star soldier VS doj (phones unfortunately)

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:44 am

So basically you rent them?

Yes

They expire?

Yes.

That`s not that good.

Yes.

There's one point that you and Dave, and most people in this thread are missing. Cellphone games SUCK. Isn't the GBA a small enough screen? That's pushing it. On a cellphone, it's even more ridiculous. Some Java Applis run speciifically on phones w/ larger screens, but it's a joke. Besides the screen, you have the whole keypad thing.

So why are cell phone games in Japan so big? Probably b/c everyone has a cellphone. They were way on the cellphone bandwagon than the west. W/ the train lifestyle and culture, what do you do if you're stuck somewhere for an hour (which is very likely?) Whip out your cell phone and play.

Why do companies keep making them? Money, of course. They're cheap to make, there's no packaging or middleman, and the userbase is 50x that of even the most popular console.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 3:54 am

GaijinPunch wrote:
So basically you rent them?
Yes

They expire?
Yes.

That`s not that good.
Yes.

There's one point that you and Dave, and most people in this thread are missing. Cellphone games SUCK. Isn't the GBA a small enough screen? That's pushing it. On a cellphone, it's even more ridiculous. Some Java Applis run speciifically on phones w/ larger screens, but it's a joke. Besides the screen, you have the whole keypad thing.

So why are cell phone games in Japan so big? Probably b/c everyone has a cellphone. They were way on the cellphone bandwagon than the west. W/ the train lifestyle and culture, what do you do if you're stuck somewhere for an hour (which is very likely?) Whip out your cell phone and play.

Why do companies keep making them? Money, of course. They're cheap to make, there's no packaging or middleman, and the userbase is 50x that of even the most popular console.

C'mon, if they all sucked, very few people in Japan, or anywhere else for that matter, would play cell phone games. They could just as easliy whip out a GBA-SP or Micro then a cell phone. Not every brand of phone is the same in terms of size or key configuration, either. Have you seen the latest Retro Core? Psyvariar 2, I'm sure is not as good as the original, but it got a pretty good port. There are plenty of good cell phone games; even over here-just read some reviews.
I'm cell phones aren't as comfortable as a GBA, but the amount of shmups that the GBA has gotten compared to these phones is ridiculously low.

ArrogantBastard · Post by **ArrogantBastard** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 4:03 am

Supply and demand, my friend.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 4:11 am

ArrogantBastard wrote:Supply and demand, my friend.

Good point. It's just too bad that you can't get these cell-phone games unless you live in Japan. It would be great to be able to download them onto a cellphone here in the US, for a fee-or, alternatively, pay to play them on a PC.

fl0w · Post by **fl0w** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:45 am

Well, i don't think you can compare the GBA to a modern smartphone...

Symbian powered phones now have 200+ MHz ARM CPUs (unfortunately it is very hard to get the technical specifications of mobile phones, see the kind of shit they're advertising: http://www.nttdocomo.com/pr/files/20040 ... chment.pdf). The FOMA 900 (and over 30 millions handsets in Japan and Europe, according to these slides http://www.khronos.org/news/articles/si ... o_2004.ppt) that runs star soldier vs DDP apparently has a 3D accelerator. Compare this to the 16.78 MHz-clocked GBA...

Some (supposed?) CPU speeds for a few Symbian-operated handsets:
Nokia N80/3250: 220 MHz
Nokia N91/N80: 314 MHz

and the SPV M500 (windows mobile) features an Intel 416MHz with 64MB of RAM...

Of course, unlike a GBA, you don't get the full power range for your game, as the OS runs in the background, but it's still promising, to say the least

Oh, and BTW, Symbian handsets (i'm not working for Symbian but that's the OS i know best) can handle multiple key inputs

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Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:53 pm

Thats something that has gone through my mind the whole time - the last time I had a new cellphone in my hand from a friend there was a 3D game running on it. Not very smooth, but good compared to the Doom2-GBA port. And the resolution is getting better each generation. So I wouldn`t say those games suck on the lastest generation of cell phones in Japan.
It`s just that those buttons look extremely uncomfortable.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 4:48 pm

FrederikJurk wrote:Thats something that has gone through my mind the whole time - the last time I had a new cellphone in my hand from a friend there was a 3D game running on it. Not very smooth, but good compared to the Doom2-GBA port. And the resolution is getting better each generation. So I wouldn`t say those games suck on the lastest generation of cell phones in Japan.
It`s just that those buttons look extremely uncomfortable.

A lot of them do look pretty uncomfortable, but that Sharp one that Yakumo has looks mighty sexy! Speaking of Doom, I've read rave reviews of Doom RPG, which is a cell phone game. How you sucessfully turn an FPS into an RPG, I don't know!

fl0w · Post by **fl0w** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 4:54 pm

the n-gage had a 176*208 (already tated

) screen, newer phones can have twice that (352*416)

And yes, the buttons suck and, n-gage excepted, you can't easily handle a phone to play with both hands.

I'd really like to see what the games look like on jp handest :'-(

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:13 pm

dave4shmups wrote:How you sucessfully turn an FPS into an RPG, I don't know!

Especially when talking about Doom. "You aquired Chainsaw. Attack +10, Defense+5. Just killed a spacemarine. Level up. You died by rocket to the face".

Ko.oS · Post by **Ko.oS** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:13 pm

iunno, i could see my mom (or sister or girlfriend etc), giving a cave cellphone game a try ("hey pamela, ive got this new minigame today, and it gots lot of purple, its so cute, you should try it out too!!!"), but i couldnt see them buying a console, a dvd, place their asses in front of a NICE BIG MONITOR, and play espgaluda, let alone playing it for more than five minutes. not sure if i get my point across here, but that cellphone stuff is alotta more accessible to well, casual retards.

more accessible = more money in the long run.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:32 pm

Yeah, casual gamers are stupid mostly. I don´t know why. If I would play games only for 15 minutes a week I would choose something really good for that time; problem is, I would have no idea of what a GOOD game is since I play so little. So those people usually go for Solitaire or Minesweeper or said crap pre-installed phone games. I guess this is where they get their concept of "Games = Waste of time" from - because THEY use it as a waste of time and can`t imagine how deep and satisfing games COULD be.

Ko.oS · Post by **Ko.oS** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:45 pm

casual gamers are stupid

nah, not stupid, just casual.

im the queen of the casual retards by the way (and im stupid. and big-breasted too, but thats another thread)

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:57 pm

This looks nice. Yet I'd rather see this on the PSP than a cellphone, especially given how well Star Soldier turned out. I wish there were some sort of docking station to hook the PSP into an RGB monitor/XRGB-2 or something, with a jack for a PS controller.

I know there's PSP2TV, but that requires opening up and modifying your PSP IIRC.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:46 pm

Video.

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 12:17 am

Man, what a shitty framerate. The still screens looked so nice; it`s sad to see how choppy it looks in action. I really expected the game to run much smoother, seeing that even cell phones here in the west can already display basic polygon based games, so I thought jap phones could run those games a lot faster. No thanks.

I wonder if the Raizing cellphone games run this slowly, too.

fl0w · Post by **fl0w** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:50 am

Another one: Plus Beta, a sequel to Plus Alpha

http://www.famitsu.com/k_tai/news/2006/ ... 1,0,0.html

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 5:36 pm

FrederikJurk wrote:Man, what a shitty framerate. The still screens looked so nice; it`s sad to see how choppy it looks in action. I really expected the game to run much smoother, seeing that even cell phones here in the west can already display basic polygon based games, so I thought jap phones could run those games a lot faster. No thanks.

I wonder if the Raizing cellphone games run this slowly, too.

I'd still take that over 99% of what's out on the GBA now. And how are we defining casual gamers here, anyway? Didn't Malc himself write that shmups are perfect for a quick blast, and perfect for modern lifestyles?

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:30 am

Stage 6 video

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:50 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:Stage 6 video

Awesome vid; thanks Gaijin!

ARRGGHH I want this on GBA!!!

At least they could make it downloadable for PC's!