concepts.

Via: http://potshot.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/can-rvr-ever-work/

I think that the war effort should be focused at all times, from all factions, to limited areas of the game. For example the NPC general of faction X says to you “Hey, we really need to go and cut off this supply train”. The opposing faction should be saying to its players “Hey, we really need to protect this important supply train”.

That’s not to say players can’t go and do whatever they want to do, but rewards would be greater for going to the directed areas. The key is definitely to direct both sides into conflict with each other. To help avoid overcrowding, you can make the number of rewarded goals at a given time proportional to the player population on the server.

Also, you should have a bunch of conceptually different tasks leading up to the player’s goal. For example, in WAR you can just run up to a keep and lay waste to it. In a more realistic world, you’d need to cut off supply lines, burn surrounding villages, maybe sneak in and assassinate some key personnel to lower morale, defend your siege weaponry from being raided, etc. In WAR it’s…. siege this keep and this keep and this keep and then unlock the zone to progress to the next area and siege some more keeps. The gameplay this way just feels too bland, keep sieging loses its special feeling.

———–

Taking the directed hot zone/objective idea further, include alternate goals that might also play to different play styles– interrupt supply lines, blow up bridges to slow down the influx of reinforcements, burn crops, sabotage/covert activities, etc. all that would aid the directed war effort.

If Karl Franz called for an offensive in Zone X and strategic objective quests were given out by a one of his generals in that zone…

———–

The problem with War is the limited amount in which guilds can gain recognition, there is no meta game to play for the natural born leaders (except petty intra guild drama and politics). Keeps just get flipped and flipped, and the rewards for claiming one are not enough for the guild leaders to convince their troops to prevent that from happening. There are not even ladder competitions to prove you are top dog.

[Ed. There are statues of the top individual players in the capital cities, but they are located in out-of-the-way places. It would be great to move these statues into the main hubs of activity. There is also a Realm War page located on WarhammerOnline.com, however, every time I have tried accessing it lately, it seems unresponsive to the point of making me not want to bother.]

———–

They have the cute trinket idea. How about expanding it so we get medals or something for every keep we capture. Perhaps the size, color and ornateness change based on the size or effort of the battle. Let me wear them as badges of honor that show how many successful sieges I’ve participated in or how many keeps my guild owns or something to show, “That’s right, I am RVR awesomeness.”

Via: http://wnw.blogwarhammer.net/2008/11/17/another-way-to-capture-zones/

So how about this idea? Holding an Objective or Keep in a zone gives Victory Points over time instead of instantly? Holding all Objectives and Keep for 24 hours give you enough points to capture the zone, and even if the other side recaptures things the points will still remain, they will just slowly go the other way.

As the zone gain VP over time all people in the zone will also gain renown and experience. This make people stay to defend and the battle and it’s just as important for others to take up the torch when you log off as when you captured the things in the first place. Killing enemies in range of Objectives and Keeps give extra renown and experience.

This also removes the possibility of capturing zone in the middle of the night. You could still do it and capture the objectives, but the zone still won’t be captured until the points have slowly trickled in.

[Ed. Patch 1.05 brought some improvements to the zone control mechanic, so we'll have to see how it pans out. If it doesn't get any better, I really suggest Mythic considers the above idea.]

———–

1) Add crafting vendors to keeps that improve over time. For every hour you hold a keep, the quality of the items will improve by 10-15 tradeskill, starting at a decent base (e.g., 50). Therefore, after holding a keep for 4 hours, your vendor will sell items up to level 110 (15/hour + base). By hour 8, 170 tradeskill. And so on… Give members of the guild/alliance who are holding the keep a discount on prices.2) Decrease the cost of claiming keeps. If the maintenance cost was 1 to 3 gold per hour, it would become much more affordable. At the moment, only the richest of the zerg guilds can afford it.

————

Put level 40’s in their own scenarios …Level 28-39s are competing for renown and xp. All level 40’s care about is renown.

Via: http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1653

If the enemy chooses not to defend then the fight should make it to their capital city.  A city siege has never once happened on Wolfenburg or Phoenix Throne (two “very populated” servers with supposedly active RvR).  If players are going to stay then they need to experience city sieges and be faced with a truly imminent realm war.  This is a realm war and players need to feel the pressure of losing territory to feel motivated.

————-

Warhammer Online, back in November 2007, was delayed in order to transform the game to align closer with DAOC’s RvR but it forgot that one crucial element… the PURPOSE.  Sure, city sieges are a purpose but let’s be realistic - a keep is under attack in Praag… why would I go defend if it poses no threat to our city?  It’s going to take like 8 keeps, 2 fortreses, and a TON of RvR to make our capital city vulnerable.  As of right now a city siege is not going to happen.  So, we come back to the PURPOSE.  I strongly feel that Darkness Falls provides that purpose.  Find out more about Darkness Falls here.

————

Let’s face it, WAR was designed in such a way that a lot of players participating in the realm war is mandatory.  Right now, especially in light of recent mmorpg competitions’ releases, we’re seeing the populations dwindle.  Merge the freaking servers and you will improve the enjoyment of the game globally for all players.

————

I honestly hate to admit it, but I fear the game’s core design can not have open world elements tacked on to it. Honestly, Mythic should just instance the keep sieges to 40 vs 40.

The city sieges are already instanced, there is no sense in having this tiny little stop gap of open world RvR that runs absolutely horribly when twenty players get on screen.

————

Introduce more siege pad items that can variety the strategy of keep battles. The single chokepoint to the 2nd level keep lord is so boring. Obviously don’t allow for zerg rushes but hell even adding an Orc Thrower siege weapon for getting people slowly up on a battlement would spice things up. Another idea could be a siege tunnel item that lets you tunnel to under an outer siege wall (again slow access thru it though to avoid zerg rushes). Again this eye is taken from Planetside with it’s deployable items.

————

Make BOs objective provide global buffs to the zone so everyone benefits from them immediately (no need to go to the Sergeant). Makes them more valuable to everyone (even those doing PVE), so hopefully more people will want to maintain them. Even if this isn’t done, the idea is to provide a very very strong LOCAL incentive to do RVR. As you said, cities are a distant thing that have no local meaning or incentive for people.

————

I think what’s truly needed is a solid LFG mechanism. I am a frequent organizer of outdoor RvR… and I’d LOVE to be able to browse a list of ALL the people on the server either DOING or LOOKING for outdoor RvR.

That seems like a no-brainer to me.

Via: http://waaagh.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/ai/

Apart from hero and lord mobs, we just don’t see a lot of special abilities popping out of these guys. A lot of my skills are set up to combat fairly complex player behavior in PvP, yet surprising few of these moves are necessary in PvE. Spell interruption? How often do these guys cast at me? Do I ever need to root a mob to prevent their escape?

[Ed. I really think this would make keep taking a lot more dynamic, especially undefended keeps. ATM you just zerg-rush the mobs. There is little to no strategy involved. It would be a lot more cool to see this take place more often in PvE too (e.g., knockbacks, knockdowns, disarms, roots, debuffs, etc.).]

Have you seen any others I might have missed? Have any of your own you’d like to contribute?

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It may have occurred to many readers that I am an avid Bond fan. In fact avid might be putting it lightly; I’m pretty much obsessed with Bond. In that light one might think that for me to review a Bond game wouldn’t be quite right. The general assumption being that since I am such an avid Bond fan I would go easier on the game and only notice the good things thanks to my overwhelming appreciation for the existence of the game at all. This assumption would be false. As a rampant fan of anything Bond I come down twice as hard as I probably should on anything involving him and expect more than is fair in most cases.

So this review will by hyper-critical, because in my mind Bond should be the best out there (despite the fact that he hasn’t been since GoldenEye). In case you want a refresher course on every Bond game up to this point you can head over here and do so. It may help you to know where I’m coming from on this review, especially when I open with the fact that I think Quantum of Solace has regressed the Bond franchise back to the point it was at when EA first got the franchise and those were dark, dark times my friends.

Now that I’ve got everyone interested with that inflammatory statement let me explain myself. What EA had done with the franchise after their initial failures was to actually make it their own and in so doing they actually made it feel pretty Bondian. In other words, the games became more than just a licence that EA was spitting out. Quantum of Solace feels like a licensed game. Not necessarily a bad licensed game, but one none the less. What do I mean by this? I mean that it doesn’t stand on its own, but on the mimicry of other games. It was developed because the license existed, not because an idea for a game existed. This is exactly what EA was doing when they first received the Bond license and it’s the exact wrong way to go about making a Bond game (or any game, for that matter).

What this approach does in general is leave players with a game that doesn’t suck because it is based on games that don’t suck, but also doesn’t do anything to make someone want it. What it does to a Bond game is suck the soul out of it. When you’re playing a game that feels like every other FPS out there and doesn’t differentiate itself except for a cover system that plays like every other cover system out there, then there’s nothing to make the player or the game feel like Bond and everyone knows that the worst Bond material is the material that loses what Bond is. In short, for a Bond fan, who expects his Bond games to at least have some cool Bond moments in them (EA actually had Bond moments that players could find in levels, all Activision has is exploding barrels) Quantum of Solace is as flat as the plastic look on almost every character in the game.

I suppose, though, that not every gamer is as avid a Bond fan as I, and that some people are just looking for a shooter. Just to be clear, we’re talking about the 360 version from here on in until stated otherwise. Overall Bond is a decent shooter and does shooting well, thanks largely in part to the COD4 engine. Though if you’ve played COD4 then you’ve played a better game. Part of this stems of the inclusion of a cover system which brings Bond into third person. I was hoping that this meant that players would be able to do some cool things in third person, but really it just means that levels are designed around cover mostly and not FPS shooting. It works out OK for the most part, except when the AI suddenly decides that it doesn’t want to play like a third person cover AI and wants to play like an FPS AI. Suddenly duck and cover gameplay goes out the window as the bad guys charge and swerve. I had many a cheap death because I was shooting bad guys who were playing duck and cover and suddenly an enemy, clearly thinking in FPS mode, came up and put a bullet in my head.

Control wise the game plays perfectly fine. The COD4 free aim into zoomed aim method works great and when players are behind a wall aiming, a position you get into by tapping A near a wall so there aren’t any sticking problems, the transition is smooth and the only real difference in aiming is that Bond won’t get hit as much. I did find the lock-on that worked so well in COD4 a bit ineffective in Quantum, but it was far from a deal breaker. Other than shooting your foes in the head/body/foot/arm/whatever, the only other truly unique way to kill them is by a physical take down. These basically replace melees and are triggered with the press of a button when the player is close enough. The screen then swings into third person and a single button QTE occurs, which, if pulled off correctly, takes out the enemy in a multitude of cool Bond moves. I will admit Treyarch managed to capture Craig’s no nonsense movements very well for these. While QTEs are nothing new it is one of the few aspects of the game that reminds players that they are playing a Bond game and not just an FPS starring Daniel Craig.

The game also has a few stealth aspects in it that are mostly based around crouching and using a silenced weapon (most can be silenced) or one of the QTE take downs. Sadly the only penalty for getting noticed is that three or four easily dispatched henchmen come to whatever location players are at. After players have got rid of them the fact that Bond was discovered has no outcome on the rest of the level and since players can pick up better guns from the elite forces stealth becomes almost a moot point. There aren’t any levels that can be accomplished better with stealth actions either. No matter how silent the player is, a room where a shoot out is taking place will have a shoot out take place in it.

In that vein, there are no multiple paths in any portion of the game. One of the great things in previous Bonds, and most truly great shooters, is the chance to defeat a level in multiple ways. It gets even better when one of those ways is a really awesome Bond move or something tricky. It was one of the coolest features in the EA games and it is not only lost in this version, but the game runs in such a linear style I started to wonder if at one point that game had actually been a side-scroller. Just another aspect that sort of took the Bond out of Bond.

What also doesn’t help the game in any way is the feeling that it pretty much came in second place to COD5 development for a large chunk of its development period. Level design is only remotely interesting in the beginning of the game and doesn’t truly pick up till around the last two levels. Making it seem like they cared even less is the fact that most of the game’s story is presented in what is basically narration over a computer screen displaying images of satellite scans and characters who are speaking. It’s kind of like COD4’s cut scenes, but instead of working it fails. Once again this changes near the end of the game, when it appears the developers all walked into the office and realized they needed at least one real cut scene and that maybe actually working some of the story into the gameplay a bit better would be a good idea.

Of course the story they based the game around, which follows both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace in a loose way, is lacking at best. Of course they had to change things around in order to warrant Bond shooting through each level, but they basically eliminate half of Quantum’s plot and stretch Casino’s out into an actual game. The latter part being perfectly fine, but the former making the overall story weak in almost every way. Even EA’s final Brosnan outing, Everything or Nothing, which had a plot about nano-technology, made more logical sense than the mish mash of shooting levels presented in Quantum.

Graphically the game does its job relatively well, despite the cut scenes looking a generation old. Bond looks like Craig, M looks like Dench and everyone else kind of falls into their character. I didn’t switch the game on and get blown away by the look of everything, but I wasn’t about to turn it off because it looked bad.

That all changed when I switched over to the Wii version of the game. Few words can describe the train wreck of a game that is the Wii version of Quantum of Solace but I believe I have found the perfect one: Abomination. I do not know why a gaming company (Treyarch farmed it off to Beenox) would even want to put their name on this turd. The graphics are so low grade that I thought I might as well be playing GoldenEye, and I’m being dead serious here. The above image is supposedly from the Wii version, but if that image isn’t touched up in some way then I’ll eat a shoe. Switching from the 360 version to this was like getting punched in the face by a guy who just gave you a shiny cake. Now normally I wouldn’t give two shits about graphics as I’m an avid supporter of design over appearance, but when you can’t see the enemy because the colors and polygons all blur together then there is a serious problem.

The game unfolds exactly the same as the 360 version except it sucks on levels that made me want to take back anything bad I had ever thought about the 360 game. The camera zoomed crazily in and out, sometimes unsure where to sit itself and probably too afraid of the low res Bond it was supposed to be showing to come out of first person for the third person cover mode. Of course this didn’t matter since the enemy AI had been turned into artificial idiocy (still AI, I realize). Add to this that collision detection for bullets and almost everything else was off, that the graphics glitched at almost every chance they could and the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, was timed right and you’ve got a game that is literally the worst game I’ve ever played.This was only doubled by the fact that many of the checkpoints that were present in the 360 version had disappeared in the Wii. In one level there were absolutely none and I had to replay the entire thing multiple times, which in a good game isn’t so bad, but in this game made me want to melt my eyes. I will admit though, that I don’t make a habit of playing bad games, so there are most definitely worse games out there, I just haven’t played them.

But don’t worry, it gets better: the game froze on me three times. Just out and out froze on three separate occasions at seemingly totally random moments. Oh, and the small changes that were made for the Wii version are mostly for the worse. Many of the interactive objects in the 360 version are no longer interactive and explosive objects don’t shimmer like they do in the 360 letting players know that they’re explosive. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if gas tanks and other exploding items didn’t blend into the background like almost everything else in the muddled world of Wii Quantum of Solace.

I really wanted this version to be good too. Unfortunately it is not the FPS that will prove that the Wii should get more FPS action (maybe COD5?). That being said there are one or two rays of light, mostly which deal with the controls. Shooting is done well enough and turning was fine. I always find it more fun to play an FPS with the Wii remote and if the rest of the game hadn’t been so poorly made I would have had the same opinion here. Also the QTE hand-to-hand combat isn’t QTE, instead the player is tasked with aiming at a certain point on the opponents body and pressing A before time runs out. It’s way more fun and interactive then just the button tap. That is it, however. Nothing else good and I didn’t even mention the lock-on system that the game forces you to play with. I suppose that could be a benefit since you wouldn’t be able to see half the enemies without it, but for those of us that actually like to aim, it’s just a pain in the ass.

The only thing I truly enjoyed in the Wii version, in one of the most ironic moments in my gaming life, was the multiplayer. The Wii version has four-player online multiplayer and is the only version to feature split screen. It is so rudimentary in its design and gameplay (only two modes both of which basically require you to shoot the other people) that it reminded me of GoldenEye multiplayer through and through. Of course it could have been the bad graphics too. Whatever it was, I had fun playing it in a way I hadn’t had fun in an FPS for a good long time. Maybe it’s because it was on the Wii, so the pressure was off to be the best Haloz player evarz. The 360’s multiplayer is far more in depth and actually has a bit of the same run and gun gameplay that made GoldenEye so awesome. It won’t be stealing anyone away from Halo or Gears 2 though.

I guess my biggest disappointment, and here we’re talking about the 360 version as I’d rather have my fingers cut off then bring up the Wii again, is that it isn’t a special game. Bond is an event in both film and literature, but here he has been relegated to the likes of every licensed movie game created. As far as games like that go, this one is no slouch, but that’s not Bond. Nobody does it better is Bond, hopefully Activision learns that.

+ (360)

• Decent FPS and third person action
• Quality level design, eventually
• Isn’t the Wii version
• James Bond

-

• Bland story
• Weak level design
• Doesn’t feel like Bond

+ (Wii)

• People who don’t own a 360 or PS3 can protest by not buying the game at all
• Multiplayer, but mostly because it exists at all. Does something get credit simply for existing?

-

• Everything

Sony is facing some angry criticism for allegedly copying Sackboy costume entries and selling them on as DLC. The costumes Sony offers are believed by some to have been designed by non-winning entries to a costume contest, being sold without due credit given.

Official PlayStation forum posters have pointed out the similarities between Sony's DLC and fan-designed costumes, which include the Shark suit we talked about a while ago. You can check out the similarities here, and I think you will agree that they're incredibly similar, to the point where it could almost be considered blatant.

Sony is calling the situation a complete coincidence. "This was always going to be a possibility when we ran the costumer competition - releasing new costumes which are similar in theme to ones that were entered," explained a Sony community rep. "Here's the fact of the matter. The art team who are responsible for designing new original (ie unlicensed) costumes were involved at the very final stage of judging, by which time the number of entries had been whittled down to 10 from each batch of entries (Europe, Japan, USA).

"If at any time we take inspiration from a costume competition entry that didn't win overall we will contact the creator directly."

So, coincidence, or dirty plagiarism? Either way, it's Sony's property, so it's Sony's right to give credit and use whatever assets it wants. That doesn't make it classy, however. It's not like Sony would ever admit to ripping off a fan, whether it did or not, so we'll never not for sure. They really are bloody similar though.

I admit it – there’s a gaping hole in my soul from a lack of Iron Chef. I’ve only caught a few episodes, but I’ve come to learn some universal truths from my viewings of the show and the above trailer for Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine. The foremost truth is that one should never, ever take quiet preparation directions. Only frenzied screams suffice.

If you haven’t been riding the hype train, then you wouldn’t know that Supreme Cuisine’s arrival is nigh. The DS version, shown above, is slated to come out tomorrow. The Wii version will be hitting US retailers December 12.

In addition to the trailer, we also have a host of new screenshots that show off the celebrity chefs and various secret ingredients in the game. I’m happy that Destineer, the game’s developer, gave artichoke hearts proper mention by including them in the pile of ingredients. The artichoke is a beautiful vegetable and deserves to be elevated by the videogames industry as a whole.

I admit it – there’s a gaping hole in my soul from a lack of Iron Chef. I’ve only caught a few episodes, but I’ve come to learn some universal truths from my viewings of the show and the above trailer for Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine. The foremost truth is that one should never, ever take quiet preparation directions. Only frenzied screams suffice.

If you haven’t been riding the hype train, then you wouldn’t know that Supreme Cuisine’s arrival is nigh. The DS version, shown above, is slated to come out tomorrow. The Wii version will be hitting US retailers December 12.

In addition to the trailer, we also have a host of new screenshots that show off the celebrity chefs and various secret ingredients in the game. I’m happy that Destineer, the game’s developer, gave artichoke hearts proper mention by including them in the pile of ingredients. The artichoke is a beautiful vegetable and deserves to be elevated by the videogames industry as a whole.

After being greeted with a highly stylized animated intro, I took command of Faith in the tutorial. I learned how to jump, roll, tuck, duck, swing, fight and bust through doors. What? Where's the shooting? Ohhhhh right - This is not another shooter. You can use guns later on but it's almost more fun not using it. ::coughachievementcough::  We all love our shooters but this is so right for a change of scenery.

I haven't gotten very far in the game but I am loving it. I'll admit, sometimes it can be frustrating because you can't tell where exactly you're jumping from since you can't see your feet. I've missed several long jumps due to premature button pressing. However, the overall feeling is just incredible. It's very intuitive but don't try and roadie run, it won't get you very far. I know I'm not the only one who has inadvertently tried that in games other than Gears.

This game also has a really innovative goal finding system. Wondering how to get from one rooftop to the next? Just look for the red colored articles in your world. The city is a wash of whites with the odd primary color decorating billboards and objects so the red sticks out like a beacon. Objects you use range from pipes, to boxes, to wood boards, to pretty much anything. If you get completely lost, you can just press the "B" button to look in the direction of your next checkpoint. This isn't a run in the park, though. You will be chased and will need to act quickly so mastering the control scheme is imperative.

For graphics nerds out there, they also used the "environmental" text that's so trendy these days (Think Fringe, Quantum of Solace, etc.). Everything just feels so polished and clean. If you haven't tried it, go check out the demo on Marketplace. I didn't have a problem with motion sickness, although I can imagine why it might happen. Eh, just get some meds from your doc or something. (I'd like to hear that conversation!) It's too interesting a game to pass up on.