I just wish they'd get to a USA release of that Puzzle Collection for GC, with four player Panel de Pon! (Rather it be the less fairyriffic Tetris Attack, but whatever), not to mention Yoshi's Cookie and Dr. Mario.
Yeah, I know I was reading the gaming section. But even for gaming nerds...does this game have some kind of big reputation? Vic Ribbon and some of those other do, but I assume there's tons of odd Japanese games, some of which get ported. (And some are pretty good; Seek and Destroy and to a lesser extent Road Trip were both pretty nifty)
IF the PSP can really deliver this kinda quality then WOW. Fuck battery life, fuck price. I can carry extra batteries. I can always sell my body to science. BUT I GOTTA HAVE IT.
I'm sure there are a lot of Game Gear, Lynx, TurboGrafx Express, etc users who agree with you.
Eh, who knows. Nintendo used to have mroe brand power than it does now; if Sony allows sufficient ports, maybe you have a point. But Nintendo knows how to make fun games in a small screen; there's always the chance that some direct PS2 ports wouldn't play nearly as well...
I know I'm coming late to the party but I'd really like an answer:
"The biggest IT job category--computer software engineers--grew to 816,000, up from 757,000 in 2000, a nearly 8% increase"
"The bulk of the IT workforce loss occurred among computer scientists-systems analysts, programmers, and support specialists"
Ok. What's the difference, technically, between "computer software engineer" and "programmer"? I use "software engineer" when I'm feeling pretentious, "programmer" when I'm not. I think both titles involve design and implementation.
I hope it's that subtle, but when they talk about the learning new combat moves and what not, keeping buff in the gym and eatin' right...I dunno. Even if it's far short of a complete RPG conversion it could be annoying.
For most people, the end of Vice City might be owning every property, playing every mission, and getting the health-150 and armor-150. Run w/o tiring, being fireproof, all those other things are very hard to get. An armoury at each house speeds things up, but you could still get decent weapons once you knew where to go. (also, by the time you unlock everything, you've probably played thhrough the missions, so it's just stuff you have around 'for fun'...)
Is there actually a decent version of it for home use? I'd like to see it and Space Ace, but the article makes it sound like there's no passable home version out there...
Like I said before, your anecodtal observations mean VERY LITTLE. I know more people with a GC than w/ a PS2, but that doesn't mean there are more GCs out there. (And it's not a younger gamer thing...I'm 30 and most of my friends are in the same ballpark.)
I have all 3 consoles...GC is the only one that gets regular play, but that's probably because of my interest in multiplayer games. Or it's easier to lug around...Xbox is pretty good w/ Halo and Crimson Skies and Fusion Frenzy. PS2, except for a few oddball games, my main reason of still keeping it is to have GTA...
Anyway. I don't know why that "gee, my buddies don't have a GC, they must not sell" line bugs me so much.
I thought from an A/V standpoint, Pac-Man still stands tall. It looks great, cool music and sound effects...not only is the gameplay solid (and the GC's PacMan Vs. is fantastic fun for 4 people) but I really think its blue on black board and overall look stands the test of time.
I saw a few Yellow Red Green games, I think maybe the version of Boulder Dash? Dunno.
Is Peasant's Quest going to make it past the preview stage? I thought it was just a gag. I know they are making that RPG for the Atari 2600 for real...
Too much damn collecting, but DK64 had some excellent boss fights...maybe Rare realized the dichotomy, because once you beat a boss you could select the fight from a menu off of the title screen. So I give them some kudos for that.
i've heard this argument from Graphics whores more than once, i'd probably say this is the biggest argument against the PS2, but in all reality, it just doesn't hold up. it has been proven time and time again that Graphics != Gameplay. For example, Nethack is still one of the most beloved games of all time and is still widely played, its still just ASCII (the way the hardcore play it anyways).
Yeah, but its not just graphics....I've heard things like the "cars disappear when your back is turned" gameplay ties in directly with the limitations of the PS2. It really puts a crimp in what otherwise feels like a decent simulation.
And damn it, I wish Microsoft would lure Rockstar to make the next GTA an Xbox exclusive... historically, Sony has always had 1 or 2 games I like per system, and that's it.
I'm hoping you're right friend, but I'm really worried Rockstar might be blowing it: While completing missions and visiting the different locales in a city will all work toward helping you to become the man in GTA: San Andreas, your actions will also help build CJ up via an RPG-like system in the game. For example, shooting guns will gradually increase CJ's weapon skills, thus making him more and more accurate
One of the coolest things about 3 and VC were how your character wasn't different at the end as he was at the begining. Maybe you had the armor and/or health bonus, you had more cash, and you either had weapons or knew where to get some good hardware. That was it. It made for a tremendous pick up and play game, you didn't much care what savegame you were at, beause YOU WERE ALWAYS THE SAME GUY.
But this crap? I don't want to worry about this junk. I just want to get through and see the game, working on my own skills as a player, not my player's skill witihin the game.
This really, really annoys me. Msybe they'll pull it off, and I hope so, but I think in trying to make the game "deeper" they may screw it up for the casual players...GTA:VC was one of the few 1-player "party" games I had just 'cause it was so fun for a N00B to pick up and play, and made for great public viewing...
Then I got a copy of Simpsons: Hit and Run, which is basically the exact same play-style as GTA games, but without any violence
Well, I do kind of get a kick out of the violence, but it's not the violence alone that makes Simpsons fall flat for me...the game just doesn't have the depths of things to do. GTA really hit a sweet spot between cartoony and realistic in terms of its driving and what not, and S H+R just lacks that.
I've always loved "party games"...on PC the usual issue is the controls...
I remember playing a port "Rampart" in college, around 1992 or so...one player on mouse, one on keyboard, one on joystick...and the mouse player had a HUGE advantage.
I guess now, you can just get 6 cheap USB gamepads and a few of those USB splitter ports? Is that how it usually works?
I think you're letting the mechanics of what's plausible today have too much influence over what should be possible in a decade or so.
You want tasks done. You can describe these tasks with a certain amount of precision in English. A smart computer can fill in the gaps, rely on a library of what other people have wanted to do in the past and how, ask questions where you're being ambiguous, etc.
What'll be interesting, if a long way off, is when they get plain English development.
Now, there's a lot of reasons why this is a tough problem; English is tremendously less precise than a computer language, and a computer would need a GREAT deal of common sense before being able to make good sense of our high level spoken descriptions.
But still...so many programming tasks are really 95% "lather, rinse, repeat", and we're striving to get Design Patterns in place for much of the rest. It really makes me wonder......then again I wonder if it would be fun to make a shell that used something like Infocom's "INFORM" parser...actually, wire that up to some speech recognition, and you'd have something interesting. Not neccesarily super-useful or more effecient than the tried-and-true-UIs, but interesting.
For the history buffs, I think COBOL was one attempt to bridge spoken "Businessese" and computer code. I don't know a ton about it but I think it might ultimately be an underrated attempt... (for a while, all computers were financial (base 10 for its math, usually) or scientific (binary)...over time, the scientific approach 'won out', probably because it was easier for the scientific side to emulate the business side than vice versa, or maybe because the attention span of geeks is more important than who's writing big checks. Anyway, today's Unix culture is firmly from that scientific tradition, dot com boom not withstanding...
Thus endeth the less-than-full-assed history lesson and speculation about where this stuff will end up...
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I just wish they'd get to a USA release of that Puzzle Collection for GC, with four player Panel de Pon! (Rather it be the less fairyriffic Tetris Attack, but whatever), not to mention Yoshi's Cookie and Dr. Mario.
Seriously, I wonder what the hell the hold up is.
Yeah, I know I was reading the gaming section. But even for gaming nerds...does this game have some kind of big reputation? Vic Ribbon and some of those other do, but I assume there's tons of odd Japanese games, some of which get ported. (And some are pretty good; Seek and Destroy and to a lesser extent Road Trip were both pretty nifty)
Maybe I don't know quite what the mandate for this topic is, but does an announcement of a new, fairly obscure game really qualify as News for Nerds?
IF the PSP can really deliver this kinda quality then WOW. Fuck battery life, fuck price. I can carry extra batteries. I can always sell my body to science. BUT I GOTTA HAVE IT.
I'm sure there are a lot of Game Gear, Lynx, TurboGrafx Express, etc users who agree with you.
Eh, who knows. Nintendo used to have mroe brand power than it does now; if Sony allows sufficient ports, maybe you have a point. But Nintendo knows how to make fun games in a small screen; there's always the chance that some direct PS2 ports wouldn't play nearly as well...
I know I'm coming late to the party but I'd really like an answer:
"The biggest IT job category--computer software engineers--grew to 816,000, up from 757,000 in 2000, a nearly 8% increase"
"The bulk of the IT workforce loss occurred among computer scientists-systems analysts, programmers, and support specialists"
Ok. What's the difference, technically, between "computer software engineer" and "programmer"? I use "software engineer" when I'm feeling pretentious, "programmer" when I'm not. I think both titles involve design and implementation.
Any guesses?
I gotta ask...what's your skillset that's in such hot demand? What's your resume like, how hard have you been looking?
Which decision?
I hope it's that subtle, but when they talk about the learning new combat moves and what not, keeping buff in the gym and eatin' right...I dunno. Even if it's far short of a complete RPG conversion it could be annoying.
For most people, the end of Vice City might be owning every property, playing every mission, and getting the health-150 and armor-150. Run w/o tiring, being fireproof, all those other things are very hard to get. An armoury at each house speeds things up, but you could still get decent weapons once you knew where to go. (also, by the time you unlock everything, you've probably played thhrough the missions, so it's just stuff you have around 'for fun'...)
Is there actually a decent version of it for home use? I'd like to see it and Space Ace, but the article makes it sound like there's no passable home version out there...
Like I said before, your anecodtal observations mean VERY LITTLE. I know more people with a GC than w/ a PS2, but that doesn't mean there are more GCs out there. (And it's not a younger gamer thing...I'm 30 and most of my friends are in the same ballpark.)
I have all 3 consoles...GC is the only one that gets regular play, but that's probably because of my interest in multiplayer games. Or it's easier to lug around...Xbox is pretty good w/ Halo and Crimson Skies and Fusion Frenzy. PS2, except for a few oddball games, my main reason of still keeping it is to have GTA...
Anyway. I don't know why that "gee, my buddies don't have a GC, they must not sell" line bugs me so much.
Heh...Time Pilot '84 is great as well.
I didn't think Star Control 3 was that bad...it was no 2, but I enjoyed it.
I wonder if anyone is trying to port SC2 to DC?
Huh, I heard it was because you couldn't see actors' faces...not that the acting was that great but at least you could tell who was who...
I thought from an A/V standpoint, Pac-Man still stands tall. It looks great, cool music and sound effects...not only is the gameplay solid (and the GC's PacMan Vs. is fantastic fun for 4 people) but I really think its blue on black board and overall look stands the test of time.
It's worth RTFA, because of some absolutely choice quotes:
"the 2020 model will remind you of an ominous creature out of a science fiction movie"
I love the use of "ominous"
"When you have a uniform with this new nanotechnology, it can absorb unlimited numbers of machine-gun rounds,"
Wouldn't that get kind of heavy?
"We are looking at potentially mounting a weapon directly to the uniform system and now the soldier becomes a walking gun platform."
Now THAT sounds like fun...
I saw a few Yellow Red Green games, I think maybe the version of Boulder Dash? Dunno.
Is Peasant's Quest going to make it past the preview stage? I thought it was just a gag. I know they are making that RPG for the Atari 2600 for real...
One thing about Pesant's Quest...total nerd nitpick, but CGA is the "maximum requirement"? Those were clearly at least EGA graphics...
Too much damn collecting, but DK64 had some excellent boss fights...maybe Rare realized the dichotomy, because once you beat a boss you could select the fight from a menu off of the title screen. So I give them some kudos for that.
i've heard this argument from Graphics whores more than once, i'd probably say this is the biggest argument against the PS2, but in all reality, it just doesn't hold up.
it has been proven time and time again that Graphics != Gameplay. For example, Nethack is still one of the most beloved games of all time and is still widely played, its still just ASCII (the way the hardcore play it anyways).
Yeah, but its not just graphics....I've heard things like the "cars disappear when your back is turned" gameplay ties in directly with the limitations of the PS2. It really puts a crimp in what otherwise feels like a decent simulation.
And damn it, I wish Microsoft would lure Rockstar to make the next GTA an Xbox exclusive... historically, Sony has always had 1 or 2 games I like per system, and that's it.
I'm hoping you're right friend, but I'm really worried Rockstar might be blowing it: While completing missions and visiting the different locales in a city will all work toward helping you to become the man in GTA: San Andreas, your actions will also help build CJ up via an RPG-like system in the game. For example, shooting guns will gradually increase CJ's weapon skills, thus making him more and more accurate
One of the coolest things about 3 and VC were how your character wasn't different at the end as he was at the begining. Maybe you had the armor and/or health bonus, you had more cash, and you either had weapons or knew where to get some good hardware. That was it. It made for a tremendous pick up and play game, you didn't much care what savegame you were at, beause YOU WERE ALWAYS THE SAME GUY.
But this crap? I don't want to worry about this junk. I just want to get through and see the game, working on my own skills as a player, not my player's skill witihin the game.
This really, really annoys me. Msybe they'll pull it off, and I hope so, but I think in trying to make the game "deeper" they may screw it up for the casual players...GTA:VC was one of the few 1-player "party" games I had just 'cause it was so fun for a N00B to pick up and play, and made for great public viewing...
Then I got a copy of Simpsons: Hit and Run, which is basically the exact same play-style as GTA games, but without any violence
Well, I do kind of get a kick out of the violence, but it's not the violence alone that makes Simpsons fall flat for me...the game just doesn't have the depths of things to do. GTA really hit a sweet spot between cartoony and realistic in terms of its driving and what not, and S H+R just lacks that.
I've always loved "party games"...on PC the usual issue is the controls...
I remember playing a port "Rampart" in college, around 1992 or so...one player on mouse, one on keyboard, one on joystick...and the mouse player had a HUGE advantage.
I guess now, you can just get 6 cheap USB gamepads and a few of those USB splitter ports? Is that how it usually works?
Allow a player to be a monster? Sort of like, a controllable, respawning "NPC"? (heh, more like a "PNC" in this case)
That is a cool idea. One project I'm thinking about would involve some level of controlling boss characters from the NES Mega Man series...
Anyway, it seems much cooler than what seems to be the current flavor of the moment Kingdom of Loathing...
I ran a 2-line Gaming bbs back in those old days. My Co-Sysops and I created something rather singular for our paying users,
Wish i had some mod points...that was really cool-sounding.
I think you're letting the mechanics of what's plausible today have too much influence over what should be possible in a decade or so.
You want tasks done. You can describe these tasks with a certain amount of precision in English. A smart computer can fill in the gaps, rely on a library of what other people have wanted to do in the past and how, ask questions where you're being ambiguous, etc.
What'll be interesting, if a long way off, is when they get plain English development.
...then again I wonder if it would be fun to make a shell that used something like Infocom's "INFORM" parser...actually, wire that up to some speech recognition, and you'd have something interesting. Not neccesarily super-useful or more effecient than the tried-and-true-UIs, but interesting.
Now, there's a lot of reasons why this is a tough problem; English is tremendously less precise than a computer language, and a computer would need a GREAT deal of common sense before being able to make good sense of our high level spoken descriptions.
But still...so many programming tasks are really 95% "lather, rinse, repeat", and we're striving to get Design Patterns in place for much of the rest. It really makes me wonder...
For the history buffs, I think COBOL was one attempt to bridge spoken "Businessese" and computer code. I don't know a ton about it but I think it might ultimately be an underrated attempt... (for a while, all computers were financial (base 10 for its math, usually) or scientific (binary)...over time, the scientific approach 'won out', probably because it was easier for the scientific side to emulate the business side than vice versa, or maybe because the attention span of geeks is more important than who's writing big checks. Anyway, today's Unix culture is firmly from that scientific tradition, dot com boom not withstanding...
Thus endeth the less-than-full-assed history lesson and speculation about where this stuff will end up...