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furie

SBOPD
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Frank said:
Because it's an optional extra that the bare minimum of games use.

But if it was integrated then more games would make use of it, increasing the flexibility of game design on the console?

By having it as an add-on, Nintendo are essentially consigning it to the bin as a "we'll never use it for 1st party games, so bollocks to it because nobody else is important to us" device - maybe ;)
 

marc

CF Legend
Mark got me f1 2012.

Glad they finally improved the menu system and the game seems to run faster. But it does appear some detail has been dropped for this speed up. But tbh would rather speed than grass that blows in the wind lol.

Only played for a few mins but it does seem better than 2011 which I never really liked as it was just to slow to get to the race.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
it went along the lines of:

"HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU EQUIP THE SWORD?! HOW DO YOU USE THE SWORD!?"

It wasn't until after we said that it's the right thumbstick about 5 times did he finally try it only to proclaim

"AW! SO IT'S LIKE CALL OF DUTY!?"

And the rest of the playtime was filled with gale force winds from his stupid connect mic...

Then he steals every gun as soon as he sees it...
 

Intricks

Strata Poster
Here is the best solution I could think of:

Brick + His Face = No more annoyance

Unless of course you HAVE to be nice to him...then just block him on whatever system you arenplaying it on.

Still, you need to hurt him in some manner for the Call of Duty comparrison (imho).
 

Frank

Roller Poster
furie said:
Frank said:
Because it's an optional extra that the bare minimum of games use.

But if it was integrated then more games would make use of it, increasing the flexibility of game design on the console?

I imagine the next evolution of the 3DS (ie: 3DS-2) would have a second stick included as standard if it really required it. The 3DS XL isn't that console. As the name suggests, it's a 3DS but bigger. The control layout had to stay the same to ensure that 3DS games would be equally as playable on both systems, even if it meant creating another awkward accessory.

Personally, I think the Circle Pad Pro is pretty needless, pandering to lazy game developers who can't be bothered to utilise the features of the console properly.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Frank said:
I imagine the next evolution of the 3DS (ie: 3DS-2) would have a second stick included as standard if it really required it. The 3DS XL isn't that console. As the name suggests, it's a 3DS but bigger. The control layout had to stay the same to ensure that 3DS games would be equally as playable on both systems, even if it meant creating another awkward accessory.

Personally, I think the Circle Pad Pro is pretty needless, pandering to lazy game developers who can't be bothered to utilise the features of the console properly.

By having it as an "add-on" though, you're admitting that the console is lacking it. I understand what you mean about the 3DS XL being "a bigger version" and should remain the same, but if in between releasing the 3DS and the XL a need has been shown for an additional part, then add it in surely? Early adopters have the add on if it becomes a regularly used feature.

Have you ever tried playing FPS type games using just the left stick and the stylus (on the very poor DS touch screen)? It's such a frustrating experience. You lose access to the should button and four right hand buttons and the device is awkward to hold.

As I say, this doesn't bother Nintendo because they'll never make that kind of game, but it also stops 3rd party developers from doing it too which is a bad thing. Monster Hunter is one of the biggest Japanese franchises and it's the reason the add-on exists, the Japanese also love it so much that they don't care about buying hardware for it (the game sold something like 3 million PSPs - the hardware). However, the game series has never really caught on anywhere else and adding a £20 add-on along with the game will mean most Westerners will never move on. So the game flops and... Capcom then stop producing 3rd party games for the 3DS because they don't sell worldwide.

Come on, Nintendo invented dual analogue sticks back with the N64, it really is time that the handhelds caught up - there really is no excuse except for a narrow focus from Nintendo.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
N64 only had one Analog stick? The Saturn and the Playstation also released with out analog stick controls at all and even then it was still annoying for controls. It seems a pretty silly thing to do to get 2 analog sticks as standard controls, release a new handheld with only one stick and is capable of much more complex games than the ones that introduced analog sticks. Not only that the PSP had the same problem, that was widely critisized.

Also any first party game that brings out an add-on that allows you to be able to hold the stupid thing with out crippling your self is another admitance that nintendo, are stupid.

/Anti-nintendo

So how about Shin Megami Tensei IV on the 3Ds? Can someone buy me a US one?
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
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I'm ****. I thought the N64 was the first with dual, was it the first with one then? I seem to remember they lay claim to something like inventing that?

Picked up Little Big Planet for the Vita at the weekend (got a decent trade in deal). I keep buying LBP, but I don't actually really enjoy it. I find the controls are annoying and I have better things to do on the PS3, but I'm running a bit short of games I really enjoy on the Vita (with PS+ coming to it in six weeks time, I don't want to invest in Wipeout or anything just yet).

The game is very good though. They're taken all the control issues from LBP and LBP2 and smoothed them out. The platforming is much less tedious and works nicely. There's a fair amount of fun to be had and there's lots of "cross play" coming to link it to LBP2.

Bit of an issue though (and Sony really need to sort their house out). Some costumes I bought for LBP/LBP2 should be free on the Vita version. However, the store says I need to pay (going on the Vita store area of the PS3 or Vita). If you go through the PS3 addons part of the store though to the costumes, some of them will download for free, others wont. It's a confused mess. They then removed the ability to buy anything LBP other than the "network pass" from the Vita itself.

This is after people who had pre-ordered LBP Vita on the store to get it three days early found that the released version broke completely, and they are now having to get Sony to refund them and buy the game again (or fork out another £30 and then wait for the refund and argue that it should be put onto your credit card and not as PSN points). Not good for the release of your flagship product to avid fans. Actually, Sony are quite often piss-poor at this kind of thing. Lots of good ideas and offers, but they don't have the technical/account/network ability to back it all up.

I can't join multi-player games for instance on LBP Vita for some obscure reason. I wouldn't mind if it was like the PS3 version where you just play the level. The Vita version kicks you back to the main menu and you have to go through the whole thing again (which is quite a slow process).

Will look at creation stuff when I grab the chance, but the complexity of LBP2 is there and I've already played some mind blowing user made levels.

So, mixed bag. Good, solid game; very professional single player production. Cocked up network features that should really enhance the game (I want to play 2 player to get some of the hidden stuff).
 

nealbie

CF Legend
The AI on F1 2012 is still too easy. I'm competitive (top 3/4) in a Williams without pushing with all assists off on the so-called "Legendary" setting; and when I turn up the revs for a hot lap in qualifying I'm a second clear of Vettel, Alonso, Button and co.

I'm winning despite driving well within myself and it's boring. It'll be a game wrecker when I move to a decent team.

That aside, graphically and physics wise it's <3<3<3. I suppose I'll just have to stick to online again. =(

It's a shame, because it would be such an awesome game, if it was playable as a racing sim. I don't understand why they make the AI so slow!?!?!?

It would get a 10/10, but this ruins it for me, so 6/10 for the complete lack of a single player game.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
furie said:
I'm ****. I thought the N64 was the first with dual, was it the first with one then? I seem to remember they lay claim to something like inventing that?

Playstation probably. The Atari 5200 had the very first analog stick so there maybe a weird twin stick game port in there...
 

Intricks

Strata Poster
Since I'm a total loser that has a small social life, I shall add in WoW since Mists of Pandaria came out today and I've done nothing but play that!
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I don't know if anyone bothers to read my long reviews, but I don't care :lol:

I'm on a mission to save people from the same old same old (not that there's an issue with playing a game or genre you like time and again, but these reviews are weapons in my arsenal of "there are original games out there without having to fit into a gaming routine), so here we go again with something very off-the-wall and fresh, yet as old school as Jet Set Radio ;)
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Tokyo Jungle​

Where to even start with this? I may section it so you can scoop down to bits that interest you...

What the hell is it all about?
Humanity has mysteriously died, suddenly and only the animals remain. The game is set in Tokyo (in small areas of it) and you get to play through the game as one of the surviving animals for as long as you can, several years after the humans have gone.

So how does it work?
It's actually a very simple mechanism. You play on a side scrolling 3D plain (think Double Dragon, Golden Axe, etc.) only you can go to either the left or the right at will. Some areas though have forward and backward sections too (alleys between buildings and the like), so it's kind of proper 3D as well

Each "area" of the city (I think there are 8 in a linear setup - you move off one area to the right and enter another, or left to another) is quite distinct and contains ruined buildings, abandoned cars, water puddles, large grassy areas, buildings, rooftops, trains, plants and... animals.

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The opening tutorial shows you the basic gaming technique. As a herbivore, you must find and eat plants to survive while avoiding being the prey of a carnivore. As a carnivore, you must find, kill and eat other animals (either herbivore or carnivore).

The technique is pretty similar for both, and will be oddly familiar to anyone who has played MGS. Long grass conceals you and you can sneak (as long as you don't run) behind animals looking the other way (they even have a box you can put on your head for sneaking around in :lol: )

So sneak past carnivores to reach plant sources as a herbivore and sneak up on animals to kill them as a carnivore - simple.

There same mechanic works for attacking for both animals though. When you're near an animal that is unaware of you, or dazed, you get a kind of spinning vortex bite mark on the animal to attack. When it stabilises, you hit the attack button and you bite (or kick as a herbivore) and (hopefully) kill the animal. If the animal is much bigger than you, then there's a chance you won't take it out in one shot. Then you have either a head butt or claw attack to hurt the other animal until it is dazed (or dead with one swipe if you're a lion), then you can once again try the bite attack system.

Usually a single sneak "well timed" attack will result in a clean kill in one shot (or you can hang on to the other animal and keep attacking using R1 until it dies).

Phew, so there's the basics.

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So far so simple, what else game play wise?
There's a small degree of simple platforming built into the game to reach higher building points, get across sunken gaps in the road, etc. It's all very simple stuff though and more adds to make the different areas more of a "maze".

You have a radar which works like the motion tracker from Aliens. You can see an extended area of the land around your "screen" and flashes of white for animals and plants symbols for plants. So you have advanced warning if there may be a pack of wolves ahead (lots of white dots), or if the berries you desperately need are in easy reach or past an animal (which may be a rabbit, or may be a sabre toothed tiger). In the dark, your visible screen is very limited and the radar to what you'd normally see on screen (this makes it very tense getting around in the dark, especially when you suddenly run past a snoozing Cheetah). There is also rain and fog that turn off map entirely so you just have what you can see. It's little ways of changing the way the game plays as you go along.

As you intake calories too, you increase in bulk and raise levels. There are only three levels - Rookie, Veteran and Boss - but it can take a little while to get through them. They're important because you extend your game not by completing missions (though there are missions - more later), but by finding a 'mate'.

Each area has four "marking points" spread across the whole area. Mark them all and you "own" the territory. Several potential mates will then be attracted to the area and you can find them and mate with them at a designated "nest" site. There are three levels of mates to find, desperate (dirty with fleas), average and high quality. You can mate with any rank below you, but not any above you.

Once mated, you produce off-spring who gain some of the "stats" enhanced by you as you played as the first generation. The higher quality the mate, the more offspring and the more stats are carried across. You then play as your offspring and your original animal settles down with their missus.

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Each of your siblings essentially gives you an extra life. So if you find yourself on the wrong end of a velocitraptor (there are dinosaurs later on), you take over immediately as a brother or sister with the same stats as when you died. You can also send your siblings into battle for you while you run and escape.

There's also a built in natural life span (though I've yet to see it enforced) of 15 years (each "year" is about a minute in real time). So you have to mate within that time to keep the generations alive. You also have a time limit of 10 years for each set of missions (again, more later).

Sound like a fair amount to do already? Well, that's just your basics. The game also throws in random events like pollution that kills all plants and animals (and poisons then for a while) in one area (and you if you stay too long), or a herd/pack of animals may take over one section of the city. There's always something going on.

So what kind of game is it?
It's the best Sega arcade game they never made!

The actual game is much faster than the sneak/hunt system makes it sound. Yes, there can be periods of wandering from one side of Tokyo to the other in the hunt for food or a mission goal, heading through area to area - but it never really lets up and gets dull. You're constantly balancing your need for food and to reproduce against the need to complete missions and avoid natural disasters. It's got that constant push of an arcade title, there's always danger all around you, and things you have to be doing within time limits and all the while surviving. It's frantic and at times heart poundingly fraught.

Combat is very simple (and you'll often die frustrated because it's just not working well enough in the heat of battle against a pack of Hyenas), but that's pretty much the same for the core "mechanism" in most arcade games. Simplicity a that level, it's the complexity beyond it which is important.

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So what's a typical game like then?
There are two modes for starters. There's "Survival" and "Story".

What's survival?
It's when you get dumped in a central area and have to survive ;)

This is where the missions start. You have ten years to complete four missions, then they close and you move on to the next four (if you completed the previous ones or not). There are 20 missions in all and if you complete them all you get a fancy bonus of some kind (new clothing that can increase stats generally).

The missions may be eat "so many" calories, mark 6 points, mate and go to "this area". Which sounds easy until you discover that there's a food shortage and the only food is in the opposite direction to the area you need to head to. At that point, you often have to look at the locked up-coming missions to decide which to fail in order to leave you in a stronger position later.

To be fair, the missions just give you directions. They're not set in stone, but they offer purpose. They also are generated randomly at the start of each game, so each time you start as a chicken will be different to the last time.

The game is also very clever and it makes the path to complete the missions the right difficulty. So if you need to intake 2000 calories and go to Shibuya Suburbs, then it tens to not only leave at least 2000 calories on the journey, but it doesn't fill that route with nasty predators. Go the other way though and you can rapidly get out of your depth. As you get older and each new set of challenges comes into play, the game ups the difficulty and DOES start to chuck in nasties, reduces food, etc. So the game naturally and progressively gets harder as you get older. It's an age old arcade mechanism done very subtly.

The other thing with survival missions is that it's where you unlock new animals. Each animal has a set of criteria to meet that will unlock an animal "boss". It may be complete 1 mission and mate (it's usually something simple like that) and then you get 30 years to complete the "boss" mission. Sometimes it's as simple as going to one area and touching the boss. Other times you have to mark all the points. The worst times you may have to defeat the boss in combat when he's surrounded by a pack. Again, it's a nice progression system and there are a LOT of animals to unlock.

Story then
In Survival mode, you pick up "archives" which are written records of the events leading to the disaster that wiped out humans (newspaper articles, blogs, etc you can read in a separate section). Get all three in a survival mode and it unlocks a new story chapter (you can't find any archives in survival until you've completed the latest story chapter).

Each chapter tells a tale of one of the factions or animals in the city. You start off as a crap handbag dog thing who has to hunt and find food. The next chapter find a mate. It's essentially a simple story telling technique to teach you how you play the game.

There's an issue here you may have spotted... You can only unlock the new chapters in survival mode. This is an issue as the initial learning curve in survival mode is very steep without having done the "Chapter Tutorials". By the time you've collected the archives and unlocked the chapters, you beat them without any real effort. It's the only true flaw with the game's design.

So why is it so good? Why should I buy it?
It's pure arcade fun brought pounding up to the modern day. It incorporates all the things we expect games these days (multiple decisions to be made, missions driving us on, the ability to prolong our artificial lives, etc). It's simple fun, but it has complexity in there. It's an arcade game that doesn't punish where you'd normally be forced to throw in more money, but instead nurtures you through the pain.

If you've read any of this, you should know why it's something special. It's something that simply hasn't been approached before. The way you play as an animal (in the end a multitude of animals) gives you a very different perspective to running and gunning. You're not a plumber bouncing on fantasy mushroom heads. You don't need to pick up every golden ring. There's no golden sword at the end of the adventure that wraps up the story. There's just the eternal joy of not dying for another year until the inevitable catches up on you

It's not a game for everyone, certainly. It's certainly not the perfect game by any means and there's a lot of repetitive action going on. However, you find yourself loading it right up again after you die and going back in for more of the same. Again, it's pure arcade addiction.

Why should you buy it? To support people not only willing to make a game that doesn't fit in a comfortable genre, but to prove that there's room to encourage originality AND have bags of fun (especially trying to unlock those carnivores)!

I've put hours into this just over a single weekend and to collect all the animals?
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http://andriasang.com/con0i1/tokyo_jung ... /23s34.jpg
I've got a fair way to go yet ;)
 
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