Been watching WSVG events on GamePlay HD. I especially enjoy watching the Warcraft 3 games. I think WSVG could have grown more on TV, but they can't exactly count on advertising revenue from television to make back the $$$ they invest on the location, hardware, technical staff, and production costs...what a shame.
I was going to write a joke post about how "I didn't know that Microsoft or Bungie employees posted on Slashot...;-)" Then I looked at your webpage...so sorry about the accident, dude.
You get a free pass to praise Halo, but don't abuse it:-) .
The historical points that Pfhorrest, BlakeyRat, and jhmaughan make about the original development of Halo 1, Starsiege Tribes, and Tribes2 are all excellent. I can't comment on Tribes 1, because I never played it. I will comment on the evolutionary steps that Halo and Tribes2 were intended to bring to the PC world and how that all played itself out.
The original Halo was one of those games that reached a critical mass in hype and consumer mindshare (before Microsoft bought out Bungie) with good reason. Before Halo (and Tribes2) all first-person shooters involved running on foot, dodging, and shooting your target, going back to the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom1/2. At that time, the Quake and Unreal series simply polished the graphics and added true 3D aiming, but the gameplay remained largely the same. The promise of Halo 1 was to add vehicles to the genre and every single PC and Mac gamer who played first-person shooters wanted to buy a copy on launch day...THIS WAS A VERY BIG DEAL...and then Microsoft bought out Bungie and broke the hearts of every single PC and Mac gamer by making it an Xbox 1 exclusive.
At the same time that Halo 1 was being developed, there was another upcoming first-person shooter that had not received as much attention as Halo 1, called Tribes2. Tribes2 also added vehicles to the FPS genre, but THIS TITLE would be released on the PC. I still remember the outcry and backlash from the PC gaming world about how Microsoft was taking Halo away from us and I learned about Tribes2 from that community of gamers. Disheartened Halo fans (like me) swore to buy Tribes2 as a substitute for Halo1 to feed our hunger for vehicles in the FPS genre on the PC.
I did not buy an Xbox, but I did play Halo 1 at a friend's house and I hated aiming in FPSes using the gamepad's joystick (as I suspected, it's a screen-jerky tap-fest and is not nearly as accurate as the mouse). On the other hand, Tribes2 was (and still is) the DEEPEST first-person shooter I have ever played on any platform. Aside from the keyboard character speech bindings (a wonderful feature), your character can run, jump, and has a jetpack strapped to his back that allowed your character to fly for limited periods of time. It has a one-man hoverbike (no guns), one-man speed flyer (with lasers and was later modded to fire rockets as well), one-man rolling repair-and-rearm vehicle with an automatic turret, three-man bomber (pilot, lead gunner/bombadier, and tailgunner), two-man tank (driver and gunner), and a 6-man heavy transport flying shuttle (one pilot, four side-gunners, and one tail-gunner). My favorite vehicle was the tank -- I loved to drive it and trample enemies all over the place while my gunner rained machine-gun fire and HUGE EXPLODING MORTARS on the enemy base -- especially near their base's vehicle station and flag stand. I would even capture the enamy flag and take it back to my base in my tank.
Tribes 2 also had a class-based system where you could choose to be a fast and light, medium and well-rounded, or heavy and rain exploding mortars of destruction on the enemy. The weapons you could use and items you could deploy were based on the size of your character class and you could choose change classes mid-game. Tribes2 also had turrets that you could control, allowed you to deploy additional turrets, and also allowed you to extend your default sensor grid using radar (detected most friends and foes and showed them on the tactical map, but could not pick up cloaked enemies) and motion detectors (could detect cloaked enemies, especially those moving in on your flag). It also had a jammer-pack that the flag capper could use to jam the enemy's motion detector, sonar, and turrets for a limited period of time. The first thing I would always do is deploy auxiliary turrets near my team's flag with motion detectors and radar sensors to extend our base's defensive network and reduce the enemy's flag captures.
In Tribes2, medium and heavy armors could also carry and deploy remote equ
Quite right, the telecommunications companies have illegally recorded every single phone conversation we have had for the past 10+ years and sent copies to law enforcement agencies, all without a warrant.
Mario Strikers was a great GameCube game and is even better on the Wii. Online play is awesome!!!
Releasing a solid update to a classic series (e.g. Zelda, Mario, Metroid) is not arrogant...Nintendo is catering to its hardcore fan base by releasing these games and that's good business practice.
I'm the biggest Nintendo fanboy of them all, but I think the quality control argument for third-party licensing is a load of crap.
The vast majority of the games made by third parties are garbage and they still get licensed for release. This was the case back in the NES days as well...remember Acclaim?!? Those clowns put out tons of licensed shovelware on all systems.
The only reason for third-party licensing is for the console manufacturer to make $$$ on the licensing fee.
"...the inability to use 'Linux' or other trademarked terms in your gamertag is a valid reason to not get Halo 3."
Quite right, the shitty aiming you get from an analog joystick as you tap-and-touch it until it reaches your opponent is reason enough to not buy Halo 3 or any FPS on the XBox 360 or PS3. More details here.
Go buy Metroid Prime 3 Corruption instead and aim using the arm-cannon attachment on your right arm or wait for UT3 and aim with the mouse.
I was going to buy the 360 Elite for other games and genres, but I'm boycotting all MS products until they drop their patent FUD campaign against FOSS or clearly specify the IP infringement that needs to be re-worked. I encourage all of you to do the same.
Alright...I get it; the animation feels overly repetitive to you and you really hate the fact that you can't skip it -- to you, the repetitive super strike animation made an otherwise excellent game not worth playing.
The animation does something entirely different for me. It's so rare to pull off a super strike against a good player online that I actually get PUMPED, jump out of my seat, and let out a primal scream (YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!) when I see my team captain jump into the sky and blast 6 high-speed soccer balls at my highly-skilled opponent. My friend and I get the same effect when we pull one off in a 2 v 2 game online...we're high-fiving each-other while Mario takes his leap because we managed to pull it off without getting knocked down or hit with an item.
I do agree that they should definitely have had an option to skip the animation for those who don't like it.
Good defense can stop a player from performing a Super Strike almost every time. You'd be lucky to get one or two off in an online game against an experienced player.
The keyboard is good for running, because FPS players have always run full-speed since the days of Wolfenstein and Doom...no analog necessary for that.
The discussion has been about analog aiming and how the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers compare to the Wii-Mote and mouse.
My point is that "tapping" and "touching" a joystick on an FPS sucks when compared to the fluid movement and accuracy of your arm aiming at a screen or the mouse.
I would also argue that old school FPS gamers who grew up on mouse-based aiming on the PC (the platform that gave birth to the genre) should turn their noses up at the mere suggestion that they pick up a gamepad with a joystick for a FPS. The N64, GC, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, and PS3 controllers are a leap back in play control for the FPS genre.
I agree with the vast majority of your post, but...
"The best FPS games everyone wants are on the Xbox 360"
I would qualify that a bit more; yes, the Xbox 360 has more popular FPSes than any other CONSOLE and that the Xbox 360's (and PS3's) joystick aiming scheme is the weakest of all. In my view, the BEST FPS out there is still Unreal Tournament 2004. Halo 3 will do nothing to de-throne it, due to weak play control. UT3 will be the game that de-thrones UT2K4 as the best FPS on the market.
Meanwhile, the only thing that Halo has on MP3C is online play...which is definitely a big deal, but does not make up for the joystick-based play control in my view. I'll take a single-player FPS with accurate aiming over a multi-player FPS with shitty aiming any day...especially if I get to turn my living room into a higher-end experience than any arcade shooter by using the arm-cannon in my right hand to kill the baddies on my 50" widescreen in progressive scan using surround sound.
"You can get good at aiming the remote fairly close to your target, but there will always need to be that visual feedback loop between the reticle and your aim. While I have yet to play Metroid, I understand it gets around these issues with a "lock-on" control system that actually corrects your aim for you."
Wow, what a great post!
The visual feedback loop is the crosshair that you see painted on the screen when aiming. If you see a moving target far away, you have to aim ahead of him in the direction he is moving to hit him.
The lock-on mechanism does not help you aim your arm-cannon at all (unless you're using the Wii-mote in "beginner" mode, which no real gamer will do anyway). You lock-on to an enemy to circle strafe around him and fire homing missiles (useful for firing at flying enemies that quickly dodge your regular shots, but you have a very limited number of these and usually save them for special enemies). Not all missiles home in on a tartget...they only home in on the target that you are holding in your lock at any given point in time; other missiles go straight in the direction you fired them. While you are locked on one enemy, you can aim and shoot at a totally different enemy with your arm-cannon. Enemies can also break your lock.
You also get tactile (rumble) and auditory feedback when you fire a shot from the Wii-mote. Play it once and I guarantee you'll love it.
I do trust you and what you suggest definitely makes all the sense in the world when using an analog joystick to aim.
Think about what have you done with your analog joystick by turning up the sensitivity and using feather-light touches to aim where you want. You have essentially turned it into a controller you have to "touch" ever so slightly to get the crosshair to move to its desired target. Does that sound like an analog or a digital aiming device? This is how we used to drive in racing games on the NES. Do you see why I believe that the analog joystick is to aiming as the digital t-pad is to driving?
In MP3C, you can circle-strafe around one enemy with your left hand while you aim at a DIFFERENT enemy one with your right hand. You can even jump and run while you circle strafe and aim, all while continuously peppering your target with accurate shots as intuitively as aiming your Wii-mote at the screen. What are you still doing here reading this? Run to the store and buy your copy now!;-)
Skip RedSteel...the play control sucks ass. Once you moved your WiiMote anywhere near the sides of (or off) the screen, the whole screen goes into a spin (your character is "turning" even though you're "aiming"). I got such bad vertigo from it that I gave away my Wii launch copy to my younger brother so he could play it on his own Wii.
Definitely check out Resident Evil 4 and especially Metroid Prime 3 Corruption using the WiiMote. In RE4, you can't run and shoot at the same time (my only criticism of the game). MP3C has everything you could possibly want in an FPS. Both games feel like you're playing an arcade shooter with a lightgun in your living room...and a big-screen TV with progressive scan makes it EVEN BETTER!
Yup, the analog stick on the 360 and PS3 controllers are definitely harder to use in FPSes. I can't hit a moving target when I stand still. I can't even hit a still target that's a few feet away without aiming past it 2 or 3 times before I get the crosshair lined up correctly using any joystick. How am I supposed to hit a target while I run, strafe, and jump around to avoid his shots?
"It works well enough" is not good enough for me. I need to be able to get a head shot in Resident Evil 4 on a moving target 100 yards away using a handgun.
I think that "different skill set" you refer to is patience...honestly, I don't have the patience increase my skill at aiming using such a blatantly inferior control scheme. The analog joystick is to aiming as the digital t-pad is to driving.
First of all, MP3C is a game made for gamers...it uses every button on the Wii-mote and Nunchuck AND uses motion sensitivity AND aiming. You already know that the play control is better than any console experience (my trusty mouse is still more accurate). I will NEVER play a FPS using a Xbox 360 or PS3 controller...those controllers SUCK for FPS. In a single-player first-person shooter/adventure I would rather be aiming at the screen with my arm-cannon than moving a mouse because I feel like I'm in the game AND it's sooo much fun!
Secondly, Super Mario Strikers Charged is also a deep and complex game that uses almost every button, function, and feature on the Wii-mote and Nunchuck. Play it online against some highly-ranked players and see how many ways there are to pass, shoot, score, and play defense.
The talk about Nintendo ignoring their hardcore gamer base is utter nonsense. I love both of these games as much as I love Zelda, Resident Evil 4, and Madden on my Wii. Everyone knows Wii Sports is still da bomb...I still box and play tennis and baseball when friends come over (right after the game of Strikers). Put one of those "casual gamers" up against me in Wii Sports tennis or boxing and I'll dispatch them faster than you can say "Nintendo wins the console war."
"Things have got so bad recently that the contenst (traditionally featuring light entertianment artists) was won by a group of deth metal rockers from Finland who were dressed up as monsters."
What's GWAR doing in a European song contest? They're not from Finland or even European!?!
Find a nice high spot with lots of dark shadows so no one can see you. Make sure you set your scope according to the distance, wind direction, and firing angle.
Once you set up a good shot, don't miss!!! These MPAA-types run around like cockroaches when disturbed and you may never get another opportunity like this for regime change.
No kidding!;-) You'd think that putting two carriage returns in a big text box would put blank lines in the text, but I guess WYSIWYG is too much to ask...I'm starting to put paragraph tags in my posts, but real men don't use the preview button...hehehe.
The text of the presentaiton titled "A new approach to the geometric control of ultra-long span cable stay bridges" would go through official peer review within the agency and at least one oral rehearsal in front of a panel of experts on the topic before it is approved for a live presentation at a technical conference by the lead author. The presenter would then be on the spot to answer questions from their peers (and any members of the press who happen to attend the presentation), but the presenter will be ready for those softball questions because they have gone through the "firing line" of experts in their own agency first. All the press would understand is the abstract (barely, if that).
If part of agency's job is to educate the public, then they will have educators on staff to handle that work, just like the press office is there to handle the press.
In the case of this article, the agency in question is not even letting the press office handle the inquiries...official statements only come from the agency head...so why even bother having a press office?
You missed my point altogether...the point is that the engineers should spend their time and effort working to, as you put it, "save lives, prevent injuries and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards and enforcement activity." In general, it is a complete waste of their time to talk to the press...leave that to the PR people.
The case where an engineer has a responsibility to talk to the press is if they know of a safety or financial issue that they can not resolve internally (perhaps due to management incompetence or corruption). Short of that, they should focus on their job...which is saving lives.
Yeah, I do answer questions about my job for my fellow citizens, mostly to inform them that the NYC Health Department does much more than perform health inspections in restaurants (one of our most visible roles).
Mayor Bloomberg has a duty to the taxpayers and I answer to my supervisor -- she writes my performance evaluation and approves my time off. The taxpayers are not my direct boss and I have no intention of telling the dirty schmuck who met me at dinner who the lead database administrator in Restaurant Inspections becuase he wants to bribe me and him to get all of his business' failed health inspections taken off his record (that dude can go phuc|
My job is to protect the health of New Yorkers and the people that I work with take their job very seriously. I honestly don't think there will ever be a situation where I need to go to the media to resolve an issue of importance to the citizens...but I do have that option in case that day ever comes.
I'm a computer nerd who happens to work for the City of New York (you might have heard of us). My agency has a communications bureau whose job it is to deal with the press. Why should I be on the hot seat in front of a bunch of blazing cameras, answering questions from interviewers who are trying to lead me down a dark path toward fanning the flames of controversy? Responding to the media is not my job and our training programs teach us to direct the press to the communications office -- that's the right thing to do.
My agency has many specialized bureaus and the issue of the day that the media is interested in is likely to be in a realm in which I am not an expert...even if the issue is within my bureau, I am an expert in TECHNOLOGY and should never put myself in a position where someone is asking me questions about, say Immunology. If I am stupid enough to answer the media's questions, the media will say that "a Health Department official said this, that, and the other," and broadcast it to anyone willing to take it as truth...even though I have my head lodged deep in my @$$.
Now, if I see something disturbing while in the course of my official duties, I can not resolve the situation internally (I have excellent management; issues get resolved in my bureau -- this has not hapenned in my 5 years here so far), and the other avenues for resolving this issue are blocked (say, I take the issue to mediation within the city and I get struck down because I'm a peon taking on one of the big-wigs) AND the issue harms the taxpayers that I am working to protect THEN I have an obligation to my community in the City of New York to go to the media with my issue. And if I do this frivolously or am simply in the wrong on the issue, then I need to be a man and face the consequences of my actions, including dismissal and being sued by the city for slander or libel.
The fact is that our government does not need to tap our phones.
The telecommunications companies that we pay for phone service record every single conversation that goes over their lines, makes a copy, and hands it over to the government without a warrant. They have the content of every single phone call before any request even reaches the court.
I finally joined the ACLU a couple of weeks ago, after President Bush decided he could hold me indefinitely without charge if he suspected that I thought about to supporting terrorists.
Slashdot Mirror
Been watching WSVG events on GamePlay HD. I especially enjoy watching the Warcraft 3 games. I think WSVG could have grown more on TV, but they can't exactly count on advertising revenue from television to make back the $$$ they invest on the location, hardware, technical staff, and production costs...what a shame.
I was going to write a joke post about how "I didn't know that Microsoft or Bungie employees posted on Slashot... ;-)" Then I looked at your webpage...so sorry about the accident, dude.
:-) .
You get a free pass to praise Halo, but don't abuse it
The historical points that Pfhorrest, BlakeyRat, and jhmaughan make about the original development of Halo 1, Starsiege Tribes, and Tribes2 are all excellent. I can't comment on Tribes 1, because I never played it. I will comment on the evolutionary steps that Halo and Tribes2 were intended to bring to the PC world and how that all played itself out.
The original Halo was one of those games that reached a critical mass in hype and consumer mindshare (before Microsoft bought out Bungie) with good reason. Before Halo (and Tribes2) all first-person shooters involved running on foot, dodging, and shooting your target, going back to the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom1/2. At that time, the Quake and Unreal series simply polished the graphics and added true 3D aiming, but the gameplay remained largely the same. The promise of Halo 1 was to add vehicles to the genre and every single PC and Mac gamer who played first-person shooters wanted to buy a copy on launch day...THIS WAS A VERY BIG DEAL...and then Microsoft bought out Bungie and broke the hearts of every single PC and Mac gamer by making it an Xbox 1 exclusive.
At the same time that Halo 1 was being developed, there was another upcoming first-person shooter that had not received as much attention as Halo 1, called Tribes2. Tribes2 also added vehicles to the FPS genre, but THIS TITLE would be released on the PC. I still remember the outcry and backlash from the PC gaming world about how Microsoft was taking Halo away from us and I learned about Tribes2 from that community of gamers. Disheartened Halo fans (like me) swore to buy Tribes2 as a substitute for Halo1 to feed our hunger for vehicles in the FPS genre on the PC.
I did not buy an Xbox, but I did play Halo 1 at a friend's house and I hated aiming in FPSes using the gamepad's joystick (as I suspected, it's a screen-jerky tap-fest and is not nearly as accurate as the mouse). On the other hand, Tribes2 was (and still is) the DEEPEST first-person shooter I have ever played on any platform. Aside from the keyboard character speech bindings (a wonderful feature), your character can run, jump, and has a jetpack strapped to his back that allowed your character to fly for limited periods of time. It has a one-man hoverbike (no guns), one-man speed flyer (with lasers and was later modded to fire rockets as well), one-man rolling repair-and-rearm vehicle with an automatic turret, three-man bomber (pilot, lead gunner/bombadier, and tailgunner), two-man tank (driver and gunner), and a 6-man heavy transport flying shuttle (one pilot, four side-gunners, and one tail-gunner). My favorite vehicle was the tank -- I loved to drive it and trample enemies all over the place while my gunner rained machine-gun fire and HUGE EXPLODING MORTARS on the enemy base -- especially near their base's vehicle station and flag stand. I would even capture the enamy flag and take it back to my base in my tank.
Tribes 2 also had a class-based system where you could choose to be a fast and light, medium and well-rounded, or heavy and rain exploding mortars of destruction on the enemy. The weapons you could use and items you could deploy were based on the size of your character class and you could choose change classes mid-game. Tribes2 also had turrets that you could control, allowed you to deploy additional turrets, and also allowed you to extend your default sensor grid using radar (detected most friends and foes and showed them on the tactical map, but could not pick up cloaked enemies) and motion detectors (could detect cloaked enemies, especially those moving in on your flag). It also had a jammer-pack that the flag capper could use to jam the enemy's motion detector, sonar, and turrets for a limited period of time. The first thing I would always do is deploy auxiliary turrets near my team's flag with motion detectors and radar sensors to extend our base's defensive network and reduce the enemy's flag captures.
In Tribes2, medium and heavy armors could also carry and deploy remote equ
Quite right, the telecommunications companies have illegally recorded every single phone conversation we have had for the past 10+ years and sent copies to law enforcement agencies, all without a warrant.
Mario Strikers was a great GameCube game and is even better on the Wii. Online play is awesome!!!
Releasing a solid update to a classic series (e.g. Zelda, Mario, Metroid) is not arrogant...Nintendo is catering to its hardcore fan base by releasing these games and that's good business practice.
I'm the biggest Nintendo fanboy of them all, but I think the quality control argument for third-party licensing is a load of crap.
The vast majority of the games made by third parties are garbage and they still get licensed for release. This was the case back in the NES days as well...remember Acclaim?!? Those clowns put out tons of licensed shovelware on all systems.
The only reason for third-party licensing is for the console manufacturer to make $$$ on the licensing fee.
"...the inability to use 'Linux' or other trademarked terms in your gamertag is a valid reason to not get Halo 3."
Quite right, the shitty aiming you get from an analog joystick as you tap-and-touch it until it reaches your opponent is reason enough to not buy Halo 3 or any FPS on the XBox 360 or PS3. More details here.
Go buy Metroid Prime 3 Corruption instead and aim using the arm-cannon attachment on your right arm or wait for UT3 and aim with the mouse.
I was going to buy the 360 Elite for other games and genres, but I'm boycotting all MS products until they drop their patent FUD campaign against FOSS or clearly specify the IP infringement that needs to be re-worked. I encourage all of you to do the same.
Alright...I get it; the animation feels overly repetitive to you and you really hate the fact that you can't skip it -- to you, the repetitive super strike animation made an otherwise excellent game not worth playing.
The animation does something entirely different for me. It's so rare to pull off a super strike against a good player online that I actually get PUMPED, jump out of my seat, and let out a primal scream (YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!) when I see my team captain jump into the sky and blast 6 high-speed soccer balls at my highly-skilled opponent. My friend and I get the same effect when we pull one off in a 2 v 2 game online...we're high-fiving each-other while Mario takes his leap because we managed to pull it off without getting knocked down or hit with an item.
I do agree that they should definitely have had an option to skip the animation for those who don't like it.
Good defense can stop a player from performing a Super Strike almost every time. You'd be lucky to get one or two off in an online game against an experienced player.
The keyboard is good for running, because FPS players have always run full-speed since the days of Wolfenstein and Doom...no analog necessary for that.
The discussion has been about analog aiming and how the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers compare to the Wii-Mote and mouse.
My point is that "tapping" and "touching" a joystick on an FPS sucks when compared to the fluid movement and accuracy of your arm aiming at a screen or the mouse.
I would also argue that old school FPS gamers who grew up on mouse-based aiming on the PC (the platform that gave birth to the genre) should turn their noses up at the mere suggestion that they pick up a gamepad with a joystick for a FPS. The N64, GC, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, and PS3 controllers are a leap back in play control for the FPS genre.
I agree with the vast majority of your post, but...
"The best FPS games everyone wants are on the Xbox 360"
I would qualify that a bit more; yes, the Xbox 360 has more popular FPSes than any other CONSOLE and that the Xbox 360's (and PS3's) joystick aiming scheme is the weakest of all. In my view, the BEST FPS out there is still Unreal Tournament 2004. Halo 3 will do nothing to de-throne it, due to weak play control. UT3 will be the game that de-thrones UT2K4 as the best FPS on the market.
Meanwhile, the only thing that Halo has on MP3C is online play...which is definitely a big deal, but does not make up for the joystick-based play control in my view. I'll take a single-player FPS with accurate aiming over a multi-player FPS with shitty aiming any day...especially if I get to turn my living room into a higher-end experience than any arcade shooter by using the arm-cannon in my right hand to kill the baddies on my 50" widescreen in progressive scan using surround sound.
"You can get good at aiming the remote fairly close to your target, but there will always need to be that visual feedback loop between the reticle and your aim. While I have yet to play Metroid, I understand it gets around these issues with a "lock-on" control system that actually corrects your aim for you."
Wow, what a great post!
The visual feedback loop is the crosshair that you see painted on the screen when aiming. If you see a moving target far away, you have to aim ahead of him in the direction he is moving to hit him.
The lock-on mechanism does not help you aim your arm-cannon at all (unless you're using the Wii-mote in "beginner" mode, which no real gamer will do anyway). You lock-on to an enemy to circle strafe around him and fire homing missiles (useful for firing at flying enemies that quickly dodge your regular shots, but you have a very limited number of these and usually save them for special enemies). Not all missiles home in on a tartget...they only home in on the target that you are holding in your lock at any given point in time; other missiles go straight in the direction you fired them. While you are locked on one enemy, you can aim and shoot at a totally different enemy with your arm-cannon. Enemies can also break your lock.
You also get tactile (rumble) and auditory feedback when you fire a shot from the Wii-mote. Play it once and I guarantee you'll love it.
I do trust you and what you suggest definitely makes all the sense in the world when using an analog joystick to aim.
;-)
Think about what have you done with your analog joystick by turning up the sensitivity and using feather-light touches to aim where you want. You have essentially turned it into a controller you have to "touch" ever so slightly to get the crosshair to move to its desired target. Does that sound like an analog or a digital aiming device? This is how we used to drive in racing games on the NES. Do you see why I believe that the analog joystick is to aiming as the digital t-pad is to driving?
In MP3C, you can circle-strafe around one enemy with your left hand while you aim at a DIFFERENT enemy one with your right hand. You can even jump and run while you circle strafe and aim, all while continuously peppering your target with accurate shots as intuitively as aiming your Wii-mote at the screen. What are you still doing here reading this? Run to the store and buy your copy now!
Skip RedSteel...the play control sucks ass. Once you moved your WiiMote anywhere near the sides of (or off) the screen, the whole screen goes into a spin (your character is "turning" even though you're "aiming"). I got such bad vertigo from it that I gave away my Wii launch copy to my younger brother so he could play it on his own Wii.
Definitely check out Resident Evil 4 and especially Metroid Prime 3 Corruption using the WiiMote. In RE4, you can't run and shoot at the same time (my only criticism of the game). MP3C has everything you could possibly want in an FPS. Both games feel like you're playing an arcade shooter with a lightgun in your living room...and a big-screen TV with progressive scan makes it EVEN BETTER!
Yup, the analog stick on the 360 and PS3 controllers are definitely harder to use in FPSes. I can't hit a moving target when I stand still. I can't even hit a still target that's a few feet away without aiming past it 2 or 3 times before I get the crosshair lined up correctly using any joystick. How am I supposed to hit a target while I run, strafe, and jump around to avoid his shots?
"It works well enough" is not good enough for me. I need to be able to get a head shot in Resident Evil 4 on a moving target 100 yards away using a handgun.
I think that "different skill set" you refer to is patience...honestly, I don't have the patience increase my skill at aiming using such a blatantly inferior control scheme. The analog joystick is to aiming as the digital t-pad is to driving.
It's about time!
First of all, MP3C is a game made for gamers...it uses every button on the Wii-mote and Nunchuck AND uses motion sensitivity AND aiming. You already know that the play control is better than any console experience (my trusty mouse is still more accurate). I will NEVER play a FPS using a Xbox 360 or PS3 controller...those controllers SUCK for FPS. In a single-player first-person shooter/adventure I would rather be aiming at the screen with my arm-cannon than moving a mouse because I feel like I'm in the game AND it's sooo much fun!
Secondly, Super Mario Strikers Charged is also a deep and complex game that uses almost every button, function, and feature on the Wii-mote and Nunchuck. Play it online against some highly-ranked players and see how many ways there are to pass, shoot, score, and play defense.
The talk about Nintendo ignoring their hardcore gamer base is utter nonsense. I love both of these games as much as I love Zelda, Resident Evil 4, and Madden on my Wii. Everyone knows Wii Sports is still da bomb...I still box and play tennis and baseball when friends come over (right after the game of Strikers). Put one of those "casual gamers" up against me in Wii Sports tennis or boxing and I'll dispatch them faster than you can say "Nintendo wins the console war."
"Things have got so bad recently that the contenst (traditionally featuring light entertianment artists) was won by a group of deth metal rockers from Finland who were dressed up as monsters."
What's GWAR doing in a European song contest? They're not from Finland or even European!?!
Sniper rifle is definitely the way to go.
Find a nice high spot with lots of dark shadows so no one can see you. Make sure you set your scope according to the distance, wind direction, and firing angle.
Once you set up a good shot, don't miss!!! These MPAA-types run around like cockroaches when disturbed and you may never get another opportunity like this for regime change.
No kidding! ;-) You'd think that putting two carriage returns in a big text box would put blank lines in the text, but I guess WYSIWYG is too much to ask...I'm starting to put paragraph tags in my posts, but real men don't use the preview button...hehehe.
If part of agency's job is to educate the public, then they will have educators on staff to handle that work, just like the press office is there to handle the press.
In the case of this article, the agency in question is not even letting the press office handle the inquiries...official statements only come from the agency head...so why even bother having a press office?
The case where an engineer has a responsibility to talk to the press is if they know of a safety or financial issue that they can not resolve internally (perhaps due to management incompetence or corruption). Short of that, they should focus on their job...which is saving lives.
Yeah, I do answer questions about my job for my fellow citizens, mostly to inform them that the NYC Health Department does much more than perform health inspections in restaurants (one of our most visible roles).
Mayor Bloomberg has a duty to the taxpayers and I answer to my supervisor -- she writes my performance evaluation and approves my time off. The taxpayers are not my direct boss and I have no intention of telling the dirty schmuck who met me at dinner who the lead database administrator in Restaurant Inspections becuase he wants to bribe me and him to get all of his business' failed health inspections taken off his record (that dude can go phuc| My job is to protect the health of New Yorkers and the people that I work with take their job very seriously. I honestly don't think there will ever be a situation where I need to go to the media to resolve an issue of importance to the citizens...but I do have that option in case that day ever comes.
I'm a computer nerd who happens to work for the City of New York (you might have heard of us). My agency has a communications bureau whose job it is to deal with the press. Why should I be on the hot seat in front of a bunch of blazing cameras, answering questions from interviewers who are trying to lead me down a dark path toward fanning the flames of controversy? Responding to the media is not my job and our training programs teach us to direct the press to the communications office -- that's the right thing to do. My agency has many specialized bureaus and the issue of the day that the media is interested in is likely to be in a realm in which I am not an expert...even if the issue is within my bureau, I am an expert in TECHNOLOGY and should never put myself in a position where someone is asking me questions about, say Immunology. If I am stupid enough to answer the media's questions, the media will say that "a Health Department official said this, that, and the other," and broadcast it to anyone willing to take it as truth...even though I have my head lodged deep in my @$$. Now, if I see something disturbing while in the course of my official duties, I can not resolve the situation internally (I have excellent management; issues get resolved in my bureau -- this has not hapenned in my 5 years here so far), and the other avenues for resolving this issue are blocked (say, I take the issue to mediation within the city and I get struck down because I'm a peon taking on one of the big-wigs) AND the issue harms the taxpayers that I am working to protect THEN I have an obligation to my community in the City of New York to go to the media with my issue. And if I do this frivolously or am simply in the wrong on the issue, then I need to be a man and face the consequences of my actions, including dismissal and being sued by the city for slander or libel.
The fact is that our government does not need to tap our phones. The telecommunications companies that we pay for phone service record every single conversation that goes over their lines, makes a copy, and hands it over to the government without a warrant. They have the content of every single phone call before any request even reaches the court. I finally joined the ACLU a couple of weeks ago, after President Bush decided he could hold me indefinitely without charge if he suspected that I thought about to supporting terrorists.