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Wake me up when we get some Baby vs. Rhino action going.

The problem with optional console perhipherals

I'm sitting off an ISP that plugs into Level-3 so this blackout is definately causing me problems. I can't get to Penny Arcade or Megatokyo (clearly this is a crisis). So I'm using Tor to get around it. Yeah, it's really slow at times, but it works.

( And as impossible as it sounds, there are more important sites I can't get to either, like the support site for a couple bits of software we use rather heavily at work. )

Here. Still timely.

Divx is introduced Classic

Guess this explains why I can't get to http://www.penny-arcade.com/ from Verizon's network on the east coast today.

Tetris: The New Shape of Fear

Sadly, a Fairy isn't technically an animal, so I don't think it'll be accepted. (I agree though. :-)

I wonder if we could get Clumsy Clawshrimp accepted?

Clicky

I'm waiting until I can buy the Sony Celladiowave from Sony Style Magazine

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-06- 01

He makes a fighting game. Not just a fighting game, a fighting game with a gimmick (albeit a very successful one). Is anyone really surprised he added in a a female with the fighting style of a wrestler? If you are, go home and spank yourself. No, not THERE.

It's not that I don't like DOA, it's that they are making it to be much more than it really is. It isn't some masterpiece, a work of art so great it reinvented the fighting genre. Tell me, exactly, what did they reinvent? It is very, very difficult to do anything new in the genre in which you mash buttons to punch and kick people. People play DOA for one reason, and it isn't the story. I didn't even know there was a story until I read this. I just always thought those cutscenes where for a little hands-on time, if you know what I mean.

And props to 1UP for giving such a great interview. They really grilled him hard, like when they asked what Team Ninja did to reinvent the series, and they didn't answer, and when 1UP asks about the traffic pattern being dynamic or present, and they don't answer, and all those "questions" suggesting things to which TeamNinja just answers "yeah, fo' shure." What is the point of including them? Where is the editor? This smacks of PR. Then again, it is 1UP. And a lot of their fans would rather talk about Mario than play one of his games (no giant ta-tas there).

I'm not trying to troll. It's just that this whole interview is crap. It could be summed up in the following way, instead of being sprawled across 4 pages: "How are you reinventing DOA?" "We're adding new female characters, and a dinosaur."

I thought Satan consulted for Blizard.

It was also a Penny Arcade comic

While I don't like the idea of paying real money for in-game advantages, and in fact I could rant for hours about how it's wrong for a game to explicitly catter to the pay-to-cheat crowd... what's wrong with caring about what your character looks like?

I'm not Korean, but in WoW I wished my tailor character could dye clothes so they match. Just because I'm a munchkin doesn't mean I want to look like a clown. (And if I did, I'd want a _proper_ clown costume, with red nose, floppy shoes and all, not just a collection of mis-matched clothes.)

I know others who would have liked the same thing. And Gabe of Penny Arcade seems like a pretty hardcore gamer, yet he too recently complained on the site about having all those bonuses on a green hat, and how it doesn't fit his fire mage image.

How it having a large external any different than having a large internal? They are both single points of failure. That's kind of why you have a large external drive. To ... you know, backup stuff.

I'm getting a little sick of the stuff I've been hearing about Sony and Microsoft being scared of Nintendo's new controller.

Yeah, I don't think it's scary for them, but I think you're missing the point most Ninentdo fans are getting - Nintendo plans to launch this new controller design as a standard pack in. Think about what that means - very much like the original XBox and the hard drive vs Sony and it's hard drive add on. In order for something new to catch on, it usually has to be a standard feature or it fails (dual-shock and N64 mem expansion being the exceptions to the rule, although dual-shock did quickly become a pack in proving the rule).

The second part of this is that Nintendo has not said they won't be packing a standard controller attachment or a Gamecube controller for use on standard games as well - I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case, and I actually expect it to be the case. Alternatively, they may decide not to do either knowing that they can count on most people either having a GC controller or being willing to buy the attachment separately to play "regular" games.

So despite the fact it probably isn't that scary to MS or Sony, you have to admit it is both different and exciting, especially in light of both Sony and MS releasing machines that feature speed upgrades (which to me seem more incremental than exponential) and the "new" feature of wireless (not standard on the XBox Three-Shitty of course) which Nintendo already perfected and proved. (Yes, third parties did it earlier, but the WaveBird is the first *good* implementation I've owned.)

Cheaper than the Xbox 360.
Ho ho! The hilarity!

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it's cheaper than the XBox 360. (I'm also not convinced it *will* be.)
Now, cheaper than the XBox Three-Shitty at $299 isn't gonna happen.

Sony has launched in the US for $299 for both the PS1 and PS2, I suspect they are still weighing the pros and cons of trying to keep to that price point again for the PS3, no matter the cost, vs some other point up to and including $399, I seriously don't think Sony will breach $399, as there has never been a successful console launch in the US over $299 yet, let alone $399, but with MS upping the stakes, we may be looking at the first $300+ generation of *successful* console launches. That or Nintendo will make out like a bandit.

Despite buying most previous consoles within months of launch, I am not personally looking to help usher in the $300+ launch price point and will not buy until the PS3 or the real XBox 360 is under $300, so I'll get to see all three launches and decide which to buy first (I'll eventually own them all) based on games available that I want to play.

Also does anyone remember the South Park spoof of it where they show the first episode with defender robots walking around..

Now if only he'd give us free tickets for some good movie ... :)

Months later those guys basically said they were wrong in their criticisms of the game, that while it looked stupid in still images, it was considerably more creepy in motion. If you thought the game was shitty, that's fine, but don't call on these guys to back up your opinion when they don't actually share it.

The Doom3 art direction could not have anything to do with this could it?
This sums it up (scroll down).

Obligatory nod to Penny-Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2004-09- 31

Boy, she has a little trouble keeping her mouth shut, doesn't she? Course, she was wrong about that one, maybe she's wrong about this one too...

Anyone ever get the feeling that Kirsten doesn't really "get" Spider Man or comic books in general?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2004-07- 16

sadly, if a console is open, you can bet that the openness will be used 95% of the time to play pirated games, not homebrew ones.

There is a middle ground of legal emulation. If you own a copy of a Lucasarts adventure game, and you use your right under 17 USC 117 to use ScummVM DS to install it onto a CompactFlash card and then put the CF card into an adapter on your Nintendo DS, you can still play commercial quality games without piracy.

Quite simply because commercial games are of much higher quality than any homebrews!

Not always. Would you rather play Tetris Worlds for GBA, which actually breaks the concept, or would you prefer Tetanus On Drugs for GBA? Would you rather play Lumines on a PSP and Minesweeper on a Pocket PC, or would you prefer Luminesweeper on a GBA SP while your backside is cushioned by a wad of cash?

Aww....I think someone needs a friendly visit from our good friend Mr. Period!

Mandatory Penny Arcade reference.

More likely a penny-arcade reference. http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-09- 21&res=l is the latest in the FF2000 series.

Did someone get less than the requisite number of hugs as a child? Seriously, what is the motivation for this sort of thing? Does it have to do with John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory? Or does it just entertain you to be a total dick?

No, the word is Cockthirsty.

Cheers,
Matt

There was a time I thought Romero was interesting: before I actually learned anything about him and just knew he was part of ID. Talk about letting a little success go to your head... he's like a warning label for the entire concept of ego overtaking your rational thought processes.

No kidding! I just finished reading Masters of Doom and didn't realize until then how much of a prick John Romero really was. For those who haven't read the book - it's a "rise and fall of Id Software" book. It's interesting that after DOOM was released, Romero clearly became more interested in playing games than writing them. He pretty much left all the game-writing to John Carmack. The book spells out how Romero was a better programmer in the beginning, but Carmack quickly surpassed him and left Romero behind. Pretty much because Romero lost focus.

These days, Romero is a big hype machine. Diakatana, anyone? Ha ha ha ha!

Is not, thus may help refresh your memory.

Obligatory Penny Arcade comic.

I think you mean "John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem"

"Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad"

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2004-03- 19

I Can See The Start Of A Tiny Halo

Enjoy.

So has Penny Arcade.

Nobody ever got jailed for violating the DMCA.

Yes, you can buy a portable DVD player for the price of a big honking Memory Stick Pro Duo Card. You can also buy a hundred DVD+-/?W$#-R blanks for that price. I'd rather carry around my PSP and a Memory Stick PRO Duo because I don't have a backpack to cart around all my FREE LIBRE GRATIS OPEN SOURCE FLAC OGG VORBIS DOT ORG media.

Do you go up to people at the Apple store saying "You can buy a Discman for $20! Stop buying that iPod!"? No? Then let me spend my money the way I want.

rofl.

Yes, I think despite anyone's particular reservations, this is something that's like "cool, check it out". Whether it works in practice or not we'll see; but it has potential. I definitely "want one".

However, despite fanboys blathering on (replace "Will Wright" with "Nintendo" or "Miyamoto" in this comic) about how this changes the entire world and nothing was ever like it and none of the other platforms have anything like it, remember the EyeToy Demo where the guy used the two cups, in realtime, to control two cups onscreen?

So before you think Nintendo is the only one offering this kind of control next-gen, remember: the PS3 can already do a number of these things. Without a special motion-sensing controller.

Of course, that doesn't mean the Revolution isn't going to be cool and I'm not going to get one. You can bet when it rolls around with the next-gen Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, I'll be right there.

But remember, the Revolution isn't going to be the only one with this kind of control next generation.

Maybe Link can Smoulder with Generic Rage.

Oh, for the love of (your preferred diety), use a period.

So in the US, we get two versions (the real one, and the crippled one), but in Japan they only get the real one. It will be interesting to see how the crippled version sells in the US. I wonder if Europe will get the crippled version?

I've got to agree that the high price is a problem (here, there, and everywhere). But the little "XBox 360 Bar" is an interesting idea. That would probably help (as would the fact that the XBox 360 isn't a new system from a first timer, but a second gen).

But, it's the Revolution details I want to know about (it has been said we'll learn more tomorrow).

the cpu in the xbox is not a G5, it's completely difference the only similarity ends at 64-bit and ppc it's out of order and rather different in allot of other ways, personally i'm going to get an xbox 360 either when they have a price drop or halo 3 comes out (i dont think it's particularly expensive i'm just cheap and launch titles dont look too good)

These concepts go a bit further back than Tamogachi, i.e. David Crane's Little Computer People, which today would be something akin to a cross between Tamogachi and Sims, as you could interact with some little dude who lived in your C64. I thought it was a bizzare idea when I first saw in in development at Activision in Mountain View, back in 1985 (that's twenty years ago!) and it runs in only 64K of memory. Imagine David Crane coming out of retirement or someone else picking this old nut back up and injecting it with new life. IIRC the main fault of LCP was the limited repetoire of the character, which Nintendogs seems to take advantage of technology (i.e. lots of cheap memory) to hold more behaviour and possible courses of action.

I'd probably lean toward some other animal than a dog. A cat would be easy, it just eats and sleeps most of the time, though you could enjoy the thrill of virtual litterbox cleaning and dragging a string around while the cat chases, or even give it a brown paper shopping bag to hide in.

What animal would really make for an ideal pet? I've tried spiders, which are actually fascinating pets and that might be cool in a virtual way.

Dude did you hear?

No man, what?

Shock and Burnie has been ported to the PS2! It's 'bout time, I mean Sony needed something to sell more PS2s this holiday season.

Yeah, I was geting bored with DVD Blowout. I'll bet the Gamecube doesn't get this game.

Dude, no one cares about the lamecube, it's just for kidz. Nintendo wouldn't dare do something like this.

"Then I got it up to the register, came to my fucking senses, and bought a thirty dollar discman instead."
"Yeah, but the iPod doesn't skip. "
"Neither does this. It's cushioned by about three hundred and eighty dollars in cash. "

Hmm... it appears Sony has had another common problem with the X-Boxes. Both had bad DVD drives in the orginals, now we have overheating power adaptors. Coincedence? I think not.

It's probably just a crappy port.

Come to mention it, both Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb's last names both start with a 'P' and have those little dots in their names... I'm onto them now.

Actually, neither Dr Pepper nor Mr Pibb include a period in the name.

At least once this week I'll continue explaining to someone about relational databases long after they have lost all interest.

But do you explain to them about Home Cities in AoE3?

Unite to form...a bunch of stupid crap nobody cares about!!

A peek at their methods for replacing him