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You bought the cut down version, with many cars and tracks missing. This is not the same as the final version - it costs nearly half as much!

Anyway I found another interesting article - this one has pictures of the cars and a video feature(s) as well...

You bought the cut down version, with many cars and tracks missing. This is not the same as the final version - it costs nearly half as much!

Anyway I found another interesting article - this one has pictures of the cars and a video feature(s) as well...

You bought the cut down version, with many cars and tracks missing. This is not the same as the final version - it costs nearly half as much!

Anyway I found another interesting article - this one has pictures of the cars and a video feature(s) as well...

It's rare you see a title where everyone has an equal opportunity to get shot in the face.

how true. not since Carmageddon have i been so tickled by the so-indiscriminantly-violent-i-cant-help-but-laugh thing. i mean, seriously, had Rockstar put in Polish dudes into gta instead of Haitians or god knows who else, i would have bought this game even sooner. i would not have been offended in the least, Polish heritage and all.

Anyway, since people have found this out a couple of months ago, there are already 100 Jedi running around the servers

What are you talking about?

the first jedi

was found about a month ago. No others have been reported.

Counter-strike seems to attract the gangstas.

LA asian gangs in this example.

There's a good article on the development of the title at gamespot, here. And after Jordan Mechner saw the demo to approve the game (he owns the rights to the PoP name) he told the all-new deveelopment team "Guys, what I've just seen has reawakened the joy of making video games to me." So, yeah, good point but you couldn't have picked a more inappropriate example.

Read this Gamespot Article for the full skinny on why Torn was cancelled. Maybe cancelling it wasn't so bad after all.

i stumbled onto this a while ago after hearing somewhere about Van Buren.
when Mr. Sawyer left Black Isle, i had a feelin sumthin shitty was abrew :(

First X box live allows it, and now gameboy games are getting patched. I think it's great that Nintendo is going the extra mile for it's customers, but as soon as console game makers get the idea they can rely on patching, shipping games broken will be as prevelent as on the PC.
Hooray. At that point, consoles get added to the list of vices i'll be able to cut out of my budget.

Every time someone talks about this bug or that bug on a console game it seems like people start complaining in the way that you are now complaining. "Oh no, patching will mean that formerly bug free console games will now have bugs. Why oh why are PC game makers so lazy? Blah blah blah."

Bugs have been with us in consoles for a very long time. Remember Enter the Matrix? It's not alone. SSX Tricky has bluescreened my GameCube, people have already mentioned KOTOR and Crimson Skies, the list goes on.

And it's not limited to modern games. Bugs have been around for ages, just we called them 'glitchs' and wrote them up in FAQs as cool things that people could explore. Here are a few, to refresh your memory:

NES Metroid
On most levels with the doors you shoot to cause them to open you can use a door to climb up many many walls/levels above. Simply shoot the door and stand with the front 1/2 of Samus wedged where the door will reform. After you are partially ''sealed'' by the door just quickly tap up and down on the control pad. You will slowly climb up the wall. It is possible to get stuck while using this trick.

Super Mario World
Go to World 1-2. At the pipe that leads to the flag, break two blocks so there's one at the end touching the pipe. Now duck and jump backward toward the brick (don't break it!). You should go through the wall and pipe into a warp zone. Jump down the first pipe you see and you will be in the Negative World (-1)!

And so on and so on.

Which brings me to my second point. The reason that there are more bugs on PC games is because there are a lot more ways that things can go wrong. On a console you have one set of hardware and maybe a few different controllers. You have a very small OS and no other programs running.

PCs have untold billions of possible configurations, countless types of inputs, a very large and complicated (and buggy!) OS competing for RAM and mediating between your program and the hardware and who knows what other programs running in the background. There is no way that you can adequately test for this wide a variety of conditions and it is inevitable that you will run into unexpected problems when you ship the game.

What have we learned today?
1) Console games have lots anf lots of bugs. Anyone who says they don't is lying to you or stupid.
2) PCs have more bugs than consoles because they do not have a unified configuration and there is lots that can go wrong.

Thanks for coming out.

But would you trust your Gamecube as body armor?

Gamespot just reported that an irate roommate just shot an XBOX. It ceased to function, however the case was not penetrated. Some parts could surely be salvaged AND anyone wearing under their shirt would be saved.

You should try this one, I tried it with my girlfriend, and since the day we started, we never stopped loving it !

(just a tip : it's called "real life" :)

The RTS world needs a big hitter to put it back in the charts.

But no innovation?

Bullfrog has looked after us well.

How about Dungeon Keeper & Black and White.

Both are as RTS as they come but did an admirable job of putting the raw mechanics of '5x = 1y' behind the theme.

It was a sad day to learn that Dungeon Keeper 3 put on hold indefinately

I don't think that the Total War series really fits into the RTS genre considering the time spent in the turn based portion of the game.

I've been hankering after some RTS action recently but don't feel like revisiting.

Also.. Pepsi is an incredibly diverse company. They have 11 unique brands and a bunch of variations
like a decaf this and french vanilla flavored that that.
Dr. Pepper is owned by Cadbury Schweppes, another large multi-national corporation.
Gee... it seems like those two examples you gave suck... just like your 'insightful' commentary about EA Games and Nintendo.

Burn Karma Burn

Whoever told you that was misinformed and/or lying. The last I've heard of it, Doom 3 was going to have a Mac and PC version at the least, and possibly a Linux version. There will be an Xbox port of Doom 3, but it won't be by id Software.

You realise of course that those terms include such third-party-friendly gems as 'you cannot host games on your own servers',

Let's see what Sega has to say about that, shall we? Sega Sports/ESPN College Hoops' PS2 servers have been down since launch due to a server bug of some sort. The XBox ones have been running flawlessly. (reference: Gamespot)

'all players must pay a subscription fee to the platform vendor',

This already happens. Not a subscription fee-- but the platform vendor ALWAYS gets a cut of online gaming because the platform vendor is the one selling the network adapter. XBox has a built-in Ethernet port but you still have to pay extra for Live-- thus putting them in the same position as Sony and Nintendo (if N were to ever officially offer online play).

and 'you cannot make Xbox Live games interoperable with other platforms'?

I could be wrong here, but so far I know of no online-capable console that could allow multi-platform online play. The DC was supposed to allow this with Half-Life and Unreal Tournament (I think) but that never panned out (and HL was never released).

EA may be right for avoiding Live, but it certainly isn't for the reasons you bring up.

Ugh, meant GameSpy and Gamespot

I didn't say yield, I said the chips/wafer increases. Since the cost of manufacturing a wafer of a given size is pretty constant, more chips/wafer means cheaper chips if your yield does not decrease, or if it only decreases by a small enough amount.

die size for a given design does not scale with gate size as you think it might.

I agree that is an oversimplification. (Esp. since things like pads don't change in size.) Picking the one example I could find quickly on the internet, a decrease from .18 u to .13 u (.72 as wide) was expected to decrease an Athlon from 128 sq mm to 80 sq mm (.625 as big). So you would get 1.6 times as many chips/wafer if the yield is the same, less if the yield decreases.

(See this, near the end, for the numbers provided above.)

While you are at it, you can also play Doom 3 on the Xbox http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/news_60745 03.html

While you are at it, you can also play Doom 3 on the Xbox http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/news_60745 03.html

No, it's not. They've come out and said that whatever they're releasing next year, it's not a console and not a handheld. Probably an accessory for the Gamecube or something.

Look here.

Heres the review to the game everyone is raving about! Real Life Review

You get what you pay for, so the saying goes.

God I wish that they would remake this game for current systems...

Nintendo also revealed today that it plans to unveil its next-generation console at E3 in May next year. Nintendo's executive director Jinyou Mori stated that the company hopes to release the unannounced next-generation console during the next fiscal year in Japan, and also commented that a simultaneous worldwide release would be ideal.

Nokia reacted to the news with concern and caution. "We're aware of it and we're taking it seriously," a spokesperson for the Finnish phone-maker told GameSpot. "Right now we are looking into the claims." He went on to add that Nokia would formally respond later today or tomorrow.

Thanks Gamespot

Right now? None, as far as I know. But it's an open spec and you will certainly see support for it in other devices soon. Evidence: Sony's PSP handheld will support AAC.

Also, good news - a Virtua Racing remake is in the third batch of Sega Ages 3D titles - GameSpot has hands-on impressions - yay. I used to play the original arcade machine a heck of a lot, so it's pretty tempting.

It's worth pointing out that the remakes are _somewhat_ enhanced - for example, Space Harrier has been converted to 3D and has proper 3D explosions, etc.

But I think I'd prefer to get lots of good emulated versions on one disc than one 'updated' version - see Midway's Arcade Treasures for an excellent-looking emulation-based compilation I'm really looking forward to.

i always thought that deus ex just ripped off from cyberpunk(in a good way) literature, but not once i thought that "wow, matrix like" when playing it. it doesn't even take influence from john woo & hk-action films like matrix and max payne do.

You're right about the action not being Matrix-like in DX. I think that it was the black tranchcoats and the conpiracy stuff that made people think of the Matrix. Plus the superbad men in black suits kind of seem like Agents. I do know that they intentionally got rid of the black trenchcoats for DX2 to make it seem less matrix-like (scroll to end of article).

I'm just wondering since your opinion seems to be somewhat askew from everyone else's.

... by Activision today. Check it out here. I guess they liked Call of Duty too. ;)

It'd be really difficult to impress me after Allied Assault, that game was just ridiculously good (despite the lack of multiplayer). I guess if anyone could top that though, it'd be the people who created it. I'm more of a console guy since I don't have the money to upgrade my home pc, so I'm really excited about Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. Coming... out... so... soon....

Kinda seems like they're developing a History-channel-esque addiction to WWII, though.

GameSpot
ign

For the record, I'd like to state that the above story bears little resemblance to what I actually submitted. For one, I also linked to a Gamespot article which I found to be at least as informative as the Reuters story.

And the submission is listed as "rejected" under my records.

Star Wars: Galaxies, and Jedi Academy come to mind.

Star Wars: Galaxies, and Jedi Academy come to mind.

Zodiac will die if they don't maintain compatibility. One of the (many) things Nintendo got right with the GBA is that it maintains backwards compatibility, while being a big step forward.

Ah more slashdot ignorance. Say it with enough conviction and it becomes true though right?

There is a process to earn the Seal of Quality, though it really just means it was published with Nintendo's approval. Sony and Microsoft have similar processes as did Sega before them. So today it means no more or less than the other big players. Nintendo was the first to do this, and with it (and many other factors that would be OT here) they brought back video gaming and made it feasible as a business in the US. Atari's utter lack of quality control (and other factors that would be OT here) killed gaming the first time around.

Now as for Nintendo Power, sure it biased, but if you can't figure out that from the fact that it has Nintendo in the title you have some problems. They do give negative reviews, they called this game "boring". Thats right boring. You can't get worse than that in a game.

And this is Mike Hawk talking. Look at my previous posts and you'll see I love nothing more than to mess with Nintendo fans, but let it never be said I don't give credit where it is due.

you can just look at Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories for the Gameboy advance to see that developers for that system have yet to even use a tenth of its potential (the game has shown to be just slightly lower in quality than the PS2 original!!!!)

Now, I'm as much of a fan of the GBA as anyone, and I too think the N-Gage is a hunk of crap, but let's not go crazy here. Chain of Memories may well be a fine game, but the graphics aren't even in the same universe as the PS2 game; it's a purely sprite based, 2D game. Look for your self.

The genre doesn't sell well anymore.

X: Beyond the Frontier got good reviews, but it seemed to tank in stores. I bought a copy for $4.99 a few months after it came out that I've been meaning to play for over a year now.

GameSpot

IGN.com

FYI, both reviews seem to think its a lot better than 'evolutionary.'

That article was some seriously glorious self-love right there. As it turns out, the mainstream press has been reviewing stuff as long as their has been stuff to review. So why would games be any different?

The author supposes that the mainstream press portrays games negatively because of a few eggs, that while not bad per se, are controversial at least. Well, thats not really true. The mainstream press tells the story of those games because they are controversial. This is called "a story", and this sells issues. If we don't want people covering games such as GTA and Postal, don't buy (hence ceasing production of) these games. Those games are part of the large picture and the media tends to report the extreme of all things, note here that games are not special in this way, so why would games be any different. Sounds to me like this issue is as matured as any in the mainstream. As for the Touched by an Angel point (which seems to be the only specific account provided), the writer of that show is allowed any view of the issue he wants. As soon as real people stop dying over Counter-Strike and Everquest, I'll rid myself of the notion that just maybe games can have an effect on people.

The writer of the article questions the ability of the press to be able to comprehend games due to limited exposure. Oh please, touch yourself some more. Yes, a non-games specific writer would not be expected to play games as much as a full-time games writer, but is this bad? In the MAINSTREAM press one would hope the writer most closely matches the audience, ie mainstream. The author then plays terminology nazi, which is always convincing and never sour-grapes sounding. Noone cares if one uses video games or computer games except term nazis and noone cares what they think anyway. If I am reading Maxim for my video game reviews, I would want the writer to think like someone who gets their game reviews from Maxim thinks. Think is a good thing.

As for the young vs old gamer thing. Yes, kids play games more (always will) and they have more time to practice the current game and are better at it because of this. A stupid, grasping point to make in the first place.

I really like this one:
In other words, we need to reflect a higher standard than the mainstream press.
HA! No article published on the internet will ever be of the same quality as real press. If it was, the writer would be employed by the legitimate press and not some fan(boy)-site.

As for the point of necessary skill as a gamer? Nonsense. Despite some opinion to the contrary, if a game isn't fun within the first hour, on the first level, when will it be fun? Someone reading the mainstream press will want that first level to be fun and will want to know if it is or isnt.

This is just another self-important article by the needy gaming press. It is needy and attention hungry by nature and this article is just one exhibition of that fact.

Sony is already working on a handheld device called the PSP which will play games, video, and audio. I would not be surprised if they added on support for email. In addition to all the usual shit, the PSP will have 16:9-format widescreen TFT LCD (480x272 pixels, 24-bit full color), MPEG4 AVC decoder, 802.11 (b?), IrDA, USB 2.0, Memory Stick, AV in/out, Stereo headphone out, and be powered by a Lithium ion battery. It also has some kind of expansion port. You could plug a tiny keyboard into it via USB and use it to send email, if they support such a thing. Which they very well may do.

Okay, so this is slightly offtopic but...

Monster Hunter for PS2 is like a multiplayer morrowind meets rune game that has USB kb support. Finally networked games worth playing on a console. =)

Those aren't the numbers I saw.
Over at GameSpot they have the real numbers straight from the retailers.

I don't know where you got yours from... but let's at least use a good source.

Gamecube 107,890
Playstation 2 60,357
XBox 27,908

If we could just keep people posting correct information, we'd be a whole lot better.

Also, Gamespot said that this is the third week of Nintendo dominance on the charts... Why is this news now?

I bought a GC purely because of the games that were available.

One good reason to buy a GameCube is because Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is only available for the GC. It's got all the Rogue Squadron II missions as two player co-op missions, and a whole load of new stuff. Just look!

Other must-haves (in my case 'have-gots') are:

Ikaruga an old skool 2D shooter

The Sims works well on the console platform, and has a 'mission' mode.

Nightfire be James Bond! (at least until Everything or Nothing comes out)

It's taken a while, but I think this winter the GC has more outstanding games (either out or coming out) than the XBOX or PS2

I bought a GC purely because of the games that were available.

One good reason to buy a GameCube is because Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is only available for the GC. It's got all the Rogue Squadron II missions as two player co-op missions, and a whole load of new stuff. Just look!

Other must-haves (in my case 'have-gots') are:

Ikaruga an old skool 2D shooter

The Sims works well on the console platform, and has a 'mission' mode.

Nightfire be James Bond! (at least until Everything or Nothing comes out)

It's taken a while, but I think this winter the GC has more outstanding games (either out or coming out) than the XBOX or PS2

I bought a GC purely because of the games that were available.

One good reason to buy a GameCube is because Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is only available for the GC. It's got all the Rogue Squadron II missions as two player co-op missions, and a whole load of new stuff. Just look!

Other must-haves (in my case 'have-gots') are:

Ikaruga an old skool 2D shooter

The Sims works well on the console platform, and has a 'mission' mode.

Nightfire be James Bond! (at least until Everything or Nothing comes out)

It's taken a while, but I think this winter the GC has more outstanding games (either out or coming out) than the XBOX or PS2

I bought a GC purely because of the games that were available.

One good reason to buy a GameCube is because Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is only available for the GC. It's got all the Rogue Squadron II missions as two player co-op missions, and a whole load of new stuff. Just look!

Other must-haves (in my case 'have-gots') are:

Ikaruga an old skool 2D shooter

The Sims works well on the console platform, and has a 'mission' mode.

Nightfire be James Bond! (at least until Everything or Nothing comes out)

It's taken a while, but I think this winter the GC has more outstanding games (either out or coming out) than the XBOX or PS2