Video Games Thread

[harv]

So essentially the Wii U controller will be an iPhone taped to a PS controller.

Better than that according to hands-on reports...the screen is supposed to be sharper and clearer than an iPad screen apparently.

Definitely going to be interesting to see what it looks like 'in the flesh' so to speak.

It's also going to be interesting to see what the final form factor of the console itself is going to look like. I'm hoping that they're going to have 2 different coloured SKUs, black and white. A black U will match my telly, PC and PC speakers.

[bealec]

Surely it's going to be a pain in the arse to switch between looking at the tv and looking at the screen on the controller.

[harv]

Can't see it being a problem myself...flicking your gaze from one screen to another is quite common these days, I do it all the time when watching the telly and surfing the net on my smartphone. Can't see it being a problem tbh.

It also helps that I'm used to doing the same thing with my 3DS too. Am now on stage 14 of Raid mode, Capcom really need to bring this to Resident Evil 6 as bonus content along with the obligatory Mercenaries game. Have got mostly S grades but have got A grades on the rest so far. Definitely the best game I've played so far on the 3DS. It's excellent.

Have also stumbled across a video converter so that I can download and convert the myriad of 3D films that are available, will have to get a bigger SD card first though.

[Late]

Can't see it being a problem myself...flicking your gaze from one screen to another is quite common these days, I do it all the time when watching the telly and surfing the net on my smartphone. Can't see it being a problem tbh.

I, too, spend half my time with a smartphone or tablet in my hand whilst watching tv - but that's not the same as playing a game, is it. If you look away from the screen at the buttons on your controller you'll suffer badly. It's going to be even worse if you're looking at a changeable screen.

...the screen is supposed to be sharper and clearer than an iPad screen apparently.

Clearly both you and the person who informed you of this are on drugs if you believe that nonsense.
There's no way a screen with 0.4 million pixels (854*480) will have a display that's anywhere close to the ipad's 3.1 million (2048*1536). It's just not possible.

The U might be quite good*, but please stop trying to make out it's god's gift to gamers. You're trying to make the U sound good but you're having the complete opposite effect by making this succession of wild claims.
I've wondered in recent years whether you're on a commission with Nintendo, but it now seems pretty clear they'd have shut you up by now if you were on the payroll - you're damaging them with this ridiculous bluster...





*It almost certainly won't be.

[harv]

You need to forget about the resolution of the screen. Portable display quality isn't judged on resolution, the important factor is the pixel density. We don't know the PPI value of the screen for certain but all hands-on reports have stated that there's very little difference in IQ when switching from a HD telly display to the controller. This isn't me making stuff up, I'm going by hands-on reports from people that have actually used the thing.

It wouldn't surprise me if it had a pixel density below that of the iPad but going by feedback there isn't much in it, and if it has a lower PPI value than the iPad then the smaller size of the screen will do it a lot of favours.

[Late]

Two doors down from me is the edge of town (or village, actually). The next house after that is a farmhouse about a mile away. The tenant of that farm breeds cattle.

The fields in which he keeps his stock contain significantly less bullshit than your forum posts.

You really haven't got a clue what you're talking about, have you...



If a small screen has the same ppi as a bigger screen it does NOT mean it's got a comparable picture. It has a much lower resolution. I know maths isn't your strong point, but that's a ridiculous standpoint you're taking, there. More pixels means higher resolution.
Even if your massively flawed understanding of ppi was right, you'd still be wrong - because the ipad has massively superior pixel density than the wii u (ipad 264, wii u 143). That's not a narrow "win" for the ipad - that's a massive difference.

(btw I've never owned an apple product, and have no real interest in doing so.)

[harv]

Again, resolution isn't important for portable displays. A high PPI value means you're less likely to see individual pixels on the display. And you're still not taking the physical dimensions of the screen into account.

Hands-on reports have stated that there's little difference in IQ when switching between a 1080p display on the telly and the 480p display on the controller and that it's very difficult to see said individual pixels. I haven't read a single hands-on report that says the opposite. And you've also got to take into account the brightness of the display and how vibrant the colours are.

The display is a high quality display by all accounts, you'll have to live with that unfortunately.

Edit: And you should also take note that the comparison was made between the U controller and the previous iPad (iPad 3..?) because the latest one wasn't released at that time.

[styles]

Didn't we have this discussion about resolution and screens in the past. iirc late knows his onions when it comes to this so i am expecting another epic fail by harv

[harv]

I'm talking sense here and just reiterating everything said by hands-on reports.

The fact that they've all said that there's very little loss of IQ when switching from a HDTV to the screen on the controller speaks volumes.

Nintendo have always used good quality screens for their portable consoles so I can't see them doing things differently for the U controller. They've always gone for Sharp screens in the past if I remember correctly, will be interesting to see if they carry on with them...but I suspect we'll have to wait for those iFixit fellahs to take one apart to find out lol. They're certainly dedicated, they snuck a 3DS into a hospital to x-ray it to find out that it had FCRAM as memory lololol

[harv]

Bloody hell, have just seen that the estimated BOM for the U including the controller is around $180...they're certainly not messing about We'll probably see it retailing at $350/£300 when it's released unless Nintendo want to upset investors and make a loss on each unit sold.

Edit: Have decided to play through the Revelations single player campaign again, this time on Hell difficulty, wish it was available at the start tbh, I can see this being a real challenge later on. It really is back to old-school Resident Evil again due to the baddies taking a shedload more damage before dying so those familiar with the first three games will remember having to take a few shots and edging back when they get too close. I can see this getting pretty hairy later on, although there's still too much ammo floating about to capture the panic that the first three games had...you're not going to be faced with the prospect of having to desperately using your knife because you've run out of bloomin bullets lololol

I really can't wait for November and Resident Evil 6, the U controller is perfect to use as a Genesis Scanner, and hopefully they'll add some sort of log to add scanned items and enemies to like there is for the Metroid Prime games. I suspect that they planned on having this available for Revelations but didn't have room for it on the 4GB cart which is disappointing tbh

[jman]

And you believe that rumour about the cost then harv... the controller is rumoured to eat up about $50 of that cost according to the source.. so that puts the wii U hardware unit at around $130... which is only $30 more than the unit cost of a 3DS...  but the wii U is rumoured to be 3x/4x/5x more powerful than the 360??... *sniggers* 

[harv]

The article also says they got a bargain price for the CPU and GPU

It's going to be at least 3 times more powerful than the 360 going by what we know so far, and the OoOE CPU and DSP should boost it to around around 4 times more powerful imo.

[bealec]

What you know so far is rumour and speculation. Web pages claiming to have the inside scoop. Until Nintendo release the full specs you know nothing for certain.

[Late]

Didn't we have this discussion about resolution and screens in the past. iirc late knows his onions when it comes to this so i am expecting another epic fail by harv

Aye, I'm definitely getting deja vu. I think it was the 3ds screen last time.

Harv - a Nintendo DS (107ppi) has a much higher pixel density than your 42" full HD tv (52ppi). Are you of the opinion that the DS has the superior picture?
Of course it doesn't. It's not even close - the DS picture is massively inferior.

You need high pixel density on a small device, of course, otherwise it'll look appalling - but the reality is less pixels means lower quality. That's not a rule of thumb, or some sort of generalisation - it's just common sense.




I had intended to go back through Bulletstorm and get some of the stuff I missed, but I did one level and couldn't be arsed to continue...
Instead I had a go on a few more of the cheapo second hand games I recently picked up, over the long weekend. Bear in mind all ore old, and generally low rated games.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was first. Had a quick go on two player splitscreen, and then an hour or two on single player campaign, and couldn't get into it at all. I have GRAW2 in the stack of games - hopefully that'll be better, but I'm not optimistic.
Then I tried F1 2010. I'm not a big fan of F1 but used to quite enjoy it about 10-20 years ago. Also I'm not a massive fan of racing games, especially realistic simulator type ones - I prefer arcadey ones. But I'm quite enjoying this, and have played it for a couple of days. Only actually got two races done in that time, mind, because I'm the kind of cheating git who'll reset the race if things aren't going to plan. Must've done the Australian GP about 30 times before I won the bugger and allowed the season to progress to the next race. (Yeah, I should be ashamed - but I'm not.) I might end up going back to this game...
Next was Alone In The Dark. That was another one where I played for an hour or two but couldn't get into it. The graphics looked rather dated (fair enough, it was 2007, I think), the camera angles were annoying, and the controls weren't at all intuitive. After a while my character was confronted by some sort of zombie demon thing, and I just put the controller down and enjoyed seeing the annoying git get ripped apart.
Took that out of the machine, and put BulletWitch in. Not a great game, by any stretch of the imagination. But it's okay, and enjoyable enough that it's still in the machine now. If I get a few days play out of a £1 or £2 game I'll count that as a resounding success. It's not dissimilar to Bayonetta (which I wasn't a big fan of - I recall I got more than half way through it but never finished it), but the levels are more open and sprawling. Decent enough purchase at the price.

[ancelotti]

What was that thing Jman posted about a fanboy reading a few articles and declaring himself a technical expert? That's Harv.