Regarding price -- is there a source for this? I mean, sure, folks are preselling it, but that doesn't mean the final price has been officially set. I'd like confirmation on price points for all the different versions.
As for Steam, it was my impression that the whole game is never fully cached. At least that's what I had read about the downloadble version of HL1. It may be cached enough that it won't matter, but we have no idea how well that will work yet. Perhaps the downloadable HL1 was a test for the scheme you suggest?
Will HL2 for Xbox have an extra fee on top of Xbox Live subscription fees? Seems possible, but I would not be surprised if Microsoft saw having HL2 on Xbox as important enough to give Valve a good deal on XBL revenue sharing, thus avoiding the extra cost.
Frankly, I'm not that keen on the new system. We don't know what the one-time cost is going to be for the game without the subscription. It could be $60. Also, what happens if/when the service shuts down in four years or so? How do you play on a laptop on the road?
Combine consumer confusion over the various products with subscription fees and requiring an online connection to play the single player game and requiring that LAN parties provide internet access to check in with STEAM and it just sounds like a huge tangle that won't set the world on fire.
While I don't have the quote handy, the old Valve approach was that you could share the HL CD with up to four other people at a LAN without problems. As I recall, it wasn't discouraged and was almost encouraged. As a result, everyone loved the game and bought it by the truckload. The new system sounds onerous enough that some enthusiasm will no doubt be dampened.
Leach said Microsoft will provide a free plug-in for its Internet Explorer Web browser that will let it display rights-protected Office documents.
That's it! As sure as the sun rises there will be an IE exploit that will allow arbitrary elevation of privileges to view even the highest security documents. Now, just incorporate that into OpenOffice somehow and you're done!
If this really happens, then I think I'm pretty much guaranteed to upgrade. After I got my PS2 and got tired of Ridge Racer V (ugh) I went on a used PSX (aka PSOne) game-buying spree. My library of PSX games went from about 20 to about 40 in the space of a couple of months, and while somewhat expensive for some titles, many of them were sub-$15 and a few were sub-$10. From a gamer's point of view, a gamer who doesn't mind some chunky graphics, it was a time of great fun. During that time, I got into Ape Escape, for example. (Review. Sequel.) A great, but slightly flawed, PSX game that I might not have bought had PSX game prices not dropped precipitously after the advent of the PS2.
The PS2 is still our DVD player, too. In terms of use of entertainment hardware, the PS2 is second only the TV itself in our house.
The only bit about the blurb posted here on/. that I don't understand is that they guy says that PSX emulation is done in software. That sounds wrong to me, since I thought that it was just using the PS2 input processor, which happens to be the same as the main chip in the PSX, as a PSX. Add in the PSX BIOS and perhaps some tiny software bits here and there, but still isn't it mostly hardware?
akin to cheating at solitaire, a source of false accomplishment and just one more instance of the fraying in society's moral fabric.
And when my wife skips ahead to read the end of a romance novel it's just pushing the handbasket even faster. Pshaw.
Cheat codes are nothing more than the bonuses the developers liked enough to leave in for the regular folks. Well, the ones they can get by the suits, at least.
I think I've admitted in the article that the restrictive definition obviously has a weakness in that it doesn't consider gameplay. In particular I've pointed out that the definition allows a game to be classified original even when the gameplay is original. In a similar vein, you're saying a game can have original gameplay but be based on licensed properties.
I think you and I are talking past each other. I've taken a very restrictive definition of original, so restrictive as to be clear cut. You want a definition of original that includes many games that contain obviously derivative elements and whose qualification as original depends in an essential way on the observer. Obviously these two cannot be reconciled.
I don't think I've denied that the definition has problems, but I'd say your definition (one based on whether a game has original gameplay) has some difficulties since it cannot be practically discussed. There are people, no doubt, who would say Dr. Mario is derivative. Same for Zelda: Four Swords. Would you declare them wrong if you think they're obviously original? How would you prove your point?
If you think this original gameplay effect is so strong that it invalidates the basic drift of the article, then I would encourage you to investigate it for yourself. My own opinion is that you won't find many exceptions to the general rule, and furthermore you'll find several of your choices indefensible against any sizeable group of players.
Email me offline if you'd really like to do that, and we can talk about posting the reply on CG. Barring that, if you want to reply to this post here, I'll be content to let you have the last post in this thread.
If they are "retro minigames", are they really original? (That is, the word "retro" leads one to believe they're games that have been done before.) If they are all packaged in a novel way, does that in itself make the game original? I'm not convinced that there is a workable definition of original that includes gameplay, simply because it's so subjective. (And a point in favor of originality is that they gave Wario a new costume? Ouch. Pretty low standard of innovation, no?;^)
Again, I chose a definition of originality that can be used to answer "yes" or "no" for each game with almost no ambiguity; had I decided to say what I thought was original, then I immediately opens the definition to attack because it involves one person's opinion.
And, I would point out that the one exception does not completely invalidate the generalization: most of the games that are included under the franchise heading are very much derivative of the previous games. Other than WarioWare, no one has pointed out another example of a game for which the definition clashes with their understanding of "original".
And to address your last comment: if I chose a definition which was dependent upon my own opinion of what made a game original, then people would argue it was useless. If I choose one which is grounded in facts, then it is useless. Shall we then conclude that all definitions are useless? No, rather we work to refine the definition or extend the discussion to the cases in which the given definition fits poorly and why. If it is possible to qualify originality, then one way to work toward that is to propose ideas and refine them.
The definition of original for this article was chosen because it was unambiguous.
Does a title use a license from a movie, cartoon, etc.? Is it a direct sequel? Does it use properties developed in previous games (i.e. is it a franchise game)? Is it a remake of an earlier game? Is it a retrofit of a game from another platform?
As far as I know, each of those questions can be answered definitively "yes" or "no", without debate. Had I chosen to try to find a definition by which Wario Ware, Inc. was considered original, it would have necessarily included defining original gameplay.
The definition of original gameplay is not something I'm even going to attempt at this point. I admit up front (and even at the end) that there is a weakness with the definition. But to push it further makes it an issue of opinion, and probably an intractable problem (for a single person or even a small group of people). Intractable because one would need to play each game considered in its entirety and make a decision, a subjective one, on whether it had enough original gameplay to be considered original.
Hope that makes the choice of definition a bit more clear. It wasn't that Wario Ware, Inc. was ignored. Quite the opposite: it was considered and then binned appropriately under the working definition.
Well, I'd say that the flip side of that is that Core apparently really was trying to do an action game with an engaging story behind it. Do we want publishers to discourage developers from taking those chances? That is: not buying the game because you're telling Eidos "We don't want rushed crap!" probably has the effect that Eidos says "Hey, Core [or Crystal Dynamics, now], don't spend time trying to make a game with a story. Just get a passable action game out the door, ASAP." On the other hand, buying the game may say to Eidos that people are willing to endure buggy releases.
With respect to Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (TR:AoD) he complains that it wasn't finished, and I think that's a fair criticism, but doesn't tell the whole story. What I don't find fair is all the complaining about the controls and bugs and design that have made up most of the press for TR:AoD. I recently finished it (and reviewed it) and I think people have found it fashionable to yammer on about how much the new game sucks. I think that is has some really good qualities that most people miss.
First, the controls: they're not awful, they're just different. After the first couple of levels, I never thought about the controls because I knew how to do what I wanted. Essentially, they became transparent.
Next, the bugs are there, let there be no doubt. However, the only persistent bug is the slowdown (something that can be fixed on the PC, while the PS2 users, like me, have to suffer a tiny bit) and it's a minor annoyance. The main gameplay bugs are all in the first third of the game. I did not see a single gameplay bug after that point.
Also, the design is a fair bit better than TR2 and TR3, but not nearly as good as TR1. (Those are the only ones I've played. The heartbreak of TR2 and TR3 made me give up...until TR:AoD.) Because it was pushed out the door early, I believe that some parts of later levels were left out, which is a real shame since they were very promising.
Finally, the bit that most people won't get because they give up too early is the story and the characters. This is actually supposed to be the first part of a multigame story arc. (SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING LINK!!!!) This page puts it all in context, and having finished TR:AoD, I can appreciate what they were trying to do. Additionally, the new character, Kurtis, was worth adding to the series. Now there is another persistent character in the world and Lara's not quite sure what to make of him, and neither are we. Throw in the twist at the end of TR:AoD and I feel it's one of the more coherent attempts at a sustained storyline in recent videogames.
I'm sure I'm in the minority. Most people hate the game. I fully expect to be flamed and modded down for my view.:^)
To get back to Galleon, I'm curious to see how it turns out, but most of my interest waned before the turn of the century.;^)
I have the remote control (which I believe means I have driver 2.10) and I had no problems with The Ring or with Unbreakable. I wonder how much of this has to do with dirty or scratched rental discs...I've had a disc that skipped like mad and I just had to clean it off a bit and magically it worked.
Honestly, I haven't thought about DVD issues in ages, although I did have real problems with Jurassic Park III and The Mexican a while back. Nothing since then to interrupt viewing, except the half-second pause when the layer changes.
1) Joseph Syzlaki invents the joystick in 1974. Never files patent, commits suicide after visiting a video game arcade in early 1980s. 2) An engineer at Xerox PARC realizes that a 3D graph on his monitor looks like a pair of pyramidal breasts, leave position to form Core and make Tomb Raider. 3) Microsoft puts Freecell and Solitaire into Windows 98 instead of XBill.
Latest official update for Evolution from Red Hat (for RH9) is evolution-1.2.2-5 dated 20 March 2003. There is a RawHide version, but that doesn't translate into "releasing Evolution 1.4 for RH9". Thanks for playing, AC.
I didn't see anything in the notes about this (sorry if I missed it) but is this a GTK2 version? This is the last GTK1 app that I'm still using, and I'd love to upgrade if a GTK2 version is included in this install.
The GBA and PS2 are backward compatible with prior systems out of the box. Not true of either the Genesis (required Power Base Converter, IIRC) or the Master System (also required an add-on, IIRC). The PBC was offered bundled with some early Genesis systems, but the installed base of SMS owners wasn't big enough to do anything for Sega's fortunes. (Yes, in Europe and South America, it had more of a following. Those were not dominant markets at that point.) In short, your attempt at a prior example of the type of technology I'm talking about doesn't hold.
Someone else brought up the Atari 7800, a better example for sure. Yet, still not a perfect comparison, because the Atari 7800 didn't come out until the NES was already on the way to dominating the market. Furthermore, the 7800 couldn't possibly gain much from the Atari 2600 library because all of those games looked incredibly dated compared to what the NES was doing. By comparison, there are still plenty of PSX games that look and play well on the PS2. They aren't cutting edge, but the jump between Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 or NES is huge compared to PSX and PS2.
Your question about the PSX makes no sense. I never said that the PSX gained anything from being backward compatible, because there wasn't any Sony system to be compatible with that that point. Furthermore, I've only said that backward compatibility acts as an enticement for current hardware owners to stick with the same vendor, not that it guaranteed or even was critical to market dominance.
The Nomad was a mixed bag. It has a beautiful screen but didn't run well on batteries and was honking huge compared to other handhelds and cost too much. I love the machine itself (I, too, have one) but I never really considered it a valid attempt to crack into the handheld market. YMMV.
In the console and handheld department, the two systems that are dominating are also two that have backward compatibility: Sony's PS2 and Nintendo's GBA. While many people don't consider it a killer feature on the PS2, I think it's fairly important to the GBA.
What's more important, long term, is that once you've got a customer you're much more likely to keep that customer if you can guarantee that new hardware, especially hardware that enable better games, will still play the old games the customer has already paid for. Just like the old lament here about Microsoft lock-in for its software: once you've bought in, it becomes harder to rationalize switching to another system.
This was Nintendo's trick, but they resisted using it in the console world. Sony, through the happy accident that a small component of the PS2 is the main part of a PSX, found out that it works just as well in the console world as it has for Nintendo's handhelds. Nintendo, meanwhile, still seems to be chasing the dream of cross-system functionality, the Super GameBoy, GBA Player for the GameCube, and GBA/GC connectivity being the prime examples. Each of these is a nice trick for people already in the Nintendo fold, but not one of these has set the world on fire and drawn new customers by the millions.
If Sony can pull it off, telling everyone that the PS3 will allow them to keep all their PS2 and PSX games while offering a great platform for new games, then I think they'll have a leg up. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Xbox2 doing the same thing, since it will be more like a PC upgrade than the PS3 would be. As for the Cube and the next Nintendo platform, who knows?
The real question, of course, is whether the PSP will turn out to play PSX games in some way. If it does, then perhaps the Sony handheld is an attempt to cut into the handheld market by using a library of software developed on a console. That'd be a neat trick. And, in the sense that the GBA titles are ripping from the SNES library, is another interesting example of Sony using an idea already in use by Nintendo.
I'm not trying to make Sony out to be super-clever here, just trying to point out that some of the things Sony is doing (and that Microsoft may eventually do) are ideas that Nintendo has been using, in some form or another. Coincidence or not, I felt it was worth explaining.
I have always wanted to try the multiplayer on the PC version, but never knew anyone else locally that owned it. I wish that Sony had pushed the serial link cable more, then we might have seen multiplayer GTA on the PSX.
It occurred to me just the other day that EVERY GTA game is playable on the PS2. GTA was released for the PSX as was the add-on disc London 1969. Then GTA2 was also released on the PSX. (GTA2 also came out for the Dreamcast.)
Then along came GTA3 and GTA:VC, both for the PS2.
Except for GTA2 on the DC, no other console has had a GTA game. Not the N64 (duh). Not the Saturn. Looks like Sony's had a lock on this series for longer than I'd realized. Of course, there are the GameBoy Color versions, but those don't compete in the same market. And the mythical GTA3 for GBA still seems like vaporware.
The London 1969 add-on is cool, BTW. Plays better than the original GTA1, which is a bit choppy on the PSX. The prices on the PSX games are also way cheap nowadays. Is GTA2 worth playing?
This could be the nail in the coffin for Tomb Raider, and I for one will be sad to see it go. It was such a promising concept when it was released, but Core fell into two traps. One of them was the yearly release cycle and the other was a faulty concept of improving game design. And, the creativity in the new TR game (Tomb Raider; The Angel of Darkness) is a great step forward, but people are falling all over themselves to bash the bugs and controls. Bugs, I can see, but the controls are just fine.
If you step back and look at TR1, TR2, and TR3, you can see a progression. TR1 was brilliantly designed, coherent in story and goals, and technologically impressive for its time. TR2 showed more of a story, but took the game in two different directions that didn't suit it. First, more guns and more killing of humans. This seemed a deliberate act to make the game appeal to action movie fans that weren't as much into exploration and movement puzzles. It also put Lara into urban settings, a setting for which the game engine just wasn't suited. The technology has improved, but not much at this stage. Vehicles you can ride have been added, a gimmick that doesn't work very well. Finally, in TR3, you have a collection of loosely connected levels, more killing, more guns, and more vehicles. None of these make the game interesting, and a save game bug in the final version corrupted my game, at which point I gave up.
Until the new game, that is. While the reviews were negative, they did comment that hardcore TR fans might be able to overlook some flaws (bugs and controls) to enjoy a game with a great story and some classic TR design. As it turns out, the issue with the controls has been blown way out of proportion. They're different, but they are not poor. The reaction seems sluggish to some, but I've found it to be more than acceptable, even comfortable.
There are bugs and you will encounter them. They should have been gotten rid of before shipping and I regret that the PS2 version won't ever be patched to fix some of them, especially the graphical slowdown in certain areas, But having just passed the 2/3 mark last night I can say that they have not been painful and haven't diminished my interest in the game. I've laughed at a few of them, and I hope there is a next game that has more time to iron those kinds of issues out, but my experience isn't nearly what you might think from reading reviews and posts on USENET.
The best part is certainly the story. The voice acting and writing are actually decent, which is better than can be said of many other games, and it does have the classic TR level design in certain areas. Moreover, it now has a graphics engine now allows for realistic urban areas, and for once those can feel like a natural part of the game.
It isn't for everyone, I'll admit. But it also isn't as bad as people have made it out to be either.
As a mathematician, most journals I have dealt with recommend LaTeX. For example, two papers are in the pipeline for appearance in SIAM journals, and both were submitted in LaTeX form. To quote from the author instructions:
Authors of accepted papers are encouraged to submit their TEX files to SIAM for typesetting.
They accept papers in other forms, but TeX is encouraged.
It is because of expectations like this that I require graduate and undergraduate students write up assignments in LaTeX for my scientific computing course.
Read up on fishes here: http://www.oceans.gov.au/norfanz/CreatureFeature.h tm
Especially the last one, known as the Jewel Squid. This just boggles my mind. And I quote:
The common name comes from the scattering of small iridescent spots over the undersides of the body, head and arms. These are tiny directional light organs like tiny car headlights. When the squid is hanging at a 45 angle, all the light organs aim down and produce just enough light to cancel out the silhouette of the squid against the weak light from the surface above. They can even adjust the lights for different depths or time of day.
It's almost difficult to believe that such a creature exists, much less was the product of random gene bit-flips over millions of years. Not that evolution isn't a reasonable theory (one which I happen to believe) but this is one of those crazy outcomes that seems so difficult to accept.
Well, unless he missed a ton of bonuses somewhere along the way, he'd have to jump an extra 528 barrels (at 100 pts per barrel) to reach a million points. At 5 seconds per barrel that's 2640 extra seconds of playing, or 44 minutes. Also, jumping barrels is probably a sure-fire way to lose that third man even earlier.
Which is worse? That he plays Donkey Kong obsessively to the point of making it onto the front page of Slashdot or that I spent the time estimating the time it would take for him to break a million points the next time he shoots for the record? Maybe I should do a risk-analysis while I'm pissing away time...
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding price -- is there a source for this? I mean, sure, folks are preselling it, but that doesn't mean the final price has been officially set. I'd like confirmation on price points for all the different versions.
As for Steam, it was my impression that the whole game is never fully cached. At least that's what I had read about the downloadble version of HL1. It may be cached enough that it won't matter, but we have no idea how well that will work yet. Perhaps the downloadable HL1 was a test for the scheme you suggest?
Will HL2 for Xbox have an extra fee on top of Xbox Live subscription fees? Seems possible, but I would not be surprised if Microsoft saw having HL2 on Xbox as important enough to give Valve a good deal on XBL revenue sharing, thus avoiding the extra cost.
Frankly, I'm not that keen on the new system. We don't know what the one-time cost is going to be for the game without the subscription. It could be $60. Also, what happens if/when the service shuts down in four years or so? How do you play on a laptop on the road?
Combine consumer confusion over the various products with subscription fees and requiring an online connection to play the single player game and requiring that LAN parties provide internet access to check in with STEAM and it just sounds like a huge tangle that won't set the world on fire.
While I don't have the quote handy, the old Valve approach was that you could share the HL CD with up to four other people at a LAN without problems. As I recall, it wasn't discouraged and was almost encouraged. As a result, everyone loved the game and bought it by the truckload. The new system sounds onerous enough that some enthusiasm will no doubt be dampened.
Let me give my wallet another look...nope, I don't see $300 there for a handheld system that has received lukewarm previews.
Let me give my sense of convenience another look...nope, I don't see me taking off a battery every time I want to change games.
Let me give my GBA another look...decent price, convenient...yep, everything I currently need in a handheld. With the light, looks good.
I think I'll go look at all the cheap used games in my local store while I'm looking.
(Yes, I know it's silly, but anyway.)
If this really happens, then I think I'm pretty much guaranteed to upgrade. After I got my PS2 and got tired of Ridge Racer V (ugh) I went on a used PSX (aka PSOne) game-buying spree. My library of PSX games went from about 20 to about 40 in the space of a couple of months, and while somewhat expensive for some titles, many of them were sub-$15 and a few were sub-$10. From a gamer's point of view, a gamer who doesn't mind some chunky graphics, it was a time of great fun. During that time, I got into Ape Escape, for example. (Review. Sequel.) A great, but slightly flawed, PSX game that I might not have bought had PSX game prices not dropped precipitously after the advent of the PS2.
/. that I don't understand is that they guy says that PSX emulation is done in software. That sounds wrong to me, since I thought that it was just using the PS2 input processor, which happens to be the same as the main chip in the PSX, as a PSX. Add in the PSX BIOS and perhaps some tiny software bits here and there, but still isn't it mostly hardware?
The PS2 is still our DVD player, too. In terms of use of entertainment hardware, the PS2 is second only the TV itself in our house.
The only bit about the blurb posted here on
Cheat codes are nothing more than the bonuses the developers liked enough to leave in for the regular folks. Well, the ones they can get by the suits, at least.
I think I've admitted in the article that the restrictive definition obviously has a weakness in that it doesn't consider gameplay. In particular I've pointed out that the definition allows a game to be classified original even when the gameplay is original. In a similar vein, you're saying a game can have original gameplay but be based on licensed properties.
I think you and I are talking past each other. I've taken a very restrictive definition of original, so restrictive as to be clear cut. You want a definition of original that includes many games that contain obviously derivative elements and whose qualification as original depends in an essential way on the observer. Obviously these two cannot be reconciled.
I don't think I've denied that the definition has problems, but I'd say your definition (one based on whether a game has original gameplay) has some difficulties since it cannot be practically discussed. There are people, no doubt, who would say Dr. Mario is derivative. Same for Zelda: Four Swords. Would you declare them wrong if you think they're obviously original? How would you prove your point?
If you think this original gameplay effect is so strong that it invalidates the basic drift of the article, then I would encourage you to investigate it for yourself. My own opinion is that you won't find many exceptions to the general rule, and furthermore you'll find several of your choices indefensible against any sizeable group of players.
Email me offline if you'd really like to do that, and we can talk about posting the reply on CG. Barring that, if you want to reply to this post here, I'll be content to let you have the last post in this thread.
If they are "retro minigames", are they really original? (That is, the word "retro" leads one to believe they're games that have been done before.) If they are all packaged in a novel way, does that in itself make the game original? I'm not convinced that there is a workable definition of original that includes gameplay, simply because it's so subjective. (And a point in favor of originality is that they gave Wario a new costume? Ouch. Pretty low standard of innovation, no? ;^)
Again, I chose a definition of originality that can be used to answer "yes" or "no" for each game with almost no ambiguity; had I decided to say what I thought was original, then I immediately opens the definition to attack because it involves one person's opinion.
And, I would point out that the one exception does not completely invalidate the generalization: most of the games that are included under the franchise heading are very much derivative of the previous games. Other than WarioWare, no one has pointed out another example of a game for which the definition clashes with their understanding of "original".
And to address your last comment: if I chose a definition which was dependent upon my own opinion of what made a game original, then people would argue it was useless. If I choose one which is grounded in facts, then it is useless. Shall we then conclude that all definitions are useless? No, rather we work to refine the definition or extend the discussion to the cases in which the given definition fits poorly and why. If it is possible to qualify originality, then one way to work toward that is to propose ideas and refine them.
The definition of original for this article was chosen because it was unambiguous.
Does a title use a license from a movie, cartoon, etc.? Is it a direct sequel? Does it use properties developed in previous games (i.e. is it a franchise game)? Is it a remake of an earlier game? Is it a retrofit of a game from another platform?
As far as I know, each of those questions can be answered definitively "yes" or "no", without debate. Had I chosen to try to find a definition by which Wario Ware, Inc. was considered original, it would have necessarily included defining original gameplay.
The definition of original gameplay is not something I'm even going to attempt at this point. I admit up front (and even at the end) that there is a weakness with the definition. But to push it further makes it an issue of opinion, and probably an intractable problem (for a single person or even a small group of people). Intractable because one would need to play each game considered in its entirety and make a decision, a subjective one, on whether it had enough original gameplay to be considered original.
Hope that makes the choice of definition a bit more clear. It wasn't that Wario Ware, Inc. was ignored. Quite the opposite: it was considered and then binned appropriately under the working definition.
Well, I'd say that the flip side of that is that Core apparently really was trying to do an action game with an engaging story behind it. Do we want publishers to discourage developers from taking those chances? That is: not buying the game because you're telling Eidos "We don't want rushed crap!" probably has the effect that Eidos says "Hey, Core [or Crystal Dynamics, now], don't spend time trying to make a game with a story. Just get a passable action game out the door, ASAP." On the other hand, buying the game may say to Eidos that people are willing to endure buggy releases.
First, the controls: they're not awful, they're just different. After the first couple of levels, I never thought about the controls because I knew how to do what I wanted. Essentially, they became transparent.
Next, the bugs are there, let there be no doubt. However, the only persistent bug is the slowdown (something that can be fixed on the PC, while the PS2 users, like me, have to suffer a tiny bit) and it's a minor annoyance. The main gameplay bugs are all in the first third of the game. I did not see a single gameplay bug after that point.
Also, the design is a fair bit better than TR2 and TR3, but not nearly as good as TR1. (Those are the only ones I've played. The heartbreak of TR2 and TR3 made me give up...until TR:AoD.) Because it was pushed out the door early, I believe that some parts of later levels were left out, which is a real shame since they were very promising.
Finally, the bit that most people won't get because they give up too early is the story and the characters. This is actually supposed to be the first part of a multigame story arc. (SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING LINK!!!!) This page puts it all in context, and having finished TR:AoD, I can appreciate what they were trying to do. Additionally, the new character, Kurtis, was worth adding to the series. Now there is another persistent character in the world and Lara's not quite sure what to make of him, and neither are we. Throw in the twist at the end of TR:AoD and I feel it's one of the more coherent attempts at a sustained storyline in recent videogames.
I'm sure I'm in the minority. Most people hate the game. I fully expect to be flamed and modded down for my view. :^)
To get back to Galleon, I'm curious to see how it turns out, but most of my interest waned before the turn of the century. ;^)
I have the remote control (which I believe means I have driver 2.10) and I had no problems with The Ring or with Unbreakable. I wonder how much of this has to do with dirty or scratched rental discs...I've had a disc that skipped like mad and I just had to clean it off a bit and magically it worked.
Honestly, I haven't thought about DVD issues in ages, although I did have real problems with Jurassic Park III and The Mexican a while back. Nothing since then to interrupt viewing, except the half-second pause when the layer changes.
1) Joseph Syzlaki invents the joystick in 1974. Never files patent, commits suicide after visiting a video game arcade in early 1980s.
2) An engineer at Xerox PARC realizes that a 3D graph on his monitor looks like a pair of pyramidal breasts, leave position to form Core and make Tomb Raider.
3) Microsoft puts Freecell and Solitaire into Windows 98 instead of XBill.
Latest official update for Evolution from Red Hat (for RH9) is evolution-1.2.2-5 dated 20 March 2003. There is a RawHide version, but that doesn't translate into "releasing Evolution 1.4 for RH9". Thanks for playing, AC.
I didn't see anything in the notes about this (sorry if I missed it) but is this a GTK2 version? This is the last GTK1 app that I'm still using, and I'd love to upgrade if a GTK2 version is included in this install.
The GBA and PS2 are backward compatible with prior systems out of the box. Not true of either the Genesis (required Power Base Converter, IIRC) or the Master System (also required an add-on, IIRC). The PBC was offered bundled with some early Genesis systems, but the installed base of SMS owners wasn't big enough to do anything for Sega's fortunes. (Yes, in Europe and South America, it had more of a following. Those were not dominant markets at that point.) In short, your attempt at a prior example of the type of technology I'm talking about doesn't hold.
Someone else brought up the Atari 7800, a better example for sure. Yet, still not a perfect comparison, because the Atari 7800 didn't come out until the NES was already on the way to dominating the market. Furthermore, the 7800 couldn't possibly gain much from the Atari 2600 library because all of those games looked incredibly dated compared to what the NES was doing. By comparison, there are still plenty of PSX games that look and play well on the PS2. They aren't cutting edge, but the jump between Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 or NES is huge compared to PSX and PS2.
Your question about the PSX makes no sense. I never said that the PSX gained anything from being backward compatible, because there wasn't any Sony system to be compatible with that that point. Furthermore, I've only said that backward compatibility acts as an enticement for current hardware owners to stick with the same vendor, not that it guaranteed or even was critical to market dominance.
The Nomad was a mixed bag. It has a beautiful screen but didn't run well on batteries and was honking huge compared to other handhelds and cost too much. I love the machine itself (I, too, have one) but I never really considered it a valid attempt to crack into the handheld market. YMMV.
What's more important, long term, is that once you've got a customer you're much more likely to keep that customer if you can guarantee that new hardware, especially hardware that enable better games, will still play the old games the customer has already paid for. Just like the old lament here about Microsoft lock-in for its software: once you've bought in, it becomes harder to rationalize switching to another system.
This was Nintendo's trick, but they resisted using it in the console world. Sony, through the happy accident that a small component of the PS2 is the main part of a PSX, found out that it works just as well in the console world as it has for Nintendo's handhelds. Nintendo, meanwhile, still seems to be chasing the dream of cross-system functionality, the Super GameBoy, GBA Player for the GameCube, and GBA/GC connectivity being the prime examples. Each of these is a nice trick for people already in the Nintendo fold, but not one of these has set the world on fire and drawn new customers by the millions.
If Sony can pull it off, telling everyone that the PS3 will allow them to keep all their PS2 and PSX games while offering a great platform for new games, then I think they'll have a leg up. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Xbox2 doing the same thing, since it will be more like a PC upgrade than the PS3 would be. As for the Cube and the next Nintendo platform, who knows?
The real question, of course, is whether the PSP will turn out to play PSX games in some way. If it does, then perhaps the Sony handheld is an attempt to cut into the handheld market by using a library of software developed on a console. That'd be a neat trick. And, in the sense that the GBA titles are ripping from the SNES library, is another interesting example of Sony using an idea already in use by Nintendo.
I'm not trying to make Sony out to be super-clever here, just trying to point out that some of the things Sony is doing (and that Microsoft may eventually do) are ideas that Nintendo has been using, in some form or another. Coincidence or not, I felt it was worth explaining.
I have always wanted to try the multiplayer on the PC version, but never knew anyone else locally that owned it. I wish that Sony had pushed the serial link cable more, then we might have seen multiplayer GTA on the PSX.
I'll try GTA2...thanks!
It occurred to me just the other day that EVERY GTA game is playable on the PS2. GTA was released for the PSX as was the add-on disc London 1969. Then GTA2 was also released on the PSX. (GTA2 also came out for the Dreamcast.)
Then along came GTA3 and GTA:VC, both for the PS2.
Except for GTA2 on the DC, no other console has had a GTA game. Not the N64 (duh). Not the Saturn. Looks like Sony's had a lock on this series for longer than I'd realized. Of course, there are the GameBoy Color versions, but those don't compete in the same market. And the mythical GTA3 for GBA still seems like vaporware.
The London 1969 add-on is cool, BTW. Plays better than the original GTA1, which is a bit choppy on the PSX. The prices on the PSX games are also way cheap nowadays. Is GTA2 worth playing?
A lot of what I have to say can be seen in Lara the Murderer (about the series itself) and this TR:AoD first impressions article and my later update. I think they're a better read than a Slashdot post, but oh well.
If you step back and look at TR1, TR2, and TR3, you can see a progression. TR1 was brilliantly designed, coherent in story and goals, and technologically impressive for its time. TR2 showed more of a story, but took the game in two different directions that didn't suit it. First, more guns and more killing of humans. This seemed a deliberate act to make the game appeal to action movie fans that weren't as much into exploration and movement puzzles. It also put Lara into urban settings, a setting for which the game engine just wasn't suited. The technology has improved, but not much at this stage. Vehicles you can ride have been added, a gimmick that doesn't work very well. Finally, in TR3, you have a collection of loosely connected levels, more killing, more guns, and more vehicles. None of these make the game interesting, and a save game bug in the final version corrupted my game, at which point I gave up.
Until the new game, that is. While the reviews were negative, they did comment that hardcore TR fans might be able to overlook some flaws (bugs and controls) to enjoy a game with a great story and some classic TR design. As it turns out, the issue with the controls has been blown way out of proportion. They're different, but they are not poor. The reaction seems sluggish to some, but I've found it to be more than acceptable, even comfortable.
There are bugs and you will encounter them. They should have been gotten rid of before shipping and I regret that the PS2 version won't ever be patched to fix some of them, especially the graphical slowdown in certain areas, But having just passed the 2/3 mark last night I can say that they have not been painful and haven't diminished my interest in the game. I've laughed at a few of them, and I hope there is a next game that has more time to iron those kinds of issues out, but my experience isn't nearly what you might think from reading reviews and posts on USENET.
The best part is certainly the story. The voice acting and writing are actually decent, which is better than can be said of many other games, and it does have the classic TR level design in certain areas. Moreover, it now has a graphics engine now allows for realistic urban areas, and for once those can feel like a natural part of the game.
It isn't for everyone, I'll admit. But it also isn't as bad as people have made it out to be either.
It is because of expectations like this that I require graduate and undergraduate students write up assignments in LaTeX for my scientific computing course.
When I was Everquest Online Adventures there was this guy running around shouting "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"
His name, of course, was Verizon.
I just called my game Schnark. No good reason...just liked it.
Especially the last one, known as the Jewel Squid. This just boggles my mind. And I quote:
It's almost difficult to believe that such a creature exists, much less was the product of random gene bit-flips over millions of years. Not that evolution isn't a reasonable theory (one which I happen to believe) but this is one of those crazy outcomes that seems so difficult to accept.
Well, unless he missed a ton of bonuses somewhere along the way, he'd have to jump an extra 528 barrels (at 100 pts per barrel) to reach a million points. At 5 seconds per barrel that's 2640 extra seconds of playing, or 44 minutes. Also, jumping barrels is probably a sure-fire way to lose that third man even earlier.
Which is worse? That he plays Donkey Kong obsessively to the point of making it onto the front page of Slashdot or that I spent the time estimating the time it would take for him to break a million points the next time he shoots for the record? Maybe I should do a risk-analysis while I'm pissing away time...