Okami - Absolutely beautiful game, both visually and aurally, with a deep Japanese-based story, and Zelda-inspired action/rpg gameplay. I think this is one of the most fun games ever to come for the PS2, and it is easily the most stylish.
FF12 - The long wait since the tenth game for another single player Final Fantasy has paid off. I love that they removed the random battles, and the programmer in me loves the gambit system (Although I wish that it was more complex sometimes). I've already sunk a good 60 hours in this game and I still have a long way to go.
Guitar Hero 2 - This is one game that needs to be experienced. Many improvements over the first, including the killer cooperative mode. It's always fun to pick up the guitar controller and play a few songs.
Zelda: Twilight Princess - I managed to snag a Wii at launch and this gem along with it. Admittedly, I haven't had much time to play very far (I'm still playing the other games on this list!), but I am very much looking forward to really sinking my teeth into the game.
Overall, I'd venture that 2006 was a fantastic year for games, especially on the PS2 (even though it may be on the way out).
Where would we be now if Columbus was told not to go on an expedition, because the European youth were apathetic to exploration?
I think exploring space may be the most important thing we can do. Especially at the rate we are using up our own planet's resources / destroying the environment. We're going to need somewhere else to go, and the sooner we get moving on space exploration, base building, planet finding, etc the better.
I'm 20 years old and nothing excites me more about the near future than space exploration. The idea that in my lifetime we will likely have a moon base, or go to Mars is hard to believe.
Then again, I read Slashdot, so I may not represent my demographic.;-)
There's always the much-used-in-sci-fi suspended animation / freezing and then awakening when we get there. Providing the ship computer could be trusted to run flawlessly for the centuries with no human interaction. (Insert obligatory Windows joke here...)
Although, besides breathing purposes, our atmosphere also protects us from harmful radiation from the sun, as well as protecting the planet from impacts from most stellar objects.
Mostly it's because of budget constraints and the fact that the "aliens" are played by humans. CG would be way to expensive for a regular character on TV.
Farscape found a way around it though. They used animatronics to create some truly alien-looking aliens that were very impressive for a tv series (though they also had a lot of the humanoid variety). They were very realistic, too, quite believable in appearance and movement.
But I get your point, and I agree that it is amusing how aliens all look like modified humans. I think if intelligent aliens evolved elsewhere in the universe and we ever encountered them, they'd be unlike anything we could imagine. (Heck, they may not even use the same senses, or perceive the same wavelengths of light or sound, etc, let alone having two arms, two legs, and a face. Don't even get me started on the likelihood of hot alien chicks that are somehow sexually compatible with humans...)
Slashdot Mirror
Heres my picks, in no particular order:
Okami - Absolutely beautiful game, both visually and aurally, with a deep Japanese-based story, and Zelda-inspired action/rpg gameplay. I think this is one of the most fun games ever to come for the PS2, and it is easily the most stylish.
FF12 - The long wait since the tenth game for another single player Final Fantasy has paid off. I love that they removed the random battles, and the programmer in me loves the gambit system (Although I wish that it was more complex sometimes). I've already sunk a good 60 hours in this game and I still have a long way to go.
Guitar Hero 2 - This is one game that needs to be experienced. Many improvements over the first, including the killer cooperative mode. It's always fun to pick up the guitar controller and play a few songs.
Zelda: Twilight Princess - I managed to snag a Wii at launch and this gem along with it. Admittedly, I haven't had much time to play very far (I'm still playing the other games on this list!), but I am very much looking forward to really sinking my teeth into the game.
Overall, I'd venture that 2006 was a fantastic year for games, especially on the PS2 (even though it may be on the way out).
Life as we know it deserves to survive beyond the Earth. (And that includes more than just humans, but I would argue that we should survive too.)
Even if we don't destroy it, the lifetime of the planet is finite.
Now do I think that we should be doing better to protect our planet? Heck yeah.
I want the big stuff too, but you've got to start small and build your way up.
Where would we be now if Columbus was told not to go on an expedition, because the European youth were apathetic to exploration?
I think exploring space may be the most important thing we can do. Especially at the rate we are using up our own planet's resources / destroying the environment. We're going to need somewhere else to go, and the sooner we get moving on space exploration, base building, planet finding, etc the better.
The article is titled "NASA's vision lost on Web generation". So why does /. feel compelled to change that?
I'm 20 years old and nothing excites me more about the near future than space exploration. The idea that in my lifetime we will likely have a moon base, or go to Mars is hard to believe.
;-)
Then again, I read Slashdot, so I may not represent my demographic.
I agree that life would evolve very differently on other worlds in such ways as to adapt to the conditions of the world.
Although without an atmosphere I'd be surprised if more than simple microbial lifeforms developed.
There's always the much-used-in-sci-fi suspended animation / freezing and then awakening when we get there. Providing the ship computer could be trusted to run flawlessly for the centuries with no human interaction. (Insert obligatory Windows joke here...)
Although, besides breathing purposes, our atmosphere also protects us from harmful radiation from the sun, as well as protecting the planet from impacts from most stellar objects.
Well, if the Universe is infinite than every possibility, however improbable, is a reality. It's just a matter of finding it. ;-) Good luck.
Mostly it's because of budget constraints and the fact that the "aliens" are played by humans. CG would be way to expensive for a regular character on TV. Farscape found a way around it though. They used animatronics to create some truly alien-looking aliens that were very impressive for a tv series (though they also had a lot of the humanoid variety). They were very realistic, too, quite believable in appearance and movement. But I get your point, and I agree that it is amusing how aliens all look like modified humans. I think if intelligent aliens evolved elsewhere in the universe and we ever encountered them, they'd be unlike anything we could imagine. (Heck, they may not even use the same senses, or perceive the same wavelengths of light or sound, etc, let alone having two arms, two legs, and a face. Don't even get me started on the likelihood of hot alien chicks that are somehow sexually compatible with humans...)