Check out the new generation of Nintendo games in gorgeous high-definition on the Wii U console - an amazing value the whole family can enjoy.Video Game Workout . As those of you who’ve followed this blog in any of its previous incarnations (Nutwiisystem. PS3. Fitness. com, 3d. Playstation. net) know, the “holy grail” I’d been seeking for so many years was a active gaming experience on a console so immersive and compelling that “you got a workout without even realizing you were exercising”. We’ve come close over the years, with popular games like Just Dance for the Wii, Kung Fu for Kinect for the Xbox One, and Move Fitness for the PS3. But as fun as those games were and as captivating as the experiences became, you never quite forgot that you were in front of a TV as you tried to stay within the game console sensors. The series' logo as of Super Smash Bros. My jabra sport bluetooth headset will not turn on or connect to my iphone, is there anything that i can do? This is the second one that I have had this issue with in. So I’ve decided to be an early adopter to virtual reality technology. But that begged the question, do I choose an HTC Vive, an Oculus Rift, or a Playstation VR? In my last post on the subject I went through the rationale of why I was choosing the PSVR and the Playstation 4. The main reason came down to cost: it’d cost close to $2. PC and an Oculus or Vive, when it’d be closer to $8. PS4 and a PSVR. But User- friendliness was another reason.
I tried out the Vive at my brother- in- law’s place recently and I was impressed by the technology, but as with a lot of things in the PC gaming world, setting it up and using it just felt more involved and “technical” than I would have liked. While I’m a pretty technical person in my work life, in my leisure time, I really just prefer not to think too much to set up hardware and software. I just want to start using it. So that reinforced my decision to go with the PS4, as Sony has a lot more experience with “plug and play” than Oculus/Facebook or HTC. Honestly, I hadn’t really been planning on getting a Playstation 4. There just aren’t enough hours in a day for me to play console games anymore. But with the potential of virtual reality for fitness, suddenly that equation changed. From a perspective of time, I wouldn’t be wasting time playing video games if that playing resulted in me working out and improving my health. And from a cost perspective, the cost would be comparable to buying an expensive piece of home exercise equipment or a gym membership–with the difference being that I’d actually use it. So throwing caution to the wind, I bought a Playstation 4 Pro and a PSVR, knowing full well that there weren’t likely to be any mainstream game developers developing “active games” for them today. This is thanks largely to Microsoft. Remember when they tried to “force” all their users to the Kinect? There was a huge backlash from the gaming community, and most industry experts point to that as the moment that the Xbox One was forever doomed to lag behind the PS4–and that motion controls in gaming officially died. Not soon after that, Microsoft, Sony, and even Nintendo abandoned active games and motion controls. While executives at Microsoft are probably still scratching their heads at why the Kinect failed, to me the answer has always been obvious. With the exception of Nintendo and maybe one or two independent developers out there like Virtual Air Guitar, most developers just didn’t “get it” when it came to motion controls. ![]() They lazily tried to develop video games the way they always did and slap the Kinect interface over them, essentially making motion controls just a proxy for button mashing on a controller. Luckily there was a backlash the other way and they quickly backtracked and said that some PSVR games MAY NOT require Dualshock Controllers. To Sony’s credit, something else they did was rather than tossing the Playstation Move (which had always been pretty good technology), they’ve decided made it part of the PSVR experience, to the point of including it in the launch bundle. I think this was prescient of them. While the marketing folks at Sony are clearly skittish, my prediction is that once people try out a few VR games, they will DEMAND motion controls. In other words, players of virtual reality games want to replicate “real” reality–and the reality is that most of us “move” when interacting with our world. But we will probably have to wait a bit. Looking over the launch titles it looks like most games still depend heavily on the Dual. Shock and/or your head movement to control things. And even games that do use the Move controllers seem to do so fairly passively–you use the Move controllers to pick up and examine objects, shoot a gun, and so on. So as far as the launch titles go, there doesn’t seem to be much as far as “PS4 fitness games” go as far as creating games that will get you sweating and your heart rate up. But hopefully once enough people adopt the technology some independent developers will start to “get it” and develop native VR games that toss away old paradigms. Here’s hoping that someone, somewhere is working on games that’ll let you go boxing, hit a baseball, swing a tennis racket, and so on. That said, I’m always scouring the Playstation Store online to see if there are any games that might fall into the category of an active game that’s good for a workout. If you hear of any PSVR games that sound like they might be good for exercise and workout (or if you’re a developer working on such a game), definitely let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to showcase it here. Having said that, here are some of my first observations about the VR technology itself. Playstation VRTo be honest, my first impressions of my new PS4 really weren’t much different than my old PS3. Granted, it has better better graphics (and still no 4. K Blu- Ray. But outwardly, it doesn’t seem too much different than the big black box that was the PS2 and the big black box that was the PS3. On the other hand, the PSVR unit impressed me as soon as I unboxed it. I decided to go for the launch bundle. Opening the box there were two other boxes, one holding the Playstation Worlds CD, the Move controllers, and the Playstation 4 Camera, and the other with the PSVR unit. They clearly engineered the PSVR box not just to be utilitarian but also to be impressively designed a la Apple. The box is made of thick glossy cardboard, the top cover dramatically opens to reveal the contents (and stays propped open with a built- in strap), and inside you’ll find all the parts neatly organized in other boxes, underneath which is the VR headset itself. It was clearly designed to reflect a premium product. It could have been an involved process getting it set up, but they made it easy by including a giant instruction manual with big, clear pictures for each step–literally devoting a page for each time you have to unplug or plug a cable. Every included cable is even tagged with a large number tag, which is repeated on the outer box and in the manual. Clearly unlike HTC and Facebook, they intend to sell this to the masses and not just to techies. It’s really hard to mess this up. The parts consist of the VR headset, a processor unit (controller box), an HDMI cable, a USB cable, an AC adaptor and power cord, a connection cable for the VR headset with two plugs on one end and two jacks on the other, and stereo headphones. If you bought the launch bundle you also got a Playstation 4 camera (required) and Move controllers (required for certain games). They made installation pretty simple. All wires go into what they call the Processor Unit, which is the “brains” of the PSVR. It has ports for a power, a micro USB connection to the PS4, an HDMI connection to the PS4, an HDMI connection to your TV, and two jacks for you to plug in the cable to the PSVR headset. To start, you basically need to unplug your HDMI cable from your PS4 and plug it into the VR box. You’ll plug a new HDMI cable from the box to your PS4. This allows video signals to be sent to the VR headset’s OLED display. You also will need to plug your Playstation Camera into your PS4, if you haven’t already. This is not the same Playstation Camera for the PS3. It’s a unit with two lenses about the size of a large roll of Menthos that you put in front of your TV screen. You should also install your PS Move controllers if you haven’t already (these are the same that they sold for the PS3). Finally, you plug the VR processor box’s power adapter into an AC outlet, and plug the VR headset to the VR processor box using a long cable they included. The cable was the one thing I wasn’t crazy about with the PSVR–I like the fact that they made it long so you can sit plenty far from your TV, but the way the cable goes into the headset it always seems to get in your way when you try to put the headset on and off. The headset consists of a bulky white headband holding bulky lenses that look like a cross between ski goggles and a Star Wars stormtrooper mask. It took some getting used to getting it to fit properly on my head, but it’s pretty well engineered to accommodate just about any head size and shape. You can expand the circumference of the headband to accommodate individuals of any head size by pressing a white button on the back and stretching it, or you can tighten it by rotating a round gear. Similarly, by pressing a black button on the bottom, you can move the goggles closer to or away from your face to ensure a snug fit against your face. Between the cables, adjusting the top band for your head, and adjusting the snugness of the goggles to your eyes it takes a bit of effort to get your headset on. But after about 1. I finally was able to get it on and off pretty quickly. I wear glasses, but the goggles fit perfectly on top of them. You then power on the PSVR unit by pressing the power button that’s on a small control unit on the long cable (which also includes volume control, a headphone jack, and a mute button). They wisely didn’t make all the buttons the same feel–the volume buttons stick out, while the power button is flush with the unit, so you don’t have to guess when you’ve got the glasses on and are pressing it. Super Smash Bros. All five games have been directed by Masahiro Sakurai. The gameplay objective differs from that of traditional fighters by aiming to knock opponents off of the stage instead of depleting life bars. The original Super Smash Bros., released in 1. Nintendo 6. 4, had a small budget and was originally a Japan- only release, but its domestic success led to a worldwide release. The series achieved even greater success with the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee, which was released in 2. Game. Cube and became the best- selling game on that system. A third installment, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, was released in 2. Wii. Although HAL Laboratory has been the developer of the first two titles, the third game was developed through the collaboration of several companies. The fourth and fifth installments. The 3. DS installment was the first series title to be released on a handheld platform. The series features many characters from Nintendo's most popular franchises, including Mario, Fox Mc. Cloud, Link, Kirby, Samus Aran and Pikachu. The original Super Smash Bros. Some characters are able to transform into different forms that have different styles of play and sets of moves. The games also feature non- playable Nintendo characters, like Ridley and Petey Piranha. In Brawl, two third- party characters were added, Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. Additional third- party characters Mega Man, Pac- Man, Ryu, Cloud Strife and Bayonetta appeared in 3. DS and Wii U, while Solid Snake was removed from the line- up. Every title in the series has been well received by critics, with much praise given to the multiplayer mode experience. The Super Smash Bros. It was released worldwide after selling over a million copies in Japan. There are two match types that can be chosen: Time, where the person with the most KOs at the end of the set time wins; and stock, where each player has a set amount of lives and are eliminated from play when their lives are depleted. This game's one- player mode included one adventure mode that always followed the same series of opponents although the player could change the difficulty. Other single player modes exist such as Training and several mini- games, including . All of these were included in the sequel, with the exception of . Melee (2. 00. 1)Super Smash Bros. Melee was released November 2. Japan; December 3, 2. North America; May 2. Europe; and May 3. Australia for the Game. Cubevideo game console. It had a larger budget and development team than Super Smash Bros. Since its release, Super Smash Bros. Melee has sold more than 7 million copies and was the best- selling game on the Game. Cube. Melee features 2. There are also 2. It introduced two new single- player modes alongside the Classic mode: Adventure mode and All- Star mode. Adventure mode has platforming segments similar to the original's . Additionally, the game featured alternative battle modes, called . The 2. 93 trophies include three different profiles for each playable character, one unlocked in each single- player mode. In addition, unlike its predecessor, Melee contains profiles for many Nintendo characters who are either non- playable or do not appear in the game, as well as Nintendo items, stages, enemies, and elements. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2. 00. 8)Although a third Super Smash Bros. The trailer featured Solid Snake, of Konami's Metal Gear fame, marking the first time that a third- party character had been introduced as a playable character in a Super Smash Bros. A second third- party character, Sonic the Hedgehog, from Nintendo's former rival Sega was also confirmed as a playable character on October 1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in Japan on January 3. North America on March 9, 2. Australia on June 2. Europe on June 2. Brawl is also the first game in the franchise to support online play, via the Nintendo Wi- Fi Connection. The player also has the ability to change the configuration of controls and the controller type. Brawl features a new Adventure Mode titled Super Smash Bros. Brawl: The Subspace Emissary. This mode features unique character storylines along with numerous side scrolling levels and multiple bosses to fight, as well as CGcut scenes explaining the storyline. The Subspace Emissary features a new group of antagonists called the Subspace Army, who are led by the Ancient Minister. Some of these enemy characters appeared in previous Nintendo video games, such as Petey Piranha from the Mario series and a squadron of R. O. B. s based on classic Nintendo hardware. The Subspace Emissary also boasts a number of original enemies, such as the Roader, a robotic unicycle; the Bytan, a one- eyed ball- like creature which can replicate itself if left alone; and the Primid, enemies that come in many variations. There are five difficulty levels for each stage, and there is a method of increasing characters' powers during the game. The game was released for Nintendo 3. DS in Japan on September 1. North America and Europe on October 3, 2. Australia on October 4, 2. The Wii U version was released on November 2. North America, in Europe on November 2. Australia on November 2. Japan on December 6, 2. The recruitment page consisted of a listing for programmers for Super Smash Bros. Wii U and Nintendo 3. DS. The page noted there were 1. Bandai Namco expected that number to increase to 2. However, shortly after its publication, the page was taken down. However, it is currently unknown as to whether it will be another installment in the series or an enhanced port of the 3. DS and Wii U versions. Characters have a damage total which rises as they take damage, represented by a percentage value that measures up to 9. As a character's percentage rises, the character can be knocked progressively farther by an opponent's attacks. Additionally, some characters vary in weight, with lighter characters being easier to launch than heavy characters. This allows combos to be performed. A shield button allows players to put up a defensive shield which weakens with repeated use and will leave the player unable to move if broken. Combining the shield button with directional inputs and attack buttons allows the player to also perform dodges, rolls, grabs, and throws. There are conventional . Recovery items allow the user to reduce their damage percentage by varying amounts. Brawl introduced the Assist Trophy item which serves a similar purpose; instead of releasing Pok. Time mode uses a point based system in which fighters earn points for knocking out their opponents and lose points for being knocked out or self- destructing (i. The player with the highest score at the end of the set time limit wins the match. Survival uses a life- based system in which players are given a set number of lives, known as stock, with each fighter losing a life whenever they are knocked out, becoming eliminated if they run out of lives. The winner is the last fighter standing once all other fighters are eliminated or, if a time- limit is applied to the match, the fighter with the most lives remaining once time runs out. In the event of a tie, such as two or more fighters sharing the highest score/life count at the end of the time limit or remaining fighters losing their last life simultaneously, a Sudden Death match takes place. Here, each of the tied fighters are given a starting damage percentage of 3. In some games this process is repeated if the match ends in another tie. Gameplay using competitive Smash Bros. Starting with Brawl, characters from third- party franchises have also made playable appearances. At the start of each game, some of the fighters will be locked from play. To unlock a hidden fighter, players need to clear certain conditions, such as playing a certain number of matches, and defeat that fighter in a match. In Brawl, players can also unlock fighters by encountering them in the Subspace Emissary mode. In Super Smash Bros. However, they are otherwise identical to Bowser Jr.^ abc. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, this Pok. In 3. DS/Wii U, only Charizard is available as a standalone character.^ ab. In 3. DS/Wii U, there are slight name variations between NTSC and PAL versions. For the NTSC characters . Lucas was released alongside Roy and Ryu on June 1. In 3. DS/Wii U, Mewtwo is a bonus downloadable character. Mewtwo was released on April 1. Club Nintendo members who registered both versions of the game, and was available later for purchase on April 2. Brawler, Swordfighter, and Gunner are under one slot labeled as Mii Fighters, and cannot be used in online matches against strangers.^In 3. DS/Wii U, four of Olimar's alternate costumes change his name and appearance to Alph. However, Alph plays the same as Olimar.^In 3. DS/Wii U, Roy is a bonus downloadable character. Roy was released alongside Lucas and Ryu on June 1. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Zelda can transform into Sheik using her down- B attack and vice versa. This can also be done in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, though players are also able to select Sheik within Zelda's character icon on the character select screen. In 3. DS/Wii U, they are both standalone characters.^In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Samus and Zero Suit Samus can be selected individually on the character select screen, or can alternate between each other by performing their respective Final Smash attacks. In 3. DS/Wii U, they are both standalone characters. Non- playable characters. The following characters are non- playable characters unless using glitches or cheat cartridges, that appear only in the various Single Player modes throughout the series, controlled by the computer, as hazards in specific stages, or in Smash Run. Most of the non- playable characters were created for use in the Super Smash Bros. These bosses generally have a number of advantageous characteristics, such as extreme resistance to being knocked off the screen. Most of these bosses were created specifically for the Super Smash Bros. Melee, the 5. 0th Event Match . In Melee, Master Hand is playable via a system glitch.
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