Didn't like the remake because it was a soul-less copy of the original, but this might be interesting. Doesn't seem like a straight prequel though, since it seems to be using flashbacks. Music is bound to be good, because Lin Manuel Miranda will be doing it!
Willy105 Blog
Sonic Frontiers really is a diamond in the rough.
by Willy105 on Comments
I think Sonic Frontiers is a diamond in the rough. Conceptually, the ideas displayed in this game for 3D Sonic are wonderful, allowing for Sonic to freely explore the world without any limit to his movement or powers, giving the player full freedom on where to go and what to do and how to get there.
However, the game constantly feels like it is about to fall apart at the seams. There is only the smallest amount of polish required to keep Sonic from flying out of the world, and that is only sometimes enough. There are times where Sonic would defeat an enemy, and its collectable would fall to the void with no way for Sonic to return and grab it.
I like the higher emphasis on story and lore and continuity, but the writers and directors weren’t able to make the game feel anything but dreary and depressing, which is not what I’d consider Sonic to be. Even in its most heavy story-based games like Sonic Adventure 2, there was levity and style to support the plot, which isn’t really present here.
The visuals and music are amazing as always from Sonic Team, but the art design sometimes makes it tough to find some collectables. The small distance the game uses to cull in objects also makes it slightly harder to navigate the world without constantly using the map.
I do think this is a great path for Sonic Team to take for future 3D Sonic games though.
Video Game Movie Store - Episode 1
by Willy105 on Comments
A new animated series about a store about video game movies. This episode is about the best video game movie.
I hope someone enjoys it!
How to post on SWM
by Willy105 on Comments
To post an article directly on the website:
1. PM me your Wordpress username if you haven't already (make one here)
2. You will now be able to post directly on the website. :o
You can write whatever you want, upload your own pictures, and the article will be featured on the next issue of SW Magazine. Since we now have a website that allows us to be free from the awkward HTML formatting and archival problems of the Gamespot forums, we also have a lot more freedom than we did before. For example, we can now post articles as soon as we finish them, instead of having to wait until they are compiled and posted for people to read.
If you want to post a video:
1. Upload your video into a sharing site (like Mega)
2. PM me the download link so that I can post it on the SWM Youtube channel.
The Youtube channel is an official Youtube partner. The article/video you post will be on the next issue of SW Magazine! :shock:
Why Unions and User Created Boards SHOULD be fixed.
by Willy105 on Comments
"...the unfortunate reality is that we don't have the time or resources to dedicate to making these sorts of changes happen.
This is especially true when you take into consideration Union usage statistics--on a website that gets well north of 100 million pageviews a month, Unions contribute just over one quarter of one percent of that."
That is an interesting way of looking at it, Lark. It's true that in the big picture, the traffic and hits generated from unions must be microscopic compared to the rest of the site.
But you see, that's the point.
Unions were never going to get a ton of hits; because to get hits you'd need a huge community, which is the exact opposite of why people found unions and UCB's appealing.
Unions were brilliant because it allowed people int he community to set up smaller and close-knit communities, not huge ones that would generate a lot of hits.
The quote above makes it sound like unions were a failure. I believe it was quite the opposite. Here are three examples:
GUFU
It used to be a Gamespot union, but since the unions system never got updated alongside the rest of the site; the union decided to make their own forum where they had full control.
PUSH
The same thing happened with PUSH, they members decided to create their own board outside of Gamespot because unions weren't updated.
Headcrab Union
(this is from the Wayback Machine, as they now redirect to the GS unions itself)
The most notable example is the HCU, which Gamespot itself tried to keep the union from leaving the site. They were a big promoter of updating the unions; and eventually left when GS didn't deliver.
So you see, unions were not a failure. They were such a big success that Gamespot couldn't contain them.
When these unions left the site, Gamespot LOST hits.
As the HCU union explained, they would have gladly stayed on Gamespot if unions had grown alongside the communites they created; but by outright erasing them from existance, it's a full blow to the face of the community.
Remember: Nintendo is dead!
by Willy105 on Comments
What? When did this happen?
I know there have been rumors that Iwata is on his way out (despite just recently being promoted), and the Wii U being the absolute wrong thing to have been made in the upcoming next-generaiton (despite both the PS4 and the rumored Xbox having touch controllers), but maybe it's time to face the music.
After all, for this week's Chalk Talk, we got three suggestions for topics:
- Nintendo as of late seems to rely to much on nostalgia and well established worn out brands. Is this a good thing? Do they need to reinvent the wheel or if it's not broken should they not worry about fixing it?- Consider Nintendo's announcement about not having a Press Conference during E3 2013 because they wish to "Utilize our direct communication tools, such as Nintendo Direct, to deliver information to our Japanese audience and we will take the same approach outside Japan for the overseas fans." Is this a smart play for them or is this writing on the wall.
- Will the Wii U become profitable? It's been shown that the Wii U has not been quite the hot ticket that Nintendo had hoped it would be (according to profits from the last fiscal year). But according to Nintendo they have plans to change that. What would you do to help improve the Wii U's image? Or do you feel that the Wii U simply has a bad due to baseless claims from "Nintendo Hater".Synthia
All three of those topics assume as part of their underlying basis that Nintendo is in huge trouble. Are they in trouble? Of course they are. Are Synthia's suggestions valid? Well....
1. Relying on Nostalgia
This has interested me in that it is something many say Nintendo is doing; exploiting people's memories of the past so that they would buy the same stuff over and over again. It's an interesting idea....except that's not what's happening.
Let's take a look at the New Super Mario Bros. series, a series that people commonly refer to when talking about Nintendo exploiting nostalgia. It's a valid assesment; after all, the games always bring back a lot of stuff from the older games, from power-ups to themes to sound effects.
And yet, the series is one of the most popular of the previous generation; the Wii one alone selling over 26 million copies. You don't get to numbers that high by "exploiting the nostalgia" of people that played the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985. These games aren't big because they are selling to the "old gamers" (in fact, theya re the ones that complain about them), but because they are selling to kids.
Kids! These people don't have any kind of nostalgia for 1985, 1995, or even 2005. These kids are playing these games on their childhood, the NSMB games will become nostalgia for them. The truth of the matter seems to be that Nintendo is creating nostlagia, not exploiting it.
After all, how can you rely on something that doesn't exist, especially when those that would have nostalgia for the stuff aren't going to like it?
But what about new IP's? "Nintendo certainly doesn't seem to create new IP's anymore. It's always Mairo, Zelda, Yoshi, Kirby, whatever." Well, that's a cool idea, one that shows how little they care about Nintendo's new IP's in the first place.
This game obviously doesn't exist.
Neither does this one (or it's sequel).
What the heck is this supposed to be anyway? (or it's sequel)
Is this some Sony game?
Well, those games up there don't have Mario or Donkey Kong, or Wario in them; so how can they be new Nintendo IP's (other than being Nintendo IP's, of course)?
Some people are willing to rely on their nostalgia to make sure in their mind that Nintendo doesn't change at all from the way they saw them decades ago, I guess.
2. Nintendo giving up at E3 2013
Certainly an interesting opinion, mostly because there is no way you would have come up with that opinion unless you already had a pre-existing idea that Nintendo can't compete with Sony or Microsoft.
I mean seriously!
Nintendo can't compete with the PS4 or Xbox Infinity, despite Nintendo being the one making dozens of Nintendo Directs outside of E3, each containing subtantial new game announcements?
Despite still having two (2) planned private meetings with the press to show off their games at E3 2013, as well as repeatedly mentioning in past Nintendo Directs about the games they will show off on the show floor?
Despite Nintendo most likely bombarding the entire week of E3 with Nintendo Directs, which serves the exact same purpose of an E3 conference, except with Iwata being in front of a white background instead of some big LCD displays?
You had to be convinced Nintendo can't do anything right that they would cancel their E3 conference just because "they have nothing to show and are therefore giving up".
As for Nintendo's actual decision, I don't know if it's a smart play yet. It obviously didn't go well with the massive misinformaiton and pre-existing image of the company (which is comically incapable of explaining itself for anything, seriously!).
How Nintendo's plan goes ahead on E3 2013 will be an interesting experiment to see; with SpikeTV certainly giving live primetime coverage of the PS4 and Xbox shows, I doubt they will do the same for any Nintendo Direct show Nintendo does.
3. Will the Wii U become profitable?
No.
Not in it's current form, at least.
Nintendo will have to redesign the console so that it doesn't cost so much to produce and finally be able to give it a price drop (similar to what Sony did with the PS3 slim), they will also have to rebrand it completely to get rid of the confusion about it being a Wii add-on or not (in a similar way to how the PS3 was rebranded to be more appealing), and of course, Nintendo of America will have to reach across third parties to give the system some more games (in a similar way to how Nintendo of Japan got the 3DS to have such a killer Japanese library).
I don't know what Nintendo plans to do, but if it's not one of those things; then it's not going to improve.
But does Nintendo deserve all the doom and gloom? No, the Wii U could fail and they can just try again with something different; it's not like they are Sega who had no money by the time the Dreamcast launched. It would be nice for major gaming sites to stop promoting such poor views, but hey, I understand. Nintendo is supposed to be dead, can't blame ya'll for trying to fix the narrative.
Letter to Sony: How to make the PS4 as succesful as the Wii U
by Willy105 on Comments
With the Gaming Journalists raving about the unprecedented sales performance of the Wii U, it's time to for Sony to get a few pointers on how to make their upcoming Playstation 4 reveal and launch to be as successful as Nintendo's magnum opus.
Don't name the system Playstation 4
Naming it the PS4 would make it seem like it is superior or different from the PS3. Nintendo smartly avoided this by naming their system Wii U, which conveys absolutely no implication of a successor or improvement. In fact, it makes it sound like Ubisoft's Udraw tablet add-on for the Wii, which is a great idea because that is also a tablet that could be used with the Wii. Since the Wii U had a tablet controller, people would totally think it's a Wii bundled with the Udraw tablet, and that is guaranteedsales! Do the same for the PS4, and see the money be raked in.
Design the system to look exactly like a PS3
"I already have the Wii, can't I get the tablet seperately?"
Nintendo designed the system that if anyone saw a photo of it, they would think it was a Wii. Which is a great idea, because everyone bought the Wii in the past. By having costumers confuse the Wii U for a Wii, you get to ride off the immense success of the Wii. If you design the PS4 to look exactly like the PS3, people will think it's a PS3 and gladly buy the same thing again! Heck, you guys already did the same thing with the Vita (which looks exactly like a PSP), and it's success in the marketplace shows what a great idea this is.
This is not the Playstation Vita.
Make producing the console be extremely expensive
The Wii U has a tablet controller that costs $85 a piece. This controller dramatically increases the production costs of the Wii U, to the point that Nintendo makes a loss even while selling it at the extremely high price point of $350, despite the system's specs being not much different than the PS3 and Xbox 360. The higher price tag makes it seem like a premium product, and people alwayswant the more expensive product. You guys did great with the PS3, making it such a swiss-army knife of technology that made it début at $600; and we saw just how great the PS3 sold back when it was at that price point.
Make ads that hide the fact it's a new game system
Alongside the name and design, Nintendo also went to great lengths to hide the fact that the Wii U was a new system with their TV ads. By making sure that the new system was obscured and that it was never mentioned, putting the focus only on the tablet controller, and showcasing the types of games you already saw and had on the Wii, you got a marketing campaign that successfully and actively misinformed the public that a new system came out, and that you were still advertising your old last-gen system.
Release the entire game library at launch
People don't like waiting for games, so what better way to avoid this by releasing everythingthe system has right at launch? Big launches are always more important that a filled release schedule, so if you have every game the system has out by launch (just like the Wii U did), the costumer has the entire library to pick from right at launch. People won't care about the huge drought that will come later because they have a huge backlog of games to play! Also, once they play everything they wanted, they will have fun going on message boards and patiently waiting for the next game worth buying for months because there's nothing else to play on the system.
Be arrogant, believe you are invincible
You already did that well with the PS3. Carry on.
Focus on things that aren't games
Instead of putting out compelling new software, Nintendo is spending their valuable resources on little toys like Wii Street U, which is free for a limited time, meaning they will eventually charge people to pay for this stuff. This will surely get your gaming audience to stand by you no matter what, and you will gain the respect of everyone in the industry. Invest in similar stuff, Sony; you're missing out on the Google Streetview audience!!
Make it for no one
Most importantly of all, don't have a target audience at all. Nintendo wanted to attract the hardcore gamers, and they made a controller with dual analog sticks and most of the buttons you find on a competitor's console (but not all of them); but they also want to attract the casuals, so they made the controller like a tablet and made it graphically behind so that they could sell it a "low" price. Of course, those things contradict, and you had a tablet controller that was too complicated and feature-less for the casual market, and a system that was too underpowered for the gaming masses. The system appeals to no one, no one gets it, no one wants it, no one can even tell the difference between it and the system they bought six years ago, let alone why they should get one. So Sony, if you want your PS4 to be as successful as the Wii U, make sure to do all of the above.
You're good at copying, what are you waiting for?
(no, I'm not serious, don't do this Sony, you'll die)
Jynxzor, Draugen1P and I completed Issue 64 of System Wars Magazine!
by Willy105 on Comments
We have been doing System Wars Magazine for over 5 years now, and it is so fun seeing System Wars user's reactions to articles written by other System Wars users. Although our little project has gotten a bit....tiny...over the past few years (only three of us left), we are always open to have more people join in the fun.
I want to thank Jynxzor for writing a Preview on Don't Starve, which the developers liked enough to put it right on the game's official website. Photo proof!
Also, let's not forget DraugenCP, who has written a ton of great articles from reviews, previews, and deep editorials on the art of foreign videogames. In my opinion, he should be working for a real website, not some forum past-time, but he's legit. Read his thoughts on the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim and The Scorchers DLC for Rage.
I also like doing fanboy articles, which parody real fanboys while also exposing the flaws in their arguments. What's scary is that a lot of people actually think like this, and I simply just copy their arguments almost verbatim. This issue I did one on Wii U saving Gamestop and how Pokemon X and Y looks like an N64 game; both ideas are frankly ridiculous and terribly wrong, but the arguments are very much real ones that people use and believe.
So here is Issue 64 of System Wars Magazine!Hope you guys enjoy it!
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