Slashdot Mirror

Can someone make a disgusting MOD for this- http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/americasarmyopera tions/index.html game.
I just love the idea of the US Army product getting a newer harsher rating because of a third party 'gay unclefucker gimp soldier' skin.

This really sets a dangerous precedent, to punish a company for an extension to a product that they have not made. It is exactly as stupid as Marvel (I think it was) suing the makers of 'City Of Heroes' because the users could create characters of their choice. You might as well censor school textbook publishers because of all the penis cartoons 'third-parties' have added.

I haven't seen anyone mention Warhammer Online yet, but it's the one on the list I am most looking forward to. It's made by the same people who made Dark Age of Camelot, which featured such things as Realm vs. Realm combat, and Warhammer Online will be heavily focused on player versus player action.

One of the best ways to keep an MMOG interesting is to utilize the best AI you can for the game, another human opponent. I play WoW, and while there is limited PvP through their Battlegrounds system, most of the action at the level cap is raiding. You fight through the same dungeons, with the same monsters and the same bosses, and once you learn it that raid instance is on "farm status". This becomes boring quickly as the encounters never change.

Some of the previews I've read about Warhammer Online said you can progress through the entire game solely through PvP based quests against real human opponents. You can choose to do some side quests, gathering supplies and the like, but you do not have to. I imagine the end game "raids" for this game would be storming another factions castle, full of human players of the opposing side, and would certainly prove to be different every time.

A nice preview of the game can be found here:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammeronline/new s.html?sid=6147072&mode=recent

"If true, this project will mark the first American Shadowrun video game in over twelve years..."

Before long, DirectX 10 is going to be required to play any new video games. So if you want to keep playing video games and get all the features and whatnot, you are going to have to upgrade to Vista.
Uh, no.

First of all, Sony is definitely not using DX. As recently as March, Sony PS2 games were the top sellers:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147802.html?sid=6147 802&sid=6147802

10 games on that list are PS2. 6 of the top 10 are PS2. The XBox 360 has only 4 games on the list, but they are all in the top 11.

I only found one source for these numbers, so they may be suspect:
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067&page=5
March 2006 US Console Sales
PS2 = 273,000
Xbox 360 = 192,000
Xbox = 83,000
GameCube = 63,000

Sony is doing just fine, and they are definitely not using DX.

As far as PC games go, DX has always been the biggest API, for obvious reasons: market share. If DX10 is tied to Vista, then that is no longer a compelling reason. What market share is Vista going to have at launch time, especially given that it is missing Christmas 2006, and all the bad press?

Game developers are going to face a choice:
- Develop for DX10, and target Vista alone.
- Develop two engines, one for DX9 and one for DX10. Target both Vista and XP, but double your development costs and support problems.
- Develop for DX9 or OpenGL. Target both Vista and XP, and possibly Mac OS X (if you use OGL).

I expect we'll see a couple high profile DX10 games that try to get everyone excited. The rest of the industry is going to going with the largest market share, and avoid DX10 until Vista is a significant market (25-50%).

It doesn't matter how much teens (or anyone else) like online gaming communities if they have a 56k modem. Playing Counterstrike:Source on a 56k isn't playing Counterstrike... I wouldn't even call it Duck Hunt. Consoles will work the same way unless you are playing turn based games. This really applies to the US because we still have such poor broadband coverage. MySpace, on the other hand, doesn't require a good connection.

On a related topic, if Microsoft really wants to increase the percentage of xBox Live users (which is 50% of 360 owners, taken from this slashdot article) then maybe they should consider spreading broadband instead of offering free upgraded service for a week.

KumaWar, anyone? Yeah, real innovative, EA.

WarGames (PC)
By: MGM Interactive, Interactive Std.
Genre: Strategy
Release Date: Jul 31, 1998

Difficulty: Hard
Learning Curve: About a half hour
Stability: Stable

Score: 7.1 (Good)

Summary: WarGames is a decent RTS game in the Command & Conquer vein. If you're hoping for a game that captures the feel of the movie or that can compete with the likes of Total Annihilation, Starcraft, or Myth, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you just can't get enough of building bases and solving puzzles disguised as battlefields, you will probably get a kick out of WarGames.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/wargames/revie w.html?q=wargames

Demo: http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/wargames/wg demo.zip.html

+++++++++

WarGames: Defcon 1 (PS)
By: MGM Interactive, Interactive Std.
Genre: Action
Release Date: Jun 30, 1998

Difficulty: Easy
Learning Curve: About a half hour

Score: 7.6 (Good)

Summary: While WarGames: Defcon 1 may not have allowed me to relive one of my favorite films, it is still a solid game with a fairly good back story. Dabney Coleman may be nowhere to be found here, but once you get past this slight oversight (all games should feature at least one picture of Dabney), you'll discover a great shooter.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/action/wargamesdefcon1/ review.html?q=wargames

WarGames (PC)
By: MGM Interactive, Interactive Std.
Genre: Strategy
Release Date: Jul 31, 1998

Difficulty: Hard
Learning Curve: About a half hour
Stability: Stable

Score: 7.1 (Good)

Summary: WarGames is a decent RTS game in the Command & Conquer vein. If you're hoping for a game that captures the feel of the movie or that can compete with the likes of Total Annihilation, Starcraft, or Myth, you will be sorely disappointed. But if you just can't get enough of building bases and solving puzzles disguised as battlefields, you will probably get a kick out of WarGames.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/wargames/revie w.html?q=wargames

Demo: http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/wargames/wg demo.zip.html

+++++++++

WarGames: Defcon 1 (PS)
By: MGM Interactive, Interactive Std.
Genre: Action
Release Date: Jun 30, 1998

Difficulty: Easy
Learning Curve: About a half hour

Score: 7.6 (Good)

Summary: While WarGames: Defcon 1 may not have allowed me to relive one of my favorite films, it is still a solid game with a fairly good back story. Dabney Coleman may be nowhere to be found here, but once you get past this slight oversight (all games should feature at least one picture of Dabney), you'll discover a great shooter.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/action/wargamesdefcon1/ review.html?q=wargames

sony profit reports on gamespot, or go to their earnings releases themselves.

"Sony's game division showed strong revenue performance but lackluster profitability, with 958.6 billion yen ($8.2 billion) in revenue yielding only 8.7 billion yen ($75 million) in income"

Let me summarize. SCEx has been making money. Just a little less right now, probably due to PS3 development costs

Gamespot: What grade do you give Xbox, version one, in the area of marketing and advertising?

Peter Moore: I'd say a B. One of the things that probably stopped us from being an A- is, [even though] we created a very cool and aspirational brand, we need to broaden the appeal of the brand. Not losing, or disenfranchising in any way, the gamers that got us there today--which is always a marketing challenge--but we have to grow.

But at the same time, we need to make sure we continue to talk to the more hardcore gamer, the early adopters. That has been an important part of our success, and we fully intend to do that. At the same time, we need to provide an even more approachable feel and tonality to the brand, and we need to do things differently.

For shame. EA buys Westwood, guts the company and the IP, slaps Command & Conquer on an unrelated RTS, and resells the best damn games ever with the developer labeled as EA LA.

Fucking bullshit.[/rant]

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/brothersina rms3/news.html

"Next chapter of Gearbox's Brothers in Arms franchise named, confirmed for PS3, Xbox 360, PC; dated for holiday season."

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/brothersina rms3/news.html

"Next chapter of Gearbox's Brothers in Arms franchise named, confirmed for PS3, Xbox 360, PC; dated for holiday season."

on the hardware front, it was revealed that the Xbox 360 sold through just under 200,000 copies in North America in March, showing the continued shortages of the console, allegedly now ameliorated. Elsewhere, the PlayStation 2 still led the way with almost 275,000 sales, and the Xbox (just under 85,000) and GameCube (just under 65,000) brought up the rear.

This compares to 160k XBOX 360s sold in Februrary according to February game sales continue slide:

According to industry sources, more than 160,000 Xbox 360s were sold in February. That compares to more than 300,000 PlayStation 2's, more than 170,000 PlayStation Portables, and over 150,000 Nintendo DS units sold during the month of February.

The only really interesting number to me is that almost six months after the launch of the 360, PS2s are still moving off the shelves faster than 360s. But before one reads to much into that, it ought to be recognized that the 360 hasn't been introduced into all markets while the PS2 has pretty much gone into every geographic area where it will be sold. Hence when the March numbers were released, which included Australia for the first time, it wasn't the same comparison as for February. The flip side of that fact, though, is that XBOX sales in existing markets may have declined in March. I don't know how many units were sold in Australia and other new markets that ought to be subtracted from the 200k March figure to compare to the 160k Feb figure.

In any case, better numbers won't really be availible next year. IMO, the key numbers to watch for (assuming Revolution and PS2 launches this fall) will be the Q4 2006 reports. Although, it will be significant if the PS2 continues to outsell the 360 in Q2 and Q3 of 2006.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/news/show_blog_entry .php?topic_id=24533453

looks like thats one of the games you wanted to brag about

article link they're referring to is:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147946.html

I'd also like to point out another article that SquareEnix themselves published:

http://www.ffxifestival.com/devpanel.html

That second one doesn't refer to a PS3 version at all actually. It only talks of a new MMORPG for the 360 and Vista. It's near the bottom:

During E3 2005 we announced that the FINAL FANTASY XI development team had begun work on a next generation MMORPG for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. We can't talk too much about the next generation MMORPG, but we're sure you'll find it very exciting.

So I'm going to guess they'll do all 3, but I suppose we'll find out more info at E3.

Oddly enough the article http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147946.html says "The Xbox 360 operating system shares enough similarities with Windows, he said, so that porting the Windows version of FFXI to the 360 was a fairly quick task. A PS3 version of FFXI, on the other hand, would require redeveloping the game almost from scratch, a process that Tanaka estimated would take two or three years."

Which is virtually the opposite. So why are they annoucing it for the PS3 then saying it could take a few extra years to get on the PS3. A few years time between PC launch and PS3 launch would be death to the PS3 launch. Rather pointless really.

link to article: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147946.html

For turn-based tactical fun, try Age of Empires II for the DS.

Dunno why they didn't give it a differant name than its PC RTS cousin.

You make good points, but not everything can be demoed. I personally hate paying $7 for a game rental at blockbuster and haven't really gotten into the whole rent by mail craze because I really don't watch/play that many movies/games a month to make it worthwhile. As for PC games, a lot of games started giving multiplayer only demoes a few years back and I hated that too. Actually, I think the best source for demos is by far IGN's movies when all else fails. Those give you a decent sense of how well the game looks and feels. Plus, I usually wait a few weeks after a game comes out (learned that with Republic) and see what the online feeling is. Also let's patches come out for those PC games and lets people get online for those multiplayer only titles. But like you said, let the buyer beware and make sure the game is really worth top dollar before you buy.

Sadly, there already was a Super Vader Kart.

Hey, whadda ya know... that actually is an easter egg in Guitar Hero:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/puzzle/guitarhero/hint s.html

Guitarist uses Air Guitar

At the main menu, quickly press Orange(2), Blue, Yellow, Orange.
If you entered the code correctly, a message will appear.
Repeat this code to disable its effect.

1) We have rumours being bandied about that SOE is going to lose the SWG license.

They already did update and re-release X-Wing and Tie Fighter once, using the XvT engine.

See: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/xwingcollectorsseri es/review.html

And X-Wing Alliance wasn't too shabby either. But gamers nowadays don't want space sims. They want the shallower console space shooters, like Rogue Squadron, or Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter.

I think it is
Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
8.7 great game
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/masteroforion2 baa/index.html

You can always try Space Rangers 2. It's not a clone, but the premise is very similar with wildly different SF game styles fused into one whole. It's dirt cheap too. Check it out.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/spacerangers2domina tors/review.html?q=space%20rangers

In other countries, South Korea for instance, gaming is treated more like a sport.
From the article:

Two cable TV networks, known as Ongamenet and MBCgame, compete for viewers with their own 24-hour programming dedicated to PC and console gaming. Fierce gaming competitions are held, backed by major corporate sponsors, and studios overflow with live audiences trying to catch a glimpse at players who are practically given celebrity status.
...
Their number one program is called Ongamenet Starleague, which is a three-month long Starcraft tournament broadcast live every Friday beginning at 7:00 p.m.
...
According to The Korea Times, Ongamenet and competitor MBCGame have been ranked among the top 20 shows in monthly viewership among South Korea's 99 cable TV channels.

Yeah, it's definitely not a sport for champions in South Korea. (And that was just the first article I found)

Heart of Darkness. It was on the PC too.

You're right.

As far as I know, there are NO adult titles released for the Mac. For windows, however, it's a whole different story.

Artificial Girl, for example, is on it's second release and 3D accelerated! (with very accurate... erm... customizable model)

And there are tons more others that's cartoon based. Most are from japan so if you just look at a torrent site in the adult games section, you should find many.

linky: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/artificialgirl2/ind ex.html (no screenshots or anything, but should get you started)

AVG:
http://free.grisoft.com/
Ad-aware:
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Editi on/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=lst-0-1
Spybot Search and Destroy:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000 -8022_4-10401314.html?tag=lst-0-2
Hijack This!:
http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-8022_4-103 79544.html?tag=lst-0-1
Firefox:
http://www.firefox.com/
Trillian:
http://www.trillian.cc/
Spywareblaster:
http://www.download.com/SpywareBlaster/3000-8022_4 -10486084.html?tag=lst-0-1
And just about anything from:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/index.html

Well, I think the group size is really too small, and thus trying to measure changes in sex and drugs habits for such a small population is pretty ridiculous, but they did choose an interesting comparison in games.

In a study like this, it's really difficult to avoid comparing apples and oranges. And really, the only way I can think of doing that is to compare a violent game and one of those made-for-Walmart special versions of the game, which I don't even know exist anymore. However, Gamespot's review of The Simpsons: Hit & Run mentions that the game's pretty much a cartoon, less violent GTA, so I've definitely seen worse comparisons when videogames are involved.

That being said, their measurements are still pretty crappy. Homer drinks tons of beer, whether characters in GTA games use condoms or not isn't really explicit, and there are times in Tetris where I'm sure my blood pressure would be higher than in either of these two games...

1. Only "one third" (seven) will by made by Nintendo. RTFA.
2. You listed Mario RPG twice, though you're actually accurate since there are two such franchises: Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi. Both franchises have a spotless record.
3. It's "Wario World", and there's only been one. And while it was good (for a rental), it certainly sucked compared to most Treasure developed games.
4. Almost every (real) franchise you listed has been critically acclaimed at one point or another, and some of them (Zelda, Mario, Mario Golf/Tennis, Metriod (sic) Prime) are totally outstanding. Well apparently some people didn't like Sunshine, but I'm still listing Mario platformers as having an outstanding record.
5. To imply that the Revo is going to be the only console that will have sequels is pretty questionable.

1. Only "one third" (seven) will by made by Nintendo. RTFA.
2. You listed Mario RPG twice, though you're actually accurate since there are two such franchises: Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi. Both franchises have a spotless record.
3. It's "Wario World", and there's only been one. And while it was good (for a rental), it certainly sucked compared to most Treasure developed games.
4. Almost every (real) franchise you listed has been critically acclaimed at one point or another, and some of them (Zelda, Mario, Mario Golf/Tennis, Metriod (sic) Prime) are totally outstanding. Well apparently some people didn't like Sunshine, but I'm still listing Mario platformers as having an outstanding record.
5. To imply that the Revo is going to be the only console that will have sequels is pretty questionable.

Another note to mention is that even though a developer can have as many combinations of hardware as possible, there's no feasible way for them to have them all.

Some games are pickier with hardware than others. I seem to remember Command & Conquer Generals being very picky about your memory. If you had any error at all, the game would crash. People that had other games running fine (UT2k4, RTCW) had to get new memory because the old memory was causing C&C Generals to crash. I was one of them. No matter how many tests I ran on my memory, it kept coming up good, but as soon as I removed the faulty stick, C&C Generals ran fine.

There are also some other bugs, including a certain NPC who doesn't behave properly (goes to the wrong house at night, etc) but with hundreds of NPCs, I can see one or two escaping. I've been playing Oblivion pretty religiously since it came out and haven't found any glaring bugs other than the occasional CTD.

Oblivion doesn't seem rushed at all to me. I've played other games where the game was completely unplayable to all but a select few people who ran the magic combination of hardware/software, not to mention glaring bugs in AI and graphics (major ones, such as all ATI/Nvidia cards seeing an error) that make you wonder what the developers were smoking to NOT notice it. Even console games are not immune to games like that. See Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly.

And yet, who tries to regulate gaming ??

Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman, notorious conservative Republicans

And where did they try to limit games ? Michigan. As I recall, a Democrat signed that into law.

Heck, let's fire up the Wayback Machine. Remember the Communications Decency Act ??? ???. Sponsored by Senator James Exon, D-Nebraska. . .

Yep, look to the GOP to censor games and the Net. . . You keep forgetting the real rule of politics: When something sensational comes up, a politician will say "We need to DO something about this!!!"

And immediately, another politician pulls out a vaguely topical bill and says " THIS is something. . . ."

Followed immediately by a crowd of pols chorusing "Let's do it!!"

Which is why we get such heinous things as the CDA and the Patriot Act . . .

Does everything have a stupid lens bloom (the new lens flare)

Does everything have a stupid lens bloom (the new lens flare)

Does everything have a stupid lens bloom (the new lens flare)

Does everything have a stupid lens bloom (the new lens flare)

Idiot...

Yesterday in the Senate there was a hearing, to "determine" if video games are protected speech under the first amendment. A bipartisan panel of Republicans and Democrats called witnesses, including victims of violent crime "caused by video games", sociologists who assert video games cause violent crime, legal authorities to explain why video games aren't protected under the first amendment, etc.

You got to be utterly braindead to believe that when the Republicans and Democrats both say "Video games cause violences, they are not protected by the first amendment, and we are going to strictly regulate them", that they don't intend to ban or strictly regulate games. I mean, how much more clear do they have to be?

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/adventure/grandthefta uto3/news.html?sid=6146902

Eh, the MS paying bit might just be "Internet Theory," but that's beside the point. Ubisoft's Shanghai studio developed both the PS2 and Gamecube versions. Check the credits for proof of that. If that's not good enough, here's an interview that, aside from the usual preview BS, shows that Shanghai worked on those versions, with the PS2 version having a three month lead on the GC version.

As for porting, a side by side comparison of all versions immediately shows that the level designs are identical between the PS2 and Gamecube versions and between the Xbox and PC versions. It took a while, but I finally found the comparison screenshots that prove this: 1,2,3,4,5. The second and fifth ones make it especially obvious that the PS2 and GC versions are the same game, and different from the PC and Xbox versions.

Once again, if you look at the graphics in games designed to take advantage of the Gamecube hardware, it's pretty clear that Splinter Cell and its sequels could look much better than they do. They don't because Ubisoft went cheap on the Gamecube.

"There's no such thing as "Direct3D 10"..."

This may add some clarification to the naming issue:

Excerpt from: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6143883/p-4.html

"It's been called DirectX 10, Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0, and most recently, Direct3D10. The naming situation will clear up as we get closer to the official Windows Vista release, but all you have to know is that DirectX 10 and Direct3D10 in particular will introduce a new era in PC gaming."

Direct 3D10 will support older (current) 3D cards BUT is very much optimised for cards (not yet built) that have geometry shaders and can pass data to and from the GPU-CPU easily as well as being able to use system ram for textures.
So you can have a 256mb 3D card (Vista compatible), that can use system ram as well. Onboard graphics chips will still be fine as long as they are Vista compatible. Lots of cheap ram on the mainboard will make 'em run ok.
It is estmated that the GPU-CPU system can handle textures and other bits up to 6 times faster than currently optimised 3D cards can.
Looks like we're in for a treat with big games, high textures, smaller polygons and lots and lots of ram.
But I wouldn't expect that kind of performance at the outset.... Maybe when Vista SP2 comes out.....
Check out: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6143883/p-4.html

Ja, those screens are definatley from the Ghost series.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146924.html

The Xbox360 will be bundled with EA's 2006 FIFA World Cup along with face plates that match Japan's national soccer team's colors and some accessories. I can imagine other themed bundles will soon follow.

I've randomly stumbled into info about a game in production which sounds close to what you describe. It's called Hellgate: London.
It's pretty much a diablo-like FPS set in a demon filled london. It has levels and equipment, but the controls are like FPSes. Also the levels, monster placement and items are randomly generated (like Diablo). The weapons include guns and melee weapons, which can then be upgraded with items. Also there are stats and skill trees.

Dunno about the plot or anything more tho it seems pretty interesting.

"It's not just about the plumber, the blue hedgehog is making his way onto the revolution as well"

Yeah, those Sony and Microsoft fanboys are really missing out.

"It's not just about the plumber, the blue hedgehog is making his way onto the revolution as well"

Yeah, those Sony and Microsoft fanboys are really missing out.

Sony is going to make at least part of their catalog avaiable online both for PS3 and PSP. Thus the argument is valid. Sony discussed such a service here at GDC.