Yeah, optimally you had to tweak some of the control defaults (which wasn't too hard to do) from the pause menu when you switched from planet based to space based missions... too much of a sense of "down" when you used autoroll etc...
I don't think "going home to play with my [SYSTEM]" is at all common. "going home to play some [SYSTEM]", maybe, and Wii doesn't sound all that dirty in that context. More often, "going home to play [specific game] for a while"
Not a terrible game but the world isn't that much fun to play around in by itself. The appeal of GTA as sandbox is the semi-realistic physics and world, and causing chaos in it. Simpsons might have nooks and crannies to explore, but there's definately something lacking as a "Cartoon GTA"
The secret to really getting the most out of the N64: Gaming Buddies. I was lucky enough to get one and be in a semi-communal living arrangement w/ 3 or 4 housemates who gamed, and man did it rock... that's besides great single player games like Mario 64, Starfox 64, Zelda:OoT and Majora's Mask...and those are just the famous ones.
Actually I was just thinking about how much,say, Z:OoT was to the original Legend of Zelda in so mcuh of its mechanic. It's a lot closer than, say, Mario 64 is to SMB or Metroid Prime is to Metroid, mostly because the original game had a 3/4 perspective that was pseudo-3D to begin with.
Its funny how use I've gotten to the name "Wii". I still see a few diehards making pee jokes or calling it "The Revolution", but I think most of us have come to accept it. It feels like it's part of the overall scheme to branch beyond the core market the same way the iPod (which should be an absolutely retarded name too, except we've grown used to it, and now it seems logical that a product that absolutely blows away all competition should have a name that seperates it from its function instead of connects) moved beyond audiophiles and die-hards who would carry a whole discman for their music anywhere.
"In New England, the literacy rate was over 50 percent during the first half of the 17th century, and it rose to 70 percent by 1710. By the time of the American Revolution, it was around 90 percent. This is seen by some as a side effect of the Puritan belief in the importance of Bible reading.
In the United States, one in seven people (more than 40 million people) can barely read a job offer or utility bill, which arguably makes them functionally illiterate"
Don't forget the importance of mathematical literacy, especially in thinking about how statistics can be recast. You're talking 90% literacy in 1776, vs 14% of the present population being "arguably functionally illiterate" And presumably, that's illiterate in English, and some of those people might be perfectly capable of functioning in their native languages.
Frankly I don't think it's basic literacy that's the core issue, it's that reading decent books is likely an aid to mental modeling and critical thinking. That's where the possible downside of new media comes to play. Like this slashdot conversation quoted,
[a] 7th-8th grade algebra teacher complained to me last night, "They can't figure anything out on their own. Even their video games don't teach them problem solving. It's all 'jump-jump-squat', over and over again."
PAL vs NTSC... do you think it's neccesarily the format, or just how the signal is getting to your place, signal strength and all that? The USA is a big place, so we switched to coax cable fairly early, and often the quality is really blah.
I'm just guessing though. I mostly know about PAL vs NTSC from programming for the Atari 2600...I know NTSC is "Never The Same Color", but it had a better framerate...
I guess it's taken from the GBA-SP, where it's ok because of the way you're holding your other fingers directly behind where your thumb goes. But try a game like Dr. Mario / Panel de Pon (I sprung for the import) and it never feels precise enough, too small and fiddley.
It's goofy, there are lots of pee and dick jokes possible, it's a weird bit of marketing and after a while it starts to sound right. It doesn't look like there's gonna be another course change before the thing is released.
Heh, it's interesting when you put the physical stuff "objectively" like that.
I'm still interested in how we probably co-evolved a shorter gestation period along w/ a society that could support more helpless infants, so womens hips could be narrower and easier to walk upright with, but still have smart kids.
Actually I'm one of those who thinks maybe C-sections are part of our un-natural evolution, but I'm willing to acknowledge the point is debatable.
Also, I kind of dig on the acquatic ape theory, or at least a watered-down (so to speak) form of it. But it ties in nicely with the general-purpose aspects of our physiology you so elequently describe.
"Intelligence is not the end-all be-all in evolution. Why are chimps not intelligent artisans like us? Maybe because they climb trees better than we do. Why not? They didn't need to pick up tool use, because they could out-climb all their predators, whereas we had to have a big ass club up in the tree with us because panthers could climb better."
I'm in strong agreement with you. I'd just suggest your exaple could be improved by then explaining that intelligence generally comes at a cost. In your example, it seems like intelligence would still be an advantage, a tree-climbing AND tool-using chimp would have a clear advantage, and you don't talk about the possible disadvantages would be... intelligence generally needs a bigger brain, bigger brains need more energy, their big skulls make big heads which complicate the birthing process, maybe the things that make it easier to weld a tool *do* make it more difficult to climb well, etc.
And assuming you buy a "common ancestor" theory you get into stuff like this subpopulation had more panthers to deal with or whatever, or was in a place w/ fewer trees, etc, hence the split, but maybe thats going into too many specifics.
Doom isn't just graphical eye-candy... it's not cerebral but I wouldn't bill it as mindless either. It has frenetic gameplay and some serious tactically tough situations.
Actually DOOM worked beause of an interesting graphical compromises, especially the use of sprites, which let it feel the screen w/ enemies (and then leave their corpses behind) in a way later all-polygon games couldn't generally match...
On the other hand, unless it's all smoke and mirrors, Spore has got to be using a huge chunk of horsepower to keep track of the galaxy the player is messing about in... any individual piece of graphics may be "ok", but the whole issue of scale means this is NOT something that would run on, say, an N64...
(the Mortal Kombat incident on the SNES stained them with a "kiddy" label that they're just now managing to get rid of)
I'm a dedicated fanboy, but come on...SNES MK may have emphasized a kind of censorship theme, but the kiddy-ness is in HUUGE part of cartoon-iness of the Mario universe.
Nintendo's issues w/ 3rd parties goes way back...the old seal of approval and lock out chip was them trying not to get flooded like Atari did the generation before. I think the N64/PSX thing was about Square/Enix and the expense of the media used... and for the past two generations, the N64 and GC haven't had huuuuge amounts of third party support but I don't think the situation is as ugly as people imply. For me, the saddest thing about it is that quirky games like Magic Pengel and Katamari gravitate towards the larger installed user base of Sony, even though they feel more like Nintendo-ish ideas.
Especially in the 80s, Nintendo was a bit "evil" (they had a very strained relationship with retailers, for instance) but now, they seem to be doing their thing, and with the Wii it may be poised to pay off in spades.
Nintendo isn't just like Apple...it's a bit like Honda, a smaller company w/ innovative ideas (like that walking robot and what not), and one that will always have a devoted following, even if the numbers for a given generation aren't up to the level of Toyota/Sony...
"E.T."... you mean the legendary flop for the Atari 2600?
It was also out for the GBA, PS, PS2, etc...but not for the NES.
And yes, people often do remember the 2600 for "E.T."...especially the landfill bit. Funny thing is it's not that terrible of a game, though it has its annoyances.
Maybe it wasn't the Hydrogen but the coating on the fabric... personally I think that disaster has given Hydrogen an undeserved bad rep when it comes to nextgen fuel options. (hell, if someone described how dangerous the stuff we fill our cars with now can be to us for a new fuel, it would never get adopted.)
Heh, I usually like slate.com, but their recent article Love Thy PlayStation, Love Thyself Why you should make a $500 game console your life partner. was a bit over the top.... sure it was tongue in cheek (I don't think they're really arguing it's more cost effective than a good marriage) but it's kind of weird how they ignore Nintendo and lump Xbox 360 with the PS2 and TurboGrafx 16...
"The PS3, after all, has been built expressly to keep mind-blowing novelty coming and coming and coming. Periodic infusions of novelty--new games--will keep the endorphins flowing."
Uh, yeah.
Anyway, I hope the PS3 blows up in Sony's face... it's a lame-ass way to try and subsidize a win in a format war. At least they finally aren't limited to 2 controllers w/o a multitap....
While the GameCube was a gigantic disappointment (largely because memory cards are one generation too old),
Uhh... dude, it was the lack of support from 3rd parties, and relatively few new franchisey games (Pikmin, and moving Metroid into 3D) that was a kind of bummber about the GC. Still my favorite system of that generation, because of the multiplayer.
But really, I don't think memory cards entered into it for most people.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I remember what you mean.
Yeah, optimally you had to tweak some of the control defaults (which wasn't too hard to do) from the pause menu when you switched from planet based to space based missions... too much of a sense of "down" when you used autoroll etc...
I don't think "going home to play with my [SYSTEM]" is at all common. "going home to play some [SYSTEM]", maybe, and Wii doesn't sound all that dirty in that context. More often, "going home to play [specific game] for a while"
Not a terrible game but the world isn't that much fun to play around in by itself. The appeal of GTA as sandbox is the semi-realistic physics and world, and causing chaos in it. Simpsons might have nooks and crannies to explore, but there's definately something lacking as a "Cartoon GTA"
the name "iPod" is just as retarded. You're just used to it. And there are fewer pee jokes is all.
The secret to really getting the most out of the N64: Gaming Buddies. I was lucky enough to get one and be in a semi-communal living arrangement w/ 3 or 4 housemates who gamed, and man did it rock... that's besides great single player games like Mario 64, Starfox 64, Zelda:OoT and Majora's Mask...and those are just the famous ones.
Rogue Squadrons controls sucked? Except for maybe the D-pad suff, I don't see it. I've never heard that criticism before.
Super Monkey Ball was a must have on opening day if you're into multiplayer.
Actually I was just thinking about how much,say, Z:OoT was to the original Legend of Zelda in so mcuh of its mechanic. It's a lot closer than, say, Mario 64 is to SMB or Metroid Prime is to Metroid, mostly because the original game had a 3/4 perspective that was pseudo-3D to begin with.
Its funny how use I've gotten to the name "Wii". I still see a few diehards making pee jokes or calling it "The Revolution", but I think most of us have come to accept it. It feels like it's part of the overall scheme to branch beyond the core market the same way the iPod (which should be an absolutely retarded name too, except we've grown used to it, and now it seems logical that a product that absolutely blows away all competition should have a name that seperates it from its function instead of connects) moved beyond audiophiles and die-hards who would carry a whole discman for their music anywhere.
Oh yeah, because 1991 had absolutely no "jump jump squat" games ;-)
I think the question is, how clever were students, say, circa 1977?
In the United States, one in seven people (more than 40 million people) can barely read a job offer or utility bill, which arguably makes them functionally illiterate"
Don't forget the importance of mathematical literacy, especially in thinking about how statistics can be recast. You're talking 90% literacy in 1776, vs 14% of the present population being "arguably functionally illiterate" And presumably, that's illiterate in English, and some of those people might be perfectly capable of functioning in their native languages.
Frankly I don't think it's basic literacy that's the core issue, it's that reading decent books is likely an aid to mental modeling and critical thinking. That's where the possible downside of new media comes to play. Like this slashdot conversation quoted,
PAL vs NTSC... do you think it's neccesarily the format, or just how the signal is getting to your place, signal strength and all that? The USA is a big place, so we switched to coax cable fairly early, and often the quality is really blah.
I'm just guessing though. I mostly know about PAL vs NTSC from programming for the Atari 2600...I know NTSC is "Never The Same Color", but it had a better framerate...
With one exception: the D-pad is too small!
I guess it's taken from the GBA-SP, where it's ok because of the way you're holding your other fingers directly behind where your thumb goes. But try a game like Dr. Mario / Panel de Pon (I sprung for the import) and it never feels precise enough, too small and fiddley.
In game advertising is garbage. It's nothing but yet another scheme to squeeze out every last penny from our pockets.
They're not squeezing it from your pockets, they're squeezing it from your attention span.
Get over the damn name.
It's goofy, there are lots of pee and dick jokes possible, it's a weird bit of marketing and after a while it starts to sound right. It doesn't look like there's gonna be another course change before the thing is released.
Heh, it's interesting when you put the physical stuff "objectively" like that.
I'm still interested in how we probably co-evolved a shorter gestation period along w/ a society that could support more helpless infants, so womens hips could be narrower and easier to walk upright with, but still have smart kids.
Actually I'm one of those who thinks maybe C-sections are part of our un-natural evolution, but I'm willing to acknowledge the point is debatable.
Also, I kind of dig on the acquatic ape theory, or at least a watered-down (so to speak) form of it. But it ties in nicely with the general-purpose aspects of our physiology you so elequently describe.
"Intelligence is not the end-all be-all in evolution. Why are chimps not intelligent artisans like us? Maybe because they climb trees better than we do. Why not? They didn't need to pick up tool use, because they could out-climb all their predators, whereas we had to have a big ass club up in the tree with us because panthers could climb better."
I'm in strong agreement with you. I'd just suggest your exaple could be improved by then explaining that intelligence generally comes at a cost. In your example, it seems like intelligence would still be an advantage, a tree-climbing AND tool-using chimp would have a clear advantage, and you don't talk about the possible disadvantages would be... intelligence generally needs a bigger brain, bigger brains need more energy, their big skulls make big heads which complicate the birthing process, maybe the things that make it easier to weld a tool *do* make it more difficult to climb well, etc.
And assuming you buy a "common ancestor" theory you get into stuff like this subpopulation had more panthers to deal with or whatever, or was in a place w/ fewer trees, etc, hence the split, but maybe thats going into too many specifics.
Does that apply to the USA, given its root in English law, or just England?
Anyway, part of the "clear path" I long for is tracking the assholes down...
I'm in the same boat. Fuckers. I can't believe there's not a clear path legal recourse for this kind of impersonation...
Doom isn't just graphical eye-candy... it's not cerebral but I wouldn't bill it as mindless either. It has frenetic gameplay and some serious tactically tough situations.
Actually DOOM worked beause of an interesting graphical compromises, especially the use of sprites, which let it feel the screen w/ enemies (and then leave their corpses behind) in a way later all-polygon games couldn't generally match...
On the other hand, unless it's all smoke and mirrors, Spore has got to be using a huge chunk of horsepower to keep track of the galaxy the player is messing about in... any individual piece of graphics may be "ok", but the whole issue of scale means this is NOT something that would run on, say, an N64...
(the Mortal Kombat incident on the SNES stained them with a "kiddy" label that they're just now managing to get rid of)
I'm a dedicated fanboy, but come on...SNES MK may have emphasized a kind of censorship theme, but the kiddy-ness is in HUUGE part of cartoon-iness of the Mario universe.
Nintendo's issues w/ 3rd parties goes way back...the old seal of approval and lock out chip was them trying not to get flooded like Atari did the generation before. I think the N64/PSX thing was about Square/Enix and the expense of the media used... and for the past two generations, the N64 and GC haven't had huuuuge amounts of third party support but I don't think the situation is as ugly as people imply. For me, the saddest thing about it is that quirky games like Magic Pengel and Katamari gravitate towards the larger installed user base of Sony, even though they feel more like Nintendo-ish ideas.
Especially in the 80s, Nintendo was a bit "evil" (they had a very strained relationship with retailers, for instance) but now, they seem to be doing their thing, and with the Wii it may be poised to pay off in spades.
Nintendo isn't just like Apple...it's a bit like Honda, a smaller company w/ innovative ideas (like that walking robot and what not), and one that will always have a devoted following, even if the numbers for a given generation aren't up to the level of Toyota/Sony...
Good....maybe there's time to sneak in Sonic there and make EGM-inspired dreams come true...
"E.T."... you mean the legendary flop for the Atari 2600?
It was also out for the GBA, PS, PS2, etc...but not for the NES.
And yes, people often do remember the 2600 for "E.T."...especially the landfill bit. Funny thing is it's not that terrible of a game, though it has its annoyances.
Maybe it wasn't the Hydrogen but the coating on the fabric... personally I think that disaster has given Hydrogen an undeserved bad rep when it comes to nextgen fuel options.
(hell, if someone described how dangerous the stuff we fill our cars with now can be to us for a new fuel, it would never get adopted.)
Heh, I usually like slate.com, but their recent article Love Thy PlayStation, Love Thyself
Why you should make a $500 game console your life partner. was a bit over the top.... sure it was tongue in cheek (I don't think they're really arguing it's more cost effective than a good marriage) but it's kind of weird how they ignore Nintendo and lump Xbox 360 with the PS2 and TurboGrafx 16...
"The PS3, after all, has been built expressly to keep mind-blowing novelty coming and coming and coming. Periodic infusions of novelty--new games--will keep the endorphins flowing."
Uh, yeah.
Anyway, I hope the PS3 blows up in Sony's face... it's a lame-ass way to try and subsidize a win in a format war. At least they finally aren't limited to 2 controllers w/o a multitap....
While the GameCube was a gigantic disappointment (largely because memory cards are one generation too old),
Uhh... dude, it was the lack of support from 3rd parties, and relatively few new franchisey games (Pikmin, and moving Metroid into 3D) that was a kind of bummber about the GC. Still my favorite system of that generation, because of the multiplayer.
But really, I don't think memory cards entered into it for most people.