While doing research I found some old articles about the final days of Asheron's Call 2, before it was shut down. Some pretty interesting stuff as far as what went on and how people acted, especially this one: http://www.killtenrats.com/?p=554

And I recently wrote an article about game patches where I mentioned Asheron's Call 2 here: http://wetheplayers.net/the-catastrophe-of-game-patches/#more-39

Did anybody here play that through to the end?

Having played a ton of FPS's, I can't say it's similar to a lot of other games. It does have a good pace, and there are a lot of detailed factors that make battles complex (weapons, items, vehicles, and the ways that some weapons work differently in different situations).

No, the games aren't too much different between 1-2-3. Graphics are nothing special. Story is a joke. Characters are instantly forgotten. Master Chief has like 5 spoken lines throughout the series. Why it's popular, it's a decent game that experts and casual players can enjoy, I guess. But as for why people actually like the universe or think Master Chief is a cool hero, wow, no idea.

Trophies are a sign of noteable accomplishment. The more you have the more you've accomplished. Having more doesn't devalue their meaning. emitsu97

Shrug. It just makes the value of them blurry to me. Your sig says you have 36 trophies, so they aren't looking very trophy-like. Winning a tournament or something, that would seem more fitting for a "trophy." Not to disregard your accomplishments or anything, I just think they would feel more, like, desirable that way.

That's a good point. At numbers that high, having something like 872 trophies loses any point of reference. And it doesn't sound like it would mean very much.

If you had to bust your ass to get one trophy they'd feel a lot more valuable.

Remember game carts that didn't match all the other games in the system? Legend of Zelda on NES was gold, as you surely remember. Anybody know what that was all about?

I remember Pac-Man on Nintendo being like black and a different shape, Doom on SNES being red, Killer Instinct on SNES was black, and a lot of EA games were shaped differently. Anybody know of other games?

Shadowrun (also SNES version)DeafNYCPlayer

Awesome choice, Shadowrun (both versions but especially Genesis) were SO ahead of their time. You have class.

A lot of really great recommendations here, you guys make me proud. Especially Panzer_Zwei saying Cyborg Justice since I just wrote about that game in my blog (aw, come on, don't be shy!). Let me add Splatterhouse 3, Mutant League Hockey, Pit Fighter, and GENERAL CHAOS!

It's actually a good sign. It means that "casual gamers" are not dumb. They are buying the system but not the games, because most of the games are crap and they refuse to wade through it. Nintendo and others may actually come around to the fact that Mario Kart is outselling even a good casual game like Wii Fit, and most others aren't even brushing close. Wii excelled due to an excellent marketing campaign. It certainly did not succeed on the strength of its library. They may yet realise that dumbing things down and taking out all of the challenge will not make games as popular as the console.

clicketyclick

It's possible, but after all we've talked about in this thread, I'm not going to get my hopes up. I don't know the habits of casual gamers, but I'm trying to think of unlikely people I know who do own a Wii. So many of them are the kind of people who are intimidated by an Xbox controller because it has "too many buttons." I just could never see somebody like that actively looking up Wii games on a site like Gamespot. These people may not buy another game until somebody recommends it to them, or until they see a TV commercial about one that looks fun. So we don't know the habits of these people but Nintendo probably does. Buying one game a year might be enough to call the Wii's business model a success.

It kinda figures I suppose. Nintendo is still the same Nintendo that put out Virtual Boy and the Power Glove.

clicketyclick

Hm, I almost made a comparison to Virtual Boy too. UH OH, NINTENDO!

What I'm saying is they have and continue to miscalculate their audience. You may think that sounds odd to say considering how well the Wii is selling, but third party devs have complained that they're not getting a share of the good fortune and the attach rate is low - often reported as the lowest of all three consoles (and lower than the previous gen's, I'll wager.)

clicketyclick

I didn't know about those attachment rates, that's a real bad sign. That makes the Wii sound like a trend or curiosity, which is certainly possible.