kisrael

We'll see. Ok Captain Schadenfreude, what have they sowed for a long time? Relying on cartridges for the N64? Not doing enough to court third parties? Depending on their core franchises too much? Not pumping out enough first party shovelware? I don't think any of those are such terrible crimes. I dunno, PCs got pretty cheap when the became commodities that anyone could clone. The trouble is that the "standard" that emerged sucked for gaming...think EGA (or CGA!) graphics with just a little PC speaker and no controller, or one of those stupid Apple II style sticks. Imagine how much cooler life would be if Amiga had been the standard. Anyway, if Nintendo switched to only having a handheld console and supporting other consoles, the only thing that would worry me is an emphasis on networking gaming over "party" gaming. I'm not too inclined to go looking for random strangers online who may or may not be cheating and who might be spending an umilimted amount of time practicing, but I would like to make sure I have great "get folks together on the couch" games to play. Also, I think Nintendo's hardware is the most visually attractive out there.

Eh, I would guess that one a day might work better. I don't want to wait a month to find the winner! And I think most of the people who have participated so far check this board every day...

Boy...the next thing they'll be announcing is the return to cartridge format. After that, it will be a race to see who can come out with the first 16-bit console, 8-bit, etc. A regression of sorts... Actually, what alarms me is that that might imply an emphasis on handhelds. Or, given your regression theory...maybe a return to Game and Watch? Anyway, I'm gonna keep rooting for Nintendo until I'm convinced that the other consoles really GET multiplayer gaming, ala Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Monkey Ball.

Well, I'm trying to promote the SNES for future rounds... Nintendo's had a lot of controller innovation and deserve to place well.

Hmm, let me think... a comfortable, evolutionary yet elegant controller that innovated use of buttons as a possible secondary crosspad, as well as shoulder buttons OR an ungodly uncomfortable unresponsive piece of crap that's the colecovision controller minus the numberpad...only the floppy fish 5200 is worse in atari's stable. I guess I'll stick with the SNES. (PS is the schedule one of these votes a day? that would make the most sense)

So where's the next round??

Here's another clue for you all: the walrus was Paul. The walrus CAN'T be Paul, because he's dead. Bare feet and all, dontcha know. The walrus is the Scandanavian animal symbol for Death, duh. More proof. We definately have a dead walrus on our hands. (and yeah, Robotnik is a much cooler name.)

Here's another clue for you all: the walrus was Paul.

An interesting category, because both were backwards compatible w/ the Atari 2600 style port that the Atari computers, C=64, etc also used. Of course, the Genesis pad was available long after the colecovision, so it's retrocompatability is greater appreciated. Between that and the fact I never liked the "throw" feeling of the Colecovision mushroom, and it's pretty cool funky styling, the Genesis pad gets my nod, even though it pales in comparison to the SNES'.

The NES pad never struck me as uncomfortable, or unresponsive...I think the biggest question is in terms of historic impact, do we like it that from the dawn of the NES 'til the appearance of the N64 over a decade, control pads were absolutely the norm? (And the way all these pads might be favoring left handers is a little strange too, though I've heard someone argue that it better complements the type of precision needed)

I'm not that much of a bloated fat fucking blob, but the only part I find painful is overuse of the "gaspedal" shoulder buttons.

I'm a big believer that more isn't always better in terms of buttons...too many buttons that are too similar are confusing. Even SNES vs Genesis, SNES was smart enough to arrange its buttons into a second crosspad, and then introduced well-differentiated shoulder buttons.

Dreamcast...though I think it's incorrect to lump it in with the Saturn 3D, the VMU was a really interesting and cool idea even if it never reached its full potential.

Death Rally was a great game! Kind of obscure I thought, but so much fun. I actually got some e-mail from the guy who wrote the little prose blurbs that added a lot to the character of the game. LANing that game at work is where I got my AIM name/alternate nick, "kirkjerk", which I'm slowly trying to make my name nickname online.

Wow I thought Blast Corps was great fun. And there are many N64 games I was underwhelmed by, despite me being a bit of a fanboy...

(re: original topic: yeah, I would guess MAME handles it well now but it took a while, and yeah, it's emulation so the video looks just like the arcade, though the cursor tends to move a little differently) Anyway, I'm a big fan of primitive graphic technology. like GB cameras. (Unfortunately I can't find a rather artsy series a friend of mine did and put on line) I took some old QuickCam pics and made them into tiny tiny animated GIFs, check out Small Gif Cinema: http://kisrael.com/features/sgc.html

SWEET! Though the old arcade controller will be sorely missed. That controller rocked so much. Are there any controllers that are half as good? I wonder if something like that would work as a regular flightstick? Incidentally, I assume MAME does a better job now, but it took it a long time to get a halfway decent version of that game emulated....

How many of the color split games let you get the othe content by linking up with someone who has the other color? So at least there's a potential for social contact rather than just buying it twice, though you have to organize things ahead of time.

Smash Bros! Anyway, only a "handful of games", but a mighty big handfull...

I'm a big fan of simple fighters/brawlers. Powerstone and its sequel are great on the DC in those terms...big flashy easy full-3D fighters, and the sequel is even four players! Same w/ Smash Bros. And Marvel vs Capcom has a way of dialing down the complexity too. I'm not sure if any of those are 'simple' in the way the first poster was thinking of, however.

Monkey Ball and Monkey Ball 2. Any Mario Party. A lot of the games suck, but some are quite compelling, and each has a mode where you can just pick that game Admittedly all of those are best w/ multiplayer. Also, if you want the ultimate in simple games, though arguably not that grabbing in the long run, check out my gamebuttons: http://kisrael.com/features/gb.html Games entirely self contained in simple HTML grey form pushbuttons, for both input and output of the games they play. (Also, you might want to check out the Java version of joustpong, http://alienbill.com/abp/java/joustpong/ , a game I'm tyring to port to the 2600.)

Well, that weakens my argument a bit, but not too too much; there's still NO angle effects going on in terms of a camera, and it's clearly using whatever system to make tiles and sprites, even if they're painted onto 1D polygons

Ah, just realized why I couldn't find the N64 version on GameFAQs, it's name there is "Bangaioh" - http://gamefaqs.com/console/n64/data/24874.html Plus it pointed to this review http://www.gamespot.com/n64/action/bakuret...ioh/review.html and these screenshots http://www.gamespot.com/n64/action/bakuret...creenindex.html You can most easily tell the N64 screenshots because the health bar at the top is divided into segments, the DC version had a single bar (which is odd, since it still went down in segments, and the N64 looks cooler) Unfortunatley the screenshots seem to be just of the early levels, so the screens aren't really full up of enemies. But http://www.gamespot.com/n64/action/bakuret...ns.html?page=12 shows you how this is clearly a TILE and SPRITE based game...just very well done coloring of the sprites, so stuff like those green fireballs seem to have a sense of depth. Sorry if you were just joking around before, but it really poked me into wanting to make as convncing a case as possible...

This: is obviously done by by a 3D card, no matter how 2D the gameplay feels... A. I'm not entirely discounting the possibility it was via a 3D card, but if it was, so what? If it LOOKS 2D, (with absolutely flat camera angles, and always the same animations of the characters) it IS 2D. This shot might seem to be more 3D looking, partially because the way it was shrunk from original size emphasizes the 2D lighting effect of the explosions and the missile trails. But that's just a matter of making both gradually go from lighter to darker. Nothing rendered 3D about it. B. Judging by the DC version...IT'S NOT A FRICKIN' 3D ENGINE MAKING THIS GAME. If all those hundreds of highly detailed characters and literally thousands of explosions were 3D, I really doubt it would be easier to render the game in 3D. C. Your claim was that it couldn't do something with sprites like Castlevania, and this greatly outdoes Castlevania. I think this is a DC screenshot anyway. And believe me when I say, I KNOW the DC version, wrote a FAQ on GameFAQs (and CJayC, the guy who runs the site, has another FAQ listing the differences between the N64 and DC versions) from long programming and gaming experience, it uses small hand drawn sprites. The only thing "3D" about this game is a cheap parallax effect, that far background scrolls more slowly than the foreground. And the SNES was doing that effect no problem. And it rotates some simple enemy sprites, but strictly in 2D....hell, it doesn't even use the Mode-7 like effects like the SNES or GBA.