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First I ever heard about this game was last year when I didn't have access to my beautiful gaming PC for a few months, so I borrowed a friend's Xbox 360 and discovered the N+ demo. It was awesome.

Coming back to my PC and checking out N itself, I was... disappointed. I mean, the base gameplay is all there, but N+ just looks, feels, and sounds SO much better. Not to mention you have to use the keyboard. Keyboard and mouse is only good for FPS and RTS games. Platformers are extremely better when played with a gamepad.

I hate consoles just on the point of them being so vastly inferior to PCs, I mean what is gaming without free mods, updates, and multiplayer? Shit, that's what.

I would be more then prepared to pay $5-10 for a PC version of N updated to N+ standards, and the benefit of this none of the money would get stolen by microsoft, as I imagine roughly half of the profit being made by N+ is.

I'm of the school of thought that N PC is far superior to N+ because it's so stripped down. I really can't stand the updated graphics of the newer game, and when I play it on my DS I switch to classic view as default.

Also, gamepad use just isn't anywhere near as accurate imo. I suppose it's because I'm so used to playing on PC. It's also never going to happen, for better or for worse.

Bedsides, the real beauty of the PC version lies here in its custom maps community. I'd recommend you check out the editor on the PC version as it's far superior to the console variants, and the community site is VASTLY greater than the online map sharing options of the console versions.

Well you're the first person I've ever met who actively preferred stripped down graphics. Super Metroid may be a far superior game to Metroid Fusion, but I've never met anyone who believes the earlier title was better looking.

As far as gamepad use being less accurate, that's crazy talk. On a keyboard you have a choice between 0 and 1, stop or go. For anything that requires accurate movement you're reduced to quickly tapping the key a few times, and even then you'll be way off. It's like trying to push a kart with a two-story bus. With an analogue stick you have several hundred different degrees of sensitivity, the most precise control over movement possible, so for a game based wholly and completely around precise movement it would kinda make sense to use one.

As for your third point, absolutely correct, I even made that point myself in my original post, it's the reason why it's such a godawful shame that we're stuck with the inferior version of the game.

T0bias wrote:Well you're the first person I've ever met who actively preferred stripped down graphics. Super Metroid may be a far superior game to Metroid Fusion, but I've never met anyone who believe the earlier title was better looking.

It's not the stripped down, it's the minimalism. Regardless of the graphics, the game at the core is the same. I agree with atob in that I prefer v1.4 to N+, simply because it isn't all that flashy, it's a simple, addictive game.

T0bias wrote:As far as gamepad use being less accurate, that's crazy talk.

Seeing as both versions are optimized for their respective platforms, the talk is sane as can be. I find controlling N PC a lot more satisfying/responsive than any of the console versions.

Also, yes, I should have said minimal I supposed. And it's a stylistic choice. I prefer artistic, heavily stylised graphics over realistic. And I know a few people who prefer retro 8-bit styles over 3rd gen super rendered, it's not so difficult to believe people like that exist is it?

T0bias wrote:As far as gamepad use being less accurate, that's crazy talk. On a keyboard you have a choice between 0 and 1, stop or go. For anything that requires accurate movement you're reduced to quickly tapping the key a few times, and even then you'll be way off.

As far as that goes, having a gamepad wouldn't make any difference in this case. The game mechanics don't allow for variable acceleration that the gamepad would let you control. If its to the right in any degree, you accelerate at the same amount, whether you just barely nudge it to the right or shove it over as far as it can go. If the game let you accelerate at different amounts, then I would give you that point. But unless you rewrite the physics engine, thats not going to happen.

a happy song wrote:Bedsides, the real beauty of the PC version lies here in its custom maps community. I'd recommend you check out the editor on the PC version as it's far superior to the console variants, and the community site is VASTLY greater than the online map sharing options of the console versions.

I just want to point out NReality just because it's another great feature N offers, (NReality is made by Unreality not Metanet Software) you can play numa maps via NReality just entering the map ID ( nmaps.net/mapIDhere ) and you can upload your speedrun / highscore of the map via NReality server, and with NReality, you can choose to use variety of enemies that is not avaible in original N v1.4 using Mod Master kkstrong coded.

Your whole original post is a bit absurd, Tobias. Metanet Software consists of only 2 people, so it takes quite a while for them to code things, not to mention the fact that they don't necessarily feel like coding major graphics updates for old software - they'd like to progress along on their new projects. They've promised to give N a major revamp (known as v1.5) when they are done with their current project, Robotology, but it's been a long time coming and still no one expects that update anytime soon. Also, I assume they can't port the graphics updates they made for N+ back to the PC due to changes in the structure of the code and/or rendering system compatibility issues.

Also, N hasn't been updated by others because it was made in ActionScript (Adobe Flash). The only person in this community who knows how to program in ActionScript (named Unreality) has indeed made an update called NReality, which is more secure for highscoring, somewhat syncs with NUMA, and allows for various mods to the game, including graphical mods (nothing like the depth-adding N+ background, though). Unreality is not going to make a major graphics update to the game because that's a huge project that he would have to tackle in his spare time, plus he may not feel like he really knows where to go with it artistically. Also I don't think Unreality is that active in the community these days anyway.

So there you have it. Yeah it would probably do the community good to have a major update like v1.5. But yeah, we're still gonna keep playing v1.4 anyway, 'cuz it's fun.

In addition, the versions of N+ were coded by third party companies, and Metanet were used largely as consultants. I'm not even sure Mare or Raigan would have the capacity to code the N+ features into regular N.

a happy song wrote:I'm of the school of thought that N PC is far superior to N+ because it's so stripped down. I really can't stand the updated graphics of the newer game, and when I play it on my DS I switch to classic view as default.

Also, gamepad use just isn't anywhere near as accurate imo. I suppose it's because I'm so used to playing on PC. It's also never going to happen, for better or for worse.

Bedsides, the real beauty of the PC version lies here in its custom maps community. I'd recommend you check out the editor on the PC version as it's far superior to the console variants, and the community site is VASTLY greater than the online map sharing options of the console versions.

Nailed it on the head. I might even accuse you of thought theft, because I'm sure I was going to say exactly that.