Â» Famitsu Reveals All
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Popular Japanese gaming magazine, Famitsu, seems to have gathered the juiciest bits of gossip regarding Nintendo in its latest issue.
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Tycho:  We grabbed a couple demos yesterday afternoon to see if we were missing anything, specifically Tenchu Z and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and came away with the expected comic materials.  I think Tenchu Z may get explored in a more robust fashion in Monday's strip, but after the loading is complete the demo flashes up one of those screens that is completely grown over with control instructions.  It wasn't even an especially bad one, and there are very, very bad ones, like the one in the demo for StarFire Saga V: Laserion.  It was merely an assault on the mind, paralyzing in its way.
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Tycho:  I'm aware of Spore, but it's not a game I look around for in an active mode.  Here is a preview of the game, for example, but I haven't read it so I don't know if it's good or not.  I'm especially disinclined to read previews in particular, because I think it's a game that is likely to preview well.  You aren't likely get past the novelty stage in am Official Press context - it's going to be pure discovery from beginning to end, wall to wall tendrils and eye stalks, ginning up hobbling quintapeds whose journey to the mailbox is difficult, if not impossible.  The incredible outpourings of support for the game are themselves incredible to me, but what they've done is try to create a product whose potential is as raw as possible.  We seem to value that ethereal quantity differently than most.
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October 15, 2004 - Thanks to Eurogamer for the head&#39;s up that Bungie posted a FAQ on Bungie.net regarding the Halo 2 leak: Is it true?
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NO one does weird quite as well as Japanese game designers and animators. In this spirit, three new video games bring the bizarre home.
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Tycho:  It took three separate discs and two consoles to finally work out the Goddamn kinks, but we were able to play almost the entire Eternal Sonata demo.  Almost!  I wasn't aware people were still boiling discs, presumably in black iron cauldrons where carrots bob, but I don't want to live a life where boiling discs is normal.
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Gabe: Wired has a pretty big article about Penny Arcade in it's latest issue. We've done a lot of interviews but Wired actually sent a writer named Chris Baker out to spend a few days in our office. Sort of like a geek version of Jane Goodall, He hung out with us all day and took notes while we played games and made the comic. Chris interviewed everyone here and even found time to question our wives and friends. Living with us the way he did I think he managed to get some pretty candid stuff out of Tycho and I. Things we might never have divulged during a standard interview. By the end of the week I think we all considered Chris a friend and a valuable addition to any Halo 3 team. The resulting article is a pretty complete look at our little company here as well as the most honest interview I think anyone's ever managed to get out of us. If you're interested you can read it online right here.   -Gabe out
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The highly anticipated GTA title, San Adreas, has been leaked according to Rockstar Games the creator of the game. âThe proper authorities are investigating the theft and are continuing to investigate all
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Tycho:  Gabe keeps coming into the Goddamn office with his Goddamn tales of high adventure, telling me about how there's tokens or some shit in Burning Crusade now, or maybe tiers, and other words I had scoured from my consciousness.  He also says there is hot new five-man content, which initially sounded like pornography.  The comic is correct - I purchased it in a moment of weakness.  As I must often approach you, the cherished reader, to apologize for this or that indiscretion, it may be more appropriate to say that I have moments of strength which are suspended in cowardice and moral decay.
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Tycho:  Our newest comic is available here, regarding the blogger that Nintendo fired recently.  As usual, Gabriel and I disagree absolutely on virtually every point of this discussion, my own perspective favoring greater liberty while he presents a naked defense of fascism.  The two universal axioms we were both able to agree upon were that:
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Tycho:  Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is impressive in many ways, as I've suggested: certainly as a technical showcase, it's nice to have in your bag.  As a catalogue of Japanese aggression toward gamers, it's clear now that future generations will refer to these advanced cups as a deeply scandalous exhibit.  I have seen a Goddamn ninja weave a dark circle, disappear with a burst of leaves in some strictly Hattori Hanzo type shit, and then phase back into the physical plane to haunt our mortal hoops.
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What appear to be pages from the eagerly awaited final installment in the series have been circulating online.
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Tycho:  With that gigantic PC behind me - a PC I have begun to call the Night Engine - we finally have a machine in here that can run Crysis, and run it well.  Reasonably well.  Not at max resolution, by any means.  The sweet spot is around 1440x900 here, a point at which he performance and gameplay have reached an uneasy truce.  They'll be showing off a console version of their engine at the next GDC, which was inevitable, but they'll also be revealing a "six hundred dollar machine" that will run Crysis well.  That must be the comedy portion of the act.
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Tycho: The whole reason I wrote that other post was to link the new article about it at 1up, and I didn't even manage to do that - here you go. In a way, I'm glad I didn't link it before - in the intervening period, a new episode of the 1up show has dropped that has a ton of interview and video material for every part of Episode 2 - including TF2 and Portal. It's the top video on this page. Unbelievably delicious.(CW)TB
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A Japanese company creates a memory card which could change the method of spending money. Also: Google to set up digital book samples  & hellip;. Nintendo equips handheld console & hellip;. and more.
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Tycho:  I should have all the science lined up by the end of the week, ready to stuff into the piano black lozenge I've obtained to celebrate my return to personal computing.  Wish me luck; I've never before had the opportunity to fry four processors at once.       I know things.  Specifically, things that may be of interest to you.  For example, I know if playing Eye of Judgment online is an onerous as it might seem.  It is not!  I cannot express my relief.    Well, let's try.  In my last, vast expose, I broke down a card's unique language and expressed some misgivings about online play - ultimately just accepting it, because what they're trying to do is so weird that there's no prior art.  Essentially, you "register" your thirty card deck with the system itself, where it is stored and named for future use.  This process is extremely straightforward:  it is simply a matter of you laying your cards anywhere on the mat, a few at a time.  It will probably take two minutes if you really keep on it.  Then, you jump online, choose what nation you want to play for, and track down a partner.  At this point, the game will "draw" you your five card hand by showing you the card art onscreen.  You get one Mulligan (or redraw), but if you like your hand you move into the game proper.  We laid out our deck by element, face up, and this smoothed the turn to turn process considerably.      In the build we have, and I hope this is changed for release, it shows you these cards in a single file line without their name or text - just the art.  Once you got familiar with these images, slightly modified from their card format, it's pretty quick - but the names should be displayed on this screen.  You can use the controller to pull up the names, but let's be serious - at no point should the player be forced to interact with a mundane controller once the game is underway.     You should know that the game really wants a well-lit environment.  You don't need a flare gun or anything, but we didn't have what we needed before and certain squares would slow down the game flow with partial reads that would only resolve after several attempts and minute card adjustments.  I should state that here in the office, we removed all the overhead lights, installing a single track of illumination that we point at the ceiling, where lights used to be.  We tend to transform any place we live into a cave.  So, our scenario might be somewhat atypical.    Also, I know if playing Rock Band with all the instruments off of a USB hub is onerous.  You will be happy to know that it is not - we played said instruments spread out on an actual stage, and found it more than satifactory.  The reality is that the drum kit already needs its own wire, so it isn't as though the future had actually arrived anyway.  Plus, the mic isn't wireless either. This makes the contrived brouhaha over wired guitars a fairly transparent traffic ploy.    This is a matter quite apart from Microsoft's reticence to play ball with unique, third party hardware.  And when I say "play ball," I'm taking about the shakedown operation they've got going licensing their wireless technology, which either makes products for their system more expensive or (in the salient case of Rock Band) results in them bundling a wired controller for the same price as a wireless one on a competitor's system.  This is the last holiday they can get away with this sort of thing...  right?
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Blog: An apparently leaked presentation sheds light on likely features of Olympus' upcoming high-end digital SLR.