Somehow this seems a little irrelevant, considering the boon of gaming on mobile phones and an economy that makes people think twice of buying a separate portable gaming system.
I guess this means we can officially say goodbye to Microsoft Surface. Kinect is comparatively inexpensive and can now be used on a customizable platform.
Yes, I know this and I read the whole site too. But in most cases, the positives outweigh the negatives. Things like color bleeding and soft pictures that obscure the detail in backgrounds are far worse than noticeable dithering.
No, the problem is there's no such thing as "perfect" emulation. The same way music from phonographs won't be exactly the same when they're converted to MP3s, by definition emulation will never be the same as the real thing. From differences in how the game is emulated, to using different controllers or different display technology, there is no perfect emulation. It can come close though, and in that respect emulation has succeeded.
To play rare or impossible to find titles, just download the ROMs and use something like this to play it on the actual hardware: http://krikzz.com/severdrive.html
But if you want portability and don't care about accuracy, you go with emulation.
Length is a pretty dumb metric for value in video games any way. I find that games these days take many hours to complete, but there's little to no desire to going through them again. Dumb things like unlockables and achievements artificially add replay value, but don't make the game any more fun to play multiple times.
I think the success of games like Angry Birds are showing developers that they don't need to make an overbudget game that takes 20 hours to complete. Even games that can be played through in an hour or less can have great longevity on multiple playthroughs. Look at the Cave shooters - deep scoring systems and challenging mechanics keep players coming back for more. And linearity and repetition have nothing to do with it either - every game (even real life sports) has both, what's important is that the game is fun to play over and over.
So he's consulting the EFF (not working as a consultant for them like someone else though). I'd be very disappointed at the EFF if they side with this guy. He installed software that most of the passerbys didn't know about. The software was used to take pictures of them, most of whom did not give their explicit permission. And he published the pictures on an Internet site for the whole world to see. Given how the EFF takes the bigs to task for their written license agreements and violations of privacy, taking this guy's side would make no sense.
Too bad hardware acceleration didn't make the cut yet. It was available in a test build though. I'm looking forward to their implementation of hardware acceleration - it uses OpenGL instead of Direct2D on Windows. I've had all kind of problems with Direct2D (namely, it doesn't seem to accelerate much of anything - not even supposedly basic stuff like scrolling).
I hardly think his album would have been in trouble had that single song not made the cut. As worst, they would have had to remove the track from the album. He went through a similar situation with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." In the end, the song ("You're Pitiful") didn't make the album but Weird Al released it for free download on his website.
If you haven't the time to watch the video (or maybe you're using elinks or something), they specifically cite the fact that police in Travis County, Texas have willingly supplied checkpoint data to Trapster developers.
And anyway, I don't see how these apps would help people avoid DUI checkpoints. If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.
If you're looking for a good old school point-and-click adventure game, I highly recommend hunting down a copy of Torin's Passage: http://www.allowe.com/Torin/index.htm
Lowe designed the game so he could play it with his daughter - he's most famous for working on the baudy Leisure Suit Larry titles. That having been said, there's some sly humor there that only adults will understand. But at heart, it's a fun family game - there's even a hint system so little kids don't get too frustrated with it.
The Windows version never worked well even on Windows 95, but the DOS version should run perfectly in DosBox.
If this is true, then it is not a surprise. Sony released the PS3, the most technically advanced of all the current generation consoles, only to be outsold by the comparatively weak Wii. And in addition, games released on both PS3 and Xbox 360 generally looked better on the 360 (e.g. Bayonetta).
Sony of all companies should have known that the most technically advanced console doesn't generally perform the best in the market. Sega's Saturn had a multiprocessor architecture before most game programmers knew how to program for one and the PlayStation destroyed it in the marketplace. Similarly, the PS2 fared better in the marketplace than the technically superior Xbox and GameCube (which was primarily hampered by storage space issues like the N64 before it).
What is important is third-party support. That's what made the NES, the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 and other successful consoles. If you have a system developers want to develop for, then you'll get the good quality titles that have people flocking to buy your system.
I can't believe people are settling for the current generation's graphics when they could be so much better. Think about a Grand Theft Auto type of open world game with character models as good as a one-one-one fighting game, that would look amazing. It's not necessarily about photorealism - it's about pushing the boundaries of current technology.
And the new consoles should at least render games natively in 1080p. The current generation can't even do that with the vast majority of games: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241 Indeed, most games render natively at 720p, when virtually no TV available does 720p natively. So you end up with a horribly stretched out picture with most displays.
Great. Another article about talking heads yacking their heads off about video games, blah blah blah. I cringe when I see flowery text like "Like most titles in this genre, it's designed to put us into a series of dramatic set-pieces." No. It's designed to have you shooting all kinds of people with all sorts of weapons. That is what an FPS is.
I'd be far more impressed if they actual did a study of the human brain and what parts of it are in use while playing video games - pleasure/reward centers etc. Otherwise, all we have in this set of articles is a bunch of people just postulating their "theories" in another long-winded manner that doesn't help anyone.
Here's a novel concept. We play video games that are fun. Yes, fun. Remember that? The original reason we played video games before self-proclaimed video game academics and journalists decided to inflate their own reputations and overthink video games as a whole?
It's kind of weird seeing realistic face motions grafted onto dated looking character models. The whole effect reminds of the old cartoon Clutch Cargo.
Seriously though, I think motion capture is going a bit far here. It gets to the point where if you're going to go with that level of detail in noninteractive portions of the game, you might as well do FMV.
Fools. If anything, the movie industry should welcome services like Zediva to buy DVDs in bulk since consumer sales of DVDs are down. Or at least compete by offering "official" streaming at lower prices.
How ironic. I have varying opinions on all the past recipients named, but all of them have actually been the center of conflicts, more so than defusing them. So in retrospect, Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize wasn't such a bad idea since most folks agree on global warming and don't launch armed conflicts about the issue.
It's pretty worrisome that Nintendo is the first company to announce a next-gen console. Sega can tell you that being the first in the pool doesn't work so well. The other console manufacturers get a good look at your hand and can make something even better. And considering that Nintendo's competitors haven't even announced their own consoles, it looks like they'll have plenty of time to create consoles that are technically superior to whatever the Big N is coming up with.
But what Nintendo really needs to do is to make sure that they have a better line to third party developers. They can't afford miss out on another A+ cross-platform title like GTA or a proper version of Call of Duty just because their hardware isn't up to muster.
You know when Spelunky is described as a roguelike, there's some serious issues with genre naming. Defining is a roguelike is pretty simple. Dungeon crawler - saving = roguelike. It's certainly a far better definition than "...an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges." Um... you could say the same about platform games or almost any other genre of game for that matter when you first play them. And the "toolkit" itself isn't unpredictable - even if the items are randomly generated, their behavior and properties are certainly defined.
Other genres are similarly confusing. Like RPG video games - they are actually strategy games. It's the fantasy settings they have that has lead them to be lumped in with real RPGs like D&D and its ilk. We needn't complicate matters further by coming up with vague definitions and proceeding to pat ourselves on the back as we confuse the heck out of everyone.
The problem is that one side of the argument is clearly the obvious side to take, even though it's not necessarily true. Sort of like the climate change debate, most folks already have their mind made up. So thanks to the wonders of groupthink, studies that come down on video games get the funds and publicity, so subsequent studies are done with the same unconscious bias.
Actually, a lot of what he wrote also applies to other academic programs such as bachelor's programs. The thing is, getting a degree used to be pretty rare, so it definitely made anyone who got one (no matter what field it was in) stand out from the rest of the pack. Now there are loads of programs that don't lend themselves to trades, lots of folks with degrees and not enough graduates with what matters - work experience.
Only a small percentage of students want careers in academia, but that is the field for which most universities prepare their students. And an even smaller percentage can manage to make a career out of academics. I don't think major overhauls to the degrees programs are necessary, but I believe the educational system should do a better job of promoting vocational experiences as well as academic ones.
Sigh. GamePro. Why the heck are they comparing TV shows and movies to video game sequels? You'd be better off comparing them to sports. Year after year, we get the same sport, same rules, just shuffling the faces around and maybe changing the rules now and then. But that doesn't stop people from watching or playing them nor does it stop the games from being interesting. No, what's important in sports, like in video games is that you get some good competition and entertainment out of playing/watching them. You go in expecting a unique, fun experience when you play a sport or a video game, and from that you derive the entertainment value.
I don't care if they release tons of Call of Duty games, as long as they're good. The problem with Guitar Hero wasn't the fact that they oversaturated the market, but because people got tired of it. Like Dance Dance Revolution before it. Like the Wii a few years after it was released. They cater to the "casual" gamer, who won't necessarily buy every new interation of a game and who will only play once in a while. Call of Duty is definitely different in that it ropes in the so-called "hardcore" crowd, the folks who will buy a game on launch day and are long time, repeat customers who play regularly. The only question is whether Activision can keep the quality level up and satisfy these gamers who have so many other games to play (Gears 3 is coming out, so is Rage and Duke 4) . And of that, I'm not entirely certain....
I've used one of these and I wasn't sure what to make of it. It's supposed to be a camcorder but it doesn't pick up audio very well unless the source is near the device. So then you think it would be good for video blogging on the go, but models don't have a screen to see if you're in frame. Some say smartphones did in the Flip, but when it first came out, cheap digital cameras were already able to do what the Flip did and more (and with better quality), in addition to being expandable with SD card memory. If it was cheaper, then maybe it would have succeeded...
Slashdot Mirror
Somehow this seems a little irrelevant, considering the boon of gaming on mobile phones and an economy that makes people think twice of buying a separate portable gaming system.
Um... the linked blog post links to an official document that was first posted in March of this year.
I guess this means we can officially say goodbye to Microsoft Surface. Kinect is comparatively inexpensive and can now be used on a customizable platform.
Yes, I know this and I read the whole site too. But in most cases, the positives outweigh the negatives. Things like color bleeding and soft pictures that obscure the detail in backgrounds are far worse than noticeable dithering.
No, the problem is there's no such thing as "perfect" emulation. The same way music from phonographs won't be exactly the same when they're converted to MP3s, by definition emulation will never be the same as the real thing. From differences in how the game is emulated, to using different controllers or different display technology, there is no perfect emulation. It can come close though, and in that respect emulation has succeeded.
If you want perfection, use the real games and the actual hardware, preferably with an RGB mod and a CRT display: http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/index.html
To play rare or impossible to find titles, just download the ROMs and use something like this to play it on the actual hardware: http://krikzz.com/severdrive.html
But if you want portability and don't care about accuracy, you go with emulation.
Length is a pretty dumb metric for value in video games any way. I find that games these days take many hours to complete, but there's little to no desire to going through them again. Dumb things like unlockables and achievements artificially add replay value, but don't make the game any more fun to play multiple times.
I think the success of games like Angry Birds are showing developers that they don't need to make an overbudget game that takes 20 hours to complete. Even games that can be played through in an hour or less can have great longevity on multiple playthroughs. Look at the Cave shooters - deep scoring systems and challenging mechanics keep players coming back for more. And linearity and repetition have nothing to do with it either - every game (even real life sports) has both, what's important is that the game is fun to play over and over.
So he's consulting the EFF (not working as a consultant for them like someone else though). I'd be very disappointed at the EFF if they side with this guy. He installed software that most of the passerbys didn't know about. The software was used to take pictures of them, most of whom did not give their explicit permission. And he published the pictures on an Internet site for the whole world to see. Given how the EFF takes the bigs to task for their written license agreements and violations of privacy, taking this guy's side would make no sense.
Too bad hardware acceleration didn't make the cut yet. It was available in a test build though. I'm looking forward to their implementation of hardware acceleration - it uses OpenGL instead of Direct2D on Windows. I've had all kind of problems with Direct2D (namely, it doesn't seem to accelerate much of anything - not even supposedly basic stuff like scrolling).
I hardly think his album would have been in trouble had that single song not made the cut. As worst, they would have had to remove the track from the album. He went through a similar situation with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful." In the end, the song ("You're Pitiful") didn't make the album but Weird Al released it for free download on his website.
If you haven't the time to watch the video (or maybe you're using elinks or something), they specifically cite the fact that police in Travis County, Texas have willingly supplied checkpoint data to Trapster developers.
And anyway, I don't see how these apps would help people avoid DUI checkpoints. If you're sufficiently wasted, then you probably don't have the judgment skills to use the app and avoid the checkpoint in the first place.
Posted too soon. Pepper's Adventures in Time is also good. And it's freely downloadable: http://www.markseibert.com/the_full_game.htm
It has a girl as the protagonist and there's some good (if twisted) history lessons there too. Cute stuff.
If you're looking for a good old school point-and-click adventure game, I highly recommend hunting down a copy of Torin's Passage: http://www.allowe.com/Torin/index.htm
Lowe designed the game so he could play it with his daughter - he's most famous for working on the baudy Leisure Suit Larry titles. That having been said, there's some sly humor there that only adults will understand. But at heart, it's a fun family game - there's even a hint system so little kids don't get too frustrated with it.
The Windows version never worked well even on Windows 95, but the DOS version should run perfectly in DosBox.
If this is true, then it is not a surprise. Sony released the PS3, the most technically advanced of all the current generation consoles, only to be outsold by the comparatively weak Wii. And in addition, games released on both PS3 and Xbox 360 generally looked better on the 360 (e.g. Bayonetta).
Sony of all companies should have known that the most technically advanced console doesn't generally perform the best in the market. Sega's Saturn had a multiprocessor architecture before most game programmers knew how to program for one and the PlayStation destroyed it in the marketplace. Similarly, the PS2 fared better in the marketplace than the technically superior Xbox and GameCube (which was primarily hampered by storage space issues like the N64 before it).
What is important is third-party support. That's what made the NES, the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2 and other successful consoles. If you have a system developers want to develop for, then you'll get the good quality titles that have people flocking to buy your system.
I can't believe people are settling for the current generation's graphics when they could be so much better. Think about a Grand Theft Auto type of open world game with character models as good as a one-one-one fighting game, that would look amazing. It's not necessarily about photorealism - it's about pushing the boundaries of current technology.
And the new consoles should at least render games natively in 1080p. The current generation can't even do that with the vast majority of games: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241 Indeed, most games render natively at 720p, when virtually no TV available does 720p natively. So you end up with a horribly stretched out picture with most displays.
Great. Another article about talking heads yacking their heads off about video games, blah blah blah. I cringe when I see flowery text like "Like most titles in this genre, it's designed to put us into a series of dramatic set-pieces." No. It's designed to have you shooting all kinds of people with all sorts of weapons. That is what an FPS is.
I'd be far more impressed if they actual did a study of the human brain and what parts of it are in use while playing video games - pleasure/reward centers etc. Otherwise, all we have in this set of articles is a bunch of people just postulating their "theories" in another long-winded manner that doesn't help anyone.
Here's a novel concept. We play video games that are fun. Yes, fun. Remember that? The original reason we played video games before self-proclaimed video game academics and journalists decided to inflate their own reputations and overthink video games as a whole?
It's kind of weird seeing realistic face motions grafted onto dated looking character models. The whole effect reminds of the old cartoon Clutch Cargo.
Seriously though, I think motion capture is going a bit far here. It gets to the point where if you're going to go with that level of detail in noninteractive portions of the game, you might as well do FMV.
Fools. If anything, the movie industry should welcome services like Zediva to buy DVDs in bulk since consumer sales of DVDs are down. Or at least compete by offering "official" streaming at lower prices.
How ironic. I have varying opinions on all the past recipients named, but all of them have actually been the center of conflicts, more so than defusing them. So in retrospect, Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize wasn't such a bad idea since most folks agree on global warming and don't launch armed conflicts about the issue.
It's pretty worrisome that Nintendo is the first company to announce a next-gen console. Sega can tell you that being the first in the pool doesn't work so well. The other console manufacturers get a good look at your hand and can make something even better. And considering that Nintendo's competitors haven't even announced their own consoles, it looks like they'll have plenty of time to create consoles that are technically superior to whatever the Big N is coming up with.
But what Nintendo really needs to do is to make sure that they have a better line to third party developers. They can't afford miss out on another A+ cross-platform title like GTA or a proper version of Call of Duty just because their hardware isn't up to muster.
You know when Spelunky is described as a roguelike, there's some serious issues with genre naming. Defining is a roguelike is pretty simple. Dungeon crawler - saving = roguelike. It's certainly a far better definition than "...an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges." Um... you could say the same about platform games or almost any other genre of game for that matter when you first play them. And the "toolkit" itself isn't unpredictable - even if the items are randomly generated, their behavior and properties are certainly defined.
Other genres are similarly confusing. Like RPG video games - they are actually strategy games. It's the fantasy settings they have that has lead them to be lumped in with real RPGs like D&D and its ilk. We needn't complicate matters further by coming up with vague definitions and proceeding to pat ourselves on the back as we confuse the heck out of everyone.
The problem is that one side of the argument is clearly the obvious side to take, even though it's not necessarily true. Sort of like the climate change debate, most folks already have their mind made up. So thanks to the wonders of groupthink, studies that come down on video games get the funds and publicity, so subsequent studies are done with the same unconscious bias.
Actually, a lot of what he wrote also applies to other academic programs such as bachelor's programs. The thing is, getting a degree used to be pretty rare, so it definitely made anyone who got one (no matter what field it was in) stand out from the rest of the pack. Now there are loads of programs that don't lend themselves to trades, lots of folks with degrees and not enough graduates with what matters - work experience.
Only a small percentage of students want careers in academia, but that is the field for which most universities prepare their students. And an even smaller percentage can manage to make a career out of academics. I don't think major overhauls to the degrees programs are necessary, but I believe the educational system should do a better job of promoting vocational experiences as well as academic ones.
Sigh. GamePro. Why the heck are they comparing TV shows and movies to video game sequels? You'd be better off comparing them to sports. Year after year, we get the same sport, same rules, just shuffling the faces around and maybe changing the rules now and then. But that doesn't stop people from watching or playing them nor does it stop the games from being interesting. No, what's important in sports, like in video games is that you get some good competition and entertainment out of playing/watching them. You go in expecting a unique, fun experience when you play a sport or a video game, and from that you derive the entertainment value.
I don't care if they release tons of Call of Duty games, as long as they're good. The problem with Guitar Hero wasn't the fact that they oversaturated the market, but because people got tired of it. Like Dance Dance Revolution before it. Like the Wii a few years after it was released. They cater to the "casual" gamer, who won't necessarily buy every new interation of a game and who will only play once in a while. Call of Duty is definitely different in that it ropes in the so-called "hardcore" crowd, the folks who will buy a game on launch day and are long time, repeat customers who play regularly. The only question is whether Activision can keep the quality level up and satisfy these gamers who have so many other games to play (Gears 3 is coming out, so is Rage and Duke 4) . And of that, I'm not entirely certain....
I've used one of these and I wasn't sure what to make of it. It's supposed to be a camcorder but it doesn't pick up audio very well unless the source is near the device. So then you think it would be good for video blogging on the go, but models don't have a screen to see if you're in frame. Some say smartphones did in the Flip, but when it first came out, cheap digital cameras were already able to do what the Flip did and more (and with better quality), in addition to being expandable with SD card memory. If it was cheaper, then maybe it would have succeeded...