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Everybody loves Daikatana! Look at all these great reviews:

• Sharky sez it rawks! yeah right
• FiringSquad: "It is absolutely inferior in almost every conceivable way."
• Damage Gaming say: "I gave it a 3 out of 5, and that's generous"
• CTNews: "in the end all I got was frustration"
• GameSpot gives it a 4.6 out of 10
• DailyRadar: "Ultimate Gas Hands. Need we say more?"
• GameProWorld damns with faint praise: "It's not that bad."
• Computer Games Online gives it 1.5 stars - "amateurish epic lands with a spectacular thud"
• PC.IGN: "It's finally here. And we reviewed it. What? What else do you want us to say?"
• Honest3D - "You all know that I didn't enjoy Soldier of Fortune - well I liked it a lot more than Daikatana."
• GameCenter gives it a 3 out of 10: "Daikatana is a waste of your time and money. Go play Half-Life again instead."
• Happy Puppy: "It'll make you wish it never came out at all"
• GameZone actually seemed to kind of like it
• GameSeek really did like it! "f I had to describe this game in a word or two I would say that it is most entertaining!"
• Ingava didn't hate it all that much
• Game Revolution: "[A]lthough the game is nowhere near as good as it was promoted to be, ... it is not the worst game released this year. It is, however, stunningly outdated and mediocre."
• Maximum PC: "Four years for this?... It sucks. It sucks big-time. In fact, it sucks so bad, we have to wonder what kind of curious monstrosity the developers could have created with an eight-year product cycle.
• GameFan: "It's not as bad as you think."
• PCGamers.Net: "Final Score: 70 out of 100, and I'm disappointed. Sigh."
• GamePig: "Daikatana isn't a bad game, and was often fun to play. However, it's got several flaws that kept me from really enjoying it."

If you're at all curious about how the hell this happened, GameSpot has a great article called "Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana" that gives all the gorey details. They also have a complete walk-through, though the concept kinda makes me shudder...

--
Anonymous cowards are looking forward to the DVD letterboxed release of Ishtar

Here's another short preview at GameFan.

Here's another short preview at GameFan.

THQ is a half-assed outfit.
Acclaim games will always suck.
Movie-Based Games will always suck (except Goldeneye).
Games based on licenses (spawn, McKids, etc) will suck worse than a broken hoover.

I do have to agree with you on the "Linux VS. NT" test, as they borked it all up. Although I really don't think they were "paid" by micro$haft, they most likely fixed the outcome to stay in microsoft's favor. Considering all the "alternative OS" crap they've been mentioning, Microsoft's gotta be pretty peeved at their little llamas.

For official Magazines, here's my picks:
PC: Maximum PC. they like linux, and are pretty straight-up. They even interviewed Linus Torvalds in their last issue of Boot (when they were still called that).
Linux: either Linux Magazine or Maximum Linux.
PC Gaming: PC Accelerator. good, and funny.
Console Gaming: GameFan. They're also keen on emulation (as seen by www.vintagegaming.com)

DavesClassics is dead. Long live Zophar.net

THQ is a half-assed outfit.
Acclaim games will always suck.
Movie-Based Games will always suck (except Goldeneye).
Games based on licenses (spawn, McKids, etc) will suck worse than a broken hoover.

I do have to agree with you on the "Linux VS. NT" test, as they borked it all up. Although I really don't think they were "paid" by micro$haft, they most likely fixed the outcome to stay in microsoft's favor. Considering all the "alternative OS" crap they've been mentioning, Microsoft's gotta be pretty peeved at their little llamas.

For official Magazines, here's my picks:
PC: Maximum PC. they like linux, and are pretty straight-up. They even interviewed Linus Torvalds in their last issue of Boot (when they were still called that).
Linux: either Linux Magazine or Maximum Linux.
PC Gaming: PC Accelerator. good, and funny.
Console Gaming: GameFan. They're also keen on emulation (as seen by www.vintagegaming.com)

DavesClassics is dead. Long live Zophar.net

Ding! Your link, sir.


http://www.gamefan.com/NewHotInfo/hotinfo.asp?st oryid=591

This follows reading a coupla threads, and doing a bit of looking around.

1. Backward compatibility: The I/O processor in the PSX2 is the old chip. They're guaranteeing no improvements to old games, 'cos they're just interfacing that chip it so that it will be running the old games (apparently). Not software emulation, good old 100% hardware. It'll take the old controllers, too; a lot of the demos were done with dual-shocks hooked up.

2. DVD capability. So far, they're still undecided about DVD movie support; It *does* have MPEG2 (used for texture compression, interestingly) and DVD-ROM, AC-3/DTS sound support, so it would certainly kick some serious hiney if they did, but they haven't implemented the interface and are unwilling to go on record either way yet. I'd imagine it would depend on how much they want to compete with their own products.

3. Interesting tidbits: it may not ship with a modem. But, I/O wise, it will apparently include PCMCIA (not sure about # ports or anything),IEEE 1394 (FireWire), and USB capability. Graphics: NTSC, PAL, HDTV and VESA compatible. Software-lib wise, they're also going to be trying to provide extensive physics libs for real time rendering, and avoiding motion capture. Criminy.

4. One comment had a Sony rep saying they'd be using their own proprietary stuff for internal OS, as they didn't want to use "inefficient" external stuff. Seems fair, they need a RTOS. Doesn't trying to make Linux go on that HW sound tempting, tho?

I hope I have only decreased the UD ratio.

Sources:

Australian Playstation Review Page- psx2 news

Gamefan

Sony Playstation pages