I used to use Ad-aware Pro way back when the newest version was 6.0 (not sure was the newest one is now). However, I eventually had to get rid of it.
I found that it was very ineffective at actually removing active Malware. Basically what would happen is that because the Malware is already loaded into memory (sometimes even when in safe mode), ad-aware could not terminate the processes that would in turn free up the files to be deleted. So it told me adware was present but could do nothing more.
In addition, Ad-Aware used to have something called "Ad-watch" which provided real-time scanning and could prevent unauthorized registry edits. The problem is that it also prompted you when you tried to install legit software and the WORST case ever is when ad-watch eats up all your CPU because it tries and blocks registry edits that malware continuously makes in an endless loop (i.e. when a mal-ware registry entry is removed/blocked, the malware automatically detects this and re-adds itself).
Also, from what I remember, Ad-Aware did nothing about rogue Active-X controls either (which I know detects when you try and close the the Malware's related processes and then in turn restores it). To summarize, you basically have to kill all processes, active-x controls, and services created by the Malware manually before Ad-Aware and Ad-Watch could do its thing. That stuff should be done "for you".
Unfortunately, by doing this (in the case of Mario Kart), Nintendo has taken what was normally a game of skill and changed it into a "game of chance". This becomes vary evident when you have a two player game. The person in second, gets the awesome items while the one in first gets the worst ones. At this point, you're success is based on getting the right items at the right time and being in second just long enough to use your special items near the very end to plow through to victory. I seriously doubt that was the intention Nintendo had with the Mario Kart series.
In 1P mode, there is an additional scaling factor in Mario Kart games. Basically, the CPU gets unrealistic speeds and can keep up regardless of how fast/efficient you are and even despite being way behind before (sometimes it gets ridiculous at least in Mario Kart 64 whereby you end up lapping everyone from 8th to 4th place just to keep up with the 3rd and 2nd place CPU's).
If a game scales to suit the player, it really needs to be done without changing the flow/purpose of the gameplay (like in my example above where your ability to stay on the track and go as fast as possible is trumped by pure luck). Maybe have the levels "branch" off based on how well you play. So in a platformer, if you take very few hits and/or reach a certain point quickly enough, the rest of the level is more difficult than someone who struggled a lot along the way. This could be applied to racing games as well (and would really add a twist as skilled players are suddenly faced with greater challenges preventing them from stomping over a newcomer to the game). This of course could be abused too but we can leave it to the designers to tweak it as much as possible to mitigate that and of course the players themselves to play and win fairly against others.
"Now everyone will pay again to get a small update to Windows Vista, called by an entirely new name. "
I wouldn't call it "THAT" small of an update though. For the first time, bundled applications like MS paint, Wordpad, and even Minesweeper have finally received a user interface makeover (Ribbons) so that they no longer look the same as they did Windows 95 (I've used every Windows OS since 95 so I remember very well how similar they were give or take some new features). The same can be said about the overall GUI including the new taskbar and peak features (although I never liked it personally and installed a shell replacement (Aston2) anyway).
The backend is supposedly quite refined too and driver support is several times better. All onboard hardware just "worked" for me without having to manually install drivers (this was not the case in XP and Vista). I guess in light of all that, people tend to say that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been from the start. On the other hand, Windows 7 probably wouldn't have been smooth either had a seven year old OS (that is XP) been its predecessor. I think that was a huge factor when Vista was introduced. Not nearly as bad when going from Vista to 7.
On a separate thought, I don't see the point in these "launch parties" except for users to maybe snag a free copy of Windows 7 by hosting one. Basically you don't see Apple asking people to run parties for "Snow Leopard" nor the open source community having a celebration to mark a major "Ubuntu" release. I guess after Vista's disaster, Microsoft is trying to do what it can to redeem its reputation. However, there are still many businesses and homes that have XP and most likely the transition to even Windows 7 may not be so smooth (when it comes time to do it). If you have new hardware though, then there is nothing to worry about naturally.
The beauty of "Fallout 3" is how expansion packs keep getting tacked on to extend the content (so it basically never ends). However, that only further proves the point of this article. If someone did not own "Fallout 3" originally, they would have to buy the game and all DLC in order to gain access to the full content. This will of course get increasingly costly until one day, all DLC becomes bundled with the game itself.
"That said, I still use Firefox (Somebody PLEASE make AdBlock Plus for Chrome and IE please! )"
Somebody already did create ad blocking software for IE but unfortunately it's not freeware and won't work with Adblock plus subscriptions (at least it didn't when I last tried it).
Yes but having to buy new hardware on the PC is the equivalent to having to get a new console to play the latest games (in this case, the next time that happens will be when the successor to the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc is released with some exclusive games to the new system). Not only that, but in many cases (not all the time though), when you buy said new console to play the latest games, you lose backward compatibility with your old ones and need to keep BOTH consoles connected if you wish to play from both game bases. For example, Xbox games will not play on an Xbox 360 due to the different CPU Architectures and the PS3 eventually dropped PSX and PS2 game compatibility when the "emotion" chip was omitted.
With a PC, you can upgrade your graphics hardware (and maybe RAM and CPU as well) and not only can you play the newest games, but everything that came before it (very old DOS games included which can be run on DosBox). Heck, you can even play old console games on a PC with added enhancements (Everything up to the PSX and N64 era will work perfectly even on a mid-range system).
I think what still gives the consoles a leg up is: 1. Tons more exclusive which never have or will be released on the PC platform (until emulators pop up for those systems). 2. Sometimes the console versions are better even when a PC port is released due to either the shoddy quality of the port (e.g. Saints Row 2) or blatant missing features (e.g. Ghostbusters: The Video Game). 3. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more affordable. The cost of a new "high end" video card alone can be more than an entire console. 4. Easier to set up and use than a PC.
"also shows some demos of AMD HD 4890 and NVIDIA GTX 260 graphics cards working together for game rendering"
That might cause a problem. Remember, nVidia disabled Phys-X on their latest drivers when ATI video hardware is present (to prevent people from using cheap nvidia GPU's as a glorified Phys-X PPU) so I hope these guys made their own "custom drivers" that work with both cards (and not just a software bridge between the two). This will eliminate that restriction as well as the need to have TWO separate graphic drivers installed at the same time (causing who knows what problems when certain games work well with one card and buggy with the other).
I used to wonder the same thing about personal super-computers to be honest, but I think you'd end up frustrated and disappointed when trying to run games on these things.
Notice how it stated "80 core system". Most games are only designed to use up to two cores while maybe some use four (same thing goes for folding @ home). That leaves at least 95% of the super computer's total CPU capacity completely idle (and even if it could technically use all 80 cores, Crysis (or any other modern game) is not THAT demanding or else nobody could run it). Not only that, but you'd still have to factor in the GPU. It was never mentioned in the description of this machine about having some untold super GPU with the power of dozens of high end graphics cards that work together as one unit. If you had that, then Crysis would probably run like never before.
The only game (or rather games) I can think of which might benefit from one of these machines are anything that runs on M.A.M.E. This arcade emulator seems to be almost purely CPU based and multi-threads like crazy due to all the separate components from the original hardware.
One thing I kind of wish this article covered was the type of "firing" that is more discrete. What I am talking about is a situation where a developer has done "nothing wrong" in order to warrant a dismissal "with cause" (i.e the axe or the sack) but the supervisor finds another way to get rid of them such as cutting away all their workload and then laying them off due to lack of need for their services. A business may do this in order to avoid having the employee contest their dismissal and/or claim it was "unlawful" in court.
It's impossible to prove or even fully determine when it happens (and being dismissed this way thankfully doesn't have a negative impact on your employment record (i.e. you won't be trying to explain in the following interviews any horrible reasons you were let go)) but surely there must be ways to see it coming and avoid that as well since you will still find yourself looking for another job eventually.
>>> I share the same thoughts about what UK Health Services is doing with telling schoolchildren "masturbation is good", but few seems to agree with me. For some reason if corporations do it, then it's bad, but if governments do it, then everyone thinks it's okay. Odd.
Probably because governments are supposed to be acting upon the best interests of the people as a whole (assuming they are not corrupted) making them easier to trust. Businesses on the other hand are only interested in achieving maximum profits even at other peoples' downfall/expense unless they are a non-profit organization like charities (which is clearly not the case for the RIAA).
What I strongly believe is that the RIAA may find the current generation of teens and young adults to be pretty much a lost cause in terms of convincing them that "downloading is wrong/illegal/etc" because they will just end up doing it anyway (apparently making examples of people through massive lawsuits did not have enough influence). This could be for a variety reasons including being against the RIAA's policies, negative PR, how the RIAA have treated people (and even artists) in that past, or because each individual just can't find anything ethically or morally wrong about downloading especially when they later decide to give tribute to the artist directly should they become a close fan.
So knowing that, the RIAA can move towards a younger audience who are still too young to make decisions like the teens and young adults and therefore end up being VERY impressionable. I am assuming the objective is to convince them that "filesharing is wrong and illegal" so that when they DO get older, they will not partake in the same actions as their older brothers/sisters and maybe even parents.
Naturally in order to accomplish this task, the information will likely be biased in favour of the RIAA so any counter-arugments to their policies such as "fair use" will be cleverly omitted from the program. In short, this whole thing is NOT for the benefit and education of children but the private business interests of a third party organization. Educating them that the RIAA's ancient business model is the ONLY way one should go (as opposed to filesharing which has opened up numerous other possible distribution models).
I think the RIAA's actions here border on "sick" and "brainwashing" if you ask me. That's like if Coca Cola ran a program at schools informing children that all other brands are "harmful" and will have severe negative consequences if you drink them.
Depends how good the game turns out to be. Yahtzee sure had a difficult time trying to take down "Batman Arkham Asylum" and couldn't help but like Psychonauts. Only time will tell though as I am certain he will review "Left 4 Dead 2" as he does with every major game release.
"for some reason MS fans discount or ignore all the time it takes to reinstall all their apps."
I have to agree with that. I did a recent fresh installation of Windows 7 RTM and most of the time was not spent on the OS installation itself but all the required steps afterward: 1. Drivers (although this took waaaaaaaaaay less time than Vista. All I had to install was my sound card and video drivers, SPTD for Daemon Tools, Cutepdf Writer, and then Directx 9 (11 is installed with Win7 but Directx9 still needs to be installed separately thanks to the schism between XP and Vista), OpenAL, and PhysX (not really drivers but needed for my games). Everything else worked including all my LAN devices. 2. Settings: Tons of minor tweaks and what not which shouldn't take too long (1 to 2 hours maybe) 3. Install commonly used applications (my software base). This is the real time gobbler right here (not only installing but CONFIGURING each one as well). With Ubuntu, most of the software you would ever need is pre-bundled and configured with the Distro itself (give or take a few). Same deal with Macs (which I know Apple loves to tout). The PC I installed Windows 7 on is also a gaming PC too and those game installer's aren't exactly snappy (although most of mine are portable since I used steam and can just extract the entire steamapps directory and I'm done).
So yeah, all of that put together could easily add up to 8 hours. For a user with less to install, maybe half of that.
I share a similar opinion in that being younger meant you were more tolerable even if that game was not so great. I will add to that saying that I used to feel that if I was doing badly at the game no matter what (e.g. if I was playing a game like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde or Kid Kook), then it was "me" and not the game. There was no internet to check reviews or whether others were having similar playing difficulties. Therefore, I would just try harder until I could play reasonably well. Today, a gamer would just give up if that happened dismissing the game as "bad" and moving on. It's easier to be more pickier than before.
In terms of rentals though back then, I at least got to choose what I wanted except when my parents got me one they thought I liked (Beatlejuice for the NES and if I were to describe it in one word, that would be LJN). I ended up liking it though surprisingly.
Not sure if this was said before but one of the problems is that a lot of login systems do not let you choose your own question AND answer. You instead have to choose from a set of pre-defined (and probably very easily guessed) questions to which you can attach your answer. This prevents you from using the secret question as a secondary/alternate password. On top of that, some people just choose something highly memorable but easily guessed (much like their password itself is likely to be). I think your best bet is to just enter a nonsense answer (that doesn't reflect the question) but you then need to remember what that was should you ever have to retrieve your account details.
I'm sorry but I could never agree with that. Just the efficiency of the Keyboard+Mouse controls versus controller makes the PC version the far better choice (considering how fast paced this game is I mean as you can't flip around quickly and shoot when using a controller). Now there will be even more of a reason to have it since the mod community will be unleashed on it soon making who knows what added user content. The one thing missing from Left 4 Dead was in fact a wider variety of maps (the current ones have to be hacked together due to the lack of SDK).
I am not sure if this plans to be done or if it's possible but what would be VERY cool for a game like this is if the color pattern of each building could be inspected in real time and a model of that building generated based on the shape and material of that building (e.g. a copper roof of an L shaped building). They could do the same for grass, rocks, trees, etc as well. The only guesswork would be what the rest of the building looks like but that could easily be rendered with a more generic set of textures (as long as the building looks the same each time you visit it).
That would be about as close as you can get to having a virtual simulation of the real world without having to worry about making the game hundreds of GBs in size (just need a set of textures for each material).
Good news for everyone complaining about the price. It seems Left 4 Dead's price has come down from what I saw. It used to be $49.99 but now it's $39.99. In my case though, I have already bought it and look forward to the new content. However, this price cut is surely well timed in that it will likely make more people keen on getting it.
I have to agree with you there. Silent Hill 4 just felt outright different than the other 3 and I didn't find it as scary nor enjoyable (the invincible ghosts being one of the most annoying additions ever). The 5th installment I couldn't really try to its fullest extent because the PC version was ridden with audio bugs (e.g. sound being stuck in left channel only) ruining the scary atmosphere. It was also more "combat based" (including quick time events) rather than a being weak, helpless, and scared character like in Silent Hill 1-3. I have not tried silent hill origins though but I heard it was just more of the same (although it was nice to know how Silent Hill's current state originally came to be).
It is kind of cool to have the original remade with what is likely a graphical upgrade (and of course new paths to keep things fresh). What made the original Silent Hill so scary was the "sound" but the graphics just couldn't deliver what the audio was building up towards (e.g. that hanging corpse at the end of the alleyway near the beginning is a good example of what I mean as it was not as horrifying as you would expect) due to the limitations of the PSX hardware. Since this is geared towards Wii, PS2, and PSP as opposed to PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, I won't expect a "high definition" remake but it'll certainly look better than the original version and could potentially scare you even more by providing more vivid visuals than what the PSX delivered
Funny how the model M keyboard is mentioned here as "old school" because I STILL have one and I am currently using it. It used to belong to my brother back when he got his pentium 90 (yeah, that's how old it is) but now I use it on on my modern gaming PC. It's really durable, responsive, and evidently built to last for several years. For games which are VERY demanding on keyboards (especially the WASD keys), it's been perfect to have (no sticky or unresponsive keys at all).
The very first thought that came to mind when I read the title of this article is that "this will kill quest helper" and evidently that turned out to be true. Let's hope Blizzard revokes this but I doubt it. Now they are just getting greedy by saying "how dare you make some money off of OUR game" even if it is indirectly and not a mandatory payment to the add-on authors.
I remember having the same problem as this guy did with installing openoffice 3.0 only it was with Firefox 3.0 (back when RC2). For some insane reason, somebody thought it was a good idea to bundle Ubuntu with a Firefox 3.0 beta 3 (remember I'm talking about the time before the final version was released). This version had a very crippling bug with printing ("print selected text" did NOT work at all) so I had to manually try and update v3.0 to RC2 which like openoffice v3, was not in any repository or the "Add/Remove" area. What I ended up doing is downloading a tar.gz which contained it (no installer needed) and overwrite the beta version (but even that was tough because you can't touch the/usr/bin areas without the terminal since you need to execute "sudo" first (although now I wouldn't have this problem because I would just install Krusader which gives me a nice interface to work with similar to Window's total commander).
I could probably use this on my now very old laptop (Celeron 1.33Ghz with 256MB RAM). It's essentially just an e-mail machine which I also use to seed torrents and access the internet when I don't want to turn on my main PC. I'll have to wait and see if it's worth the $19.95 price tag though.
Right!! So instead of "paying" their in house developers to write new material for spore, they can sucker the mod community into doing it for free (or what is probably going to be a very pitiful prize not worth 1/10th the amount of money they would have made as a hired employee programming the same thing).
That terms and conditions makes this blatantly obvious. If they really wanted more content, they would release the API to everyone who bought the game (just like Valve did with its Source SDK).
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I used to use Ad-aware Pro way back when the newest version was 6.0 (not sure was the newest one is now). However, I eventually had to get rid of it. I found that it was very ineffective at actually removing active Malware. Basically what would happen is that because the Malware is already loaded into memory (sometimes even when in safe mode), ad-aware could not terminate the processes that would in turn free up the files to be deleted. So it told me adware was present but could do nothing more. In addition, Ad-Aware used to have something called "Ad-watch" which provided real-time scanning and could prevent unauthorized registry edits. The problem is that it also prompted you when you tried to install legit software and the WORST case ever is when ad-watch eats up all your CPU because it tries and blocks registry edits that malware continuously makes in an endless loop (i.e. when a mal-ware registry entry is removed/blocked, the malware automatically detects this and re-adds itself). Also, from what I remember, Ad-Aware did nothing about rogue Active-X controls either (which I know detects when you try and close the the Malware's related processes and then in turn restores it). To summarize, you basically have to kill all processes, active-x controls, and services created by the Malware manually before Ad-Aware and Ad-Watch could do its thing. That stuff should be done "for you".
Unfortunately, by doing this (in the case of Mario Kart), Nintendo has taken what was normally a game of skill and changed it into a "game of chance". This becomes vary evident when you have a two player game. The person in second, gets the awesome items while the one in first gets the worst ones. At this point, you're success is based on getting the right items at the right time and being in second just long enough to use your special items near the very end to plow through to victory. I seriously doubt that was the intention Nintendo had with the Mario Kart series.
In 1P mode, there is an additional scaling factor in Mario Kart games. Basically, the CPU gets unrealistic speeds and can keep up regardless of how fast/efficient you are and even despite being way behind before (sometimes it gets ridiculous at least in Mario Kart 64 whereby you end up lapping everyone from 8th to 4th place just to keep up with the 3rd and 2nd place CPU's).
If a game scales to suit the player, it really needs to be done without changing the flow/purpose of the gameplay (like in my example above where your ability to stay on the track and go as fast as possible is trumped by pure luck). Maybe have the levels "branch" off based on how well you play. So in a platformer, if you take very few hits and/or reach a certain point quickly enough, the rest of the level is more difficult than someone who struggled a lot along the way. This could be applied to racing games as well (and would really add a twist as skilled players are suddenly faced with greater challenges preventing them from stomping over a newcomer to the game). This of course could be abused too but we can leave it to the designers to tweak it as much as possible to mitigate that and of course the players themselves to play and win fairly against others.
"Now everyone will pay again to get a small update to Windows Vista, called by an entirely new name. "
I wouldn't call it "THAT" small of an update though. For the first time, bundled applications like MS paint, Wordpad, and even Minesweeper have finally received a user interface makeover (Ribbons) so that they no longer look the same as they did Windows 95 (I've used every Windows OS since 95 so I remember very well how similar they were give or take some new features). The same can be said about the overall GUI including the new taskbar and peak features (although I never liked it personally and installed a shell replacement (Aston2) anyway).
The backend is supposedly quite refined too and driver support is several times better. All onboard hardware just "worked" for me without having to manually install drivers (this was not the case in XP and Vista). I guess in light of all that, people tend to say that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been from the start. On the other hand, Windows 7 probably wouldn't have been smooth either had a seven year old OS (that is XP) been its predecessor. I think that was a huge factor when Vista was introduced. Not nearly as bad when going from Vista to 7.
On a separate thought, I don't see the point in these "launch parties" except for users to maybe snag a free copy of Windows 7 by hosting one. Basically you don't see Apple asking people to run parties for "Snow Leopard" nor the open source community having a celebration to mark a major "Ubuntu" release. I guess after Vista's disaster, Microsoft is trying to do what it can to redeem its reputation. However, there are still many businesses and homes that have XP and most likely the transition to even Windows 7 may not be so smooth (when it comes time to do it). If you have new hardware though, then there is nothing to worry about naturally.
The beauty of "Fallout 3" is how expansion packs keep getting tacked on to extend the content (so it basically never ends). However, that only further proves the point of this article. If someone did not own "Fallout 3" originally, they would have to buy the game and all DLC in order to gain access to the full content. This will of course get increasingly costly until one day, all DLC becomes bundled with the game itself.
@Post #29527707:
"That said, I still use Firefox (Somebody PLEASE make AdBlock Plus for Chrome and IE please! )"
Somebody already did create ad blocking software for IE but unfortunately it's not freeware and won't work with Adblock plus subscriptions (at least it didn't when I last tried it).
The name of the addon is called Adblock Pro.
Yes but having to buy new hardware on the PC is the equivalent to having to get a new console to play the latest games (in this case, the next time that happens will be when the successor to the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc is released with some exclusive games to the new system). Not only that, but in many cases (not all the time though), when you buy said new console to play the latest games, you lose backward compatibility with your old ones and need to keep BOTH consoles connected if you wish to play from both game bases. For example, Xbox games will not play on an Xbox 360 due to the different CPU Architectures and the PS3 eventually dropped PSX and PS2 game compatibility when the "emotion" chip was omitted.
With a PC, you can upgrade your graphics hardware (and maybe RAM and CPU as well) and not only can you play the newest games, but everything that came before it (very old DOS games included which can be run on DosBox). Heck, you can even play old console games on a PC with added enhancements (Everything up to the PSX and N64 era will work perfectly even on a mid-range system).
I think what still gives the consoles a leg up is:
1. Tons more exclusive which never have or will be released on the PC platform (until emulators pop up for those systems).
2. Sometimes the console versions are better even when a PC port is released due to either the shoddy quality of the port (e.g. Saints Row 2) or blatant missing features (e.g. Ghostbusters: The Video Game).
3. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more affordable. The cost of a new "high end" video card alone can be more than an entire console.
4. Easier to set up and use than a PC.
Speaking of Phys-X,
"also shows some demos of AMD HD 4890 and NVIDIA GTX 260 graphics cards working together for game rendering"
That might cause a problem. Remember, nVidia disabled Phys-X on their latest drivers when ATI video hardware is present (to prevent people from using cheap nvidia GPU's as a glorified Phys-X PPU) so I hope these guys made their own "custom drivers" that work with both cards (and not just a software bridge between the two). This will eliminate that restriction as well as the need to have TWO separate graphic drivers installed at the same time (causing who knows what problems when certain games work well with one card and buggy with the other).
I used to wonder the same thing about personal super-computers to be honest, but I think you'd end up frustrated and disappointed when trying to run games on these things.
Notice how it stated "80 core system". Most games are only designed to use up to two cores while maybe some use four (same thing goes for folding @ home). That leaves at least 95% of the super computer's total CPU capacity completely idle (and even if it could technically use all 80 cores, Crysis (or any other modern game) is not THAT demanding or else nobody could run it). Not only that, but you'd still have to factor in the GPU. It was never mentioned in the description of this machine about having some untold super GPU with the power of dozens of high end graphics cards that work together as one unit. If you had that, then Crysis would probably run like never before.
The only game (or rather games) I can think of which might benefit from one of these machines are anything that runs on M.A.M.E. This arcade emulator seems to be almost purely CPU based and multi-threads like crazy due to all the separate components from the original hardware.
One thing I kind of wish this article covered was the type of "firing" that is more discrete. What I am talking about is a situation where a developer has done "nothing wrong" in order to warrant a dismissal "with cause" (i.e the axe or the sack) but the supervisor finds another way to get rid of them such as cutting away all their workload and then laying them off due to lack of need for their services. A business may do this in order to avoid having the employee contest their dismissal and/or claim it was "unlawful" in court. It's impossible to prove or even fully determine when it happens (and being dismissed this way thankfully doesn't have a negative impact on your employment record (i.e. you won't be trying to explain in the following interviews any horrible reasons you were let go)) but surely there must be ways to see it coming and avoid that as well since you will still find yourself looking for another job eventually.
>>> I share the same thoughts about what UK Health Services is doing with telling schoolchildren "masturbation is good", but few seems to agree with me. For some reason if corporations do it, then it's bad, but if governments do it, then everyone thinks it's okay. Odd. Probably because governments are supposed to be acting upon the best interests of the people as a whole (assuming they are not corrupted) making them easier to trust. Businesses on the other hand are only interested in achieving maximum profits even at other peoples' downfall/expense unless they are a non-profit organization like charities (which is clearly not the case for the RIAA).
What I strongly believe is that the RIAA may find the current generation of teens and young adults to be pretty much a lost cause in terms of convincing them that "downloading is wrong/illegal/etc" because they will just end up doing it anyway (apparently making examples of people through massive lawsuits did not have enough influence). This could be for a variety reasons including being against the RIAA's policies, negative PR, how the RIAA have treated people (and even artists) in that past, or because each individual just can't find anything ethically or morally wrong about downloading especially when they later decide to give tribute to the artist directly should they become a close fan.
So knowing that, the RIAA can move towards a younger audience who are still too young to make decisions like the teens and young adults and therefore end up being VERY impressionable. I am assuming the objective is to convince them that "filesharing is wrong and illegal" so that when they DO get older, they will not partake in the same actions as their older brothers/sisters and maybe even parents.
Naturally in order to accomplish this task, the information will likely be biased in favour of the RIAA so any counter-arugments to their policies such as "fair use" will be cleverly omitted from the program. In short, this whole thing is NOT for the benefit and education of children but the private business interests of a third party organization. Educating them that the RIAA's ancient business model is the ONLY way one should go (as opposed to filesharing which has opened up numerous other possible distribution models).
I think the RIAA's actions here border on "sick" and "brainwashing" if you ask me. That's like if Coca Cola ran a program at schools informing children that all other brands are "harmful" and will have severe negative consequences if you drink them.
Depends how good the game turns out to be. Yahtzee sure had a difficult time trying to take down "Batman Arkham Asylum" and couldn't help but like Psychonauts. Only time will tell though as I am certain he will review "Left 4 Dead 2" as he does with every major game release.
"for some reason MS fans discount or ignore all the time it takes to reinstall all their apps."
I have to agree with that. I did a recent fresh installation of Windows 7 RTM and most of the time was not spent on the OS installation itself but all the required steps afterward:
1. Drivers (although this took waaaaaaaaaay less time than Vista. All I had to install was my sound card and video drivers, SPTD for Daemon Tools, Cutepdf Writer, and then Directx 9 (11 is installed with Win7 but Directx9 still needs to be installed separately thanks to the schism between XP and Vista), OpenAL, and PhysX (not really drivers but needed for my games). Everything else worked including all my LAN devices.
2. Settings: Tons of minor tweaks and what not which shouldn't take too long (1 to 2 hours maybe)
3. Install commonly used applications (my software base). This is the real time gobbler right here (not only installing but CONFIGURING each one as well). With Ubuntu, most of the software you would ever need is pre-bundled and configured with the Distro itself (give or take a few). Same deal with Macs (which I know Apple loves to tout). The PC I installed Windows 7 on is also a gaming PC too and those game installer's aren't exactly snappy (although most of mine are portable since I used steam and can just extract the entire steamapps directory and I'm done).
So yeah, all of that put together could easily add up to 8 hours. For a user with less to install, maybe half of that.
I share a similar opinion in that being younger meant you were more tolerable even if that game was not so great. I will add to that saying that I used to feel that if I was doing badly at the game no matter what (e.g. if I was playing a game like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde or Kid Kook), then it was "me" and not the game. There was no internet to check reviews or whether others were having similar playing difficulties. Therefore, I would just try harder until I could play reasonably well. Today, a gamer would just give up if that happened dismissing the game as "bad" and moving on. It's easier to be more pickier than before. In terms of rentals though back then, I at least got to choose what I wanted except when my parents got me one they thought I liked (Beatlejuice for the NES and if I were to describe it in one word, that would be LJN). I ended up liking it though surprisingly.
Not sure if this was said before but one of the problems is that a lot of login systems do not let you choose your own question AND answer. You instead have to choose from a set of pre-defined (and probably very easily guessed) questions to which you can attach your answer. This prevents you from using the secret question as a secondary/alternate password. On top of that, some people just choose something highly memorable but easily guessed (much like their password itself is likely to be). I think your best bet is to just enter a nonsense answer (that doesn't reflect the question) but you then need to remember what that was should you ever have to retrieve your account details.
I'm sorry but I could never agree with that. Just the efficiency of the Keyboard+Mouse controls versus controller makes the PC version the far better choice (considering how fast paced this game is I mean as you can't flip around quickly and shoot when using a controller). Now there will be even more of a reason to have it since the mod community will be unleashed on it soon making who knows what added user content. The one thing missing from Left 4 Dead was in fact a wider variety of maps (the current ones have to be hacked together due to the lack of SDK).
I am not sure if this plans to be done or if it's possible but what would be VERY cool for a game like this is if the color pattern of each building could be inspected in real time and a model of that building generated based on the shape and material of that building (e.g. a copper roof of an L shaped building). They could do the same for grass, rocks, trees, etc as well. The only guesswork would be what the rest of the building looks like but that could easily be rendered with a more generic set of textures (as long as the building looks the same each time you visit it). That would be about as close as you can get to having a virtual simulation of the real world without having to worry about making the game hundreds of GBs in size (just need a set of textures for each material).
Good news for everyone complaining about the price. It seems Left 4 Dead's price has come down from what I saw. It used to be $49.99 but now it's $39.99. In my case though, I have already bought it and look forward to the new content. However, this price cut is surely well timed in that it will likely make more people keen on getting it.
I guess that means Psychonauts has a "second person" view when you use the reconnaissance power :). Cool. Never thought of it that way
I have to agree with you there. Silent Hill 4 just felt outright different than the other 3 and I didn't find it as scary nor enjoyable (the invincible ghosts being one of the most annoying additions ever). The 5th installment I couldn't really try to its fullest extent because the PC version was ridden with audio bugs (e.g. sound being stuck in left channel only) ruining the scary atmosphere. It was also more "combat based" (including quick time events) rather than a being weak, helpless, and scared character like in Silent Hill 1-3. I have not tried silent hill origins though but I heard it was just more of the same (although it was nice to know how Silent Hill's current state originally came to be). It is kind of cool to have the original remade with what is likely a graphical upgrade (and of course new paths to keep things fresh). What made the original Silent Hill so scary was the "sound" but the graphics just couldn't deliver what the audio was building up towards (e.g. that hanging corpse at the end of the alleyway near the beginning is a good example of what I mean as it was not as horrifying as you would expect) due to the limitations of the PSX hardware. Since this is geared towards Wii, PS2, and PSP as opposed to PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, I won't expect a "high definition" remake but it'll certainly look better than the original version and could potentially scare you even more by providing more vivid visuals than what the PSX delivered
Funny how the model M keyboard is mentioned here as "old school" because I STILL have one and I am currently using it. It used to belong to my brother back when he got his pentium 90 (yeah, that's how old it is) but now I use it on on my modern gaming PC. It's really durable, responsive, and evidently built to last for several years. For games which are VERY demanding on keyboards (especially the WASD keys), it's been perfect to have (no sticky or unresponsive keys at all).
The very first thought that came to mind when I read the title of this article is that "this will kill quest helper" and evidently that turned out to be true. Let's hope Blizzard revokes this but I doubt it. Now they are just getting greedy by saying "how dare you make some money off of OUR game" even if it is indirectly and not a mandatory payment to the add-on authors.
I remember having the same problem as this guy did with installing openoffice 3.0 only it was with Firefox 3.0 (back when RC2). For some insane reason, somebody thought it was a good idea to bundle Ubuntu with a Firefox 3.0 beta 3 (remember I'm talking about the time before the final version was released). This version had a very crippling bug with printing ("print selected text" did NOT work at all) so I had to manually try and update v3.0 to RC2 which like openoffice v3, was not in any repository or the "Add/Remove" area. What I ended up doing is downloading a tar.gz which contained it (no installer needed) and overwrite the beta version (but even that was tough because you can't touch the /usr/bin areas without the terminal since you need to execute "sudo" first (although now I wouldn't have this problem because I would just install Krusader which gives me a nice interface to work with similar to Window's total commander).
I could probably use this on my now very old laptop (Celeron 1.33Ghz with 256MB RAM). It's essentially just an e-mail machine which I also use to seed torrents and access the internet when I don't want to turn on my main PC. I'll have to wait and see if it's worth the $19.95 price tag though.
Right!! So instead of "paying" their in house developers to write new material for spore, they can sucker the mod community into doing it for free (or what is probably going to be a very pitiful prize not worth 1/10th the amount of money they would have made as a hired employee programming the same thing). That terms and conditions makes this blatantly obvious. If they really wanted more content, they would release the API to everyone who bought the game (just like Valve did with its Source SDK).