Nonsense story, terrible and surprisingly limited ending, very few side-quest arcs (and even fewer that had a satisfying payoff), and only 3 cities, only one of those had anywhere near as much depth as even Klamath did in F2.
- Nonsense story, completely true, you are thrust into a world where you can live a life of any range of karma (angel, good, neutral, bad, evil) but no matter how to choose to live your life the main story is always the same. The Water of Life. Not open ended and extremely boring. Forcing the player into a boring and linear story ruins almost the entire single-player experience once you get to the worst and most disappointing ending I've ever experience. Remember, Bethesda specifically promised over 200 unique endings, saying that the character could end the game in almost 200 different ways. Later on their own forums for Fallout 3 they admitted it was an error and that there are only four endings, not 200, quite a large discrepancy between 200 endings and four.
Bethesda needs to spend more money on writers and less on their managers that keep shipping obviously-unfinished games out the door.
Rumor has it that Bethesda spent significant amounts of budget on hiring the voice actors for the game, specifically two or three more famous ones, and that it broke the bank on the project. They invested so much money into voice acting that other aspects of the game had no extra budget.
When isolating the games that really separated themselves positively from the rest of the pack this year it boils down to three games for me.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3 exclusive) - Fallout 3 (PC version only) - Dead Space (PS3,360,PC)
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the most polarizing AAA series in the last decade in gaming. Some people hate the cut scenes and stealth focus while millions of others embrace it. But the production values of the series, specifically the 4th iteration, are truly phenomenal, and are the best in gaming that have ever been seen. The entire package is aesthetically flawless. But what most people forget is that Metal Gear Solid 4 shipped with the amazing Metal Gear Online 2.0 bundled into it. And MGO2 is truly a remarkable multi-player experience and a standout amongst the already crowded shooter genre. By itself the single or multi-player components could warrant Game-of-the-Year consideration, they are that outstanding. But combined together the latest MGS game is an all-time classic. A single-player experience that will never die. A refreshing, engaging, and rewarding online experience as well. While the fact that is one console exclusive might stop many Nintendo and Microsoft fanboys or diehards from giving it GotY consideration they aren't going stop the flood of awards this game is going to get. One of the best reasons to own a PS3, practically the only reason I own a PS3. SNAAAAAAKE!
Fallout 3. First things first, the PS3 version is automatically disqualified from getting GotY praise as it has so many bugs, glitches, lacked trophy support at launch, and will not receive downloadable content, while the 360 and PC versions were less glitch prone (significantly) and will have DLC. But, the PC version, has the superior audio, visuals, and of course, the collective geniuses and minds of the ever-excellent MOD community (some of the MODs are brilliant already). So if any version of this post-apocalyptic science-fiction RPG-shooter hybrid it's the PC version. Fallout has excellent ambience and immersion, excellent environments and scale, remarkable side quests, and unique RPG elements. The flaws though are large, the main character story is cliche and terrible, compared to the epic and powerful story of Metal Gear Solid 4 it pales dramatically. The ending of the game was also weak, very weak, compared to the ending of MGS4 that some professional reviewers said left them in tears....there is no comparison to the MGS4 storyline. But Fallout 3's open ended quest structure was outstanding, every quest could be completed in any order, and each quest had several ways of successful completion. With the PC community the game is GotY, but as it shipped, with it's terrible story, HORRIBLE endings (Bethesda said the game had 200 possible endings, it has 4...only 196 off Bethesda), and glitches (especially on the PS3) on all platforms, the game shouldn't sweep the awards.
Dead Space. Oh Dead Space...probably the most surprising game of this year for the casual and hardcore alike. It crept up on us slowly like a necromorph hiding in the vents...and JUMPED OUT to scream the community abuzz. Good story? Check. Brilliant use of sound? Check. Good graphics? Check. Shout-outs and homage to The Thing, Event Horizon, and Aliens? Big fucking giant Ishimura mining ship sized check. The sound and graphics were well above par for this generation of games. The story was quite good for a survival-horror game. Unitology, interesting, I liked the back story, can't wait for the sequel (or prequel if you believe some rumors). But the game is mostly run-and-gun with little emphasis on original or unique gaming. And the puzzles? My hamsters could probably solve them. While Dead Space 1 is only a GotY contender, if Dead Space 2 is any major improvement on the first game, expect it to be one the greatest gaming franchises of all time.
Metal Gear Solid 4 for #1 Fallout 3 for #2 Dead Space for #3
What's more, these titles appeal to people who likely have already bought a PS3. If Sony wants to compete they need a Wii Sports, not another Metal Gear Solid.
Bullshit. The month MGS4 came out was the month that the most PS3s were sold in.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is setting Xbox Live download records left and right, despite containing zero new mechanics.
The game has set the record for downloads on both XBL and the PSN.
But regarding actual game changes you have no idea what you are talking about.
The has 'zero new mechanics'? Are you kidding me?
I'm sorry that you aren't familiar with the nuances that make Street Fighter II the most popular and competitive fighting game (if not outright most competitive game) in the world. The subtle balance changes took YEARS to come up with for this game....years of work. Zero new mechanics for years of work? David Sirlin, lead designer of the project, took countless hours upon hours asking the community and tournament level players what changes would and would not work balance wise. Frame data was studied, matches were studied and viewed over and over again, to make sure the new changes would work.
It's clear that a straightforward improvement to graphics and sound, a big marketing campaign, and minor gameplay tweaks has really paid off for Capcom.
Again you are talking out of your ass.
Capcom didn't make this game. It was Backbone, a different production studio, that made this game. Udon comics drew the characters, OCRemix made the music, and the people from GGPO helped with the netcode, and Backbone did the rest. Capcom hired an outside studio to do the work. The Capcom name is attached to the game because they own the Street Fighter brand. They didn't make this version of ST.
And big marketing campaign? There are no TV or radio commercials for this game. It's not in the arcades. It's full complete version wasn't previewed anywhere unlike most other AA/AAA titles. It was released to fans at the same time as the media.
If you want mass marketing look at Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, or Street Fighter IV. SFIV has multiple videos on the PSN/XBL and the game isn't out for months. MGS4....I saw four commercials during a Mets game, one commercial per hour.
There is one important caveat here: Capcom's successes are all existing popular franchises. 1942 Joint Strike and Commando 3 didn't do nearly as well as Mega Man and Street Fighter.
Street Fighter is popular for a reason. It's good. Fuck it's not just good, it's amazing, classic. God of War II, Final Fantasy X, GTAIV, there are no caveats with those games as they are guaranteed to be amazing. You're telling me that Joint Strike and Commando deserve the same attention and praise as the Street Fighter and Mega Man franchises?
I still play Street Fighter II and Mega Man X at least once a week. Same with Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Starcraft, Super Mario World, etc. because the games are good and they are consistently good.
Oh no they have a lot of sequels...if all of the sequels are amazing then what's the problem?
I wonder in how many years the last playable VHS cassette will wear out. 20? 50? Will there even be an operable player at that time, that can output video into a then-standard format?
Considering that there are upscan converters (or upscalers or scalers) that can convert 240i/480i and even smaller interlaced video feeds up to 1080p you can take any VCR/VHS player that has composite video output (or S-video) and plug them into an upscaling device and watch the amplified and upscaled image on an HDTV monitor.
Yeah sure it will look awful but through adapters and converters the technology isn't going to die in our lifetime.
Is PC gaming dead? No, at alll levels of play....
on
Is the Gaming PC Dead?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Hardcore gamers still flock to the PC...World of Warcraft, Diablo II (and soon III), Starcraft (Starcraft II!!!!!)...Blizzard is enough PC gaming for a large number of PC gamers and that's just the hardcore crowd. Once you factor in TRUE casual gamers it's the consoles that should be looking up to the PC.
If you openly interpret the definition of PC gaming then PC gaming is clearly the dominant platform. Flash games, web games, online checkers, online chess, online board games (Monopoly is extremely popular), online card games, online gambling games (though I think gambling is a horrid activity), emulation (those SNES games will never die), GGPO, MAME, etc. and then add in AA/AAA titles you have a massive community...
And way more people own PCs or MACs compared to the three main consoles right now (PS3, 360, Wii). In order to casually game on a PC you usually have the hardware already in your house, people buy a PC (or MAC etc.) for word processing, internet use, or personal use outside of gaming but casual gaming becomes a side usage of their PC.
My mother uses her PC for work and personal communication but she has started playing puzzle games for fun and actually spent over $100 on puzzle games in the last year. Is she included as a PC gamer?
Sure she's not killing hookers and cops in GTA or saving the world from mutant-zombies in Fallout 3 but puzzle-gaming is a legitimate genre so should she be counted as a gamer? Would she ever spend any money on gaming console? No. Would she purchase a 'gaming PC' as these manufacturers dupe people into buying? No. But does she game on her old Gateway 1.5GHZ/512RAM...hell yeah she does. She's a gamer....a puzzle gamer. Go mom...
Now for Christmas mom I need an Alienware 9.7gHz 1000lbs of RAM and 9.1 speaker setup and three ice-cooled (TM) graphics cards.
Wow political cartoons being transposed to another medium? Go figure. I guess I needed it pointed out to me...
Satirical music, movies, short films, commercials, The Onion, Daily Show, Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonators, Dick Cheney himself....
There are nearly unlimited media for politics to be made into satire within. The day where print only occupied jocular political rhetoric in the media died nearly a century ago. Games having political satire are old news, look at the jokes in Fallout or Grand Theft Auto...those games are entire complex plays on society.
But I guess the shoe game made in flash or whatever is the new revolution...
What's so appealing about LBP and making terribly restrictive levels when you could be modding something for Fallout 3 on the PC or even playing Metal Gear Solid/GTA etc.?
I don't understand the appeal of this game at all. People creating Mario levels in the LBP environment...why not just play the actual Mario instead?
I have honestly been waiting for large capacity SSDs for years now to purchase a new computer to make my main production and writing machine.
I have multiple TB of audio and video stored on my external hard drives and I have to back them up so many times due to failures (I travel a lot, and in cold weather as well) that the cost of buying so many standard drives far exceeds what buying a handful of SSDs and keeping them for decades would.
I have to buy so many extra external drives a year because the technology is tremendously unreliable. And the cost of data recovery is astronomical. I lost a $250 hard drive with 500GB of data and it ran me over $1500 to recover it. So the cost of backing up that data on a standard drive ended up being $1750 plus the aggravation of thinking I might have lost major parts of an entire project.
Even if large capacity SSDs are excessively expensive it will not matter to me as long as the technology is safe and reliable.
My PS2 was $250 new when I bought it 7 years ago and I still use it often to this day. Factor in the thousands of hours on the PS2 I have playing across those 7 years and you have an extremely cheap dollar per hour cost ratio for entertainment.
Do you go to restaurants? Do you go out to the movies? Do you buy music CDs?
Two $30 meals might satisfy you for four hours at most, but a $40-60 video game, might take up anywhere from 30 to 1000 hours of your time. Which is actually cheaper if you weigh the cost and the time together? I just purchased Street Fighter II HD Remix for $15 (it's a downloadable console game) and I anticipate well over 1000 hours across the life of my console playing this game.
The movies? You spend $10 on that ticket for a three hour film? Those music CDs? You'd have to listen to them an awful lot to get the same hourly value out of a CD than you would get out of a video game.
Video games (and PC games) are still one of the best bangs for your buck in terms of entertainment. People will complain about the price of consoles until they die and come back as zombies but it's a one time purchase and it's more like an investment.
That $400 you spend on one semesters of books could be spent on eight or nine years worth of entertainment from a gaming console. You say you emulate games? Why not just download the e-books of your textbooks and get a console instead? Why not buy used books? Or a used console?
It sounds like you have lost the enthusiasm for video gaming and you're blaming your wallet instead.
Some of first generation of PS3s, the 60GB, had the PS2 Emotion Engine in them to provide perfect hardware emulation for playing PS2/PS1 games making the PS3 100% backward-compatible.
The 80GB version of the PS3 saved SONY the cost of having to manufacture a PS2 essentially inside of a PS3 by replacing the hardware emulation with software emulation. The upside was cost, the downside was that many games cannot be played on a PS3 without the hardware Emotion Engine. Meaning the 80GB systems are NOT 100% backwards-compatible.
And many of the components have become cheaper to manufacture now or have been created out of more efficient and less costly parts since the PS3 first launched. But now, the PS3 ships without hardware or software emulation to play PS2/PS1 games.
The reason for this is not only to save money on initial production costs of the PS3, but it also extends the life of the PS2 greatly for those who were not able or willing to buy the backwards-compatible PS3s, but it also allows SONY and third-party developers to offer old PS1 (and eventually PS2) games for sale on the Playstation Network.
Is SONY making money on the PS3s being sold now? No. But compared to the negative cost of manufacturing a PS3 when it was first in production SONY is in much better territory but they still aren't in the black.
There isn't anything relevant or newsworthy in the entire piece that was the subject of this post.
The 'article' is merely a slide-show with some of the most poorly written reporting I have ever encountered. News today is usually infotainment and not information anymore and this is a prime example. Even entries to this piece that should be newsworthy are presented so awfully that I could barely muster the willpower to proceed to the last slide.
Networkworld.com... never visiting this website again.
The reason the GTA series was unable to obtain a license to model the games cars and name them after real world cars was because none of the car manufacturers wanted to see their car associated with not just violence....but they refused to allow an in game model of their be susceptible to any sort of damage. This has been documented in the past before not mostly with the GTA franchise, but with every racing franchise in history.
It's the reason why in the Gran Turismo (racing series on SONY platforms) they have a complete licenses to use exact replicas of hundreds of real life cars from dozens of competing auto companies. It's because the GT producers and developers SIGNED a contract stating that no cars could be damaged in the game by the player. That's why in GT you can ram cars into walls, drive 130 MPH head on into another car, and nothing happens to the car or the player. This is all intentional in order to obtain the license to use the car brand names.
This goes even further with sports games. Nothing controversial can ever be allowed in sports game that use the official Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA, etc. license. No players can get kicked off the team for shooting themselves in the leg (Plaxico) or hosting an illegal dog fighting ring (Vick) or beating their wives (B. Myers) or using steroids (half of MLB).
Metal Gear Solid 4 had an item called 'Playboy' that you could use to distract enemy soldiers with who would read the magazine instead of fighting you. In game advertisement? Sure. Distracting? Not really. Because it's a natural element to the game, magazines have been in MGS before.
Would seeing COCA COLA and PEPSI banners inside the sports stadiums of sporting games really put people off this badly that they would stop playing games? I wouldn't think so. Most people who play sports games watch sports, and sports have the most advertisements per minute of show than any other television genre.
But...would I want to see giant banners for PEPSI or DORITOS in GTA4, or Fallout 3? No. Because they would seem so out of place and would detract very much from the game.
But those advertisements could be REMOVED on the PC versions. Don't like that PEPSI ad? Replace it with a picture of your girlfriend by substituting some texture or.img files in the director the game is in. Or create an advertisement free mod of the game. I'm sure it would be the most popular mod. Consoles gamers (I am one, and a PC gamer) will get stuck with commercials but PC gamers hopefully can just MOD advertisements right out of most games.
If you're teaching an 11-14-year-old the nuances of progaming you'll need to look at a diverse variety of game genres.
There are professional gamers of RTS games, like Starcraft and Warcraft III. FPS: Halo, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike. Fighting: Third Strike, Super Turbo, Virtua Fighter.
Picking a genre is the essential first component in creating a young pro gaming individual.
It sounds like the professors are more butthurt she got their email addresses than interested in responding to the concern she expressed.
As a student if you have an.edu mail address to most schools you have access to that school's online directory that lists all current undergraduate, graduate, administrator, and professor email addresses.
In fact, Michigan State University lists all professors emails address for PUBLIC ACCESS.
Why issue a new console with the same controllers?
Are you serious?
Why get a new computer with the same mouse and keyboard? When you got your new computer didn't you get the new radical mouse with the toaster attached to it? Or the keyboard that could transform into a duck?
Maybe people get a new PC or console with the SAME controllers because the new computer/console is faster, or has a new graphics processors, digital optical output, twice as much ram, a dvd player, a blu ray player, internet capability, etc.
The mouse and keyboard combo has been around on computers for years and people don't get completely new controllers for their PCs (and MACs). Why would SONY change the PS1/PS2 controller radically for the PS3. The PS3 Dualshock 3 controller is perfect for most games that don't need a custom controller (like an arcade stick or drum set). "If it ain't broke don't fix it".
Mouse and keyboard is still great, Dualshock is still excellent.
For years before bandwidth throttling became all the rage for ISPs I had been using torrents to download all sorts of files, discographies, TV show series, radio show.mp3 collections, etc. and not once did my ISP ever say that I was taking too much bandwidth.
The entire article is a witch hunt for movie pirates but the author lacks the balls to say it hiding instead behind technical jargon.
The internet evolved as a gentleman's system in the comfortable confines of the ivory towers of academe, but now that it's an essential part of daily life for more than a billion people, the time has come to get realistic about its management.
First off the internet originated from ARPANET a military funded library project...it was hardly an evolutionary gentlemen system.
Secondly, the things the internet is two most used for are social networking sites, and pornography. Essential part of daily life? I hardly think so for those billion people.
Some of the people who use this system are spoiled children with no more concern for the greater good than junkies looking for their next fix.
What the hell is he even talking about? OK children and junkies don't need the internet, gotcha.
They can't be allowed to spoil it for the rest of us, and the only practical means to prevent their doing so is to unleash effective management upon them.
When is the last time anyone here heard of someone complaining about lack of bandwidth because their neighbor was using too many torrents? Never?
The game might have a boring main character, the completely silent and faceless protagonist Issac, but they is no reason to pigeonhole the entire game's storyline as boring.
The history of Unitology within the game is truly fascinating, a worthy back-story for any science-fiction universe. Combine that with the unique interstellar industry of 'planet cracking' where entire planets are explosively separated into giant floating rocks and you have an exciting premise for a futuristic dystopia.
I've recently been thinking that too many games operate in the shadow of Aliens, especially in the atmosphere created by that movie's characters.
The author doesn't offer one other title and fails to offer any specifics. What games is he talking about that borrow from the Aliens franchise? Super Mario Galaxy? Metal Gear Solid 4? Virtua Fighter 5? Madden 09?
I know Starcraft and Brood War had immeasurable references to Alien and Aliens but those games came out in like 1768...
Perhaps I'm not as perceptive as the author in spotting Alien ripoffs, or perhaps he's full of himself and offers no proof like a professional caliber columnist for a legitimate news source would.
Let's take our hero and avatar, Isaac Clark. Mr. Clark (whose face you can only glimpse for a moment or two from start to finish) is a voiceless middle-aged white man it would appear, who specializes in heavy breathing and killing things. You are ostensibly interested in the plight of the Ishimura because your ex is on it, but we never really care about this "relationship."
Well the author fails to miss a major component of the plot and game. That during the last sequences of the game, your ex, Nicole, gives you advice and contacts you, aiding you in returning the marker, aiding you in escaping the Ishimura and getting the hell out of there.
And *SPOILERS AHEAD* the first letters of each mission of the game are an acronym spelling out Nicole is Dead.
Meaning the marker was slowly driving you insane the entire game.
The problem is that Isaac has been saddled with modern video games' most ludicrous trope: the "everyman" silent protagonist.
I guess the author forgot to play Grand Theft Auto III, Half Life, or Fallout 3, or Oblivion, or....etc.
There are many games where the protagonist is silent, faceless, and has little to no insight in the protagonist's personal window.
Not every game needs to have 300 million cut scenes of back story like the Metal Gear Solid series or insane amounts of back-story and narration to introduce the player to the newest massive Final Fantasy world that they'll be plunging into for the next 70 hours.
When are people going to stop beating this dead horse? It wasn't a good idea in the first place, and it has become less of a good idea as games have evolved. I don't see how you can relate to a character that does not exist. I guess it lets you make stuff up about him or her; it lets us call him a "blank slate" or some other foolishness.
This is so ridiculous. So because I know that Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid) is a chain smoking Japanese/American spy modeled off of Snake Pliskin and created in a lab who has a mysterious nanotechnology aging disease I'm supposed to be able to easily identify with him?
I related to my Fallout 3 character far more than I did with Old Snake as the Fallout 3 character I get to name, design, and choose his actions across most of the course of the game. Solid Snake has only one single way to play through the game......beat the bad guy, save the world, get the girl. Oh no that's not cliche, that's not beating a dead horse........
It's consistently entertaining, something I can't say for some survival horror and action horror games that outstay their welcome (see BioShock and RE4). I'm sure I can forgive it its faults for another run through its scary spaceship.
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Nonsense story, terrible and surprisingly limited ending, very few side-quest arcs (and even fewer that had a satisfying payoff), and only 3 cities, only one of those had anywhere near as much depth as even Klamath did in F2.
- Nonsense story, completely true, you are thrust into a world where you can live a life of any range of karma (angel, good, neutral, bad, evil) but no matter how to choose to live your life the main story is always the same. The Water of Life. Not open ended and extremely boring. Forcing the player into a boring and linear story ruins almost the entire single-player experience once you get to the worst and most disappointing ending I've ever experience. Remember, Bethesda specifically promised over 200 unique endings, saying that the character could end the game in almost 200 different ways. Later on their own forums for Fallout 3 they admitted it was an error and that there are only four endings, not 200, quite a large discrepancy between 200 endings and four.
Bethesda needs to spend more money on writers and less on their managers that keep shipping obviously-unfinished games out the door.
Rumor has it that Bethesda spent significant amounts of budget on hiring the voice actors for the game, specifically two or three more famous ones, and that it broke the bank on the project. They invested so much money into voice acting that other aspects of the game had no extra budget.
I've played VC for a couple of hours now and I've enjoyed it. Solid game? Yes. Game of the Year? No way.
You can't think this game is superior all-around to MGS4 or Fallout 3?
And yes the game looks terrible online, but the PSN has a nice demo of the game, so people can see what the game looks like in its HD glory.
Once I played the demo I snagged a used copy from my local Gamestop. Good decision.
When isolating the games that really separated themselves positively from the rest of the pack this year it boils down to three games for me.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3 exclusive)
- Fallout 3 (PC version only)
- Dead Space (PS3,360,PC)
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the most polarizing AAA series in the last decade in gaming. Some people hate the cut scenes and stealth focus while millions of others embrace it. But the production values of the series, specifically the 4th iteration, are truly phenomenal, and are the best in gaming that have ever been seen. The entire package is aesthetically flawless. But what most people forget is that Metal Gear Solid 4 shipped with the amazing Metal Gear Online 2.0 bundled into it. And MGO2 is truly a remarkable multi-player experience and a standout amongst the already crowded shooter genre. By itself the single or multi-player components could warrant Game-of-the-Year consideration, they are that outstanding. But combined together the latest MGS game is an all-time classic. A single-player experience that will never die. A refreshing, engaging, and rewarding online experience as well. While the fact that is one console exclusive might stop many Nintendo and Microsoft fanboys or diehards from giving it GotY consideration they aren't going stop the flood of awards this game is going to get. One of the best reasons to own a PS3, practically the only reason I own a PS3. SNAAAAAAKE!
Fallout 3. First things first, the PS3 version is automatically disqualified from getting GotY praise as it has so many bugs, glitches, lacked trophy support at launch, and will not receive downloadable content, while the 360 and PC versions were less glitch prone (significantly) and will have DLC. But, the PC version, has the superior audio, visuals, and of course, the collective geniuses and minds of the ever-excellent MOD community (some of the MODs are brilliant already). So if any version of this post-apocalyptic science-fiction RPG-shooter hybrid it's the PC version. Fallout has excellent ambience and immersion, excellent environments and scale, remarkable side quests, and unique RPG elements. The flaws though are large, the main character story is cliche and terrible, compared to the epic and powerful story of Metal Gear Solid 4 it pales dramatically. The ending of the game was also weak, very weak, compared to the ending of MGS4 that some professional reviewers said left them in tears....there is no comparison to the MGS4 storyline. But Fallout 3's open ended quest structure was outstanding, every quest could be completed in any order, and each quest had several ways of successful completion. With the PC community the game is GotY, but as it shipped, with it's terrible story, HORRIBLE endings (Bethesda said the game had 200 possible endings, it has 4...only 196 off Bethesda), and glitches (especially on the PS3) on all platforms, the game shouldn't sweep the awards.
Dead Space. Oh Dead Space...probably the most surprising game of this year for the casual and hardcore alike. It crept up on us slowly like a necromorph hiding in the vents...and JUMPED OUT to scream the community abuzz. Good story? Check. Brilliant use of sound? Check. Good graphics? Check. Shout-outs and homage to The Thing, Event Horizon, and Aliens? Big fucking giant Ishimura mining ship sized check. The sound and graphics were well above par for this generation of games. The story was quite good for a survival-horror game. Unitology, interesting, I liked the back story, can't wait for the sequel (or prequel if you believe some rumors). But the game is mostly run-and-gun with little emphasis on original or unique gaming. And the puzzles? My hamsters could probably solve them. While Dead Space 1 is only a GotY contender, if Dead Space 2 is any major improvement on the first game, expect it to be one the greatest gaming franchises of all time.
Metal Gear Solid 4 for #1
Fallout 3 for #2
Dead Space for #3
What's more, these titles appeal to people who likely have already bought a PS3. If Sony wants to compete they need a Wii Sports, not another Metal Gear Solid.
Bullshit. The month MGS4 came out was the month that the most PS3s were sold in.
I specifically purchased my PS3 for MGS4.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is setting Xbox Live download records left and right, despite containing zero new mechanics.
The game has set the record for downloads on both XBL and the PSN.
But regarding actual game changes you have no idea what you are talking about.
The has 'zero new mechanics'? Are you kidding me?
I'm sorry that you aren't familiar with the nuances that make Street Fighter II the most popular and competitive fighting game (if not outright most competitive game) in the world. The subtle balance changes took YEARS to come up with for this game....years of work. Zero new mechanics for years of work? David Sirlin, lead designer of the project, took countless hours upon hours asking the community and tournament level players what changes would and would not work balance wise. Frame data was studied, matches were studied and viewed over and over again, to make sure the new changes would work.
It's clear that a straightforward improvement to graphics and sound, a big marketing campaign, and minor gameplay tweaks has really paid off for Capcom.
Again you are talking out of your ass.
Capcom didn't make this game. It was Backbone, a different production studio, that made this game. Udon comics drew the characters, OCRemix made the music, and the people from GGPO helped with the netcode, and Backbone did the rest. Capcom hired an outside studio to do the work. The Capcom name is attached to the game because they own the Street Fighter brand. They didn't make this version of ST.
And big marketing campaign? There are no TV or radio commercials for this game. It's not in the arcades. It's full complete version wasn't previewed anywhere unlike most other AA/AAA titles. It was released to fans at the same time as the media.
If you want mass marketing look at Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, or Street Fighter IV. SFIV has multiple videos on the PSN/XBL and the game isn't out for months. MGS4....I saw four commercials during a Mets game, one commercial per hour.
There is one important caveat here: Capcom's successes are all existing popular franchises. 1942 Joint Strike and Commando 3 didn't do nearly as well as Mega Man and Street Fighter.
Street Fighter is popular for a reason. It's good. Fuck it's not just good, it's amazing, classic. God of War II, Final Fantasy X, GTAIV, there are no caveats with those games as they are guaranteed to be amazing. You're telling me that Joint Strike and Commando deserve the same attention and praise as the Street Fighter and Mega Man franchises?
I still play Street Fighter II and Mega Man X at least once a week. Same with Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Starcraft, Super Mario World, etc. because the games are good and they are consistently good.
Oh no they have a lot of sequels...if all of the sequels are amazing then what's the problem?
I have an alternative to cooking period...takeout!
I wonder in how many years the last playable VHS cassette will wear out. 20? 50? Will there even be an operable player at that time, that can output video into a then-standard format?
Considering that there are upscan converters (or upscalers or scalers) that can convert 240i/480i and even smaller interlaced video feeds up to 1080p you can take any VCR/VHS player that has composite video output (or S-video) and plug them into an upscaling device and watch the amplified and upscaled image on an HDTV monitor.
Yeah sure it will look awful but through adapters and converters the technology isn't going to die in our lifetime.
Hardcore gamers still flock to the PC...World of Warcraft, Diablo II (and soon III), Starcraft (Starcraft II!!!!!)...Blizzard is enough PC gaming for a large number of PC gamers and that's just the hardcore crowd. Once you factor in TRUE casual gamers it's the consoles that should be looking up to the PC.
If you openly interpret the definition of PC gaming then PC gaming is clearly the dominant platform. Flash games, web games, online checkers, online chess, online board games (Monopoly is extremely popular), online card games, online gambling games (though I think gambling is a horrid activity), emulation (those SNES games will never die), GGPO, MAME, etc. and then add in AA/AAA titles you have a massive community...
And way more people own PCs or MACs compared to the three main consoles right now (PS3, 360, Wii). In order to casually game on a PC you usually have the hardware already in your house, people buy a PC (or MAC etc.) for word processing, internet use, or personal use outside of gaming but casual gaming becomes a side usage of their PC.
My mother uses her PC for work and personal communication but she has started playing puzzle games for fun and actually spent over $100 on puzzle games in the last year. Is she included as a PC gamer?
Sure she's not killing hookers and cops in GTA or saving the world from mutant-zombies in Fallout 3 but puzzle-gaming is a legitimate genre so should she be counted as a gamer? Would she ever spend any money on gaming console? No. Would she purchase a 'gaming PC' as these manufacturers dupe people into buying? No. But does she game on her old Gateway 1.5GHZ/512RAM...hell yeah she does. She's a gamer....a puzzle gamer. Go mom...
Now for Christmas mom I need an Alienware 9.7gHz 1000lbs of RAM and 9.1 speaker setup and three ice-cooled (TM) graphics cards.
Wow political cartoons being transposed to another medium? Go figure. I guess I needed it pointed out to me...
Satirical music, movies, short films, commercials, The Onion, Daily Show, Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonators, Dick Cheney himself....
There are nearly unlimited media for politics to be made into satire within. The day where print only occupied jocular political rhetoric in the media died nearly a century ago. Games having political satire are old news, look at the jokes in Fallout or Grand Theft Auto...those games are entire complex plays on society.
But I guess the shoe game made in flash or whatever is the new revolution...
I guess this weekend, seeing as I'm literally snowed into my apartment, I'll fire up All the President's Men on the TV........and Deep Throat....
What's so appealing about LBP and making terribly restrictive levels when you could be modding something for Fallout 3 on the PC or even playing Metal Gear Solid/GTA etc.?
I don't understand the appeal of this game at all. People creating Mario levels in the LBP environment...why not just play the actual Mario instead?
I have honestly been waiting for large capacity SSDs for years now to purchase a new computer to make my main production and writing machine.
I have multiple TB of audio and video stored on my external hard drives and I have to back them up so many times due to failures (I travel a lot, and in cold weather as well) that the cost of buying so many standard drives far exceeds what buying a handful of SSDs and keeping them for decades would.
I have to buy so many extra external drives a year because the technology is tremendously unreliable. And the cost of data recovery is astronomical. I lost a $250 hard drive with 500GB of data and it ran me over $1500 to recover it. So the cost of backing up that data on a standard drive ended up being $1750 plus the aggravation of thinking I might have lost major parts of an entire project.
Even if large capacity SSDs are excessively expensive it will not matter to me as long as the technology is safe and reliable.
My PS2 was $250 new when I bought it 7 years ago and I still use it often to this day. Factor in the thousands of hours on the PS2 I have playing across those 7 years and you have an extremely cheap dollar per hour cost ratio for entertainment.
Do you go to restaurants? Do you go out to the movies? Do you buy music CDs?
Two $30 meals might satisfy you for four hours at most, but a $40-60 video game, might take up anywhere from 30 to 1000 hours of your time. Which is actually cheaper if you weigh the cost and the time together? I just purchased Street Fighter II HD Remix for $15 (it's a downloadable console game) and I anticipate well over 1000 hours across the life of my console playing this game.
The movies? You spend $10 on that ticket for a three hour film? Those music CDs? You'd have to listen to them an awful lot to get the same hourly value out of a CD than you would get out of a video game.
Video games (and PC games) are still one of the best bangs for your buck in terms of entertainment. People will complain about the price of consoles until they die and come back as zombies but it's a one time purchase and it's more like an investment.
That $400 you spend on one semesters of books could be spent on eight or nine years worth of entertainment from a gaming console. You say you emulate games? Why not just download the e-books of your textbooks and get a console instead? Why not buy used books? Or a used console?
It sounds like you have lost the enthusiasm for video gaming and you're blaming your wallet instead.
Some of first generation of PS3s, the 60GB, had the PS2 Emotion Engine in them to provide perfect hardware emulation for playing PS2/PS1 games making the PS3 100% backward-compatible.
The 80GB version of the PS3 saved SONY the cost of having to manufacture a PS2 essentially inside of a PS3 by replacing the hardware emulation with software emulation. The upside was cost, the downside was that many games cannot be played on a PS3 without the hardware Emotion Engine. Meaning the 80GB systems are NOT 100% backwards-compatible.
And many of the components have become cheaper to manufacture now or have been created out of more efficient and less costly parts since the PS3 first launched. But now, the PS3 ships without hardware or software emulation to play PS2/PS1 games.
The reason for this is not only to save money on initial production costs of the PS3, but it also extends the life of the PS2 greatly for those who were not able or willing to buy the backwards-compatible PS3s, but it also allows SONY and third-party developers to offer old PS1 (and eventually PS2) games for sale on the Playstation Network.
Is SONY making money on the PS3s being sold now? No. But compared to the negative cost of manufacturing a PS3 when it was first in production SONY is in much better territory but they still aren't in the black.
There isn't anything relevant or newsworthy in the entire piece that was the subject of this post.
The 'article' is merely a slide-show with some of the most poorly written reporting I have ever encountered. News today is usually infotainment and not information anymore and this is a prime example. Even entries to this piece that should be newsworthy are presented so awfully that I could barely muster the willpower to proceed to the last slide.
Networkworld.com ... never visiting this website again.
The reason the GTA series was unable to obtain a license to model the games cars and name them after real world cars was because none of the car manufacturers wanted to see their car associated with not just violence....but they refused to allow an in game model of their be susceptible to any sort of damage. This has been documented in the past before not mostly with the GTA franchise, but with every racing franchise in history.
It's the reason why in the Gran Turismo (racing series on SONY platforms) they have a complete licenses to use exact replicas of hundreds of real life cars from dozens of competing auto companies. It's because the GT producers and developers SIGNED a contract stating that no cars could be damaged in the game by the player. That's why in GT you can ram cars into walls, drive 130 MPH head on into another car, and nothing happens to the car or the player. This is all intentional in order to obtain the license to use the car brand names.
This goes even further with sports games. Nothing controversial can ever be allowed in sports game that use the official Major League Baseball, NFL, NBA, etc. license. No players can get kicked off the team for shooting themselves in the leg (Plaxico) or hosting an illegal dog fighting ring (Vick) or beating their wives (B. Myers) or using steroids (half of MLB).
Metal Gear Solid 4 had an item called 'Playboy' that you could use to distract enemy soldiers with who would read the magazine instead of fighting you. In game advertisement? Sure. Distracting? Not really. Because it's a natural element to the game, magazines have been in MGS before.
Would seeing COCA COLA and PEPSI banners inside the sports stadiums of sporting games really put people off this badly that they would stop playing games? I wouldn't think so. Most people who play sports games watch sports, and sports have the most advertisements per minute of show than any other television genre.
But...would I want to see giant banners for PEPSI or DORITOS in GTA4, or Fallout 3? No. Because they would seem so out of place and would detract very much from the game.
But those advertisements could be REMOVED on the PC versions. Don't like that PEPSI ad? Replace it with a picture of your girlfriend by substituting some texture or .img files in the director the game is in. Or create an advertisement free mod of the game. I'm sure it would be the most popular mod. Consoles gamers (I am one, and a PC gamer) will get stuck with commercials but PC gamers hopefully can just MOD advertisements right out of most games.
If you're teaching an 11-14-year-old the nuances of progaming you'll need to look at a diverse variety of game genres.
There are professional gamers of RTS games, like Starcraft and Warcraft III. FPS: Halo, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike. Fighting: Third Strike, Super Turbo, Virtua Fighter.
Picking a genre is the essential first component in creating a young pro gaming individual.
It sounds like the professors are more butthurt she got their email addresses than interested in responding to the concern she expressed.
As a student if you have an .edu mail address to most schools you have access to that school's online directory that lists all current undergraduate, graduate, administrator, and professor email addresses.
In fact, Michigan State University lists all professors emails address for PUBLIC ACCESS.
https://fsra.msu.edu/Search.Asp
Just search for any professor's name from the article and you'll get his or her email address.
He will always be remembered...but only for a couple of minutes at a time...
This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.
Instead of letting it die Amazon.com brings everyone's full attention to it instead, brilliant PR move.
I use Amazon.com and Pirate Bay all of them. If I had known the companies were merging I would have purchased more stock in both of them.
Why issue a new console with the same controllers?
Are you serious?
Why get a new computer with the same mouse and keyboard? When you got your new computer didn't you get the new radical mouse with the toaster attached to it? Or the keyboard that could transform into a duck?
Maybe people get a new PC or console with the SAME controllers because the new computer/console is faster, or has a new graphics processors, digital optical output, twice as much ram, a dvd player, a blu ray player, internet capability, etc.
The mouse and keyboard combo has been around on computers for years and people don't get completely new controllers for their PCs (and MACs). Why would SONY change the PS1/PS2 controller radically for the PS3. The PS3 Dualshock 3 controller is perfect for most games that don't need a custom controller (like an arcade stick or drum set). "If it ain't broke don't fix it".
Mouse and keyboard is still great, Dualshock is still excellent.
Does IE version 2.1 count as an 'alternative' browser?
"Teacher teacher! I tried to answer question number three but the space was taken up by an intrusive Viagra advertisement!!!!"
The internet evolved as a gentleman's system in the comfortable confines of the ivory towers of academe, but now that it's an essential part of daily life for more than a billion people, the time has come to get realistic about its management.
First off the internet originated from ARPANET a military funded library project...it was hardly an evolutionary gentlemen system. Secondly, the things the internet is two most used for are social networking sites, and pornography. Essential part of daily life? I hardly think so for those billion people.
Some of the people who use this system are spoiled children with no more concern for the greater good than junkies looking for their next fix.
What the hell is he even talking about? OK children and junkies don't need the internet, gotcha.
They can't be allowed to spoil it for the rest of us, and the only practical means to prevent their doing so is to unleash effective management upon them.
When is the last time anyone here heard of someone complaining about lack of bandwidth because their neighbor was using too many torrents? Never?
The game might have a boring main character, the completely silent and faceless protagonist Issac, but they is no reason to pigeonhole the entire game's storyline as boring.
The history of Unitology within the game is truly fascinating, a worthy back-story for any science-fiction universe. Combine that with the unique interstellar industry of 'planet cracking' where entire planets are explosively separated into giant floating rocks and you have an exciting premise for a futuristic dystopia.
I've recently been thinking that too many games operate in the shadow of Aliens, especially in the atmosphere created by that movie's characters.
The author doesn't offer one other title and fails to offer any specifics. What games is he talking about that borrow from the Aliens franchise? Super Mario Galaxy? Metal Gear Solid 4? Virtua Fighter 5? Madden 09?
I know Starcraft and Brood War had immeasurable references to Alien and Aliens but those games came out in like 1768...
Perhaps I'm not as perceptive as the author in spotting Alien ripoffs, or perhaps he's full of himself and offers no proof like a professional caliber columnist for a legitimate news source would.
Let's take our hero and avatar, Isaac Clark. Mr. Clark (whose face you can only glimpse for a moment or two from start to finish) is a voiceless middle-aged white man it would appear, who specializes in heavy breathing and killing things. You are ostensibly interested in the plight of the Ishimura because your ex is on it, but we never really care about this "relationship."
Well the author fails to miss a major component of the plot and game. That during the last sequences of the game, your ex, Nicole, gives you advice and contacts you, aiding you in returning the marker, aiding you in escaping the Ishimura and getting the hell out of there.
And *SPOILERS AHEAD* the first letters of each mission of the game are an acronym spelling out Nicole is Dead.
Meaning the marker was slowly driving you insane the entire game.
The problem is that Isaac has been saddled with modern video games' most ludicrous trope: the "everyman" silent protagonist.
I guess the author forgot to play Grand Theft Auto III, Half Life, or Fallout 3, or Oblivion, or ....etc.
There are many games where the protagonist is silent, faceless, and has little to no insight in the protagonist's personal window.
Not every game needs to have 300 million cut scenes of back story like the Metal Gear Solid series or insane amounts of back-story and narration to introduce the player to the newest massive Final Fantasy world that they'll be plunging into for the next 70 hours.
When are people going to stop beating this dead horse? It wasn't a good idea in the first place, and it has become less of a good idea as games have evolved. I don't see how you can relate to a character that does not exist. I guess it lets you make stuff up about him or her; it lets us call him a "blank slate" or some other foolishness.
This is so ridiculous. So because I know that Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid) is a chain smoking Japanese/American spy modeled off of Snake Pliskin and created in a lab who has a mysterious nanotechnology aging disease I'm supposed to be able to easily identify with him?
I related to my Fallout 3 character far more than I did with Old Snake as the Fallout 3 character I get to name, design, and choose his actions across most of the course of the game. Solid Snake has only one single way to play through the game......beat the bad guy, save the world, get the girl. Oh no that's not cliche, that's not beating a dead horse........
It's consistently entertaining, something I can't say for some survival horror and action horror games that outstay their welcome (see BioShock and RE4). I'm sure I can forgive it its faults for another run through its scary spaceship.