...bigger screens... With crappy resolution. Plus, the screen can't usefully occupy more than 100% of your retinas. Most people sit very close to their PCs.
Actually, I prefer the lower resolutions. When I see, say, Halo on a highend rig at Microcenter, I'm struck by how fake it looks, because the polygons are so crisply edged. Lower rez TV actually has a nice blurring effect.
And size is size; I wouldn't want my friends to gather round the couch facing something the size of my PC's screen.
I'm not so sure. If you insist on staying bleeding edge, sure, but how many PC games insist on it?
I don't know...and I don't have to know. That's why I like sticking with consoles.
Just for giggles I tried running Quake III demo on my 2002 mid-level system. It was beastly slow, esp. for such an older game. Since then I've learned that maybe that's not a representative game, but still. For the social gaming I prefer (i.e. multiplayer but not online) consoles are the only game in town.
Also, with so many people having computers these days, why have a console? Sounds like redundant spending to me. Sigh. We've been through this many times. Consoles offer different thing than computer games: less online play for the most part, less download mods, and less customization in general, but bigger screens, a different and in some ways much more varied selection of quality games, good standard controls for many games (less so for FPS and RTS) and a pretty much iron clad guarantee that the game will work. The cost is comparable or possibly much less than the cost of keeping a PC up to date w/ video cards and what not.
And despite stuff like the N-Gage and random barely-better-than-homebrew systems coming out, roughly speaking, this generation is defined by consoles released on or before the end of 2001. (PS2 2000, Xbox, GC 2001, GBA 2001, maybe DC 1999) Every other console has been a day late and a dollar short.
Even without the providers assistance, many people who use IM systems are smart enough to limit incoming messages to those from their buddy lists.
Yeah, but it's not a matter of smart vs. dumb; it's also concerned about SPIM enough to take that kind of step vs. wanting to be open to chatting to new people. Part of the promise of the Internet is making NEW interpersonal connections, and having to establish contact outside the communication form in question is a huge drag.
I suppose there might be some tag that lets you launch AIM or whatever via a browser, but luckily it's not used as much as mailto: , so it's less trivial to harvest these addresses. Also, since userids are generally small, and don't come bundled in some obviously reg-exable form like URLs and email addresses do, there is less harvesting going on.
I've been using AIM (hi, I'm kirkjerk) since the late 90s, and only every once in a while is there any SPIM. There was a time when I'd get one or two a day (suspiciously, generally right after I came back from idle) but now its one or two a month. When I tried ICQ in the late 90s, it was more of a steady flow.
And those concerns are warranted but certainly N64s must be common over there too?? Why would anyone spend that much for an older technology that can be had for lots less money?
I would guess that the N64 hasn't been distributed much there, never mind the new stuff. Unless you're part of some elite or something. It's not such an open society you know. (Or maybe I'm wrong, I am kind of guessing, but it makes sense.)
I don't get how this kind of distribution system is more pirate proof than old fashioned carts. It seems that someone could crack the encryption, and then people are already used to download-only games anyway..
That's why we see that energizer bunny all the time, because it's unprofitable to sell batteries based upon length of life.
Well, tehnically in practice, you sell batteries based on perception of length of life. Most people don't go to Consumer Reports to know what battery to buy.
Helpful Hint: always own like 2 more rechargable batteries than you intend to be using at any given time. Keep these charged and near the charger. WHen yoour rechargable using gadget runs outta juice, swap.
And, arguably, the only pilots to survive THAT many runs in a shieldless snubfighter MUST be force-sensitive.
I was wondering...is "snubfighter" a Star Wars term or is it drawn from earlier maybe real world material (same way the physics are drawn from WW2 fighter planes...)
The poster mentioned in his followup that he was thinking more of movies that are time-constrained to be released with the movie...I think GoldenEye came out a long time after.
I can't think of too many concurrent film-based games; maybe Spiderman? That seems to be well regarded, and similarly timed. (But again, that's a property thats existed for decades and has lots of bad guys and general culture to draw on; if you limit it to "games timed to ride or increase movies, and with source material ONLY from those movies" the original poster might have a point, but it's a subtler point than "movie tie-ins suck", which does capture about 90-95% of it.
If you think of a PC as "expensive console," you're probably right. If you think of it as "a machine used for many things that includes gaming" then you've got a much better view.
The question is doubt and uncertainty about what it takes to get a PC up to gaming snuff. I don't know what kind of 3D card my PC has, if any, and I don't wanna know. I like that stuff on consoles.
Some older stuff is fine on PCs, StarCraft, even DOOM, but I just don't want to think about it.
Also I like one screen multiplayer gaming, gather round the couch, which doesn't work so well on PCs.
Movie-franchise games allways have been and allways will be utter crap. My advice is to never, EVER buy one, and only rent one if you loved the movie enough to suffer through the game.
I refute it thus: "Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader" (Counter-refutal: "Rogue Squdron 3: Rebel Strike")
This has been my observaion as well. I used to teach beginning programming at a local University and I have to say that it was amaizing how many people had problems thinking through what needed to be done to accomplish a thing as simple as swapping two integers
Interesting. And really, learning to do break up tasks of fairly great complexity is probably 75% of programming...once you got that, most of the rest is just details.
Personally I think this ties into a fallacy the vast majority of us share, that we are essentially rational beings, that all of the things we do in life could be traced down to logical decisions, maybe even the binary firings of clusters of neurons. Really, I think we're just gigantic cluesters of ad hoc heuristics, and attempts to describe our thoughts as logical processes are just optimistic, post facto mappings to what we would've done, if we had the time to think about it. (And there is some experimental/clinical evidence for what a great after-the-fact story teller/rationalizer our brains are...)
There is definately some wear and tear for those guys, but the hardware I buy seems to last for a bit and isnt that expensive: a Canon S200, closeout for =~ $200-$250 , jsut replaced my Palm IIIc with a Sony SJ22 for =~ $150, my cell is this 2 or 3 year old tiny Samsung model.
My wallet is a $3 vinyl thing, no bill fold, just a folding piece of black vinyl with two clear plastic pockets, one for cards, the other for bills. Patched with electrical tape:-)
Right. What sets a game system apart from other game systems is, generally, the console-specific titles.
With these new phone/game combos, the options seems to be ports of old console games (how many damn ports of Tomb Raider, the new Spy Hunter, and Tony Hawk are we going to see??) and games that are obviously "made by hobbyists"...these can be fun sometimes (mmm, Rally 1000 for Palm...) but generally are more time killers than really engrossing games. No company is mustering up enough clout to make the games that will sell their cells. (You'd think there'd be a whole world of online gaming available, but I think the technical issues get in the way of real mind-blowing games in that genre)
Overall, I'm not a big fan of combo hardware, at least not yet. I just have the smallest possible cell, palm, camera, and thinnest wallet I can, and load up my pockets. When one of those elements breaks or is just obsolete, it gets replaced without rocking my whole consumer electronics world.
On the other hand, I do wish I could do quick web access, instant message, and email on my palm...
Even then, it depends on the game and how slick you are.
Most people don't type in math equations watching the screen constantly, pressing buttons in semi-regular bursts for 10 minutes like they do when they're playing tetris. It's generally pretty obvious when someone isn't paying attention because of a game; most people are just to polite to remark on it.
Yeah, I don't think people would even be that good at writing pseudocode. Even before they get to worrying about details like performance and efficiency, the fact is most people are poor at breaking down tasks, even the ones they do all the itme, into small enough pieces that even a computer could do it.
In short, I don't think something like this will happen until we really get AI going. What this guy propses looks at first glance like a visual tool for what COBOL was supposed to be, first glance meaning the example they gave.
Huh...but maybe you wouldn't have to capture *every* texture...most walls are prtty dull, after all. With a powerful AI program (and vision is a notoriously challenging area), you could probably make due with "average" or "typical" textures for blank wall, and then just capture the interesting stuff, billboards and doorframes and what not.
As long as we're dreaming, you might as well make sure that the robot very carefully records the exact lighting levels, directions, and tints, and then "subtract" those values from the image it's processing, trying to fake the "natural" texture.
It would still probably need handtweaking, and you'd need a game that demanded that much raw 3D data to begin with. But once you had a system, it would be relatively easy to get tons of areas in place.
I always thought it would be an interesting way to assemble 3D gaming worlds. A lot of people have done this by hand, like old DOOM or Quake maps modeled on their school or what not. I guess it should be gathering "polygon texture" data too in that case
Of course, most buildings are pretty boring relative to the game-specific layouts, but hey. It would be a good quick start.
I might be getting old (almost 30) but I find my hands feel it after gaming sessions now...actually, usually in my wrists, Especially if I'm using my usual tough button mashing style in like Soul Calibur 2.
Also, the new PS2 Dual Shock 2 is awful, since it has all these analog buttons that don't have satisfying feedback, so I always feel I have to press harder (in say, GTA:VC where it's the accelerator...)
Conker 64: terrible voice acting, though a truly surprising amount of it for a cart. Still, it reminds me of my middle school plays, and when they decide to break the '4th wall' (or at least admit they were following the cliches of gamedom) they could have done it so much better.
Ok, fair enough. You're right that it probably wasn't a "5" post.
I guess I'm more sensitive to people who mod down, however. I hate when I get a -1 Offtopic, -1 Troll, or -1 Overrated...sometimes I can see I deserved it, but usually it strikes me as someone who has gone a little power drunk...
Why isn't the parent modded troll? WTF is up with mods these days I have moderator points, and I'm half tempted to mod you down. Not because of your pro- or anti-Halo viewpoints (which, frankly, are well expressed) but simply because you're encouraging people to abuse the mod system.
Look, to troll is to try to provoke discussion. A subtle "troll" is actually useful in a thread. Only really blatant, obvious trolls (usually using one of the FP or other cliches like "natalie portman) should be modded as such.
I haven't played Halo yet, but I really want to...just not enough to buy an Xbox, yet.
I think the sun can handle a couple of statistical anomalies that this guy hasn't seen in his lifetime before it starts to get worried.
Yeah, but the survival of the sun != our guaranteed continued comfort living conditions here on earth...I mean, obviously it's been pretty damn good for a long long while, but nothing lasts forever...some generation is going to have to deal with a change, and there's a very small but not zero chance it could be us.
Slashdot Mirror
...bigger screens...
With crappy resolution. Plus, the screen can't usefully occupy more than 100% of your retinas. Most people sit very close to their PCs.
Actually, I prefer the lower resolutions. When I see, say, Halo on a highend rig at Microcenter, I'm struck by how fake it looks, because the polygons are so crisply edged. Lower rez TV actually has a nice blurring effect.
And size is size; I wouldn't want my friends to gather round the couch facing something the size of my PC's screen.
I'm not so sure. If you insist on staying bleeding edge, sure, but how many PC games insist on it?
I don't know...and I don't have to know. That's why I like sticking with consoles.
Just for giggles I tried running Quake III demo on my 2002 mid-level system. It was beastly slow, esp. for such an older game. Since then I've learned that maybe that's not a representative game, but still. For the social gaming I prefer (i.e. multiplayer but not online) consoles are the only game in town.
Also, with so many people having computers these days, why have a console? Sounds like redundant spending to me.
Sigh. We've been through this many times. Consoles offer different thing than computer games: less online play for the most part, less download mods, and less customization in general, but bigger screens, a different and in some ways much more varied selection of quality games, good standard controls for many games (less so for FPS and RTS) and a pretty much iron clad guarantee that the game will work. The cost is comparable or possibly much less than the cost of keeping a PC up to date w/ video cards and what not.
And despite stuff like the N-Gage and random barely-better-than-homebrew systems coming out, roughly speaking, this generation is defined by consoles released on or before the end of 2001.
(PS2 2000, Xbox, GC 2001, GBA 2001, maybe DC 1999) Every other console has been a day late and a dollar short.
Yeah, and frankly, the decline doesn't sound like that big a deal...I mean, from like 21 million to 20 million? Aw, shucks.
I find some of the new lights really annoying. Blue LEDS in particular cast a light that is just very bright but thoroughly unpleasant, kinda ghastly.
If I feel a need to "decorate", i find random and hopefully amusing stickers (not slogans) do a much more interesting job.
Even without the providers assistance, many people who use IM systems are smart enough to limit incoming messages to those from their buddy lists.
Yeah, but it's not a matter of smart vs. dumb; it's also concerned about SPIM enough to take that kind of step vs. wanting to be open to chatting to new people. Part of the promise of the Internet is making NEW interpersonal connections, and having to establish contact outside the communication form in question is a huge drag.
I suppose there might be some tag that lets you launch AIM or whatever via a browser, but luckily it's not used as much as mailto: , so it's less trivial to harvest these addresses. Also, since userids are generally small, and don't come bundled in some obviously reg-exable form like URLs and email addresses do, there is less harvesting going on.
I've been using AIM (hi, I'm kirkjerk) since the late 90s, and only every once in a while is there any SPIM. There was a time when I'd get one or two a day (suspiciously, generally right after I came back from idle) but now its one or two a month. When I tried ICQ in the late 90s, it was more of a steady flow.
And those concerns are warranted but certainly N64s must be common over there too?? Why would anyone spend that much for an older technology that can be had for lots less money?
I would guess that the N64 hasn't been distributed much there, never mind the new stuff. Unless you're part of some elite or something. It's not such an open society you know. (Or maybe I'm wrong, I am kind of guessing, but it makes sense.)
I don't get how this kind of distribution system is more pirate proof than old fashioned carts. It seems that someone could crack the encryption, and then people are already used to download-only games anyway..
That's why we see that energizer bunny all the time, because it's unprofitable to sell batteries based upon length of life.
Well, tehnically in practice, you sell batteries based on perception of length of life. Most people don't go to Consumer Reports to know what battery to buy.
Helpful Hint: always own like 2 more rechargable batteries than you intend to be using at any given time. Keep these charged and near the charger. WHen yoour rechargable using gadget runs outta juice, swap.
And, arguably, the only pilots to survive THAT many runs in a shieldless snubfighter MUST be force-sensitive.
I was wondering...is "snubfighter" a Star Wars term or is it drawn from earlier maybe real world material (same way the physics are drawn from WW2 fighter planes...)
2095:
"Google, is there a god?"
"There is now."
The poster mentioned in his followup that he was thinking more of movies that are time-constrained to be released with the movie...I think GoldenEye came out a long time after.
I can't think of too many concurrent film-based games; maybe Spiderman? That seems to be well regarded, and similarly timed. (But again, that's a property thats existed for decades and has lots of bad guys and general culture to draw on; if you limit it to "games timed to ride or increase movies, and with source material ONLY from those movies" the original poster might have a point, but it's a subtler point than "movie tie-ins suck", which does capture about 90-95% of it.
If you think of a PC as "expensive console," you're probably right. If you think of it as "a machine used for many things that includes gaming" then you've got a much better view.
The question is doubt and uncertainty about what it takes to get a PC up to gaming snuff. I don't know what kind of 3D card my PC has, if any, and I don't wanna know. I like that stuff on consoles.
Some older stuff is fine on PCs, StarCraft, even DOOM, but I just don't want to think about it.
Also I like one screen multiplayer gaming, gather round the couch, which doesn't work so well on PCs.
Movie-franchise games allways have been and allways will be utter crap. My advice is to never, EVER buy one, and only rent one if you loved the movie enough to suffer through the game.
I refute it thus: "Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader"
(Counter-refutal: "Rogue Squdron 3: Rebel Strike")
This has been my observaion as well. I used to teach beginning programming at a local University and I have to say that it was amaizing how many people had problems thinking through what needed to be done to accomplish a thing as simple as swapping two integers
Interesting. And really, learning to do break up tasks of fairly great complexity is probably 75% of programming...once you got that, most of the rest is just details.
Personally I think this ties into a fallacy the vast majority of us share, that we are essentially rational beings, that all of the things we do in life could be traced down to logical decisions, maybe even the binary firings of clusters of neurons. Really, I think we're just gigantic cluesters of ad hoc heuristics, and attempts to describe our thoughts as logical processes are just optimistic, post facto mappings to what we would've done, if we had the time to think about it. (And there is some experimental/clinical evidence for what a great after-the-fact story teller/rationalizer our brains are...)
I think I understand why your wallet is so thin.
:-)
Heh, cute.
There is definately some wear and tear for those guys, but the hardware I buy seems to last for a bit and isnt that expensive: a Canon S200, closeout for =~ $200-$250 , jsut replaced my Palm IIIc with a Sony SJ22 for =~ $150, my cell is this 2 or 3 year old tiny Samsung model.
My wallet is a $3 vinyl thing, no bill fold, just a folding piece of black vinyl with two clear plastic pockets, one for cards, the other for bills. Patched with electrical tape
Right. What sets a game system apart from other game systems is, generally, the console-specific titles.
With these new phone/game combos, the options seems to be ports of old console games (how many damn ports of Tomb Raider, the new Spy Hunter, and Tony Hawk are we going to see??) and games that are obviously "made by hobbyists"...these can be fun sometimes (mmm, Rally 1000 for Palm...) but generally are more time killers than really engrossing games. No company is mustering up enough clout to make the games that will sell their cells. (You'd think there'd be a whole world of online gaming available, but I think the technical issues get in the way of real mind-blowing games in that genre)
Overall, I'm not a big fan of combo hardware, at least not yet. I just have the smallest possible cell, palm, camera, and thinnest wallet I can, and load up my pockets. When one of those elements breaks or is just obsolete, it gets replaced without rocking my whole consumer electronics world.
On the other hand, I do wish I could do quick web access, instant message, and email on my palm...
Even then, it depends on the game and how slick you are.
Most people don't type in math equations watching the screen constantly, pressing buttons in semi-regular bursts for 10 minutes like they do when they're playing tetris. It's generally pretty obvious when someone isn't paying attention because of a game; most people are just to polite to remark on it.
Yeah, I don't think people would even be that good at writing pseudocode. Even before they get to worrying about details like performance and efficiency, the fact is most people are poor at breaking down tasks, even the ones they do all the itme, into small enough pieces that even a computer could do it.
In short, I don't think something like this will happen until we really get AI going. What this guy propses looks at first glance like a visual tool for what COBOL was supposed to be, first glance meaning the example they gave.
Huh...but maybe you wouldn't have to capture *every* texture...most walls are prtty dull, after all. With a powerful AI program (and vision is a notoriously challenging area), you could probably make due with "average" or "typical" textures for blank wall, and then just capture the interesting stuff, billboards and doorframes and what not.
As long as we're dreaming, you might as well make sure that the robot very carefully records the exact lighting levels, directions, and tints, and then "subtract" those values from the image it's processing, trying to fake the "natural" texture.
It would still probably need handtweaking, and you'd need a game that demanded that much raw 3D data to begin with. But once you had a system, it would be relatively easy to get tons of areas in place.
I always thought it would be an interesting way to assemble 3D gaming worlds. A lot of people have done this by hand, like old DOOM or Quake maps modeled on their school or what not. I guess it should be gathering "polygon texture" data too in that case
Of course, most buildings are pretty boring relative to the game-specific layouts, but hey. It would be a good quick start.
I might be getting old (almost 30) but I find my hands feel it after gaming sessions now...actually, usually in my wrists, Especially if I'm using my usual tough button mashing style in like Soul Calibur 2.
Also, the new PS2 Dual Shock 2 is awful, since it has all these analog buttons that don't have satisfying feedback, so I always feel I have to press harder (in say, GTA:VC where it's the accelerator...)
Conker 64: terrible voice acting, though a truly surprising amount of it for a cart. Still, it reminds me of my middle school plays, and when they decide to break the '4th wall' (or at least admit they were following the cliches of gamedom) they could have done it so much better.
Ok, fair enough. You're right that it probably wasn't a "5" post.
I guess I'm more sensitive to people who mod down, however. I hate when I get a -1 Offtopic, -1 Troll, or -1 Overrated...sometimes I can see I deserved it, but usually it strikes me as someone who has gone a little power drunk...
Why isn't the parent modded troll? WTF is up with mods these days
I have moderator points, and I'm half tempted to mod you down. Not because of your pro- or anti-Halo viewpoints (which, frankly, are well expressed) but simply because you're encouraging people to abuse the mod system.
Look, to troll is to try to provoke discussion. A subtle "troll" is actually useful in a thread. Only really blatant, obvious trolls (usually using one of the FP or other cliches like "natalie portman) should be modded as such.
I haven't played Halo yet, but I really want to...just not enough to buy an Xbox, yet.
How long has this guy been a Solar Physicist ?
How long has the Sun been around ?
I think the sun can handle a couple of statistical anomalies that this guy hasn't seen in his lifetime before it starts to get worried.
Yeah, but the survival of the sun != our guaranteed continued comfort living conditions here on earth...I mean, obviously it's been pretty damn good for a long long while, but nothing lasts forever...some generation is going to have to deal with a change, and there's a very small but not zero chance it could be us.
dang, my ironymeter must be busted