Breath of Death VII free with Cthulhu Saves the
World PC

The good news just keeps on flowing when it comes to Cthulhu Saves the World on PC. Another of Zeboyd Games' titles, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, is being included as a freebie, as was made clear recently.

"There will be a few minor improvements to Breath of Death VII since we're using the Cthulhu Saves the World engine for it (stuff like being able to save anywhere)," says Zeboyd. And yep, they're stilling pushing for that $3 price.

In related news, Cthulhu made a bizarre appearance on the television series Supernatural. His agent is doing fine work. Damn fine work.

[Thanks, Knives]

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How many people will buy Wii Play: Motion

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If we're talking the Destructoid readership, I'm guessing the answer is "not too many", but still, I wonder how well Wii Play: Motion will sell with the general populace? The game certainly looks more imaginative than the original Wii Play, which sold extremely well, but I have a hard time believing that will help the game to be a hit. The key to the game's success lies in how badly people want an excuse to buy a Motion+ enabled Wii Remote. That trick certainly worked for Wii Sports Resort, but again, can lightening strike in the same place yet again for this brand of packed in mini-game collection?

I think a lot of that depends on if Project Cafe makes exclusive use of the current Motion+ Wii Remote. If it does, than Wii Play: Motion will have an audience for years to come, on both the current Wii, and it's upcoming successor. If Project Cafe makes exclusive use of some other controller, then I'm guessing that Wii Play:Motion will join the microphone controlled GameCube title Odama and the entire library of eReader card games in the annals of false starts in Nintendo history.

Wii Play: Motion - first trailer [GoNintendo]

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Rumor: New Villains Confirmed for Batman: Arkham
City

An Australian newspaper may have spilled the beans on a couple of new villains found in Batman: Arkham City.

View Article

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-Batman-Arkham-City

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How Barry beat Leon to Resident Evil: Mercenaries
3D

Last week, we saw the announcement of Barry Burton as a playable character in Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D, filling out the game's announced roster of eight selectable fighters. That means that Barry, a character who has never starred in a mainline Resident Evil title, made it into the game over Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4 star Leon S. Kennedy.

Why didn't fan-favorite Leon make it to the game? According to Capcom producer Masachika Kawata "(As for Leon) He's all tied up for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. He couldn't make his appearance Mercenaries" which is pretty much the biggest non-answer I've ever read. I'd assume that Capcom is saving Leon for DLC, but in the same interview, Kawata-san stated that "At the moment no, we haven't got any plan (for DLC)", so there goes that theory.

So why did Barry make the cut instead of Leon? Get the full quotation and some speculation/opinion after the jump.

Why Leon isn't in Resi Evil Mercs 3D [EuroGamer, via GoNintendo]

Most of the Resident Evil characters are cool heroes. Barry's a little bit different. It was quite a few years ago we found out that Barry was popular in the western market. It was a bit of a surprise for us Japanese guys. But since then we've always thought about him. He's a guy who thinks about his family all the time, which shows his humility. We thought he would be a unique character to play. He's a large guy, so he can do melee by using his body. He's also a maniac for guns. That's his strong point. From the start of the game he is allocated powerful weapons. He's not included as a comedian character. It's difficult because we don't play the game in English. The English lines may be taken in a different context when it's translated from the Japanese. I remember him as having love for his family. In order to protect his family he has to betray his colleagues. That was an impressionable scene.

Sounds to me like Kawata-san has very little understanding of why Americans love Barry, though he seems to have some idea that many of us have spent years laughing at (not with) Capcom's initial use of the character in Resident Evil 1. Still, just because we laugh at Barry doesn't mean we don't love him.

Personally, I'm all for Barry making it in over Leon, at least for this game. Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D already has one major male lead -- Chris Redfield. Throwing Leon in there would just muddle the spotlight. Barry, on the other hand, exists in his own unique area of Resident Evil history; not quite at center stage, but still positioned as a key part of Resident Evil's identity. Of course, it would have been great to get both Leon and Barr in the gamey, but if we can only pick one, then it makes sense for Barry to make the cut over Leon (and just about any other Resident Evil character for that matter).

[Art by Mike032592]

That's because Barry Burton represents a key ingredient to the classic Resident Evil formula better than any other character in the series's history. He embodies an entire generation of sincere attempts (and subsequent failures) by Japanese developers to capture Hollywood-style film making techniques in their games, and the hilarity that followed. The first generation of English voice acted games from Japan (like Resident Evil, Shenmue, and House of the Dead) had a way of accidentally exaggerating the the trite, cliche, ridiculous methods of Hollywood-style acting and writing that was nothing short of iconic. There is a reason why these games are still quoted to this day, while "better" acted and written games are often forgotten. It's because they did something special, whether they meant to or not.

This style of unintentional parody is dying art in the modern gaming world. As games become more and more able to accurately recreate the experience of watching a professionally produced Western film, those "master of unlocking" moments are growing closer and closer to extinction. All the more reason to applaud Capcom for including Barry in their next Resident Evil game, while shunning the arguably more "Hollywood" types like Leon and Ada.

So shine on Barry Burton, you crazy bearded diamond of a man. As long as you keep making those overly dramatic, declarative statements about blood, dining rooms, and weapons that are "really powerful, especially against living things", then I'll keep paying top dollar just to hear you talk.

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Unexpected things the Wii got right

In just over two weeks, Nintendo will unveil its new home console at E3. While everyone else is musing over the true nature of Project Cafe, I'd like to step back and reflect upon Nintendo's current white wonder. There may be a handful of high-profile Wii titles like Skyward Sword and Dragon Quest X on the horizon, but it's safe to assume that the console is in its twilight hour. I'd say it deserves a proper sendoff before the changing of the guard.

Depending on who you ask, the Wii is either one of the most successful or one of the most disappointing consoles to ever hit the market, perhaps both at the same time! Despite the early praise, explosive sales, and low financial entry barrier, the Wii didn't pan out quite the way Nintendo envisioned. We could sit here all day pointing fingers at who was responsible for its shortcomings, but there isn't much sense in playing the "woulda-coulda-shoulda" game.

Instead, I want to remember what the Wii brought to the table that the PS3 and Xbox 360 did not. The HD machines' technical complexity introduced problems that the Wii never had to deal with, while the Wii's own curious design choices resulted in some unintended yet not unpleasant benefits. The console may not have been what we expected, but sometimes the unexpected is a good thing!

INTRODUCTION OF THE SPLIT CONTROLLER

With all the hullabaloo over the Wii Remote's motion sensing and IR pointing, it's easy to overlook its other, more subtle innovation. The complete Wii controller -- Remote plus Nunchuk attachment -- is the first split controller to be the standard input method on a home console. The adverts and marketing may not have touched upon this, but the increased level of comfort is remarkable.

You can't grasp just how comfortable a split controller can be until you test it out for yourself. The matter certainly was far from my mind when I first bought my Wii back. After a few rounds with Wii Sports, I popped in Twilight Princess and was immediately struck by how relaxed I felt.

Forget "waggle" for a minute and instead picture a Wii game that requires minimal to no movement. With three feet of slack offered by the Nunchuk tether, your arms do not have to be locked in the traditional "hands out front and center" position, elbows out and wrists bent. You can drop your hands to your side or even drape one arm lazily across your belly and still have total control.

Oh! I almost forgot! It's lefty-friendly, too! Finally, an ambidextrous controller!

The split controller ought to be the standard for all future game hardware. There are literally zero drawbacks. I'm surprised third parties haven't offered split controller alternatives for the PS3 and 360, and if they have, I'm unaware of 'em! There's the PlayStation Move and its Navigation controller, but that setup is compatible with but tiny fraction of the PS3 game library!

Sure, the Wii's button layout isn't ideal, but that's only because the Remote was designed with Remote-only play in mind. There's no reason why the split format couldn't work with traditional button layouts -- D-pad, left stick, and a few triggers on one device, face buttons, right stick, and the other triggers on the second. Take notes here, hardware makers!

TOTAL BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY WITH PREVIOUS-GEN SOFTWARE

Earlier in the console cycle, I remember backwards compatibility being a cornerstone of message board debate. It's not an argument without merit -- when people buy new hardware, they don't want their current software library to become obsolete.

The Wii is a GameCube 1.5, so naturally it can play GameCube games! Be that as it may, it is because of the hardware parity between both consoles that the Wii can play every last-generation title perfectly. It's not a feature that can just be "locked out" to save a few bucks on manufacturing either, so it'll always be around.

Contrast that with the mess on the HD twins. On the 360, you need to download a game-specific emulation profile in order to run original Xbox software, so you are out of luck if you lack an Internet connection. The list of compatible software was gradually expanded to include roughly half of all original Xbox games, but there are no plans to expand the list any further.

The PS3 was doing quite well for itself in the beginning. The first models were compatible with most of the massive PS2 library as well as the PS1 library. Then the cost-cutting began -- hardware emulation gave way to less reliable software emulation which gave way to no emulation at all. But you can still play PS1 games! I dunno, I would think it's more prudent to maintain compatibility with software that is still widely available in major retailers and second-hand shops as opposed to software that only enthusiast collectors still have lying around.

But you can go into the any store right now and be 100% guaranteed that any Wii model you pick up will play any GameCube game. Granted, the Game Boy Player might not fit on the console's base, and you can't go online with the measly four GC titles that had the capability. Nonetheless, the Wii's track record is still leagues ahead of the competition.

A MARKET FOR SMALL-SCALE GAMES ON PHYSICAL DISCS

Rising development costs these past few years has forced small studios and project teams to become more risk-averse than ever before. What was financially viable one console cycle back could spell disaster if attempted these days. Thanks to digital distribution services like PSN and XBLA, though, these small-scale titles still have a place in the world.

I have mixed feelings about this arrangement. On the one hand, I'm pleased as punch that old-school arcade games, indie darlings, and risky experiments won't be going the way of floppies. On the other hand, I'm a person who prefers a tangible product over digital dust. I'm also not keen on the all-too-common assumption that games below a certain financial and technical threshold don't deserve a space behind the glass at Walmart.

The Wii's dreadful 40 MB software cap and cumbersome data storage methods ensured that the more promising digital titles would steer clear of WiiWare. However, because of the Wii's lower dev costs compared to the HD boys, smaller ideas could still go the retail route. This has led to copious amounts of shovelware for the most part, but it has also led to some simple yet fantastic pleasures.

The Wii has been especially kind to my favorite genre, the 2D side-scroller. Publishers somehow came to the conclusion that 2D was no longer relevant, that customers considered the style too primitive. Then New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold far better than any of Mario's 3D adventures, proving that publishers don't know their customers all that well.

Even before Mario, there was fare like Klonoa, Wario Land: Shake It!, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, A Boy and His Blob, and even less critically acclaimed licensed games like Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo and Astro Boy. Nintendo kept the love going with Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby's Epic Yarn (with another Kirby game down the pipeline), while third parties have continued to inject 2D sensibilities where appropriate. All are available on physical discs.

I know the side-scroller can work at retail for the HD tag team as well, considering the success of downloadable games like Bionic Commando Rearmed, Braid, and other non-platformers with markedly retro trappings such as Castle Crashers. To the best of my knowledge, the only retail side-scrollers available in that camp are the LittleBigPlanet games, which are arguably not about platforming at all.

At least Ubisoft got a clue and will sell Rayman Origins in stores. I have great respect for Ubisoft for displaying confidence that the game can succeed in spite of (or perhaps because of) its genre.

LESS TIME UPDATING AND PATCHING, MORE TIME PLAYING

I've only played others' 360s and PS3s, so I haven't had the joy of booting up a console and waiting impatiently as a mandatory firmware update installs. According to the trials of Sterling Odinson, those updates are not fun.

On the bench with firmware updates are game patches, truly a double-edged sword. It's fantastic that console games can now receive big fixes and features expansions after release. Unfortunately, publishers seem to take the system for granted, pushing several high-profile games out the door with game-breaking bugs under the safety net of post-release patching.

The Wii was not set up to easily accept downloadable updates. It's not impossible, but only a handful of games pull it off. Firmware updates can't introduce sweeping changes as on the other two machines and only appear a couple times a year at most. What does this mean for the user? Less time waiting and more time playing.

Are there Wii titles that could have used a patch or two? Most definitely! The pitiful netcode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl can attest to that! It also would have been nice if more games received post-release support in the form of additional content. By the same token, it's good that there is a current console built with the understanding that people's time is valuable.

I've yet to see a glitch in a Wii game that is so serious that downloadable patches would need to be mandatory. The worst case I recall was the cannon room bug in Twilight Princess, in which saving in said room at a certain point late in the game would prevent further progress and force you to start a new file. But the likelihood of a player actually triggering this glitch by chance was very slim. It's hardly on the level of some of the bugs on the HD beasts -- random save file corruption, frequent game freezing, and even friggin' patches for patches!

In regards to the more benign issues, I'm in the camp that doesn't much care to have its games needlessly "fixed." Developers shouldn't be allowed to keep slapping the "redo" button just to address harmless niggles. It's like George Lucas remastering the original Star Wars trilogy over and over again as though each revision isn't good enough. At least on the Wii, there are rarely any "takesies backies" and thus no waiting for patches that solve who-knows-what.

People have derided the Wii by calling it a toy, but I don't consider that an insult at all. When you want to play with a toy, you just play. If you want to play with some high-end gizmo, you have to configure this and that before you get the opportunity. It's time spent not playing, and nobody likes that.

SUPERIOR HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE RELIABILITY

Of the major console manufacturers, Nintendo has always had the most reliable hardware, so this benefit wasn't really all that unexpected. Still, it's a mark in the Wii's favor.

It's obvious that the more complex a machine, the more likely that some mechanism will fail. The HD twins, with their more advanced hardware and software infrastructure, were guaranteed to be more accident prone than the Wii. Then again, how many of these consoles' problems were the result of faulty design rather than the nature of the tech?

The 360 had the red ring fiasco, costing Microsoft over a billion dollars. The PS3 has the PSN security breach, which has yet to be resolved. In addition to those big blemishes, the devices have seen everything from disc scratching to the aforementioned patches and firmware updates that now and then caused further damage to the machines.

The Wii isn't flawless, but it's failure rate is significantly less than that of the HD duo, and other technical hiccups likewise appear less frequently. Also, people may lament the Wii's lack of a unified online system, but the odds of getting your personal data stolen are much lower than with a system that ties sensitive information like credit card numbers to your account.

It's a testament to the appeal of its software library that a console like the 360 can remain popular even after users suffered the deaths of multiple replacement consoles. The same could be said, albeit to a lesser degree, of the PlayStation line all the way back to the original (remember having to flip your PS1 upside-down just so it could read your game disc?). Regardless of what customers are willing to forgive, they are entitled to reliability in the products that they've spent big money on.

The Wii may have been inconvenient on several levels, but there were far fewer worries over potential inoperability. Of the three current consoles, I know which one stands the best chance of still working perfectly a decade or two from now. Ideally, strong software and reliable hardware shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in regards to what the manufacturer can directly control, the Wii best serves the user's basic needs.

-----

Again, I stress that the Wii wasn't perfect, and its list of cons could very well eclipse my little list of pros. Whatever, it still provided me plus many others with plenty of joy. We can only hope that Project Cafe will address all the Wii's shortcomings while expanding upon its strengths.

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Penguin confirmed for Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City will be getting a visit from Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, otherwise known as The Penguin. That's according to magazine scans that confirm the aristocratic villain's presence in Rocksteady's upcoming game. 

"The way that Penguin has always been portrayed is as quite an aristocratic, well-spoken gentleman who's got these twisted delusions of grandeur." said marketing man Dax Ginn in Australia's Sunday Herald, "So we've made him a really horrible, nasty piece of work -- but still with the delusion of grandeur. He dresses well, but in a poor taste, and we've made him this brutish, brutal guy but also key into collection fascination that he's had through out the years."

All that's left to say is Waugh! Waugh! Waugh!

The Penguin - Rocksteady Explain Their Vision [ArkhamCity.co.uk]

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Dtoid chat is down for an upgrade, try Dtoid IRC

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[Note: Our community chat system is going offline for a little bit, but did you know we have an IRC group?]

IRC has been a part of Destructoid's community interaction for almost 5 years now. Scary isn't it? It's a place where you can hang out when you're bored at work, class or just in general. It's completely unofficial, which means none of the things said on IRC reflect Destructoid in any official way. It's just all community all the time, and over the years it has even become a permanent hangout for a lot of people.

But it's also kind of an ancient method of online communication that can be hard for people to get connected to. A multiplayer notepad if you will. Hence this guide to help you out! It covers how to connect with a few popular Windows and Mac programs, how to connect from within your browser, your mobile and iPad devices and a few basic rules for IRC.

Basic info

This is the info you need if you already know how to connect with IRC in any client, or in case you ever forget what the details were:

Server:    irc.dynastynet.net:6667
Channel: #destructoid

Connect to server:  /server irc.dynastynet.net:6667
Join channel:         /join #destructoid
Change nickname: /nick Nickname

 

IRC on Windows

Windows users tend to stick with mIRC and X-Chat 2 for the most part, so we'll only cover these two in this guide. mIRC is not a completely free program, but if you don't want to pay for it you'll get a popup for a couple of seconds after the 30 day trial ends, which can be pretty easily ignored. X-Chat 2 on the other side is open source client for Windows and Linux and free.

mIRC

First, download the client here and install it. If you don't know what the installing options mean, just click next until you are done. It doesn't install any browsers, toolbars or anything like that. Then start up mIRC! If you get a window that asks for registration things, just click Continue.

The first window that should show up is mIRC Options, as shown below:

Just fill in the username you use on Destructoid as your Nickname, so people know who you are. The Alternative name is in case you temporarily lose your connection for any reason and your Nickname is still in the channel when you rejoin (it can take 3 minutes for your old Nickname to time-out from the channel at times). Just name it Username2 or something else that still keeps you recognizable. Keep in mind that you can't use spaces in your name, so use underscores for that instead.

Now click on Servers in the left tab of the same window. Scroll down to Dynastynet, double-click on it, click on Random server and click Edit on the right:

Name it whatever you want in Description just so you have a reference point for the future and click OK to close this window. Then click Select at the previous window to make this your default server. Click OK again to close this window as well. You are now ready to connect to Dynastynet. But to make things easier for you for future use, let's set it up to automatically join #destructoid whenever you start up mIRC.

With the mIRC options window still in front of you, go to Options on the left-hand list, below Servers. Check Connect on startup which does exactly what you think it does. Uncheck Show connect on startup so you don't get to see this window again every time you start up mIRC.

Now click the Perform button on the right. Perform let's you set up actions that mIRC will take whenever you connect to a server.

Check Enable perform on connect. At Network:, click Add and then select Dynastynet from the list. Now, in the white box below Perform commands: type the following: /join #destructoid

It should look like this:



Now just click OK to close the Perform window, and OK again at the Options window. You're all set and it's time to connect!

Click the little lightning icon in the top-left, below File. You may get a Windows Firewall popup asking you to allow it. And that's it, you can now chat in #destructoid and whenever you close and start up mIRC again, it will automatically let you join the channel without any hassle.

If you ever want to change anything at the Options screen again, like disabling sounds, just click the hammer icon right next to the Connect lightning icon and play around.

X-Chat 2

While there is an official XChat for Windows which is shareware with a 30 day trial (just like mIRC), X-Chat 2 is still completely free. Start by downloading version 2.8.6-2 here and install it. Choose compact installation if you don't know what Python or Ruby is, because it will complain about missing DLLs.

For people with other languages than English in their Regional settings in Windows: X-Chat 2 doesn't have a language change option for some reason. If it starts up in your native language and you want it in English, close the program, go to wherever you installed it and then go into the /locale folder. Delete every language folder except for en_GB and you're set.

X-Chat 2 is really easy to set up. After installing and starting the client, you'll see a window with a lot of things to edit. Just enter your desired Nick name, preferably your Destructoid username, a Second choice in case of a disconnect or suffer a connection drop, and set User name to be the same as Nick name. See below for an example:


Under Networks, click Add to create a new network shortcut for Dynastynet. Name it Dynastynet or Dtoid IRC or something and press enter. Now click "Edit" to launch the window you see on the right in the example above.

The new window will show newserver/6667. Click on this and change it to irc.dynastynet.net/6667. Check Connect to selected server only and Auto connect to this network at startup. Type #destructoid at Favorite channels. Click Close to close the Edit window. Check the Skip network list on startup box in the Network List window to skip this popup window in the future. Now click Connect at the Network List window and you are all set! 

It will automatically reconnect to #destructoid whenever you start the program again.

 

IRC on Mac OS X

Bob Muir of Japanator and Flixist fame, a.k.a. Necros, wrote most of this section for the original IRC guide, which should help you get connected on the Mac.

You've got a few options with clients such as Colloquy and X-Chat Aqua, which operates in a similar manner to its Windows-based cousin. Our latest addition to the IRC family, lolshin, pointed out that Textual is another great IRC client for the Mac. I don't own a Mac so I can't help you out with this one, but it should be pretty straight forward to set up if you use Colloquy or mIRC as a reference. It's not free though ($4.99).

We'll focus on Colloquy in this guide, as it's also available for iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Colloquy

First download, install, and start up Colloquy and you'll see this start-up window:

1. Enter your Nickname.
2. Under Chat Server, enter "irc.dynastynet.net" without the quotes.
3. Click Details. This will open the rest of the settings.

4. Check Remember this connection.
5. Under Username, enter the same thing as your Nickname, then hit Connect.

6. Your Connections screen will now have the server entered. In the upper right, click on Info.
7. At the top of this new screen, click on Automatic.



8. Check both Connect on launch and Open console on connect.
9. Under Join Rooms, enter "#destructoid" (no quotes), then close the window.
10. On your Connections screen, hit Connect.



11. As you connect, a bunch of notice screen will pop up on your right. You can just click on them to make them disappear. (If they bother you, there's a way to make notices appear in the console.)



12. The screen above will appear, and you're in! Click the down arrow in the side bar to see who is in the channel, then consider going to preferences to customize the appearance, which can range from iChat-like bubbles to pure old-school text.

 

Browser-based IRC

If you can't install a client because you are at school, work, or for whatever other reason, there are a couple of browser-based solutions to help you out. Mibbit is a website IRC chat which is the easiest to connect with. Chatzilla is a Firefox plugin which requires a bit more setting up, but because it opens in a separate window it can be useful if you are the type that has 100 tabs open all the time.

Mibbit

Go to the Mibbit site. At the IRC dropdown box, select Dynastynet [webirc] (typing "e" and going one up speeds things up). Enter your nickname, type #destructoid at the Channel: box and click Go. Boom, you're in.

Chatzilla

Install the Chatzilla plugin for Firefox. Restart your browser (boo!) and open Chatzilla under Tools in Firefox.

At the bottom-left, click on the button to change your nickname. Now go to Chatzilla -> Preferences in the top-left bar. Under Global Settings, go to Startup. At Auto-connect URLs, click Add... and type irc://irc.dynastynet.net/destructoid. That's it, you're ready to go!

 

IRC on Mobile devices

Bored in the bus, train or at the airport? Then just IRC on your iPhone, iPad or Android phone!

iPhone/iPad

Colloquy is also available for mobile devices, and should work equally well on the iPhone and iPad. You can grab the app on iTunes or via the official website which has some more info about the app. Unfortunately, it does cost you $1.99. Dtoider TheToiletDuck was helpful enough to provide some info about how to connect.

To connect, tap on Connections. Add a connection and make it look like this:

If you literally type in Dtoid Name, something is wrong with you. Leave everything else as default. Once you're connected, go to colloquies > + > room, search for destructoid and add it. That should be all there's to it!

Android

Popular Android apps are AndChat and Yaaic, both of which are free! I don't own an Android phone, so I can't really help you out with details on how to connect. Both apps should have a New Connection menu of some sorts though, so just use the above image for Colloquy as a reference. If you can't figure it out, AndChat has a screenshot gallery and the Yaaic site has some shots as well. Or just use any of the other methods to get into IRC and ask around!

 

Rules and etiquette

IRC does not have many rules, which makes it fun. However, there are usually ops(people with an @name) and half-ops (%name people) around who may kick you if you are being excessively dumb or if you are trolling badly. In general, here are some pointers to guide your IRC experience:

1. Don't suck
2. Don't be creepy
3. Politics are something that most people have an opinion about, which you are not likely to change for them. It's not something that is entirely off-limits but if the channel just becomes a politics discussion that the majority doesn't care about, don't be upset if the discussion is "steered" in another direction through various means.
4. If you post NSFW links, please add NSFW next to the link.
5. Don't ask for ops.

Other than that, pretty much anything goes as long as the atmosphere remains positive. IRC can go at a lightning speed sometimes, so don't feel insulted if you don't get a response if you say something in the middle of an ongoing discussion. It's easy to overlook lines in IRC so just roll with it.

During the UK/Euro daytime, there tend to be more European community members in IRC until the North Americans wake up. The period between the Euro evening to the U.S. evening/night time is when things usually get busier. Feel free to join whenever you like!

If you have any specific questions about this guide, feel free to post them in the comments. For anything else, just pop into IRC!

Thanks to everyone in IRC who has made it what it is today and a toast to the fallen. May they enjoy their "life"!

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Remembering the Wii's unexpected benefits

In just over two weeks, Nintendo will unveil its new home console at E3. While everyone else is musing over the true nature of Project Cafe, I'd like to step back and reflect upon Nintendo's current white wonder. There may be a handful of high-profile Wii titles like Skyward Sword and Dragon Quest X on the horizon, but it's safe to assume that the console is in its twilight hour. I'd say it deserves a proper sendoff before the changing of the guard.

Depending on who you ask, the Wii is either one of the most successful or one of the most disappointing consoles to ever hit the market, perhaps both at the same time! Despite the early praise, explosive sales, and low financial entry barrier, the Wii didn't pan out quite the way Nintendo envisioned. We could sit here all day pointing fingers at who was responsible for its shortcomings, but there isn't much sense in playing the "woulda-coulda-shoulda" game.

Instead, I want to remember what the Wii brought to the table that the PS3 and Xbox 360 did not. The HD machines' technical complexity introduced problems that the Wii never had to deal with, while the Wii's own curious design choices resulted in some unintended yet not unpleasant benefits. The console may not have been what we expected, but sometimes the unexpected is a good thing!

INTRODUCTION OF THE SPLIT CONTROLLER

With all the hullabaloo over the Wii Remote's motion sensing and IR pointing, it's easy to overlook its other, more subtle innovation. The complete Wii controller -- Remote plus Nunchuk attachment -- is the first split controller to be the standard input method on a home console. The adverts and marketing may not have touched upon this, but the increased level of comfort is remarkable.

You can't grasp just how comfortable a split controller can be until you test it out for yourself. The matter certainly was far from my mind when I first bought my Wii back. After a few rounds with Wii Sports, I popped in Twilight Princess and was immediately struck by how relaxed I felt.

Forget "waggle" for a minute and instead picture a Wii game that requires minimal to no movement. With three feet of slack offered by the Nunchuk tether, your arms do not have to be locked in the traditional "hands out front and center" position, elbows out and wrists bent. You can drop your hands to your side or even drape one arm lazily across your belly and still have total control.

Oh! I almost forgot! It's lefty-friendly, too! Finally, an ambidextrous controller!

The split controller ought to be the standard for all future game hardware. There are literally zero drawbacks. I'm surprised third parties haven't offered split controller alternatives for the PS3 and 360, and if they have, I'm unaware of 'em! There's the PlayStation Move and its Navigation controller, but that setup is compatible with but tiny fraction of the PS3 game library!

Sure, the Wii's button layout isn't ideal, but that's only because the Remote was designed with Remote-only play in mind. There's no reason why the split format couldn't work with traditional button layouts -- D-pad, left stick, and a few triggers on one device, face buttons, right stick, and the other triggers on the second. Take notes here, hardware makers!

TOTAL BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY WITH PREVIOUS-GEN SOFTWARE

Earlier in the console cycle, I remember backwards compatibility being a cornerstone of message board debate. It's not an argument without merit -- when people buy new hardware, they don't want their current software library to become obsolete.

The Wii is a GameCube 1.5, so naturally it can play GameCube games! Be that as it may, it is because of the hardware parity between both consoles that the Wii can play every last-generation title perfectly. It's not a feature that can just be "locked out" to save a few bucks on manufacturing either, so it'll always be around.

Contrast that with the mess on the HD twins. On the 360, you need to download a game-specific emulation profile in order to run original Xbox software, so you are out of luck if you lack an Internet connection. The list of compatible software was gradually expanded to include roughly half of all original Xbox games, but there are no plans to expand the list any further.

The PS3 was doing quite well for itself in the beginning. The first models were compatible with most of the massive PS2 library as well as the PS1 library. Then the cost-cutting began -- hardware emulation gave way to less reliable software emulation which gave way to no emulation at all. But you can still play PS1 games! I dunno, I would think it's more prudent to maintain compatibility with software that is still widely available in major retailers and second-hand shops as opposed to software that only enthusiast collectors still have lying around.

But you can go into the any store right now and be 100% guaranteed that any Wii model you pick up will play any GameCube game. Granted, the Game Boy Player might not fit on the console's base, and you can't go online with the measly four GC titles that had the capability. Nonetheless, the Wii's track record is still leagues ahead of the competition.

A MARKET FOR SMALL-SCALE GAMES ON PHYSICAL DISCS

Rising development costs these past few years has forced small studios and project teams to become more risk-averse than ever before. What was financially viable one console cycle back could spell disaster if attempted these days. Thanks to digital distribution services like PSN and XBLA, though, these small-scale titles still have a place in the world.

I have mixed feelings about this arrangement. On the one hand, I'm pleased as punch that old-school arcade games, indie darlings, and risky experiments won't be going the way of floppies. On the other hand, I'm a person who prefers a tangible product over digital dust. I'm also not keen on the all-too-common assumption that games below a certain financial and technical threshold don't deserve a space behind the glass at Walmart.

The Wii's dreadful 40 MB software cap and cumbersome data storage methods ensured that the more promising digital titles would steer clear of WiiWare. However, because of the Wii's lower dev costs compared to the HD boys, smaller ideas could still go the retail route. This has led to copious amounts of shovelware for the most part, but it has also led to some simple yet fantastic pleasures.

The Wii has been especially kind to my favorite genre, the 2D side-scroller. Publishers somehow came to the conclusion that 2D was no longer relevant, that customers considered the style too primitive. Then New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold far better than any of Mario's 3D adventures, proving that publishers don't know their customers all that well.

Even before Mario, there was fare like Klonoa, Wario Land: Shake It!, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, A Boy and His Blob, and even less critically acclaimed licensed games like Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo and Astro Boy. Nintendo kept the love going with Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby's Epic Yarn (with another Kirby game down the pipeline), while third parties have continued to inject 2D sensibilities where appropriate. All are available on physical discs.

I know the side-scroller can work at retail for the HD tag team as well, considering the success of downloadable games like Bionic Commando Rearmed, Braid, and other non-platformers with markedly retro trappings such as Castle Crashers. To the best of my knowledge, the only retail side-scrollers available in that camp are the LittleBigPlanet games, which are arguably not about platforming at all.

At least Ubisoft got a clue and will sell Rayman Origins in stores. I have great respect for Ubisoft for displaying confidence that the game can succeed in spite of (or perhaps because of) its genre.

LESS TIME UPDATING AND PATCHING, MORE TIME PLAYING

I've only played others' 360s and PS3s, so I haven't had the joy of booting up a console and waiting impatiently as a mandatory firmware update installs. According to the trials of Sterling Odinson, those updates are not fun.

On the bench with firmware updates are game patches, truly a double-edged sword. It's fantastic that console games can now receive big fixes and features expansions after release. Unfortunately, publishers seem to take the system for granted, pushing several high-profile games out the door with game-breaking bugs under the safety net of post-release patching.

The Wii was not set up to easily accept downloadable updates. It's not impossible, but only a handful of games pull it off. Firmware updates can't introduce sweeping changes as on the other two machines and only appear a couple times a year at most. What does this mean for the user? Less time waiting and more time playing.

Are there Wii titles that could have used a patch or two? Most definitely! The pitiful netcode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl can attest to that! It also would have been nice if more games received post-release support in the form of additional content. By the same token, it's good that there is a current console built with the understanding that people's time is valuable.

I've yet to see a glitch in a Wii game that is so serious that downloadable patches would need to be mandatory. The worst case I recall was the cannon room bug in Twilight Princess, in which saving in said room at a certain point late in the game would prevent further progress and force you to start a new file. But the likelihood of a player actually triggering this glitch by chance was very slim. It's hardly on the level of some of the bugs on the HD beasts -- random save file corruption, frequent game freezing, and even friggin' patches for patches!

In regards to the more benign issues, I'm in the camp that doesn't much care to have its games needlessly "fixed." Developers shouldn't be allowed to keep slapping the "redo" button just to address harmless niggles. It's like George Lucas remastering the original Star Wars trilogy over and over again as though each revision isn't good enough. At least on the Wii, there are rarely any "takesies backies" and thus no waiting for patches that solve who-knows-what.

People have derided the Wii by calling it a toy, but I don't consider that an insult at all. When you want to play with a toy, you just play. If you want to play with some high-end gizmo, you have to configure this and that before you get the opportunity. It's time spent not playing, and nobody likes that.

SUPERIOR HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE RELIABILITY

Of the major console manufacturers, Nintendo has always had the most reliable hardware, so this benefit wasn't really all that unexpected. Still, it's a mark in the Wii's favor.

It's obvious that the more complex a machine, the more likely that some mechanism will fail. The HD twins, with their more advanced hardware and software infrastructure, were guaranteed to be more accident prone than the Wii. Then again, how many of these consoles' problems were the result of faulty design rather than the nature of the tech?

The 360 had the red ring fiasco, costing Microsoft over a billion dollars. The PS3 has the PSN security breach, which has yet to be resolved. In addition to those big blemishes, the devices have seen everything from disc scratching to the aforementioned patches and firmware updates that now and then caused further damage to the machines.

The Wii isn't flawless, but it's failure rate is significantly less than that of the HD duo, and other technical hiccups likewise appear less frequently. Also, people may lament the Wii's lack of a unified online system, but the odds of getting your personal data stolen are much lower than with a system that ties sensitive information like credit card numbers to your account.

It's a testament to the appeal of its software library that a console like the 360 can remain popular even after users suffered the deaths of multiple replacement consoles. The same could be said, albeit to a lesser degree, of the PlayStation line all the way back to the original (remember having to flip your PS1 upside-down just so it could read your game disc?). Regardless of what customers are willing to forgive, they are entitled to reliability in the products that they've spent big money on.

The Wii may have been inconvenient on several levels, but there were far fewer worries over potential inoperability. Of the three current consoles, I know which one stands the best chance of still working perfectly a decade or two from now. Ideally, strong software and reliable hardware shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in regards to what the manufacturer can directly control, the Wii best serves the user's basic needs.

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Again, I stress that the Wii wasn't perfect, and its list of cons could very well eclipse my little list of pros. Whatever, it still provided me plus many others with plenty of joy. We can only hope that Project Cafe will address all the Wii's shortcomings while expanding upon its strengths.

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Here's some off-screen footage of the new Final
Fantasy

video details and more

Can't see the video? Click here

Here's another big name Japanese exclusive for the PSP -- more evidence that the PSP is the most divisive and unpredictable console of this generation. Before it released, the PSP was predicted to be the most overwhelmingly popular videogame system ever. The other consoles didn't stand a chance (link provided by FunETMan). Then a couple years after release, sales for the thing bottomed out in the US and Europe, never to rebound, despite all the great games that were released for it. Then after that, the PSP went on to become the best selling console in Japan for 2010, and continues to sell very well in that country (and only in that country) to this day. It's truly the most bizarre and unpredictable course to "success" I've ever seen in a game console's life cycle.

OK, tangent over, back to the news. Starting at around the 3:17 mark in the video above, we have some footage from Final Fantasy Type-0. The game has been in development hell for  along time;l being originally announced for cel phones in 2006, and making the jump to the PSP in 2008. It features a female lead, features real-time-meets-turn-based battles similar to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XII, and takes place in a fantastic, crystal packed world. Looks pretty fun, bit like Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, it's the kind of game that would do well with a PS3 port. That's the only way I see it selling anywhere other than Japan.

[Thanks for the tip, DarkFayte05]

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Sony Remastering PSP Titles for PS3, Monster
Hunter Up First

The PS3 is getting its very first Monster Hunter title through a Sony initiative that'll revamp PSP games for the console.

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PS3-Monster-Hunter-Up-First

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