WiiWare is a giant pile of horse$hit.

yyr · Post by **yyr** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 3:59 pm

Udderdude wrote:
320x240 wrote:
Udderdude wrote:I wouldn't mind getting my own games up there
What about XBLA? That would surely have been the better choice among this generation of consoles. Do they still demand HD graphics?
I don't think the HD graphics would be that much of an issue, but pretty sure they have the same list of requirements. Plus you need to fork over a couple thousand to have the game verified and tested by one of their testing divisions or some crap.

How about Xbox Live Community Games?

I'd like to develop a shmup for it at some point, but haven't started one yet.

the2bears · Post by **the2bears** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:28 pm

I certainly agree that there's a lot of crap, especially on WiiWare. But I don't think a gate keeper is the solution. As long as there's no cost to keeping "inventory" why not have as many games as possible available? That shovelware just might be one person's "money well spent".

The key then becomes having a useful and efficient catalog. Searching needs to make sense, recommendations need to be valuable, etc.

Bill

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 7:58 am

I'm not sure if there's really anyone to point fingers at - yes, there's way too much junk on WiiWare. But there's also too much junk on PSN and on XBLA. And are the games on there selling? I mean, yeah, on a forum full of hard-core gamers, we're going to complain, but Joe and Jane Casual might be digging it (much to our chagrin of course).

benstylus · Post by **benstylus** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 2:44 pm

the2bears wrote:I certainly agree that there's a lot of crap, especially on WiiWare. But I don't think a gate keeper is the solution. As long as there's no cost to keeping "inventory" why not have as many games as possible available? That shovelware just might be one person's "money well spent".

Agreed - I'd rather have 100 games available with only 10 being any good than to have 20 games available and miss out on something I might have liked because it didn't fit someone's idea of what should be available on the system.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 12:32 am

I have no problem paying for old games when they are copyrighted material; rather then public domain. There are plenty of games, like Sword of Mana, that would cost you upwards of $60 on Ebay, that are available for less then $10 on the VC.

As far as Nintendo's strategy goes, they won't change it as long as they continue to rake in more money then MS and Sony combined. As a Wii owner, I don't like it one bit, but that's how it goes.

Really, though, this generation sucks overall, I'm tired of the shovelware (mostly on Wii), and I have little desire to shell out for an HDTV and a 360 or PS3. Ok, so I don't have the money, but even if I did, screw it; the Genesis, NES, and Atari are more entertaining and less expensive.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 4:31 am

dave4shmups wrote:I have no problem paying for old games when they are copyrighted material; rather then public domain.

That's not a very practical distinction, since the number of video games actually in the public domain is vanishingly small. Actually, I'd be interested in knowing of any verifiable examples.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 5:47 pm

Ex-Cyber wrote:
dave4shmups wrote:I have no problem paying for old games when they are copyrighted material; rather then public domain.
That's not a very practical distinction, since the number of video games actually in the public domain is vanishingly small. Actually, I'd be interested in knowing of any verifiable examples.

That's my whole point; I don't understand why paying for copyrighted material is such a big deal-and the gripe that old games on the VC aren't complete is nonsense.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:14 pm

At the risk of derailing the chat, I'll mention that for the price of about 10 VC games, I got my Xbox modded and loaded with every single NES and GB rom in existence, not to mention a healthy dose of Neo Geo games and Mame too. The VC releases are a trickle, and IMHO, it's just too little, too late. Especially after I played Front Mission 1 with an excellent fan translation, years before the remake was released. They didn't want to release the game in English when the SNES was in its prime, their loss. They snoze, they lost. I just went with another provider. Yar-har-har.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:23 pm

Nobody's going to argue that piracy isn't cheaper than paying for something.

Anyway, the amount of bad games is disgusting, but I still have hope that the Wii will start getting a higher % of good games like the DS did after it was available for a couple years. The 2009 release schedule suggests that this may actually happen.

As to WiiWare... Well, there's Alien Crush.

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 8:32 am

Cave Story
World of Goo

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 10:29 pm

Specineff wrote:At the risk of derailing the chat, I'll mention that for the price of about 10 VC games, I got my Xbox modded and loaded with every single NES and GB rom in existence, not to mention a healthy dose of Neo Geo games and Mame too. The VC releases are a trickle, and IMHO, it's just too little, too late. Especially after I played Front Mission 1 with an excellent fan translation, years before the remake was released. They didn't want to release the game in English when the SNES was in its prime, their loss. They snoze, they lost. I just went with another provider. Yar-har-har.

I hear 'ya man. VC releases are at a trickle, at least here in the US.

Ok, so as far as good Wii-Ware games, how come no one mentioned Lost Winds? I heard that one was great. And how is World of Goo and Alien Crush? Alien Crush looks great, but only has three stages, or so I've read. And I know Gameloft sucks, but what about Wild West Guns? I love rail shooters!

PyroBlazer looks cool; I think that's Wii Ware

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 3:21 am

dave4shmups wrote:Alien Crush looks great, but only has three stages, or so I've read.

I don't really know what people were expecting here. The other crush games have just one stage and they're still great.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:10 pm

sfried wrote:World of Goo

Sounds like porn.

Drascin · Post by **Drascin** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 3:40 pm

Herr Schatten wrote:
sfried wrote:World of Goo
Sounds like porn.

It isn't. It's about making structures with little living balls of goo, to reach the stage's goal. It can get a bit trial-and-error at times, but it's pretty fun.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:27 pm

Drascin wrote:
Herr Schatten wrote:
sfried wrote:World of Goo
Sounds like porn.
It isn't. It's about making structures with little living balls of goo, to reach the stage's goal. It can get a bit trial-and-error at times, but it's pretty fun.

I can do this. Gets messy though, and you need a really powerful fan.

gs68 · Post by **gs68** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 7:26 pm

dave4shmups wrote:I have no problem paying for old games when they are copyrighted material; rather then public domain. There are plenty of games, like Sword of Mana, that would cost you upwards of $60 on Ebay, that are available for less then $10 on the VC.

As far as Nintendo's strategy goes, they won't change it as long as they continue to rake in more money then MS and Sony combined. As a Wii owner, I don't like it one bit, but that's how it goes.

Really, though, this generation sucks overall, I'm tired of the shovelware (mostly on Wii), and I have little desire to shell out for an HDTV and a 360 or PS3. Ok, so I don't have the money, but even if I did, screw it; the Genesis, NES, and Atari are more entertaining and less expensive.

Finally, someone who agrees with me on the whole VC thing. =)

I do agree that a lot of the Wii games suck ass...but that's where I, a consumer, come in, filter out the suck-assiness, and search for games that don't suck.

Wii/Ware games aren't all bad; there's goodies like the Trauma Center series, GHOST Squad, Star Soldier R (even if the price is a bit steep), Mega Man 9 (even if some think 8-bit is garbage), and I'm looking forward to Sin & Punishment 2.

The Wii has a lot of potential to be a great system. It's just that there's not enough developers who take it seriously and instead produce cheap party games for it. GHOST Squad and S&P2 show that rail shooters finally have a place. Red Steel may have been crappy in its execution, but it showed a new, immersive way to play FPS's. VC gives gamers like me a chance to play games that we enjoyed in our childhood or missed out on without the guilt of piracy or the difficulty of hunting down the original carts (and paying potentially high prices for them upon finding them).

antron · Post by **antron** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:02 pm

World of Goo is the 4th highest rated Wii game :
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platfor ... worldofgoo

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:20 pm

Cthulhu wrote:I'm not sure if there's really anyone to point fingers at - yes, there's way too much junk on WiiWare. But there's also too much junk on PSN and on XBLA. And are the games on there selling? I mean, yeah, on a forum full of hard-core gamers, we're going to complain, but Joe and Jane Casual might be digging it (much to our chagrin of course).

Not really, though. The PSN store has relatively few junk titles on there, but at the expense of having only two indie titles and far fewer downloads.

Unfortunately a gatekeeper approach is necessary. Yes, it might mean something really great doesn’t make the cut, but if it did make the cut it would be like finding a needle in a haystack anyway. Lacking someone wealthy to trudge through it, we won't find it.

It’s virtually impossible to manage this amount of content, that’s why XBLA did a spring clean not so long ago. You can either just put everything in the store by genre and have people scroll through thousands of games trying to find one they like, or you can weigh it by popularity, cause an exponential effect and bury anything without mainstream appeal down with the shovelware causing the same problem.

benstylus · Post by **benstylus** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 10:04 pm

Taylor wrote:Unfortunately a gatekeeper approach is necessary. Yes, it might mean something really great doesn’t make the cut, but if it did make the cut it would be like finding a needle in a haystack anyway. Lacking someone wealthy to trudge through it, we won't find it.

I disagree - if people know what they're looking for they should be able to find it easily.

How will they know what to look for? We don't need one wealthy reviewer to buy up every single title and rank them. That's just another gatekeeper approach (though a less severe one).

This is the age of high-speed internet - demos should be made available for any and every title.

Granted there are lots and lots of games and you may not have the time to download every demo to test whether you would want to buy the game.

But the games don't come out all at once - you can stick to basing your decisions on older games from the informed opinions of other like-minded individuals (such as the shmups community). For newer games, since they come at a relative trickle, you should be able to test any game that holds even minor interest to you as it is released.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:00 am

benstylus wrote:
Taylor wrote:Unfortunately a gatekeeper approach is necessary. Yes, it might mean something really great doesn’t make the cut, but if it did make the cut it would be like finding a needle in a haystack anyway. Lacking someone wealthy to trudge through it, we won't find it.
I disagree - if people know what they're looking for they should be able to find it easily.

How will they know what to look for? We don't need one wealthy reviewer to buy up every single title and rank them. That's just another gatekeeper approach (though a less severe one).

This is the age of high-speed internet - demos should be made available for any and every title.

Granted there are lots and lots of games and you may not have the time to download every demo to test whether you would want to buy the game.

But the games don't come out all at once - you can stick to basing your decisions on older games from the informed opinions of other like-minded individuals (such as the shmups community). For newer games, since they come at a relative trickle, you should be able to test any game that holds even minor interest to you as it is released.

I agree that there should be demos. But the bigger issue for me, as a Wii owner, is the fact that Nintendo let's anyone and everyone publish games on there. Whereas MS and Sony have certain quality standards that a game must meet.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/932/932052p1.html Light dawns on Reggie's head! If "too many publishers give Wii the short end of the stick.", then WHY does Nintendo allow these publishers to put their crap on the Wii in the first place?!

I think that there are enough games to justify purchasing a Wii, but then I feel the same way about the PS3 and 360. The difference is that there are more poorly rated games on the Wii then there probably are on the PS3 and the 360 put together. One just has to sort through the crap for the gems.

Lordstar · Post by **Lordstar** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:53 am

its just like the shelves in a shop. If you dont like what you see there's nothing forcing you to buy there tat games?

and in this day and age unless your a fan of a game there really is little or no reason why you cant grab a demo of the game before you buy. I was not going to buy left 4 dead before i played the demo. Played it loved it got the fuck bought out of it that game did

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:21 am

Lordstar wrote:its just like the shelves in a shop. If you dont like what you see there's nothing forcing you to buy there tat games?

and in this day and age unless your a fan of a game there really is little or no reason why you cant grab a demo of the game before you buy. I was not going to buy left 4 dead before i played the demo. Played it loved it got the fuck bought out of it that game did

That's a good point. What about Toki Tori? I never played it on the GameBoy Color, but the Wii-Ware release looks like a lot of fun.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:47 am

People are going to make garbage games I'm just wondering why there are so few known and perhaps good developers. I'm all for the little guy making games in his spare time but why do they have to keep picking "little guys" that base their games of crappy Flash game ideas?

the2bears · Post by **the2bears** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:49 am

dave4shmups wrote: That's a good point. What about Toki Tori? I never played it on the GameBoy Color, but the Wii-Ware release looks like a lot of fun.

I really liked it, some very challenging puzzles.

Bill

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:21 am

Nintendo lost me after the GC. I find their games mostly gimmicky and since I don't buy systems where piracy is rampant (I don't steal and I don't buy what I can steal easily).

Although Nintendo are making money now, they have imo just made it that much harder to catch up later on. Their next console will have you using your dick to control mario, although funny and entertaining at first, its novelty will wear off just like the wii's did.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:45 pm

A bit OT, Pokemon Snap almost looks like a rail shooter, is it worth a download?

Space Invaders Get Even came out, but it almost looks like an RTS.

Quorthon · Post by **Quorthon** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:33 pm

It's wrong to own a Wii and not have World of Goo. That game alone makes the service worthwhile. Strongbad's pretty fun, but I'm just not a fan of point-n-click adventures.

Microsoft went through and deleted a bunch of their crappier offerings from the XBLA, but just like WiiWare, it had it's share of crap. The PSN still looks like a freakin' desert from my understanding.

I just got here, but already I'm noticing that this site really seems to be against the Wii. What's up with that? I'm curious. I'd have figured that a console so awash in shmups would actually be welcome here. There's at least one more released on the thing every other week.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:26 pm

Quorthon wrote:It's wrong to own a Wii and not have World of Goo. That game alone makes the service worthwhile. Strongbad's pretty fun, but I'm just not a fan of point-n-click adventures.

Microsoft went through and deleted a bunch of their crappier offerings from the XBLA, but just like WiiWare, it had it's share of crap. The PSN still looks like a freakin' desert from my understanding.

I just got here, but already I'm noticing that this site really seems to be against the Wii. What's up with that? I'm curious. I'd have figured that a console so awash in shmups would actually be welcome here. There's at least one more released on the thing every other week.

I'm wondering why as well, when there are so many great shmups available on the Virtual Console. Some, like Gleylancer, are quite expensive otherwise, and I'd rather download Turbo Duo shmups without having to deal with the crappy CD-ROM drive.

MathU · Post by **MathU** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:16 pm

Quorthon wrote:I just got here, but already I'm noticing that this site really seems to be against the Wii. What's up with that? I'm curious. I'd have figured that a console so awash in shmups would actually be welcome here. There's at least one more released on the thing every other week.

Nintendo killed their parents. Also, their consoles haven't had a lot of shoot 'em ups after the SNES. I think it's mostly the dead parents thing.

Zuhzuhzombie!! · Post by **Zuhzuhzombie!!** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:22 pm

Traded my Wii for a highly modified Fender Jazz Bass and I'm a better person for it.