I think they're teasers. Alien college kids out for a lark, illegally landing on planets that haven't made interstellar contact yet, finding some idiot no one's ever going to believe, and then performing "fun experiments" on them.
Accidents, murder and disease will kill off those who don't age. Even if we solve aging, there are plenty of other diseases that can get you and other ways to die.
Well, unless you're a simulation snob there's Ace Combat, Over G Fighters, Blazing Angels and Project Sylpheed for consoles. Coming is Tom Clancy's Hawx.
On the PC side you've got games like Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3, Lock-On Modern Air Combat, Pacific Fighters and IL-2 Sturmovik.
Yes, violating a cannon is only one of the ways to take liberties with it. But be careful that someone doesn't fire the cannon while you're violating it, or you just might find out how much bigger one of its balls is than yours.
I wrote a program to simulate this situation repeatedly. The contestant won in 2/3 of the cases where he switched, and 1/3 of the cases where he didn't.
The Ace Combat games have been lots of fun for me, and seem to fit exactly what you're asking for.
Ace Combat 2 and 3 for the PS1, Ace Combat 4,5 and 0 for the PS2, Ace Combat X for the PSP, and Ace Combat 6 for the Xbox 360.
I've enjoyed all of them. I don't list Ace Combat Advance because I haven't played it and it it's a kind of Xevious-like 2D game, and I don't list Air Combat (the first in the series) because it isn't that much fun - it doesn't support the analog sticks.
I think the demise of the joystick tracks the movement of gaming from a niche activity to the mainstream.
Specialized peripherals such as joysticks, driving wheels, trackballs, arcade knobs, and spinners are ideal for the specific game genres that need them, while gamepads (and on the PC, keyboard/mouse) are good enough in every genre while excelling in almost none of them.
The Atari 2600 was the first and last console to use a joystick instead of a gamepad, and that only because the gamepad hadn't been invented yet. If you look at the vast majority of Atari 2600 games, you'll find that they would have worked better with a gamepad.
So for inexpensive mainstream gaming, the default controller was always going to be something like a gamepad.
If you look at the PC side, it started as a niche market; you pretty much had to be a nerd to own one and be capable of operating it, and to game on one made you even more of a nerd. Marketing specialized peripherals to technophiles is easy. Marketing them to people who (as computers became cheaper and easier to use) bought computers for Internet connectivity and word processing and other practical purposes is considerably more difficult.
What's a joystick specialized for? Flight and space sims (including mechs). Some would say fighting games as well, though the preferred peripheral there is actually the arcade knob.
Those of us who enjoy flight sims sometimes have trouble grasping just how unnatural an act flying is for most people. The controls don't do what they would expect, and managing the flight envelope while trying to fight is just too alien.
And flight sims are complex beasts that require managing a myriad of controls and instruments. This is even true for some space sims - energy management in the X-Wing series is a good example. This begins to pass what most would consider play into the realm of work. Only the true fans will find joy in this kind of activity.
Joysticks have always been a niche market; it's just that PC gaming's earlier days were entirely the same niche market, so joysticks naturally dominated there. Now that gaming (both PC and console) is a more mainstream activity, game producers choose to produce games that target that mainstream, and one of the ways they do that is by making games that work well with the platform's default peripherals. That's why the last three significant PC space sims - Freelancer, Eve Online and Dark Star One - are designed for mouse and keyboard; the first two can't even be played with a joystick.
There is still a place for the joystick - committed flight sim fans will still want one (IL-2 Sturmovik, Pacific Fighters, Lock-On, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, and so on), it works well in games that have flying portions (like Battlefield), and games like Ace Combat 5 and 6 offered them as an optional add-on, but that place will remain as a niche peripheral for the forseeable future.
That's hardly a fair comparison, unless those numbers were collected before Tribes was offered by the publisher for free (as advertising for Tribes:Vengeance, IIRC). Were they?
Spacewar at an MIT Open House around 1970 or '71. It was running on a megapixel resolution black-and-white monitor. The students playing it were using handmade controllers consisting of buttons sandwiched between two rectangular pieces of clear plastic - possibly the first gamepads ever.
I think the entire article, and perhaps the motivation behind it, is misplaced.
For those who are not snobs, more-hardcore-than-thou, fanboys, bitter, or bilious, 2007 has been one of the best years for video gaming - ever. I say this as someone who's been gaming since Pong.
Why raise your blood pressure gnashing your teeth over the things that were less than perfect or less than promised, when there is so much out there to enjoy?
Let's take one example: the Halo 3 complaint. Was the disappointment that Halo 3 was buggy, or unfun, or far less than promised? No. It was the snobbish whine that other people bought it instead of Earnest's more highbrow favorites; and then they had the effrontery to actually enjoy it. Clearly they are the unwashed masses who prefer wicked awesome explosions to the refined pleasures of agonizing moral choices and black humor. And that disappoints him.
Not that I haven't played Earnest's favorites, and enjoyed them immensely (multiple playthroughs of BioShock, and Portal was amazing); but I also enjoyed Halo 3 as a polished gameplay experience with a solid sci-fi plot riffing on myth and legend. At least there weren't any Ewoks.
I could produce a long list of games released in 2007, which, if you ignore the hype, were quite enjoyable. And I think it's possibly the longest list in the history of video gaming. But I think I've made my point.
So if you're a PC player, buy Team Fortress and Portal individually. Through Steam, you can.
If you're a 360 player, yeah you're stuck with the Orange Box. But since the only game included in the Orange Box that appeared on consoles previously is Half-Life 2, and a markedly inferior version at that, it shouldn't be so painful.
Anyway, I think you're looking at this the wrong way; the value of Ep2 + Portal + TF2 is at least that of a full game. They threw in HL2 and Ep1 for free. I suspect that's why they cancelled the Black Box; they would have been charging the same for it as the Orange Box, while delivering less.
In short, if the graph of rotational speed vs stick deflection looked like a U instead of the more common V, twin-stick players could get both the precision and speed that a mouse provides.
Anyone who's played a shooter on a laptop using the "eraser" pointer stick and with mouse acceleration on will have an idea what I'm referring to. I played through Half-Life that way and preferred it to a regular mouse.
Deleting and re-downloading the game should fix that. Re-downloading is free. After my console RRODed, I did that, and it worked.
Also, it may be that that restriction has been fixed with the latest firmware update. Just a couple of weeks ago I transferred my 20G to a 120G. The transfer kit instructions say that transferred XLA games can only be played while online (just like the RROD issue). I disconnected my network cable after the transfer and had no trouble playing any of the transferred games - without having to re-download them.
Well, there is XFire as an alternative. Also Hamachi, if you want to play on a virtual LAN with your buds.
That won't get you automatic updates and patches, but as long as they can be downloaded from Epic's website etc., that makes it no worse than 98% of the other games out there.
Munch's Oddysee is (mostly) compatible, Stranger's Wrath isn't. Munch's Oddysee can be had for as little as $5 USD, which is less than what Microsoft is charging for the downloadables.
So there's half your wish. Granted, the one that isn't compatible is the one you most wanted, but that could change in the next compatibility update.
No. If it doesn't work in emulation, it doesn't work in emulation. Whether the original game data is read from a DVD-ROM or a hard drive makes no difference.
What could make a difference is if these games were being ported to the 360. My understanding is that they're not; rather, they're simply offering the same data just stored on the hard drive rather than on a DVD-ROM. I find the possibility that they would port the games unlikely, to say the least.
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Barker: We had milk crates filled with albums....
Elektra: So what have you done for us lately?
Hans Dannik
I think they're teasers. Alien college kids out for a lark, illegally landing on planets that haven't made interstellar contact yet, finding some idiot no one's ever going to believe, and then performing "fun experiments" on them.
Thanks to Douglas Adams for this one.
Hans
The capsule is too heavy? Just use bigger nukes! What? Oh, you mean that Orion. My bad.
Hans
Accidents, murder and disease will kill off those who don't age. Even if we solve aging, there are plenty of other diseases that can get you and other ways to die.
Hans
What, no love for Puzzle Pirates? Sure, it's Java really, but that doesn't make it any less Linux compatible.
...which is a significant improvement over our established posterior-based development process.
Well, unless you're a simulation snob there's Ace Combat, Over G Fighters, Blazing Angels and Project Sylpheed for consoles. Coming is Tom Clancy's Hawx.
On the PC side you've got games like Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3, Lock-On Modern Air Combat, Pacific Fighters and IL-2 Sturmovik.
Yes, violating a cannon is only one of the ways to take liberties with it. But be careful that someone doesn't fire the cannon while you're violating it, or you just might find out how much bigger one of its balls is than yours.
Oh, and here's a link to a simulation written by others:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MontyHallSimulation
You're wrong.
I wrote a program to simulate this situation repeatedly. The contestant won in 2/3 of the cases where he switched, and 1/3 of the cases where he didn't.
The Ace Combat games have been lots of fun for me, and seem to fit exactly what you're asking for.
Ace Combat 2 and 3 for the PS1, Ace Combat 4,5 and 0 for the PS2, Ace Combat X for the PSP, and Ace Combat 6 for the Xbox 360.
I've enjoyed all of them. I don't list Ace Combat Advance because I haven't played it and it it's a kind of Xevious-like 2D game, and I don't list Air Combat (the first in the series) because it isn't that much fun - it doesn't support the analog sticks.
Hans
I think the demise of the joystick tracks the movement of gaming from a niche activity to the mainstream.
Specialized peripherals such as joysticks, driving wheels, trackballs, arcade knobs, and spinners are ideal for the specific game genres that need them, while gamepads (and on the PC, keyboard/mouse) are good enough in every genre while excelling in almost none of them.
The Atari 2600 was the first and last console to use a joystick instead of a gamepad, and that only because the gamepad hadn't been invented yet. If you look at the vast majority of Atari 2600 games, you'll find that they would have worked better with a gamepad.
So for inexpensive mainstream gaming, the default controller was always going to be something like a gamepad.
If you look at the PC side, it started as a niche market; you pretty much had to be a nerd to own one and be capable of operating it, and to game on one made you even more of a nerd. Marketing specialized peripherals to technophiles is easy. Marketing them to people who (as computers became cheaper and easier to use) bought computers for Internet connectivity and word processing and other practical purposes is considerably more difficult.
What's a joystick specialized for? Flight and space sims (including mechs). Some would say fighting games as well, though the preferred peripheral there is actually the arcade knob.
Those of us who enjoy flight sims sometimes have trouble grasping just how unnatural an act flying is for most people. The controls don't do what they would expect, and managing the flight envelope while trying to fight is just too alien.
And flight sims are complex beasts that require managing a myriad of controls and instruments. This is even true for some space sims - energy management in the X-Wing series is a good example. This begins to pass what most would consider play into the realm of work. Only the true fans will find joy in this kind of activity.
Joysticks have always been a niche market; it's just that PC gaming's earlier days were entirely the same niche market, so joysticks naturally dominated there. Now that gaming (both PC and console) is a more mainstream activity, game producers choose to produce games that target that mainstream, and one of the ways they do that is by making games that work well with the platform's default peripherals. That's why the last three significant PC space sims - Freelancer, Eve Online and Dark Star One - are designed for mouse and keyboard; the first two can't even be played with a joystick.
There is still a place for the joystick - committed flight sim fans will still want one (IL-2 Sturmovik, Pacific Fighters, Lock-On, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, and so on), it works well in games that have flying portions (like Battlefield), and games like Ace Combat 5 and 6 offered them as an optional add-on, but that place will remain as a niche peripheral for the forseeable future.
Hans
That's hardly a fair comparison, unless those numbers were collected before Tribes was offered by the publisher for free (as advertising for Tribes:Vengeance, IIRC). Were they?
Hans
Q: What's the difference between a big-budget Uwe Boll film and a low-budget Uwe Boll film?
A: The budget.
Spacewar at an MIT Open House around 1970 or '71. It was running on a megapixel resolution black-and-white monitor. The students playing it were using handmade controllers consisting of buttons sandwiched between two rectangular pieces of clear plastic - possibly the first gamepads ever.
I think the entire article, and perhaps the motivation behind it, is misplaced.
For those who are not snobs, more-hardcore-than-thou, fanboys, bitter, or bilious, 2007 has been one of the best years for video gaming - ever. I say this as someone who's been gaming since Pong.
Why raise your blood pressure gnashing your teeth over the things that were less than perfect or less than promised, when there is so much out there to enjoy?
Let's take one example: the Halo 3 complaint. Was the disappointment that Halo 3 was buggy, or unfun, or far less than promised? No. It was the snobbish whine that other people bought it instead of Earnest's more highbrow favorites; and then they had the effrontery to actually enjoy it. Clearly they are the unwashed masses who prefer wicked awesome explosions to the refined pleasures of agonizing moral choices and black humor. And that disappoints him.
Not that I haven't played Earnest's favorites, and enjoyed them immensely (multiple playthroughs of BioShock, and Portal was amazing); but I also enjoyed Halo 3 as a polished gameplay experience with a solid sci-fi plot riffing on myth and legend. At least there weren't any Ewoks.
I could produce a long list of games released in 2007, which, if you ignore the hype, were quite enjoyable. And I think it's possibly the longest list in the history of video gaming. But I think I've made my point.
Hans
So if you're a PC player, buy Team Fortress and Portal individually. Through Steam, you can.
If you're a 360 player, yeah you're stuck with the Orange Box. But since the only game included in the Orange Box that appeared on consoles previously is Half-Life 2, and a markedly inferior version at that, it shouldn't be so painful.
Anyway, I think you're looking at this the wrong way; the value of Ep2 + Portal + TF2 is at least that of a full game. They threw in HL2 and Ep1 for free. I suspect that's why they cancelled the Black Box; they would have been charging the same for it as the Orange Box, while delivering less.
Hans
I think this is what you're thinking of:
http://www.bodielobus.com/
Hans
There are other solutions - including ones that keep the current twin-stick controller setup.
I've written a fairly extensive article on this at my blog: http://hansonvideogaming.blogspot.com/2006/10/levelling-playing-field-mice-and.html
In short, if the graph of rotational speed vs stick deflection looked like a U instead of the more common V, twin-stick players could get both the precision and speed that a mouse provides.
Anyone who's played a shooter on a laptop using the "eraser" pointer stick and with mouse acceleration on will have an idea what I'm referring to. I played through Half-Life that way and preferred it to a regular mouse.
Hans
I have two for you: already compatible. Also, $25 USD from GameStop. The bonus NES games won't play, but they wouldn't in the XLA version either.
Hans
Deleting and re-downloading the game should fix that. Re-downloading is free. After my console RRODed, I did that, and it worked.
Also, it may be that that restriction has been fixed with the latest firmware update. Just a couple of weeks ago I transferred my 20G to a 120G. The transfer kit instructions say that transferred XLA games can only be played while online (just like the RROD issue). I disconnected my network cable after the transfer and had no trouble playing any of the transferred games - without having to re-download them.
Hans
Well, there is XFire as an alternative. Also Hamachi, if you want to play on a virtual LAN with your buds.
That won't get you automatic updates and patches, but as long as they can be downloaded from Epic's website etc., that makes it no worse than 98% of the other games out there.
Hans
Psychonauts was added to the compatibility list in the latest update. I know, I've played it on the 360.
Hans
Munch's Oddysee is (mostly) compatible, Stranger's Wrath isn't. Munch's Oddysee can be had for as little as $5 USD, which is less than what Microsoft is charging for the downloadables.
So there's half your wish. Granted, the one that isn't compatible is the one you most wanted, but that could change in the next compatibility update.
Hans.
No. If it doesn't work in emulation, it doesn't work in emulation. Whether the original game data is read from a DVD-ROM or a hard drive makes no difference.
What could make a difference is if these games were being ported to the 360. My understanding is that they're not; rather, they're simply offering the same data just stored on the hard drive rather than on a DVD-ROM. I find the possibility that they would port the games unlikely, to say the least.
Hans