Reporting back from a developer conference...
where to begin? I've taken in so much, but I don't know specifically what you guys know. I'll talk about the things that were new to me, so stop me if you've heard this one already. Feel free to ask questions. I'll do my best.
Square-Enix: Kingdom Hearts 2, and Final Fantasy XII will not be appearing in 2005. Dragonquest 8 will come packaged in a box, similar to Star Ocean. It will also contain a bonus disk with a playable demo of FFXII
Capcom: Resident Evil 4 for PS2 looks just as good as it did on Cube. It plays quite smoothly, too. Megaman Anniversary collection for GBA has been officially cancelled. The studio who was making it didn't live up to Capcom's standard (ie. the game was ass).
Elder Scolls Oblivion will be a launch day title for 360
Anyone playing Guild wars has probably heard of the next content update being delivered through a retail expansion pack. However, looks like we'll be seeing Guild Wars 2 instead.
Midway: Preordering LA Rush, will get you a free copy of Midway Arcade Trasures 3 (with classic Rush games). Gauntlet SS will come with an art cell.
Natsume: Chulip and Legend of the River King will not be making a 2005 showing. Look for them both in 2006. Also, Harvest moon a wonderful life special edition for PS2.
Prima is releasing a Pokemon strategy guide which covers ALL pokemon games to date.
Logitech is going to release a wireless gaming mouse with a removable weight cartridge that lets you customize the weight/drag/resistance of the mouse itself.
TMNT 3 will have Turtles in Time unlockable.
Nintendo: Mario DDR has the Japanese soundtrack intact (no Pink or Incubus this time). Zelda really isn't done yet. (some weird texturing issues when panning, etc.) Odama will not be showing in 2005, but is still in consideration for 2006. There will be two exclusive Nintendo DS Nintendogs bundles: the system will come in either Teal, or Pink and include a special edition of Nintendogs called "Best friends edition" in which the starting 6 dogs are the most popular 2 from each of the 3 versions. Also to follow, will be a Mariokart bundle which will include the game, and a red DS which can be customized with included racing decals. Each of these bundles will be appox. $10 more than the console on it own. There are several GC bundles in the works also. Pokemon XD with game, and custom Pokemon platinum system (the jewel had the Pokemon XD logo and a graphic of Lugia). Retail is $129 (canadian). To follow, will be bundles with Mario Party 7, and Mario Super Strikers (at the same retail as above).
Xbox 360. Yes, I have played it. The controller is pretty nice. A good feel, like the Controller S, but sleeker. I would have liked it to have a bit more weight though. The black and white buttons have been situated to the top, as shoulder buttons, and the triggers from the ol' box remain. It's rather awkward if you ever needed to push them in conbination. The console is running everything off USB. Even the wireless net adaptor (so you can't use the old one). It can stream music from a USB device (like an iPod, or PSP!). Dashboard interface is slick, and intuitive. You can even get it to pop up in the corner while you're watching TV to let you know something's finished downloading, or a friend is online. There were 2 game builds there: Perfect Dark and NFS Most Wanted (aka. FPS shooter, and racing game). As far as innovative gameplay, really nothing new here. It's all about textures. And the textures on the textures. And the light shining on the textures. Perfect Dark will be 2-player co-op splitscreen, system link, or Online.
Although, I've never played any of the other games in the series, or cared much for any military-based shooters, my game of the show goes to Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter for 360. Although, not playable, we were given a video presentation. I watched for a few minutes, then getting impatient, asked to see gameplay footage. They replied "this IS gameplay". Holy crap. It was the realism in movement that had me convinced. We've all seen good graphics, yeah, whatever. But the way that animation can be rendered so life like as to fool me into thinking that it's a cinematic? Brilliant. The clincher was near the end of the presentation when a building was detonated. Again, fantastically lifelike, with glass shattering, debris spewing, the building dynamically folding in on itself, and the resulting cloud of volumetric dust. Yeah. The dust effect alone made this one my winning choice.
Any questions? :P
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Originally Posted by K3V
The level was HUGE with lots of variation, and no mid-level loading at all. They said that I'd be getting a copy "at launch" but I didn't think to ask whether that meant "System launch" or "game launch". How long does it take to finish %25 of a game? No idea.
