Zero Punctuation: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

[Detroit]

Man, Other M came out in 2010. Feels like an eternity.
I was talking about other companies using Nintendo's characters yesterday, like a Metroid game from Sucker Punch haha.

 

[Guffe]

So... You liked the game?


Didn't see that "review" coming...

Would've liked an actual Zelda review, but nothing wrong to listen to a little Nintendo... can this be called a rant?
because he jumped pretty much between positive and negative stuff of the company.

 

[Yuuki]

At this point it really doesn't take more than a few seconds to review a Mario/Zelda title, so I'm glad Yahtzee didn't waste our time and moved onto more relevant/interesting topics.

 

[Manthraxx]

Damn that one was funny

By the way. Does anyone else read all comments here with an internal Yahtzee voice? or is it just me?

 

[Dragonbums]

I hope it's actually ironic that a self-described misanthrope who claims to detest the idea of socialization is trying to encourage a console manufacturer to go with their actual strength of making games which encourage people to socialize freely in the same physical location.

That said, the whole "WiiU gamepad can take the game away from the TV so it can be shared" bit becomes an interesting corner of the argument--it goes against the notion that games can be a literal shared experience between people in the same space. A TV watcher and a game player each using their respective screens for different things ruins the proffered strength of a console, because it asks them to be alone, independent, and not involve each other, where actually getting people together in one place to do something is a party-style console's strength.

Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows.

It's not wrong. It's a different perspective of the debate. However keep in mind that just because games have become a multibillion dollar business, doesn't mean that everyone plays games. Especially in families, or living units with people and varying degrees of interest.

This is stuff that often overlooked by the gamer community now. It seems that the only people to consider are single/couple gamers with their gamer friends. The only time family comes in is when we are talking about the Wii, or blatant kid games, and even then that's regulated to the smartphone scene.

Hate to say it but if I was a kid and my dad wanted to watch sports on the tv that shares the same space as my console, guess who has to move over? A Wii U back then would of been a god send.

I can STILL talk to my day while I play games and he plays sports. It doesn't diminish the togetherness in the slightest. Just like who you can still communicate with your friends if one of you is on the computer browsing and the other is reading a book.

 

[Thanatos2k]

No and yes. SOME games being currently developed for the PS4, Xbone, and PC could be made to run on the Wii U, but unlike cross porting games between very similar architectures in the 3 aforementioned platforms, developers would have to do a disproportionate amount of work to get things running on a Wii U, in addition to the performance degradation necessary to get it to run on inferior hardware.

Then there are the games that really WOULDN'T run on the Wii U no matter how hard you try. True next gen games like The Witcher 3 which the devs said simply couldn't run on a PS3/Xbox360, which means the Wii U as well. And there's only going to be more of those games developed now that we've actually moved into the next generation of console hardware, while Nintendo sits alone with an underpowered half baked hardware stack.

Psst, the Wii U is more powerful than the PS3 or 360. All the devs who have actually been working on it have said as much. Mind, that's not to say necessarily that your specific example would be playable on a Wii U. But to hold up the "it can't work on PS3 or 360, so Wii U can't do it" banner is patently false. The console is known to be more powerful, though the architecture isn't as desirable.

BARELY more powerful, so little as to not be significant. Not even close to being as powerful as either actual next gen console. And so games will continue to not run on it. And so developers will continue to ignore it while they develop games for the consoles that can.

When did anyone praise the Wii U? Someone may have been forced by their publisher to say it at one point, but certainly no one at any developer is actually thinking that, especially now that the FAR easier to develop for PS4/Xbone are out.

Seems like you, just like most gamers, have a short memory.

During the initial reveal of the Wii back in E3 2011, over a dozen third-party developers pledged support for the Wii U. Here's an article naming at least nine of them, and there were others.

Then there's the big public statements like EA's pledge of an "unprecedented partnership".

Why does no one ever give these developers flak for coming out and lying to their faces about this stuff? They weren't just lying to Nintendo, after all, they were lying to you. They were lying to the gaming community. Why does no one ever seem to give a shit when they're being lied to? Usually it's one of two reasons:
1) because they forget it all too quickly,
2) because they're all too eager to pile all the blame onto Nintendo

After all, when you make a promise to someone and then don't honor it, it's all the other guy's fault, right?

No, it's called when a company says something you always assume it's a lie unless they show you otherwise. "Pledging support" has got to be the most empty nonsense, and you took them seriously? You believed *EA*???

Until they say "We are pledging to release *this game* on the Wii U" there's nothing to hold anyone accountable for. OBVIOUSLY their support is predicated on both how the console performed and how Nintendo treated support for the developers. Both were lacking. And so the empty promises were forgotten. Can you blame them? I don't. When Ubisoft pledged third party support and then their games didn't sell because Nintendo didn't even know how to market the console properly I don't blame them for pulling out.

The real reason why most third parties are being alienated by Nintendo is the absolutely wretched online infrastructure. Online multiplayer and digital distribution is an absolute mess on Nintendo systems, and Nintendo wants to meddle with what you implement at every step of the way. Developers have had enough of that jazz, and so they've had enough of working with Nintendo.

What was their excuse last generation, or the generation before that, when online capabilities were far more limited (or, in older examples, didn't exist at all)?

You'll notice that they make up new excuses all the time for why they shouldn't have to live up to the promises they make, and they always blame Nintendo for this or that. And, sadly, people always believe those excuses and never hold those companies accountable for their promises.

The excuse is "Nintendo tries to exert an iron grip over game development." It's been true since the NES days when Nintendo only let publishers publish a limited number of games per year. Companies HATE working with Nintendo. The reach of systems like the Wii made it profitable enough to suffer through that relationship. Now that the Wii U is a failure developers don't even need to think about it.

But you have no idea what those levels are. Nintendo refuses to release numbers, only percents. Sales are up 180%! Over what?

That's really not their fault. Their numbers are known to the NPD, but not officially released.

That said, we have some pretty decent estimates from vgchartz.

....Did you seriously just link vgchartz and pretend it's accurate?

Nintendo knows the numbers. Nintendo can release the numbers if they want. But they don't, because the numbers are horrible.

What has become crystal clear is that Nintendo games are no longer enough to keep their console sales afloat.

Actually, that's NOT crystal clear, you're just insisting that it is, despite the hard evidence to the contrary. There has never been a home console in Nintendo's history that did well purely on the backs of third-party games. By comparison, the Wii U's most recent burst in sales all came off the back of a single first-party title.

How about waiting until a few more of their highly anticipated first-party titles come out before going against the evidence?

People like you said the same thing before Pikmin came out. Then again before Wind Waker came out. Both were supposed to be system sellers, and both failed to do that. Even Mario 3D World which is a near 10/10 game isn't doing it. What was it you said about excuses?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i dont care much about sales, the problem is the games, the PS2 era simply had so much more innovation, it was the age of the devil may crys, the gods of war, the GTAs, Shadow of the Colossus, etc


it always seemed to be something new and exciting and new ideas were constantly explored, this gen we got... DLC, microtransactions, and i guess spunkgargleweewee

i cant think of a single genre that was born this gen, except maybe music games, which incidentally also suffered a miserable death long before the gen was even finished


i can honestly say the most innovation came from PC this gen, specially towards the end, the indie revolution, digital distribution, kickstarter, free to play, i think the PS2 era games are still better, but there was certainly a turnaround when it comes to ways to deliver games to customers and the people making those games

PS2 era had GOOD GAMES. innovation is only supplementary. innovation for innovation sake gives you kinect. You may not care much about sales, but its all the companies like MS care about.
A genre born last generation? walking simulators (DayZ is a famous one). yes i know its supposed to be survival simulators. Also zombie genre pretty much came into power. Theres also a lot of actual real simulators out there that wasnt possible before. Physics based games. Destructible environment. plenty of good stuff last gen. This gen? too early to tell, the gen is only few months old.

PC has always been the birthplace of innovation. This is because PC is completely costumizable, this means people that want to experiment with new stuff will flock towards PC, and thus we get mroe innovative people with PCs. this is very evident in indie scene, where PC indies are quite innovative while xbox indies are mostly failed clones.

I, for one, think despite all the blunders like microtransactions and making patches cost money (and calling them DLC) gaming is still getting better. I may be naive, sure, but that is my opinion.

dont jim sterling me, you know what i mean, innovation that lead us SOMEWHERE, that is GOOD innovation

physics and destructible environment started appearing in the PS2 era, not last gen


i only think gaming is truthly moving fowards on PC, pardon me if i sound fanboy-ish, but when both sony and microsft start throwing up 60 dollar games with tons of day 1 DLC and microtransactions (mostly microsoft) ive lost almost all hope for console gaming, hell the only one who gets how it should be is nintendo but they fucked up everywhere else

 

[gamegod25]

ah the good old non-argument of you actually enjoyed you just dont know it.

I was simply pointing out that for a guy who will gladly point even the smallest flaws in a game the only complaint he had was that usual Nintendo complaint of it's the same basic game. And my point was that isn't always a bad thing and they did change it enough without breaking what already works.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Yes they aren't near that level however you need to account for the fact firstly SSD's are being sold at a profit and not wholesale in retail stores.

Firstly, you said that if they used SSDs they would "be at that level by now." Now you're saying they aren't near it?

If they had stuck with them and or cartridges were presently used.

You're not making a lot of sense. Are you saying that somehow if Nintendo continued using cartridges, SSDs would somehow be magically a lot cheaper? That's not how technology development works. Nintendo is nowhere near a big enough player to have a significant effect on that.

There are things like the physical costs and science behind these technologies that makes them cost more or less. If solid state store could suddenly be made that cheap, then things like server storage for massive data farms would be the ones influencing it. And believe me - if "big data" storage had cheap solid state storage available, they would be replacing hard drives in servers everywhere.

Unless of course companies wanted to use more than a disc allows them or to not have to compress things.
One of the main challenges facing 4K is storage space and while Blue ray allows the use of a finer laser but stepping up from HD to 4K will require vast amounts of extra storage space. While you could in theory make even finer lasers it would cause the problem that even a very fine scratch could break the game entirely. Heck a speck of dust could make the game unplayable. ...

At present Optical media is either going to have to evolve again with not everyone having switched to blue ray yet or its going to have to give way to something else.

Yes. Optical media is giving way to something else - the internet.

You pointed out there would be extra costs. At least then a company could say they're covering costs not simply after even more money.

OK - so who does that benefit? So, the company says, "oh that costs more because we're using a stupid costly medium to distribute our games, and Nintendo is taking a cut on top of that."

I think the customer would say fine - I'll just buy it online or on a disc, instead of using your stupid cartridges.

What imaginative things could be done? I dunno, how about getting rid of physical media, and using this thing called "the internet" to distribute games instead? Discs are already on the way out. The idea of physical media making some kind of resurgence just seems ridiculous at this point.

Until we're all on 100GB/s systems then that's not happening.

Um, it is happening. Have you not heard of these things called "Steam," "PSN" and "Xbox Live"? They're kind of a pretty big deal in gaming at the moment.

There is still demand for physical copies so it's not going to vanish unless part of the market goes with it.

But it's a shrinking part of the market - and can easily be served with optical discs. There's no need to put extra effort and money in expensive solid state storage for a vanishing market. Especially as that market is probably the least attractive end of the market for publishers.

Really because you can pretty easily remove data and put it back onto an SSD or hard drive. Heck do you leave every picture you ever took on a camera SD card ?

But nobody is just using standard SD cards. Nintendo uses a proprietary case and connectors - so again, licensing and manufacturing costs. And they aren;t about to just let you use them as a general-purpose storage medium - they are going to lock them down.

Also, the systems that use cartridges tend to be extremely limited on storage space. Those with optical discs tend to have roomy hard drive space for updates.

Because they need that space. It's as simple as that.

Uh, yeah, because they run more complex games with more graphical assets than a hand-held unit. And because they are physically larger, it's easier to fit in an optical drive and a hard drive. Meanwhile, you don't get those features with cartridge-based systems.

You dropbox whole games across ?
Or other larger files ?

Yep. I Dropbox huge video files to my clients, and between office and home. It works great.

You have piles of files on DVDs all on Spindles or do you have an extra hard drive to store things ?

I use a NAS RAID.

Not the most portable of things are they ? Also kind of reliant on the internet to retrieve files when you're elsewhere.

It's a lot better than direct-attached storage that you have to plug in to your device. And it's not really a problem getting stuff over the internet. I imagine within a couple of years, I won't even need the NAS, and cloud storage will be large and fast enough that I can just keep it all on an online storage service, and only have files I'm actively working with stored locally.

Solid state storage isn't obsolete and solid state storage is the modern version of the cartridge.

No, it isn't. Solid state storage is the modern version of the hard drive. It has nothing to do with cartridges.

Except it is the modern face of the gaming cartridge. The chips were just another means to store the data really.

But that's the opposite of what you said. Just because modern "cartridges" used solid state technology, does not make solid state technology an evolution of the gaming cartridge.

It's the other way around. Solid state store evolved for other purposes, and was adapted for gaming use by a company too blinded by nostalgia, that wanted to recreate a old technology with modern tools.

 

[Requia]

Considering Microsoft was pushing that horrible DRM scheme when the Xbone was announced and the general always on bullshit, I'd just prefer a console that lets me play fun games.

But Nintendo also uses DRM... so I'm not seeing the logic there. And the other consoles also let you play fun games - but there are a lot more of them to play.

Nobody is really objecting to DRM on consoles, MS was trying to restrict right of first sale via DRM, and DRM is so often abused that people forget legit DRM (like is normal for consoles) actually exists.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Nobody is really objecting to DRM on consoles,

Actually, plenty of people object to any form of DRM, consoles or not. See the EFF, etc.

MS was trying to restrict right of first sale via DRM, and DRM is so often abused that people forget legit DRM (like is normal for consoles) actually exists.

But they didn't end up doing that. So the argument is that Nintendo is the "good guy" against some hypothetical thing that didn't happen? And why is Sony completely ignored in this argument, as Sony never even proposed anything like that.

So, what is it that makes Nintendo so much better than the other companies? Especially when they use a proprietary cartridge format for their handhelds - that's worse than DRM any some ways. I really don't see why Nintendo deserves praise here, especially with they way they treat third-party developers.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

BARELY more powerful

*sigh*

It was estimated to be twice as powerful as the 360. Estimated 1.5 times more powerful than the PS3. And twice as efficient (power-wise) as both.

Wow. Those are some extremely dubious sources. Two of them are pre-release rumors from "analysts" - and the one post-release examination contradicts the claims of the other two, saying that the Wii U uses less power than the PS3 or Xbox 360, but doesn't have any significant advantage in processing power.

You are conflating two very different things here. Unverified, non-technical claims that the Wii U is 1.5x to 2.5x times as powerful - with another story (which does have some technical credibility) that it draws fewer Watts, but is not meaningfully more powerful.

Your claim that it both has significantly more processing power, while drawing fewer Watts is highly unlikely, and unsubstantiated. Maybe if you could link to some actual technical analysis of the actual Wii U, rather than rumour and scuttlebutt, it would be more credible.

 

[Strazdas]

dont jim sterling me, you know what i mean, innovation that lead us SOMEWHERE, that is GOOD innovation

physics and destructible environment started appearing in the PS2 era, not last gen


i only think gaming is truthly moving fowards on PC, pardon me if i sound fanboy-ish, but when both sony and microsft start throwing up 60 dollar games with tons of day 1 DLC and microtransactions (mostly microsoft) ive lost almost all hope for console gaming, hell the only one who gets how it should be is nintendo but they fucked up everywhere else

Im not against good innovation, just dont want peopel to force devs to "innovate" for innovations sale. Rather making innovations benefit us by having better games. Like, say, Minecraft innovated an enviroment that plenty of other games are copying now.
Its true that detructible enviroment started popping in 6th generation, but its 7th generation that realyl got it anywhere further than "can destroy prescripted elements".
Oh, im as far a PCMasterRace as it comes, so you dont sound fanboyish at all, and i completely agree that the good innovation seems to be coming out on PC nowadays, but its not like consoles are a lost cause there.... well... yes, yes they are..... the obsolete-at-launch hardware made them so.

Which as yet isn't beating out physical media even shockingly on PC titles that get a physical and digital release the same day.

Steam does not release sale numbers which heavily undeestimates figures on phyiscal favour. From what information is gathered by analysts, it is believed that steam alone holds 51% of PC gaming market share, so add other digital downloads there....

The step to games filling blue ray disks (when we finally fully transition generations in 2 years time) will still hit hard.

Wont happen. Because current consoles are already holding the gaming market down by not even supporting 1080p properly, so 4k will be a long way off for general usage. and by then we could ahve decent internet (im talking 100mbps here) for everyone if we actualyl bothered to try that (instead of allowing monopolies to steal from us).

I happen to know a production company in the UK that used to ship a physical hard drive around between its members because of the volume and size of files. They now are actually set up in the same location but realistically the internet isn't good enough not for sending hours worth of HD content across constantly in bulk volume.

You should also know that UK has probably the worst internet in Europe.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

dont jim sterling me, you know what i mean, innovation that lead us SOMEWHERE, that is GOOD innovation

physics and destructible environment started appearing in the PS2 era, not last gen


i only think gaming is truthly moving fowards on PC, pardon me if i sound fanboy-ish, but when both sony and microsft start throwing up 60 dollar games with tons of day 1 DLC and microtransactions (mostly microsoft) ive lost almost all hope for console gaming, hell the only one who gets how it should be is nintendo but they fucked up everywhere else

Im not against good innovation, just dont want peopel to force devs to "innovate" for innovations sale. Rather making innovations benefit us by having better games. Like, say, Minecraft innovated an enviroment that plenty of other games are copying now.
Its true that detructible enviroment started popping in 6th generation, but its 7th generation that realyl got it anywhere further than "can destroy prescripted elements".
Oh, im as far a PCMasterRace as it comes, so you dont sound fanboyish at all, and i completely agree that the good innovation seems to be coming out on PC nowadays, but its not like consoles are a lost cause there.... well... yes, yes they are..... the obsolete-at-launch hardware made them so.

even then how many games truthly made good use of destructible environments? i can only think of the battlefield series and red faction this gen (and it was in fact red faction the one who brought it up during the 6th gen), i wouldnt really call it innovative if it didnt set a trend in the industry

hell destructible terrain has been around for atleast 20 years if you count X-COM: UFO Defense, which also to be honest has the best use of that mechanic ive ever seen, yes even beating the new XCOM


i do agree innovation for the sake of innovation is pointless and even detrimental, but the sort of innovation that does not start trends in the industry and exists just because, has a name, its called a gimmick

 

[Strazdas]

even then how many games truthly made good use of destructible environments?

1.
It was called Red Faction: Guerilla.

i wouldnt really call it innovative if it didnt set a trend in the industry

Innovation does not have to set a trend. the need for innovation is that it needs to be different, whether its good, bad, popuar ect does nto make it innovative or not-innovative.

hell destructible terrain has been around for atleast 20 years if you count X-COM: UFO Defense, which also to be honest has the best use of that mechanic ive ever seen, yes even beating the new XCOM

Sadly, i havent played that one.

i do agree innovation for the sake of innovation is pointless and even detrimental, but the sort of innovation that does not start trends in the industry and exists just because, has a name, its called a gimmick

No, a gimmick is a pointless innovation. A good innovation such as destructible enviroments even if it doesnt catch on does not become a gimmick.