Never played Shenmue because I never had a Dreamcast (or even knew someone with one) but Shenmue II is one of the finest games on the old Xbox, if not the finest.
Why, Mr Virtua Fighter guy, have you not done anything Shenmue this gen?
__________________ "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how theTatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan
I've been schmoozing through loads more Kinect blabbage while awaiting delivery (it turned up this morning, and I just had time to velcro it to my TV . Yes. Velcro. The internet told me to . Apparently THE FUTURE needs some help from 60s NASA tech )
While I wait for the working day to trundle to an end, so I can actually play with the beastie, I've been amused by this 'hands free' bit of deadpan driving... (didn't watch it all, but apparently he comes 3rd )
And minorly wowed by this Minority Report hack
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Also found this this techy interview with one the kinect directors interesting. A lot of its drawbacks become clear, despite the PR-adrenaline surging through his delivery, but the difficulties they've overcome are interesting too. Everything from human action not being 'binary', to predicting behaviour (to dodge some lag issues), *EDIT* to issues with using all its tech at once, and why it has trouble distinguishing crouching from jumping
*EDIT*
Here's an even longer tech piece from Wired, but with some interesting development stuff in there: true facial recognition being too difficult (especially with a family environment, where faces are often similar), but individual 'body language' being do-able; using the tech in combination means figuring out who's speaking only needs 5 (extra) lines of code (checks whether the RGB of the central gamer is fluctuating around the mouth); testing not just languages but regional accents from all over the world; kinects in ovens etc to test for regional climate effects; and Rare building giant barns to house their testers
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here
Why, Mr Virtua Fighter guy, have you not done anything Shenmue this gen?
Lack of sales. I read yesterday that the first Shenmue cost a whopping US$70 million to make, meaning that every Dreamcast owner would have had to purchase the game twice for Sega to turn a profit. Even though the game got high praise, it just didn't sell well in America and Europe. That's probably why Shenmue II was ported to XBOX only.
Yu Suzuki has tried to get the final installment going -- even spearheaded a Shenmue MMO there for a while -- but with Sega's overall financial slide in the face of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, the risk/reward just hasn't been right enough to finish the series. I think it was, however, voted by fans the most desired game sequel, and many petition efforts (most notably one by Scottish gaming show "VideoGaiden") have been made over the years.
While I wait for the working day to trundle to an end, so I can actually play with the beastie, I've been amused by this 'hands free' bit of deadpan driving... (didn't watch it all, but apparently he comes 3rd )
Danica Patrick's let herself go a bit.
That seems to lend fuel to what I've heard that the user input is some Kinect games is kinda minimal but as I'm sitting here having downloaded Sackboy's Prehistoric Lame Cash-In (real title, honest) for Move I can't say too much.
Yu Suzuki has tried to get the final installment going -- even spearheaded a Shenmue MMO there for a while -- but with Sega's overall financial slide in the face of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, the risk/reward just hasn't been right enough to finish the series. I think it was, however, voted by fans the most desired game sequel, and many petition efforts (most notably one by Scottish gaming show "VideoGaiden") have been made over the years.
A Shenmue MMO might be one of the few that holds my interest.
Speaking of MMO's which held my interest (for a week or two anyway), I got an email from Codemasters today informing me that Lord of The Rings Online is free to play now. Only two character slots, slightly smaller inventory and PVP seems a little scaled down on the regular content but, still.
That seems to lend fuel to what I've heard that the user input is some Kinect games is kinda minimal but as I'm sitting here having downloaded Sackboy's Prehistoric Lame Cash-In (real title, honest) for Move I can't say too much.
You should hear 'her' speak! In another vid they excitably babble about how the 'autodrive' doesn't kick in when you're standing up. Fairly odd.
(Luckily that game is supposed to be pretty pants / kid orientated anyway. I'm actually wondering whether it's some 'kid friendly' aspect that kicks in when he sits down - coz the scanner thinks he's child sized?)
Originally Posted by Tatty
Ha! Seeing as I can list 10 distinct regional variations from the top of my head in Norn Iron alone, that's gonna be a big job.
They claim the UK version of voice recog is good to go (most non-English langs aren't tho). I wonder if they've bitten off more than they can chew on that too
Yeah, I wonder too. I've not heard of any voice recognition stuff for Move even though the PS Eye has a built-in mic - Maybe they thought it was more trouble than it was worth.
Tumble is the one decent Move-only game that I've seen and even then it's flawed.
Mm, I do like physics-puzzle games. Again, not sure why that couldn't be mouse/controller manipulated tho?
I know the Xbox lot are touting the ability to 'scan' random real world items and introduce them into games, in the future, which is one physics area where their '3D' scan might give them an advantage (but unless they get that MR-style 'grip' thing working in the official package, you're back to the same old controller/interface issue)
I think we might start seeing a lot more piecemeal application of bits of the tech - voice control here, scanning there etc - so as to get the full potential of each one.
Either that or games with lowered / old-school graphics so as to allow the device to cannibalise more processing power and use all the toys at max effect (the Kinect uses sub-10% apparently, and I'm imagining the Move is also relying on the onboard processor).
A mouse could do up, down, left, right and into and out of the screen fine but I'm not so sure about the twisting and certainly not the flicking that you have to do to manoeuvre the blocks when they're in your grasp. Controller buttons could accomplish that I suppose but the Move vibrator makes things nicely fluid.
Talking of scanning, there's a Kung Fu 2D scrolling beat em up which has appeared on PSN which scans your full body and plants you in the game. It looks bloody awful though.
I think we'll see what this motion sensing stuff can finally do (and not just stealing from the Wii) when the main men - like Rockstar or Hideo Kojima etc - have finished playing around with it and decide to actually implement it in games.
The problem there is that they're gonna be committing commercial suicide if, say, a new Metal Gear Solid game comes out which uses Move/Kinect beyond a downloadable patch because the vast majority of console owners don't own the hardware. The Wii is a different kettle of bananas in this regard.
A Shenmue MMO might be one of the few that holds my interest.
If you to the 2:30 mark or so, you can see preliminary gameplay from Shenmue Online. Looks a lot like Dynasty Warriors meets GTA III to me, but hats off to Sega for trying.
Speaking of MMO's which held my interest (for a week or two anyway), I got an email from Codemasters today informing me that Lord of The Rings Online is free to play now.
Oooh! Might have to check that out (if my old dinosaur Dell will run it).
For the first time in history, the comment under that Youtube clip made sense - The Shenmue games (the second one really) should be released onto XBL. For the £10-ish that they charge for old Xbox titles, it'd be a steal. I might have my Shenmue II disc somewhere but it's probably with my old Xbox and has been packed away for months in the loft. It'll be an expedition to find it.
If you liked WoW then you'll like LOTRO. The gameplay is identical. But with Hobbits and Ringwraiths (Wringraiths? ) etc. It's darned pretty but I'm sure it'll be well optimised for older PCs, these things always seem to be.
A mouse could do up, down, left, right and into and out of the screen fine but I'm not so sure about the twisting and certainly not the flicking that you have to do to manoeuvre the blocks when they're in your grasp. Controller buttons could accomplish that I suppose but the Move vibrator makes things nicely fluid.
Yeah, it did look finicky. Good to know they found a good fit for a motion device then if it feels natural
Originally Posted by Tatty
Talking of scanning, there's a Kung Fu 2D scrolling beat em up which has appeared on PSN which scans your full body and plants you in the game. It looks bloody awful though.
Yeah, I like the fact that the developers have managed to get 'skeletal' scanning out of the 2D camera etc - it shows that software ingenuity will hopefully get more and more out of these dohickeys. It does seem like a pretty crappy game tho, you're right. Very much stuck in two dimensions, and with gameplay that looks like a poor man's Double Dragon . I think it's only retailing for £10 or something tho. Could be fun for a daft party game, like they suggest. Just not for long :S
Originally Posted by Tatty
The problem there is that they're gonna be committing commercial suicide if, say, a new Metal Gear Solid game comes out which uses Move/Kinect beyond a downloadable patch because the vast majority of console owners don't own the hardware. The Wii is a different kettle of bananas in this regard.
Yeah, i'd not thought of that. I guess they might wait and see how well they sell (but without a killer app, they're both likely to remain periphery novelties - so catch 22!). Unless some game gets developed which is dual use - but all the reviewers rave about the motion-control being superior. (Looks like we're a fair while off that just yet tho )
*EDIT*
It's funny, the Kinect is obviously perilously close to being one of those greedy 'step too far' moments where a company tries to generate the 'next big thing' and fails - but something about it does suggest it will teeter on the side of being, if not a big step forward, the first step to somewhere new. At least, Microsoft have the financial heft to make sures it can hang around long enough to fulfill any potential it has.
That said... I'm not sure I want the new place it takes us to to be Molyneux's Milo Land... (I do see how this could be cool for RPGs, but there's just something creepy about this 'child pet' presentation. In Modern United States of Molyneux, the child mind-reads YOU )
He's a strange character, is Peter Molyneux. I wouldn't go so far as to say "snake oil salesman" (damn!) but he always appears to get carried away with himself when explaining what his new game will do.
That said, I own everything he's done.
Re: That creepy but impressive(ish) video. I found myself flicking V's at 'Claire' because I'm pretty sure that the lead designer (reading the end credits when I finally finished the blasted thing yesterday) of Fable III is someone called Claire.
There can't be that many Claires in the Lionhead offices.
Just a minor update on my Kinect/no-smoking odyssey...
I've had a day and a half with the basic set up now (plus a peek at the yoga & dance games), and it lives up and down to everything the reviews say. Very novel input, pretty basic gameplay, stupid amount of space required, very silly interfaces (which are cool for a bit, then get annoying). It's probably telling that on day 2 me and a mate sat down to play an old, accurately-controlled, PS2 game after a while (mainly coz he was knackered - and large of limb, and in fear of puncturing the ceiling . It was welcome to play something that was more dexterous & less physically demanding for a bit tho, it must be said )
Non-gamers will Love it
It's definitely good for non-gamers tho. My dear 65-yr-old mother's protestations that she couldn't play games faded away as she started batting imaginary objects around (causing my dad to get competitive and knowledgeable and take his go very seriously indeed ). Equally my mainly non-gaming girlfriend took to it like a duck to water and played for 2 hours solid when we first broke it out.
The Bundled Game ain't all that Special
But you knew that. And it is a fair bit of fun two-player. The above game let's you race each other through a kind of animated version of 'hole in the wall', while you can go co-op for the river race and volleyball-in-a-box games. The '3D twister' & arm-flapping collect-the-bubbles games have less longevity, and as a 1 player game I think it's already run it's course for me. Almost...
It's good for giving up smoking
I think I put in 8 hours of messing around on the full day I had access to it. All the jumping and larking around is actually less intense/demanding that you'd imagine (although I did have a slightly squeaky ankle the next morning).
The 'Your Shape' game is probably the most novel use
Seeing the glittery representation of yourself in the 'game' is fairly entrancing. The yoga/tai chi subtly works you out, giving you limb-position feedback you wouldn't necessarily get in a class etc, while mini games like the Tetris-ish 'Stack em Up' are fun in their own right but physically challenging (in a good way) to execute well. I liked
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The dance game ain't for me
But I can see why people would like it. Personally I got annoyed at the 'robotic' nature of the moves, despite muddling through, and mooned the camera section fairly early on. (I'm now looking for the way to delete that )
If you liked WoW then you'll like LOTRO. The gameplay is identical. But with Hobbits and Ringwraiths (Wringraiths? ) etc. It's darned pretty but I'm sure it'll be well optimised for older PCs, these things always seem to be.
Finally took a crack at LOTRO and I'm liking it muchly. My old PC has to run the standard version at its lowest setting, but it doesn't bother me any. It seems like typical high-end MMO fare, which is exactly what I wanted. The missions, even at such a low level, are brisk and varied, and you're never without one. I chose a Dwarf champion, which means hopefully I'll have a long career of axe-burying ahead of me.
Also, Tatty... get this. My girlfriend's parents just bought a Sony HD television bundled with a PS3/GT5 combo. They won't use it obviously, so they asked her if she wanted it, and she in turn asked me. Part of me wanted to tell them to take advantage and sell it (hey, that's money in pocket), but the selfish part of me won out. So I said, "YES?!"
So yeah, apparently a PS3 will sometimes fall out of the sky into your lap. Now how much is a used copy of Heavy Rain...
My PSN id is greenspagbol if you fancy some GT5 online action. Been meaning to try some private lobbies in that but no one I know plays the game much.
I've ground my way up to level 23 and really should have managed my credits better - The vintage race in the Extreme series calls for some pretty exotic machinery like the original GT40 or the Jaguar XJ13. They're 13 mil each.
My PSN id is greenspagbol if you fancy some GT5 online action. Been meaning to try some private lobbies in that but no one I know plays the game much.
Will do.
Sadly, my last brush with a Gran Turismo was a rental weekend with GT2 waaaaaay back on the Playstation, though I did play the holy hell out of Sega GT on the X-Box. And after playing the demo, the only thing that kept me from buying Forza III on the 360 were bills. Slick game, that.
Once Christmas rolls around, I'll have GT5 in my PS3.
I rented Terminator Salvation (for free) just to see how bad it really was....and it is.
Played with the kinect at my uncles. My parents got a kick out of it. It's neat, just don't know how in depth it can go with more serious games. I think it works fine with family games and should stick to that.
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. Yes. Velcro. The internet told me to 
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