Eh, I'm sure there was some of that, but that doesn't mean it's quite as important as you'd assume.
Sometimes it's clear that a game maker probably said "lets do DOOM, but 'better'". Like how Diabolo was an *admitted* work to get NetHack w/ then modern graphics (and some other changes).
But other instances, when the influence is subtle, it's hard to know what was a definite influence, what was probably co-influenced by a common ancestor, and what might be a seperate independent invention. Video games have a large and varied history, and you can't even say "well this game play mechanic happened on Mac first, therefore it was infleuence on this later game", since maybe the developers never saw that Mac game, and sort of re-invented the idea.
You can go crazy with this stuff is all I'm saying. Like, someone notices a similarity in a run by Miles Davis and something Beethoven: maybe it was deliberate, maybe it was something Miles picked up and without realizing brought back in, or maybe it was some bit of Beethoven Miles hadn't actually heard. It's tough to make a definitive claim with that stuff.
I read the article (which was kind of brief) and I know Bungie made the huge Xbox hit Halo...but beyond that, I think you'd have to work a lot harder to make the case that "We could go on for hours about how important the Mac was in PC gaming". Admittedly I didn't play that many Mac games , Risk and some card games and some very pretty Ambrosia conversions of some classic games, and I supposed any game the heavily utilizes the mouse probably has some ancestor in the early Mac catalog, but in general I see Mac games in their own, generally derivative, little world.
(Don't get me wrong: I recongize Marathon was prolly better than the PC FPS of the time, and stuff like Spectre was way cool, but still...)
ZZAP!64 was so great. I only had like one or two issues, and man did I read those things into the ground...it was so much fresher than any USA magazine. And games, ones I had never heard of, looked So Good in the ads...
I was so drooling over their review of Alien Syndrome.
Unfortunately I don't have a wide enough view to know what magazines were leaders and which were followers in terms of layout and style, but it seemed like the multireviewer approach got copied in some other mags a few years later.
I think the MINI is pretty pedestrian, recycling the lines but not the cheep-and-cheerfulness of the original, except the inside looks all tonka-toyish. The cupholder hack is amusing and the legroom in the back tends towards the cruel and unusual. Also it's a bit yuppyish at this point. It is a pretty fair price for a fun little car though.
Oh, and I think you're thinking of the xB, which is a kleenex box on wheels, and I'm not talking about the xB. I'm thinking about the xA, which is kind of a micro-minivan looking hatchback, I think it looks kind of pug and tough. In a way, it seems more authentic than any retread like the Mini or New Beetle.
On the other hand, the xB is probably more popular than the xA, and my failure to grok that probably means I'm getting old.
For gamers who actually value things like story and strategy, the XBox is simply inadequate.
By saying "story and strategy", I think you mean "RPGs and Strategy Games". It's not quite the same thing. I appreciate some story and some strategy, but am not a big fan of either genre...
Xbox had its share of good system exclusives (Halo, Crimson Skies, Mechwarrior etc). And its ports generally had a technical edge.
I think PS2's success results from early mover combined with backwards compatability with the massively popular PS1. It also has some good exclusives: Gran Turismo, the FF stuff, and GTA for a while.
I have all 3 systems, and GC is definately my favorite, but PS2 is a distant 3rd. The Eye Toy is kind of neat though...seems like something Nintendo shoulda done.
If the Xbox2 isn't backwards compatible a dreamcast route is very possible, Xbox just doesn't have enough established franchise strength. (And even if it is backwards compatible, the Xbox won't have the propelling power PS1 did)
I wonder if the front page "changes" log is going to remain...that's been a useful way for me to get around 10 or so extra hits per update, and some of those people have become regulars of my site (not weblogs.com hosted)
I honestly do not know anyone that owns a gamecube. Most people I know have PS2 systems or nothing at all.
And therefore, we can extrapolate that Nintendo has not sold a single game cube! Or that any units they have sold are merely "statistical noise".
Seriously, who cares that you and your buds don't have a GC? I know lots of people, myself included. It hasn't sold as well as PS2, but it has some great exclusive titles. IMO GC and Xbox are both MUCH better systems, games-wise. Without the PS1 (and arrangements to get FFs and GTAs first) the PS2 would be in the obscurity it deserves.
Why would Nintendo introduce a new memory card this late in the game?
I dunno, I thought it was kind of odd how low capacity their initial offering was. They may have been trying to game the system a bit, which is kind of irritating.
This is Nintendo's fault. They should have tested this new card with a number of games, old and new BEFORE they released it to the marketplace. Nintendo should be working on either a workaround to trick games into seeing a smaller card or a full solution that allows it to be seamless to all games.
Frankly, no it isn't, just like Y2K wasn't the fault of the holy roman empire or whoever set up the calender. Assuming they published a spec, Nintendo isn't obliged to complexify w/ special case issues and add expense to what is probably a pretty straightforward memory device just because a few game writers have a lack of foresight.
You can always still use the old smaller card in the other slot.
I wish they'd make a proper sequel to Battletanx, a great Tokyo Wars-like tank game on the N64.
That WDL Thundertanks just sucked for some reason...you would think it would be dead easy to make a fun multiplayer tank game but somehow they blew it.
As far as I can tell, this current generation of consoles doesn't have a decent multiplayer tank game...not even one as fun as the goofy tanks in Mario Party 2, nevermind the great one player and multiplayer of "Battletanx: Global Assault"
"Regretful Of Having Little Diccky? Hahha trinomial whipsnake" --Subject line of spam from "Kandis Teena". I don't know what a trinomial whipsnake is, and can only guess how it ties into having a "Little Diccky", but it certainly has an air of menace about it.
Come to think of it, "Trinomial Whipsnake" wouldn't be a terrible name for a band.
I don't like logic games, they seem like too much work and I might learn that I'm not as smart as I assume I am.
I love Pictionary though, just the creative element involved...
Scrabble and other similar word games suck...I hate the idea of treating words as mere collections of letters devoid of meaning. On the other hand, crossover stuff like Scattegories, which brings the meaning back into play, are ok.
Their low-ends were very well priced, and not over-featured...my SJ22 has a lovely 320*320 screen (at the time it was about the only sub-$200 color 320*320...even Sony's ultra-lowend B+W models always had the 320*320 screen), a (not that useful) Sony memorystick slot, and a jogwheel. That's about it for bells-n-whistles, but the form factor is terrific...not very wide across, which is a point that some of the flatter Palm units miss (like the razor is flat, but rather wide...I find the Clie's not as thin, not as wide to be much more hand-friendly)
They still try to call it a "personal entertainment organizer", and load it with this pointless movie viewer, but overall it was a great simple device.
I still wish I they'd open up the iPod API and make up some weird arcade-like text entry for the wheel...I'd probably be able to get rid of my Sony then.
Never shoulda given up Palm...remember when Palm's were all subranded US Robotics, and then 3Com?
Actually, I'm kinda talkin' outta my a$$ here...I have no idea if selling Palm was a good business decision or not. I just know I've always like PalmOS, and 3Com used to get some advertising every time I put my PDA on its cradle...
I just want a game like propcycle at home that will give me interesting in game rewards/explanation for improving my physical performance. Just rig up a sensor thing for an exercise bike than comission a decent "Pilot Wings 64" like game, and as I improve, make me work harder and harder to stay aloft.
I mean, I guess it says something that it's interesting and fun enough to be played that long, but don't let people think it's that amazing of an excercise in any other way...
I actually made (and published through AtariAge) my own Atari homebrew, JoustPong -- Pong with a Flap Button. I kept a developer's journal of the experiece.
I also made a newbie's tutorial, linked to at the end of the O'Reilly article: 2600 101. And currently I'm (slowly) working on 2600 cookbook...O'Reilly fans should find the format very familiar.
Overall, that's a great techie introduction to the hobby.
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, I'm sure there was some of that, but that doesn't mean it's quite as important as you'd assume.
Sometimes it's clear that a game maker probably said "lets do DOOM, but 'better'". Like how Diabolo was an *admitted* work to get NetHack w/ then modern graphics (and some other changes).
But other instances, when the influence is subtle, it's hard to know what was a definite influence, what was probably co-influenced by a common ancestor, and what might be a seperate independent invention. Video games have a large and varied history, and you can't even say "well this game play mechanic happened on Mac first, therefore it was infleuence on this later game", since maybe the developers never saw that Mac game, and sort of re-invented the idea.
You can go crazy with this stuff is all I'm saying. Like, someone notices a similarity in a run by Miles Davis and something Beethoven: maybe it was deliberate, maybe it was something Miles picked up and without realizing brought back in, or maybe it was some bit of Beethoven Miles hadn't actually heard. It's tough to make a definitive claim with that stuff.
I read the article (which was kind of brief) and I know Bungie made the huge Xbox hit Halo...but beyond that, I think you'd have to work a lot harder to make the case that "We could go on for hours about how important the Mac was in PC gaming". Admittedly I didn't play that many Mac games , Risk and some card games and some very pretty Ambrosia conversions of some classic games, and I supposed any game the heavily utilizes the mouse probably has some ancestor in the early Mac catalog, but in general I see Mac games in their own, generally derivative, little world.
(Don't get me wrong: I recongize Marathon was prolly better than the PC FPS of the time, and stuff like Spectre was way cool, but still...)
There was that great port of Risk...awesome dorm game.
Some stuff came later, what was that one that had an early rendition of Dilbert? Like "MVOD", moving vehicles of destruction?
And Weslyan Tetris.
And Milles Bourne, loved that.
Never had a mac but loved 'em.
That was such a nice game, I remember playing the PC version a bit years later.
I wonder how hard it would be to make a modern port, and how it would stack up to modern RTS...
ZZAP!64 was so great. I only had like one or two issues, and man did I read those things into the ground...it was so much fresher than any USA magazine. And games, ones I had never heard of, looked So Good in the ads...
I was so drooling over their review of Alien Syndrome.
Unfortunately I don't have a wide enough view to know what magazines were leaders and which were followers in terms of layout and style, but it seemed like the multireviewer approach got copied in some other mags a few years later.
The mods are retards. (-1 Flamebait, blah blah blah, but my comment above was kinda funny...)
Wouldnt it be cool if they modelled an Armadillo Aerospace rocket crashed somewhere on a Doom 3 map? ;)
And then the voiceover: "That's one Doomed Space Cadet, hehe"
No offense taken.
I think the MINI is pretty pedestrian, recycling the lines but not the cheep-and-cheerfulness of the original, except the inside looks all tonka-toyish. The cupholder hack is amusing and the legroom in the back tends towards the cruel and unusual. Also it's a bit yuppyish at this point. It is a pretty fair price for a fun little car though.
Oh, and I think you're thinking of the xB, which is a kleenex box on wheels, and I'm not talking about the xB. I'm thinking about the xA, which is kind of a micro-minivan looking hatchback, I think it looks kind of pug and tough. In a way, it seems more authentic than any retread like the Mini or New Beetle.
On the other hand, the xB is probably more popular than the xA, and my failure to grok that probably means I'm getting old.
I'm deciding between a MINI and a Scion xA.
I was leaning towards the latter...honestly I like the styling better, and it seems likely to be more reliable.
But no sun roof...and now this. Funny how Toyota puts in a MP3 player std, but doesn't contract an iPod friendly stereo, like one with a audio-in...
Losing money on every console...but making it up in volume!!!
It's an old line.
For gamers who actually value things like story and strategy, the XBox is simply inadequate.
By saying "story and strategy", I think you mean "RPGs and Strategy Games". It's not quite the same thing. I appreciate some story and some strategy, but am not a big fan of either genre...
Xbox had its share of good system exclusives (Halo, Crimson Skies, Mechwarrior etc). And its ports generally had a technical edge.
I think PS2's success results from early mover combined with backwards compatability with the massively popular PS1. It also has some good exclusives: Gran Turismo, the FF stuff, and GTA for a while.
I have all 3 systems, and GC is definately my favorite, but PS2 is a distant 3rd. The Eye Toy is kind of neat though...seems like something Nintendo shoulda done.
If the Xbox2 isn't backwards compatible a dreamcast route is very possible, Xbox just doesn't have enough established franchise strength. (And even if it is backwards compatible, the Xbox won't have the propelling power PS1 did)
I wonder if the front page "changes" log is going to remain...that's been a useful way for me to get around 10 or so extra hits per update, and some of those people have become regulars of my site (not weblogs.com hosted)
I honestly do not know anyone that owns a gamecube. Most people I know have PS2 systems or nothing at all.
And therefore, we can extrapolate that Nintendo has not sold a single game cube! Or that any units they have sold are merely "statistical noise".
Seriously, who cares that you and your buds don't have a GC? I know lots of people, myself included. It hasn't sold as well as PS2, but it has some great exclusive titles. IMO GC and Xbox are both MUCH better systems, games-wise. Without the PS1 (and arrangements to get FFs and GTAs first) the PS2 would be in the obscurity it deserves.
Why would Nintendo introduce a new memory card this late in the game?
I dunno, I thought it was kind of odd how low capacity their initial offering was. They may have been trying to game the system a bit, which is kind of irritating.
This is Nintendo's fault. They should have tested this new card with a number of games, old and new BEFORE they released it to the marketplace. Nintendo should be working on either a workaround to trick games into seeing a smaller card or a full solution that allows it to be seamless to all games.
Frankly, no it isn't, just like Y2K wasn't the fault of the holy roman empire or whoever set up the calender. Assuming they published a spec, Nintendo isn't obliged to complexify w/ special case issues and add expense to what is probably a pretty straightforward memory device just because a few game writers have a lack of foresight.
You can always still use the old smaller card in the other slot.
I wish they'd make a proper sequel to Battletanx, a great Tokyo Wars-like tank game on the N64.
That WDL Thundertanks just sucked for some reason...you would think it would be dead easy to make a fun multiplayer tank game but somehow they blew it.
As far as I can tell, this current generation of consoles doesn't have a decent multiplayer tank game...not even one as fun as the goofy tanks in Mario Party 2, nevermind the great one player and multiplayer of "Battletanx: Global Assault"
"Regretful Of Having Little Diccky? Hahha trinomial whipsnake"
--Subject line of spam from "Kandis Teena". I don't know what a trinomial whipsnake is, and can only guess how it ties into having a "Little Diccky", but it certainly has an air of menace about it.
Come to think of it, "Trinomial Whipsnake" wouldn't be a terrible name for a band.
I don't like logic games, they seem like too much work and I might learn that I'm not as smart as I assume I am.
I love Pictionary though, just the creative element involved...
Scrabble and other similar word games suck...I hate the idea of treating words as mere collections of letters devoid of meaning. On the other hand, crossover stuff like Scattegories, which brings the meaning back into play, are ok.
And Monopoly is just boring boring boring.
Their low-ends were very well priced, and not over-featured...my SJ22 has a lovely 320*320 screen (at the time it was about the only sub-$200 color 320*320...even Sony's ultra-lowend B+W models always had the 320*320 screen), a (not that useful) Sony memorystick slot, and a jogwheel. That's about it for bells-n-whistles, but the form factor is terrific...not very wide across, which is a point that some of the flatter Palm units miss (like the razor is flat, but rather wide...I find the Clie's not as thin, not as wide to be much more hand-friendly)
They still try to call it a "personal entertainment organizer", and load it with this pointless movie viewer, but overall it was a great simple device.
I still wish I they'd open up the iPod API and make up some weird arcade-like text entry for the wheel...I'd probably be able to get rid of my Sony then.
huh, interesting link
I remember hearing that Palm had done a graffiti add on for Newton prior to this. I wasn't sure about the timing of when the first pilot came out.
Jeez, I can't believe Xerox managed to defend a patent on their unistrokes unreadable hieroglyphics vs graffiti. What a frickin' joke.
Did US Robotics really develop the first PalmPilots, or just the first ones to acquire 'em? I think the latter.
Anyway, I'd love to know why my first post was moded "offtopic".
Never shoulda given up Palm...remember when Palm's were all subranded US Robotics, and then 3Com?
Actually, I'm kinda talkin' outta my a$$ here...I have no idea if selling Palm was a good business decision or not. I just know I've always like PalmOS, and 3Com used to get some advertising every time I put my PDA on its cradle...
I'm probably the opposite of a prescriptivist, but still, your cite seems to indicate that your usage is gaining acceptance...
I just want a game like propcycle at home that will give me interesting in game rewards/explanation for improving my physical performance. Just rig up a sensor thing for an exercise bike than comission a decent "Pilot Wings 64" like game, and as I improve, make me work harder and harder to stay aloft.
6 hours a day! No wonder.
I mean, I guess it says something that it's interesting and fun enough to be played that long, but don't let people think it's that amazing of an excercise in any other way...
I actually made (and published through AtariAge) my own Atari homebrew, JoustPong -- Pong with a Flap Button. I kept a developer's journal of the experiece.
I also made a newbie's tutorial, linked to at the end of the O'Reilly article: 2600 101. And currently I'm (slowly) working on 2600 cookbook...O'Reilly fans should find the format very familiar.
Overall, that's a great techie introduction to the hobby.