With their spreadsheet application and upgrade to Pages to include a word processor, it looks like Apple wants to establish an entire office productivity suite. I wonder if it will be a successor to WriteNow in the near future?
Another idea I have is that - for my generation at least - people with higher IQ know better than to give into the culture of sex found in the media. I don't mean to sound too conservative (or "christian" if you like), but a lot of what kids with these average IQs get their idea of sex from are Laguna Beach, American Pie, and music. Case in point: they might not know how to think for themselves. Smart individuals with higher IQs (I can safely put mine waaaaaay past the 100 mark) know better than to set their values to those passed off by popular media, and therefore are less likely to lose their virginity.
It's like what Neo saysin the final Matrix movie, it's "[b]ecause I choose to."
So what if one loses their virginity later in life? Whose standards are you trying to live up to, your peers', the media's, or your own?
In Japan, they're literally referred to as "portable telephones", implying Japanese dependency upon cell-phones over normal "land-line" communications. So in their case I can understand if they are willing to pay more for their services, but I am unsure what their exact prices are. And that also explains why there are so many features to Japanese phones: there's a definite market for them.
In America, we still use land-lines for a lot of our communication. Now whether it's because of our population of luddites (no offense), our fear of higher cell-phone bills, or the lack of clear quality sound on cell-phones, we still like using them. I'm sure there are plenty of people in Japan who still use normal telephones, but in most metropolitan and even suburban areas cell-phones are the norm, and companies like DoCoMo benefit from this.
The question in my mind is this: if people were to switch to using their cell-phones 100% of the time and using no land-line, would this provide enough business to wireless phone companies that they'd consider dropping prices? I personally doubt it. Verizon, Cingular, and their ilk have become today's robber-barons, taking after the likes of Rockefeller and Carnegie (notwithstanding possible philanthropic aspirations).
But the game is the package that they all come together in. That's probably one of the key points people are forgetting about video games. A lot of the aspects of the game - music, voice acting, animation, movie sequences, writing - if they were to be critiqued stand alone, they'd be works of art. All that's left is the game. And this, unfortunately, has not evolved very much over the past few years or so.
There are some cases, I feel, where games have evolved. I like to list a few games I think Mr. Ebert should play before coming to his conclusion. Note the fact that I'm listing only the games that I've actually played; I'm sure there are dozens of games out there which I have not played and should be considered worthy of the "art" status.
Shadow of the Colossus: Shigeru Miyamoto once said all the creatures in the game were like "inverted Zelda dungeons", and I found that to be an accurate statement. There's so much open land in the game that you feel like exploring sometimes, and claiming victory in the battles feels like huge accomplishments. Beautiful music and art design, but the best part is the ending - thought provoking, really makes you think of all you've done in the game.
Metal Gear Solid: Yes, I agree with whoever mentioned this game before. The way you embody Solid Snake and participate in the plot is an integral part to understanding its message. Also, some of the ways the game coerces the player to think outside the game's content, with things such as the Psycho Mantis boss fight and other ways the game acknowledges the person playing the game instead of Snake (think of the interrogation scene). It provided new and interesting ways for the player to participate in the story; not just as Snake, but as himself.
My personal opinion is that we haven't even scratched the surface of the potential of game design. There are ways of giving the action more context within the game - a lot like what Sir Peter Monyleux is attempting with the Fable series or what has been done with Knights of the Old Republic on the XBox. Ways of showing that a players' choices and decisions are not mutually exclusive to the world around them. That is, they effect more than the next two scenes in the game - they have a resounding impact on everything that happens afterward. When I studied Ontology in college, I found its elements to be the kind of aspects we should strive for in game design - how we impact our world and how it impacts us. Not quite sure exactly what Ontology is, but I'm sure I've hit on some part of it.
In order to reach this level of game design, we have to mimic the role of Christoff from "The Truman Show". We create a world where one main character interacts with his society/environment, and through events of our own devices, pull this person into different sorts of situations and issues. From my own personal beliefs, it feels as though we're playing the role of the fates, perhaps even elevating ourselves to the role of "god", trying to control the movements and actions of different PCs and NPCs.
This can create an experience that inspires people, that forces them to think in ways they never had to before, just like real life could give them... but artificial. And yes, they would still be games about fun and entertainment and shooting bad guys.
I can think of several different controversies or scandals in the video game industry that need to be explained. Yes, Mortal Kombat is definitely one of them. Harris and Klebold are another. But aren't we forgetting some others?
Christian Conservative backlash over Pokemon is one of them - summoning demons, doing demonic acts, James the cross-dresser, etc. As well as Jewish backlash against Pokemon because one of the Japanese card had the manji character on it (essentially a swastika), even though it was in use for thousands of years prior to World War II, and African American protests over the character Jynx, which was based upon a reference to picadilly characters in old Japanese comics. Oh, and the epileptic seizures caused by an episode of Pokemon.
Also consider the Gizmondo, which had everything from a trashed 1 million dollar ferrari to the Swedish mafia. Oh yeah, and Phantom.
Then there was that lawsuit Universal Studios threw against Nintendo in the early days over the creative license of Donkey Kong. Nintendo won, by the way. And got Universal to pay off their legal fees.
For the life of me I cannot imagine why Nintendo would want to ditch their hardcore audience. They were the most important audience for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube, practically the ones who kept the consoles afloat. I don't understand why they would want to cast aside that audience in favor of the casual gamers. Sure, casual gamers are a much bigger audience, but hardcore gamers are dedicated and faithful. Casual gamers will move from system to system; mark my words, once Microsoft and Sony drop the prices of their consoles to $300, and they get more party games, Nintendo will lose a lot of casual gamers to them.
As for me, I was really disappointed by Twilight Princess. Yes, it was enjoyable, but it lacked a lot of what made the Zelda series special. For instance, the design of the world was made so you could go from point A to point B: there's only one or two paths to get to a designated objective, and all the extra things are easily distinguished by their deviation from this A to B criteria. Link to the Past will always be my favorite because despite the fact that it forced you to go into the dungeons in a particular order, it was about as free-roaming as the original Zelda game for the NES, and it had the most complex, intriguing puzzles I have ever seen. Those were frustrating enough to make you break your controller, nothing like what we're seeing today. Also, the items in A Link to the Past are much cooler. You could explore and find things beneficial to your journey that couldn't be found in dungeons or whatnot, like the magic cape or the gloves or the flippers. Stuff like that makes the game so intense and awesome!
Can you say 'inspired by Power-Rangers'? will there be something to combine your Wii and N64 into a zord as well?
Hold on a second there, Mr. Know-It-All. Last I checked Power Rangers was an American remix of sentai Japanese television shows (Ultraman, anyone?) and, to an extent, Voltron; and Nintendo developed the Light Zapper in the mid 1980's, this is not a far stretch in terms of the zapper's evolution.
First off, you say that you find Killzone irresistably attractive because of this and that, and then you say, "it doesn't draw me in." Could you please make up your mind? 0_o;
And also, if you like the Saving Private Ryan-esque trench battles and stuff, why not just buy Medal of Honor or another game based off of World War II? It's the exact same scenario, but with different names and weaponry: you love shooting Nazis, you're fighting in trenches, and you've most certainly got a frantic atmosphere. Oh yeah, and it's better designed.
I'm sure you probably like Killzone a lot. All I'm saying is that when you've played the truly great games - the Halos, the Tetrises (Tetri?), etc. - you'll look back at some of the games you used to play and think to yourself, "I actually played some of this junk?" It'll be like night and day to you.
Halo didn't generate the hype. It was as much a part of the hype as anything else. Quake was already on its third iteration when Halo hit the street and the FPS genre was already well established.
True, there were other FPS games out there, but Halo was finely polished and well designed. While it was by no means revolutionary, the developers did make a lot of smart decisions: a good storyline and good music were placed on top of a smooth, clean front-end UI, exellent enemy AI, and great level design. Because of all this, and the great reception from the audience, Halo became the game to beat. I suppose it could be called a "smart" FPS when compared to the likes of games such as Doom and Quake, imho. If you could outdo Halo, you've got a platinum hit bar none. At least, that's what a lot of publishers thought.
And so everyone began copying Bungie's Halo. Every other FPS became a "Halo killer", and that is most definitely what Sony touted Killzone as.
I remember when Killzone was touted as PS2's Halo-killer, but when I watched the intro and saw him fight in one of the levels, I found it to be another cookie-cutter shoot-em'-up with the same trench-based battles, running n' gunning, and post-apocalyptic scenario that every other shooter on the PS2 had. Best cheesy line? "What the f---'s a Shakespeare?" At this point I realized Killzone was ripping off Battlefield Earth, and anyone desperate to ripoff that storyline - whether it be the film or the novel the film was based upon - should consider a creative writing course at their local community college.
It seems like once Halo and Halo 2 (and now the upcoming Halo 3) came out, everybody and their grandmother wanted to release a FPS to cash in on the hype. It's a shameless attempt at earning "easy money" through derivative, overused game design and unimaginative storytelling. The most unfortunate problem with this is the fact that this is the state of the video game industry at present. Everyone wants to stick with what's safe, nobody wants to do anything unique or imaginative.
Don't even make me go into bitching about the title. "Killzone"? How about "Place where you blow stuff up real pretty?" Pardon the cynicism, I just can't stand how easy it is for people to get into this industry with such severe lack of imagination.
I'm an up-and-coming game designer who has spent a lot of his time researching fundamental game mechanics and play concepts. A lot of what's coming out of the slashdotted article is that the program is being redesigned to make more sense to the user. Business productivity and sales software was never meant to be "exciting" or "flashy", it was just designed to get the job done.
The reason why video games such as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and even RTS games such as SimCity, Civilization, and Age of Empires are so successful is that they present their data in a way that makes sense to the Player. The data is shown in a way that the Player can easily interpret in terms of His/Her progression, and it is this simplication of statistics the game's software provides that removes a lot of the number-crunching and interpretation that is usually involved in the real-life equivalent the game simulates (being mayor of a city, for instance). Thanks to this the Player spends less time interpreting data and more time thinking about how to resolve conflicts or improve performance. In terms of software design, more is being done under the hood to better address the connection between abstract data and the user's goals. Like the article points out, the kinds of organizations found in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Second Life are so prevalent and successful thanks to the design of each games' respective interface. Guilds succeed because the game was designed to handle them.
I don't think that salespeople have "short attention spans" like the article claims, I just believe that there is a larger gap between the Users' goals and the software that sustains them. Programmers these days have it easy with high-level languages such as C++, but if we all went back to the age where we had to program in machine code or assembly language we would be dealing with similar issues.
Re:I don't like business at HP
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The HP Way 2.0
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· Score: 1
In terms of costs, I think the place they were living in before - the state of Victoria - was a lot cheaper and had different perks. Excellent public transit system, unbelievably clean water (you could wash your hair with a bar of soap!), among other things I remember when I traveled there. But there were other concerns: high gas prices, for instance. She was living in the Bay Area, and that was really nice.
I do not think she was able to find too many jobs after that, though. I think it had to do with her age: she was into her early fifties by the time she got the axe.
There are dozens of anti spyware busting Zango but they are choosing a GOOGLE BUNDLED software to sue.
That makes perfect sense, if you think about it. Google is, after all, first and foremost in the advertising business. Zango is in this business, too, regardless of their legitimacy. Under current law, Google's bundling of software could be considered an anti-competitive act.
But of course there are a few things to consider: first, even though Zango might be considered an advertising business, their methods of advertising are so damned unethical that they could probably be blamed for their own problems. Second, Google did not bundle anti-spyware software to attack Zango directly, so the idea of anti-competitiveness against Zango loses a bit of ground. Third and finally, the judge handling the lawsuit - especially coming from a company whose track record includes worm development - is probably going to handle Zango with extreme prejudice given their incident with the FCC.
Now that I'm done acting all official-like... Erhem... If a company wants to fight Google in court they sure as hell can try. I doubt they'll get far, though. The majority of us love Google, and even if you hate them you'll still side with them as the lesser of two evils.
I don't like business at HP
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The HP Way 2.0
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· Score: 2, Informative
I had a good friend once who was a huge executive at HP. She was an Australian woman whose work in areas like Hong Kong and Japan earned the company millions. When she was transferred to the main headquarters she lived across the street from us. She was (and still is) an awesome individual who I have enormous respect and admiration for.
When the HP/Compaq merger was approved, her days became numbered. They didn't even give her a pink slip directly, they transferred her over to an office in the Southwest - Tennessee or Georgia, I don't remember - and then fired her. It reminds me of the scene in The Godfather Part II when Michael kills his brother and throws him into Lake Tahoe. Afterwards they couldn't afford living in the United States - her husband had already retired - and they had to move back to Australia. She knew it was going to happen, too, it was just one big waiting game.
And since then, I've never really thought too highly of "The HP Way". The most recent issues with HP, in my own humble opinion, are no surprise to me. I think HP has become much more of an "evil empire" than either Google or Microsoft.
Other stuff that gets thrown back down
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Scotty Scooped Up
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· Score: 2, Funny
So do you think that all those children's letters to God were incinerated while entering the Earth's atmosphere, or what?
Indeed, a 4-year-old child has very little ability to understand a lot of what this man is asking. As much as I enjoyed listening to what you talked about, I couldn't understand anything beyond "real-motion cues", "flight simulation", and "robot arm", and I'm graduating from college soon with a degree in Computer Science.
I'd be very conservative about what to expect, too. And if necessary, take an entire hour or so teaching the kids about the basics of the basics with a couple of little science projects, then build up their knowledge. Here is my example.
Despite the fact that a child doesn't understand the concepts of gravity, mass, or aerodynamics, they most certainly understand this: when they trip they fall down and hurt themselves, no matter how hard they try they can't fit everything they own into a backpack, and they like paper airplanes. Okay, it isn't an example per se, but you have an idea of what I'm trying to convey: they do have some idea - no matter how small - of how the world works. All our knowledge is built upon these fundamental building blocks, even Quantum Mechanics (though I'd like to see someone try and teach that stuff to a kid).
And if all else fails, tell them you work with robot arms in your lab.
Well I'm hoping that this will encourage more studios to develop games without absolutely top-tier graphics, sound, etc. Not that I don't enjoy those kinds of games, I love them. I'm thinking about this more on the developers' level. It's very hard to develop games these days when compared to the earlier generations of game consoles, man-power wise. I'm hoping game development becomes cheaper so studios can take bigger risks in their game development and exercise more creativity in game design. If Nintendo keeps up with the pace they're going in, they might be able to change the way the game industry works. Even if the change is slight I'll be happy with that than no change at all.
Don't be surprised, though. This one-year drought is typical of any console system. The same thing happened with the Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube, as well as the Playstation 2, and most any other system that has ever been released. This is because the first launch titles are the dip titles. It's when the developers all get ready to take a dip in the pool and see how the water is. Later, once they have an idea on how to develop for the platform and its capabilities they'll start taking advantage of all its features. This goes just as well for first and second party developers as it does for third party developers, too. In some cases, though, developers will buy their dev kits and choose to experiment on the capabilities instead of throwing all their effort into a launch title. This is most likely the case with development studios with big pocket change like Square Enix or Nintendo, and in this case its Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy.
And from what I can tell, Metroid is not that big of a series in Japan. Don't ask me why, though. They either like their big rpgs, short arcadey games on their cell-phones, or games that imitate aspects of normal life.
Here's another case study for you: Graphing Calculators. Or as one of my professors prefers to call them, "devil boxes":D.
When I was using a graphing calculator in my Calc ABAP course, it was never meant to stand on its own: it merely acted as a way of illustrating the concepts we had learned from lectures. For a guy like me who is considered a visual mathematician, it was incredibly helpful. And it wasn't a laptop, either: the worst thing you could ever put onto it was a text-based drug dealing simulator. It only costs $90-$150, but the ones used at my school were the TI-83+ which never went above $89.95. The silver version had more memory and cost twenty dollars more, but it wasn't ever necessary. It was pretty nice because even though it provided us methods to analyze graphics and data, it did not let us do powerful things like calculate integrals.
My college does not allow the use of those items in the classroom, and while I can understand their sentiment that it prevents us from some hands-on learning, it just isn't the case. The computer science professors who teach mathematics courses mandate their students perform some of the calculations on the computer using either Maple or MATLAB! If I had those teachers for my calc courses I believe I would have done much better.
I've always believed that if a teacher had access to and skills with a slide show program like PowerPoint and a simple animation program they could do a lot to improve their lectures. You don't let the animations and words do the work for you, though.
...but as for reading and writing, it's a bit different. E-books are a good idea but businesses think they're not profitable. And I don't expect textbook publishers are going to start using electronic versions of their books anytime soon. They're worse than the RIAA in terms of money, and I don't think they'd risk someone getting through encryption and illegally copying textbooks to one another, and given the price of textbooks it is incredibly tempting.
Despite the series' reluctance to conform to new design techniques in RPGs and relying on set standards such as turn-based battles, churches to save your game and resurrect your characters, and linear gameplay, I can safely say that the series is awesome. There isn't a game more polished or well-tuned than Dragon Quest games. Usually new, innovative gameplay comes in with secondary sidequests such as monster training and the alchemy pot from DQVIII. The music of the most recent incarnations of the series has been performed by a full orchestra, which is certainly a step up from most other series.
The other thing which makes the game so endearing is the sheer scope of the environment. Sure it is a very linear game, whose events are driven moreso by a fixed plot rather than players' actions, but the surroundings are so vast and expansive you'll spend half your time exploring and looking for hidden nooks and crannies that most likely hide some kind of treasure or paths to isolated villages or the local hermit.
As for Dragon Quest IX, I'm a little disappointed that there won't be any real-time battles (because it is a long time coming), but I'm glad that they have a lot of customization features for the characters. I also hope that the multiplayer gameplay doesn't overshadow the 1P story, either. And... its coming in Japan by the end of the year? Wow, that's quick!
Last time I checked I read an article that discussed 8 different types of learning patters in developmental psychology, and I'm sure a lot of these methods aren't being adequately implemented in classrooms. Of course, this doesn't really take into account slackers and hormone-crazed adolescents.
A simple case study: I remember sucking at long division in the 4th grade, and then after working at it hard for a while I got it, and it became fun. When our teacher put problems onto the board for students to solve, I could go up there and instead of being the last to finish I was first! Then again, when there's all proofs and no examples it is very difficult for me to sit there and watch how to find the volume of a sphere. Until I understood the underlying mechanisms of how arithmetic worked I couldn't do well in it or understand it, but some people can just do it.
So how did I get good at math and become a computer science major? Talking with my teachers during office/lab hours, doing more problems than required so as to practice, and taking summer courses. By the time I finished all that I got As in Algebra, Algebra II/Trigonometry, and Calculus. Ultimately, since mathematical reasoning and deduction should be considered a skill, the only way to get good at it is to practice!!! Is anybody surprised by that answer? That's how to improve their math skills.
...that most of the Wii's killer apps have been slated for a second half 2007 release or later. That includes Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, among other titles. Also, don't forget that Virtual Console games don't make it into the top ten chart but make up a good amount of sales for Nintendo, and that keeps users happy when a drought in genuine Wii titles occurs. As for the PS2's game earning the number 1 spot on the top ten list, it's more of a coincidence because development on it started before PS3 dev kits could be properly research and implemented, and yet its released after the PS3 hits the streets. Don't worry, this kind of thing won't be happening too often. It would've been the same situation with Final Fantasy XII if the PS3 and Wii were released in October.
Slashdot Mirror
With their spreadsheet application and upgrade to Pages to include a word processor, it looks like Apple wants to establish an entire office productivity suite. I wonder if it will be a successor to WriteNow in the near future?
Another idea I have is that - for my generation at least - people with higher IQ know better than to give into the culture of sex found in the media. I don't mean to sound too conservative (or "christian" if you like), but a lot of what kids with these average IQs get their idea of sex from are Laguna Beach, American Pie, and music. Case in point: they might not know how to think for themselves. Smart individuals with higher IQs (I can safely put mine waaaaaay past the 100 mark) know better than to set their values to those passed off by popular media, and therefore are less likely to lose their virginity.
It's like what Neo saysin the final Matrix movie, it's "[b]ecause I choose to."
So what if one loses their virginity later in life? Whose standards are you trying to live up to, your peers', the media's, or your own?
In Japan, they're literally referred to as "portable telephones", implying Japanese dependency upon cell-phones over normal "land-line" communications. So in their case I can understand if they are willing to pay more for their services, but I am unsure what their exact prices are. And that also explains why there are so many features to Japanese phones: there's a definite market for them.
In America, we still use land-lines for a lot of our communication. Now whether it's because of our population of luddites (no offense), our fear of higher cell-phone bills, or the lack of clear quality sound on cell-phones, we still like using them. I'm sure there are plenty of people in Japan who still use normal telephones, but in most metropolitan and even suburban areas cell-phones are the norm, and companies like DoCoMo benefit from this.
The question in my mind is this: if people were to switch to using their cell-phones 100% of the time and using no land-line, would this provide enough business to wireless phone companies that they'd consider dropping prices? I personally doubt it. Verizon, Cingular, and their ilk have become today's robber-barons, taking after the likes of Rockefeller and Carnegie (notwithstanding possible philanthropic aspirations).
There are some cases, I feel, where games have evolved. I like to list a few games I think Mr. Ebert should play before coming to his conclusion. Note the fact that I'm listing only the games that I've actually played; I'm sure there are dozens of games out there which I have not played and should be considered worthy of the "art" status.
Shadow of the Colossus: Shigeru Miyamoto once said all the creatures in the game were like "inverted Zelda dungeons", and I found that to be an accurate statement. There's so much open land in the game that you feel like exploring sometimes, and claiming victory in the battles feels like huge accomplishments. Beautiful music and art design, but the best part is the ending - thought provoking, really makes you think of all you've done in the game.
Metal Gear Solid: Yes, I agree with whoever mentioned this game before. The way you embody Solid Snake and participate in the plot is an integral part to understanding its message. Also, some of the ways the game coerces the player to think outside the game's content, with things such as the Psycho Mantis boss fight and other ways the game acknowledges the person playing the game instead of Snake (think of the interrogation scene). It provided new and interesting ways for the player to participate in the story; not just as Snake, but as himself.
My personal opinion is that we haven't even scratched the surface of the potential of game design. There are ways of giving the action more context within the game - a lot like what Sir Peter Monyleux is attempting with the Fable series or what has been done with Knights of the Old Republic on the XBox. Ways of showing that a players' choices and decisions are not mutually exclusive to the world around them. That is, they effect more than the next two scenes in the game - they have a resounding impact on everything that happens afterward. When I studied Ontology in college, I found its elements to be the kind of aspects we should strive for in game design - how we impact our world and how it impacts us. Not quite sure exactly what Ontology is, but I'm sure I've hit on some part of it.
In order to reach this level of game design, we have to mimic the role of Christoff from "The Truman Show". We create a world where one main character interacts with his society/environment, and through events of our own devices, pull this person into different sorts of situations and issues. From my own personal beliefs, it feels as though we're playing the role of the fates, perhaps even elevating ourselves to the role of "god", trying to control the movements and actions of different PCs and NPCs.
This can create an experience that inspires people, that forces them to think in ways they never had to before, just like real life could give them... but artificial. And yes, they would still be games about fun and entertainment and shooting bad guys.
I guess some people forgot how to translate Roman Numerals into Arabic :D. The message they're trying to convey? Quit asking! We're working on it!
I can think of several different controversies or scandals in the video game industry that need to be explained. Yes, Mortal Kombat is definitely one of them. Harris and Klebold are another. But aren't we forgetting some others?
Christian Conservative backlash over Pokemon is one of them - summoning demons, doing demonic acts, James the cross-dresser, etc. As well as Jewish backlash against Pokemon because one of the Japanese card had the manji character on it (essentially a swastika), even though it was in use for thousands of years prior to World War II, and African American protests over the character Jynx, which was based upon a reference to picadilly characters in old Japanese comics. Oh, and the epileptic seizures caused by an episode of Pokemon.
Also consider the Gizmondo, which had everything from a trashed 1 million dollar ferrari to the Swedish mafia. Oh yeah, and Phantom.
Then there was that lawsuit Universal Studios threw against Nintendo in the early days over the creative license of Donkey Kong. Nintendo won, by the way. And got Universal to pay off their legal fees.
80 jobs.
6500 lbs of waste each day.
The environment.
Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy...
For the life of me I cannot imagine why Nintendo would want to ditch their hardcore audience. They were the most important audience for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube, practically the ones who kept the consoles afloat. I don't understand why they would want to cast aside that audience in favor of the casual gamers. Sure, casual gamers are a much bigger audience, but hardcore gamers are dedicated and faithful. Casual gamers will move from system to system; mark my words, once Microsoft and Sony drop the prices of their consoles to $300, and they get more party games, Nintendo will lose a lot of casual gamers to them.
As for me, I was really disappointed by Twilight Princess. Yes, it was enjoyable, but it lacked a lot of what made the Zelda series special. For instance, the design of the world was made so you could go from point A to point B: there's only one or two paths to get to a designated objective, and all the extra things are easily distinguished by their deviation from this A to B criteria. Link to the Past will always be my favorite because despite the fact that it forced you to go into the dungeons in a particular order, it was about as free-roaming as the original Zelda game for the NES, and it had the most complex, intriguing puzzles I have ever seen. Those were frustrating enough to make you break your controller, nothing like what we're seeing today. Also, the items in A Link to the Past are much cooler. You could explore and find things beneficial to your journey that couldn't be found in dungeons or whatnot, like the magic cape or the gloves or the flippers. Stuff like that makes the game so intense and awesome!
First off, you say that you find Killzone irresistably attractive because of this and that, and then you say, "it doesn't draw me in." Could you please make up your mind? 0_o;
And also, if you like the Saving Private Ryan-esque trench battles and stuff, why not just buy Medal of Honor or another game based off of World War II? It's the exact same scenario, but with different names and weaponry: you love shooting Nazis, you're fighting in trenches, and you've most certainly got a frantic atmosphere. Oh yeah, and it's better designed.
I'm sure you probably like Killzone a lot. All I'm saying is that when you've played the truly great games - the Halos, the Tetrises (Tetri?), etc. - you'll look back at some of the games you used to play and think to yourself, "I actually played some of this junk?" It'll be like night and day to you.
And so everyone began copying Bungie's Halo. Every other FPS became a "Halo killer", and that is most definitely what Sony touted Killzone as.
I remember when Killzone was touted as PS2's Halo-killer, but when I watched the intro and saw him fight in one of the levels, I found it to be another cookie-cutter shoot-em'-up with the same trench-based battles, running n' gunning, and post-apocalyptic scenario that every other shooter on the PS2 had. Best cheesy line? "What the f---'s a Shakespeare?" At this point I realized Killzone was ripping off Battlefield Earth, and anyone desperate to ripoff that storyline - whether it be the film or the novel the film was based upon - should consider a creative writing course at their local community college.
It seems like once Halo and Halo 2 (and now the upcoming Halo 3) came out, everybody and their grandmother wanted to release a FPS to cash in on the hype. It's a shameless attempt at earning "easy money" through derivative, overused game design and unimaginative storytelling. The most unfortunate problem with this is the fact that this is the state of the video game industry at present. Everyone wants to stick with what's safe, nobody wants to do anything unique or imaginative.
Don't even make me go into bitching about the title. "Killzone"? How about "Place where you blow stuff up real pretty?" Pardon the cynicism, I just can't stand how easy it is for people to get into this industry with such severe lack of imagination.
I'm an up-and-coming game designer who has spent a lot of his time researching fundamental game mechanics and play concepts. A lot of what's coming out of the slashdotted article is that the program is being redesigned to make more sense to the user. Business productivity and sales software was never meant to be "exciting" or "flashy", it was just designed to get the job done.
The reason why video games such as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and even RTS games such as SimCity, Civilization, and Age of Empires are so successful is that they present their data in a way that makes sense to the Player. The data is shown in a way that the Player can easily interpret in terms of His/Her progression, and it is this simplication of statistics the game's software provides that removes a lot of the number-crunching and interpretation that is usually involved in the real-life equivalent the game simulates (being mayor of a city, for instance). Thanks to this the Player spends less time interpreting data and more time thinking about how to resolve conflicts or improve performance. In terms of software design, more is being done under the hood to better address the connection between abstract data and the user's goals. Like the article points out, the kinds of organizations found in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Second Life are so prevalent and successful thanks to the design of each games' respective interface. Guilds succeed because the game was designed to handle them.
I don't think that salespeople have "short attention spans" like the article claims, I just believe that there is a larger gap between the Users' goals and the software that sustains them. Programmers these days have it easy with high-level languages such as C++, but if we all went back to the age where we had to program in machine code or assembly language we would be dealing with similar issues.
In terms of costs, I think the place they were living in before - the state of Victoria - was a lot cheaper and had different perks. Excellent public transit system, unbelievably clean water (you could wash your hair with a bar of soap!), among other things I remember when I traveled there. But there were other concerns: high gas prices, for instance. She was living in the Bay Area, and that was really nice.
I do not think she was able to find too many jobs after that, though. I think it had to do with her age: she was into her early fifties by the time she got the axe.
But of course there are a few things to consider: first, even though Zango might be considered an advertising business, their methods of advertising are so damned unethical that they could probably be blamed for their own problems. Second, Google did not bundle anti-spyware software to attack Zango directly, so the idea of anti-competitiveness against Zango loses a bit of ground. Third and finally, the judge handling the lawsuit - especially coming from a company whose track record includes worm development - is probably going to handle Zango with extreme prejudice given their incident with the FCC.
Now that I'm done acting all official-like... Erhem... If a company wants to fight Google in court they sure as hell can try. I doubt they'll get far, though. The majority of us love Google, and even if you hate them you'll still side with them as the lesser of two evils.
I had a good friend once who was a huge executive at HP. She was an Australian woman whose work in areas like Hong Kong and Japan earned the company millions. When she was transferred to the main headquarters she lived across the street from us. She was (and still is) an awesome individual who I have enormous respect and admiration for.
When the HP/Compaq merger was approved, her days became numbered. They didn't even give her a pink slip directly, they transferred her over to an office in the Southwest - Tennessee or Georgia, I don't remember - and then fired her. It reminds me of the scene in The Godfather Part II when Michael kills his brother and throws him into Lake Tahoe. Afterwards they couldn't afford living in the United States - her husband had already retired - and they had to move back to Australia. She knew it was going to happen, too, it was just one big waiting game.
And since then, I've never really thought too highly of "The HP Way". The most recent issues with HP, in my own humble opinion, are no surprise to me. I think HP has become much more of an "evil empire" than either Google or Microsoft.
So do you think that all those children's letters to God were incinerated while entering the Earth's atmosphere, or what?
Indeed, a 4-year-old child has very little ability to understand a lot of what this man is asking. As much as I enjoyed listening to what you talked about, I couldn't understand anything beyond "real-motion cues", "flight simulation", and "robot arm", and I'm graduating from college soon with a degree in Computer Science.
I'd be very conservative about what to expect, too. And if necessary, take an entire hour or so teaching the kids about the basics of the basics with a couple of little science projects, then build up their knowledge. Here is my example.
Despite the fact that a child doesn't understand the concepts of gravity, mass, or aerodynamics, they most certainly understand this: when they trip they fall down and hurt themselves, no matter how hard they try they can't fit everything they own into a backpack, and they like paper airplanes. Okay, it isn't an example per se, but you have an idea of what I'm trying to convey: they do have some idea - no matter how small - of how the world works. All our knowledge is built upon these fundamental building blocks, even Quantum Mechanics (though I'd like to see someone try and teach that stuff to a kid).
And if all else fails, tell them you work with robot arms in your lab.
Well I'm hoping that this will encourage more studios to develop games without absolutely top-tier graphics, sound, etc. Not that I don't enjoy those kinds of games, I love them. I'm thinking about this more on the developers' level. It's very hard to develop games these days when compared to the earlier generations of game consoles, man-power wise. I'm hoping game development becomes cheaper so studios can take bigger risks in their game development and exercise more creativity in game design. If Nintendo keeps up with the pace they're going in, they might be able to change the way the game industry works. Even if the change is slight I'll be happy with that than no change at all.
Too easy.
Don't be surprised, though. This one-year drought is typical of any console system. The same thing happened with the Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube, as well as the Playstation 2, and most any other system that has ever been released. This is because the first launch titles are the dip titles. It's when the developers all get ready to take a dip in the pool and see how the water is. Later, once they have an idea on how to develop for the platform and its capabilities they'll start taking advantage of all its features. This goes just as well for first and second party developers as it does for third party developers, too. In some cases, though, developers will buy their dev kits and choose to experiment on the capabilities instead of throwing all their effort into a launch title. This is most likely the case with development studios with big pocket change like Square Enix or Nintendo, and in this case its Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3, and Super Mario Galaxy.
And from what I can tell, Metroid is not that big of a series in Japan. Don't ask me why, though. They either like their big rpgs, short arcadey games on their cell-phones, or games that imitate aspects of normal life.
Here's another case study for you: Graphing Calculators. Or as one of my professors prefers to call them, "devil boxes" :D.
...but as for reading and writing, it's a bit different. E-books are a good idea but businesses think they're not profitable. And I don't expect textbook publishers are going to start using electronic versions of their books anytime soon. They're worse than the RIAA in terms of money, and I don't think they'd risk someone getting through encryption and illegally copying textbooks to one another, and given the price of textbooks it is incredibly tempting.
When I was using a graphing calculator in my Calc ABAP course, it was never meant to stand on its own: it merely acted as a way of illustrating the concepts we had learned from lectures. For a guy like me who is considered a visual mathematician, it was incredibly helpful. And it wasn't a laptop, either: the worst thing you could ever put onto it was a text-based drug dealing simulator. It only costs $90-$150, but the ones used at my school were the TI-83+ which never went above $89.95. The silver version had more memory and cost twenty dollars more, but it wasn't ever necessary. It was pretty nice because even though it provided us methods to analyze graphics and data, it did not let us do powerful things like calculate integrals.
My college does not allow the use of those items in the classroom, and while I can understand their sentiment that it prevents us from some hands-on learning, it just isn't the case. The computer science professors who teach mathematics courses mandate their students perform some of the calculations on the computer using either Maple or MATLAB! If I had those teachers for my calc courses I believe I would have done much better.
I've always believed that if a teacher had access to and skills with a slide show program like PowerPoint and a simple animation program they could do a lot to improve their lectures. You don't let the animations and words do the work for you, though.
If web ratings go through, crappy sites might get the axe. That's a whole lot of MySpace pages the world can do without.
Despite the series' reluctance to conform to new design techniques in RPGs and relying on set standards such as turn-based battles, churches to save your game and resurrect your characters, and linear gameplay, I can safely say that the series is awesome. There isn't a game more polished or well-tuned than Dragon Quest games. Usually new, innovative gameplay comes in with secondary sidequests such as monster training and the alchemy pot from DQVIII. The music of the most recent incarnations of the series has been performed by a full orchestra, which is certainly a step up from most other series.
The other thing which makes the game so endearing is the sheer scope of the environment. Sure it is a very linear game, whose events are driven moreso by a fixed plot rather than players' actions, but the surroundings are so vast and expansive you'll spend half your time exploring and looking for hidden nooks and crannies that most likely hide some kind of treasure or paths to isolated villages or the local hermit.
As for Dragon Quest IX, I'm a little disappointed that there won't be any real-time battles (because it is a long time coming), but I'm glad that they have a lot of customization features for the characters. I also hope that the multiplayer gameplay doesn't overshadow the 1P story, either. And... its coming in Japan by the end of the year? Wow, that's quick!
Last time I checked I read an article that discussed 8 different types of learning patters in developmental psychology, and I'm sure a lot of these methods aren't being adequately implemented in classrooms. Of course, this doesn't really take into account slackers and hormone-crazed adolescents.
A simple case study: I remember sucking at long division in the 4th grade, and then after working at it hard for a while I got it, and it became fun. When our teacher put problems onto the board for students to solve, I could go up there and instead of being the last to finish I was first! Then again, when there's all proofs and no examples it is very difficult for me to sit there and watch how to find the volume of a sphere. Until I understood the underlying mechanisms of how arithmetic worked I couldn't do well in it or understand it, but some people can just do it.
So how did I get good at math and become a computer science major? Talking with my teachers during office/lab hours, doing more problems than required so as to practice, and taking summer courses. By the time I finished all that I got As in Algebra, Algebra II/Trigonometry, and Calculus. Ultimately, since mathematical reasoning and deduction should be considered a skill, the only way to get good at it is to practice!!! Is anybody surprised by that answer? That's how to improve their math skills.
...that most of the Wii's killer apps have been slated for a second half 2007 release or later. That includes Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, among other titles. Also, don't forget that Virtual Console games don't make it into the top ten chart but make up a good amount of sales for Nintendo, and that keeps users happy when a drought in genuine Wii titles occurs. As for the PS2's game earning the number 1 spot on the top ten list, it's more of a coincidence because development on it started before PS3 dev kits could be properly research and implemented, and yet its released after the PS3 hits the streets. Don't worry, this kind of thing won't be happening too often. It would've been the same situation with Final Fantasy XII if the PS3 and Wii were released in October.