robio said:

And in other news I was called a gay fanboy in the Miiverse of all places this evening.

I saw the post. I think I have a Miiverse admirer, I had 20 notifications and the same chick had yeah'ed all my recent posts.

Miiverse... not sure sometimes what to do about friends requests. At first I only added people I knew like here, then gradually opened up and started adding anyone who asked but some are weird. This Italian wanted to be friends, then started messaging me in Italian, I said I only speak English and he crudely said that he only spoke Italian. I said it wasn't going to work but the guy kept insisting in Italian that we do a video call!

Then there is this kid who keeps messaging me about any and every aspect of LOTR like I am Gandalf himself. I like him though. And this guy at the weekend strangely and incessantly persistent about me playing Trine 2 co-op online with him from the first second he friended me.

aspro said:

GG, you don't neeed to waste so many words on anything I say.  My only point was I do not represent the generic forum goers you have a problem with. I'm just a long-time gamer expressing opinions based on my experiences and I wanted to talk to you as opposed to being a bystander while you rail against generic forum goers that neither of us care about.

That's fine, but from my viewpoint I was talking in general after seeing 5 threads and hundreds of comments on GAF against this Nintendo Direct, the reaction is so overblown and repeated there - I thought it was clear I was talking in general.  Then suddenly casually read a post and I read that I'm oversensitive and contructing straw men to argue with? Which just blew my mind as I didn't know WTH was happening.  If you wanted to explain what you personally wanted out of Nintendo etc, that's fine, you could have said so in a better way. Just a miscommunication from us both.

aspro said:

If you think I called you a Nintendo fanboy and took offense from that, then I am sorry.  I personally don't see a problem with having preferences for one system or another.  

But again, parity, fairness, remember how I feel about double standards. If someone else shares my opinion like Edgecrusher for instance I get called oversensitive and he doesn't etc? And with what I was actually saying, about how getting Nintendo to invest in IP is like getting blood from a stone, it just doesn't make sense when I am criticising them for not creating the type of AAA, blockbuster, new IP that most people on gaming forums want.

The way I understand Nintendo is very Ghibli like, Miyamoto drives software creation, they have this withered technology approach which means using affordable tech in new ways (for gaming) and how they want to remain slow, sure and steady - financially conservative and how they like to innovate within franchises or use existing characters in new gameplay concepts like Luigi's Mansion.

Anyhow if you weren't calling me a fanboy fair enough but the over sensitive thing I don't appreciate, just saying. Like my two of my best buddies back in school, one kept telling the other to chill out and the other one got more riled up each time saying "I am chilled!"

Shit just suddenly got intense with the first boss battle. Not as hard as it seems, but after strolling through it's jarring. Nice injection of intensity.

Foolz said:

Shit just suddenly got intense with the first boss battle. Not as hard as it seems, but after strolling through it's jarring. Nice injection of intensity.

What boss was it?

This is weird, a Witcher 3 dev seems to say that the PS4 touchpad can display images:

While in Poland I also asked Thomasz Gop - who worked on The Witcher games and who has been working on a next-gen RPG at City Interactive (Sniper) for two years (more on that soon) - how his game would use the PS4 touchpad.

"The most obvious thing are the elements that - for example, PC games sometimes took advantage of extra gamer-friendly keyboards with LCD displays. If I'm not mistaken, the touchpad allows you to display things as well, so that's one of the things. Probably a lot of other people are going to be doing user-interface elements on it - it's the thing that comes to mind first. I still don't know 100 per cent of what things are going to be implemented in [his game].

"I don't think it's a breakthrough feature, not to disrespect it - it's still very cool."

Splinter Cell Wii U functionality:

Splinter Cell Blacklist offers enhanced gameplay options on the WiiU. The Gamepad mimics Sam's OpSat, allowing the player to operate gadgets such as tri-rotor drones, sticky cam and much more through touch and motion based inputs.

The WiiU GamePad allows for faster reaction times, letting the player mark and execute enemies, switch weapons and choose gadgets to adapt to any situation.

Track your friends' missions and see what Splinter Cell Blacklist players are doing worldwide through the GamePad

So I guess the sticky cam feed will go to the pad in realtime like the keyhole cam below:

Weapon switching is like this:

So I guess to mark charactesr for execution they would mirror the main screen on the u pad screen and allow you to just touch the NPCs you want to tag.

I hope there is a big real time map on the u pad screen too, that is very useful in a lot of games I've found.

Hmm, sounds like CVG has heard something juicy about Wii U from it's sources

CVG's Rob Crossley said:

Never Count out Wii U

There's another claim that's gone strangely quiet: "handheld games are dead". The problem is that, while it was once a pretty inoffensive and carefree comment to make, the fact that it hasn't happened seems to have been ignored.

Nintendo's 3DS has now sold 30 million consoles in its first two years since launch - a fantastic feat given how close that is to the trailblazing success of the original Nintendo DS (which, by this point, had shifted about 35 million).

This success is driven by one of the hardest-hitting software line-ups Nintendo has produced in years, driven by a prodigious amount of work from the company. Today in the UK games charts, it was announced that the critically acclaimed Fire Emblem Awakening has entered at a respectable number three, in what is surely a foretoken to a major string of releases including Pokemon X and Y, Animal Crossing, the next Link to the Past, Mario & Luigi, Bravely Default, etcetera etcetera.

There are still some issues with the handheld market, of course, from the fairly poor third-party support to the questions hanging over Sony's PS Vita. But Nintendo has once again proven that it understands its own market much better than the doubters have.

Which brings me to the Wii U. Regulars at CVG might be aware that I talk down the console's chances in the most definitive language possible whenever asked. Well, from the things I'm hearing, there's a chance I'll soon be added to the reject bin of crazy talking twitter twonks pretty soon.

Hopefully, if we obtain further details from our sources, we'll be in a position to explain more to you soon. But, for now, put it this way: In the past two years there have been moments of disquiet regarding the 3DS and - like an instant magic trick - Nintendo has put an end to this with sudden reveals of significant games that went on to become star performers at Christmas.

It's a formula that works wonders and, with Mario, Mario Kart and Zelda games all due this year, clearly not something the Kyoto corporation has forgotten.

E3 is going to be juicy.

Wii U, Fire Emblem, Mario Platformer, Pikmin 3, Smash Bros, Zelda Wind Waker, Zelda Wii U, Mario Kart, Retros new game, X from Monolithsoft.

Having a head start isn't just about sales, their teams must have moved onto U games some time ago.

EDIT: Bugs, seems Greece isn't covered by that buy 3 get one free 3DS promotion:

You can participate in this promotion only once. You have to be at least 16 years of age and a resident of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland or Russia.

gamingeek said:

I thought you meant the big guy.

Nope. Just did the second part. Was a piss take.

The Evil Within

Key Details:
From the Interview:

About the tone:

-Mikami loves horror, but survival-horror has been drifting away from what makes it survival-horror, and he wants to bring it back.

-Wants a 'perfect blend' of horror and action. Thinks the balance is important as they are two halves to the survival and the horror. Mikami defines survival-horror as a game being scary, and giving players a rush.

-Want Players to pick up the game, and genuinely think, "I haven't played something this scary in ages!"

-Needs to have psychological horror and make players not want to do things.

-The game is more visually eccentric, unconventional and intriguing characters.

About the story:

-Three detectives show up to the scene of a mass murder at an asylum. The detectives arrive a bit later than the police, which are already on the scene but not to be seen. Inside the asylum is a bunch of dead bodies.

-The player gets knocked unconscious and awakens in a slightly different location, and so it starts with, "Where the hell am I?"

-Story is less focused on twists and turns, and more on mystery.

About the enemies:

-Regular 'zombie-type characters' present.

-Enemies should be strange and hard to determine how they might come at you or attack by looking at them, making you uncertain, uneasy.

About the gameplay:

-Mikami mentions you'll be using (among other things) guns, knives, and axes, but another weapon mechanic they put in was traps.

-Don't want anything like super-powers or heavy weapons like machine guns.

-Working hard on some sort of 'emotional' system in gameplay

-Want to make a lot of different locations, scenarios, and situations for the player that is constantly changing.

From the Impressions:

-Our main character, Sebastian, enters the asylum with two fellow detectives, a man named Joseph and a woman they simply call, 'The Kid',

-A lot of dead bodies are around the asylum, and on a video monitor Sebastian see's a hooded figure killing police, who then suddenly appears behind him and knocks him unconscious.

-Went out of their way to model human innards and gore to be detailed.

-Sebastian wakes up hanging upside down by a meta hook as a madman with a butcher knife and a blood-stained wife beater, comes in and cuts down a fellow person hanging alongside him, takes him to the table, and begins cutting him open.

-Based on if there's enemies around or not, the animations and potential speed of Sebastian changes.

-Sebastian alerts the butcher, who pulls out one of Mikami's infamous weapons, a chainsaw. Ensues a chase scene where our character is quite stumbly.

-When the chainsaw-wielding butcher does not sense Sebastian, he is erratic and swings around wildly. When spotted, he comes dashing after you. You can use things like empty bottles to throw to divert his attention.

-Escapes into an elevator, and then comes to a desperate run out of the hospital as it collapses in a very Jacob's Ladder-esque scene. Leaves out to see the Police Cars in a giant crater. Prologue ends there.

-Second part of the demo is later into the game, in a dark outside location heading to a small cottage. Inside are the 'garden-variety' zombie-esque enemies.

-The enemies have a theme of torment with them.

-While shooting out around the cottage for your life, a change happens in the environment as it sort of 'shifts' in the middle of combat and suddenly a scene out of the Shining happens with blood pouring and consuming Sebastian, and then he finds himself back in the asylum.

-Demo ends with a multi-legged wraith-type enemy bursting out of a pool of blood and rushing towards the player at break-neck speed.

gamingeek said:

Thanks for that. Is it RE4 style but with no automatic weapons?

Seems like it because he said he wants the perfect blend between Horror and Action. He also said you can set traps which could be cool. They just want to bring horror back and still have it be the scariest game you played in a long time.

Dvader said:

Everything about the evil within sounds perfect. The focus of that making of, on how they are speaking directly about what makes survival horror and what they need to do make the player feel fear seems right on track. Basically Mikami knows exactly what needs to be done, his vision sounds well defined. Now lets see the execution, which given his history we don't have to worry about.



Everyone should be extremely excited.

I'm not even a big fan of horror I don't like being scared but I like Mikami's work so I'm excited for it.

That Mikami guy sounds like he knows what he's doing. Maybe Capcom should have had him direct Resident Evil 6.