I like Okami, but his criticisms are valid. Clearly this thread is being frequented by Okamiphiles only, as the parent didn't deserve flamebait moderation. As much as I would have rather played this game on the Wii, I already started it on PS2 and that's where I'll finish it. It is just a bit too plodding to pick up again for the Wii, but if you haven't played it yet, perfect chance to do so now with all of the parent's caveats to be kept in mind. I was actually surprised at how much of a kid's game Okami is, considering that drawing with a virtual stylus using a PS2 analog controller isn't really the easiest thing for a child to do (at least going by how much people have bitched about the difficulty of the analog control in Mario Sunshine, which was easy by comparison).
Not necessarily, if only because of supply shortages. It isn't as hard to find as it used to be, but I still routinely see Wiis sold out at local gameshops. When I ask the clerk out of curiousity (I have one already), they often give me the "we get shipments on x-days and y-days, try and be here when the store opens" reply. If Mario Galaxies sparks any interest at all, the supply ceiling will be hit again in no time.
All that said, as a Wii owner I am starting to get a little apprehensive about the future game library of this little machine. I'm not so loudly bemoaning the current vacuum as some, perhaps it's all the recent PC game goodness I've been enjoying. I'm really not interested in any of the recent console games on the PS3 or 360 either, but then again I won't be getting Force Unleashed or GTA4 on my Wii. Myself, I can still see a metric shit-ton of cool ideas for the wiimote, gimmicky as people are more recently wont to call it. The thing just works when used properly. However there does seem to be a real dearth of third party software even in the pipeline, despite all the rumblings of companies switching focus to the platform, which all too much resembles the two previous consoles Nintendo put out. I still feel burned for buying an N64 back in the day, and I skipped the Gamecube altogether because of that. I still like the wiimote (RE4/Metroid is great), and the machine is plenty pretty for me when devs put the time into it (Galaxies looks nice), but who knows if this was all just another Nintendo launch bubble. If Galaxies does anything this holiday season, it will just stave off the concerns for the console's future that people like myself might be pondering.
Wouldn't it lose it's luster if everyone were swearing all the time? I'm all for the unrestricted use of language everywhere, I think it's childish not to be, but wouldn't any positive side effects be related to the fact that being allowed to swear at work is unusual and kind of a privilege? Of course, once everyone got completely used to swearing, we'd all be better off anyway IMH fucking O.
I loved Portal. It was for me the most intriguing part of the Orange box, though the other games would have been enough. The basic gameplay was pretty innovative, but I think even more so I enjoyed the minimalistic style and especially the dark humor of the master computer character. For a game with no enemies other than stationary turrets, they did a superb job of keeping the game engaging with just a diembodied voice. I love that character.
If you listen to the commentary tracks they put an impressive amount of thought into all aspects of the game. Gabe Newell request feedback and states "we're only just beginning to utilize this new gameplay style," which I'm glad to hear and I hope everyone else is demanding more Portal.
Myself, I'm hoping to gain insight on the ecological implications of all that ostrich killing. I mean, I hear there's more to do in that game, but whenever I watch my friend play it he's usually just killing more ostriches. That's got to have a large impact on the surrounding ecosystem, not to mention the cultural and economic factors in dealing with all that scattered ostrich carrion.
I've been wanting to go back and use the books I bought in college, but all the interesting problems are even and have no answer in the back of the book. I always thought this was frustrating as it wasn't as though one could just write the answer and get credit without showing work. Is there any place online were one can get the complete answers to old college math books (possibly outdated editions)? I guess I could check the publishers' sites when I get home tonight, but I was wondering if there was a common source for this information.
I think a better system would be to develop some sort of Avatar language. Some common protocol for describing physical features. Reminds me of some online app I found somewhere that could pull a Mii character's appearance from a Wiimote and convert it into a string of characters for online editting and sharing. With such a format you could plug in your appearance meta-data and have a game create your face in its own style. And really it should be limited to facial features. The face is the most identifiable part of a character, and a player's body depends too much on the game's mechanics and art style. There is no guarantee that the player will even be humanoid in a particular game. Same goes for character apparel. There is usually a very narrow range of playable body types in any given gameplay model, unless we're just talking about MMORPGs and social sims where game physics usually play a very weak part.
That's probably the sort of games they're talking about anyway, and in that case it's not terribly interesting anyway. I'm in the minority of people who don't much care for those games, I'm more about action/adventure. I think it would be cool to be able to craft my face (parametrically) in some high-end photorealistic sport-sim, then flip over to a game like Puzzle Fighter and see how my mug translates in the big-head, big-eyes anime world. You could even stack on game specific optimizations, making your universal avatar signature more of a base-template. Something to get you going. I kind of wish Nintendo's Miis were a little more complex and more along these lines actually, though there's nothing really from stopping some innovative game company from doing just what I have described here in their game. "So you have blue eyes and a brown mop-top? Well here's how you look in our world."
Actually I think a better idea is to do the 2-3 second wait before accepting input. Lots of games do this, so that skipping is possible but not accidental. Gives you a chance to retire that trigger finger and decide for yourself whether you want to watch this particular cutscene or not.
I dunno. I think it's "painfully ignorant" to think that PC game software has any real value after you've gone through it yourself. Consumed cheeseburgers are about the only thing that depreciates faster. I don't know where you're from, but around here you can't sell used PC software anywhere. Console games sure, but not PC. Going by the use of your expletive attributive, I'll assume you're not from the states and concede that maybe where you live one can sell back used PC software for a few bits. Most of us here have kind of gotten used to the fact that we're not going to see that $40 of disposable income again. Comes with the territory. Not everything is an investment.
That is all that is holding me back anymore. These new prices sound enticing, and as much as that Marvel game sounds like ass to me, I'd actually like to have Forza 2. I was holding out for Sony to get their shit together, but Force Unleashed and the new GTA are right around the corner and I need a new system to play with when I put down the Wiimote for a little while every now and then. Really wanted to stay away from Microsoft this time as the PS2 just blew the doors off my XBox with a truly superior game library, but I just don't know if Sony will justify such a large price tag anytime soon. Microsoft has the reasonable price tag, but I have never once had to return or refurbish any game console I've ever had, and I've had every Nintendo/Sega/Sony console released up to this "gen." Hell even my original XBox is happily running XBMC to this day. I have no patience for unreliable (or noisy for that matter), and no one else should either. Three-year warranty or not, its unacceptable to me to have to return a console for repairs even once. Leave it to Microsoft to make buying a console a truly risky proposition and to lower the bar for quality control in such an unprecedented (in my own experience) way. If they could certifiably prove they fixed their damn console they'd have my money tomorrow. Until then, screw it I'll go back to PC gaming.
It's actually kind of funny. If they never included HL2 and Ep1 I think they would get less bitching. $50 ($45 for preorder that also let me play TF2 early) is completely reasonable for those 3 new games. Compare that to the limited edition of Halo 3 which cost $120 (hell just the game is $60)! Where was the bitching over how ridiculous that was?
I would probably be strongly in favour of it, if I weren't so utterly offended by the idea that I'm not allowed to sell games that I paid for. Yea, because people are just climbing over each other to buy your copies of a game that pretty much everyone who would pay money for has already played almost 3 years ago (that's like 15 in software years). I'm similarly pissed at Apogee Software for distributing their games on diskettes which have since degraded and become unreadable, forever cock-blocking my ability to sell this precious copy of Rise of the Triad that would otherwise likely bring eBay's auction system to its knees in a heartbeat.
I don't think it's necessarily that the Simpsons are doing the parody. I think it has more to do with the game's publisher. EA is quite the behemoth, and if I were Rockstar I wouldn't want them anywhere near my IP either. I'm pretty sure anyone at Rockstar with human blood coursing through their veins (read: everyone sans legal/corporate) is honored to have the Simpsons pay tribute, and everyone knows there's plenty of parody in the GTA games themselves of all sorts of pop culture. I'd almost think they wouldn't mind such a thing from a lesser company, but you certainly don't want something as big a competitor as EA thinking they have free reign.
I don't use IE hardly at all. Only when the occasional website screws up in Opera and I for whatever crazy reason decide it's really worth whipping out IE. I know I don't have the latest version so I didn't even know it required WGA. How do they get away with that anyway? I thought part of the DoD's monopoly complaints had to do with how integrated the browser was with the OS. I suppose the WGA requirement only shrinks their install base for IE, but it also doesn't go a long way in separating IE from the OS. How can MS use WGA for anything other than core OS updates? Aren't they otherwise abusing their monopoly? Just seems strange that something like IE is supposed to be just another browser to compete against and yet it's also a tool for MS to police their Windows installations.
Good point, but if you're going to sign up for XBox Live on a used XBox, you still have to provide Microsoft with some personal information which they could then check against the info for the guy who got banned. I'm not really against having an account with CC information even if only for verification purposes, but I still think charging $50 a year is stupid. They can make plenty of money on microtransactions, the subscription fee is unnecessary. Saying it's for the grief police sounds more like racketeering to me. Not to mention, when I last had Live there was no shortage of griefers.
Each XBox has a unique name. If MS wants to ban you for griefing, they just put the name of your XBox on the blacklist. What does having $50 more every year from each customer have to do with that? If what you say is true, they'd only charge you to take you off the blacklist, not force an annual subscription charge upon every gamer. I had Live for the original XBox, I now play on Steam. 50 bucks isn't really a lot, but Live is just not worth it. In fact looking at what you get when you give money to Valve as opposed to what you get when you give money to Microsoft, hardware costs aside, I'm surprised Valve can even turn a profit for all the value they give me.
I played Heavenly Sword in the store the other day. It really isn't a very innovative game, does indeed seem very GOW-with-tits to me. I do like it better than GOW though. I just like the controls more. I love these types of games. Double Dragon, Final Fight, Golden Axe, up through the LOTR:ROTK, Rome:Total Warrior, I could go on. Long live Brawlers and Hack & Slashers! They're what consoles are for. They're console games. Just like FPSes are for PC (or Wii if I continue to love Metroid). It's a pretty game too. I can't afford a PS3 atm, and I'm still waiting for more games to come out for it, but I have to agree the few games it does have are more appealing to me.
I've said it before but I don't understand where this idea that 360 has all the games comes from. Looking at the long list of exclusives, many of them Sony published, that the original PS2 had I'm much more likely to get a PS3 in the future. And games like Little Big Planet, though not solely on its own but still, only convince me the PS3 will again have a richer library. MS really needs to put out something other than Halo. It was a home run for them. Great. Any more ideas? I'm sure I'm out of my mind here, but even the average Heavenly Sword, and it is rather average, is more appealing to me than Halo 3. Maybe it's all that CSS I play spoiling me.
I only played that class for a few minutes, but I didn't much care for it. It's funny that it has the least personality, just a guy in a mask. The Pyro would work if they made his fire do more to you than just suck health. It does obstruct visibility a little, but it should say, prevent your character from firing his weapon properly, maybe cause him to run around screaming that he's on fire. Then the Pyro could clear out a room. He'd be a force to be reckoned with. Alas, he's just a throwaway character now.
if a certain configuration of hardware can render 1280x720 images at 30 frames per second, then that same hardware will be able to push 563 FPS at a resolution of 256x192 (which happens to be what the DS has). So why not make a handheld that can do real-time raytracing? Seems it would be easier to do. And that's a pretty good selling point to boast "better than PS3/360 graphics in the palm of your hand."
And to the above posts bemoaning the focus on graphics over gameplay, remember if they get a good real-time raytracing system in place then that frees the dev team up quite a bit. No longer having to work so hard on faking proper lighting, they can then focus on the more important things like gameplay/AI/physics.
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I like Okami, but his criticisms are valid. Clearly this thread is being frequented by Okamiphiles only, as the parent didn't deserve flamebait moderation. As much as I would have rather played this game on the Wii, I already started it on PS2 and that's where I'll finish it. It is just a bit too plodding to pick up again for the Wii, but if you haven't played it yet, perfect chance to do so now with all of the parent's caveats to be kept in mind. I was actually surprised at how much of a kid's game Okami is, considering that drawing with a virtual stylus using a PS2 analog controller isn't really the easiest thing for a child to do (at least going by how much people have bitched about the difficulty of the analog control in Mario Sunshine, which was easy by comparison).
Not necessarily, if only because of supply shortages. It isn't as hard to find as it used to be, but I still routinely see Wiis sold out at local gameshops. When I ask the clerk out of curiousity (I have one already), they often give me the "we get shipments on x-days and y-days, try and be here when the store opens" reply. If Mario Galaxies sparks any interest at all, the supply ceiling will be hit again in no time.
All that said, as a Wii owner I am starting to get a little apprehensive about the future game library of this little machine. I'm not so loudly bemoaning the current vacuum as some, perhaps it's all the recent PC game goodness I've been enjoying. I'm really not interested in any of the recent console games on the PS3 or 360 either, but then again I won't be getting Force Unleashed or GTA4 on my Wii. Myself, I can still see a metric shit-ton of cool ideas for the wiimote, gimmicky as people are more recently wont to call it. The thing just works when used properly. However there does seem to be a real dearth of third party software even in the pipeline, despite all the rumblings of companies switching focus to the platform, which all too much resembles the two previous consoles Nintendo put out. I still feel burned for buying an N64 back in the day, and I skipped the Gamecube altogether because of that. I still like the wiimote (RE4/Metroid is great), and the machine is plenty pretty for me when devs put the time into it (Galaxies looks nice), but who knows if this was all just another Nintendo launch bubble. If Galaxies does anything this holiday season, it will just stave off the concerns for the console's future that people like myself might be pondering.
Wouldn't it lose it's luster if everyone were swearing all the time? I'm all for the unrestricted use of language everywhere, I think it's childish not to be, but wouldn't any positive side effects be related to the fact that being allowed to swear at work is unusual and kind of a privilege? Of course, once everyone got completely used to swearing, we'd all be better off anyway IMH fucking O.
I loved Portal. It was for me the most intriguing part of the Orange box, though the other games would have been enough. The basic gameplay was pretty innovative, but I think even more so I enjoyed the minimalistic style and especially the dark humor of the master computer character. For a game with no enemies other than stationary turrets, they did a superb job of keeping the game engaging with just a diembodied voice. I love that character.
If you listen to the commentary tracks they put an impressive amount of thought into all aspects of the game. Gabe Newell request feedback and states "we're only just beginning to utilize this new gameplay style," which I'm glad to hear and I hope everyone else is demanding more Portal.
Myself, I'm hoping to gain insight on the ecological implications of all that ostrich killing. I mean, I hear there's more to do in that game, but whenever I watch my friend play it he's usually just killing more ostriches. That's got to have a large impact on the surrounding ecosystem, not to mention the cultural and economic factors in dealing with all that scattered ostrich carrion.
I've been wanting to go back and use the books I bought in college, but all the interesting problems are even and have no answer in the back of the book. I always thought this was frustrating as it wasn't as though one could just write the answer and get credit without showing work. Is there any place online were one can get the complete answers to old college math books (possibly outdated editions)? I guess I could check the publishers' sites when I get home tonight, but I was wondering if there was a common source for this information.
I think a better system would be to develop some sort of Avatar language. Some common protocol for describing physical features. Reminds me of some online app I found somewhere that could pull a Mii character's appearance from a Wiimote and convert it into a string of characters for online editting and sharing. With such a format you could plug in your appearance meta-data and have a game create your face in its own style. And really it should be limited to facial features. The face is the most identifiable part of a character, and a player's body depends too much on the game's mechanics and art style. There is no guarantee that the player will even be humanoid in a particular game. Same goes for character apparel. There is usually a very narrow range of playable body types in any given gameplay model, unless we're just talking about MMORPGs and social sims where game physics usually play a very weak part.
That's probably the sort of games they're talking about anyway, and in that case it's not terribly interesting anyway. I'm in the minority of people who don't much care for those games, I'm more about action/adventure. I think it would be cool to be able to craft my face (parametrically) in some high-end photorealistic sport-sim, then flip over to a game like Puzzle Fighter and see how my mug translates in the big-head, big-eyes anime world. You could even stack on game specific optimizations, making your universal avatar signature more of a base-template. Something to get you going. I kind of wish Nintendo's Miis were a little more complex and more along these lines actually, though there's nothing really from stopping some innovative game company from doing just what I have described here in their game. "So you have blue eyes and a brown mop-top? Well here's how you look in our world."
"Ow!"
Actually I think a better idea is to do the 2-3 second wait before accepting input. Lots of games do this, so that skipping is possible but not accidental. Gives you a chance to retire that trigger finger and decide for yourself whether you want to watch this particular cutscene or not.
I dunno. I think it's "painfully ignorant" to think that PC game software has any real value after you've gone through it yourself. Consumed cheeseburgers are about the only thing that depreciates faster. I don't know where you're from, but around here you can't sell used PC software anywhere. Console games sure, but not PC. Going by the use of your expletive attributive, I'll assume you're not from the states and concede that maybe where you live one can sell back used PC software for a few bits. Most of us here have kind of gotten used to the fact that we're not going to see that $40 of disposable income again. Comes with the territory. Not everything is an investment.
That is all that is holding me back anymore. These new prices sound enticing, and as much as that Marvel game sounds like ass to me, I'd actually like to have Forza 2. I was holding out for Sony to get their shit together, but Force Unleashed and the new GTA are right around the corner and I need a new system to play with when I put down the Wiimote for a little while every now and then. Really wanted to stay away from Microsoft this time as the PS2 just blew the doors off my XBox with a truly superior game library, but I just don't know if Sony will justify such a large price tag anytime soon. Microsoft has the reasonable price tag, but I have never once had to return or refurbish any game console I've ever had, and I've had every Nintendo/Sega/Sony console released up to this "gen." Hell even my original XBox is happily running XBMC to this day. I have no patience for unreliable (or noisy for that matter), and no one else should either. Three-year warranty or not, its unacceptable to me to have to return a console for repairs even once. Leave it to Microsoft to make buying a console a truly risky proposition and to lower the bar for quality control in such an unprecedented (in my own experience) way. If they could certifiably prove they fixed their damn console they'd have my money tomorrow. Until then, screw it I'll go back to PC gaming.
It's actually kind of funny. If they never included HL2 and Ep1 I think they would get less bitching. $50 ($45 for preorder that also let me play TF2 early) is completely reasonable for those 3 new games. Compare that to the limited edition of Halo 3 which cost $120 (hell just the game is $60)! Where was the bitching over how ridiculous that was?
Since when was LOTR about excitement? Just sayin'...
Bungie is as tired of hearing about Halo as I am!
I don't think it's necessarily that the Simpsons are doing the parody. I think it has more to do with the game's publisher. EA is quite the behemoth, and if I were Rockstar I wouldn't want them anywhere near my IP either. I'm pretty sure anyone at Rockstar with human blood coursing through their veins (read: everyone sans legal/corporate) is honored to have the Simpsons pay tribute, and everyone knows there's plenty of parody in the GTA games themselves of all sorts of pop culture. I'd almost think they wouldn't mind such a thing from a lesser company, but you certainly don't want something as big a competitor as EA thinking they have free reign.
I don't use IE hardly at all. Only when the occasional website screws up in Opera and I for whatever crazy reason decide it's really worth whipping out IE. I know I don't have the latest version so I didn't even know it required WGA. How do they get away with that anyway? I thought part of the DoD's monopoly complaints had to do with how integrated the browser was with the OS. I suppose the WGA requirement only shrinks their install base for IE, but it also doesn't go a long way in separating IE from the OS. How can MS use WGA for anything other than core OS updates? Aren't they otherwise abusing their monopoly? Just seems strange that something like IE is supposed to be just another browser to compete against and yet it's also a tool for MS to police their Windows installations.
Good point, but if you're going to sign up for XBox Live on a used XBox, you still have to provide Microsoft with some personal information which they could then check against the info for the guy who got banned. I'm not really against having an account with CC information even if only for verification purposes, but I still think charging $50 a year is stupid. They can make plenty of money on microtransactions, the subscription fee is unnecessary. Saying it's for the grief police sounds more like racketeering to me. Not to mention, when I last had Live there was no shortage of griefers.
Each XBox has a unique name. If MS wants to ban you for griefing, they just put the name of your XBox on the blacklist. What does having $50 more every year from each customer have to do with that? If what you say is true, they'd only charge you to take you off the blacklist, not force an annual subscription charge upon every gamer. I had Live for the original XBox, I now play on Steam. 50 bucks isn't really a lot, but Live is just not worth it. In fact looking at what you get when you give money to Valve as opposed to what you get when you give money to Microsoft, hardware costs aside, I'm surprised Valve can even turn a profit for all the value they give me.
I played Heavenly Sword in the store the other day. It really isn't a very innovative game, does indeed seem very GOW-with-tits to me. I do like it better than GOW though. I just like the controls more. I love these types of games. Double Dragon, Final Fight, Golden Axe, up through the LOTR:ROTK, Rome:Total Warrior, I could go on. Long live Brawlers and Hack & Slashers! They're what consoles are for. They're console games. Just like FPSes are for PC (or Wii if I continue to love Metroid). It's a pretty game too. I can't afford a PS3 atm, and I'm still waiting for more games to come out for it, but I have to agree the few games it does have are more appealing to me.
I've said it before but I don't understand where this idea that 360 has all the games comes from. Looking at the long list of exclusives, many of them Sony published, that the original PS2 had I'm much more likely to get a PS3 in the future. And games like Little Big Planet, though not solely on its own but still, only convince me the PS3 will again have a richer library. MS really needs to put out something other than Halo. It was a home run for them. Great. Any more ideas? I'm sure I'm out of my mind here, but even the average Heavenly Sword, and it is rather average, is more appealing to me than Halo 3. Maybe it's all that CSS I play spoiling me.
I only played that class for a few minutes, but I didn't much care for it. It's funny that it has the least personality, just a guy in a mask. The Pyro would work if they made his fire do more to you than just suck health. It does obstruct visibility a little, but it should say, prevent your character from firing his weapon properly, maybe cause him to run around screaming that he's on fire. Then the Pyro could clear out a room. He'd be a force to be reckoned with. Alas, he's just a throwaway character now.
Thank god you wiki-linked that. I hadn't the foggiest idea who you were talking about!
i know of a place that solves all of those problems, but every time i mention it i get read the first and second rules. wiiposted!
And to the above posts bemoaning the focus on graphics over gameplay, remember if they get a good real-time raytracing system in place then that frees the dev team up quite a bit. No longer having to work so hard on faking proper lighting, they can then focus on the more important things like gameplay/AI/physics.