When did they start calling it the "Duke" controller? First time I remember hearing it called that was this morning's "what went right/wrong with the xbox" article. Before that it was just the "original controller" aka "oversized monstrosity"
Well, to a rational mind it wouldn't matter so much but these guys were more strangelove than rational.
I guess that was the "beauty" of MAD...they knew if they reacted to a non-existent first strike, they would very like get a very real retalitory strike right on their heads.
If it weren't for two humans who said "fuck what the computer says!", we might be in a very different place right now.
Good point. (Coversely, if either had been some kind of sneak attack, the side with the guy who hesitated would be more screwed).
I wonder about those red phones...isn't this the ultimate in gamesmanship? Would the USSR just say "what? no, no, no missles headed your way, must be some kind of glitch..."
I just finished "Mercenaries"...I didn't realize the same company did "Clone Wars". Both were very enjoyable "arcadey" type military games with a lot of asplodin' action. I think now I'm definately going to check out "Destroy All Humans"...
What's this Elevated thing? Just some kind of holding company?
Two cents in: The article mains concern seems to be that Google's making money off of this stuff. It handwaves that "snippets" aren't well defined, and suggests they could be as large as a whole book. I call BS on that.
The article completely bypasses the #1 thing Google is doing with this service...allowing people to FIND OUT what they're looking for in the first place. As long as they don't give away the whole shebang, I can't see why the authors find it so onerous.
The thing is, while the sequels to the Matrix and Star Wars and what not don't come near the excellence of the earlier films, they do tend to be more interesting than a lot of the other stuff out there. How much of that is just "hangover" from the early works and how much is how they actually stand on their own merits is debatable, but it's true. For instance, there aren't too many places to get big, epic spaceship battles on screen these days...."Sith" was one, "Serenity" had a bit of it, that's about it...
The flipside of that was that sprite games didn't have to clear away the corpses to make room for more bad guys, so you could leave bodies like a trail of breadcrumbs to remember where you've been.
A surprising # of FPSes still follow an NES-like "blink blink blink, bye bye body".
The first indie game jam took this idea to an extreme...they realized a modern machine could churn out 100,000 sprites without busting a sweat, and then gave some developers 4 days to see what they could do with that much muchness.
My memory aid is a little odder, but is better geared to my mind: (I think my subconcsious mind came up with this actually)
e.g. = for example. --remembered because the "f" in "for example" is the letter between e and g i.e. = that is --remembered because the "i" matches the "i" in "that is"...there's no "i" at all in "for example"
This may seem a little clutzy at first, but its incredibly easy to rewire your brain to follow.
What are the primary disadvantages to INI files vs Registry?
I'd say, off the top of my head and with a tiny bit of googling 1. can't store binary stuff 2. data isn't cross apps 3. multiuser issues (vs one INI per app)
I dunno, it doesn't look as if Palm is doing anything as good as the thirdparties used to...the Sony Clie SJ22 (same demographic as the Z22) had a 320*320 screen, which was Sony's default, even on their cheapest B+W models. Plus Palm is confused about form factors...crude sexual jokes aside, they focus solely on the thickness, as opposed to the side to side width. The Tungsten's weren't very good to hold, kind of cutting into your outstretched hand, but the SJ22 felt much better, thicker but not as wide. (Of course it limits the size of the screen, but still.)
Ah well. I just Ebay'd up that Samsung clamshell Palm/phone...Palm/Treo doesn't understand the beauty of clamshell design either.
I've been a Palm loyalist since 1997, but even to me it's clear the future ain't so bright for the brand and the nice little UI.
As an amateur with pretensions of mediocrity, your RTFM recommendation is right on. I think I limped by with a half-understanding of even the limited manual settings on my S200. (Couldn't directly control the shutter speed I think)
And the S200 delay was noticeable even when I was taking the photo, sometimes it was awkwared where I'd have to go wait for it...wait for it... but it sounds as if they've dealt with that and have some nifty rapid-fire modes...and for the first time I'll start looking into the speed of memory. (Also, I wonder if I should consider sticking with ~2megapixel modes...I guess you never know what you might want to blow up, but I'm not much of an image quality queen...given that these images are higher resolution than my 19" screen, that seems pretty good to me!)
I see it for $300 on Amazon vs $350 at the local places. I wonder if local retailers would pricematch something like that...I'd use Froogle (they really need a sanity check for "sort by price"...I hate wading through pages of lowcost accesrories 'til I finally find the product itself) though I'm worried about the reputations of some of those independent store front shops.
I've been thinking of upgrading from my old reliable S200...I've definately taken some nice looking shots...
Specifically, though, sometimes there's an aggravatingly long delay when you first press the button to when it finally focuses and fires...enough so that a friendly stranger using my camera to take a picture of me starts to wonder if its going to work at all...how is the SD400 in that department?
Fair enough. I find the GC relatively ok for that kind of solo gaming, though obviously it's well supplemented by other systems.
Most non-creativity-based (ala Pictionary) table games bore me, I suck at pool, and just don't get my act together enough to head out to darts. "Party Gaming" and the accompanying trash talk are just about my favorite form of gaming...
Re:alternative name for product
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State of the 360
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· Score: 1
None of those games you mention really provide worlds gamers are likely to WANT to run around in. The vehicle, pedestrian, and weapon variety in the GTA series makes it a crowd favorite in a way I haven't seen duplicated...watching people find stunts or try to run from a high wanted level makes for some great entertainment. I mean, hell, you can generally run arond the world of tons of puzzle platformers and the like, even the somewhat linear ones...you just have no reason to.
Nintendo seem to have the edge on 4 player games though Xbox was right behind...and had Live to boot.
PS2 had, for me, GTA series plus a big pile of shovelware, for a lot of its lifespan, and then it got better. Katamari, Ico, Eye Toy, a few others. In general though a less interesting system than the other 2.
But YMMV. It really depends on the genres that you get into.
Nobody but GC has Rogue Squadron or Smash Brothers or Mario Kart though...mm mm good!
You know, we've grown used to used games and cds alongside the new stuff, around here at Gamestop, EB, and Newbury Comics...it was kind of a gradual process, but if you took someone to one of these stores in like the early 90s, could you imagine how damn ghetto it would seem, how skanky and strange to have this used crap you just don't know the history of alongside the shiny shrinkwrapped fresh new stuff?
Of course, sellers who sell new and used don't make the new feel new anymore, often just having the empty box on the shelf with the goodies behind the counter..."new in shrinkwrap" just ain't what it used to be even if you want to avoid used!
I don't know about the "used games increase the value of new games by adding resale possibilities" vs "used games screw over game developers". I'm pragmatic, heading for new when it's a new release and/or the cost differential is small, otherwise used.
Well, the N64 was the first system to have 4 controller ports built in, and generally had a lot more 4 player support than the PSX and its multitap...besides Mario Party, Mario Kart and Smash Bros (which were tremendous triumphs of multiplayer gaming) there was Mario Tennis and Golf, a mode in Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, F-Zero X, and a bunch of third party support for it, like BattleTanx, many racers, weird stuff like Buck Bumble, etc. 'Til DC and later Xbox, Nintendo was pretty much the only "couch" gaming option in town.
It's kind of a tangent, but...I think "local" multiplayer is almost a whole 'nother animal than online.
For what little I've dabbled with it I find online irritating, full of highly skilled jerks and also cheaters and I can't always tell one from the other.
"Couch" gaming is my favorite, keeping it social, knowing who you're gaming against. It's like a making love in a committed relationship vs. anonymous sex in a restroom.
That's really a shame, because that was just about everything I was looking for in a "travel laptop". Plus, it's so cheap that if it gets damage/destroyed, I don't feel so bad.
Yeah, I'm considering going back to a Palm IIIc with seperate clamshell GoType keyboard, over the otherwise superior (yet still oldish) Clie I have, because my real laptop just isn't rugged and light enough for the kind of notetaking anywhere I used to do.
The GBA's zero backlight was tough in many situatios... but the SP seemed to nail that problem right out of the gate. I hope there isn't a battery drawback, because then it is just gratuitous.
One of my favorite things to help temper yet revel in my anger is to string a continuous stream of curses without repeating inside the stream. For some reason "jesus mother fucking christ on a god damn piece of shit syphilitic crutch" comes up frequently when I do that.
At the risk of Not Getting It... What's so exciting about either of these announcements? How the hell will UMD "save hollywood"? Right now PSP feels more like a niche item, limiting yourself to that audience doesn't seem like a big win. What do UMDs offer over DVD? Anything besides formfactor, and maybe format-specific goodies if the movie maker feels like throwing Sony a bone?
As for the PSP game lineup...rouhgly speaking, I think only a few genres work well on handhelds, genres where the portability makes up for the small screen and other sacrifices....5 minute sit-and-plays, and longer RPGs. PSP might have the RPG market for handhelds going into the future, but...
I do think people who dismiss GTA as a series are missing out on something, I think its use of challenging missions set in a sim-city-ish world (one that seems to follow its own agenda, rather than being prelayed out for the game designers' convenience), with mayhem of the violent and stunt variety is unique; I can't think of another game that matches it, but given that its going to be done better on the consoles, it's not a killer app.
I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but I really expected PSP to mop the floor with the DS, especially after trying to play Super Mario 64 with that stupid nub-on-touchscreen setup...it desperately needs an analogish controller ala the PSP (hmm...the SNES-like GBA lacks 2 of the SNES buttons, the N64-like DS lacks the N64 analog stick...) But I think Nintendo has the smarts when it comes to pick up and play gaming...one area where the commitment to cartridges finally payed off:-)
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When did they start calling it the "Duke" controller? First time I remember hearing it called that was this morning's "what went right/wrong with the xbox" article. Before that it was just the "original controller" aka "oversized monstrosity"
Well, to a rational mind it wouldn't matter so much but these guys were more strangelove than rational.
I guess that was the "beauty" of MAD...they knew if they reacted to a non-existent first strike, they would very like get a very real retalitory strike right on their heads.
If it weren't for two humans who said "fuck what the computer says!", we might be in a very different place right now.
Good point. (Coversely, if either had been some kind of sneak attack, the side with the guy who hesitated would be more screwed).
I wonder about those red phones...isn't this the ultimate in gamesmanship? Would the USSR just say "what? no, no, no missles headed your way, must be some kind of glitch..."
Yeah, it would be cool if monopoly-ish Microsoft could kind of justify its existence with a Bell Labs type semi-pure research facility...
I just finished "Mercenaries"...I didn't realize the same company did "Clone Wars". Both were very enjoyable "arcadey" type military games with a lot of asplodin' action. I think now I'm definately going to check out "Destroy All Humans"...
What's this Elevated thing? Just some kind of holding company?
Two cents in:
The article mains concern seems to be that Google's making money off of this stuff. It handwaves that "snippets" aren't well defined, and suggests they could be as large as a whole book. I call BS on that.
The article completely bypasses the #1 thing Google is doing with this service...allowing people to FIND OUT what they're looking for in the first place. As long as they don't give away the whole shebang, I can't see why the authors find it so onerous.
The thing is, while the sequels to the Matrix and Star Wars and what not don't come near the excellence of the earlier films, they do tend to be more interesting than a lot of the other stuff out there. How much of that is just "hangover" from the early works and how much is how they actually stand on their own merits is debatable, but it's true. For instance, there aren't too many places to get big, epic spaceship battles on screen these days...."Sith" was one, "Serenity" had a bit of it, that's about it...
Dead on about the sprites.
The flipside of that was that sprite games didn't have to clear away the corpses to make room for more bad guys, so you could leave bodies like a trail of breadcrumbs to remember where you've been.
A surprising # of FPSes still follow an NES-like "blink blink blink, bye bye body".
The first indie game jam took this idea to an extreme...they realized a modern machine could churn out 100,000 sprites without busting a sweat, and then gave some developers 4 days to see what they could do with that much muchness.
My memory aid is a little odder, but is better geared to my mind: (I think my subconcsious mind came up with this actually)
e.g. = for example.
--remembered because the "f" in "for example" is the letter between e and g
i.e. = that is
--remembered because the "i" matches the "i" in "that is"...there's no "i" at all in "for example"
This may seem a little clutzy at first, but its incredibly easy to rewire your brain to follow.
Does the slimline have heating issues? Guy at the local indy game shop said overheats after 2 hours, but I hadn't heard much about it.
What are the primary disadvantages to INI files vs Registry?
I'd say, off the top of my head and with a tiny bit of googling
1. can't store binary stuff
2. data isn't cross apps
3. multiuser issues (vs one INI per app)
I dunno, it doesn't look as if Palm is doing anything as good as the thirdparties used to...the Sony Clie SJ22 (same demographic as the Z22) had a 320*320 screen, which was Sony's default, even on their cheapest B+W models. Plus Palm is confused about form factors...crude sexual jokes aside, they focus solely on the thickness, as opposed to the side to side width. The Tungsten's weren't very good to hold, kind of cutting into your outstretched hand, but the SJ22 felt much better, thicker but not as wide. (Of course it limits the size of the screen, but still.)
Ah well. I just Ebay'd up that Samsung clamshell Palm/phone...Palm/Treo doesn't understand the beauty of clamshell design either.
I've been a Palm loyalist since 1997, but even to me it's clear the future ain't so bright for the brand and the nice little UI.
Thanks for the response.
As an amateur with pretensions of mediocrity, your RTFM recommendation is right on. I think I limped by with a half-understanding of even the limited manual settings on my S200. (Couldn't directly control the shutter speed I think)
And the S200 delay was noticeable even when I was taking the photo, sometimes it was awkwared where I'd have to go wait for it...wait for it... but it sounds as if they've dealt with that and have some nifty rapid-fire modes...and for the first time I'll start looking into the speed of memory. (Also, I wonder if I should consider sticking with ~2megapixel modes...I guess you never know what you might want to blow up, but I'm not much of an image quality queen...given that these images are higher resolution than my 19" screen, that seems pretty good to me!)
I see it for $300 on Amazon vs $350 at the local places. I wonder if local retailers would pricematch something like that...I'd use Froogle (they really need a sanity check for "sort by price"...I hate wading through pages of lowcost accesrories 'til I finally find the product itself) though I'm worried about the reputations of some of those independent store front shops.
How do you like the SD400?
I've been thinking of upgrading from my old reliable S200...I've definately taken some nice looking shots...
Specifically, though, sometimes there's an aggravatingly long delay when you first press the button to when it finally focuses and fires...enough so that a friendly stranger using my camera to take a picture of me starts to wonder if its going to work at all...how is the SD400 in that department?
Fair enough. I find the GC relatively ok for that kind of solo gaming, though obviously it's well supplemented by other systems.
Most non-creativity-based (ala Pictionary) table games bore me, I suck at pool, and just don't get my act together enough to head out to darts. "Party Gaming" and the accompanying trash talk are just about my favorite form of gaming...
None of those games you mention really provide worlds gamers are likely to WANT to run around in. The vehicle, pedestrian, and weapon variety in the GTA series makes it a crowd favorite in a way I haven't seen duplicated...watching people find stunts or try to run from a high wanted level makes for some great entertainment. I mean, hell, you can generally run arond the world of tons of puzzle platformers and the like, even the somewhat linear ones...you just have no reason to.
DC shoutout: Bangai-O!!!!
You pay youse dime, youse takes yer chances.
I have all three systems.
Nintendo seem to have the edge on 4 player games though Xbox was right behind...and had Live to boot.
PS2 had, for me, GTA series plus a big pile of shovelware, for a lot of its lifespan, and then it got better. Katamari, Ico, Eye Toy, a few others. In general though a less interesting system than the other 2.
But YMMV. It really depends on the genres that you get into.
Nobody but GC has Rogue Squadron or Smash Brothers or Mario Kart though...mm mm good!
Perhaps. Until then, just eat your Cheerios and pretend.
You know, we've grown used to used games and cds alongside the new stuff, around here at Gamestop, EB, and Newbury Comics...it was kind of a gradual process, but if you took someone to one of these stores in like the early 90s, could you imagine how damn ghetto it would seem, how skanky and strange to have this used crap you just don't know the history of alongside the shiny shrinkwrapped fresh new stuff?
Of course, sellers who sell new and used don't make the new feel new anymore, often just having the empty box on the shelf with the goodies behind the counter..."new in shrinkwrap" just ain't what it used to be even if you want to avoid used!
I don't know about the "used games increase the value of new games by adding resale possibilities" vs "used games screw over game developers". I'm pragmatic, heading for new when it's a new release and/or the cost differential is small, otherwise used.
Well, the N64 was the first system to have 4 controller ports built in, and generally had a lot more 4 player support than the PSX and its multitap...besides Mario Party, Mario Kart and Smash Bros (which were tremendous triumphs of multiplayer gaming) there was Mario Tennis and Golf, a mode in Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, F-Zero X, and a bunch of third party support for it, like BattleTanx, many racers, weird stuff like Buck Bumble, etc. 'Til DC and later Xbox, Nintendo was pretty much the only "couch" gaming option in town.
It's kind of a tangent, but...I think "local" multiplayer is almost a whole 'nother animal than online.
For what little I've dabbled with it I find online irritating, full of highly skilled jerks and also cheaters and I can't always tell one from the other.
"Couch" gaming is my favorite, keeping it social, knowing who you're gaming against. It's like a making love in a committed relationship vs. anonymous sex in a restroom.
That's really a shame, because that was just about everything I was looking for in a "travel laptop". Plus, it's so cheap that if it gets damage/destroyed, I don't feel so bad.
Yeah, I'm considering going back to a Palm IIIc with seperate clamshell GoType keyboard, over the otherwise superior (yet still oldish) Clie I have, because my real laptop just isn't rugged and light enough for the kind of notetaking anywhere I used to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
The GBA's zero backlight was tough in many situatios...
but the SP seemed to nail that problem right out of the gate. I hope there isn't a battery drawback, because then it is just gratuitous.
One of my favorite things to help temper yet revel in my anger is to string a continuous stream of curses without repeating inside the stream. For some reason "jesus mother fucking christ on a god damn piece of shit syphilitic crutch" comes up frequently when I do that.
At the risk of Not Getting It...
:-)
What's so exciting about either of these announcements? How the hell will UMD "save hollywood"? Right now PSP feels more like a niche item, limiting yourself to that audience doesn't seem like a big win. What do UMDs offer over DVD? Anything besides formfactor, and maybe format-specific goodies if the movie maker feels like throwing Sony a bone?
As for the PSP game lineup...rouhgly speaking, I think only a few genres work well on handhelds, genres where the portability makes up for the small screen and other sacrifices....5 minute sit-and-plays, and longer RPGs. PSP might have the RPG market for handhelds going into the future, but...
I do think people who dismiss GTA as a series are missing out on something, I think its use of challenging missions set in a sim-city-ish world (one that seems to follow its own agenda, rather than being prelayed out for the game designers' convenience), with mayhem of the violent and stunt variety is unique; I can't think of another game that matches it, but given that its going to be done better on the consoles, it's not a killer app.
I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but I really expected PSP to mop the floor with the DS, especially after trying to play Super Mario 64 with that stupid nub-on-touchscreen setup...it desperately needs an analogish controller ala the PSP (hmm...the SNES-like GBA lacks 2 of the SNES buttons, the N64-like DS lacks the N64 analog stick...) But I think Nintendo has the smarts when it comes to pick up and play gaming...one area where the commitment to cartridges finally payed off