Slashdot Mirror
E3 Wrapup Documented
mindless4210 writes "The new Nokia N-Gage, shown at E3, looks promising, but Nokia better be prepared to compete with Sony and Nintendo. Nokia is betting the N-Gage's wireless communication abilities will set it apart and allow multiplayer gaming to move away from computers and living-room consoles and into consumers' pockets." Reader harikiri writes "According to the BBC, the much-maligned Infinium Labs has showcased their Phantom console at E3. Apparently Infinium have made agreements with AMD and Nvidia to provide the processor and graphics controller. The specs seem very respectable: a 2.5GHz AMD processor, 256MB RAM and a 40GB HDD." Reader Ipingforpong writes "E3, probably the most well known video game trade show was assaulted by the U.S. Army in a promotion for America's Army. Soldiers rappelled out of a real Blackhawk helicopter with real rifles and rushed the show."
In these days, an assault like this would scare the shit out of me.
Who knows who they'll go after next?
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Each year the amount of glitz and frivolous (ie, non-gaming related) material seem to increase quite significantly. Between Army antics and PR fluff, fewer and fewer titles of substance are actually playable, and the attention of the gaming press has become less focused on the games than their promotion.
Is this to compensate for the decreasing number and quality of the games that are showcased, or does it simply reflect the fact that the Western games industry is increasingly mainstream?
---------- Jaani.net -- internet law and technology
Does anyone have any sales figures on the original N-Gage? I can't imagine that the sales were decent enough that they felt they could give it another shot. Perhaps they just have a lot of extra money that they don't want to be burdened with. Money is a rather cumbersome thing for some people, I guess.
-Vendal Thornheart
There's also the yearly return of ever delicious boothbabes.
And since my company PlayLogicGames also exhibited it's line-up on the show, thought I'd say hi.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Man, give up Nokia! You are never going to be able to sell those things. Just saying N-Gage will get you laughed out of the building.
What a joke.
It's been exhausting covering it, especially when you get slashdotted half way through!
Still, at least I get a rest from E3 action until e3 2005, which is scheduled for May 18-20 2005
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
I'm a writer for FileFront.com, and let me tell you, this year's E3 was great. There are a ton of great games coming out in the next year, and although you hear day-after-day about all the new MMORPGs coming out, make sure you keep an eye out on the great FPSs (Half-Life 2 and Doom 3), 3rd-person action/adventure (Fable and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) and RTSs (Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War) coming out this year as well.
Check out all of the coverage that my coworkers and I put together at our E3 2004 Coverage Page. Lot's of great stuff there.
Trent Polack
www.polycat.net
E3, probably the most well known video game trade show was assaulted by the U.S. Army in a promotion for America's Army. Soldiers rappelled out of a real Blackhawk helicopter with real rifles and rushed the show.
They performed the same stunt, last year, right as I was about to cross the street to walk in. A guy in full green camoflage, green and black facepaint and carrying a machine gun walked up to me and told me to please stand back for a few minutes. Applying my rule of never arguing with people holding real machineguns, I did as he asked.
Sadly, given my never argue rule, I never did get to ask why the in God's name the US Army thought it was intelligent to wear GREEN camoflage in Los Angeles of all places. Concrete gray mixed with a dirty smog brown, perhaps. Green though...?
I guess the Army finally listened to Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam:
We've got a special man in the audience today right now. Its Mr. Leo. He's a fashion consultant for the Army. 'Why thank you Adrian. I'm just very happy to be here. I want to tell you something. You know, this whole camoflague thing for me doesn't work very well.' Why is that? 'Well you...because you go into the jungle I can't see you. You know, its like wearing stripes and plaid. For me, I want to do something different. If you go into the jungle, make a statement. If you're going to fight, clash.
I am used to read a lot of bad press about the Ngage, including Slashdot. You might have the impression that such a bad and unpopular phone/console would be cheap to snatch up on eBay and similar places.
When I decided I wanted an MP3 player built into a phone, and that I would try to getthat combo by buying a second-hand Ngage, I was very disappointed: Ngage are auctioned off at very respectable prices. High enough that I am made to wonder if I would rather buy a separate MP3 player after all.
So, the only logical conclusion I can draw is: Ngage customers seem to be very satisfied with it. There just isn't enough people parting with their Ngage, to have the prices drop.
Sigged!
Though everyone mocks Phantom and Infinium Labs's aggressive attitude toward internet users, if Infinium Labs can persuade some notable PC developers to join in its camp, it may be nice competition to Xbox, as "better Xbox without Live". Or is it supposed to have reasonable network support? If it has network multiplay, it's almost like Xbox 1.5.
Innovation: How long before someone releases yet another PC-in-a-home-theater-acceptable-box that can combine the functionality of all the other boxes?
All we need is a single damned box that can work as a DVR, play games on a Microsoft OS, purchase new games over the Internet, and play against other people over the Internet as well.
Whoever can come up with ONE SINGLE DEVICE that can do all these things will be rich! Perhaps we can call it the "Plethora of Consoles" (PC). It'll be like nothing else!
While the focus on recent years' E3 seems to have been on consoles, handhelds seem to have been the primary focus, with the DS, PSP, and N-Gage 2 all seeing the light of day. In this age of ever-shrinking technology, is there any chance that this could be the direction that the video game industry is headed? Could consoles go the way of the dodo ten years down the line? At least two of the handheld offerings this year seem very strong, and with their wireless connectivity abilities and graphics similar to those of home consoles, the handheld system may begin to be seen as little more than a cheaper alternative to a console system.
Saw this on a forum earlier today:
i d=1084620601&user=ukresistance
http://www.b2g3.com/boards/board.cgi?action=read&
Anyone know whether this is accurate?
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Emphasis mine. No sane army in the world would use real weapons with real live ammo in a non-combat situation. Doing so pretty much breaches every protocol, regulation and whatever else there is regarding safety. Maybe they used training rifles ( You know, often seen on Discovery... M16 variants with tiny orange thingy at the end of the barrel ) that fired blanks, perhaps. I doubt that in a non-combat situation even blanks would be allowed, loaded in rifles.
So less hype and more common sense, please.
Hate me!
Metal Gear 4: Code Recovery Alpha
Solid Snake's on the case!
Max Hoberman, multiplayer lead developer at Bungie Studios, told BBC News Online: "When we made Halo we never realised that the multiplayer element of the game would be so popular.
Now this is, ladies and gentlemen, what I call a silly tit. Who would have guessed? Multiplayer? Popular? And this is supposed to be a spokesman of Bungie, of all companies -- apparently he hasn't noticed how wildly successful their previous multiplayer games were, from Minotaur (with no singleplayer option!) to Marathon to Myth.
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
One of the biggest surprises at E3 was Rockstar's publication of info and screenshots of Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas. There was much speculation that there would be no releases until much later (it is, after all, a late October release). For info/screenshots, check GTA-SA.com. They're f*#$ing brilliant.
I think its worth pointing out that the mouse and keyboard combo looks like an interestingly designed piece of technology. Its shaped so that the entire thing can sit on your lap comfortably. The keyboard appears to be adjustible and the thing itself acts as the mouse mat. I would be slightly concerned that the mouse mat area is too close to the keyboard so perhaps that limits its use. IGN has a CGI mockup of it here and a real once can be seen in the BBC article linked too in the story.
Hardware aside I haven't actually seen any reports of software that runs on the thing. Did anyone who attend E3 get the chance to playtest one? As far as I can tell it was only the box on display and it may of only had a basic running demo.
The last thing I want to mention is about their distribution model. They claim they want to make software downloadable via broadband internet connections. Thats all fair and well but does anyone out there remember The Sega Channel? Long story short it was a cable channel that allowed you to download Genesis games directly onto your console. I don't believe it faired to well but given the popularity of XBox live and PS2 Online it shows that there is more of a likely uptake.
BTW, anyone interested in the Sega channel should have a look here and here.
-- Enditallnow
-- Enditallnow (F.A.O the Mod's: 'cause im getting that funny "Your a troll feeling" here is the link to the strip that started it all. )
I'd love to see it in video. Did anyone record it?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
All right, so we spend a couple of million dollars developing the game (by we I mean, US taxpayers), and now they pull expensive stunts to promote the game.
I'm sorry, but I'm just a little bit upset about that? I mean, couldn't they be using that kind of money to, oh, I don't know, armor some Humvees?
AAO has nailed it. it's all about the "Honor" system that they created - it's an implicit anti-idiot feature which all but eliminates the morons that show up online when you are playing.
BF1942 would be a great game, if it weren't for all the tards that show up. they need the honor system - AFAIK AAO is the first and only online game that uses it. here is why this is important.
the gaming industry is HUGE - it is bigger than the theaterical movie theater industry (ie. revenue from ALL movies in ALL theaters in the US doesn't even come close to touching the revenue from GAMES.)
in fact, if you combine all the money made by LOTR it's about the same as Madden Football (and that game didnt cost a zillion dollars to make)
anyway - so dis the US army all you want, but they are paving the way for serious anti-idiot game play.
w00t.
Where's the good stuff? I want to know *everything* about the hardware. I want to know the resolution of both screens, the levels of sensitivity of the touch screen, the proc speeds, whether or not you can run both CPUs at the same time, RAM size and type, and all the other cool stuff.
"If at first you don't succeed... So much for skydiving." - Henry Youngman.
You're right: handhelds definitely had the spotlight this year. One odd exception was mobile phone based gaming -- even with NGage 2 it seemed like it was a hotter topic last year than now.
Personally I doubt consoles are going away any time soon -- I think there's a lot to be said for playing a game on a big screen on your couch. That said, I do think that the PC market will continue to decline -- mobile devices will cater to the solitaire/minesweeper type gamer, while consoles (with their increasing cpu power and online capabilities) will make further inroads into genre's typically reserved for PC's. But who knows...
There's only one thing out of the entire E3 news that interests me: Myst IV. They were demoing it at E3 and even Rand Miller showed up a couple of times and was mobbed by a few rabid Myst fans! :)
Myst IV looks like it will be fantastic, possibly the best title in the Myst series yet. Check out the developer's blog at:
http://revelatione3team.blogspot.com/
Cheers,
Jared
Thats around
The US has a population of 250,000?
Trolling is a art,
Yet, think about it. Play these games, have a lot of fun, then realize "Hey...if that had been real, I wouldn't have been able to respawn those 20 times I died...do I really want to do that kind of thing in real life???" and then run at warp 10 away from the recruiter. That's what I'd do, anyway.
Doesn't seem like it should be a good recruiting tool at all.
Can you insert a new game cartridge without removing the battery now?
What's Fallujah like this time of year?
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Good to see the phantom is a real company after all. but...
a 2.5GHz AMD processor, 256MB RAM and a 40GB HDD. and It comes free only if customers sign up for a two-year subscription - it costs $199 without a subscription.
That's a lot of system for $199. How long until it gets hacked and turned into a l33t gaming box. I can't imagine making a profit on the system with a price scheme like that, so watch for Phantom related DMCA lawsuits about a month after launch. If it can be done on an Xbox, which was nice at 300, it will be done twice as fast on this 200 dollar system. Also, a few of these will most likely end up at garage sales for 20 bucks once the suburban kids want the next gamer-toy, which is a nice price for just the RAM.
SAILING MISHAP
financially there is no way Phantom will be had for $200 with that $30/mo subscription. this is a tiny company that doesn't have microsoft $ to soak up losses per box so those numbers are bogus. plus what OS is being used and who wrote it?? they may have shown somthing but it's still vaporware as far as I'm concerned
i got them terminated off ibm's hosting service about 9 months ago. Here are the spams they've sent.
Phantom is a complete bunch of assholes that deserves to be ignored and blacklisted.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
... and I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but doesn't the Phantom console look like the Deluxe George Foreman grill?
If it grills my hot dogs while I'm fragging people, well, then the only thing left is a cupholder in the lap pad.
Maybe they had the right idea all along....
[Dennis Leary]Naaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!![/Dennis Leary]
T.
This space for rent.
PSP: Clearly this was shown only because of the Nintendo DS. Someone told me that Nothing shown on the PSP looked even remotely close to being complete. I heard some analyst predicting March 05 but I think even December 05 would be optimistic. That said, I think that it has potential -- it's just too soon to tell.
Nintendo DS: For me, this was the biggest surprise of the show. I had low expectations, and had serious doubts as to how dual screens or a touch screen could add much to gameplay. Boy was I wrong. The games they were showing were amazing. It turns out that the stylus makes FPS gaming on a handheld quite workable. For the Metroid game, you move/strafe with d-pad, and pivot/shoot by moving your stylus on the touch-pad... genious!! Even the chat program was a blast. If this thing sells for less than $150 I think it will do quite well. Very curious to see the pricetag.
Half-Life 2: Still impressive, but you can tell that the community good-will is fading. At the demo I attended, when Gabe Newell said the release date would be sometime this summer, some guy got a few laughs by blurting out "For real this time??". Gabe was not amused.
Doom 3 (X-Box): While I'm sure the PC version will be quite awesome, I was unimpressed by the X-box version. Obviously it can't look as good as the PC version, but it didn't even seem to set a high-water mark for XBox. Didn't seem very fun to play. Still, I'll reserve judgement for the final product.
Chronicles of Riddick: Much like Vin Diesel's performance in Knockaround Guys, this game was surprisingly good. This could have easily been shovelware, but this is a game that could stand on its own without any licensing. Seemed like it had some innovative ideas for an FPS. It's hard to explain, but the viewpoint is more immersive. For example, you could look down and see your feet, your character casts his shadow on the wall, and a lot of little touches that gave you the environmental "perspective" of a third-person shooter.
NGage 2: Doomed. Booth had very little foot traffic. There were always more kiosks than people (a bad sign at e3), and half the people there were Nokia staff. New form factor is better, but the hardware is the same (still underpowered) and it still feels awkward both as a phone or a portable gaming device. What is Nokia thinking?
Nintendo showing (not including DS): Impressive, just like last year (though the konga game seems a bit silly).
XBox Showing: Impressive, unlike last year.
Sony showing: generally a disappointment.
Lots of other little things (maybe I'll add to this thread later), but those are the standouts. What did you guys think was neat / lame?
The main problem I have is that most of E3 itself was rendered pretty much irrelivent by the pre-show conferences by the big 3 (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo).
After all is said and done, most people are left hyping up Halo 2, the PSP, the DS, and most of all Zelda. All of which were effectively covered in a matter of hours.
As impressive a showcase as they can be, (Nintendos backslapping/crowd pleasing affair expecially), it appears to me that whatever happens on the show floor is being gradually curtailed by the impact of a handful of bombastic conferences
Did anybody else give theGuild Wars "E3 For Everyone" promotion a try? If so, what'd you think of the game?
AMD doesn't even have a processor that fast available afaik. They are probably talking about a processor rated at "2500" (i.e. 1.8-2.0 ghz depending on cache-size).
I'm sure something got lost in translation here. We all know AMD doesn't have any 2.5GHz processors. Possibly they meant a 2500+, I dunno.
Regardless, looks like the Phantom is actually just a PC under the hood with some interface for downloading games off the web. Not too terribly different from the ApeXtreme when all is said and done. Except of course that they want you to pay $30/month, which I guess isn't bad if they have a large selection of quality games with no ugly restrictions on play. That being the case, it might compare well in terms of cost/benefit to conventional systems, but I wouldn't bet money on it...
I thought it was the video games that were violent!
... and, so began, the legend of the Five-point Atkins Exploding Heart Technique!
Yes, blanks can, in fact, be dangerous. I remember a comment from one of the guys responsible for the guns in the Matrix, and he commented that at close range, the force from a blank can be almost as deadly as a regular bullet. Shoot someone, at close range, with a blank, and they just might die. Not good when that person is a civilian paying your salary.
Well, it still could be a VC scam... of the legal variety. What these people do is just bail out at some point selling all ownership in the company before it tanks. It's done all the time, and because there's an actual real company there, with employees and a real product, it's all (generally) legal.
I've heard of one such person (investor/founder of companies) who would purposely make himself such a pain in the ass to everyone involved, that no one would object when he then made his move to have all his shares bought out (at a nice profit).
Personally I'm very impressed with the Phantom's console design. It's absolutely beautiful.
But my only concern, other than the lack of developer support, is that this being a PC based console, playing PC games... it will have to be constantly upgraded. How is that going to be handled?
Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that the US Army can be hired out for publicity stunts like some over-priced birthday clown?
:p
Aren't government agencies forbidden from private endorsement/advertising?
What's next? Navy Seals advertising Old Navy pullovers?
Maybe the Green Berets are available for that special corporate event?
Lord knows the military needs the money
Finding no information on the America's Army Honor System in the linked article, I must ask -- is the Honor System similar to the Slashdot moderation system, only for MMORPGs? How does it work?
I was at E3 for the first two days, and I pretty much agree with your points.
I tried the N-Gage 2 (the Q-Deck, as they call it). What will ultimately kill that thing is that playing games on it just sucks. The buttons are too close together to press individually.
I also chose to wait in line for the DS showing. And happily, I also got to play the thing. Metroid Hunters looks pretty good, especially for a 3d game on that small of a screen (the 2nd screen is just an overhead wire frame map). Playing with the stylus is very strange though.
Pictures of the DS exist so I wont bother describing the appearance. What it does have is 6 buttons (a, b, x, y, l, and r) plus start and select. The lower screen is pressure sensitive, and is intended to be used with a stylus. It will have wirelss communication, and will be WiFi enabled (801.11 compatible), so it will have some internet functionality. The games I tried on it were remarkably complete looking, and there were a decent number of them.
I spent alot of time in and near the Nintendo area. Aside from the flagship games, I think that Odama (RTS Pinball, yes, thats right, RTS Pinball) will turn out to be a pretty damn good game.
I also stopped by the Phantom booth. The damn thing does exist, and it does use a controller. The downsides is that the version they displayed had exactly 1 controller port. While network play is a good thing, they should realize that people actually do tend to have friends come over and visit once in a while. The controller is basically decent, but un-impressive. Basically a better version of the 6 button Sega Genesis controller.
Also, as far as PC games go, one that looked pretty good was Pariah, a FPS game with vehicles. While the gameplay may be revolutionary, it does look pretty damn nice.
END COMMUNICATION
Reader Ipingforpong writes "E3, probably the most well known video game trade show was assaulted by the U.S. Army in a promotion for America's Army. Soldiers rappelled out of a real Blackhawk helicopter with real rifles and rushed the show."
Good thing it wasn't in another state. Imagine if it was in Idaho or Florida or Pennsylvania. These real soldiers might have gotten real caps popped in their asses.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Its also about the smaller, low profile suprises.
While the big games were crowded, E3 is also the place where you can get early word of mouth about your game in the most darwinian envronment.
I was at the show, and saw a handfull of suprises that caught my attention. As an example, Pariah (on the PC, and developed by Digital Extreemes Toronto) and Odama (Game cube RTS Pinball) were both very well spoken of by everyone who played them that I spoke to. Also, chronicles of Riddick is getting alot of good word of mouth.
While E3 may get alot of upfront coverage from the big 3, the show lasts for 3 days, and you have plenty of time to see everything. And the lower profile games are less crowded then the big ones.
While the top 4 games on a top 10 lists will likely be no brainers (Half life 2, Doom 3, Metroid Echos), E3 is where the gaming media figures out what the other 6 games on that top 10 list will be.
Its also where developers get a chance to get their eyes and their hands on the competition, and can figure out if their game is able to compete. Its better to see and implement a good idea from a competitor that you saw at E3 then it is to discover a killer feature when your competition hits retail.
While the press conferences may cover everything in advance for the public, the show is not for the public. Its for the game media, and the developers. Thats why you and the rest of the general public arent invited.
END COMMUNICATION
They weren't carrying blanks, you can't fire them without the blank firing attachment. What on earth are you on about?
Also the parent thread is clueless - it's not uncommon at all for soldiers to march in public with 'real' rifles.
What's the big fuss? Cops carry 'real' firearms around in public constantly.
Sounds like the difference between blanks used for movies and how the military uses blanks.
A blank-firing adaptor on a hand gun or SMG used in a movie would just not look right, so the blank rounds used for these weapons do probably shoot a wax plug or something down the barrel which, if you were close enough to, could cause damage.
Also, you have a mass of gas moving at a high rate of speed down a relatively narrow tube that, until they've had a moment to disperse into the atmosphere, could be dangerous if you were close enough to the muzzle. Makes perfect sense to me.
E3, probably the most well known video game trade show was assaulted by the U.S. Army in a promotion for America's Army. Soldiers rappelled out of a real Blackhawk helicopter with real rifles and rushed the show. I hope they kept this honest and proceeded to beat, torture, rape and pilage their way through the crowd. I mean..... you wouldnt want to give any false impressions of the job would you?
And this is exactly why Intel fanboys malign AMD model numbers while thinking the new Intel model numbers are ok. AMD model numbers are deliberately confusing where GHz is concerned (not that it really matters).
Phantom could have been a good idea, except it uses PC games. Why is that bad? Well simple really, pretty much every 6 months you need to buy some sorta hardware to keep the newest games running at full speed, even if you stretched that to a year the hardware would be outdated before your subscription was up, and im sure if you tried to end said subscription you would have to pay for the Phantom or if you wanted a new upgraded phantom you would have to pay for it.
in fact, if you combine all the money made by LOTR it's about the same as Madden Football (and that game didnt cost a zillion dollars to make)
Have sales figures to back that up?
A more accuate statement would be GTA, not Madden. GTA is one of the best selling VG titles of all time and that went a bit beyond $350 million in sales. There's no way Madden football, of all games, sold $900,000+ without it being WIDELY known as "the best game of all time".
The NVidia demo of EQ2 was fucking incredible. That game has one of the most gorgeous looking landscapes I've ever seen. It has a truly cinematic feel. I wonder what kind of monstrous machine we'll need to run it...
The buttons might be too close together for you, but remember that a large proportion of mobile phone users are teenage (and pre-teen) kids: buttons too close together for you are probably perfect for them. Besides, there are limits to how far apart you can space buttons on a small form factor device such as a mobile phone.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Pretty much the Honor systems is like levels and experience points: the better you do at things like your mission, keeping your troops alive, patching up wounded soldiers and not blowing the hell out of your own team with the RPG the higher you score. Your score gets kept as experience points and you increase in Honor levels with success. Higher levels need more points needed to advance, etc. And you can lose Honor levels with Rules of Engagement violations like shooting your own team or civilians (and friendly fire detection is always on). You also get little incentives for to increase in Honor, like unlocking the Special Forces at 15 Honor and official 'Elite' servers that you need to have 25 Honor to join.
As you sign in with an account and the official servers ban you if your Honor drops below 9 (it starts at 10) then there are very few TKers willing to put up with the crap of creating a new account all the time. Which only leaves the cheaters...
I was hoping the Army would, you know, hunt them down and gut them - but no such luck.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Before you get your mod panties all twisted up, understand that this is simply my opinion.. not intending to troll or start a flamewar here.
It's safe to say, based on sales for the past 7 or so years, that Sony is the dominant leader in the gaming industry. Nintendo would just LOVE to reclaim this spot, but they made yet another mistake, and this time it's very similar to the one that did Sega in: they're competing against the top dog with a technologically sub-par piece of equipment.
I'm talking about the DS.
Until now, Nintendo has had basically NO competition in the handheld market, so there wasn't anyone to set a pace in terms of graphics and performance. The DS is supposed to go head-to-head with Sony's PSP, which is literally a portable PS2, albeit a notch under, while the DS is the spitting image of what the N64 was capable of.
Why in the world would are they competing against Sony with a handheld system that's not even half as strong? While I don't see them taking the plunge that Sega did, I don't quite understand how they plan on maintaining dominance in that part of the market..
There's no doubt it will have some fun games, but the technology is there, why not implement it? Why make it an N64, which is 8 years old? Why not make it a portable GameCube? IMO, the DS should've been released 3 years ago instead of the GBA, which is the equivalent of an SNES without X & Y buttons. Sure, it was better than what was out (the original Gameboy), but honestly, it was still a bit dated.
When all is said and done, your portable choices will be literally a portable PS2 or portable N64. I REALLY have a hard time believing people will actually choose the dated graphics.
Of course, if the PSP comes out and is $300 while the DS is something like $99, then I can understand why people would pick one over the other, but Sony wants a piece of the handheld market and I don't think they're planning on doing this with THE most expensive handheld system in the history of gaming.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
but IMO it is still "ghost" until I actually see it on store shelves. For some reason I just don't trust Infinuim Labs to actually deliver or succeed due to their hyper-sensitive-lawsuit-threat of reaction to HardOCP's article questioning the legitimacy of Infinuim Labs new console. Still awaiting a comment from HardOCP reaction to the appearance of the console at E3 though.
...there isn't.
;))
Ever heard of Cliffy B?
Half game designer. Half pimp. You either love him, or you hate him (try both, its fun!)
(PS: If any Epic staff read this... WHY ARE YOU ON SLASHDOT?! GET BACK TO WORK! I WANT NECRIS FOR MY BIRTHDAY IN JULY DAMNIT!!
Isn't that how Bruce Lee's son died?
Damn!
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
E3 was alright, nothing as cool as in 2001. This year they forgot the obligatory Earthbound sequel announcement.
Visit the Best Website in the Galaxy Today: http://www.galaxysite.net
Are there any news on Duke Nukem Forever ? what a pity for 3dRealms. This project will cost them their credibility, if it hasn't already. I am wondering how come George Brussard does not understand it: unless the game is a quantum leap in FPS gameplay, 3DRealms will take a devastating blow in its credibility.
At least they should have showed some new media on DNF.
How much Honor do you receive forthe torture of prisoners?
...at which point, Dmitry Skylarov shat himself.
Oops. Wrong show.
Nokia is right now dumping the original N-Gage. It's possible to get one in Finland with 105 Euros (not subsidized). Well, that's without games. That price is extremely cheap for tri-band series 60-phone with a radio and MP3-player...
MOD PARENT UP
Also announced at E3 was the "Torture" expansion pack for America's Army. As every online gamer knows a lot of the fun is flaming the opposition in the game chat, settling vendettas and generally getting personal. The Torture pack takes this to the next level by letting gamers capture their opponents and force them through all sorts of humiliating and excruciating 'softening up' procedures before proceeding with the real interrogation. Gamers with a high R2I (resistance to interrogation) will not be so lightly hazed by these procedures allowing the leet gamers to stick one up their captors (shouldn't that be the other way round - Ed.). The torture is described as extremely graphic (requiring the very latest nVidia or ATI cards) and follows standard US Army procedures and is based on extensive footage researched in Iraq.
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USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
hey FYI - in the first 6 months of 2003 Madden sold 3.5 million copies. it has sold way, way more the GTA. there are several different versions of madden (2002, 2003, 2004).
btw - i've never played madden and i have no interest in sports games.
i heard one of the VP's of EA talk about it at a conference a few weeks ago. freakin amazing sales numbers.
check it out.(crappy registration req'd though)
No, not at all. Roe kicks are nice, but otherwise it doesnt work. When you have 70 honor to burn because you play the game all day, when you're bored and want to tk for the sniper rifle, there's nothing to stop you.
I like it, and I like being tied to an account for accountability, but it still has some flaws.
Isn't that how Bruce Lee's son died?
Sort of. The way I remember it, they didn't have dummy rounds (that look like real cartridges but have no primer or powder), so they emptied the powder from several real cartridges and fired the primers, then reinserted the bullets. Unfortunately they missed one of the primers, and during filming that primer was sufficient to propel the bullet into the barrel. A noise was heard, but when they looked at the rounds in the gun they didn't see anything wrong because all the primers had then been fired. The gun was later loaded with blanks, but somehow the missing bullet from one cartridge went unnoticed and nobody checked the barrel, which seems to me like something they should always do when loading blanks anyway. Since the blanks were essentially every part of a regular cartridge except the bullet, as soon as one was fired it shot the bullet out of the barrel. The rest, as they say, is history.
i completely agree with you - the solution is to have a graduated ROE scale.
ie. the amount of ROE you get penalized is equiv. to the amount of honor you have. that would mean somebody with no life and 85 honor would get brutalized if he tk'd somebody - like knocked down a full honor point instead of just a few hundred ROE.