VI is almost universally acclaimed as the best Final Fantasy ever created (ignoring spin-offs, by which I mean Tactics), so I really don't know what to say other than I'm never going to agree with your messed up opinions. Oh, and I'm guessing it was Red XIII, not Red IIIX - but seriously, I really can't remember their names and am simply too lazy to bother looking them up. Universally acclaimed? By who? Just because it's your opinion does not make it everyone else's. What you seem to be missing here is that contrary to popular belief, the story is not all there is to a game. If all I wanted to do was read a story, I'd pick up a god-damn book (or go play Xenogears). You can't judge a game just by its story, it's the whole package. The gameplay, the music, the story, the intricacies of the battle system, the mini-games; all are important.
I've played most of the series (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Tactics, 8, 9, 11 for a year, and 12), and while some have their qualities (like 8's ability to have a more contrived story than 7's), they're all generally really good games all around. Square has somehow managed to reinvent the same wheel they started with for the last 20 years and keep making good games. I was skeptical after I quit playing FF11, but FF12 has been a lot of fun.
On another note, does it really suprise anyone that a topic about Final Fantasy would digress into a rant of FF6 vs FF7?
I can't RTFA because it's not loading, but my roommate recently installed Xubuntu because he likes the look of XFCE. He has zero Linux experience, but he seems really pleased with it so far. At the same time, he doesn't seem to grasp the concept that the window manager is separate for the OS, and any distribution of Linux can "look like that".
Why does the summary go from reviewing Beryl to the middle of a review of the latest release of Ubunutu?
Isn't it a bit ironic that you're trying to point out an example of "good" AI when the link you provide picks apart the reaper bot and shows that most of its "AI" was really just cheating?
[quote]We [b]will[/b] win in 2008, and you [b]will[/b] lose your guns. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it[/quote]
And criminals [b]will[/b] still, well, be criminals and obtain weapons illegally. Banning guns won't stop crime committed with guns. This tragedy (my heart goes out to all of those affected by it) is an example of this. I'm a liberal, and I don't even own a gun, and I still see gun control as a stupid idea to control a bigger problem. And you're not helping the bigger issues here by trying to push your own agenda against guns by using a tragedy like this.
Nothing to see here, off topic.
Another World was later released in the states as Out of this World. The version I played was licensed by Interplay, on MS-DOS. I think I also played a version of it on SNES. It was an amazing game, well ahead of its time.
However, I'd like to point out that there were games for the PS2 that spanned multiple DVDs, so the demand for media bigger than a single DVD already existed with the previous generation of consoles.
Yes, "there were games". But how well did they do? Just because the games exist does not necessarily mean there is a high demand for them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that most of these were role-playing games (bad ones, at that - the Xenosaga series comes to mind) wherein the only reason multiple discs was necessary was to store the data for the cut-scenes contained in the game. From what I see at Metacritic, none of the 62 games with a score of 90 or above are more than one disc (many of them are even on CD format)
The point is, I can fill up my entire hard-drive with a blank screen in raw AVI data if I wanted to. Anyone can fill up a giant amount of space and make "use" of it. It's not a question of the PS3's capabilities, it's a question of are game developers going to use the Blu-Ray format to its full potential? If you ask me, no way. At least, not yet. In the gaming industry, deadlines are way too short (right now, anyway) to be able to attain a standard like this.
By that same link, XP is also better for games than Vista, and better than Linux at the highest and lowest resolutions tested.
Do we really need any more validation that Vista is a steaming pile of crap?
I also found it a bit ironic that Cedega, which originally branched from Wine, actually performs a little worse (marginally) than Wine in the tests from this article. All this article really told me was what I already know - why pay for something when you can get something better for free?
It's not that they sound the same, it's that the files are similar. If a file is encoded in the same format as another, I'm guessing that this data that is part of these encoders' nature is what they are referring to. The similar (binary) data is data that has nothing to do with the actual output of the audio/video.
Strangely enough, in World of Warcraft some animals have the same dying noise as Imps from the original Doom (go kill a Giraffe in The Barrens and you'll see what I'm talking about).
I quit 2 months ago, too. Not because of the grind (I have been playing since launch), but because I realized how completely ridiculous the game was. I know the point of an MMO is to have fun playing online with other people, but when there is actually a point in the game that you can reach where you also stop having fun by yourself then there's really no point to continue on.
The grind never ends, really. Once you hit 60 (now 70), if you want to get anywhere, you have to be in a guild. And if you're in an aggressive guild (i.e., one that you want to feel any level of "progression" in), you have to dedicate your life to it like everyone else on the 'team'.
Your solo options? Grinding the battleground, or grinding for gold, but gold can't buy you any of the best items because you have to be in a raid-ready guild to get those.
I agree, a harder grind would be better, because at least then there would be more solo content. But Blizzard has really built the game around the 'end game' rather than trying to make it more dynamic. It took what? Two? Three days for people to hit level 70 after raising the cap? And then what? We're right back to where we started when the cap was at 60.
If you read the link to Microsoft's advisory about the exploit, it sounds like you're not even supposed to trust email from people you do know.
As a best practice, users should always exercise extreme caution when opening or viewing unsolicited emails and email attachments from both known and unknown sources. On top of that, if you read further it starts to sound like a scheme they're using to try to sell more copies of Windows Vista.
Mitigating Factors for Animated Cursor Vulnerability
Customers who are using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista are protected from currently known web based attacks due to Internet Explorer 7.0 protected mode. For more information on Internet Explorer Protected Mode see the following Web Site.
By default, Outlook 2007 uses Microsoft Word to display e-mail messages which protects customers from the HTML e-mail preview and attack vector.
Who needs animated cursors, anyway?
Saying that he is going to entertain the idea without including the fact that he doesn't know whether or not it is practical puts a completely different spin on it.
To summarize it even further, you could say:
"It's a possibility."
versus
"It's a possibility, but I really don't think it's practical."
and
"I'm pretty pleased with it."
versus
"I'm pretty pleased that it's not as bad as previous drafts."
If you actually read the article, he specifies:
"Whether it's actually a better license than the GPLv2, I'm still a bit skeptical, but at least it's now 'I'm skeptical' rather than 'Hell no!'" I just think the summary of this article is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like he's completely for switching to the GPLv3, when after reading the article I found he's still a bit skeptical.
Torvalds was noncommittal about whether he might try to move the Linux kernel to GPL 3--a change that would require the permission not just of Torvalds but also of all other Linux kernel copyright holders. But he didn't rule it out.
"The current draft makes me think it's at least a possibility in theory, but whether it's practical and worth it is a totally different thing," he said. "Practically speaking, it would involve a lot of work to make sure everything relevant is GPLv3-compatible even if we decided that the GPL 3 is OK."
It leaves me to wonder what kind of questions were on his 'church school' IQ test.
Maybe they told him 100 was the highest score to make him feel better about himself?
I got one of those logitech wireless controllers for my X-box, and it works like a dream. I'm thinking about picking up another for my X-box and two for my PS2, sure they're expensive but more than worth the price.
Interesting to note that after only a couple of months release the PS3 has 19 games with a metacritic rating of 75 or above yet the Wii has only 9 games.
Not to say that these numbers don't show anything, but I've always been one to argue quality versus quantity.
Look at how many of those "top 19" games are cookie-cutter sports titles available on other consoles? I wouldn't count that as a testament to the "PS3's greatness" (was NFL2k6 really that much different from NFL2k7?) as these titles always do well, because they appeal to (more of) a non-gamer demographic. I'd also like to note that one of these sports titles is also in the top 9 list of Wii games, which only proceeds to prove my point.
Also amongst these titles are a few that we've already seen before. How is Virtua Fighter 5 any different from its predecessors aside from looking prettier on the new console? The same goes for Tekken, it's always been the same game, and it's always been great. But it's nothing new.
How many of these titles are single-player, or multi-player? Sure, Elder Scrolls IV looks amazing, and is probably about as interesting as its predecessors, but requires a huge amount of (MMO-like) dedication to actually progress through the story. And unless your friends like watching you play ESIV (I can imagine it would be about as interesting as it was for me to watch one of my friends play ESIII - and it wasn't) for hours on end, those with an interest in multi-player games come into question.
On the PS3? You've got sports titles, fighting titles, and a few racing games. But does that really warrant shelling out $600+ just to play it on a new, pretty console? As I have already stated, they're nothing new, nothing different from what has already been the mainstream gaming market for years. First person shooters? I have an Xbox, why not just play Halo? In my opinion, the original Halo was much better than Halo 2, anyway.
The Wii comes packed with a game (Wii Sports) that has tons of simple mini-games with a high-replay value for those with the multi-player mindset. The games are easy to understand, so even the novice gamer can pick it up and play it (unlike games like Elder Scrolls, which requires MYST-like patience or worse).
Before we go ranting and raving about game reviews, we have to keep in mind that the Wii is also aimed at people who don't even read these reviews. Aren't most game reviews written by avid gamers? What about those who aren't? The Wii seems to appeal both to people who are gamers (with titles like the new Zelda), and to non-gamers (with titles like Wii Sports, Wii Play and I'm sure the new Mario Party will have the same appeal as I'm sure it did on the Gamecube).
Slashdot Mirror
Have you played 12 yet? If not, I'd highly recommend it. It's a lot better than some of the more recent Final Fantasy titles.
I've played most of the series (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Tactics, 8, 9, 11 for a year, and 12), and while some have their qualities (like 8's ability to have a more contrived story than 7's), they're all generally really good games all around. Square has somehow managed to reinvent the same wheel they started with for the last 20 years and keep making good games. I was skeptical after I quit playing FF11, but FF12 has been a lot of fun.
On another note, does it really suprise anyone that a topic about Final Fantasy would digress into a rant of FF6 vs FF7?
I can't RTFA because it's not loading, but my roommate recently installed Xubuntu because he likes the look of XFCE. He has zero Linux experience, but he seems really pleased with it so far. At the same time, he doesn't seem to grasp the concept that the window manager is separate for the OS, and any distribution of Linux can "look like that". Why does the summary go from reviewing Beryl to the middle of a review of the latest release of Ubunutu?
Isn't it a bit ironic that you're trying to point out an example of "good" AI when the link you provide picks apart the reaper bot and shows that most of its "AI" was really just cheating?
Still, an interesting read.
You left out the part where you trash your Ubuntu disc and go get one for Debian.
I read that as "warshing machines" for a second there. What am I turning into?!
[quote]We [b]will[/b] win in 2008, and you [b]will[/b] lose your guns. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it[/quote] And criminals [b]will[/b] still, well, be criminals and obtain weapons illegally. Banning guns won't stop crime committed with guns. This tragedy (my heart goes out to all of those affected by it) is an example of this. I'm a liberal, and I don't even own a gun, and I still see gun control as a stupid idea to control a bigger problem. And you're not helping the bigger issues here by trying to push your own agenda against guns by using a tragedy like this. Nothing to see here, off topic.
LURK MOAR
Another World was later released in the states as Out of this World. The version I played was licensed by Interplay, on MS-DOS. I think I also played a version of it on SNES. It was an amazing game, well ahead of its time.
Yes, "there were games". But how well did they do? Just because the games exist does not necessarily mean there is a high demand for them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that most of these were role-playing games (bad ones, at that - the Xenosaga series comes to mind) wherein the only reason multiple discs was necessary was to store the data for the cut-scenes contained in the game. From what I see at Metacritic, none of the 62 games with a score of 90 or above are more than one disc (many of them are even on CD format)
The point is, I can fill up my entire hard-drive with a blank screen in raw AVI data if I wanted to. Anyone can fill up a giant amount of space and make "use" of it. It's not a question of the PS3's capabilities, it's a question of are game developers going to use the Blu-Ray format to its full potential? If you ask me, no way. At least, not yet. In the gaming industry, deadlines are way too short (right now, anyway) to be able to attain a standard like this.
The title of the article is "The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part III: The Platinum and Modern Ages (1994-2004)."
What's to miss?
No.
So it goes.
By that same link, XP is also better for games than Vista, and better than Linux at the highest and lowest resolutions tested.
Do we really need any more validation that Vista is a steaming pile of crap?
I also found it a bit ironic that Cedega, which originally branched from Wine, actually performs a little worse (marginally) than Wine in the tests from this article. All this article really told me was what I already know - why pay for something when you can get something better for free?
It's not that they sound the same, it's that the files are similar. If a file is encoded in the same format as another, I'm guessing that this data that is part of these encoders' nature is what they are referring to. The similar (binary) data is data that has nothing to do with the actual output of the audio/video.
Strangely enough, in World of Warcraft some animals have the same dying noise as Imps from the original Doom (go kill a Giraffe in The Barrens and you'll see what I'm talking about).
I quit 2 months ago, too. Not because of the grind (I have been playing since launch), but because I realized how completely ridiculous the game was. I know the point of an MMO is to have fun playing online with other people, but when there is actually a point in the game that you can reach where you also stop having fun by yourself then there's really no point to continue on.
The grind never ends, really. Once you hit 60 (now 70), if you want to get anywhere, you have to be in a guild. And if you're in an aggressive guild (i.e., one that you want to feel any level of "progression" in), you have to dedicate your life to it like everyone else on the 'team'.
Your solo options? Grinding the battleground, or grinding for gold, but gold can't buy you any of the best items because you have to be in a raid-ready guild to get those.
I agree, a harder grind would be better, because at least then there would be more solo content. But Blizzard has really built the game around the 'end game' rather than trying to make it more dynamic. It took what? Two? Three days for people to hit level 70 after raising the cap? And then what? We're right back to where we started when the cap was at 60.
you do know Kevin Smith maxed out a bunch of credit cards to make Clerks, right?
Customers who are using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista are protected from currently known web based attacks due to Internet Explorer 7.0 protected mode. For more information on Internet Explorer Protected Mode see the following Web Site.
By default, Outlook 2007 uses Microsoft Word to display e-mail messages which protects customers from the HTML e-mail preview and attack vector.
Who needs animated cursors, anyway?
Saying that he is going to entertain the idea without including the fact that he doesn't know whether or not it is practical puts a completely different spin on it. To summarize it even further, you could say: "It's a possibility." versus "It's a possibility, but I really don't think it's practical." and "I'm pretty pleased with it." versus "I'm pretty pleased that it's not as bad as previous drafts."
It leaves me to wonder what kind of questions were on his 'church school' IQ test. Maybe they told him 100 was the highest score to make him feel better about himself?
I got one of those logitech wireless controllers for my X-box, and it works like a dream. I'm thinking about picking up another for my X-box and two for my PS2, sure they're expensive but more than worth the price.
Not to say that these numbers don't show anything, but I've always been one to argue quality versus quantity.
Look at how many of those "top 19" games are cookie-cutter sports titles available on other consoles? I wouldn't count that as a testament to the "PS3's greatness" (was NFL2k6 really that much different from NFL2k7?) as these titles always do well, because they appeal to (more of) a non-gamer demographic. I'd also like to note that one of these sports titles is also in the top 9 list of Wii games, which only proceeds to prove my point.
Also amongst these titles are a few that we've already seen before. How is Virtua Fighter 5 any different from its predecessors aside from looking prettier on the new console? The same goes for Tekken, it's always been the same game, and it's always been great. But it's nothing new.
How many of these titles are single-player, or multi-player? Sure, Elder Scrolls IV looks amazing, and is probably about as interesting as its predecessors, but requires a huge amount of (MMO-like) dedication to actually progress through the story. And unless your friends like watching you play ESIV (I can imagine it would be about as interesting as it was for me to watch one of my friends play ESIII - and it wasn't) for hours on end, those with an interest in multi-player games come into question.
On the PS3? You've got sports titles, fighting titles, and a few racing games. But does that really warrant shelling out $600+ just to play it on a new, pretty console? As I have already stated, they're nothing new, nothing different from what has already been the mainstream gaming market for years. First person shooters? I have an Xbox, why not just play Halo? In my opinion, the original Halo was much better than Halo 2, anyway.
The Wii comes packed with a game (Wii Sports) that has tons of simple mini-games with a high-replay value for those with the multi-player mindset. The games are easy to understand, so even the novice gamer can pick it up and play it (unlike games like Elder Scrolls, which requires MYST-like patience or worse).
Before we go ranting and raving about game reviews, we have to keep in mind that the Wii is also aimed at people who don't even read these reviews. Aren't most game reviews written by avid gamers? What about those who aren't? The Wii seems to appeal both to people who are gamers (with titles like the new Zelda), and to non-gamers (with titles like Wii Sports, Wii Play and I'm sure the new Mario Party will have the same appeal as I'm sure it did on the Gamecube).