I remember going to arcades when I was younger. It was always really fun to play shooting games and driving games. I really liked those flight simulator games, but I didn't play them often because they were bulky and difficult.
So, it's nice that people have thought of a new way to bring the activity out of weird fitting helmet.
The Nintendo Wii is an awesome gaming machine, though I know that my blogmates may shun me now for saying that.
The reason I like the Wii is that it's how I feel that I should play video games. I am very active when it comes to playing video games. I remember turning the controller and jerking it every which way because that somehow made the computer car turn better. I even pulled the Nintendo (The original . . . and now I feel old) out of the wall once. It was only a matter of time before they came up with a system where jerking and turning the controller DID make the car turn better.
Another reason is Mario Party. Old Mario Party was fun, but this is so much better. The minigames, which were a little lame before, now have a whole new meaning. There's one minigame called Flagger. You shake the Wii remote, Wiimote for short, like crazy to win. There's also point and click games, as well as the game that I was waiting for, a game that responds to turning the Wiimote.
All in all, I definitely recommend owning one, or at least playing one. It may not have any of the hardcore, Halo type games but it is still really fun.
So for all you FPS (First Person Shooters) fans out there, I pose the question of if you prefer using the look inversion or keeping the classic default settings for your character when you run around.
First of all, for anyone who isn't into video games or isn't a fan of the shoot 'em up type of games such as Halo or James Bond, I should maybe explain the look inversion option and its great importance to the gaming world. Basically the default controls for a first person shooter is having one control stick to control your moment forward and backward and side stepping from left to right (or what some would call "strafing"). The other control stick is defaulted to move the cross-hair up and down and looking to your left and right. The latter control stick is where this "look inversion" comes into play. You see, the default for looking up is pushing up on the control stick, and down on the stick is down for the cross-hair or characters head looking down, however you want to look at it. BUT, there are a few people out there that prefer to have look inversion on, which makes the controls switch, making up on the stick make you look down and down on the stick make you look up. Crazy right? Well lets compare both.
Looking up for up and down for down makes sense logically. If you think of the screen you want the shooter to look above the screen or the radical to move higher, so you move the stick up. Same goes for down. So why would you want it the other way around? Many feel that the look inversion came from games that resembled flight simulators or pilot games. For all who don't know, the cockpit of a plane has a control stick. To lift the plane off the ground, the pilot has to pull back on the stick. To land, they must push forward on the stick. This is how any flying game is defaulted. Somehow this tactic of up being down and down being up migrated its way to shooting games too. So using look inversion can be thought as tilting forward or up on the control stick to look down and leaning back or down on the stick to look up.
So which is it? I personally for whatever reason have been accustomed to the look inversion, which inevitably pisses off all the default players. It is definitely a pain to switch controllers or use someone else's profile and find that they use the other type of look inversion than you. It really messes with you. You usually can't play as well. The ironic thing is that if I accidently start to play with inversion off and switch back after one game, I start off the game thinking the default setting is still on and am uncomfortable with it for awhile.
Well I hope you can make sense of all that and understand what possibly goes through other inversion-ist heads when playing the game. My point should be understandable so cut us look-inversion minorities some slack!
Over Labor Day weekend I was able to get my hands on the game and play it while I was at home (my family insists on keeping the Wii at home). My first impression of the game was mixed. The graphics are improved from the previous installment, but the new controls where you "point and click" your Wii-mote to aim, shoot, and look around took time to master. As an avid player of the first two Metroid Prime games, the new controls were disheartening. However, after a few hours of solid game play, the controls become second nature and I was able to sit back and appreciate the game without worrying about controller difficulties.
The controls themselves are quite intuitive. As I said before, the player shoots by pointing the Wii-mote and firing with the hard to miss A button. The rest of the most used controls are placed where your fingers naturally rest, which makes game play even more natural. Another fun feature is that the nun chuck can be flicked forward to use the "grapple lasso" on enemies and objects, a fun movement that makes sense and makes the gameplay all the more interactive. In addition to slinging your lasso, Samus will twist, turn, pull, and push the Wiimote to activate switches and levers to solve different puzzles throughout the game
As I mentioned before, the graphics in the game are upgraded from the first and second installments of Metroid Prime, yet some may criticize that the graphics are not of the same caliber as games found on the PS3 and Xbox 360. I'm here to say though that the graphics are quickly forgotten about in Corruption. The graphics are enough to create the look and feel that the game needs to achieve, and the controls are immersive enough to pull you even deeper into the action. Also, by not pushing for higher graphics, the game play is smooth and flawless. You won't find any hint of lag or glitches in the graphics even during the most frantic firefights. This smoothness puts a proverbial cherry on top and makes the experience seem all that more real. The game pulls you in so effectively that you lose all sense of time and you feel like you've just been deep into a good book.
Ice missiles have been implemented and work just like they do in Metroid Fusion (with the typical homing feature of Prime), and beam replacement has been implemented as well. Instead of having to switch beams like in the first two games, the Plasma Beam in Corruption works just like your normal Power Beam but with the added element of heat and fire. Hypermode has also been added to give you added firepower for short time periods and the mode is eventually extended to Morph Ball mode as well. Finally is the lock on feature combined with the new Wii controls. In the other Metroid Prime games, locking onto an enemy meant being able to fire at only one spot. However in Corruption, the locking feature works only to center your screen and allow strafing. Your aim is no longer constrained and you are free to fire at anything still in your field of vision.
One of the few complaints I would have about the game is the addition of friendly NPCs. In the previous Metroid Prime games, the player is stranded in a strange environment and the only other life they encounter is hostile. The addition of the NPCs in the game's space station setting also makes the first hour or so of play a bit sluggish, with much less action than the opening areas of the other two games.
Overall the game met my expectations and then surpassed them. I highly recommend the game to everyone who owns a Wii, even if you don't think you'd like a first person shooter. I can't wait to visit home and get my hands on the game again.
Not the best preview of the game, but it's the best I could find.
The term "Next Gen" is thrown around a lot these days when describing the newest video game consoles and the games made for those consoles. But what exactly is "Next Gen?" Is it something quantifiable or can it mean different things to different people and different hardware?
My opinion tends to shift towards the latter. Each of the new systems, (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii) embody the term "Next Gen" in different ways.
First there is the Xbox 360. This console was the first of the 3 to be released and the system emphasizes much improved graphics over the original Xbox. On the less publicized side, the Xbox 360 includes many more options and features that make use of Xbox Live. In these ways graphics and extensive online features make the 360 "Next Gen."
Next is the Playstation 3 (PS3) , which is similar to the Xbox 360 in many ways. The PS3 puts a lot more emphasis on graphics (which it can pull of beautifully), but it also includes many online features to certain games. However unlike the Xbox 360, the PS3 features a "Six-Axis Controller" with motion sensing hardware built in. These motion controls are built into some games to add an extra element of gamer interaction, but in many ways the motion sensing in the PS3 controllers leaves much to be desired. So with all of this, the Six-Axis controller, and the immense graphics power behind the PS3 make the system "Next Gen."
The final system to look at is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii improves on the graphics of the Gamecube, but they didn't make that the biggest change. Instead the Wii sport the most sophisticated motion sensing of all the systems. Motion is detected in the Wii Remote, or Wii-mote as it has been called, using a sensor bar and hardware inside the Wii-mote. The motion sensing has the ability to to know where the Wii-mote is being pointed, how close or far it is from the screen, and even how you hold the Wii-mote, i.e. right side up or upside down. With this innovation on Nintendo's part, they are able to pull off games such as Wii Sports. The graphics in this game could be considered basic and hardly worthy of a "Next Gen" system. However, the interactiveness of the game gives it an experience that far overshadows the game's graphics. In addition, the downgraded graphics are actually a very clever strategy for the game. It not only shifts the focus to the experience rather than the looks, but it gives the game a childish and playful appeal.
But anyway, I ramble, and quite clearly demonstrate the bias I warned you about. In summation, the Wii uses its motion sensing technology to create interactive games that make the system worthy of the title "Next Gen."
So my point is that each system has proven itself to be Next Gen, but in its own way. For this reason I find it foolish to call one system superior over another. You can't say one combination of technology is right and another is wrong, you can really only say that one system may have a single aspect that surpasses that same aspect on another system. And with technology always moving forward I can hardly imagine what they will think of next.
