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One guy did a Quake 2 movie in talk show format that ended with everyone shooting rocket launchers at each other.

Uh, the bnetd folks have played the boycot card before, no one cared. Bnetd is a non-issue to the vast majority, even here on slashdot. Burning crusade set a day one sales record, a sell through of over 2 million in US and Europe in the first 24 hours, http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft-expansi on/757971p1.html. The preceding bnetd inspired boycott that targeted the original World of Warcraft a couple of years ago met the same fate, record breaking sales.

I find it interesting that while it touches on Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, it largely fails to look at the Japanese existence of the rest of the series. The naming convention (Vampire Killer/Dracula vs. Castlevania) isn't really addressed, and the author seems largely ignorant of anything but the U.S. incarnations of the games.

For instance, take Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight, a.k.a. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. He talks about the comically bad voice acting... ...what he fails to note is that this bad acting is a feature of the English version. The original Japanese version of the game has *excellent* voice acting by well-known veteran voice actors. I recommend anyone who hasn't to play a copy of the Japanese version of the game, complete with the original full set of familiars and lack of censorship (yes, Alucard is chugging alcohol, not tea).

A *way* better retrospective of the games is at http://castlevania.classicgaming.gamespy.com/games .html

Check it out. ^^

Yessir. I've just spent the last few days making stupid geeky Star Control icons and trying to remember the locations of all the rainbow worlds. Thank $deity for UQM. Anyway, go sign the petition for a real SCIII if you haven't already.

Another greatly desired sequel would be Full Throttle II. It keeps getting brought back to life, then canned again. LucasArts made some awesome, fantastic games. Great to see a Sam & Max comeback, but there's plenty more juice to milk out of their old titles.

i for one welcome our Giant Rabbit Overlords

You mean this guy, right?

(I can't believe how well this picture works with this post!)

Klingon Academy (KA) is a really great game. Many times over better than Starfleet Academy. It was released in 2000, and still holds a pretty good following. They actually reworked the engine to get the game to run on Windows 2000 ( which was released about midway through the development cycle ). I had the pleasure of being part of the forums for a few years leading up to it. It was Interplays last game before they lost the Startrek license.

KA still has as pretty good following though the MOD community for it isn't nearly what it use to be there are still some people working on projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_Academy
http://klingonacademy.3dactionplanet.gamespy.com/

There's a link on the second site to the game if you wish to download it. Since Interplay is gone that's probably the only chance you have to get a copy of it.

I face complex social issues in video games every day. Silent Storm presents me with difficult situations: should I sneak behind him and empty my pistol into his back, or should I kill him with a frag grenade? Where should I place this anti-personnel mine to maximize casualties? There are no easy answers.

Full Frontal Nerdity has a great comic on this subject.

I'd play Secret of Mana, straight through.

I swear, it is the most beautiful game in the world.

There was a PS2 version in development for a while...

the filing date was "February 25, 2000". How many of those were around circa 2000? Skype only began around 2002-2003

Gain Ground (3 player max) Gauntlet Gauntlet II Fourtet (Can't find any info about it online.) Rampage (3 player max) Rampart

I'll second that. All the goodness of a 486 and that incredible PC speaker sound. 8 guys crammed in a dorm room trading out the keyboard to lob mirvs and baby nukes until all hours of the night. Good times.

(the GameCube had two online games&ever)

"Interestingly, the title of the game has less to do with bullying and more to do with a play on the name of the school. Bully essentially puts players in the role of a likeable young hero, not quite as Machiavellian as the characters that players have taken control of in GTA titles."

Sounds like an interesting game.

{sigh)

Dear Mods:

The parent is a parody of the opening dialog (poorly translated from Japanese into English) in a video game called "Zero Wing." Please see http://allyourbase.planettribes.gamespy.com/video1 _view.shtml before modding such posts.

Thank you.

StepMania - Hey, DDR-clones are addictive, especially when they run on your iBook so you can play on the train while commuting to the university. My WASDPLÖÄ keyboard setup is feared (by everyone who tries to use it and isn't me).
Final Fantasy Tactics - Not so much a comfort game as one where you sit down and spend three hours in one battle because you are a sick person and want to have a fully trained calculator before the end of the first chapter. Once you're in the zone you don't even mind spending hours just letting your soldiers beat the crap out of each other. You also stop caring aout everything else, including getting something to eat - after all those soldiers aren't going to indirectly gather 1200 monk JPs by themselves! Also, I love bitching about the sequel.
Excessive Quake - A pure bloodbath of flying gibs and ridiculously overpowered weapons. Load this sucker, set the bots to "Hurt Me Plenty" and spend the next five minutes mowing down everything that moves. It's like a killing spree on steroids and equally stress-relieving.
Occasionally played:
Perfect Cherry Blossom - I have no idea what the in-game text is saying, but gameplay-wise it's just as evil as Ikaruga. I mean, look at that screenshot!

#20 on the list is Panzer Dragoon Saga which is one of the finest RPGs ever made. Other rare post-NES classics that need to be rereleased include:

Sapphire for the PC Engine which is so rare that counterfeits sell for over $60. The ever-popular Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo is another great PC Engine game. Besides the previously mentioned PDS, the Saturn also had Shining Force III and Radiant Silvergun.

There are plenty of classics out there that are just so hard to get a copy of these days. :(

"No. If anything, this is just the evolution of developing extensible engines and licensing them out, or even just a new spin on the old expansion pack routine-- a handful of new levels, maybe a new unit or two, plus a lot of clever scripting to cover up the flaking paint on the parent engine."

F.E.A.R: Extraction point.

On the Amiga: http://amigareviews.classicgaming.gamespy.com/nucl earw.htm

and on the tabletop (for you youngsters, we used to play games using playing surfaces made from compressed paper products that involved actually having people in the same room):

http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/nucwar.htm

I'm surprised no one's mentioned yet that the DS version is infamous for having been pushed out the door early, containing many troublesome bugs. The gaming blogs have been sniping about it for days.

Have you played the game? Have you bothered to see the screenshots?

We expect a psychoactive drug to be tested for safety before it is sold. When something appears to have gone seriously wrong we expect the product to be taken off then shelves until the problem is fixed.

What's wrong with the game? Is it buggy? Do you get stuck in certain areas? Does it cause your computer to restart?

Name one. Just one. (WWII German side games)
Battle Field

More importantly, name one where you are role-playing the Gestapo interrogator or the SS officer in the Death Camps. "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS" does not count.
That does sound like a very interesting game.

Have you ever heard of a game called Hell Cab where you get the option to send all the women and children to the lions and hear their tormenting screams?

Do we ever think about how the Germans felt about seeing their defeat within numerous movies and video games, as well as their society being labeled as genocidal?

While I'm disappointed that I have to wait to read the other two parts of this critique, I'm glad it's being posted at all. This is a game worth in-depth analysis.

One of my favourite aspects of video games is the representation of the real world. Many people are enthusiastic about this aspect of gaming but most don't share my take on the subject. I wouldn't be a Slashdotter if I wasn't wowed by pixel shaders and bump mapping and advanced AI, but what really fascinates me is the artistic representation of reality - the statement made about our world facilitated by creative use of limited resources.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is one of the greatest contenders in this field as its depiction of a fictional California-esque state is totally astounding, replete with buildings, streets, varied geography, natural wonders, rolling landscapes, and all juxtaposed by a pissed-off populace. There's a great scene in Lucasarts' Grim Fandango where Manny Calavera, protagonist and reaper, travels to the realm of the living to collect the souls of recently poisoned fast food patrons, and the real world is quite a ridiculous caricature that is completely alien through the eyes of residents of the land of the dead.

Katamari Damacy is unique in that the protagonists are not human at all, but permanent residents of deep space. To The King of All Cosmos and The Prince, Earth is one planet of millions, but it is not just any planet. The Earth is populated by excitable little people who have absolutely littered their entire planet with stuff, and it is this stuff that makes Earth a suitable place to collect materials to repopulate space with stars.

Stuff here, stuff there, stuff everywhere! Not only can anything smaller than your katamari be rolled-up and added to the clump, but every collected item can later be examined replete with a concise but innocently baffling description in the limited omniscient of the space-faring royal family. Some such descriptions of the hundreds upon hundreds of ordinary objects and creatures include:

Coconut Crab -- "A crab with strong claws. It doesn't look anything like a coconut at all..."
Peach -- "A butt-shaped fruit that is more tasty than butts."
Faucet -- "Hot and cold water comes out of the same place. We are amazed."
Loud Momma -- "Her voice is loud and when she laughs, babies start screaming."

This is why the game is deserving of critique - because the game itself is a critique of urban civilization. It patently points out how much more complex and frivolous and ludicrous our lifestyle is compared to the orderly motion of the galactic ocean.

Furthermore, this analysis goes to show how effective the game is at alleviating stress! Consider all the things you worry about in a day - the cost of living, pollution, rush hour traffic, long lines, crime, the environment, the fact that you'll never visit all the places you want to see, etc. All these things become insignificant in Katamari Damacy. You needn't worry about any issues - any objects - larger than your katamari until later on because for now they are simply obstacles, and anything smaller is all but an insignificant bump. To The Prince, ignorance is bliss. All that matters is to keep on rolling. Put your frustrations aside, block out all unneccesary data, and just keep on rolling. Just push and push, your katamari grows and grows, and before you know it you're towering over people and cars and buildings and mountains until the very curvature of the planet is a minute detail of the great cosmic tapestry.

There are a million possible interpretations of this depiction of reality. One could argue that the game is an advocate of Buddhism, declaring earthly luxuries as mere white noise. Or pe

There's even a Dorktower of it.

Erik Wolpaw also co-wrote Double Fine's Psychonauts, and won a Game Developers Choice Award for that effort.

I think mozilla has great marketing! How can this banner not appeal to people of all political stripes? In fact, the people who came up with the black/white PSP ads for sony really ought to take a lesson from Mozilla's marketing team. Mozilla's ads are the most inclusive and harmonious i have ever seen. In addition to the imagery, the messages on the banners ads are great too:

Work and there will be flour!
That really communicates the superior nature of mozilla's product.

For the good of the code!
That red star really wants me to download the source code and compile my own browser. take that M$ and your stupid IE!

Man, these marketing geniuses really should teach a class or something. I mean what better way to promote a web browser to the masses than with a heavy handed political message endorsing a totalitarian government! brilliant!

I was so confused by your post, since the only Ninja Gaiden I've ever played was for the NES... X? Y? You got too many darn buttons there :-)

A quick search turns up this list indicating that there were in fact quite a few versions and releases... Of course, the Sega Genesis is still the newest console I've owned, so I'm a little behind.

They've done it. Try Gilly from Dork Tower?

Spoken like a man who hasn't investigated the Wii at all.

The Wii remote will be a fad - who honestly wants to wave that around: Yeah, it really looks like he's really waving it around. Oh wait, it's small wrist movements which controls the action, not huge motions.

good luck using it in FPS games: Yeah, nobody liked the controls on Metroid Prime 3.

Whether or not you like it, marketing and hype is what sells consoles. I don't see any Wii hype anywhere but on Digg and Slashdot. Sorry.: Where's the PS3 hype? I see nothing in mainstream media and nothing but negativity from the online media. Where's the X360 hype? I haven't seen any since their launch a year ago. I also haven't seen any compelling reason to buy an Xbox 360 aside from maybe Xbox Live Arcade games (which I played 10 years ago)

Mario sux0rs to me - but Mom or the kid next door can have fun with it if they want: I'm honestly very sorry that you have a complex which prevents you from enjoying video games which are fun because you're afraid they are too "kiddy". If it's any consolation, you'll grow out of that once you graduate 9th grade.

Then again, I guess I shouldn't expect too much out of a user named "XpL1CiT". Have fun in High School kid.

Do you have yours?

Like this?

MMORPG games that are Sci-Fi based have worked out many times in the past! Examples to back that up are

Earth and Beyond (shut down when EA aquired the company leading that): Had an advanced crafting system that was ahead of it's time and was a primarily based space fighter! http://enb.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/ (Most of EnB sites are now down.)

Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided: Had several ranged profession (carbineer, pistoleer, rifleman, bounty hunter, smuggler) as well as melee professions, with a space based expansion that came later on and an interesting take on crafting classes. The game is now in ruins though, the development team that was put in place to develop the product was new to the MMORPG world and throughout the games life it has seemed to be in 'beta' because of that. www.starwarsgalaxies.com

PlanetSide: A complete FPS battlefield using ranged weapons for a majority of the combat (aka you can use a knife) www.planetside.com

Eve Online: I'll let the site speak for itself http://www.eve-online.com/

RF Online: http://www.codemasters.com/rfonline/news.php?theme =bellato

So, can you really say fantasy > Sci-Fi?

Some do it like this, many others rely on item sales. Maple story, FlyFF, Pangya, Shot Online and Hero Online are the ones I can recall right now, there are many more.

What about furry 1 | 2?

What about furry 1 | 2?

Here's a link to an .mpeg so you don't have to deal with the annoying script on Gamevideo.com's page.

Two words: Chou Aniki (1992).
Actually, practically anything that the Japanese do that crosses sexual themes with games makes me want to put my head under a pillow and cry myself to sleep.

Also: Boong-Ga Boong-Ga. Enjoy your new view of humanity.

If you haven't played Star Control 2, (now available for PC as The Ur-Quan Masters), you ought to check it out. The action gameplay is every bit as fun as in SC1, but there's an incredible plot this time around.

As you work through the game, meeting new alien species and trying to free Earth from its enslavement, you meet the two subspecies of Ur-Quan, locked in eternal war. The Kzer-Za want merely to dominate all species in the galaxy. The Kohr-Ah, on the other hand, will stop at nothing short of total extermination.

Their horrible story, and uncannily sympathizable justification for their "path", still unnerves me. I can't blame them. All I can do is fight back, and hope I don't meet too many of them at once. (The story in TOPNaF isn't complete, you have to play the game to get the whole background.)

Disturbing? Not really. They're aliens, after all. And that means none of it applies to the way we think about abused humans and their relations to society. Naah.

Judge for yourself.

Specifically, one of the ads (there were three) was deemed racially insensitive because it showed a white chick in a dominating position over a black chick. Example article with image here. What people haven't talked about so much is that there are two other ads; one with the black chick in a dominant position over the white chick, and one where they're on equal footing.

--trb

More importantly, Nintendogs isn't an "ungame" is a fairly traditional type of game, a life sim which focuses on dogs instead of Tamagotchis or Sims. They even had one of these games for the Neo Geo pocket that never made it over here, Ganbare Neo Poke-kun.

I perfer to call myself a hardcore gamer, but I don't see anything interesting about PS3 or XBox 360 (ok, one game interests me on 360; and I'll probably break down and buy one for the new Sonic game eventually.) Hardcore gaming is about more than just playing the trendy games alot; It's about making gaming more than just a hobby rather almost a way of life. Just playing the trendy games alot is called being a poser gamer. Nintendo may be focusing on bring in gamers and non-gamers, but gamers includes hardcore gamers too. Most of the industry agrees that one ignores the hardcore gamers group at their own peril; they need not be the only focus, but they should be kept well in mind. There's a nice article on different parts of the industry's views on Hardcore gamers here: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/701/701787p4.html

I don't know if you're being serious, but you're wrong: Pong is actually a decent head to head game.

For starters: the name is a reasonably clever reduction of Ping Pong.

Heh, and some people got into it, at least enouugh so that it had its own strategy guide! ... I'm not kidding, that's from 1976.

The gameplay works well because of the ricochet mechanic: you want to get the ball on the corner of your bat so it's a sharper angle, but go too far and you'll miss it.

Of course I might be biased, I wrote a sequel to it that combines it with Joust on the Atari 2600: JoustPong / Flap-Ping (Atari's lawyers are still cranky about the name "Pong"....) If you thought the control scheme of Pong was simple...JoustPong just needs a single click pushbutton!

Nintendo probably didn't want to copy the title of an existing work, although they were ultimately threatened with such a lawsuit by MCA (the court laughed at MCA and awarded damages to the defence).

If they had used "King Kong", the situation may have been a bit different.

As for why "Donkey"? I have no idea.

So, instead of paying $15/mo for EQ2, $15/mo for AC, and $15/mo for SWG, you want to pay $10/mo for all 3 of those and ALL the others out there?

I want some of what you're smoking.

On the other hand, Sony DOES have a combo subscription. http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/711/711477p1.html I don't link directly to sony because I can't get the info to come up on firefox here from their station site. And I'm too lazy to tab over to my vmware and look it all up in there.

Or even better, view the entire thing in the actual Quake 1 engine using the recorded demos (.dem)

http://qdq.planetquake.gamespy.com/qdqwav.html

Full collection of Quake 1 demo files for the run.

The single-player was fun, but the real accomplishment of Quake is bringing in the era of deathmatch.

And it's still alive and.. well.. ok, so it's just twitching. I got this game the week it came out (wow, I was 10yo then) and havn't stopped playing since. Connect to oc9.org with your QuakeWorld client for some fun :)

It's the arcade-ish physics meant to run on 10 year old cpus that differenciates the game from modern ones, and actually makes the game more fun to play. Your skill in multiplayer depends a lot on mastering the physics that will let you go 10x your normal speed if you let it (there is no spoon!). Be sure to check out QdQwav if you havn't already seen it.

Check out

http://aa.planetannihilation.gamespy.com/download. htm

Absolute Annihilation 6.0 is the original TA with lost of improvements but nothing I would call a "nerf".

They also have a 3d rendered version there that I don't personally like as much but lots of folks go wild over.

I remember actually salivating over Xenon II for the Amiga. That and a few other Amiga games such as Shadow of the Beast were and will always be the most gorgeous games I've ever played. I also remember seeing the mode 7 fx in Contra wars for the snes, the first time the plane zoomed over. Pant wettingly good at the time.