More pathetic Mario Sunshine shots

Originally posted by fastson
I sure as hell hopes it looks better in motion.

Cuz Jak and Daxter are having a fun time raping Mario right now

You have got to be kidding me. Jak and Daxter was one of the least original, least memorable plataformers I have probably ever played. The only redeeming aspects of the game were it\'s graphics and the control, but otherwise it was a total dissapointment.

I\'m sure you have no idea how Mario Sunshine will play, and niether do I, but the only way it can turn out worse than J&D is if they .... actually I can\'t think of any way that it could turn out worse. Even if Nintendo just flat out gives us an update to Mario 64 it\'ll still be better than Naughty Dog\'s uninsipred souless clone.

err, what else is there besides graphics and control?

atmosphrere?  had that
quality audio?  had that
advertising that featured scantily clad women?  had that

good graphics + good control = ?

Originally posted by mm
err, what else is there besides graphics and control?

atmosphrere?  had that
quality audio?  had that
advertising that featured scantily clad women?  had that

good graphics + good control = ?

How about gameplay?

An interesting challenge to keep you playing; a clever reward for your efforts; something to look forward to in the game; an element of exploration or discovery; action sequences that require some amount of finger dexterity; puzzles that get you to use your grey matter...

Any one of these things could have made J&D a better game. Given enough time and money any developer can implement good control and good graphics in their games, but good gameplay is something that requires creativity, and a certain touch. As much time as some developers may take, sometimes they just can\'t make their games fun.

atmosphere = gameplay

j&d has plenty of it

a crappy ending, mind you, but dont 95% of all games today?

Innovative or not..

At least I enjoyed the hell out of it. And thats what’s important, to me.

J&D might have gameplay, but it certainly isn\'t that great in the graphics department.

I played it for a good 5 minutes on a kiosk yesterday.. and all I could think was "Donkey Kong 64".

Originally posted by Blade
J&D might have gameplay, but it certainly isn\'t that great in the graphics department.

I played it for a good 5 minutes on a kiosk yesterday.. and all I could think was "Donkey Kong 64".

Composite cables right?
I play mine via a SCART RGB, 32" Wega tv..

Game looks absolute gorgeous.. One of the best looking games ever IMO.

Originally posted by fastson
Game looks absolute gorgeous.. One of the best looking games ever IMO.

Yeah, the graphics in J&D are beautiful.  Sometimes I boot it up just to go around looking at the graphics.

Kind of off topic -- Naughty Dog said the sequel will focus more on gameplay.  A lot of work went into the engine for J&D, so adding lots of innovative gameplay was probably their last priority.  Now that the engine is built, they can focus mainly on gameplay and add their new graphical tweaks to the engine (like bump mapping) as a second priority.

Oh, and the sound was great, and the voices were dead on, but the music sucked!  This isn\'t the 16 bit generation anymore Naughty Dog.  The systems are capable of a lot better music.

Originally posted by IronFist

Oh, and the sound was great, and the voices were dead on, but the music sucked!  This isn\'t the 16 bit generation anymore Naughty Dog.  The systems are capable of a lot better music.

I was particularly dissapointed in the sound myself. Mainly because all of the trailers I saw prior to the games release had really cool music, and the music in the actual game was completely different. It sounded like a bunch of random sound effects.

Originally posted by kangu-G^Ltt^s
I was particularly dissapointed in the sound myself. Mainly because all of the trailers I saw prior to the games release had really cool music, and the music in the actual game was completely different. It sounded like a bunch of random sound effects.

Exactly.  After seeing the many many trailers, I was shocked when the music was so much crappier.  Music (or the lack thereof in the case of ICO) is one of the best immersion tools in a video game.  It can give a game with even the crappiest graphics a sense of actually being there.  Unfortunately, NaughtyDog didn\'t use that fact to their advantage, and instead gave us boring "sound effects" as you call it (I agree with that completely -- it really wasn\'t "music" to me).  It didn\'t take away from the game, but it definately didn\'t help it like music should.  I hope that they make the music a higher priority in their next game.

[Bobs_Hardware]

Originally posted by kangu-G^Ltt^s


How about gameplay?

An interesting challenge to keep you playing; a clever reward for your efforts; something to look forward to in the game; an element of exploration or discovery; action sequences that require some amount of finger dexterity; puzzles that get you to use your grey matter...

wtf?  an interesting challenge to keep you playing?  

1.  the games story was kinda interesting from a platforming perspective..

2. the idea of collecting items for an actual purpose is much MUCH more rewarding than "collect 100 coins and get an extra life" and what not..  what the hell are you talking about?

3. Something to look forward to?  like what? theres nothing in any other platformer ive played that has had \'something to look forward to\' other than finishing the game/finding out more story.. this at least does have new acesssible areas, vehicles, enemies, challenges, storyline of course.. and others

4. an element of exploration and discovery???  come on man, this has more of that than any platformer ive ever played.. particular with the implementation of having an entire world renderred, rather than just a singular level to go through over and over (7 times perhaps ) to get everything..

5. there are plenty of action sequences, my personal fav. part of the game is using the hover vehicles, damn that can get like Pod Racer sometimes

6.  Puzzles?  eh, yeah there are some of that