PGR2 had this problem where the cars all looked plastic. Fake. Like they were barbie doll cars. The problem had to do with the fact they ramped their ambient light up too much and it swamped out the detail on the cars and removed the shading on the side panels.
That screenshot mid-article, if acurate, shows they've learned from their mistake... I like how the trees - but not the sky - are reflected in the metallic chasis, and how the sun catches one edge of the car and shines like a flare. Very good, very good.
Now, it doesn't change the fact I hate the PGR series because I hate kudos oriented racing... give me a street racing game anytime like Midnight Club (III was extremely good!)
Because most people play poker for the social aspects. Yes, there are "pro" poker players who play to win, but most guys are just playing it to have fun with their friends, while talking shop over a cold beer, with a bowl of chips and dip at hand, and the wives out of sight for a few hours. The winner walks away with maybe 40$ at the end of the night, but has to host the next poker party... and thus the cycle continues.
Most people don't want to play poker for high stakes - they don't have the money to stay in the very high games, and they don't really want to loose it all in one game. They just want to play for the fun of it, and doing it with little drawn cartoon avatars isn't nearly as entertaining as doing it with your best buds.
Once the novelty wore off, those who actually want to play online poker are very few....
If you're talking about classic games you'd like to see again, AND lucasarts in the same paragraph, you MUST always talk of Monkey Island and nothing else.:-D
After you turn into a swan and fly past the remains of the shattered world into the constellation, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE WORLD??? WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GHOST OF YOUR DEAD FRIEND!!!!
It takes you an hour to have the librarian check out your books?
Sheesh.
Here in Redmond, we have self-checkout stations. Very similar to self-checkout lines you see at grocery stores. I've mastered the art of the quick scan... I can check out 10 books in under 3 minutes.
They also give library cards in the new keychain style, like those blockbuster cards... makes finding my card a snap. Reserving books can be done online and they're delivered to the library of your choice.... I love my library.
And as for dvds and videos, some of the stuff they have is instructional videos which is very useful for learning, for example, card weaving where the hand technique is hard to write down in a book. They do carry fiction but then, they also carry fiction books...
What about items that MS does not sell, such as dance pads for Dance Dance Revolution?
Currently, you can get a high quality dance pad from RedOctane (200$ for the metal afterburner, arcade quality pad), or you can get one from Cobalt Flux for 300$ (better construction some say).
But you can't get a high quality metal pad from Microsoft. I dont' think they even SELL any pads at all... Konami and Mad Catz sell the cheapies.
Since RedOctane and Cobalt Flux are relatively small operations, they won't be able to afford the high tithing costs to get an "approved" controler?
Yeah, the quality did get much better from PS1 to PS2, especially with the new scoring system that was implemented in DDR Max! DDR Konamix and DDR Disney really are showing their age.
DDR Ultramix was a great leap forward, it makes the DDR Extreme graphics which came out about the same time look terrible.
Ultramix 2 was even better, as they added new models and new special effects during dancing... much nicer view.
But, honestly, I have bought every single songpack for DDR Ultramix 1 & 2, so I have over 120 songs in my Ultramix 2 lineup. I can upgrade to Ultramix 3 and still keep my songpacks. But I can't take my XBOX live content from my old XBOX and put it on the XBOX 360. So I'll loose my 60 - or by then, 90 as they release 6 songpacks with 5 songs each per release for purchase - extra songs.
DDR is all about timing. If the timing gets off, your "perfect" step becomes an "almost" or even a "boo".
When my xbox was dying, I got constant freezes on the hard disk, making the next 5 seconds unplayable, which meant that about 10 steps were ranked as "boo" when in fact I couldn't press them at all.
Which ruins the score.
Also, there aren't 4 DDR's published per year on the XBOX. The only "clone" worth mentioning is In The Groove, which is ps2-only. There is 1 DDR published for the XBOX per year, this christmas it will be Ultramix 3.
But most importantly, my XBOX's cdrom drive is flakey and out of warranty and I dont' want to buy a new xbox AND a new xbox 360.
I do not want the M rating to become synonymous with rape-torture-kill. I do not want sexual themes in gaming to be defined by the mysognistic gang culture of Grand Theft Auto.
Actually, the whole sex scene people are complaining about.... is consentual sex between CJ and his girlfriend. In order to have sex, first you must get her to like you to 50%. Yes, that's right, you must PLEASE this woman repeatedly over several dates. You must take her to restuarants she likes. You must bring her gifts. You must pick her up in a nice car. You must dress to the way she likes. You must not bore her. You must not get caught dating another woman.
If you succeed in getting her to like you to 50%, you get the sex thing. And again, it's about pleasing her - not you. It's not rape. As the game says, "nice guys finish last!" and "failure to please a woman is a crime!" This isn't mysoginistic. It's actually - within a shallow universe - centered on pleasuring the woman.
The end goal is to get to 100% with your girlfriend, so she will give you a special suit which has nice sex appeal stats and is rather funny. Denise -> pimp suit. Helena -> hick outfit. Kate -> cop outfit. There's a nurse outfit as well in there.
GTA isn't about torture either.
Just killing.
Now, on the other hand, you have slasher horror games like Silent Hill, and The Suffering, which are more about showing torture (you don't do torture, you just round a corner and see some nightmare scene in a hospital/insane asyslum setting).
Those aren't made by Rockstar. Silent Hill is by, I think, Konami, and The Suffering is by Surreal.
Rockstar isn't "poisioning" the water. Their games are not about rape or torture. Just stealing and killing in various forms. After all, it is called "grand theft auto".
Let parents return Grand Theft Auto for a full refund until they do a national awareness campaign to educate parents of content and possible effects
Gahhhh.
This stuff is giving me heart-burn, I tell you.
If Rockstar were to do that, it would be financial suicide. There are millions of units of GTA:SA sold right now. And there a millions of people who have finished - the PS2 version at least - the game. Most of these people sell their games back to ebgames at a loss. But if Rockstar were to offer a refund, it wouldn't be JUST the parents who would return the game for money... it would be every cheap college student who could use 50$, despite the fact they have no objections to the game. It would be morally wrong, but when you're in college and living off of ramen and cheep beer, you don't care.
Literally, it would provide a free game to millions of people, where they would play it, then return it for a full refund. Financial suicide for Rockstar!
These people need to have "I am stupid" tattooed on their forehead. The game already has a list of all that's wrong with it, including Explicit Sexual Content as one of the items. How much more explicit can you get than listing it straight on the box next to the big "M for Mature" logo?
1) Offer full refunds to any upset parental units who want to return the game
That's suicide for Rockstar.
There are millions of copies of GTA:SA out there.
Many people have played, and finished this game.
If GTA were to offer a recall, for cash, many people would return it just because they're done with the game and want their money back to spend it on another game... not the censored GTA, cause they're done with the game.
No, Rockstar needs to offer a trade, so an old M rated versin of GTA can be returned for the code-cleansed version. Only then will the truely "upset" return their games, and not people motivated by getting a free 50$.
Hey, maybe we can go right ahead and make it illegal to sell M-rated games to minors, since obviously no one under 17 can handle it.
Actually, you can't buy it in most stores without being carded. I got carded at EBgames when I bought it, and I'm 28 and married, and had a wedding ring visible, and a few grey hairs...
Hubby gets carded when buying other M games, and he's got a beard and a pot belly.
I'm not complaining, but if you try to buy an M rated game at Best Buy or any of the niche game stops, you get carded. Not so sure about wal-mart, but I bet the card too.
That is why the grandma had to buy it for the 14 year old. The 14 year old couldn't go in and buy it for himself.
Seems to me that there MUST be some nudity in the game (which I haven't played),
Not that I've seen. I've been playing for over a month, and while my gangsta walks around wearing pink heart boxers, and nothing but a smile and an afro.... his hoo-ha is still covered.
And while women walk around wearing bikinis and mini-skirts... their hoo-has are covered as well.
I've not seen anything that qualifies as nudity, just some bad fashion sense.
I can't do them fast enough to keep up with the pace of the game, and I can't do them well enough not to make mistakes and send the wrong thing to the wrong place.
I have carpel tunnel and try to minimize mouse motions, having to do wide screen-sweeping motions hurts my wrists.
I know some people like doing them, let them continue to do them, but please add in keyboard shortcuts for people like me who get intense throbbing pain in their hands and wrists.
I went and found the list of those who voted for this.
So far, on the us house page, I've found this:
7:22 P.M. - ONE MINUTE SPEECHES - The House proceeded with one minute speeches.
H. Res. 376: expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Federal Trade Commission should investigate the publication of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" to determine if the publisher intentionally deceived the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to avoid an "Adults-Only" rating
The title of the measure was amended. Agreed to without objection.
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 355 - 21, 1 Present (Roll no. 419).
This isn't an official launch list, and there are a lot of unknowns in this list, but if this is true, I am very disappointed.
I'm a female gamer, and there isn't anything on here I want to play...
Most of these games are sports titles. I include racing games in the sports genre. I'm not interested in these. Most women aren't.
There's FFXI. Now, I have played MMRPG's in the past - Ultima Online, Evercrack, Evercrack 2, and WoW. I've seen/read about FFXI, and decided that I'm not interested, because it has the same problems that plague Evercrack and Evercrack2 - the amount of money needed to buy very rare items that are farmed to death and sold on ebay. That's the same problem that drove me away from the other games... it wasn't about having fun in the game, it was about spending RL cash to get necessary gear. If I was interested in FFXI, I would've joined awhile back. I don't think there will be a mass influx of players racing to play FFXI on the xbox for that reason.
Then we get into a bunch of boring shooters. There's an FFA shooter - Quake... ho hum. There's some mission based shooters like Call of Duty and Ghost Recon 3. Rah rah, go army. Not interested.
What's missing from this list, at least to my knowledge, are some good platform based games. Like Conker or Whiplash! or Prince of Persia or Katamari Damacy. Or some medieval based strategy games like Pharoah. Or some traditional fantasy dungeon games like the Gauntlet Series or Baulder's Gate. Or even some really good fantasy fighter games like the well-done LOTR games. Or how about some strategy/story telling single player games, such as the Knights of the Old Republic or Deus Ex or Thief III?
There's just nothing here that makes me go "I must buy this platform! I must own this game!"
Heck, even Halo 3 is missing from the lineup... not that I liked Halo 2. I loved Halo 1, but found Halo 2 to be wayyy too boring in the indoor levels and difficult to see your enemies... I found myself straining too hard to make out shapes in the alien levels and to find the unmarked door in a maze of unmarked walls, and gave up.
Just one big gamer girl's 2 cents...
Oh, and for the love of god, please, give us an DDR Ultramix or Beatmania for the Xbox 360... I can't believe they pushed Ultramix 3 onto the old XBOX and didn't put it on the 360. Considering the number of sales that Ultramix 2 had, and the growing Xbox-based DDR fan-set, you would think they would try to court them on to the new platform....
That was one of the first things I did in GTA... bought the heart shaped boxers, took off all the other clothes, got an afro, then did drive-by shootings while on a bicycle.
Because I could.
Because it made me laugh.:)
For the same reason, my characters in Baulder's Gate tend to run around naked... there's nothing funnier than a dwarf fighter, fighting rats, naked.
Why do people care?
on
RockStar Speaks
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Why do people care over a fully clothed sex game?
I mean, GTA:Vice City had a strip bar you could purchase, where one objective of the game was to spend 30 minutes staring at a badly animated nude dancer. Totally nude, no pixelation, from all angles. Spend 30 minutes in there, and you unlocked the maximum potential of the strip club and got the most money from it.
I put my character in there, and walked the dog.... it wasn't worth watching. Neither is the "hot coffee" mod. Kids see more realistic flesh watching Baywatch on TV, than in a Rockstar game.
Not all are optimized to use multiprocessors. Hyperthreading, etc.
But every single game made today is using more than one thread. In my own quick and dirty games, I have one for graphics, one for collision detection/motion, one for input, one for network data in, one for network data out. That makes 5 in a highly simplistic game. Most games have far, far more.
You know, I've been using Firefox for two years now, and I've only had ONE site complain about me not using IE. And that site was.... Microsoft Hotmail. Briefly. For about a week. Then it quit complaining.
I don't buy the whole "opera is hosed if they identify themselves as opera" line. A pro-IE website is not going to allow Firefox in but deny Opera. So there must not be lots of pro-IE restrictive websites out there.
I have two pc's, a ps2 and an xbox. I use all of them.
I can't hook my PC to my surround sound stereo system or my HDTV. I can't lounge on my sofa using a controller from my PC either. I have to hunch over a keyboard, mouse, and a flat surface for the mouse and a monitor for my PC.
So playing a shooter, or a puzzle game works better on the console. It's more enjoyable.
But playing something that requires a lot of type, or fine cursor control, work better on the computer. For example, The Sims (lots of mouse movements to make them go), Civ2 (shortcut keystrokes are the only way to play), StarCraft, Evercrack I & II, these all play better on a PC.
But if I'm playing Thief III, or Grand Theft Auto IV, or Halo, or Half-Life, or Doom, the tv's surround sound and the easy controller/joysticks work best with the Console.
The Xbox 360 is a new console. That's great. I'll certainly buy one shortly after launch.
But it's JUST a new console.
I saw the MTV Xbox 360 launch tv show and was amazed at how they hyped this thing up to be, gosh darn it, the next best thing since loosing my virginity. I mean, the one shot where they first reveal it to a crowd of screaming geeks, and it's up on a platform above the crowd, lit from above... that shot was nearly identical to the scene of the Jews worshiping the Golden Calf from Moses. I intoned to my husband, "We worship our new god! We worship our new god!" as the crowd screamed... he laughed, I didn't. It just pushed my awareness of hype from beyond "silly yet trying to get publicity" to "serously wierding me out".
I mean, it's just a game console. It will be a good game console. But in five years time, there will be a new game console to replace it. And so on in another five years. Technology marches on and we will continously be updating our consoles. This one is JUST a game console, heck, it won't even give me a hand job. Now if it came with a vibrator attachment... maybe I'd call it a revolution....
But seriously, game companies, lay off the insane hype. It's just a game console.
The extensions can be written by anyone, so it means a greater amount of freedom and flexibility for Firefox. For example, there is a FarkIt! Extension which makes easy quoting on Fark.com. And then there's a Bible quoting extension which allows you to quickly reference biblical references.
Now, I'm a Fark.com lover and an Athiest. Having the ability to choose which extensions I want allows me to select FarkIt! and Adblock without having to get Biblemania.
So I'm happy, the bible thumpers are happy, and if anyone else has an idea for a firefox feature they want to write, they can write their own extension and be happy... it works well.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I do like that screenshot.
PGR2 had this problem where the cars all looked plastic. Fake. Like they were barbie doll cars. The problem had to do with the fact they ramped their ambient light up too much and it swamped out the detail on the cars and removed the shading on the side panels.
That screenshot mid-article, if acurate, shows they've learned from their mistake... I like how the trees - but not the sky - are reflected in the metallic chasis, and how the sun catches one edge of the car and shines like a flare. Very good, very good.
Now, it doesn't change the fact I hate the PGR series because I hate kudos oriented racing... give me a street racing game anytime like Midnight Club (III was extremely good!)
Because most people play poker for the social aspects. Yes, there are "pro" poker players who play to win, but most guys are just playing it to have fun with their friends, while talking shop over a cold beer, with a bowl of chips and dip at hand, and the wives out of sight for a few hours. The winner walks away with maybe 40$ at the end of the night, but has to host the next poker party... and thus the cycle continues.
Most people don't want to play poker for high stakes - they don't have the money to stay in the very high games, and they don't really want to loose it all in one game. They just want to play for the fun of it, and doing it with little drawn cartoon avatars isn't nearly as entertaining as doing it with your best buds.
Once the novelty wore off, those who actually want to play online poker are very few....
If you're talking about classic games you'd like to see again, AND lucasarts in the same paragraph, you MUST always talk of Monkey Island and nothing else. :-D
Loom, Loom, Loom, Loom, Loom, Loom, and LOOM!
Loom.
I really want a sequel to Loom. I'm not kidding.
After you turn into a swan and fly past the remains of the shattered world into the constellation, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE WORLD??? WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GHOST OF YOUR DEAD FRIEND!!!!
LucasArts, you let me down.
It takes you an hour to have the librarian check out your books?
Sheesh.
Here in Redmond, we have self-checkout stations. Very similar to self-checkout lines you see at grocery stores. I've mastered the art of the quick scan... I can check out 10 books in under 3 minutes.
They also give library cards in the new keychain style, like those blockbuster cards... makes finding my card a snap. Reserving books can be done online and they're delivered to the library of your choice.... I love my library.
And as for dvds and videos, some of the stuff they have is instructional videos which is very useful for learning, for example, card weaving where the hand technique is hard to write down in a book. They do carry fiction but then, they also carry fiction books...
What about items that MS does not sell, such as dance pads for Dance Dance Revolution?
Currently, you can get a high quality dance pad from RedOctane (200$ for the metal afterburner, arcade quality pad), or you can get one from Cobalt Flux for 300$ (better construction some say).
But you can't get a high quality metal pad from Microsoft. I dont' think they even SELL any pads at all... Konami and Mad Catz sell the cheapies.
Since RedOctane and Cobalt Flux are relatively small operations, they won't be able to afford the high tithing costs to get an "approved" controler?
Yeah, the quality did get much better from PS1 to PS2, especially with the new scoring system that was implemented in DDR Max! DDR Konamix and DDR Disney really are showing their age.
:(
DDR Ultramix was a great leap forward, it makes the DDR Extreme graphics which came out about the same time look terrible.
Ultramix 2 was even better, as they added new models and new special effects during dancing... much nicer view.
But, honestly, I have bought every single songpack for DDR Ultramix 1 & 2, so I have over 120 songs in my Ultramix 2 lineup. I can upgrade to Ultramix 3 and still keep my songpacks. But I can't take my XBOX live content from my old XBOX and put it on the XBOX 360. So I'll loose my 60 - or by then, 90 as they release 6 songpacks with 5 songs each per release for purchase - extra songs.
That makes me sad
Abyss is such a fun song....
Mod parent up, he's right.
DDR is all about timing. If the timing gets off, your "perfect" step becomes an "almost" or even a "boo".
When my xbox was dying, I got constant freezes on the hard disk, making the next 5 seconds unplayable, which meant that about 10 steps were ranked as "boo" when in fact I couldn't press them at all.
Which ruins the score.
Also, there aren't 4 DDR's published per year on the XBOX. The only "clone" worth mentioning is In The Groove, which is ps2-only. There is 1 DDR published for the XBOX per year, this christmas it will be Ultramix 3.
But most importantly, my XBOX's cdrom drive is flakey and out of warranty and I dont' want to buy a new xbox AND a new xbox 360.
Ultramix 2 not mentioned :(
That game isn't a "game". It's my workout. My daily workout.
I don't want a 360 anymore....
I do not want the M rating to become synonymous with rape-torture-kill. I do not want sexual themes in gaming to be defined by the mysognistic gang culture of Grand Theft Auto.
Actually, the whole sex scene people are complaining about.... is consentual sex between CJ and his girlfriend. In order to have sex, first you must get her to like you to 50%. Yes, that's right, you must PLEASE this woman repeatedly over several dates. You must take her to restuarants she likes. You must bring her gifts. You must pick her up in a nice car. You must dress to the way she likes. You must not bore her. You must not get caught dating another woman.
If you succeed in getting her to like you to 50%, you get the sex thing. And again, it's about pleasing her - not you. It's not rape. As the game says, "nice guys finish last!" and "failure to please a woman is a crime!" This isn't mysoginistic. It's actually - within a shallow universe - centered on pleasuring the woman.
The end goal is to get to 100% with your girlfriend, so she will give you a special suit which has nice sex appeal stats and is rather funny. Denise -> pimp suit. Helena -> hick outfit. Kate -> cop outfit. There's a nurse outfit as well in there.
GTA isn't about torture either.
Just killing.
Now, on the other hand, you have slasher horror games like Silent Hill, and The Suffering, which are more about showing torture (you don't do torture, you just round a corner and see some nightmare scene in a hospital/insane asyslum setting).
Those aren't made by Rockstar. Silent Hill is by, I think, Konami, and The Suffering is by Surreal.
Rockstar isn't "poisioning" the water. Their games are not about rape or torture. Just stealing and killing in various forms. After all, it is called "grand theft auto".
Let parents return Grand Theft Auto for a full refund until they do a national awareness campaign to educate parents of content and possible effects
Gahhhh.
This stuff is giving me heart-burn, I tell you.
If Rockstar were to do that, it would be financial suicide. There are millions of units of GTA:SA sold right now. And there a millions of people who have finished - the PS2 version at least - the game. Most of these people sell their games back to ebgames at a loss. But if Rockstar were to offer a refund, it wouldn't be JUST the parents who would return the game for money... it would be every cheap college student who could use 50$, despite the fact they have no objections to the game. It would be morally wrong, but when you're in college and living off of ramen and cheep beer, you don't care.
Literally, it would provide a free game to millions of people, where they would play it, then return it for a full refund. Financial suicide for Rockstar!
These people need to have "I am stupid" tattooed on their forehead. The game already has a list of all that's wrong with it, including Explicit Sexual Content as one of the items. How much more explicit can you get than listing it straight on the box next to the big "M for Mature" logo?
1) Offer full refunds to any upset parental units who want to return the game
That's suicide for Rockstar.
There are millions of copies of GTA:SA out there.
Many people have played, and finished this game.
If GTA were to offer a recall, for cash, many people would return it just because they're done with the game and want their money back to spend it on another game... not the censored GTA, cause they're done with the game.
No, Rockstar needs to offer a trade, so an old M rated versin of GTA can be returned for the code-cleansed version. Only then will the truely "upset" return their games, and not people motivated by getting a free 50$.
Hey, maybe we can go right ahead and make it illegal to sell M-rated games to minors, since obviously no one under 17 can handle it.
Actually, you can't buy it in most stores without being carded. I got carded at EBgames when I bought it, and I'm 28 and married, and had a wedding ring visible, and a few grey hairs...
Hubby gets carded when buying other M games, and he's got a beard and a pot belly.
I'm not complaining, but if you try to buy an M rated game at Best Buy or any of the niche game stops, you get carded. Not so sure about wal-mart, but I bet the card too.
That is why the grandma had to buy it for the 14 year old. The 14 year old couldn't go in and buy it for himself.
Seems to me that there MUST be some nudity in the game (which I haven't played),
Not that I've seen. I've been playing for over a month, and while my gangsta walks around wearing pink heart boxers, and nothing but a smile and an afro.... his hoo-ha is still covered.
And while women walk around wearing bikinis and mini-skirts... their hoo-has are covered as well.
I've not seen anything that qualifies as nudity, just some bad fashion sense.
Please, no gestures in B&W 2.
They make my hands hurt.
I can't do them fast enough to keep up with the pace of the game, and I can't do them well enough not to make mistakes and send the wrong thing to the wrong place.
I have carpel tunnel and try to minimize mouse motions, having to do wide screen-sweeping motions hurts my wrists.
I know some people like doing them, let them continue to do them, but please add in keyboard shortcuts for people like me who get intense throbbing pain in their hands and wrists.
I went and found the list of those who voted for this.
So far, on the us house page, I've found this:
7:22 P.M. - ONE MINUTE SPEECHES - The House proceeded with one minute speeches.
H. Res. 376: expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Federal Trade Commission should investigate the publication of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" to determine if the publisher intentionally deceived the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to avoid an "Adults-Only" rating
The title of the measure was amended. Agreed to without objection.
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 355 - 21, 1 Present (Roll no. 419).
This leads to this roll call:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll419.xml
Which states that 195 republicans voted yes, 2 voted nay. 159 democrats voted yes, 19 voted nay. 1 independant voted nay.
In other words, it wasn't even a contested vote.
The full list of those who voted yay follows:
Ackerman Aderholt Akin Alexander Allen Andrews Baca Baird Baker Baldwin Barrett (SC) Barrow Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Bass Beauprez Berry
Biggert Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blackburn Blunt Boehlert Boehner Bonilla Bonner Bono Boozman Boren Boswell Boucher Boustany Boyd Bradley (NH) Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Brown (OH) Brown (SC) Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Calvert Camp Cantor Capito Capps Capuano Cardin Cardoza Carnahan Carson Carter Case Castle Chabot Chandler Chocola Cleaver Clyburn Coble Conaway Cooper Costa Cox Crenshaw Crowley Cubin Cuellar Culberson Cummings Davis (AL) Davis (CA) Davis (IL) Davis (KY) Davis (TN) Davis, Jo Ann Davis, Tom Deal (GA) DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DeLay Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Dicks Dingell Doggett Doyle Drake Dreier Duncan Edwards Ehlers Emanuel Emerson Engel English (PA) Eshoo Etheridge Evans Everett Farr Ferguson Filner Fitzpatrick (PA) Foley Forbes Ford Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Gilchrest Gillmor Gingrey Gohmert Gonzalez Goode Goodlatte Gordon Granger Graves Green (WI) Green, Al Green, Gene Gutknecht Hall Harman Harris Hart Hastings (WA) Hayes Hayworth Hefley Hensarling Herger Herseth Higgins Hinchey Hoekstra Holden Holt Honda Hooley Hoyer Hunter Hyde Inglis (SC) Inslee Israel Issa Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Jindal Johnson (CT) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Kanjorski Kaptur Keller Kelly Kennedy (MN) Kennedy (RI) Kildee Kind King (IA) Kingston Kirk Kline Knollenberg Kolbe Kucinich Kuhl (NY) LaHood Langevin Lantos Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Latham LaTourette Leach Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (KY) Lipinski LoBiondo Lofgren, Zoe Lowey Lucas Lungren, Daniel E. Lynch Mack Maloney Manzullo Marchant Markey Marshall Matheson Matsui McCarthy McCaul (TX) McCollum (MN) McCotter McCrery McGovern McHenry McHugh McIntyre McKeon McKinney McMorris McNulty Meehan Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Melancon Menendez Mica Michaud Millender-McDonald Miller (FL) Miller (NC) Miller, Gary Miller, George Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (KS) Moran (VA) Murphy Musgrave Myrick Nadler Napolitano Neal (MA) Neugebauer Ney Northup Norwood Nunes Oberstar Olver Osborne Otter Oxley Pallone Pascrell Pastor Pearce Pence Peterson (MN) Peterson (PA) Petri Pickering Pitts Platts Poe Pombo Pomeroy Porter Price (GA) Price (NC) Putnam Ramstad Rangel Regula Rehberg Reichert Renzi Reynolds Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Ross Roybal-Allard Royce Ruppersberger Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Ryun (KS) Sabo Salazar Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sanders Saxton Schakowsky Schiff Schwartz (PA) Schwarz (MI) Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Sessions Shadegg Shaw Sherman Sherwood Shimkus Shuster Simmons Simpson Skelton Slaughter Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Snyder Solis Spratt Stearns Stupak Sullivan Tancredo Tanner Tauscher Taylor (MS) Taylor (NC) Thomas Tho
This isn't an official launch list, and there are a lot of unknowns in this list, but if this is true, I am very disappointed.
I'm a female gamer, and there isn't anything on here I want to play...
Most of these games are sports titles. I include racing games in the sports genre. I'm not interested in these. Most women aren't.
There's FFXI. Now, I have played MMRPG's in the past - Ultima Online, Evercrack, Evercrack 2, and WoW. I've seen/read about FFXI, and decided that I'm not interested, because it has the same problems that plague Evercrack and Evercrack2 - the amount of money needed to buy very rare items that are farmed to death and sold on ebay. That's the same problem that drove me away from the other games... it wasn't about having fun in the game, it was about spending RL cash to get necessary gear. If I was interested in FFXI, I would've joined awhile back. I don't think there will be a mass influx of players racing to play FFXI on the xbox for that reason.
Then we get into a bunch of boring shooters. There's an FFA shooter - Quake... ho hum. There's some mission based shooters like Call of Duty and Ghost Recon 3. Rah rah, go army. Not interested.
What's missing from this list, at least to my knowledge, are some good platform based games. Like Conker or Whiplash! or Prince of Persia or Katamari Damacy. Or some medieval based strategy games like Pharoah. Or some traditional fantasy dungeon games like the Gauntlet Series or Baulder's Gate. Or even some really good fantasy fighter games like the well-done LOTR games. Or how about some strategy/story telling single player games, such as the Knights of the Old Republic or Deus Ex or Thief III?
There's just nothing here that makes me go "I must buy this platform! I must own this game!"
Heck, even Halo 3 is missing from the lineup... not that I liked Halo 2. I loved Halo 1, but found Halo 2 to be wayyy too boring in the indoor levels and difficult to see your enemies... I found myself straining too hard to make out shapes in the alien levels and to find the unmarked door in a maze of unmarked walls, and gave up.
Just one big gamer girl's 2 cents...
Oh, and for the love of god, please, give us an DDR Ultramix or Beatmania for the Xbox 360... I can't believe they pushed Ultramix 3 onto the old XBOX and didn't put it on the 360. Considering the number of sales that Ultramix 2 had, and the growing Xbox-based DDR fan-set, you would think they would try to court them on to the new platform....
Why was traipsing around in underpants included?
:)
Because it makes people like me laugh.
That was one of the first things I did in GTA... bought the heart shaped boxers, took off all the other clothes, got an afro, then did drive-by shootings while on a bicycle.
Because I could.
Because it made me laugh.
For the same reason, my characters in Baulder's Gate tend to run around naked... there's nothing funnier than a dwarf fighter, fighting rats, naked.
Why do people care over a fully clothed sex game?
I mean, GTA:Vice City had a strip bar you could purchase, where one objective of the game was to spend 30 minutes staring at a badly animated nude dancer. Totally nude, no pixelation, from all angles. Spend 30 minutes in there, and you unlocked the maximum potential of the strip club and got the most money from it.
I put my character in there, and walked the dog.... it wasn't worth watching. Neither is the "hot coffee" mod. Kids see more realistic flesh watching Baywatch on TV, than in a Rockstar game.
Me == idiot.
:)
All games these days are multithreaded.
I hit cancel on the post... but not fast enough
Today's games aren't multithreaded.
Wrong.
All threads these days are multithreaded.
Not all are optimized to use multiprocessors. Hyperthreading, etc.
But every single game made today is using more than one thread. In my own quick and dirty games, I have one for graphics, one for collision detection/motion, one for input, one for network data in, one for network data out. That makes 5 in a highly simplistic game. Most games have far, far more.
You know, I've been using Firefox for two years now, and I've only had ONE site complain about me not using IE. And that site was.... Microsoft Hotmail. Briefly. For about a week. Then it quit complaining.
I don't buy the whole "opera is hosed if they identify themselves as opera" line. A pro-IE website is not going to allow Firefox in but deny Opera. So there must not be lots of pro-IE restrictive websites out there.
I have two pc's, a ps2 and an xbox. I use all of them.
I can't hook my PC to my surround sound stereo system or my HDTV. I can't lounge on my sofa using a controller from my PC either. I have to hunch over a keyboard, mouse, and a flat surface for the mouse and a monitor for my PC.
So playing a shooter, or a puzzle game works better on the console. It's more enjoyable.
But playing something that requires a lot of type, or fine cursor control, work better on the computer. For example, The Sims (lots of mouse movements to make them go), Civ2 (shortcut keystrokes are the only way to play), StarCraft, Evercrack I & II, these all play better on a PC.
But if I'm playing Thief III, or Grand Theft Auto IV, or Halo, or Half-Life, or Doom, the tv's surround sound and the easy controller/joysticks work best with the Console.
The Xbox 360 is a new console. That's great. I'll certainly buy one shortly after launch.
But it's JUST a new console.
I saw the MTV Xbox 360 launch tv show and was amazed at how they hyped this thing up to be, gosh darn it, the next best thing since loosing my virginity. I mean, the one shot where they first reveal it to a crowd of screaming geeks, and it's up on a platform above the crowd, lit from above... that shot was nearly identical to the scene of the Jews worshiping the Golden Calf from Moses. I intoned to my husband, "We worship our new god! We worship our new god!" as the crowd screamed... he laughed, I didn't. It just pushed my awareness of hype from beyond "silly yet trying to get publicity" to "serously wierding me out".
I mean, it's just a game console. It will be a good game console. But in five years time, there will be a new game console to replace it. And so on in another five years. Technology marches on and we will continously be updating our consoles. This one is JUST a game console, heck, it won't even give me a hand job. Now if it came with a vibrator attachment... maybe I'd call it a revolution....
But seriously, game companies, lay off the insane hype. It's just a game console.
I disagree.
The extensions can be written by anyone, so it means a greater amount of freedom and flexibility for Firefox. For example, there is a FarkIt! Extension which makes easy quoting on Fark.com. And then there's a Bible quoting extension which allows you to quickly reference biblical references.
Now, I'm a Fark.com lover and an Athiest. Having the ability to choose which extensions I want allows me to select FarkIt! and Adblock without having to get Biblemania.
So I'm happy, the bible thumpers are happy, and if anyone else has an idea for a firefox feature they want to write, they can write their own extension and be happy... it works well.