Late Night Consoling

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Slow news!
  • Assassin's Creed: Exclusive or Not?

    [ps3]

    For several days now, there have been contradictory reports and pieces of evidence over whether or not Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed is a PS3-exclusive title. Currently, the game has only been officially announced by Ubisoft to be in development for PlayStation 3. However, back at Microsoft's X05 event last October, when the game was still unrevealed and known as the mysterious "Project Assassin's," exec Peter Moore listed the game as coming to Xbox 360. In the game's official reveal, it was listed only as coming to PS3--though the press released noted it had not yet been concept approved by Sony Computer Entertainment America.

    To complicate matters further, at E3 last week, several show attendees claimed that in the game's closed doors demos, it was not being shown on PlayStation 3 hardware, unlike other PS3 titles at the show. Rather, it was running from an unidentified concealed machine and played with a PS2 controller rather than a PS3 controller. Some speculated that the game was in fact on Xbox 360 and being controlled by a third party USB controller. There has been little evidence to back this particular assertion up. Ubisoft responded that the box was in fact a PC emulating the PS3 environment.

    It's hard to say whether the game is in fact exclusive to PlayStation 3, though it seems a very unlikely scenario. Ubisoft is known as a very multiplatform-oriented developer rarely putting out console-exclusive franchises, and to this day there has been no verbage from Ubi explicitly stating that the game is "exclusive" to PS3. Rather, the official company line is currently that PS3 is the only announced platform for the game. Don't be surprised if this one turns out to be a timed exclusive with the possibility of jumping to Xbox 360 and even PC later on.

  • Fear Effect Sequel Update

    [ps3] [xbox360]

    After yesterday's news from The Hollywood Reporter that Eidos will be licensing the rights to a Fear Effect movie and developing a new Fear Effect game, the publisher has officially commented on the situation. An Eidos representative stated that while the game is not currently in development, such a project is currently under discussion. The news may be just PR speak, with development already progressing, but it's just as likely The Hollywood Reporter jumped the gun.

  • The Outfit Outfitted with More Maps

    [xbox360]

    Relic Entertainment has release a new map pack for its WWII squad-based game The Outfit (X360). Entitled "Collateral Damage," the pack includes three new maps: Luftwaffe Finale, Bleak Mile, and Eagle's Nest. Collateral Damage is available from Xbox Live for 500 Microsoft Points ($6.25).

  • That Secret Port

    [nintendo]

    What is it about Nintendo hardware and weird little ports and flaps that nobody can ever identify? Remember the "secret port" on the DS that turned out to be nothing more than a microphone headset input? Anyway, that's been happening again with Wii. There's a small rectangular compartment to the left of the system's slot-loading disc drive (visible in this shot), and the internets have been rife with speculation over its function. Speculate no further. It's the system's SD card slot.

  • Misc. Q&As/Features

    Xbox.com has an interview with Rockstar San Diego's Benjamin Johnson regarding Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (X360). (Thanks Carnivac!)

    IGN has translated details of a new journal entry by Masahiro Sakurai on his upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii).

    E3 previews are still winding down. If you're interested, check that out at Game Informer, GameSpot, Eurogamer, IGN, GameSpy, and surely others. And hey, if you missed ours, here it is.

Console Game Of The Evening [Submit Yours!]

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for the Nintendo 64. "I was so excited when I saw a commercial for this in theaters. The game was frustratingly different (from OoT) at times, but lots of fun. I will even finish it some day!" (submitted by inarius)

From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 18, 2006 8:02 PM

    IGN has a nice new HD video of Super Mario Galaxy. It really shows off some of the pointer's functions in the game, for anyone wondering how that works, as well as it's wierd space gravity motif.

    http://media.revolution.ign.com/media/748/748588/vids_1.html

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      May 18, 2006 9:06 PM

      Nice find. Its certainly gives the best impression of how the wii-mote work in SMG I've seen. The "Planet Hopping, Boss Bot" video is awesome too: I love how the boss becomes part of the arena.

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        May 18, 2006 10:57 PM

        reminds me of SoTC, which is a good thing.

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      May 18, 2006 9:17 PM

      [deleted]

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      May 18, 2006 9:24 PM

      Am I the only one who thinks that's gonna be really hard to control?
      How does camera rotation even work anyway, or is it autocamera the whole time?

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        May 18, 2006 9:41 PM

        Only one in the entire world. That thought hasn't occurred to anyone but you.

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          May 18, 2006 9:59 PM

          :(

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            May 18, 2006 10:25 PM

            There is a button to centre the camera behind your head, but I haven't heard of any more camera control than that. Whatever they do, the camera control couldn't possibly be worse than in Super Mario Sunshine, right?

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        May 18, 2006 11:02 PM

        I played the demo at E3. The camera is pulled back further than in Sunshine, plus you are moving across small round planets, so there never was a noticeable need to constantly tweak your view. Of course, playing around with the controls was taking up most of my attention, but the camera's so seamless as to be pretty much a non-issue. Like I said, though, this is partially due to the level layout- you're never coming around sharp angular corners and other sorts of map elements that tend to fight with a camera. All in all, SMG had a flow that was much more focused than Sunshine. It didn't feel linear because there were so many paths you could take, but each path was pretty tight once you were on it- sort of felt like a fusion of the speed of a side-scrolling Mario with the open playground feeling of the 3D Marios.

        I'm not the ultimate Mario expert, but Galaxy would be an exciting game even without the snazzy controls. I felt like I was in gameplay overload for those 10 minutes.

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        May 18, 2006 11:30 PM

        They have padded rooms for people like you.

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        May 19, 2006 11:33 AM

        Autocamera. Nintendo has mentioned a few times recently that they think it's time for the gamer to stop having to control the camera in games. That could be great or disastrous depending on how it's implemented.

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      May 18, 2006 11:42 PM

      wait, the graphics look pretty spiffy, but is wii gonna do it in HD? cuz otherwise besides the novelty factor, couldn't GC pull off this game with similar graphics?

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        May 18, 2006 11:44 PM

        no hd 4 wii =(

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        May 19, 2006 12:13 AM

        From what I saw, I don't think the GC could do it with such a smooth framerate. There was a lot going on with the lava boss, for one example, not to mention everything takes place in one seamless, galaxy-sized map.

        Pretty much all the games I saw in the nintendo booth looked deceptively simple. Yeah there weren't too many overt reflective surfaces and bumpy bumpy bump mapping, but there was a sense of a lot of tech under the hood- the orchestra conducting demo, for example, blew my mind. Strangely enough, the game that looked the most like the 360 fare on hand was Project: H.A.M.M.E.R. of all things.

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          May 19, 2006 4:07 AM

          oh yeah, forgot sunshine was 30fps. that really got annoying :(

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