The Nightstar Zoo

I know some of you out there may scoff at this system (before you have even seen it in action...); however, for those of you that do care Gamespy has some info and screenshots of the DS in action from E3. Check it out.

I will definitely be buying one.

What is it? A new handheld? How is this going to be better than the GBA? The two screens would be too confusing I would think, and not very practical for all types of games.

It's a GBA with more buttons, and a second screen, basically. It's going to replace the GBA the same way that the GBA replaced the GBC which replaced the GB. It's probably got a better processor and stuff than the GBA *shrugs*

Ehn, there's only ever been two games that have really captured my interest on any handheld gaming system... Tetris, and that Kirby game.

Otherwise, I've not seen a single game that looks like it'd interest me more than about 4 hours.

Maybe I'm missing something?

_________________
Fandemonium 2010 -- No Boundaries.
http://www.fandemonium.org
Friday - Sunday, August 6th - 8th, 2010
Nampa Civic Center - Nampa, Idaho (Only 20 minutes from the airport!)
(Idaho: It ain't just potatoes anymore.)

The thing I like most about the Game Boy systems are their backwards compatibilty, and the fact that Nintendo re-releases some of the good old games from NES/SNES games (remember dragon warrior?) on Gameboy carts.

I liked 6 Golden Coins and Bionic Commando on the Gameboy. And there are several good games for GBA, at least from what I can deduce from the emulator.
Yes, the backwards compatibility is definitely the best thing about them, it really sucks when you can't play your old games because the new system won't accept them. Nintendo may have lost the lead in the console business, but they still know how to make them.

Yeh, the cool thing about the DS is that the graphics are better than an N64. Or so I have heard. (and seen in screenshots)

Also, there's that weird touch sensative screen. Not sure how I feel about that, but at least this one will be backlit from launch. Stupid Nintedo not just releasing the stinking SP first...

Ah, but screenshots can be faked


I know Sega's Game Gear or Atari's Lynx or the Neo Geo Pocket didn't put much of a dent into Gameboy's market (why not I'll never understand. My family has 3 Game Gears), but you would have thought that when Nintendo was going to put out the GBA that they would have looked at all those other systems and said "Yeah, that backlighting thingie is a good idea!" Maybe they just wanted everyone to buy those annoying lights you put over the screen that block your view and never offer enough light.

That's why it was a disclaimer. I have decided to reserve judgement till I can play the system myself. But at the moment it looks superior to the PSP from the info I have seen.

I doubt it's BETTER than the N64, it could be close to or equal though.

Part of the problem is, the screens don't have the resolution to make it truly N64-level.

Actually, Kaz, a LCD screen that size can have every bit as much resolution as a TV has (if I remember correctly standard TV is 320x200, or at least some other obsurdly low number) and on a screen that size the same resolution will look better because it's so much smaller.

Uh, no. It's closer to 640x240 non-interlaced, 640x480 interlaced. It's actually a little bigger than that, (656 or some silly number like that.)

The Nintendo DS screens are rumored only mildly larger than the Gameboy Advance's 240x160. (Reports put each screen at 256x192, which make it ~1/3rd area of a non-interlaced tv screen, or ~1/6th of an interlaced one. )

The very high density display on my Tapwave Zodiac is only 480x320, half the screen area of a TV in interlaced mode (standard.) The Sony PSP is rumored to be slightly smaller still than the Zodiac. (something like 480x280)

But I doubt Nintendo would fake screenshots on their own web page and think they could get away with it...

Why not? It's not as if they have any real games ready for it yet. Just movies. Haven't you ever noticed that the movies of games are always better graphics-wise than that during gameplay? The old commercial for FFVIII springs to mind (it showed a bunch of the FMV cutscenes, but I don't recall any in-game shots). There is no proof of what it can do until it is released.

I know. But generally the company tries to avoid outright perjury so it doesn't get, oh I don't know SUED. They are not going to simply graft N64 images, so the screenshots should at least show what the processor is capable of, even if not in game.

The best thing about the GBA is the re-release of a bunch of SNES-era games for it. Sprite gaming lives!

Those of you who are dragging out television screen resolution are forgetting something: without the proper control software it is impossible to get the full resolution from a TV.

The original Commodore 64 screen was 24*8 = 192 pixels tall, and 40*8 = 320 pixels wide. The NES was similar. In fact, the difficulty inherent in making digitized video work properly with interlaced monitors is so great that as late as the N64, no console game hardware dealt with it.

Vorn

Any idea if the SNES Zelda is in there?

Vorn: Thanks for a dose of How Things Really Work.

the NES iirc was something like 256x256, but as early as the SNES, some games were pulling up the full 512 x 448 in certain sections (the overworld view of chrono trigger). Many PS1 games were somewhat non-interlaced in certain screens (FF7), but some were using the full resolution (including Final fantasy tactics.) I vaguely remember the N64 being interlaced on some of its games. (You can tell when you load it on a PC tv card.)

Here's a page stating that the maximum resolution of the N64's video control is 640x480
http://n64.icequake.net/mirror/www.whit ... co.uk/n64/
And another:
http://www.overclocked.org/emun64.htm
And a third!
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/n642.htm
And one for the Playstation, also stating 640x480 modes.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/playstation2.htm

Thanks for a dose of "not double-checking the facts before posting" you mean.

It certainly is. With a multiplayer game, too. The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past

He wasn't talking about game implementations. He was talking about hardware. Are you telling me these specific games all did their interlacing through hardware support? Or are you saying that they managed to hack in an implementation without it being directly supported? Also, I wouldn't say an inaccuracy about the N64 invalidates the point.

Fishy: thanks.

Uh, I was talking about hardware.
The hardware does support 640x480 on both the N64 and PS1, the spec sheets specifically list it. He said that the hardware for the N64 and earlier consoles did not support an interlaced mode, when the Spec sheet for the N64 shows one, as well as spec sheets for the 2 consoles released prior to the N64. (In fact, the N64 only has 3 modes it is capable of, according to the specsheets I've seen, one of them being the 640x480.)

If anything, game implementations is the place where he might be right. Very few games actually took advantage of those features in all parts of their gameplay. Many of them did it in mixed mode, some things in the higher, some in the lower resolution. Most N64 games that did take advantage of the built in 640x480 capability did so only with the Memory expansion, because the N64's memory was just too limited othewise.

And the conversation is about GBDS graphics in comparison to the Nintendo 64.

You're channeling Oggy.