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My source is somewhat suspect, but I'd say Dungeon Siege: the Movie would fall under that category.

Ob-Penny-Arcade

When he talks about a bottom-up distro, there's really nothing more bottom-up than gentoo. Gentoo basically downloads the source off of the developer's web site, cvs, whatever, and compiles it.

If that's too "bottom-up," well, then write a tool that generates binary packages off of the gentoo portage tree, and then a pretty installer that uses them. You could run an apt-style repository on a gentoo box, and then have this new distro just combine the binary packages from gentoo. However, you have to make standardizations on certain libraries, and then you're in exactly the same position of debian or red hat. So what's he talking about, a red hat that's more "modular?" He really didn't do a good job of describing what he has in mind or why it's different from debian.

Why doesn't he just add features to existing distros? Face it, if the linux geeks don't see any unique features in a distro, it's going nowhere. Sure, impressing the PHB's is great and all, but who's going to use it? Who's going to work on it?

In short, the article really fails to give us anything meaningful to talk about. Some of you people seem ready to start gushing before you've even heard any details, saying how the PHB's love this stuff, but all I can say is...

...enjoy pre-registering for your Phantom.

;)

"Nintendo makes kiddie games"

and of course gabe from penny arcade said it best when referring to wind waker...

"...these guys think that Zelda is a game for kids. Well only KIDS would care that a game looks like it is for kids. It's like when you are 14 and your mom wants to get a picture of you on the merry go round with your little sister but you don't want to get on because it's for kids. Eventually you grow out of that phase and you can appreciate just having fun whether it be on the back of an undulating wooden horse or in front of a cell shaded video game."

They're selling them on ebay!

And according to Penny Arcade, you don't have to worry about yours skipping, either.

And according to Penny Arcade, you don't have to worry about yours skipping, either.

Check the news post for that strip for more commentary.

You forgot about the cat-killing... powerful CEOs can't get off unless they do a cat at the same time.

Gabe: "Hey Charles"

Charles: "Hey, Fuck You."

Gabe: "Yeah, So I Was Looking At iPods Today, I thought Of You."

Charles: (Pulls Out iPod) "Oh Yeah? Pretty Neat Huh?"

Gabe: "Oh Yeah, Real Good. Then I Got Up To The Register, Came To My Fucking Senses, And Bought A $30 Discman Instead."

Charles: "Yeah, But The iPod Doesn't Skip."

Gabe: "Neither Does This. It's Cushioned By About $380 In Cash."

The Above Dialog Was Taken From This Comic. Check it Out

"... restricting my cats access to my hardware is not an option."

Of course, they need to study for their MSCE exams

Actually, I was thinking more like this one, in an article about odd games.

Eight posts and still no obligatory Penny Arcade link. *sigh*

No, I think a lot of us have seen what happens when a site gets sponsored by McDonald's

Oh, and I agree that the FF7 fanboys will most likely be victorious in this battle. I'm not entirely sure why so many people still hold it up as the GREATEST GAME EVAR. I mean, I like it and all, but I personally think 10 kicks its ass both story-wise (the voice acting, though kinda so-so at times, helped a lot) and gameplay-wise(10 kicked my ass more than any game since 4.)

Good thing Pac-Man isn't on the ballot, though, otherwise Gabe might bust out his robot again.

The monkey watches :)

--
Mando

The monkey watches .

You will not be able to buy a Phantom console in stores. The Phantom console will be available from cable and satellite providers as a set-top box. The technology inside the console is nothing new; what Phantom has innovated is a means of delivering rights-secured content directly to clients as a value-added service.

Picture this: Joe Sixpack wants to play games, but he squanders too much of his salary on scratch-off lottery tickets and gizmos that he sees on TV. His cable provider (to whom he moronically pays $50 a month to watch what he could get on SuprNova for free) gives him a Phantom console. That's right, zero dollars. Joe Sixpack gives his cable company no money. Instead, when he wants to play a game, he simply downloads it on demand for a reasonable charge of $9.95. That's not much more than the price of renting a game, except his purchased game is installed on a hard drive and bears no expiration date. The system handles all the installation and authentication information, so all Joe Sixpack has to do is pick up a controller and be careful not to spill his Keystone Light beer all over it.

Of course, around here I don't expect you to understand that. You morons trust a whiny comic strip more than you trust the facts. The Phantom is a real company with more integrity than all of yours put together.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Infinium Console Expert

An unfunny comic.
Worst. Comic. Ever.
A piece of shit.
A lame comic for homophobic closet homosexuals.

An unfunny comic.
Worst. Comic. Ever.
A piece of shit.
A lame comic for homophobic closet homosexuals.

An unfunny comic.
Worst. Comic. Ever.
A piece of shit.
A lame comic for homophobic closet homosexuals.

An unfunny comic.
Worst. Comic. Ever.
A piece of shit.
A lame comic for homophobic closet homosexuals.

What, are they gonna sue Penny Arcade too?

Dude, Whoa
I Hate The Stupid Phantom

What, are they gonna sue Penny Arcade too?

Dude, Whoa
I Hate The Stupid Phantom

Thanks for responding to the question. Though I haven't had a chance to read everything (I definitely will), I appreciate what honesty and bluntness I've seen so far. That's why I read /.

I've just been noticing over time that I have less and less patience for all the fuss of gaming. For starters, gaming isn't really a "buy a computer and play King's Quest IV until you vomit" kind of experience anymore. Between the graphics cards, Barton chips, drivers and lag-times, gamers are required to be a little more like combatants in an arms-race than fun-seekers.

Also, there seems to be polarization in gaming genres. Most games these days are either "throw-away" games (Tetris, Solitare, etc.) or massively multiplayer black holes (you fill in the blank).

In a way, I suppose I've been missing the happy medium between the two. The older console systems seemed to capture this middle-way with some level of consistency, whereas newer systems seem to be rushing towards the great Everquest-FPS panacea, replete with alternate economies and Stephenson-esque realities.

My addled brain is getting worn out with the seemingly endless drama of code-leaks, postponements and screenshots. In a way, I could just sit back and live vicariously through Tycho and Gabriel and never even pick up a joystick.

Long story short, gaming is starting to become a full time job that I don't have time for, so, yeah, maybe it is just age. But, dangit, Doom III and Half-Life II look so good!

Time will tell, I guess....

I'm glad someone said this. If you read the article, it says the dual-screen is best used for exactly the types of things that people are suggesting for the DS.

That and the nice shout-out for Square's requirement of GBA for FF:CC from penny-arcade, hmm.....

Perhaps the big N isn't as crazy after all?

That factor has sort of evolved over the years and is now the Dancing Game Master. Dancing games are pretty much the new fighting games nowadays, and so who rules the arcade? The lone master of DDR who seems to have an overabundance of quarters and other tokens to put on the machine and reserve his spot in the game, as well as an overabundance of females to cheer him on.

And he's even worse than the Fighting Game Master in the sense that he usually has the physique to back up his game (as dancing games generally require a decent amount of physical shape to play), so there goes any idea of taking the fighting to the real world. No, with the Dancing Master you're stuck in his long and beefy shadow, and there's no hope of overcoming his might and the posse that he has formed out of those who he has beaten...

In order to become Good, you have to play the games a LOT. When you don't have the time, you end up spending time on other things.

I think that's a big part of it. In the rare occaisons when I do have time to play games these days, I sure don't do it online. Back when I was an avid gamer, my game of choice was Tribes 2. I played that game for several hours, every day. I was pretty damn good, too. It was a rare game where I didn't end up at the top of the scoreboard at the end of the match. If you DIDN'T play that game for several hours a day, all the people like me who did would stomp you.

It's the same thing now. I wouldn't mind picking up UT2k4 or something for a bit, but I know that I don't have time to play more than an hour or two a week. So as soon as I set foot on a server, BLAM, some 14 year old with nothing else to do all day is going to blow me away, and then hurl some kind of unintelligible racial slur at me.

Now I find that when I do play just about anything, it's on my Xbox. Mod chips are great. Oh, and I also switched to the Mac, and already played the three games for it.

This is a phase that everyone goes through. Either because of something in your life (often something subtle) or just a batch of mediocre games that temporarily sour your opinion of the entire medium, you stop playing games for awhile. I did the same thing when I was around 17. I stopped playing games for about a year or two straight and missed out on most of the interesting games that were released for the original PlayStation. But it wasn't a part of "growing up", "putting away childish things", or some other moronic platitude that non-gamers would give you. It's just a temporary change in the way you choose to entertain yourself.

This is something that we all do on a regular basis, but we don't really notice it until it strikes a medium that we actually care about. Personally, there was a time when I watched at least a couple of movies on DVD every week, burning through them at about the same rate as most regulars buyers/renters do. But now I haven't watched a movie on DVD in a good three months or so, but I haven't even noticed it. Why? Because I don't visit six or seven movie sites a day, but I do visit Insert Credit, GameSpot, Video Fenky, GAF, The Magic Box, Penny Arcade, and Slashdot Games just about every day. If you're actually posting on this site, then I'm guessing that you have a pretty similar set of sites that you visit.

I'm guessing that you'll pick up something really good in about a year or two and then you'll be addicted again just like the rest of us. But then again, if you really are of the mentality that "games are kids stuff", then maybe you'll deprive yourself of them forever. I really don't see how Metal Gear Solid or Knights of the Old Republic are any more childish than any of the TV shows or movies that I watch, but that's just me. Maybe that's why I really don't see myself abstaining from video games as I grow up any more than I see myself suddenly abstaining from television, movies, or music.

As a graphic designer, I can say that the prospect of drawing directly on the screen is a holy fucking grail. It would make so many things so much nicer. I don't care if it comes in the form of a laptop or just an LCD that you plug into your desktop that you happen to be able to draw on, but dammit, I want one.

Gabe of Penny Arcade got one (hp, IIRC), and he loves it. His workflow is now entirely digital.

In theory at least, that's a very compelling reason to get one.

Do these work well for drawing in Photoshop or Painter? I know Gabe uses one.

Ahem... Pertaining to M$

"...see you at the crossroads"

Why did you make me think of this?

I'm getting my advice from PA already

And I think that to a lot of people, that mysterious something is worth the Apple premium.
...
Thoughts?

C'mon, admit it -- it's the black turtlenecks that really turn you on.

Perhaps they'll call it EverCrack

Product placement in videogames, modifying the game to suit the advertisement. EA is mentioned, no less.

Irony: Microsoft's Sidewinder series of PC joysticks and gamepads (also includes wheels and headsets) are some of those most comfortable controllers ever. They fit your hand every bit as well as the GameCube controller, except nobody would be able to complain that they're too small.

And instead of following in that tradition, they decided to take inspiration from forest wildlife when it became really important to have a single, great controller design.

I learned about these servers because the guy(s) who run it are a friend of a friend of my brother's... or something... anyway... The TexanGirlz servers were started by some guy who was looking for a "safe" place for his son to play online (with out the less desireable members of the web joining in.) So, the attitude there is much more "user friendly" and inviting than your average server.

In fact, above a certain level of skill, pay, and/or education, both the law and business practices just stops recognizing a concept of "on your own time". (You'll know when you reach that level ;-)

Yes, but at that point Ask Slashdot might not be a terribly useful source of information about similar people's experiences.

Also, if you're at that level this sort of thing isn't quite as bad of a problem.

I found it to be a much weaker game overall than the original, which was the reason I bought a SNES.

That's because Rare developed the second game. It took Nintendo a little while to realize how bad Rare was getting, especially since part of the team did so well with Goldeneye, and then proceeded to release the crap that was DK64.

Penny Arcade says it best. Note that I *liked* Starfox Adventures, but the comic definitely says what's wrong with DK64, and Donkey Kong Country 2, and Donkey Kong Country 3, and Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie, and Diddy's Kong Pilot, etc. etc. etc...

You forgot this one ;)

I've always found this one to be my favorite wang reference there. Actually, its one of the very few PAs I ever found funny, but i haven't read it in a long time for said reason.

... Must touch up on my wang referencing skills

My wang referencing skills are fine.

... Must touch up on my wang referencing skills

My wang referencing skills are fine.

... Must touch up on my wang referencing skills

My wang referencing skills are fine.

... Must touch up on my wang referencing skills

My wang referencing skills are fine.

Don't you get it? That was intentional on the aliens' part so the intruders would get bored, and leave!

And I bet you felt like pounding some nails into your dick, too. :)

Obligatory PA Link Bump maps... Hell yes.