Rares answer to Pokemon

Viva Pinta





http://www.1up.com/do/media?cId=3148663&Dispatch=Display

looks pretty interesting in a weird way. Often wonder why MS spent so much money on one developer when they could have bought 100 for the same price and gotten better value for money heh.

Oh man, that looks so cool! I didn't have any interest in XBox 360 until right this second, but I may have to get one for this game.

My god... they're actually going with the flow of technology!

Ah... Pokemon... I would probably actually look at those Pokemon games again (the first one wasn't bad, gameplay-wise) if they bothered to actually update them beyond doubling the number of random creatures with every single version. Actually, this is what I would want to see if I was to ever consider looking at a Pokemon game ever again:
A graphics engine that reflaects the system it runs on, no more GB-style 4-directional movement or restrictively tile-based stuff, no more 2-frames of animation for everything, no more totally flat 2d graphics, no invisible monsters (having them visible at any time would be great, and would even solve my next point!), battle scenes that aren't boring (possible with fewer creatures, since they would require less space to ANIMATE), no more absurd lack of sound (if they hadn't decided to double the number of the things every time, they could have that by now!).
Oh yes, and a story that isn't made up of 3 individual bits of scripted discussion with (OH WOW!) characters moving along preset 4-directional paths... all of which is interspersed (Freelancer style... but without the missions) by 10 hours of wandering... and when that 30 minutes of total story-driven stuff is up, it's over! It's boring!
It was good in the GB days, when it was revolutionary. But now that it's been the same gameplay with the same flaws on GB, GBC, GBA, and (judging by what's been told) NDS, I think it's time to change.


Hmm... where did that come from?
Umm... I'm glad to see Rare doing that... it's about time someone improved upon the concept, since GameFreaks seems incapable, and I'm too lazy.



Cool looking game!
Those screenshots make no sense... It's great!
The graphics are excellent... I love the grass and how it affects the shadows. It's nice how they aren't obsessed with realism, thus getting away with it looking Better Than real life.

Wow. That really is awesome.. O.O

Edit: And, sadly, I am a huge fan of the original Pokemon games.

Wow....those are some gorgeous graphics, love the way they've done the grass, stuff that couldn't be done on previous generation hardware to the same effect without compromises.

Breems with style that actually takes advantage of current-gen effects....something I've been waiting for with these next-gen systems coming out that mainly scream "OMG LOOK NEARLY REAL-LIFE GRAPHICS!" in their games.

Gotta agree with you Mr.Pickle regarding Pokémon, man I spent so many hours on the original Blue version, then after that, lost interest, rehashing the same old gameplay 10x doesn't work for me, on the bright side at least GameFreaks have finally moved onto making other game franchises, what with the well done Drill-Dozer GBA game released a bit ago.

THe short spiel about the game says



I'm interested in the game by the graphics, will be interesting to see how the gameplay turns out.

looks interesting!

I can only assume they failed to spot that most of the most talented people at Rare had already left before they bought it. Of course being desperate to get their hands on a developer with great popularity in Japan because they ( mistakenly ) thought it would give them some credibility in Japan, and being turned down flat by their first choice Squaresoft may have contributed to their poor judgement.

I mean the guys who created Banjo Kazooie, DK and all those went off and created their own company that made that beautiful mech-shooter thingy. And the guys who created Perfect Dark ( the good one ) and GoldenEye ( the good one ) went off to form Free Radical Designs, and they've shown that they took most of the FPS talent with them as they keep banging out first class shooters. So Microsoft didn't have much left.

Course I might have my timelines wrong and maybe these guys left later, in which case there must have been a huge amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth at MS.

The screens look interesting ... but I don't think the game has any use ... its for a high expensive console but the gameplay looks like one for younger teens which definitely won't be a market MS will ever hit.

Perhaps they are selling Rare again to Nintendo, Revolution would be the right place for a game like this. Or a handheld.

It look fantastic but what sort of game is it?
I hope it's good, Rare have been making poo games for the past 3-4 years, even before MS 0wNd them.
Hopefully this is a turn around.

Is it just me or does Rare go ovrboard with their hair/grass system on every single game they make? It seems like you can always tell when a cute game is made by Rare nowadays because it will invariably look fuzzy/fluffy.

Ah but the irony that was Conkers Bad Fur Day worked well with the whole fuzzy/fluffy graphical presentation, and it wasn't kid friendly at the least...

I'm just curious to know how they modelled the creatures, as it looks to be alot more then clever multi-texturing and what not, as in some of the close-ups parts of the "paper-maché" material (for lack of a better term) folds up off the things....I cant picture the artists doing all of those little flaps individually, possibly a mathematical routine or something? I recalled Black&White2 doing such a thing for the fur patches of their creatures.

Yeah, I assumed that it was mathematical routine too. I'm not saying that it looks bad, but it's definately noticable in Rare titles due to overuse. Despite the fact that most of the talented people have left the company, I can't help rooting for Rare to reclaim their former glory.

Its kind of like polygon feathers :)

Looks like Voxels using pixel shaders.

Exactly my thoughts! Looks pretty cool though... Too bad I'm not interrested in buying any home consoles.

What the F! Ever since Rare got bought they have made crap games. Great investment Microsoft! Goldeneye and DKC was the best games made from RARE.

Banjo Kazooie was great when it came out.

And while Conker's recycled the gameplay and was boring as a result, the facial animation system in it was second to none.

I'm skpetical though of Rare's ability to make a fun game. And this is something based on a kid's TV show.

The art is awesome, so they've shown me I was wrong for doubting them there, but I still kind of doubt it'll have the kind of gameplay most of us are interested in, given that the last few games of theirs I've played have all pretty much had the same exact platformer gameplay.

I'll probably avoid this one unless you can grab a stick and whack those pinatas. :-)

This is like ET back in the days....

I Hate Pokemon. The development of Berserk stoped for this childish Anime. I Hate Pokemon.

Lol ...
Yeah but Pokemon is still a phenomenom on its own ...
The only other phenomenoms of the same size are Final Fantasy and Mario himself ;-) (and if we take the 18+ group, Lara Croft who sold many crap games just with her tits)

I hate pokemon too, but one of the artists at y old work made an awesome pokemon pumpkin with carrot ears and stuff.

I thought Kameo on the 360 was excellent (completed it twice in a row) and had a sense of fun about it, spoiled only by the underwater sections and relatively short time it takes to complete.

I was very disappointed by Perfect Dark though. It felt like a current generation game and didn't really offer anything new in the gameplay stakes either. It definitely had no fun factor (for me).

So I'm sitting on the fence as far as RARE are concerned, but Viva Pinta does looks interesting.