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chu chu rocket puzzle mode [with puzzle edit], NiGHTS [not 3d], and samba de amigo. it doesn't look like it will be coming to america, but if it does, i will be pleased, since the 3 games that are going to be on it look neat so far.

dcign did a story on it a couple days ago

Great news for you! Nintendo have made a console for GAMES, not an interactive central entertainment hub, and because of this the GameCube will be lauching cheap.

$199 is the maximum that the GameCube will launch for in the USA, with rumours (that are very likely untrue) that it might go at $149 to undercut the other two.

Any console getting Mario, Metrod, Wave Race, Star Wars and Zelda (just to name a few) all fairly close to launch will have a very strong lineup just from 1st and 2nd parties. And with the 3rd parties starting to appear and leak (Capcom and Resident Evil 0, EA with 'Sport 200x', Acclaim with Turok just to name a couple) the GameCube is on course to have the best QUALITY of games. And we all know that quality comes over quantity...

Nintendo won't win back the crown this generation; this generation will probably be a three(or two)-way tie. But with the sad lineup of PS2 games at the moment, and a probable launch delay (typical of Microsoft- they don't even have finalised dev kits to developers) from the overhyped and overrated Xbox (you have to look at this image rebutting MS fud), Nintendo should regain a large portion of marketshare this time around.

Hrmm, I think I got carried away again ;)
Anyway, these are just a few of the reasons while I'll be buying a GameCube on day 1...

Great news for you! Nintendo have made a console for GAMES, not an interactive central entertainment hub, and because of this the GameCube will be lauching cheap.

$199 is the maximum that the GameCube will launch for in the USA, with rumours (that are very likely untrue) that it might go at $149 to undercut the other two.

Any console getting Mario, Metrod, Wave Race, Star Wars and Zelda (just to name a few) all fairly close to launch will have a very strong lineup just from 1st and 2nd parties. And with the 3rd parties starting to appear and leak (Capcom and Resident Evil 0, EA with 'Sport 200x', Acclaim with Turok just to name a couple) the GameCube is on course to have the best QUALITY of games. And we all know that quality comes over quantity...

Nintendo won't win back the crown this generation; this generation will probably be a three(or two)-way tie. But with the sad lineup of PS2 games at the moment, and a probable launch delay (typical of Microsoft- they don't even have finalised dev kits to developers) from the overhyped and overrated Xbox (you have to look at this image rebutting MS fud), Nintendo should regain a large portion of marketshare this time around.

Hrmm, I think I got carried away again ;)
Anyway, these are just a few of the reasons while I'll be buying a GameCube on day 1...

I seem to remeber the old 8-bit NES had an "action mat" type controller. I think it looked kind of like a Twister mat, with contacts under the dots. Perhaps with a little work someone could get it rewired to talk over a serial port?

Yes, NES had a peripheral like this called the "power pad". A friend of mine had one, but I was a po white child living in a trailer at the time. GameFAQs is ordinarily the place to look for this info. However, there appears to only be a brief mention (as in, name only) of the Power Pad in ANY of the FAQs there. I did manage to find it at nesfan.com:

Released by Nintendo in 1988, the 'Power Pad' was a unique type of game controller for the NES that was marketed as a way to get fit, while playing video games. By laying the two-sided 'Power Pad' onto the floor and connected it to the NES, the Power Pad could manipulate the onscreen characters by moving ones feet (or hands, if you preffered), around on the blue and red touchpads, which worked as buttons. There were 12 touchpads on one side, and 8 touchpads on the other. Very few games were designed for the 'Power Pad' (most notably 'World Class Track Meet' and 'Dance Aerobics'), and before long it was abandoned by the development community.
Peripherals list

There are pads much like it for the Dreamcast, which are used to play games like Dance Dance Revolution Remix 2.

I am pretty sure they had "fight ring" that was a big circle of plastic and sensors you laid on the floor and stood inside.

The "fight ring" device you are thinking of is the "Activator" for the Sega Genesis. According to the Genesis FAQ by Barry Cantin):

Activator - Karate/fighting game aid. Large ring of motion sensors that determine one's moves and translate them to actions in games.

There's also mention of it in this other, smaller FAQ by Chris Foulger:

One of the more unusual Sega add ons was this controller that was a sort of virtual reality controller. The Activator had eight sides and was placed flat on the floor. Infra red beams were projected up from each of the sides. The player stood in the middle and broke the beams at different hights and combinations to produce the moves on screen. Compatible mostly with fighting games although a manual included in the pack displayed combinations for some of the more popular Genesis titles. Only released in America.

I seem to recall some other FAQ or website claiming that it pretty much sucked, as IR is not an ideal application. A friend of mine used to have a IR controller for the original NES which opened much like a laptop, and also had a T-bar adapter which you could plug into a socket in the unit. The socket only served to keep the T-bar in the right location, however. There were also handles you could snap onto the T-bar which had a button on the top; The button would move a flap on the bottom of each handle which had a white surface on it (reflected the IR more strongly) and a black surface (still reflected IR, but not so much.) I can't remember what it was called, because it sucked.

Remember, Don Giovanni is the name of a truly epic bastard from a Mozart opera, who gets dragged, still-living, into Hell for his evil deeds.

What is Slashdot trying to do, out do the New York Times?

Those are minor points though. GS3 is simply magic for a new player, and the flaws are minor enough that most veteren players don't seem very bothered by them.

That said, I quit playing GS3... a lot of my other friends stopped playing, and a large part of the game is the social dynamic. I could've made new friends, but I wanted to try another online game (EverQuest.)

EverQuest... heh. For a while, it was great fun, but now it is a complete bore... the only thing keeping me in that game are the friendships I've formed there. Verant, despite the fact that it is running a game that is about 1000 times more popular than anything Simutronics has created, seems to be only a tenth as professional and capable as Simutronics. EverQuest is littered with examples of poor grammer and spelling. It feels like I'm playing some college student's MUD, but with nice graphics on top, and a huge playerbase. EQ is balanced so poorly it's absurd. Certain classes and races suffer huge experience penalties that slow their advancement (by as much as 40% or more in some cases) but get nothing to compensate for this. The class that is generally considered to be one of the "weakest" in the game (rangers) are one of the classes that suffer this penalty. Ridiculous. And on top of that, EQ is still a rather buggy game. And Verant is fond of implementing sloppy "workarounds" as opposed to true bug fixes. For example, there was a bug on the PvP servers that would make it so a caster, who is disguised by an illusion, could cast a stun spell on another player, and the target player might end up permanently stunned. A fairly serious problem, but one that most people were unaware of, and it wasn't a bug that was being abused. Verant's solution was to implement a workaround: they made it so that whenever you cast a spell on another player, any illusion that you are under the effects of goes away. Talk about using a chainsaw rather than a scapel. This change had VERY serious game balance ramifications, and prompted several enchanters (whose powers include a wide range of illusionary spells) to quit their characters. These weren't people who were abusing the illusion-stun-bug, they were people who were using their illusions to hide their identity among other player characters... which they now cannot do, because if they cast on another player, their identify is revealed. A bug fix should not effect collateral game balance issues in such a major way... that is such a simple design principle, but one that Verant apparently can't grasp, or decided to ignore. This is just one example of Verant's clumbsy approach to "fixing" issues--it is by no means the only example one could give. Still, EQ is an undeniably awesome achievement... with such a big project, I guess problems are inevitable.

On the other hand, Simutronics has impressed me a lot. I don't think any company has ever done a better job creating and maintaing a multiplayer online game. Most of their games don't have a huge number of players or subscribers (well... their numbers are respectable, but they aren't 'massive' like EQ's) but I still think that the boys at Simu know a lot more about game design principle than a lot of the people making and running most online games today.

Simutronics apparently has been developing a game called Hero's Journey, what is to be a graphical MMORPG... if it ever becomes a reality. Their developers were posting left and right on discussion forums throughout the Internet a while back, and things were looking promising, but there there was a drought... now we seem to be hearing from Simu a bit more, which is a great sign, but I'm skeptical about if HJ will become a reality. IGN has information about it at The Hero's Journey Vault.

Have you heard of Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64? Here's IGN64's preview. Needless to say, if this buy out were to happen, I don't think Nintendo would have any problems with the content of Sega's games.

is here ... for those of you who don't want to go through the linked page (which has some sort of script that makes my machine have a heart attack).

It doesn't have much information, though. I just want to know if I can use it behind an IP masquerading linux box. (Or any other NAT router for that matter.) I ordered one anyway. =)

That's right folks. THQ set aside a button on the controls whose sole purpose is to make Ash taunt his enemies.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to video games. I've seen THQ's game history, and I'll just bet that Evil Dead: Hail To The King developer Heavy Iron is responsible for most of the design decisions in the game. People who don't understand that the publisher and developer are often completely separate companies shouldn't be doing game reviews (or at least not ones that get posted as articles on prominent websites).

Actually, Vampire: The Masquerade used Java as it's backend scripting system. (They even offer the Java based SDK here for the mod community.) In fact, most games these days use some sort of scripting system, quite often compiled down to a bytecode-esque format. (Jedi Knight, Unreal, Deus Ex, the list goes on...) Additionally, Capcom is taking *this exact tactic* of developing bytecode translated games to save porting time.

To put it in perspective, ten years ago, console games were being written in assembly. Five years ago, they were being written mostly in C. Now, hardware can sustain C++ development *with* scripting support.

Darwin would be confused...

stupid no previewing. That should be IGN. Sorry bout that.

The only new system I plan on purchasing is the Gamecube, for Metroid, Zelda, and Mario. I will not buy a PS2 at any time in the near future. Why? Games. There are no decent games at the moment and none that I am looking forward too on the Release List. Sony is starting to become the new Atari, quantity over quality. Sure, they have Final Fantasy, but I haven't liked any since VII, and Gran Turismo. I can't stand that stupid Crash Bandicoot, and many of the games in the last year have been of low quality and no fun to play. Check out the reviews here at IGN. Backwards compatibility? Already have a Playstation. DVD? Already have a real DVD player.

Sega, on the other hand, has some incredible, original games. Not just the lastest version of some worn out game. Check out IGN's Dreamcast reviews. Yes, there may be a few worn out games and some low rated ones, but if you look at the overall ratings, quality, and originality of the games over the last year, you will find many great games. Plus they have SegaNet and a broadband adapter coming out soon. Enough about Sega...

Too many game systems will spread the developers too thin. Personally, I'd like to see the X-box and PS2 fail. One more thing Microsoft doesn't need to do. And PS2 has yet to impress me, except for their resale value on eBay and that will soon fall below retail prices. I don't think Indrema will be popular enough to even take off, except in the Slashdot and geek communities. And like the article stated about Nintendo, "Nintendo generally plays by their own rules." Plus they have the Game Boy Advance to and a whole slew of killer franchises to fall back on.

Ok, enough from me...

Amigori

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I have no sig...

The only new system I plan on purchasing is the Gamecube, for Metroid, Zelda, and Mario. I will not buy a PS2 at any time in the near future. Why? Games. There are no decent games at the moment and none that I am looking forward too on the Release List. Sony is starting to become the new Atari, quantity over quality. Sure, they have Final Fantasy, but I haven't liked any since VII, and Gran Turismo. I can't stand that stupid Crash Bandicoot, and many of the games in the last year have been of low quality and no fun to play. Check out the reviews here at IGN. Backwards compatibility? Already have a Playstation. DVD? Already have a real DVD player.

Sega, on the other hand, has some incredible, original games. Not just the lastest version of some worn out game. Check out IGN's Dreamcast reviews. Yes, there may be a few worn out games and some low rated ones, but if you look at the overall ratings, quality, and originality of the games over the last year, you will find many great games. Plus they have SegaNet and a broadband adapter coming out soon. Enough about Sega...

Too many game systems will spread the developers too thin. Personally, I'd like to see the X-box and PS2 fail. One more thing Microsoft doesn't need to do. And PS2 has yet to impress me, except for their resale value on eBay and that will soon fall below retail prices. I don't think Indrema will be popular enough to even take off, except in the Slashdot and geek communities. And like the article stated about Nintendo, "Nintendo generally plays by their own rules." Plus they have the Game Boy Advance to and a whole slew of killer franchises to fall back on.

Ok, enough from me...

Amigori

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I have no sig...

The only new system I plan on purchasing is the Gamecube, for Metroid, Zelda, and Mario. I will not buy a PS2 at any time in the near future. Why? Games. There are no decent games at the moment and none that I am looking forward too on the Release List. Sony is starting to become the new Atari, quantity over quality. Sure, they have Final Fantasy, but I haven't liked any since VII, and Gran Turismo. I can't stand that stupid Crash Bandicoot, and many of the games in the last year have been of low quality and no fun to play. Check out the reviews here at IGN. Backwards compatibility? Already have a Playstation. DVD? Already have a real DVD player.

Sega, on the other hand, has some incredible, original games. Not just the lastest version of some worn out game. Check out IGN's Dreamcast reviews. Yes, there may be a few worn out games and some low rated ones, but if you look at the overall ratings, quality, and originality of the games over the last year, you will find many great games. Plus they have SegaNet and a broadband adapter coming out soon. Enough about Sega...

Too many game systems will spread the developers too thin. Personally, I'd like to see the X-box and PS2 fail. One more thing Microsoft doesn't need to do. And PS2 has yet to impress me, except for their resale value on eBay and that will soon fall below retail prices. I don't think Indrema will be popular enough to even take off, except in the Slashdot and geek communities. And like the article stated about Nintendo, "Nintendo generally plays by their own rules." Plus they have the Game Boy Advance to and a whole slew of killer franchises to fall back on.

Ok, enough from me...

Amigori

------------
I have no sig...

The only new system I plan on purchasing is the Gamecube, for Metroid, Zelda, and Mario. I will not buy a PS2 at any time in the near future. Why? Games. There are no decent games at the moment and none that I am looking forward too on the Release List. Sony is starting to become the new Atari, quantity over quality. Sure, they have Final Fantasy, but I haven't liked any since VII, and Gran Turismo. I can't stand that stupid Crash Bandicoot, and many of the games in the last year have been of low quality and no fun to play. Check out the reviews here at IGN. Backwards compatibility? Already have a Playstation. DVD? Already have a real DVD player.

Sega, on the other hand, has some incredible, original games. Not just the lastest version of some worn out game. Check out IGN's Dreamcast reviews. Yes, there may be a few worn out games and some low rated ones, but if you look at the overall ratings, quality, and originality of the games over the last year, you will find many great games. Plus they have SegaNet and a broadband adapter coming out soon. Enough about Sega...

Too many game systems will spread the developers too thin. Personally, I'd like to see the X-box and PS2 fail. One more thing Microsoft doesn't need to do. And PS2 has yet to impress me, except for their resale value on eBay and that will soon fall below retail prices. I don't think Indrema will be popular enough to even take off, except in the Slashdot and geek communities. And like the article stated about Nintendo, "Nintendo generally plays by their own rules." Plus they have the Game Boy Advance to and a whole slew of killer franchises to fall back on.

Ok, enough from me...

Amigori

------------
I have no sig...

Noriaki Okamura interview at ps2.ign.com.

Z.O.E. is coming out a lot earlier, and I think it looks better, myself.

• Another Kojima interview
• Gaming Intelligence Agency preview of MGS2
• Lots of game footage from preview disc
• Interview with MGS2 art director
• Konami's official MGS2 site

• Another Kojima interview
• Gaming Intelligence Agency preview of MGS2
• Lots of game footage from preview disc
• Interview with MGS2 art director
• Konami's official MGS2 site

Only at dc.ign.com: a comparison.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057

You've seen it being played? Are you sure?

There is a playable demo of MGS2 out there (due to be shipped with Zone of Enders, another woefully underhyped Konami game with input from Hideo Kojima), but as far as I can tell not many people have had a chance to play it. Even at Konami's recent Gamers' Day the press weren't allowed to get their hands on it - the demo was played by a Konami rep.

For more information, check out the IGN articles on the demo here and here.

You've seen it being played? Are you sure?

There is a playable demo of MGS2 out there (due to be shipped with Zone of Enders, another woefully underhyped Konami game with input from Hideo Kojima), but as far as I can tell not many people have had a chance to play it. Even at Konami's recent Gamers' Day the press weren't allowed to get their hands on it - the demo was played by a Konami rep.

For more information, check out the IGN articles on the demo here and here.

If you're going to post a halfassed "story", at least do it right.

Many gaming sites, like IGN have full PS2 launch game overviews, and they at least aren't forgetting games like Ridge Racer V or Tekken Tag Tournament. The newsworthiness of this story is, um, sketchy at best.

Yeah Matsudkdhdkjsdhj is planing to release a DVD version in Japan, however, even if it even sees the light of day there, I doubt a Panasonic branded version would ever see the light of day outside the land of the rising sun (bad pun intended).

Even Sega has done a 180 and has developed a DVD addon for the Dreamcast.

Really? That seems odd, and a waste, considering that the Dreamcast's games are only on Sega's GD-ROM format. Sega are really going to re-release a console that was dead-in-the-water from the beginning and dying now to add an expencive add-on? Even if they do, it won't save the dead Dreamcast. Personally, I've been saying for years they'd make more money focusing on the arcade and porting to Nintendo and Sony consoles (and then there are the constant rumours that Microsoft will buy them....)

Anyway, Nintedo hasn't been doing so well in the console scene lately, except for the gameboy.

Lately? In the last 2 generations of console preceding the current 'next generation' consoles (N64, PSX, Saturn), Nintendo was more sucessful with their NES over the SMS and the SNES over the Mega Drive/Genesis (sales of the SNES were massive towards the end of it's life cycle, with a low price and Donkey Kong Country storming the entire video game market in late 1994). So Nintendo were not number one this generation? So what. They've still profited quite well from the N64 and it's software, they are hardly going broke off it. I personally see the next set of consoles being closer, back like the 16-bit days. but a 3 way split instead of 2 ways, with Nintendo's Gamecube, Sony's PS2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Nintendo have the franchises and the 'traditional' gamers, Sony have the 'cool' gamers and the Playstation 2 hype (though under supplying hardware was a very bad idea), and Microsoft have the money to get any 3rd party they want, and to push into any established market they want.

They aren't the console guru's you seem to think they are.

If talking hardware, they are this generation, with the Gamecube being much easier to develop for over the PS2. Nintendo also are willing to change things with their controller... such as a new button style layout, that if studied looks like it will be excellent. And then we could look into the last generation's hardware. Nintendo managed to make Sony redesign their controls twice, 1st with their anologue release, and then a 2nd time to add their 'dual shock' to copy the rumble pak's effect (which isn't all that wonderful anyway).

If you mean the market, I think otherwise. Nintendo do know what they did wrong in the last generation with the Nintendo 64, and they have taken steps to rectify it. People, including Nintendo themselves, have come out calling the Gamecube the 'anti-Nintendo 64'. Any company that can come out insulting their last console like that can see things realistically.

If you mean software, Nintendo are the console guru's. Who else is? Sony and their 3rd Party drones spinning out crappy mass produced software, oh-so rarely making something half decent?. Sega and their constant console failing (apart from the Mega Drive/Genesis that managed a 50/50 split)? Or Microsoft, a company that has yet to release definate specs and a fucking console design, much less an actual piece of console hardware before, that will be relying TOTALLY on 3rd Party and companies it has assimilated?

Nintendo are the only company that constantly innovates in both hardware and software. With their Miyamoto-lead in-house development constantly creating classic games in the Mario, Zelda, and other francises, to the ideas that spawn total new types of games (Super Mario Kart single handly created the 'cartoon karting game genre'), to 'idea' games such as the prototype Catroots (look on IGN64 somewhere, Nintendo are the console gaming gods. And with a 2nd Party like Rare, and creating a new Rare-like company called Retro Studios, Nintendo will be the company making the quality games for some time to come.

Oh, of course, there could be a maturity rant now, but is someone that really thinks that maturity = blood and violence, then perhaps they need to rethink their maturity. Wave Race was a 'mature' game. Excite Bike 64 was a 'mature' game (and a great flashback). Just because a game isn't violent does not mean it's not entertaining, it's just some sad people tend to think otherwise.

Nintendo ARE the console gurus. This is not measured by sales, or by the fact that their last console didn't sell as well as their competition's. This is measured in what it is that they do. And the constant quality of the products they have produced over the past 15 years all says that Nintendo are the gurus.

Also, Nintendo have one huge advantage over Sony- piracy. Piracy is every bit as bad for the PSX as it is for the PC. However, with their cartrage, and soon proprietory (but inexpencive) optical discs, Nintendo have been alot safer then Sony from the pirating scene (I'm not trying to say Nintendo products aren't pirated, quite the opposite, but compared to Sony with common household equiptment able to burn their CDs, Nintendo's problem is practically zero.)

And one final thing to keep Nintendo afloat: you know how well the Game Boy is doing now? Very fucking well. Even before the Pokemon craze the things were starting to sell more again, and with the Game Boy Advance upcoming and fully backwards compatible (fully = it has the Gameboy Color chipset onboard AS WELL as it's new 32-bit processor), and no real competition in the foreseeable future, this is one market Nintendo has 100% penatration in it. Cracking into the handheld game market is like trying to crack into Microsoft's x86 OS market (except Nintendo isn't breaking the law [please, don't paste me any of the crap about stuff Nintendo have done in the past that could be seen as anti-competitive, I know, I know]).

Nintendo have, and are, making money. If they manage a userbase equal to the N64's with the Gamecube, they'll survive fine. But, the Gamecube will get a bigger market then the N64, just read about the advantages of the thing here to see why.

Before everyone gets all teary-eyed about the imminent demise of Nintendo, have a look at some of the other previews, movies, and screenshots. cube.ign.com has a lot of information and links to all I mentioned. The preview linked to in the article is so vague about the Gamecube's capabilities it's almost useless.

Matsushita has confirmed a DVD version of the gamecube will be released shortly after Nintendo's version.

This article was released yesterday on cube.ign.com.

I'll be waiting for this one for sure!

tsf.

Matsushita has confirmed a DVD version of the gamecube will be released shortly after Nintendo's version.

This article was released yesterday on cube.ign.com.

I'll be waiting for this one for sure!

tsf.

To really get your motor running, ign just released some movies and stuff from the GameBoy Advance in action. Check it out:

http://pocket.ign.com/news/28336.html
http://pocket.ign.com/news/28384.html

Interestingly enough, one of the demos shown is the basis for a GBA Doom game. While not really completed, the photos shown from the Doom port use an actual wad from one of the original Doom games. I don't recognize the level, but I only really played Doom 2 and the shareware release and didn't do much with the other versions.

The system certainly looks cool (both the Gamecube and the GBA). I don't really mind the lack of a DVD if it means more features built into the system itself. Besides, by the time it comes out, I'll probably already have either a PS2 or a real DVD player. I've been without a DVD player for a month now and it sucks.

J

To really get your motor running, ign just released some movies and stuff from the GameBoy Advance in action. Check it out:

http://pocket.ign.com/news/28336.html
http://pocket.ign.com/news/28384.html

Interestingly enough, one of the demos shown is the basis for a GBA Doom game. While not really completed, the photos shown from the Doom port use an actual wad from one of the original Doom games. I don't recognize the level, but I only really played Doom 2 and the shareware release and didn't do much with the other versions.

The system certainly looks cool (both the Gamecube and the GBA). I don't really mind the lack of a DVD if it means more features built into the system itself. Besides, by the time it comes out, I'll probably already have either a PS2 or a real DVD player. I've been without a DVD player for a month now and it sucks.

J

the absence of competition in the console market

You mean like the N64, PSX, and Dreamcast? Yeah, there's an absolute dearth of other consoles out there. Given the relative game line ups at the moment, I don't know why anyone would be buying a PS2 over a Dreamcast today. Maybe in 6 or 12 months when the PS2 has some true killer games out...but not today and not for Christmas.

As a god you, over time, become either good or evil. You are presented with quests to help you define yourself. One example is that of a missing boy, his father asks you to help him find the boy, you could either bring the boy to the father, or do something evil like kill the boy, drop him in front of the father, and then kill the father for asking.

The interface is especially interesting, as spells will be cast with mouse movements. By shaking the mouse over the screen you can create a fireball to hurl at your opponents and there are many variations on every movement to make the spell weaker/stronger or have a diffrent effect. This game will support multiplayer, but your character will be perserved from single player; You can play SP till you feel comfortable with your character/famaliar, then jump into the swarming masses and show your hand.

The AI is what is most impressive about this game, Lionhead has taken games to a new level by having you teach a famaliar who takes the shape of an animal in the game ranging from a cow to possibly a dragon (there are secrect titans hidden throughout the game) and the animal, infused with a bit of your power, becomes a titan. The way you treat your Titan and what you teach him to do, and how you do it, will help form what kind of titan it becomes. If you teach it to eat your villagers when it gets hungry, then your villagers will learn to run away when they see it coming, and your Titan will become evil in the process. The teaching system isn't a matter of making a few simple decisions and then your Titan becomes exactly what you want him to be, it is a test of your patience, and endurance, and of your personality, putting a little bit of you into the game.

Unfortunatly, Neutraliaty isn't really an option in the game, as the really powerfull spells/abilities come from being truly as good or evil as possible. Also, you have no direct control over the units in the game, you have to persuade them to do things for you, like make the villagers worship you by showing them a bit of your power and encouraging them, or encouraging them in a diffrent way by making an example of someone who doesn't worship.

As for the graphics, it looks quite a bit like the recently released game Sacrifice which is a third person role playing real time strategy game, which doesn't look bad at all (and plays nice). As long as the game doesn't look like something I might play on an Atari, who cares? While Black & White might be a good topic for a thread, why use the screenshots to bring it up?

More info on B&W can be found at BWVault, one of the oldest BW Fansites that didn't bottom out.

Take a look at the IGN preview of Sega's Dream Studio , which looks to be a complete game building toolkit. It seems kind of cut-and-paste-y (it seems like you basically reuse game elements on the program discs), but if it supports some sort of easy, flexible scripting or programming language, it could easily play Hypercard or Macromedia Director to Sony's basic... -Ross

What happened was that EQvault, an EverQuest game news site, lost their database. As they pressured their ISP to recover the most recent backup, they ran the site on an older database.. one from April.

It just so happened that the press release up above was the news posted that day.. and for most of this morning, it was the top story on EQvault. ;)

Was kind of funny watching smaller news sites leech the information; kind of gave an example of how many people steal news from other sites without ever READING it. Highly amusing to see it appear on Slashdot, though I must admit, I'm not entirely surprised. :)

"The European launch of the PlayStation 2 isn't far away, and in an effort to lower costs to the consumer, Sony Corp is striving to negotiate with the UK to reclassify the PlayStation 2 as a computer, which will put it in a lower tariff category. With it's current classification, the PlayStation 2 will carry a 2.2% levy. Sony is even willing to take this issue to the World Trade Organisation. The UK has already rejected the idea that the PlayStation 2 was a computer, commenting that it was not significantly different from the PlayStation." Think i'm blowing out of my arse, look here... They're doing it to get into the lower tariff's, not to encourage newbie programmers =P. If you can program for it, the more you can make an appeal to call it a computer.

That having been said, enough of these damn Sega rumor and Playstation 2 hype articles on /.
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Goldeneye? That's nothing compared to Conker's Bad Fur Day. Just try watching that 5 minute preview. It's definitely not for kids. It's funny as hell, though.

In particuar, it addresses two claims:

1. There are no good results to a search for Liv Tyler nude. (Google)

2. The scam doesn't yield good Google results on popular actresses. (Slashdot)

You can find the response, titled Still Scamming Google at GeekPress. For the sake of my Slashdotted server, I'm reprinting it below:

***

Still Scamming Google

The Case of Liv Tyler

My article on Scamming Google has some unexpected results. The most interesting is that the folks over at Google deny that the scam has any significant impact on the accuracy and usefulness of Google search results.

Slashdot, for example, quotes Google's CTO Craig Silverstein as saying that the Liv Tyler nude search doesn't, "as far as we can tell, have any good results -- in our spot check, for instance, we couldn't actually find any Web sites that show Liv Tyler in the nude. When there are no good results out there, Google's results can be somewhat arbitrary, so it's not particularly surprising this site was first."

As much as I love Google, I must disagree. I scoured through the first 30 results of the Liv Tyler Google to prove my point. Here are the results:

Index Pages: Most of the returned links were to the index page of a porn site, such as link #3 and link #6, both of which take you to the same JavaScript popup hell site. (I didn't bother checking the rest of these pages, because they obviously didn't have Liv Tyler nude on them.) These links are obviously not good Google results.

Scam Pages: Then there were the scam links, with fake discussions of Liv Tyler nude, such as link #1, link #2, link #4, and link #7. These links are also not good Google results.

Nude Liv: Google did, however, return some pages with Liv Tyler nude on them. The best page is probably link #5, which popped up after three scam pages and one index page. It has thumbnails of various movie shots of Liv Tyler in the buff. Link #25 and link #30 also has nude pictures of Liv. (I also noted two links somewhere between scam and the real thing, such as link #11 and link #21. These pages have non-nude pictures of Liv Tyler and a ton of links leading to various celebrity nude sites.

I also randomly checked a few of the low-ranked pages, with some unexpected results. For example, link #76 has a genuine discussion (!) of Liv Tyler's nude scene in Stealing Beauty. Link #116 has a nude picture along with a filmography. Link #174 is an Batman-ish erotic story with Liv Tyler playing "The Huntress." Link #192 and link #63 have fake nudes. Link #62 is a list of various Liv Tyler pages, some with a bundle of sexy images.

So, contrary to what the Google people say, there are good results for Liv Tyler nude. Google just isn't putting them at the top of the list.

Random Results?

But Google's problems do not end with the jumble of bad results for the Liv Tyler search. Google repeatedly puts the fake discussion pages of Nude Celebrity World News at the top of the search results in a huge number of searches for nude celebrities. But don't take my word for it. Google for yourself using the list of celebrities created by Nude Celebrity World News (modified to automatically search Google). You'll see the domains of www.jennifer-smith.com, www.news-in-review.com, www.find-thys.com, www.celebrity-locator.com, and www.celebrity-fans.com at the top of the list more often than "randomly."

Personally, I checked 50 of these searches, making sure to hit popular female celebrities like Meg Ryan and Heather Locklear. Here are my results:

3 searches yielded all top five search results (e.g. Kathy Bates).

9 searches yielded all top four search results (e.g. Bo Derrek).

16 searches yielded all top three search results (e.g. Linda Hamilton).

3 searches yielded both top two results (e.g. Lara Flynn Boyle).

1 search yielded the top result.

In all of the above searches, I just counted the set of top results, ignoring the matching results lower in the top ten.

Most importantly, however, is the fact that 16 searches for popular celebrities had at least one result in the top 10 (e.g. Toni Braxton, Janet Jackson, Nicole Kidman, Meg Ryan, Heather Locklear, Alicia Silverstone, and Sandra Bullock).

Only 2 searches did not yield any results in the top ten: Demi Moore and Jennifer Lopez.

These results are not random, as Google claims. Clearly, the sham discussion pages created by Nude Celebrity World News have worked their magic on Google. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is in the search results.

So I stand behind my the point in my original article: Google has been fooled into repeatedly returning, as highly-placed results, pages which any human can identify as search engine spam.

***

About the Author

Diana Hsieh is the owner and co-editor of GeekPress, an irreverent filter for the most unique and interesting technical news of the day. She also sporadically writes and lectures on philosophy, Objectivism in particular. She can be reached via e-mail to diana@geekpress.com.

© 2000 Diana Hsieh. Permission to reprint will be granted upon request.

-- Diana Hsieh

And who ever posted the screen shots of the two cars, could you be more biased? A) you're comparing different games. B) you never mention what the shots were taken on. If I take a screen shot (I couldn't) of a DC game through my Monitor (the VGA adapters by pass the 'puter, hence no screen shot) and put it next to a screen shot of a game running through an RF apater for my PS2, of course the DC is going to look better.

My advice, rent them both, go to a site like IGN or Daily Radar, find games they gave their highest rating to for each system, rent those, and when you've played them all, buy the one you want. It's that figgin simple.

"News for nerds"?? This is more like "Bickering for Lamers"

psxndc

See, therein lies the problem. IGN as a whole is not a PS2 fansite. But ps2.ign.com is essentially a fansite. If you've read the various comments, mailbags, etc on each of the ign affiliate sites (n64, dc, psx, ps2, pc) you'll see that the editors and writers for each are different, and they all carry an editorial slant towards whichever console/system their site reports on. Just FYI

According to this report dated january 1999 anyway. It's not unusual for corporate policy to change when the people at the top change, and he has been there since 1949.

I heard several months ago that Sega was to start producing software for other consoles, including Nintendo. I think this is a wise business move on their part. Sega and Nintendo both come to mind when I think of excellent game producers, but the fact that they also have to produce hardware to play the games on is a severe hinderance in my opinion.

I personally think Dreamcast is an excellent console, and Nintendo's Gamecube is the only console I plan to purchase from this round of consoles, but my purchasing decision is only based upon the game choices Nintendo will present me with. If Sega and Nintendo were to give console options for their games, instead of providing only for their own hardware, their software sales would skyrocket, but their hardware sales might plummet. It's kind of a catch-22.

If Sega and Nintendo want to join up, I say more power to them. It gives me more gaming options for the future.

-agent oranje

Check out this article on the Dreamcast section of IGN. It pits the DC against the PS2 in each of many different video game genres. Sorry to say, but in the opinion of the writer (and IMO as well) the Dreamcast blows away the PS2 library thus far. Don't forget IGN covers PS2 as well.

Check out this article on the Dreamcast section of IGN. It pits the DC against the PS2 in each of many different video game genres. Sorry to say, but in the opinion of the writer (and IMO as well) the Dreamcast blows away the PS2 library thus far. Don't forget IGN covers PS2 as well.

Check out this article on the Dreamcast section of IGN. It pits the DC against the PS2 in each of many different video game genres. Sorry to say, but in the opinion of the writer (and IMO as well) the Dreamcast blows away the PS2 library thus far. Don't forget IGN covers PS2 as well.

People aren't going to give a flippin' rip about the hardware, BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT IT! As stated in the article, the games is where it counts. If IGN is reporting that Sega is losing money on the Dreamcast, and is looking at a joint-venture with Nintendo, then I wouldn't worry about it too much.

IGNcube compared Nintendo GAMECUBE and Sony PlayStation2 in "Gamecube Versus PlayStation 2." In the article there are "comments from respected development houses Bioware, Naughty Dog and Oddworld Inhabitants, as well as Left Field Productions and Factor 5."

IGNcube compared Nintendo GAMECUBE and Sony PlayStation2 in "Gamecube Versus PlayStation 2." In the article there are "comments from respected development houses Bioware, Naughty Dog and Oddworld Inhabitants, as well as Left Field Productions and Factor 5."

Here is a link comparing Dreamcast and PSX2 from dudes who get paid to play videogames:

http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/27035.htm l.

Enough said.

Ok, we appear to disagree a little on our usage of the word 'original'. I'm not suggesting these games each defined a new genre, but almost all of them had unique features and original gameplay concepts.

Virtua Tennis: I've seen a 5 year old play her grandad at this, just having fun batting the ball backwards and forwards using a single button (and not even the D-pad). I've also seen the two most hardcore gamers I know (both ex-game-testers) play the game to death, and they've still not worn it out. That range of gameplay is original as far as I'm concerned - the game has NO learning curve.

Crazy Taxi: Get past the fact that it's NOT Driver, and you'll find a scoring system that makes for pretty compulsive high-score chasing. Yes, the physics were terrible but if you played the game as intended that wasn't an issue.

Sonic *was* original - you could replay most levels with several different characters, each of which would negotiate the levels in completely different ways. That aside it also had an awful lot of little gameplay elements I'd never seen anywhere else.

Virtual On 2 is obviously not an original game if you consider Virtual On 1. Otherwise, it unquestionably is.

Eternal Arcadia is pretty damn original-looking game. Check out the screenshots here.

If Samba de Amigo isn't original, please name another game you control with maracas.

House Of The Dead 2: Ok, busted. Not at all original. Qualitywise, however, it's the gold standard of lightgun games.

F355 is original in that no other developers have dared put such a 100% hardcore driving simulation onto a console - it doesn't have an external view because neither do Ferrari drivers. It does have difficulty controls in the driver assists though.

I found Shen Mue very strangely compulsive. I ended up really immersed in the game world; truly a very odd game indeed. Not fun in the arcade sense but very enjoyable. Incidentally, the combat engine is a stripped-down Virtua Fighter, not Dragon's Lair at all.

A person may be smart, but people are stupid

Oh dear. I was trying to cut back on cynicism but I have to agree with you here.

Well, I played a friend's system for a bit at lunch today and Dead Or Alive 2: Hardcore was pretty damn sweet. I didn't have time to check out the new Tekken game or racing game he bought, but the graphics quality was several times what else I have seen. There was clearly excellent computational work in there as well, as no clipping occurred that I could detect in very complicated manuevers. In short, I was more impressed than I have been with graphics in computers and consoles recently. The graphics were noticably better than Dreamcast, but not so much that I'd pay that kind of money right now. The whole lack of anti-aliasing issue that cropped up in Japan was fixed when developers realized that they could do it, but it wasn't where they thought it would be. (I was curious, so I checked up on it at ps2.ign.com.) There are also all those old PS games...

The second issue is the DVD player. You basicly buy a game system and get a Sony DVD player for free. This is the bigger reason I am looking forward to getting one eventually. My favorite console developer (the omnipresent SquareSoft), seems pretty committed to PS2 only, so I will get one once the hype dies down. My friend is one of those people who buys cool stuff when it comes out, on the other hand. (He and some co-workers of his got 6 PS2s amongst them and are selling them on E-Bay as a self reward for standing in line for like 7 or 9 hours.)

B. Elgin