divine visitor

Looks really nice - I like your model sheets.

The poses in your storyboard have a nice snappiness to them as well - I hope this transfers over into the animation

Good to see this happening. I see they've gone super-traditional to re-introduce people to 2D animation, which is totally a good thing.

Going forward though, I hope they experiement a bit and take advantage of the many cool things that computers can now afford them.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness

Is it really called that?! How strangely mundane...

WiiWare will be surprisingly good and will be a great way for new, interesting third party games to thrive on Wii without having to go head on against Nintendo's own output.

Metal Gear Solid 4 will be more bizzare and strange than anyone could have ever anticipated. The fans love it, while everyone else is left scratching their heads in bewilderment - although they'll concede that it at least plays well this time around.

Microsoft will announce a motion-sensitive controller of some kind for Xbox 360, but it wont necessarily be a replacement for the current one.

Easily Super Mario Galaxy for me. It just blows my mind, time and time again.

Second place goes to Bioshock, because I'm not a fan of FPS games, and it wasn't on my radar at all until a friend showed me the demo. But from that moment I knew I had to see it through to the end. Fantastic story, atmosphere, and also sound design - which gets overlooked somewhat. The ending is a bit of an anticlimax, but it didn't spoil the overall experience.

Third place goes to Super Mario Bros 2: The Lost Levels on Wii. I love this game so much. I wish they'd release DLC expansion packs for it. Or like a 100-of-the-most-difficult-but-not-totally-ridiculous levels using the Super Mario Bros engine. Or just rip off LittleBigPlanet and let us make and share our own levels. And let me play it with my (surprisingly comfortable when held horizontally) Wii remote.

I had absolutely no interest in Bioshock at all until a friend showed me the demo. After that I knew I just had to play that game somehow....and I didn't even own a 360.

Would you be pissed off if WiiWare titles had: no demo; or a time limited demo, or you could only play the demo for a certain amount of time each day?

I guess in the case of WiiWare titles, people need to know what they're getting somehow, and whether or not it's worth their cash. We're pretty spoilt nowadays what with being able to return games that we regret buying, or renting them online, but once you've shelled out for a downloadable game, there's no going back.

If, like Virtual Console titles, WiiWare ends up with very little media coverage, then a demo is pretty essential. I would assume however, that since WiiWare stuff is supposed to be all new games they're going to be previewed and reviewed just like the disc-based games. In that case demos aren't especially important, but would still be a welcome feature.

NiGHTS Journey of Dreams - first impressions

Only played a small amount of this last night so these are only my first impressions of the game, but so far I'm a bit disappointed.

Compared to the beautifully simple, streamlined presentation of the original, there's a lot of pointless cutscenes and tutorials here in NiGHTS 2 both before you actually get into the first world, and also inbetween mission within each world. There's a fair amount of loading too. The voices in NiGHTS 2 didn't annoy me as much as I was expecting, and they certainly give the characters a bit more personality, but it all seems a bit unnecessary - the silent cutscenes of the original convey the story with a lot more clarity.

The graphics are a bit hit and miss - The Nightopian worlds look gorgeous, but the new character designs are kinda bland. I'd say the makeovers that returning characters such as NiGHTS, Reala and Wiseman, etc have been given aren't entirely successful either, particularly Reala who looks stupid, and has a stupid voice.

Gameplay wise, the first mission of each world is classic NiGHTS gameplay, which works really well. Pretty much just like the original. There's a lot more height to the environments now, which I'm not sure if I prefer or not. It makes for interesting links, makes it less linear and adds more variety to the level - you can go underwater or stay in the air in one world, for example. The small, focused courses that the original NiGHTS' had were great too though, especially for Score/Link/Time attacks.

The other four or so missions of each world bring completely new, different things for you to do in the world, such as a link attack, or saving the Nightopians from a black hole, or morphing NiGHTS into a boat for some white water rafting. They feel a bit tacked on and mini-gameish but I quite enjoyed some of them, actually.

I haven't checked out the My Dream part of the game yet, or seen any of the later worlds though, so I can't say anything about them yet.

My biggest disappointment with NiGHTS 2 though, is actually a fault of the Wii hardware, rather than the game itself. The controller - be it Nunchuck, Classic controller or GC controller, doesn't allow for smooth control of NiGHTS due to the octagonal shaped hole that the analogue stick sits in. I found that subtle movements and changes in direction are really difficult to do, and it just didn't feel as fluid and precise as in the original.

Overall, so far it seems like while trying to embelish and elaborate on the story and gameplay of NiGHTS, Journey of Dreams actually comes across as a bit confused and lacking in focus and clarity.

When I'm playing the NiGHTS-style missions, it still feels like NiGHTS, and some of the new missions are cool but not substantial enough. They're a nice addition but probably shouldn't have been part of the main game.

The one thing that they really did get right in NiGHTS 2 though, is the music. It's just perfect.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this recently. Personally I don't buy many games anymore, and although I still have a small backlog of stuff, I only play one at a time and enjoy each game thoroughly.

Something else that I've been wondering about though, is the importance of playing a game while it's brand new and there's still that buzz surrounding it, while all your friends are playing it and everyone on the internet are sharing stories and experiences and discoveries about it.

How important a part of the gaming experience is this to you guys? And for those that buy too many games for your own good, is there a link?

Are you just talking about the visuals? Because if so, please name me 5 titles - Sega Rally we've established, so name me 4 more. I'm as big a Saturn fan as anyone and I can't name many. Given, stuff like VF2 or Virtua Cop might still be competent, but it looks pretty bad overall.

Well, for me at least, 3D stuff like VF2 and Virtua Cop 1 & 2 are still totally playable, as is Last Bronx, Fighters Megamix, Athlete Kings, Winter Heat, NiGHTS, Bomberman Fight, Panzer Dragoon II, Virtual On, Grandia, etc. They don't all chug along at low, inconsistent framerates (although Virtual On and Grandia slowdown occasionally). They don't all look fantastic, but their visuals aren't totally off-putting either.

IMO, regardless whether it has crude graphics or not, it's the games with a decent, consistant framerate that are still playable today. That's why most Saturn 3D stuff are hard to stomach these days, and also why Sega Rally is an exception. There are plenty of others, though.

How about Vii?

http://www.letvgo.com/vii.htm

That's very nice, Mr Nomura. Really, it is. Now, what else can you do?

double post -__-

This is something I'm working on; I'm having some trouble colouring the rock surface. I've done some swatches and they look to bland and featureless. Hopefully going to sort it out tomorrow.

I really like that. I haven't used pencil colours for a long time and seeing stuff like this makes me really miss it. Looking forward to seeing the finished work!

As for the rocks, I'd personally give it loads of attention in the foreground - lots of raised rocky bits with some cracks and stuff, and slowly fade out the detail into smoothness as it heads towards the horizon/volcano. I'd probably also be tempted to make the people's shadows a bit longer, to help draw the eye in towards them a bit more and give them more weight in the picture

Although games are generally quite time consuming, it's not like they have expiry dates, right? Not including those online community-based thingys, that is.

I like to take my time these days. Only one at a time, usually (alongside a handheld game for the commute). There's nothing wrong with leaving a game until later. I'm still playing Silent Hill 2 for goodnessshake.

Sketchbooks aren't artbooks, they're meant to be a tool for learning, for experimentation and putting ideas onto paper and fleshing them out.

A blank canvas can be scary for many artists though, and alot of people I know feel more comfortable drawing on lined, squared, dotted, coloured paper, or even newspaper.

Personally, I've got about 4 or 5 sketchbooks on the go at the moment - a couple at home of various sizes, one or two at work and one small one I carry around. So wherever I am, if I have an idea I can jot it down before it escapes me, even if it's a couple of written lines, or a hurried doodle, or a couple of observational sketches while I'm waiting for a train. I guess it also helps me not get so hung-up on creating 'THE perfect sketchbook', since my stuff isn't all in one place. I don't worry about perfect drawings or beautiful compositions, I just focus on trying to capture whatever idea I have or whatever observation I'm making as best as I can. If it turns out bad, I'll learn from it for next time.

Couple o' scans:

My first exposure to Mario games was back in the late 80s when one of my older bros got an NES with the Mario1/Duck Hunt combo cart. We were really poor and so it was the only game we had for ages (apart from Robocop, which was a christmas present from an Aunt who didn't know any better). As a result, we got pretty good at it, but could never manage to beat world 8. When we kept dying we'd tell our youngest brother (there were 4 of us) to look away or leave the room until we'd beaten that bit, because he was jinxing our play. Kids are so harsh!

We skipped Mario 2 because we couldnt afford it, but we collectively managed to save enough money over a few years to buy another game - which we boiled down to a choice between Simpsons: Bart vs the Space Mutants, or Super Mario Bros 3. Being kids that couldnt buy games magazines and so wernt very clued up about games, it was a tough choice! We got Mario in the end though, and it was so amazing we'd sneak it out of my parents room to play at 3am on a school night.

In fact, we loved it so much, that one time when I was having an arguement with one of my bros, I held the Mario 3 cartridge above my head and threatened to drop it unless he agreed with me. This shocked him to his very core.

First time I ever played Super Mario World was in Debenhams in Croydon on a timed demo pod. I could just about get to the Donut Plains 1 level before it reset. I remember first using the cape and thinking it was rubbish because you just go up and then straight down again, unlike the raccoon suit. I had no idea how to open it out and glide.

We didn't ever 'buy' it though, because we couldn't afford it. We did get a SNES with Street Fighter II (World Warrior) eventually, through part-exchange, but that was the only game we ever owned for it, so we had to borrow/swap games from other kids to be able to play Super Mario World.

Great news for those that have never played the original, and also a cool way to create awareness for the sequel. It's a game that deserves to be played by alot more people than it managed to reach back in the day.

It doesn't look particularly different from the Saturn version though. So for me, unless it turns out to be a major remake with loads of new stuff, doesn't really seem worth a look.

[dragons den] I'm out. [/dragons den]

When I'm looking at a screen of hundreds of beautifully crafted characters fighting it out over a gorgeous landscape, all rendered in high-def and stuff, yet all I'm doing to interact with it all is pressing a single button every so often on a controller of at least 10 buttons.... something is clearly wrong.

It seems very much like something that might have been okay to do in the past, but has long outstayed its welcome. Hardly next-gen gaming, is it?

Personally, since I've not paid more than £30 for a game since the Dreamcast import release, and I buy very few games anyway, I don't really feel the need to monitor the price of the games I buy so strictly.

Maybe a better challenge would be to drastically reduce the amount of games you buy - it would pretty much lead to the same results as this challenge, and the games you do end up buying might recieve even more attention than usual?...

Everything except Mario Galaxy.

I have no 360/PS3, and I suffer from motion sickness (so no Metroid for me).

Well this was a no-brainer. While you're flicking through the back catalogue for obvious cash-ins Sega, how about a Wii version of Cosmic Smash, eh?

Capcom/Flagship doing the Oracle Zelda games for GB colour and Minish Cap for GBA. It didn't really work out IMO, I didn't really like them.

Halo 3 is about as likely to be the last in the series as Metal Gear Solid 4.

Super Monkey Ball was originally Dreamcast, wasnt it?