I'm sure Disney think that, with the success of the current slather of MMO games, they'd be able to get a piece of the action themselves, and what better way to do it than to use one of their biggest cash cows at the moment - Pirates of the Caribbean. While I don't necessarily think it will flop (I know a lot of people who'd love to be online pirates... and even IRL), I don't believe that Disney will have the necessary know-how to be able to keep players interested in the game, or to draw them away from any other MMO game (WoW, I'm looking at you...).
Just ask anyone who plays Battlefield 2 / 2142. They release a massive patch, and then there's usually a hotfix for the patch a couple days later. The patch will always nerf something else, which will be fixed in the next major patch, which will require another hotfix.
Even after all the patching, some of the net code and connection problems in the Battlefield series are just unbearable. People are still having a CTD (crash to desktop) problem on random occasion too.
EA is better than that, you need to give them some credit. They'll at least wait until it is in Beta before releasing it to the public. That way, they have enough 'good' footage and screenshots to entice people to buy it, who then get to suffer the wrath of a thousand patches...
I recently picked up an LG 60" Plasma HDTV. Hooked up my PS2 via component and everything seemed to be fine. However, when I did start playing Guitar Hero II (including setting it to widescreen and enabling progressive scan), on hard / expert I was really out of time. Kept missing a lot of the notes, even they should have registered.
After running through the lag calibration thing, my screen was apparently about 30ms out of whack. In normal games, this wouldn't really make that much of a difference, but in a fast moving rhythm game, it makes a big difference. You can try compensate and play notes a little earlier, but it's still not the same. Congrats to Red Octane / Harmonix for adding in the lag calibration tool..
Ok, I'm one of the many anti-Jack Thompson people around... I can't stand the way in which he is going about his 'crusade' against video games. However, is enforcing game classifications in regards to selling to minors such a bad thing? Seeing as many people (read: parents) don't seem to have much control or responsibility over what their kids are buying / doing, perhaps it's time that the retail sector did enforce these things.
Here in Australia, kids are asked for identification when they are purchasing alcohol or cigarettes, or when they go to an MA15+ or R18+ rated movie... why not carry that over to games? If a parent is happy for a kid to have the game, then they can go and buy it for them.
I only picked up my Xbox at the start of this year. Strangely enough, it was bundled with three of the games mentioned in the second article (Voodoo Vince, Kung Fu Chaos and Crimson Skies) as well as the ever-present Halo. However, my primary reason for picking up a Xbox wasn't for gaming (I already owned a reasonable PC, a PS2 and a Gamecube). The main reason I bought the console is because it's one of the cheapest options for a media centre that I could find. A quick soft-mod later (after installing XBMC) and I had a console that could stream content from my PC straight onto my television. It was a blessing in disguise.
Of course, that also allowed me to play games I hadn't necessarily purchased, but that's not the point. However, after playing around with it for a while I actually decided to pick up a X360 as well.
Another reason the first Xbox was so successful was because it was the first console to truly incorporate online play. Xbox Live has been one of the biggest drawcards for the Microsoft consoles to date, though Sony and Nintendo have played catch up with the current generation of consoles.
Brand name fanboi-ism will always get in the way of a decent opinion. There would be very few people around who have had enough exposure to all the different consoles / systems have to offer a decent, relatively unbiased opinion on a certain system.
In terms of the Wii, it's got one of the more obvious drawcards that the other two next-gen systems don't have in the Wii-mote. Nintendo are using that as the major driving force for the console, and for good reason - it is what makes it stand out from the crowd. Sure, Sony added in their SIXAXIS controller to compete with the Wii-mote, but we won't be seeing any games fully supporting that on release. As opposed to the Wii, which comes with a glorified tech-demo to showcase what the controller can do.
Kudos to Nintendo for bringing out something evolutionary yet again. It keeps gamers on their toes having to adjust to a different way of doing things. Not saying that MS or Sony have done badly in this either; they'll definitely have their own driving points.
All that being said - I currently own a Sony console, 2 MS consoles and will soon have myself a Nintendo console. I enjoy games for what they can offer me, not which system they are on.
You'll notice people have already linked to the light gun attachment for the Wiimote which will cover all the bases for the light gun. However, if you look at people playing Red Steel, you can see that the attachment is purely cosmetic and that you can use the Wiimote as it is. You don't really need the gun stock attachment to play.
If you think that things are falling behind in the US, take a look at Australia. We pay three times as much for a slower connection that has monthly data limits (in most cases). Most normal ADSL connections are limited to 1500kbps/256kbps, and limit your bandwidth after you've downloaded a certain amount of data. ISPs and telcos are slowly rolling out their own DSLAMS for ADSL2+ (which will offer a theoretical speed of 24Mbps), but once you get outside of the heavily populated areas, you're stuck paying a fortune for slower, limited internet access.
Naturally, I could go on to blame Telstra (Australia's major telco) for the lapse in technology and affordability, but there's a whole political side to it as well. Maybe one day we'll at least catch up to other parts of the world in terms of broadband capabilities.
However, until then, Australia isn't falling behind. It's holding the rest of the modern world up from the bottom.
Re:Yerp. Figure it Out, Already.
on
Game Breakers
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· Score: 1
Though I never tried it, I do believe it was spending 10 minutes underwater that killed Guybrush. Now, how about them bonus points?
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, it's not just Disney who are throwing their IP at MMO games in an attempt to cash in on the market. There's been a fair few announcements over the last couple months about various groups also developing MMO games. Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and are just someo f the TV shows / movies that are crossing over to become virtual worlds.
I'm sure Disney think that, with the success of the current slather of MMO games, they'd be able to get a piece of the action themselves, and what better way to do it than to use one of their biggest cash cows at the moment - Pirates of the Caribbean. While I don't necessarily think it will flop (I know a lot of people who'd love to be online pirates... and even IRL), I don't believe that Disney will have the necessary know-how to be able to keep players interested in the game, or to draw them away from any other MMO game (WoW, I'm looking at you...).
Just ask anyone who plays Battlefield 2 / 2142. They release a massive patch, and then there's usually a hotfix for the patch a couple days later. The patch will always nerf something else, which will be fixed in the next major patch, which will require another hotfix.
Even after all the patching, some of the net code and connection problems in the Battlefield series are just unbearable. People are still having a CTD (crash to desktop) problem on random occasion too.
EA is better than that, you need to give them some credit. They'll at least wait until it is in Beta before releasing it to the public. That way, they have enough 'good' footage and screenshots to entice people to buy it, who then get to suffer the wrath of a thousand patches...
I recently picked up an LG 60" Plasma HDTV. Hooked up my PS2 via component and everything seemed to be fine. However, when I did start playing Guitar Hero II (including setting it to widescreen and enabling progressive scan), on hard / expert I was really out of time. Kept missing a lot of the notes, even they should have registered.
After running through the lag calibration thing, my screen was apparently about 30ms out of whack. In normal games, this wouldn't really make that much of a difference, but in a fast moving rhythm game, it makes a big difference. You can try compensate and play notes a little earlier, but it's still not the same. Congrats to Red Octane / Harmonix for adding in the lag calibration tool..
Ok, I'm one of the many anti-Jack Thompson people around... I can't stand the way in which he is going about his 'crusade' against video games. However, is enforcing game classifications in regards to selling to minors such a bad thing? Seeing as many people (read: parents) don't seem to have much control or responsibility over what their kids are buying / doing, perhaps it's time that the retail sector did enforce these things.
Here in Australia, kids are asked for identification when they are purchasing alcohol or cigarettes, or when they go to an MA15+ or R18+ rated movie... why not carry that over to games? If a parent is happy for a kid to have the game, then they can go and buy it for them.
I only picked up my Xbox at the start of this year. Strangely enough, it was bundled with three of the games mentioned in the second article (Voodoo Vince, Kung Fu Chaos and Crimson Skies) as well as the ever-present Halo. However, my primary reason for picking up a Xbox wasn't for gaming (I already owned a reasonable PC, a PS2 and a Gamecube). The main reason I bought the console is because it's one of the cheapest options for a media centre that I could find. A quick soft-mod later (after installing XBMC) and I had a console that could stream content from my PC straight onto my television. It was a blessing in disguise.
Of course, that also allowed me to play games I hadn't necessarily purchased, but that's not the point. However, after playing around with it for a while I actually decided to pick up a X360 as well.
Another reason the first Xbox was so successful was because it was the first console to truly incorporate online play. Xbox Live has been one of the biggest drawcards for the Microsoft consoles to date, though Sony and Nintendo have played catch up with the current generation of consoles.
Brand name fanboi-ism will always get in the way of a decent opinion. There would be very few people around who have had enough exposure to all the different consoles / systems have to offer a decent, relatively unbiased opinion on a certain system.
In terms of the Wii, it's got one of the more obvious drawcards that the other two next-gen systems don't have in the Wii-mote. Nintendo are using that as the major driving force for the console, and for good reason - it is what makes it stand out from the crowd. Sure, Sony added in their SIXAXIS controller to compete with the Wii-mote, but we won't be seeing any games fully supporting that on release. As opposed to the Wii, which comes with a glorified tech-demo to showcase what the controller can do.
Kudos to Nintendo for bringing out something evolutionary yet again. It keeps gamers on their toes having to adjust to a different way of doing things. Not saying that MS or Sony have done badly in this either; they'll definitely have their own driving points.
All that being said - I currently own a Sony console, 2 MS consoles and will soon have myself a Nintendo console. I enjoy games for what they can offer me, not which system they are on.
This robot is smarter than people think. It can also tell a person's nationality by taste!
You'll notice people have already linked to the light gun attachment for the Wiimote which will cover all the bases for the light gun. However, if you look at people playing Red Steel, you can see that the attachment is purely cosmetic and that you can use the Wiimote as it is. You don't really need the gun stock attachment to play.
If you think that things are falling behind in the US, take a look at Australia. We pay three times as much for a slower connection that has monthly data limits (in most cases). Most normal ADSL connections are limited to 1500kbps/256kbps, and limit your bandwidth after you've downloaded a certain amount of data. ISPs and telcos are slowly rolling out their own DSLAMS for ADSL2+ (which will offer a theoretical speed of 24Mbps), but once you get outside of the heavily populated areas, you're stuck paying a fortune for slower, limited internet access. Naturally, I could go on to blame Telstra (Australia's major telco) for the lapse in technology and affordability, but there's a whole political side to it as well. Maybe one day we'll at least catch up to other parts of the world in terms of broadband capabilities. However, until then, Australia isn't falling behind. It's holding the rest of the modern world up from the bottom.
Though I never tried it, I do believe it was spending 10 minutes underwater that killed Guybrush. Now, how about them bonus points?