Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Halo fan myself. Based on the commercials made with the Halo 3 game engine, and the 2 other games that proved they know what gamers like in a shooter (dual weapons, balanced weapon selection, storyline, etc.) I'm quite sure Halo 3 is going to be a great game. However, all they need to do is say they improved on what the felt Halo 2 was lacking. To go and say its unplayable and unpolished is far too much of a stretch of the imagination. An game with no polish time does not have all the details that Halo 2 does. Easter eggs, ambient lighting schemes, sound FX, etc.
Well, I would find it believable that they are perfectionists and hypercritical of their own work, however, when they all of a sudden now say that Halo 2 was not polished and Halo 3 is, doesn't that suggest a bit of a marketing job?
Halo 2 is still one of the most played and most stable games. And one of the best looking for its generation. This is just marketing to try to hype up expectation for Halo 3. Halo 2 is not perfect, no game is. But to say there isn't any polish on it is just a flat out lie.
What kind of margin you think they are making on a 60gig HDD selling at > $100? The 360 is going to run into further disk space troubles with their video services and game demos. I'm already a little dissapointed I have to delete Gig+ demos it took a day to download to make space for things on there. Offering HD video content and music ripping takes up a lot of storage. You cannot do that and get by with a mere 20 or 60 gigs. MS should drop the proprietary drive and allow users to add storage. But I doubt they will considering how much they can sell a drive for. They have to be making a killing on them.
Not really,
Airplane hijackings have happened several time before that, and can be fixed by simply locking the cabin door, not exactly a bank breaking measure. It's a realistic way to add security without incurring massive costs in expectation of an unlikely event.
Theres a million vans out there that could be packed with readily available fertilizer too. Darn near anyone could get a job at a food processing plant or water treatment facility and cause much more devastation than a RPG. We are a free society, we are by definition vulnerable. There are a million ways we can be attacked. Look at all the unwatched miles of railway we have, how hard would it be to attack that? We could not even begin to afford total security against all threats. That's just the way it is. Since we have never been attacked in such a way, I'd say it's an unrealistic fear and a waste of money.
A discussion over whether it is playable as opposed to wether or not it should be legal to play. The game is simply one big shock value gimic. Due to its subject matter, it has recieved far more attention than a game of it's technical capability merits. It's a game everyone loves to talk about and use as political hay, but a game few really enjoys playing. After the shock wears off, it's not that enticing. Why have Vietnam games tanked? People just can't be compelled to play them, no matter how much curiousity is generated by the subject matter and media mudslinging surrounding the game. As a free sppech battleground, the game is valuable. As a game, it's a loser.
I would say a rash measure for international flights, but domestic as well? Did we develop a problem with shoulder fired missles in the US recently? At billions of dollars, we are simply proving that terrorists are right. We really do just cower before them. They knock down a couple buildings and we'll change our entire culture and bankrupt our country in fear.
It modifies the intent and interpretaton of the law by courts and sets guidelines for the enforcement of the law by the executive branch. If the law is enforced per the signing statement, which it is, the statement might as well be law.
Under the guise of national security, the executive branch can censor or block any research they see fit, even from congress, let alone citizens. A George Bush signing statement expanded this saying that the executive branch can withold any research that could impair the workings of the exective branch.
Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."
Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.Link
Although I am sensative to the free information argument, I can see witholding things like weapons research, nuke material transportation and gathering, etc. There are just some things the sick people who have a need for such things should have to do on their own. What bothers me is any research that could impair the workings of the executive branch. Lets say the executive branch is working on promoting revised environmental policy loosened emmissions to save money. This would seem to say they could withold any public research that would hurt their goal.
So public research is not required to be given to the public, or even anyone besides the president. Should it be? I'd say in a vast majority of cases, yes. But I do think it is best we withold info that would make creating advanced weaponry easy for others.
It's alot harder to kiss ass over the phone or through a series of tubes. The trick is to also stay out of the server rooms as well, management won't get any face time with you in there either.
The answer to these questions is no, and I do agree with you on those points. The 500 readers is incredibly bad. However, lets say that same preacher was being paid by a campaign or PAC to make those statements. Would mandatory disclosure be such a bad thing? Should he/she be able to go up and make those advertisements under false pretenses at will? That seems to be the intent of the bill, and lawmakers seriously botched a section of it.
If the blog is supposedly a bunch of game fans saying certain games are great, but it's really Sony paying people to pose as gamers to promote a product, I can see the usefulness of this. If an editor of slashdot starts posting alot of fluffy MS is awesome articles:), and is being paid by MS to do so, that should be disclosed. Just trying to prevent the funneling of money through fake grassroots organization. Where they really messed up is in their definition of paid. Paid should mean they are given money by a third party to promote an agenda. I will agree that the clause is horrible, but I would say that ruins what is otherwise a descent peice of legislation.
Been looking for a Wii for the last couple weeks. Stores are filled with PS3s. I've even had two people try to sell me one that they bought just because they thought they could still make a buck off the shortage. Wiis are nowhere to be found. Granted, I'm looking after work, not before. It looks to me that supply is already meeting demand for PS3s. Unless they are restocking the shelves daily.
For me, it's the opposite, I like consoles for the shooters and sports and PCs for everything else. PCs often come with editors and tools that make the game much more fun for longer. There is no comparison between PC Oblivion and the console oblivion. The deciding factor for me there was that I don't have a high-end PC anymore. The upgrades I would want would have cost more than the console, and I had spent my computer allowance for the next couple years on laptops.
But you are right, A PC does trump them all, assuming you have the hardware.
It's different, but it works as intended. If you save a game after you have missed a deadline, you do have to start over, but you do keep your stats and photos. It was intended to work this way. I don't see anything deeply flawed about it. That's just the way developers intended the game to be played. It's not like killing zombies after you start over is any less fun. If you didn't keep your character stats, I would agree that the save system totally sucks. As it is now, I think the save system actually helps drive the storyline and deadlines when it it otherwise just too easy to get distracted finding interesting ways to exterminate zombies. It's not like you can't do that, you just can't progress in the story if you choose to miss all the deadlines then save your game.
Its the cover. And the multiplayer that doesn't let you respawn. When you go back and play other shooters, you feel like you are just standing there naked in a room full of people. Maybe if I don't play Gears for a month, I could go back. I guess you get so used to the urgency of getting out of the line of fire, it makes it hard to play a game where there isn't really a need or ability to take cover.
The Wii is without a doubt the best party console. It's a blast to even watch others play and laugh at how stupid they look swinging that remote around. Unfortunately, I've only been able to play it in groups. But I do see how the novelty could wear off when you're not playing with friends.
There are games that just aren't any fun if you're not playing a local multiplayer game. I doubt every wii game would be like that, but I'd have to say I couldn't see myself playing Wii Sports by myself.
Oblivions broken level system? Thats a stretch. If it doesn't level the way you want, use the difficulty scrollbar. If certain stats don't increase much, it's not the games fault you planned your class poorly. I'm left wondering what RPG is so great that would make Oblivion a bad game.
Deep flaws in Dead Rising? Like what exactly?
Gears of War doesn't stand out? I can't even play any other shooter, not even Halo, after playing it. The seamless integration of cover has never been pulled off so well.
There are some weak games out there, and a saturation of shooters, but how you can dismiss Oblivion, Dead Rising, and Gears of War as generic or bad games? What games do you have I don't know about that would make great games seem so mediocre?
Using all it's power is easy, doing it effectively is the hard part. I've been known to bring a powerful serious system to it's knees doing the simplest of tasks. It seems all your really have to do is remove that i++. Now using all the PS3 system resources with efficient code that performs the desired operations only as much as needed...That may not happen. We'll likely see the PS4 before that.
This will be the first holiday shopping season where Xbox 360s will be readily available. There were some core systems on shelves last year, but even those ran short. If the 8M figure above is correct, I think hitting 10M this year may be possible. This holiday season, you will not find a PS3 on the shelf and Wiis will be pretty rare. MS will be the big winner this month simply because there are no other choices and very gift givers are going to wait till Feb-March to give their present.
PS3 and Wii would sell out all the consoles they have produced so far any time of year. They are missing out on another year of holiday sales, I think this has to benefit MS.
MS will sell 10M 360's before Sony will produce 10M PS3s. The 360 already has some decent games at $29 and $39, as well as big exclusives. My guess is that, at least in the near future, games are going to drive up sales of the 360. However, the Wii will outsell all of them. IMO, the Wii will outsell them without taking much of their marketshare. It's appeal is more for people who wouldn't buy the 360 or PS3, or for people who will by it as well as their high-end console of choice.
In fact when Western companies bring employment to poorer countries it's looked on as exploitation or off-shoring and they get dog's abuse anyway.
Is there no possible reason for that? Western companies go to poor countries because they can get away with giving back as very little as possible. They are not raising the living standards of the poor country to ours, they are making Western workers live down to the standards of the poor countries. In some cases, they use the workers of poor countries as disposable assets. Look a bit into mining in Africa and tell me that Western companies are doing the poor workers a solid rather than exploiting them at every turn. They also get to avoid those pesky environmental laws that prevent them from dumping the cyanide and mercury they use to seperate minerals directly into the water table.
This article touches a bit on some of the problems, but doesn't mention that many of the mining companies are partly or largely Western owned. This article (this one as well) touches on Western involvement in supplying arms to Africa. This tells us a bit more why the West supplies arms and money for civil wars in Africa.
Sadly enough on my part, I manage to fit both. I find I have more time to play as an adult than I did as a teen or even student. As a teen, I had friends and extra cirriculars that kept me busy out in that real world thingy. As a student, I had the least time because of class, homework, and work.
Now, I find myself getting off work at five and just plopping down to play games. After college, all the old friends have spread themselves out all over the planet and I've abandoned partying, so there isn't a whole lot going on for me outside. The house is in good shape, so there isn't alot to keep me busy there, although my fiance does compalin I don't do enough chores, but I assure you, that would be a complaint whether I was playing games or not.
Anyway, I find myself with extra time and money. I find myself wanting shorter games (depending on the genre) because I can buy another one when I finish. So I would say that income is the bigger factor over time to play, regardless of age. My 2 cents anyway.
I can pump endless hours into an RPG like Final Fantasy, KOTOR, or Elder Scrolls, even after gameplay becomes a bit (or even highly) repetetive. I think that has to do with the game being based around XP. As long as your character is building or you are gaining items to make cool weapons, you keep interest.
For shooters, the time I want to play one (campaign mode) is much less. I thought Gears of War, which most people complain about as being too short, was about perfect. It was exciting all the way through, and didn't try to turn a shooter into an epic quest. For example, I found half life to be very long and lost interest in the campaign around the point of the prison. Can't really explain why, but I don't like when shooters drag out. The Halo games were also about right for my liking.
Dead Rising is an interesting one, the whole game being open, but based on a strict amount of time. I really like the game, but hate the strict time limit. You end up replaying sections over and over again if you want to save all the survivors and stay on schedule for your missions.
I'd say that content is more important, but length does matter. The more open the environment, the longer the man quest should be. For shooters, I think shorter and more intense works best.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Halo fan myself. Based on the commercials made with the Halo 3 game engine, and the 2 other games that proved they know what gamers like in a shooter (dual weapons, balanced weapon selection, storyline, etc.) I'm quite sure Halo 3 is going to be a great game. However, all they need to do is say they improved on what the felt Halo 2 was lacking. To go and say its unplayable and unpolished is far too much of a stretch of the imagination. An game with no polish time does not have all the details that Halo 2 does. Easter eggs, ambient lighting schemes, sound FX, etc.
Well, I would find it believable that they are perfectionists and hypercritical of their own work, however, when they all of a sudden now say that Halo 2 was not polished and Halo 3 is, doesn't that suggest a bit of a marketing job?
Halo 2 is still one of the most played and most stable games. And one of the best looking for its generation. This is just marketing to try to hype up expectation for Halo 3. Halo 2 is not perfect, no game is. But to say there isn't any polish on it is just a flat out lie.
What kind of margin you think they are making on a 60gig HDD selling at > $100? The 360 is going to run into further disk space troubles with their video services and game demos. I'm already a little dissapointed I have to delete Gig+ demos it took a day to download to make space for things on there. Offering HD video content and music ripping takes up a lot of storage. You cannot do that and get by with a mere 20 or 60 gigs. MS should drop the proprietary drive and allow users to add storage. But I doubt they will considering how much they can sell a drive for. They have to be making a killing on them.
Not really, Airplane hijackings have happened several time before that, and can be fixed by simply locking the cabin door, not exactly a bank breaking measure. It's a realistic way to add security without incurring massive costs in expectation of an unlikely event.
Theres a million vans out there that could be packed with readily available fertilizer too. Darn near anyone could get a job at a food processing plant or water treatment facility and cause much more devastation than a RPG. We are a free society, we are by definition vulnerable. There are a million ways we can be attacked. Look at all the unwatched miles of railway we have, how hard would it be to attack that? We could not even begin to afford total security against all threats. That's just the way it is. Since we have never been attacked in such a way, I'd say it's an unrealistic fear and a waste of money.
A discussion over whether it is playable as opposed to wether or not it should be legal to play. The game is simply one big shock value gimic. Due to its subject matter, it has recieved far more attention than a game of it's technical capability merits. It's a game everyone loves to talk about and use as political hay, but a game few really enjoys playing. After the shock wears off, it's not that enticing. Why have Vietnam games tanked? People just can't be compelled to play them, no matter how much curiousity is generated by the subject matter and media mudslinging surrounding the game. As a free sppech battleground, the game is valuable. As a game, it's a loser.
I would say a rash measure for international flights, but domestic as well? Did we develop a problem with shoulder fired missles in the US recently? At billions of dollars, we are simply proving that terrorists are right. We really do just cower before them. They knock down a couple buildings and we'll change our entire culture and bankrupt our country in fear.
A good explanation here.
Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ''prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay." Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch. Link
Although I am sensative to the free information argument, I can see witholding things like weapons research, nuke material transportation and gathering, etc. There are just some things the sick people who have a need for such things should have to do on their own. What bothers me is any research that could impair the workings of the executive branch. Lets say the executive branch is working on promoting revised environmental policy loosened emmissions to save money. This would seem to say they could withold any public research that would hurt their goal.
So public research is not required to be given to the public, or even anyone besides the president. Should it be? I'd say in a vast majority of cases, yes. But I do think it is best we withold info that would make creating advanced weaponry easy for others.
It's alot harder to kiss ass over the phone or through a series of tubes. The trick is to also stay out of the server rooms as well, management won't get any face time with you in there either.
The answer to these questions is no, and I do agree with you on those points. The 500 readers is incredibly bad. However, lets say that same preacher was being paid by a campaign or PAC to make those statements. Would mandatory disclosure be such a bad thing? Should he/she be able to go up and make those advertisements under false pretenses at will? That seems to be the intent of the bill, and lawmakers seriously botched a section of it.
If the blog is supposedly a bunch of game fans saying certain games are great, but it's really Sony paying people to pose as gamers to promote a product, I can see the usefulness of this. If an editor of slashdot starts posting alot of fluffy MS is awesome articles :), and is being paid by MS to do so, that should be disclosed. Just trying to prevent the funneling of money through fake grassroots organization. Where they really messed up is in their definition of paid. Paid should mean they are given money by a third party to promote an agenda. I will agree that the clause is horrible, but I would say that ruins what is otherwise a descent peice of legislation.
Been looking for a Wii for the last couple weeks. Stores are filled with PS3s. I've even had two people try to sell me one that they bought just because they thought they could still make a buck off the shortage. Wiis are nowhere to be found. Granted, I'm looking after work, not before. It looks to me that supply is already meeting demand for PS3s. Unless they are restocking the shelves daily.
For me, it's the opposite, I like consoles for the shooters and sports and PCs for everything else. PCs often come with editors and tools that make the game much more fun for longer. There is no comparison between PC Oblivion and the console oblivion. The deciding factor for me there was that I don't have a high-end PC anymore. The upgrades I would want would have cost more than the console, and I had spent my computer allowance for the next couple years on laptops.
But you are right, A PC does trump them all, assuming you have the hardware.
It's different, but it works as intended. If you save a game after you have missed a deadline, you do have to start over, but you do keep your stats and photos. It was intended to work this way. I don't see anything deeply flawed about it. That's just the way developers intended the game to be played. It's not like killing zombies after you start over is any less fun. If you didn't keep your character stats, I would agree that the save system totally sucks. As it is now, I think the save system actually helps drive the storyline and deadlines when it it otherwise just too easy to get distracted finding interesting ways to exterminate zombies. It's not like you can't do that, you just can't progress in the story if you choose to miss all the deadlines then save your game.
Its the cover. And the multiplayer that doesn't let you respawn. When you go back and play other shooters, you feel like you are just standing there naked in a room full of people. Maybe if I don't play Gears for a month, I could go back. I guess you get so used to the urgency of getting out of the line of fire, it makes it hard to play a game where there isn't really a need or ability to take cover.
The Wii is without a doubt the best party console. It's a blast to even watch others play and laugh at how stupid they look swinging that remote around. Unfortunately, I've only been able to play it in groups. But I do see how the novelty could wear off when you're not playing with friends.
There are games that just aren't any fun if you're not playing a local multiplayer game. I doubt every wii game would be like that, but I'd have to say I couldn't see myself playing Wii Sports by myself.
Huh?
Oblivions broken level system? Thats a stretch. If it doesn't level the way you want, use the difficulty scrollbar. If certain stats don't increase much, it's not the games fault you planned your class poorly. I'm left wondering what RPG is so great that would make Oblivion a bad game.
Deep flaws in Dead Rising? Like what exactly?
Gears of War doesn't stand out? I can't even play any other shooter, not even Halo, after playing it. The seamless integration of cover has never been pulled off so well.
There are some weak games out there, and a saturation of shooters, but how you can dismiss Oblivion, Dead Rising, and Gears of War as generic or bad games? What games do you have I don't know about that would make great games seem so mediocre?
Using all it's power is easy, doing it effectively is the hard part. I've been known to bring a powerful serious system to it's knees doing the simplest of tasks. It seems all your really have to do is remove that i++. Now using all the PS3 system resources with efficient code that performs the desired operations only as much as needed...That may not happen. We'll likely see the PS4 before that.
This will be the first holiday shopping season where Xbox 360s will be readily available. There were some core systems on shelves last year, but even those ran short. If the 8M figure above is correct, I think hitting 10M this year may be possible. This holiday season, you will not find a PS3 on the shelf and Wiis will be pretty rare. MS will be the big winner this month simply because there are no other choices and very gift givers are going to wait till Feb-March to give their present.
PS3 and Wii would sell out all the consoles they have produced so far any time of year. They are missing out on another year of holiday sales, I think this has to benefit MS.
MS will sell 10M 360's before Sony will produce 10M PS3s. The 360 already has some decent games at $29 and $39, as well as big exclusives. My guess is that, at least in the near future, games are going to drive up sales of the 360. However, the Wii will outsell all of them. IMO, the Wii will outsell them without taking much of their marketshare. It's appeal is more for people who wouldn't buy the 360 or PS3, or for people who will by it as well as their high-end console of choice.
In fact when Western companies bring employment to poorer countries it's looked on as exploitation or off-shoring and they get dog's abuse anyway.
Is there no possible reason for that? Western companies go to poor countries because they can get away with giving back as very little as possible. They are not raising the living standards of the poor country to ours, they are making Western workers live down to the standards of the poor countries. In some cases, they use the workers of poor countries as disposable assets. Look a bit into mining in Africa and tell me that Western companies are doing the poor workers a solid rather than exploiting them at every turn. They also get to avoid those pesky environmental laws that prevent them from dumping the cyanide and mercury they use to seperate minerals directly into the water table.
This article touches a bit on some of the problems, but doesn't mention that many of the mining companies are partly or largely Western owned. This article (this one as well) touches on Western involvement in supplying arms to Africa. This tells us a bit more why the West supplies arms and money for civil wars in Africa.
Sadly enough on my part, I manage to fit both. I find I have more time to play as an adult than I did as a teen or even student. As a teen, I had friends and extra cirriculars that kept me busy out in that real world thingy. As a student, I had the least time because of class, homework, and work.
Now, I find myself getting off work at five and just plopping down to play games. After college, all the old friends have spread themselves out all over the planet and I've abandoned partying, so there isn't a whole lot going on for me outside. The house is in good shape, so there isn't alot to keep me busy there, although my fiance does compalin I don't do enough chores, but I assure you, that would be a complaint whether I was playing games or not.
Anyway, I find myself with extra time and money. I find myself wanting shorter games (depending on the genre) because I can buy another one when I finish. So I would say that income is the bigger factor over time to play, regardless of age. My 2 cents anyway.
I can pump endless hours into an RPG like Final Fantasy, KOTOR, or Elder Scrolls, even after gameplay becomes a bit (or even highly) repetetive. I think that has to do with the game being based around XP. As long as your character is building or you are gaining items to make cool weapons, you keep interest.
For shooters, the time I want to play one (campaign mode) is much less. I thought Gears of War, which most people complain about as being too short, was about perfect. It was exciting all the way through, and didn't try to turn a shooter into an epic quest. For example, I found half life to be very long and lost interest in the campaign around the point of the prison. Can't really explain why, but I don't like when shooters drag out. The Halo games were also about right for my liking.
Dead Rising is an interesting one, the whole game being open, but based on a strict amount of time. I really like the game, but hate the strict time limit. You end up replaying sections over and over again if you want to save all the survivors and stay on schedule for your missions.
I'd say that content is more important, but length does matter. The more open the environment, the longer the man quest should be. For shooters, I think shorter and more intense works best.