If it's valid to include all modern PC games under one umbrella, then it's valid to include all modern console games under one umbrella. Many online PC games have no need for any kind of Live/Steam service in the first place.
Thank you for bringing the PS3 into the discussion, for no reason whatsoever. Were I a PS3 fanboy, that would sting.
Doom on Steam runs on DOSBox, a DOS emulator (compiled into a Windows exe, like all emulators which run in windows...)
Live works extremely well the vast majority of the time... except all through the holidays recently...
Thank you for bringing up PSN, for no pertinent reason. Were I a PS3 fanboy, that would sting.
Live supports whatever games come out on the 360 (one of 4 console platforms currently competing with each other), and which have an online component. Seems to me a number similarly not of incredible magnitude.
But whatever, it works for you. I just totally disagree.
If Live worked with all console games then your point would be valid.
See how dumb that sounds? No I guess you wouldn't.
Anyway, Gabe Newell has stated that the goal is to have all PC games, old and new, supported by Steam. No small task really, considering "PC games" as a platform is an extremely broad term. They have existed since even before the first consoles and on up to the current generation and beyond, boasting new games like Crysis which can't even be run at full bore with most current system specs. They don't upgrade discretely like new console generations. There is a steady stream of incremental upgrades based on user resources and preferences. Steam is already supporting old games like Doom using an emulator for its native DOS platform.
Conversely, the 360 can't even boast full backwards compatibility for its predecessor the XBox. I'm not really knocking Live, it's a decent service (though it really should be included for free, it is just a supplement to the games for which you have already paid money). But frankly, next to Steam it is really just a playground which is suitable for its console demographic, but no where near as ambitious or open-ended as Steam is becoming.
This has always struck me as incredibly short-sighted. The trailers themselves have a shelf-life of 1-2 months, yet there they are for the lifetime of your use of the disc, for years and years reminding you of the forgettable past as if it were still just around the corner. Most of the time the trailers are for movies that are insufferably mediocre, as that is every major entertainment industry's main product, although they have managed to somehow miraculously film 3-4 minutes of decent footage, all of which is included in the trailer to provoke an undeserved interest in rental or purchase. When finally viewed and subsequently hated, forcefully repeated viewings of the trailers of these lame films on other discs of movies that I do enjoy leave me with a tangible sense of irritation and disgust.
It was enough to make me give up on the whole thing. DVD extras have nothing on the sweet sweet instant playback/easy seeking of XVids on my XBMC. Anymore I rip just to get away from the marketting pit of DVD.
Speaking of demos in stores, am I the only one that thinks HD makes the content look shittier? I look at it and I see all the compression artifacts (that squared glass look around edges and during high-motion) that I normally don't see on a regular TV. I'd rather see a smoother, lower resolution image than what I've seen in these store demos.
Wow. This is my problem with the 360. I was willing to give in and let Microsoft rule my gaming life like they rule my computer use but I refuse to pay money for a device that is so likely to break down that the conversation has moved from if to yes but how long. I've never had a console break down on me. Not my NES, Genesis, SNES, SegaCD, N64, Dreamcast, PS2 (even with all the laser malfunctioning talk), or even my original XBox which is still in use 5-10 hrs a day with XBMC. Most of these other system would probably still operate today if I hadn't sold them (I wonder how much value your 360s will retain at the end of your use of it). Sure modern systems are way more complex than the systems of yore, but broken architecture is broken architecture. Microsoft has an incredible ability to lower people's expectations. It's really their strong suit. If Sony doesn't pull itself together I'll just stick with my Wii and PC for this round thank you. Nintendo doesn't make shit hardware.
Even better, I just picked up a Nostromo n52 (it's the older model) gaming keypad for Christmas. I'm still getting used to it, but it's already pretty sweet. With a couple simple scripts I'm whipping out my bonesaw in the heat of battle and generally playing much better in TF2.
I enjoyed Halo on the original XBox, but you just can't beat solid PC controls for FPS games. They're their own beast. But to bring PC-like controls to a console, you have to break the couch mentality and make someone sit at a table or desk. That's kind of a non-starter.
I'm not shilling products, so no link. Google it for the low down.
Wait, so Steam doesn't count because it only works on the games designed for its own platform, while the 360 does because it only works on the games designed for its own platform?
There's also new footage of Zhora crashing through a display case after being pursued by Deckard. This scene was reshot. The original actress, Joanna Cassidy, performed the stunt herself, replacing original footage of an obvious stunt double. That scene always reminded me of the part in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, where his grandmother beats up two hoods, only they jokingly replace her with a stunt-double who is obviously just a white guy with a mustache in grandma's garb. Cassidy's stunt-double looked just as humorously unconvincing to me.
I must be the only person who loves the voice-overs. Are they bad? Sure they are. They make Deckard sound like kind of an asshole. But it's Harrison Ford, you can't hate the man. All I see is a lovably alcoholic Indiana Jones. When they release the Final Cut on dvd, I'll be doing some editting of my own, putting all those voice-overs back into the movie. Two can play at this game Scott!
If you can stick a replicant's hand in boiling water without hurting them, then the VK test is kind of pointless. Sure, but it would kind of hurt company morale if you went around sticking all their hands in boiling water just to root out a suspected replicant. Besides, replicants can fake pain if they want, but can't fake a VK test. BTW, you don't work in human resources do you?
Given the fact that I am not very likely to take off my shoe and bludgeon the person in front of me in the theater to death So you missed Wing Commander in it's theatrical run?
This is a cool idea and it reminds me of dendrochronology. It's a way of dating wood samples, say from an ancient man-made structure, by analysing the annual growth rings of the wood. Wiki can describe the process better than I can, but basically you're looking for overlaps in ring thickness patterns between samples. You can then build up an entire unbroken chain with a virtual history of the region's climate and can place approximate dates on when the wood was originally harvested for use.
I don't see why this idea isn't more evident to people. It has its roots in biology, in life itself. Diversity is important in ecosystems, in gene pools, in immune systems. Its important in industry, in the market as well as within an individual company itself. Crop rotation. Stock portfolios. The video game industry. As any old wife will tell you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Why do people not see that all around them the more diverse something is the less chance it has of getting wiped out or callapsing suddenly from one common vulnerability. So of course this would extend to the media and the political sphere.
I know it's just a movie but they completely sold me on the idea of getting dinosaur DNA from blood in mosquitos trapped in dried tree sap deposits. Was that all a bunch of crapola? I had assumed they had all kinds of dino DNA just sitting in a fridge somewhere waiting for cloning to really take off. Do we really not have any dino DNA on record?
then only have him onscreen for ten minutes and kill him like a chump at the end.
Actually, that there is the moment for me where the series jumped the shark. Not the killing of Darth Maul, but the flat out refusal to bring him back in the sequel. Let me explain.
Darth Maul was chopped in half and dumped down an Emperor's shaft as I like to refer to them. Luke was also dropped into such a pit right after his hand was cut off. No big deal, Maul's wound was obviously instantly cauterized by the lightsabre. And he's a badass with the force so he can tough it out and meditate or some shit for a few hours staving off shock waiting for a rescue vessel. All they need to do is give him some robot legs (and man-junk) and he's all set to keep kicking ass. Hell Darth Vader is half robot, and in Ep3 they have what appears to be a cyborg with almost nothing but a few truly organic internal organs. Lucas obviously loves him some cyborg.
How badass would that have been to see Maul come back in Ep2? Instead of the myriad of flat and pointless villains they introduced and rapidly knocked off they could have this one great villain stalking our heroes through the whole trilogy. That's the problem with the movies, they have no Darth Vader, only multiple weak stand-ins. Maul could be all over Obi Wan's ass for revenge, which clouds his judgement and prevents him from properly gauging Anakin's mind and his drift to the dark side. Then he and Anakin could have this whole character dynamic of fighting over Darth Sidious's tutelage and bickering like little school boys. Maybe in some strange turn of events, Mace Windu gets to take down Maul once and for all in a no holds barred 20 min light sabre battle, Sam Jackson style. Then Mace wouldn't have had to die like a total pussy as he must have seemed to anyone who didn't see the brilliant segments of the character on the Clone Wars cartoons where he was portrayed as actually having a pair of Jedi-balls instead of the woefully wooden waste of Samuel L we saw on the big screen. Mace should have been the character to get crazy when pushed, purple light sabre and Barry Gordy dragon kung-fu style. Not some chump who cries like a woman and falls out of a window. He chops Darth Maul in half vertically then quips, "Try being one with the force now, bitch!" (or some Star Wars slang equivalent of "bitch").
Or let him kill Mace even, so long as he puts up a good fight. Then, as Maul is slowly befriending Anakin (after revealing a similarly screwed up childhood which forms a bond between the two young Siths), Obi Wan kills Maul and pisses Anakin off to the tipping point. Anakin, feeling betrayed by his old master, buys into the dark side completely and goes away to complete his training on a far off planet where a Sith lord bizarro-Yoda teaches him how to shoot force lightning and force choke people and all the other naughty bits of the force. Then the final showdown where Obi Wan barely survives Anakin. Anakin kicks Obi's ass all over the place until Padme steps in at a crucial moment pleaing for an end to the fight but is fatally wounded by Anakin (a light sabre blow is miles better than being choked and merely "losing the will to live"), who then collapses into madness and attempts suicide but doesn't succeed completely. Sidious finds him and completely rebuilds and reconditions him and there we have the robot-like obedience of Darth Vader.
I guess the point is that any nerd with a few beers and a bar napkin could draft a better story than the one we were given and I was half joking with some of the above, but I was truly surprised they didn't bring Maul back. It would have been totally "Star Wars" plausible, it would have been cool and tension creating, and it would have saved time writing and designing other cheap villains that ultimately garnered little to no interest from viewers (I can barely remember any of their names, what was the name of that dipshit shapeshifting assassin in
Maybe the blasters don't kill them. I mean, there's never any signs of blood or gore, just sparks and smoke. Maybe blasters just knock you on your ass or maybe it's even like being tased. They all wake up hours after the fight and wander back to a command post.
Since someone already claimed the Godwin prize I feel at liberty to mention Hitler. Wasn't it his rejuvenation of Germany's weak post-WWI economy that got things moving in such an unfortunate direction with that whole wonderful chapter of world history? True Russia doesn't currently have any policies of state-endorsed racism that I know of, but the Nazi party does staqnd as a pretty good example of a group of people going along with some pretty rotten ideas in the long term after some initial economic successes. Maybe it isn't realistic to expect everything to start off on the right foot in a new Russia, but I can't help but wonder what sort of people will result from growing up in such a political climate.
What part of "don't tase me bro" don't you understand. But seriously, tasers should be in a locked box in the cruiser, some place where an officer has to go and physically procure it for a dire situation that is getting out of hand. Something that should require logging out and not something to be carried about in a holster. Say if some rhino-sized individual cranked up on speed is having a field day with a group of struggling officers. Then you tase the guy and bring him down. Anything else is just laziness on the part of municipal workers trained and paid to do a dangerous job. I don't think it's out of line to suppose a good majority of cops have the personality of someone willing to get in a scuffle or two with the odd "bad guy" considering it part of the job. That personality should not be linked via button to a device that effortlessly electrocutes whatever it is pointed at. I don't need to UN to tell me that sounds like a torture device, and I don't see the merit in arguing away the potential harm of such a device as a mere statistical minority.
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I've used Live.
If it's valid to include all modern PC games under one umbrella, then it's valid to include all modern console games under one umbrella. Many online PC games have no need for any kind of Live/Steam service in the first place.
Thank you for bringing the PS3 into the discussion, for no reason whatsoever. Were I a PS3 fanboy, that would sting.
Doom on Steam runs on DOSBox, a DOS emulator (compiled into a Windows exe, like all emulators which run in windows...)
Live works extremely well the vast majority of the time... except all through the holidays recently...
Thank you for bringing up PSN, for no pertinent reason. Were I a PS3 fanboy, that would sting.
Live supports whatever games come out on the 360 (one of 4 console platforms currently competing with each other), and which have an online component. Seems to me a number similarly not of incredible magnitude.
But whatever, it works for you. I just totally disagree.
If Live worked with all console games then your point would be valid.
See how dumb that sounds? No I guess you wouldn't.
Anyway, Gabe Newell has stated that the goal is to have all PC games, old and new, supported by Steam. No small task really, considering "PC games" as a platform is an extremely broad term. They have existed since even before the first consoles and on up to the current generation and beyond, boasting new games like Crysis which can't even be run at full bore with most current system specs. They don't upgrade discretely like new console generations. There is a steady stream of incremental upgrades based on user resources and preferences. Steam is already supporting old games like Doom using an emulator for its native DOS platform.
Conversely, the 360 can't even boast full backwards compatibility for its predecessor the XBox. I'm not really knocking Live, it's a decent service (though it really should be included for free, it is just a supplement to the games for which you have already paid money). But frankly, next to Steam it is really just a playground which is suitable for its console demographic, but no where near as ambitious or open-ended as Steam is becoming.
This has always struck me as incredibly short-sighted. The trailers themselves have a shelf-life of 1-2 months, yet there they are for the lifetime of your use of the disc, for years and years reminding you of the forgettable past as if it were still just around the corner. Most of the time the trailers are for movies that are insufferably mediocre, as that is every major entertainment industry's main product, although they have managed to somehow miraculously film 3-4 minutes of decent footage, all of which is included in the trailer to provoke an undeserved interest in rental or purchase. When finally viewed and subsequently hated, forcefully repeated viewings of the trailers of these lame films on other discs of movies that I do enjoy leave me with a tangible sense of irritation and disgust.
It was enough to make me give up on the whole thing. DVD extras have nothing on the sweet sweet instant playback/easy seeking of XVids on my XBMC. Anymore I rip just to get away from the marketting pit of DVD.
Speaking of demos in stores, am I the only one that thinks HD makes the content look shittier? I look at it and I see all the compression artifacts (that squared glass look around edges and during high-motion) that I normally don't see on a regular TV. I'd rather see a smoother, lower resolution image than what I've seen in these store demos.
Wow. This is my problem with the 360. I was willing to give in and let Microsoft rule my gaming life like they rule my computer use but I refuse to pay money for a device that is so likely to break down that the conversation has moved from if to yes but how long. I've never had a console break down on me. Not my NES, Genesis, SNES, SegaCD, N64, Dreamcast, PS2 (even with all the laser malfunctioning talk), or even my original XBox which is still in use 5-10 hrs a day with XBMC. Most of these other system would probably still operate today if I hadn't sold them (I wonder how much value your 360s will retain at the end of your use of it). Sure modern systems are way more complex than the systems of yore, but broken architecture is broken architecture. Microsoft has an incredible ability to lower people's expectations. It's really their strong suit. If Sony doesn't pull itself together I'll just stick with my Wii and PC for this round thank you. Nintendo doesn't make shit hardware.
Even better, I just picked up a Nostromo n52 (it's the older model) gaming keypad for Christmas. I'm still getting used to it, but it's already pretty sweet. With a couple simple scripts I'm whipping out my bonesaw in the heat of battle and generally playing much better in TF2.
I enjoyed Halo on the original XBox, but you just can't beat solid PC controls for FPS games. They're their own beast. But to bring PC-like controls to a console, you have to break the couch mentality and make someone sit at a table or desk. That's kind of a non-starter.
I'm not shilling products, so no link. Google it for the low down.
Wait, so Steam doesn't count because it only works on the games designed for its own platform, while the 360 does because it only works on the games designed for its own platform?
Yep, I'm pretty sure Steam does all that. Oh and it's free. That's kinda nice too.
Oh yea, and Steam wasn't down over the holidays, that was also kinda nice.
Wait, so no King Kong 2? C'mon, Zombie Kong! How much cooler would that be!?
Question. Why do you perform a virus scan if you're just going to reformat the disk? Will the format not erase everything?
I must be the only person who loves the voice-overs. Are they bad? Sure they are. They make Deckard sound like kind of an asshole. But it's Harrison Ford, you can't hate the man. All I see is a lovably alcoholic Indiana Jones. When they release the Final Cut on dvd, I'll be doing some editting of my own, putting all those voice-overs back into the movie. Two can play at this game Scott!
See he's talking about Classic, not the recently released TF2, which means he's probably talking about the dozens of user-created maps.
Yea, the Cohagen-ruled martian nations!
Just curious, is Monty Python the genuine originator of the phrase "I fart in your general direction?"
This is a cool idea and it reminds me of dendrochronology. It's a way of dating wood samples, say from an ancient man-made structure, by analysing the annual growth rings of the wood. Wiki can describe the process better than I can, but basically you're looking for overlaps in ring thickness patterns between samples. You can then build up an entire unbroken chain with a virtual history of the region's climate and can place approximate dates on when the wood was originally harvested for use.
I don't see why this idea isn't more evident to people. It has its roots in biology, in life itself. Diversity is important in ecosystems, in gene pools, in immune systems. Its important in industry, in the market as well as within an individual company itself. Crop rotation. Stock portfolios. The video game industry. As any old wife will tell you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Why do people not see that all around them the more diverse something is the less chance it has of getting wiped out or callapsing suddenly from one common vulnerability. So of course this would extend to the media and the political sphere.
ps. My captcha was "concur."
I know it's just a movie but they completely sold me on the idea of getting dinosaur DNA from blood in mosquitos trapped in dried tree sap deposits. Was that all a bunch of crapola? I had assumed they had all kinds of dino DNA just sitting in a fridge somewhere waiting for cloning to really take off. Do we really not have any dino DNA on record?
then only have him onscreen for ten minutes and kill him like a chump at the end.
Actually, that there is the moment for me where the series jumped the shark. Not the killing of Darth Maul, but the flat out refusal to bring him back in the sequel. Let me explain.
Darth Maul was chopped in half and dumped down an Emperor's shaft as I like to refer to them. Luke was also dropped into such a pit right after his hand was cut off. No big deal, Maul's wound was obviously instantly cauterized by the lightsabre. And he's a badass with the force so he can tough it out and meditate or some shit for a few hours staving off shock waiting for a rescue vessel. All they need to do is give him some robot legs (and man-junk) and he's all set to keep kicking ass. Hell Darth Vader is half robot, and in Ep3 they have what appears to be a cyborg with almost nothing but a few truly organic internal organs. Lucas obviously loves him some cyborg.
How badass would that have been to see Maul come back in Ep2? Instead of the myriad of flat and pointless villains they introduced and rapidly knocked off they could have this one great villain stalking our heroes through the whole trilogy. That's the problem with the movies, they have no Darth Vader, only multiple weak stand-ins. Maul could be all over Obi Wan's ass for revenge, which clouds his judgement and prevents him from properly gauging Anakin's mind and his drift to the dark side. Then he and Anakin could have this whole character dynamic of fighting over Darth Sidious's tutelage and bickering like little school boys. Maybe in some strange turn of events, Mace Windu gets to take down Maul once and for all in a no holds barred 20 min light sabre battle, Sam Jackson style. Then Mace wouldn't have had to die like a total pussy as he must have seemed to anyone who didn't see the brilliant segments of the character on the Clone Wars cartoons where he was portrayed as actually having a pair of Jedi-balls instead of the woefully wooden waste of Samuel L we saw on the big screen. Mace should have been the character to get crazy when pushed, purple light sabre and Barry Gordy dragon kung-fu style. Not some chump who cries like a woman and falls out of a window. He chops Darth Maul in half vertically then quips, "Try being one with the force now, bitch!" (or some Star Wars slang equivalent of "bitch").
Or let him kill Mace even, so long as he puts up a good fight. Then, as Maul is slowly befriending Anakin (after revealing a similarly screwed up childhood which forms a bond between the two young Siths), Obi Wan kills Maul and pisses Anakin off to the tipping point. Anakin, feeling betrayed by his old master, buys into the dark side completely and goes away to complete his training on a far off planet where a Sith lord bizarro-Yoda teaches him how to shoot force lightning and force choke people and all the other naughty bits of the force. Then the final showdown where Obi Wan barely survives Anakin. Anakin kicks Obi's ass all over the place until Padme steps in at a crucial moment pleaing for an end to the fight but is fatally wounded by Anakin (a light sabre blow is miles better than being choked and merely "losing the will to live"), who then collapses into madness and attempts suicide but doesn't succeed completely. Sidious finds him and completely rebuilds and reconditions him and there we have the robot-like obedience of Darth Vader.
I guess the point is that any nerd with a few beers and a bar napkin could draft a better story than the one we were given and I was half joking with some of the above, but I was truly surprised they didn't bring Maul back. It would have been totally "Star Wars" plausible, it would have been cool and tension creating, and it would have saved time writing and designing other cheap villains that ultimately garnered little to no interest from viewers (I can barely remember any of their names, what was the name of that dipshit shapeshifting assassin in
Maybe the blasters don't kill them. I mean, there's never any signs of blood or gore, just sparks and smoke. Maybe blasters just knock you on your ass or maybe it's even like being tased. They all wake up hours after the fight and wander back to a command post.
Since someone already claimed the Godwin prize I feel at liberty to mention Hitler. Wasn't it his rejuvenation of Germany's weak post-WWI economy that got things moving in such an unfortunate direction with that whole wonderful chapter of world history? True Russia doesn't currently have any policies of state-endorsed racism that I know of, but the Nazi party does staqnd as a pretty good example of a group of people going along with some pretty rotten ideas in the long term after some initial economic successes. Maybe it isn't realistic to expect everything to start off on the right foot in a new Russia, but I can't help but wonder what sort of people will result from growing up in such a political climate.
What part of "don't tase me bro" don't you understand. But seriously, tasers should be in a locked box in the cruiser, some place where an officer has to go and physically procure it for a dire situation that is getting out of hand. Something that should require logging out and not something to be carried about in a holster. Say if some rhino-sized individual cranked up on speed is having a field day with a group of struggling officers. Then you tase the guy and bring him down. Anything else is just laziness on the part of municipal workers trained and paid to do a dangerous job. I don't think it's out of line to suppose a good majority of cops have the personality of someone willing to get in a scuffle or two with the odd "bad guy" considering it part of the job. That personality should not be linked via button to a device that effortlessly electrocutes whatever it is pointed at. I don't need to UN to tell me that sounds like a torture device, and I don't see the merit in arguing away the potential harm of such a device as a mere statistical minority.