Slashdot Mirror

You know, kind of like your mom.

  I mean, she's no Wii. But she is cheap!

" The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms."

Great, but would the new demographics want to play these games anyway? Probably not. And by rebooting these established series, all you're going to do is fuck over the faithful audience by screwing with their series.

I link to two appropriate web comics:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282

Sounds elitist maybe, but they probably are only concerned with games like bejewled on those platforms or the sims or something like wii fit.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/9/7/new-from-squareenix/

Autoplay? Please don't. Atleast beating a game used to be an accomplishment.

I don't think I'd reboot any game series - there would probably be some uncomfortable modifications for political correctness or widening the audience, eg. Duke Nukem without strippers, or no terrorists in Tom Clancy games, etc.

However, I would like to get the hours of my life back from Devil May Cry 2 - the characters don't make any sense relative to the other games.

Which somehow brings us to Spore.

It does make a good point, http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=282

The irony in this whole casual vs hardcore debate is that the casual gamers think the hardcore gamers are just as stupid and unimportant and the hardcore gamers think the casual ones.

I was going to throw down some nerd rage but I'll just post this instead.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/

Arguing just cuts into my wow time.

Obviously you've never watched TV.

I submit exhibits A:

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=61

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/090423.jpg

This comic sums that argument up nicely.

Women like to cook:

4 million copies sold in NA: Cooking Mama

And love puppies:

22 million copies worldwide: Nintendogs

What happens if soiling the thing in stereotypes works? (Obligatory http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=254 )

This VG Cats comic seemed pertinent to the topic. No I'm not affiliated in any way. http://www.vgcats.com/comics/

This very issue was addressed on VG cats in the last strip

http://www.vgcats.com/super/?strip_id=25

Why stop there? I want to see a hot coffee mod for it
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227

These days, $300 will buy you a whitebox computer (assembled yourself, of course) that is capable of running 20 virtual machines.

I don't know what kind of graduate students you know, but $300 is a lot of Ramen.

Hey, that's what I would have done, but I only have a GED and 15 years of network administration and programming experience

Ah, see you've got a paying job that lets you afford things like food, shelter and toys. It's an honest mistake for someone in the real world to make: assuming everyone knows what soft toilet paper feels like. These are graduate students, being paid in that wonderful currency of 'getting to change the world.' And the occasional grant handout.

Calling Slashdot a game, even on April 1st, is somewhat disengaging for those of us coming here in an attempt to have an intellectually honest discussion, while flooded by meme trolls and fanboys posting for sport.

How I mine for fish?

Nope.

"User experience may change..." notices always have that little ESRB tag attached to them, even on Nintendo Wii games. The reason is that there is "user-generated" content on there. If you're playing Halo 3 with someone online, you can't guarantee that they won't start spewing obscene language everywhere. You can't guarantee that they're not going to use words that would make a sailor blush. You can't guarantee that someone won't insert a crude drawing on in-game art, or do something else with a webcam... you just can't.

That little tag is the ESRB throwing up their hands and saying "screw it, we can't actually rate this", but if a game got a bad reputation for user behavior with enough substantiated reports, they COULD theoretically use that to "adjust" the game's rating retroactively.

Sadly, I was thinking more along the lines of Pokemon ...

Not in an office, but Animal Crossing is damn close.

Bah! Animal Crossing is obviously very dangerous and turns people into degenerate fishing bums, up to their ears in debt to the organised crime. =)

Or even the title.

Sony Teases 3D Playstation 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Stereoscopic_3D

Stereoscopic 3D

In December 2008, SCE confirmed that they intend to support stereoscopic 3D games and Blu-ray movies in 2009.[186] This functionality will be introduced to the PlayStation 3 via a firmware update making the first and only games console capable of generating high definition 3D images.[187] This technology was first demonstrated publicly on the PS3 in January 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show. Journalists were shown Wipeout HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in 3D as a demonstration of how the technology might work if it is implemented in the future.

As for refresh rate and glasses...
HD does not go over 60Hz at the moment. And that only with 720p and 1080i.
And while 120Hz TVs are relatively new - 100Hz TVs have been around for a decade or more.
So, unless your TV's remote comes with a cord - there are pretty good chances it has a rather comfortable refresh rate.

Which is actually - irrelevant.

Those "no shutter job or anything" glasses are actually circularly polarized glasses.
In fact, if you look closely at the photo in the original article you can make out the Real D logo on the glasses.

Circularly polarized glasses

To present a stereoscopic motion picture, two images are projected superimposed onto the same screen through circular polarizing filters of opposite handedness. The viewer wears low-cost eyeglasses which contain a pair of analyzing filters (circular polarizers mounted in reverse) of opposite handedness. Light that is left-circularly polarized is extinguished by the right-handed analyzer; while right-circularly polarized light is extinguished by the left-handed analyzer. The result is similar to that of steroscopic viewing using linearly polarized glasses; except the viewer can tilt his head and still maintain left/right separation.

Real D Cinema System (used recently with the sterescopic Disney movie, "Chicken Little 3D") uses electronically driven circular polarizers that alternate between left- and right- handedness, and does so in sync with the left or right image being displayed by the (digital) movie projector.

So, refresh rate - irrelevant. If it works in 2-D it will work in 3-D.

So, that "massively higher cost" you are talking about comes down to $1.95 for the glasses while that "lower image quality" does not even exist - since it is the case of only displaying a "doubled" image as can very well be seen in the photo in the article.

Unless you refuse to fork over those 2$ cause it is an outrageous case of bait and switch making the consumer spend extra on hardware just so he/she/it could play the game.

Currently there is an obsession with triple A games in the industry that go way beyond my comprehension. Everything is hype with graphics, most of the time to the detriment of gameplay, scenario and (the biggest blunder of all) art direction. Because everything now as to be REALISTISTIC!

I think VGCats put it best in this comic.

But its just being realistic, real is brown.

One experiment that was purported to show a chemical basis for memory involved training planaria to solve an extremely simple "maze", then grinding them up and feeding them to untrained planaria to see if they would be able to learn more quickly.

This reminds me of VG Cats.
So wrong..

How I mine for fish?

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199

I need to get out more, when I read "Staying Alive", I thought they were referring to Still Alive.Which, when you think about it, would help you stay alive in the scenario that you wake up in an Aperture Science Lab.

I'm just baffled by the concept of giving herpes to your opponents...

What exactly do you typically do to your enemies???

I'm guessing something similar to this...

Reminds me of this... http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=116

For some reason that reminds me of this comic.

And the author's Canadian! Perfect!

You insensitive clod!
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/extras/stillalive.php

It's hard to been as a edgy talking hedgehog when you have to compete with GTA.

Doesn't mean they won't try!

Hate you. I was going to find and post that but I had actual work to do.

It's hard to been as a edgy talking hedgehog when you have to compete with GTA.

Doesn't mean they won't try!

I'll cite nothing because I have no idea where this information leaked from, and you can take it with a grain of salt because I heard it years ago. But apparently the original story for Jedi worked like this:

The forest moon isn't Endor, it's Kashyyyk. The furry friends aren't Eworks, they're Wookies. You can still see an echo of this in the final film, because the very word "Ewok" is an anagram for "Wookie" (with a couple letters dropped). No one knows why this happened, but it's a safe bet the Wookies would have been way cooler than the Ewoks were. Popular opinion has it that the merchandising for cute teddy bears was more attractive than that of Wookie action figures, but no one knows for sure.

Actually, Lucas has said many times that the intent was to have the 'mighty' Empire toppled by a simple civilization. Originally this was supposed to be Wookies but he realized that the audiences would probably have a hard time accepting that Chewbacca's people were so technologically inferior when one of them was Han's co-pilot and was seen multiple times trying to repair a spaceship.

I have never heard the rumor of the alternate ending you propose but damn it sounds like that would've been out of the park. In hindsight, having the coolest and only black guy in the galaxy die would've been way before it's time since even the black robot died in 'Transformers'.

He suggested some new Wiimotes.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=165

And here I thought that it is the next logical evolutionary step for the Wii.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227

Razzle-Dazzle.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=167

No, the One True Jenova. Have you heard about the life stream?

Where did you go?" "There you are!" "Could you come over here please?"

I don't use RSS feeds for webcomics, so here is the set of pages I regularly visit:
XKCD We probably all know this one.
Cyanide and Happiness Somewhat twisted humour.
Errant Story Excellent art and storyline.
Bunny Strange humour about bunnies.
QC Indy rock comic of social interaction.
Megatokyo Megatokyo. Has gone downhill in recent years, but still good art.
Penny Arcade Gamer comic, quite famous.
PBF Perry Bible Fellowship hasn't updated in some time, but very funny when he does.
Edible Dirt is a series of single-panel jokes. Very funny, often somewhat twisted.
Ctrl-Alt-Del is a comic about a few gamer roomates.
LFG WoW/MMO/D&D spoof. Quite funny, good art, interesting plot. Many references break the 4th wall.
Two-Lumps is a comic about cats, 1 smart, 1 very, very dumb. I think the artist is stalking my cat to get ideas for the dumb one.
Gunnerkrigg Court Beautiful art, excellent story. And robots.
underpower hasn't updated in some time, great single-page art pieces recently and an actual story before.
Girl Genius is all about Mad Science.
Bunny System is a comic about psychotic rabbits.
Something Positive is very, very cynical. It actually has 5 webcomics on 1 page. Very much worth checking out.
Head Trip is... a head trip.
FLEM hasn't updated in a while, and has a strange and rather violent storyline. Back to single-panel shorts now.
VGCats video game cats is excellent, if you play video games.
Clan of the Cats Author is going blind, will continue if she gets better. Great story and art.
Dr. McNinja The adventures of Dr. McNinja. Clean art, good story, ninjas on fire.
Code Name: Hunter Magic/technology interaction in a world strangely dominated by talking animals. Excellent facial expressions, especially for being animals.
Awkward Zombie gamer comic similar to vgcats.
No Need for Bushido Samurai story, well drawn and reasonably well written.
Giant ITP hosts both The Order of The Stick, a D&D spoof, and The Battle For Gobwin Knob, a comic about a GM who gets sucked into a world of his own design, on the losing side of a no-win scenario.
Last Blood Zombies have taken over the earth and killed nearly all humans, so now the vampires fight to protect their dwindling food source. Excellent drawing and unique story.
Chopping Block Butch the serial killer. Sick, twisted humour, but very funny.
Dominic Deegan Oracle for Hire, is a good story with pretty good art.
The Traveling Gnome Great art, story seems good so far.
One-Liners may be offensive to some, or funny to those with a sense of humour.

Here are the ones I read, and I see no reason to be ashamed of any of them. If you don't like them, no one is forcing you to read them.

• Questionable Content
• Penny Arcade
• Ctrl Alt Del
• PvP Online
• VG Cats
• XKCD
• Cyanide & Happiness

*Ctrl-Alt-Delete
http://www.cad-comic.com/rss/rss.xml
Stupid webcomic
*Looking for Group
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LookingForGroup?format=xml
Webcomic.
*Least I Could Do
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LICD?format=xml
Webcomic.
*Linux Kernel
http://www.kernel.org/kdist/rss.xml
(no explanation)
*NationStates
http://69.60.14.82/cgi-bin/rss.cgi?nation=windhelm
A sort of game where you have to govern a nation. I develops based on the laws you vote.
*Questionable Content
http://www.questionablecontent.net/QCRSS.xml
Webcomic
*The Book of Biff
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheBookOfBiff
Webcomic
*The Perry Bible Fellowship
http://pbfcomics.com/feed/feed.xml
Webcomic (not updated i a looong time)
*VG Cats
http://www.vgcats.com/vgcats.rdf.xml
Stupid and bad webcomic
*xkcd
http://www.xkcd.com/rss.xml
FANTASTIC webcomic
*Linux Journal
http://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxjournalcom
I dunno why it's in there. I like the articles
*Slashdot
http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot
I guess that's about it. I'm going to delete a couple of webcomics though. Some are just too awful.

I think you could be referring to this comic

Perhaps these bugs are by design

"The International Astronomical Union has decided that Pluto and Eris should be classified as "plutoids,"

But...has anyone told Scott Ramsoomair?

Dick hats

-- but would any sane being *design* something like this??

Then, you can play find the wii-wii in lew of finding the sausage. That or you can play fun games like this: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/extras/stillalive.php

----

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.

Obligatory VG Cats comic strip.

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199 original
http://www.vgcats.com/news/comic_spore_Will.jpg the Spore team's interpretation

way way too late

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199 original
http://www.vgcats.com/news/comic_spore_Will.jpg the Spore team's interpretation

way way too late

Don't forget Spore's team version using in-game graphics.