First screenshots of Revolution game.

http://www.endangeredgamer.blogspot.com/

And some additional info:
http://super-combo.com/index.php/red-steel-in-the-hour-of-chaosubisoft-paris-and-nintendos-first-revolution-game-unvieled/

Damn that sounds awesome!

I'm having flashbacks of Killzone for some reason.

Looks cool as hell....yep i'll probably get one.

I was in Electronics Botique today, and I noticed they'd moved everyhting around and I couldn't see the PC games anywhere.

I asked the guy where they were, and he pointed me to a small two sided square block near the front of the store, about 4 feet high, where all the games were facing sideways you could only see the spine. It looked like a clearance section. I asked him if they were gonna stop selling PC games, but he insisted they weren't, and that it was the smaller stores which were making this change.

Then jokingly I suggested that he take down all those stupid UMD movies for the PSP since I knew those weren't selling, and put the PC games there instead. He seemed to think they were selling just fine, and when I tild him that the movie companies weren't going to be producing any more of them because they don't sell, he insisted that Sony wouldn't let that happen because it only costs them 20 cents to make them.

Unimpressed with this opinion, I asked him if he'd heard what the PS3 was gonna cost. He had heard it was gonna be $600. "Yeah, that's what I heard too, that's crazy." I said. "Oh no!" he replied. He said that the Blue Ray players were gonna be like $1200 and that you're getting a bargain by buying the PS3.

I told him that there was a format war going on, and that I didn't think Blue Ray was going to be the winner. He insisted, image-quality-wise, it was the better format, and that two formats could coexist. I said what about BetaMax? He said BetaMax was a crappy format. I told him it wasn't, and that Sony made it, and it was in fact superior in quality to VHS. He still seemed skeptical, and still insisted the PS3 was gonna be a great buy.

Which brings us to the Revolution...

I asked him what he thought of the Revolution, and he talked about how it was different from the PS3 and XBOX. He didn't know how much more powerful than the Gamecube it would be though. I told him twice as powerful. He accepted this.

Then he hit me with a shocker: He claimed that the Revolution controller had a LASER POINTER in it and that this would allow the controller to interface with the DS touch screen "just like the stylus", because "Nintendo always has a way for their consoles to connect to their handhelds."

Dumbfounded, I didn't really know what to say to this. I didn't bother trying to explain to him the basic physics of how laser pointers and styluses work, or that Nintendo would NEVER put a dangerous laser that kids could shine in their eyes on their game controller.

So I left.

Interesting story ... sort of ... ugh ...

lol, good story, thanks.

lol. Where do these game stores find their staff!? They seem to dream stuff up and then present it as fact. Laser pointer - that's a classic! :P

I'm getting excited about the Revolution now, even tho I hate FPS games on consoles. The controller is gonna make a lot of difference.

Eh?

I see pictures of some magazine and a load of swearing?

Yep, for once a console FPS game will bring me something that my mouse can't.
What I'm seeing in some of those shots is the ability to position the weapon in ways that are normally impossible with other controllers, which is pretty exciting. I'm in the hopes that at least one FPS on the revolution will feature the ability to aim blindly... which is never seen in FPSs but often done otherwise.
Here are some more pretty screenies.

Those are very nice screenshots. (Though obviously suffering from fairly low polygon counts). It once again goes to show that the games aren't limited by the hardware they are on; it's limited by their artists. The next-gen titles on XBox 360 (I just realized; shouldn't it be 180? 360 implies that they went in a totally new direction, then went back to where they started) and PS3 are clearly exposing this, when you consider how much more powerful they are and compare that to the visual attractiveness of their games. (Visual attractiveness which, I add, still isn't very much better than HalfLife 2 or Fear... especially when you take into account what they are running on).
This one clearly has great media done for it, so it looks just as good as anything else. (And better than various other nex-gen titles which nobody notices).

Of course, that's all assuming that Nintendo hasn't fallen to the dark side and started releasing fake screenshots.

Sadly, it's obviously still not looking quite as immersive as a VR-type thing would be... but something tells me that Nintendo will be the first to start releasing stuff like that to the mass market.

I still wish the Rev had more RAM, though. Nintendo doesn't seem to understand how cheap the stuff is. It's less than a dollar a MB, and that's at overpriced places like London Drugs!



That is just freaky how they moved all the PC games to a tiny junk corner. You should have shown him how Oblivion for PC can be edited to look far more pretty than on the XBox, thanks to a little Ini file.

Anyone think they're going to be real tired in the arm if you have to hold it out like that all the time?

I don't think you have to hold your arm out straight, for it to work - you could probably rest your forearm on your leg, when sitting down, or something.

Otherwise, it would get a bit tiring. I used to get knackered playing Time Crisis (light gun game) on the PSX.

lol, I used to use Time Crisis 2 and Virtua Cop on PS/2 as a kinda exercise, standing up and gunning for a couple of hours is actually quite tiring!

"Anyone think they're going to be real tired in the arm if you have to hold it out like that all the time?"

I don't know, last week I was at one of our New Media labs
playing Duckhunt for hours. (I finally got to level 22!) My
arm was fine afterwards.

can't really tell much from those screenshots in regards to graphics. With the controler I think it may actualy be harder than a mouse, since you have a horizontal plane to use for support plus extra accuracy. Your also working in 2D with the mouse, and the rev controler isn't true 3D without some kind of wrap around screen or headset. So you have to move the view with your weak hand and the gamepad, and aim with your good hand. I expect the same guy with the mouse would trounce someone with the rev pointer and 1 handed gamepad, especialy when the gamepad has no support (normaly you would use both hands to support the controler.

Will be interesting to see how well it actualy does work in the end.

BTW shaders do limit artists in some ways, and require a completely different way of working unless the art path is well designed. It typicaly means lower polycounts on the PC, will be interesting to see what it means on next gen. when you have high polycounts and well designed tools for creating shaders games shouldn't look much different from pre rendered stuff really. It's all about how easily artists can tap that power. Pre rendered materials are pretty effortless on the shader front as the tools have had a decade or so to mature properly. Shaders are still in their infancy and will take a while to catch up, but the power is there :) just the tools are a but clumsy.

Holding the "remote" in your right hand, you can easily rest your hand on your thigh. Unless you have a massive projector screen or like to sit an inch from the telly, you're not going to need to move your hand much. You can try with any telly remote. Point at one corner, then the opposite. The movement is about the same as using a mouse, and you still get your horizontal support provided by your thighs.

Hard to really say much more without getting our hands on one.

If one of your prime concerns with the Revolution controller is physical exertion ... then stop putzing around on the computer right now and go work your lazy ass out!

Sorry ... I've been wanting to say that for like 6 months ... I just happened to finally break down right now ... carry on.

I am torn on the Nintendo Revolution...

On one hand, I think it is awesome that Nintendo is breaking new ground, and truly pushing the edge of how games are designed / controlled. It is cool when a big company decides to take a huge risk and do something truly audacious.

On the other hand, I just don't like the new controller. I mean, I never liked light gun games, I don't want to have to point at the TV... I just don't like it. I really want to like this new controller, but I don't.

I love gun games and can't play them since I got rid of my telly and borrowed a plasma (uses progressive scan so lightguns fail)

lightgun failes because it needs the electron sweep from CRT tvs.
However, I read somewhere that there is universal lightguns for sale, that works on PS2 and any TV - progressive and interlaced aswell.

I'm not talking about the wand thing, I'm talking about having to use the analogue controler in the left hand without support. Sounds like it will be pretty awkward to me, without the bracing of the other hand your control is likely to be imprecise and clumsy. (unless your ambidextrous).

I can see a lot of flaws in the methods illustrated so far.

I don't see whats wrong. Hold the little stick in your left hand, hold the little remote in your right.

It would be awkward at first, but just like everything else, you will get use to it.

1st thing that came to mind : WHOA, Guitar Hero2, whooooo!

2nd thing that came to mind : Hey, an M rated game for a Nintendo system!

3rd thing that came to mind : Those game-shots remind me of the casino screenies I saw of Duke Nukem Forever(and ever...) years ago..

4th thing that came to mind : What Evak said regarding the controls, from what I've seen you only got 3 triggers easily accesible (2 on Nunchaku {analogue stick}, 1 on remote), where the rest of the buttons are on the face of the remote itself, now, how easy those buttons are to reach with the thumb while in "aiming" mode, I dont know...

Also hope the actual aiming mechanism works well, I mean, if the camera roll if locked to the analogue on the nunchaku, it may feel stilted....something like the setup Metroid Prime:Hunters uses (where screen only turns when the cursor is outside of the "dead-zone" around the center of the screen) I'd like, but then I cant see how turning 360 degrees would work without spinning the remote around in your hand....

As far as I know, that is not how it works. The controller's
location and orientation are both communicated to the console
via radio waves. It is not necessary to point at your tv,
like you have to do with an oldschool lightgun.

drew:
I was under the impression the location was detected using acceleration sensing devices in it. I'm not positive about that though. There could be radio, but if there is, I suspect that would be used to transmit the object's own internally determined location and orientation and the button presses.

Genexi:


I think you could reach that A button easily, and the D pad as well.

If I was gonna make the controls for this, I would make it so that you turn with the remote, and strafe with the stick. The further you aim the remote off the side of the screen, the faster it turns in that direction. Then for the buttons, the trigger on the remote fires, and the first trigger on the analog stick is a seconddary fire mode. The D-pad allows you to scroll through inventory and weapons, and the A button allows you to use items in the inventory that you've selected. The weapons automatically switch as you scroll through them. And lastly, the second button on the analog stick would be the use button.

So that pretty much covers all the bases. What's the problem? :-)

I don't know how much you need to swing the main controller around, but the cable between the two looks very short. Might be a bit inconvenient having to wave around with both arms. It would be very cool if they actually dropped the cable and made the whole thing wireless.

If I'm getting any console, it will probably be the Nintendo. It just looks fun and interesteing. Hopefully the price will be low and it will include a VGA or DVI out, I'm not getting a TV just to be able to run a console when I have a perfectly nice 24" screen with two inputs.

I have an xbox/xbox360 and others, Ill get the Revolution only for the back library (Nintendo, Genesis and now TurboGrafx 16 titles)

The PS3 is far from intersting, and not to impressive, at least so far. So it will probably be a few years before I would consider getting one.

ragtag: Most of the wire in that image was edited out to look more sexy.

po: Ah...good. Then I have no gripes about the controler. :-)

It does look like they are pointing at the screen for aiming, but in that case wouldn't it make more sense to use a controller in the shape of a gun... because this looks a bit uncomfortable.

Without a permanent aiming spot on the screen, I think it will also be very hard to aim this way? (Of course, it's a bit hard to tell from the screenshots but it looks like it.)

It can be useful in two player games for strangling your opponent! (ninja-style)

That brings up an interesting point with regards to aiming Foppy, how is the game/rev to decide which is the point as to which to base all its movement/rotation off of? What if you needed to place the controller down, use a bathroom or something, come back, and pick it up and sit elsewhere at a different angle to the screen then the previous position? And I dont see me any calibration button on that thing either.

Anyhow, Sswift, I was referrin to a more involved FPS game, you know, one with peeking around corners, crouch/proning, dropping weapons, etc...it could possibly be done on the controller still I guess, it would just need to be a more intuitive setup, else it'll get too...cant think of the word atm, I'll stick with bulked for now.
(a few DS games suffer with the same problem due to ill thought out control schemes that involve both using touch-screen, and the fact buttons)

"What if you needed to place the controller down, use a bathroom or something"

Then you pause the game by pressing "Start".


"and pick it up and sit elsewhere at a different angle to the screen then the previous position? And I dont see me any calibration button on that thing either."

I think that's what the "home" button is for. You probably will be instructed to press it when you are holding the controller in a comfortable position while pointing it at the center of the screen.


"Anyhow, Sswift, I was referrin to a more involved FPS game, you know, one with peeking around corners, crouch/proning, dropping weapons, etc...it could possibly be done on the controller still I guess, it would just need to be a more intuitive setup, else it'll get too...cant think of the word atm, I'll stick with bulked for now."

I am sure an intuitive and flexible control scheme will be found. Whatever it is though, it can't possibly be worse than trying to play an FPS with two joysticks. I tried playing Halo on a console once and it was a totally sucky experience.

Hmm, never thought about it that way, was under the assumption "Home" would take you back to the Rev's menu where you can go off and do other things, or take a temporary break from the game, then go back to it later at that last point, kinda like what the PSP has going with its Home button.

I have a few worries about it too, its a great idea, but I wouldn't be surprised to see someone else polish the concept later on into something better.

That's kind of what normaly happens if Nintendo do something interesting with controlers that works.

to jump back to something Evak said.

Go grab an N64 controler, and notice how you hold it, now, remove your right hand. (pick up some classic arcade thing like pacman where you only need the joystick, or one with only 1 button (z))

its actually very comfortable, and honestly, strains your hand LESS, you can also dual wield 2 N64 controlers... and I mean seriously, I expected an FPS to do that at some point, 1 stick to turn and look up down, and 1 to move, and both Zs to shoot, or 1 to jump and 1 to shoot. would have been friggin great.

I recalled doing that with Wave-Race64 Dampes, was able to play the game just using the Z-button and the joystick, problem I came across was that the joystick had too much spring tension in it to easily maneuver it without tilting the controller while holding it only with your left hand.

At least they're using the GameCube style joystick with that "8-direction-lock" (for lack of a better term) setup I quite like, just hope it's easy to be precise using just one hand, at least it looks to be so with the ergonomic design the nunchaku currently holds.

Speaking of interfaces, I just saw a post by someone who mentioned that the controller was more of a mouse than a light gun.

And by god, he's right! Think of all the things you can do with a mouse that you could do on the revolution that we take for granted on the PC but are a pain on consoles.

Things for example, like:

1. Selecting an item in one's inventory by moving a pointer to it and clicking.

2. Dragging things to and from an inventory.

3. Entering your name.

Pretty much anything that required you to tediously move the cursor from item to item or letter to letter to select things or enter information will be much faster with that remote, by simply pointing and clicking, than it would be with a joystick.

Well....yeah.


;)

yeah, just its going to be a little harder than a mouse, since it moved in 3D.

And apparently another rev-game had information leaked called Red Steel, which apparently is supposed to be a violent FPS/Melee game, which apparently supports dual-wielding rev-remotes. =\

I'm surprised still that the only titles that aint from Nintendo so far (iirc) are looking to be M rated, was expecting the Rev to be all fluffy bunny for the first few months...

Genexi:
What are you smoking, and can I have some?

Another rev game? Red Steel is the one I posted above. Only one is known at this time and that is it. :-)

Dual controllers? That's neat. Gonna sucker people into buying an extra controller I guess. :-)

But how can you have dual controllers if you have to move around using the analog stick? It would be rather unweildly to hold two at once with that connected.

Wow I need some sleep, but then again, I tend to skim through 5+ page blogs....oh well. =\

As for the dual-wielding, either the developer expects humans to grow a 3rd arm within the next year, or possibly they will allow strafing via the d-pad or some other manner, unless this is where the remote "shells" come into play, though there has yet been no news regarding them.

You don't know how to use the three seashells?

Well at least it will be fun for coop play! Anyone remember coop for Goldeneye on the N64?

"Ok, I'm gonna strafe across the hallway now. Ok, Shoot! shoot them!"

Man, that would be so very much fun!



sswift: nice reference. Hehe.

Hmm, I'm almost certain GoldenEye and Perfect Dark allowed for dual controls on the N64 exactly as you describe.

Really?.... nooo... seriously? I don't know.. with all those extra functions in golden eye? and zoom? are you sure?

Yep, seriously :)

I've just double checked, it's controller styles 2.1 to 2.4 in GoldenEye

holy hell... I'm gonna go pick Golden Eye up... if I don't aleady own it somewhere... Thanks... I wanted to do that the whole lifecycle of the N64... I had Golden Eye too... just never messed with the controler styles, assumed they would say it somewhere...

Wahey, confirmed to be a launch title : http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147465.html


Now to hope the finished product is actually any good.

Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing alot of that? Not
that I'm complaining. 3 cheers for Nintendo.

The newest issue of "Game Informer" has a preview of this game.

Apparently controller movement is context sensitive. The game's theme is centered around a feud with the Yakuza. The controller is not only used to shoot and fight with the sword, but you "nod" or "shake" your head when you have conversations with non-playable characters within the game (each question asked you is conveniently a yes/no type question). You can bow to yakuza bosses/masters to show respect. The controller also tracks when you've twisted it and you're holding it sideways, allowing for side-ways "gangsta" style grappling of the pistol in your hand. There are plans to make an upward pointing/twisting movement traslate to ducking around a corner...


hehehe you really matched his meat!