I think what OSS junkies want is more of a list of games that have a) free source and b) open or free-for-noncommercial content. This allows them to be pleasently hackable by end-users.
Of course, any listing of such games would be deluged with tetris and reversi clones and it would have to be well organised to actually find the meatier projects. After all, to some people Chess is a "strategy game", so finding RTS titles among all the boardgames in listings sites is often tricky.
heh, my dad tried to give me one of those because I told him I didn't want a newer keyboard cluttered with uncecessary web buttons and a win-key (play a lot of games on ctrl and alt, win-key makes a mess). While the tactile feedback of those old things is nice, the keyboard is deafeningly loud.
Personally, I'm fine with minimal feedback, and would love the fact that this mouse seems to be quiet. I want one.
Responsabilities too much? Salary too low? Working overtime?
Simple solution: don't. If they don't pay you enough to work more than 8 hours, don't work more than 8 hours. Even if that means the software won't make release date. Your job is to code. Making sure the software works and is released on time is your boss's job.
I've seen many internet cafes (LAN shops, whatever you want to call them) and I've never seen one card or run parental controls. I think the better idea would be just to require that people get a uname/pwd at the front counter before they use it so you can avoid having the neighbors filch your ph4t p1p3.
Heheh, I actually saw GTA:Vice City sold to a parent once. The clerk quietly explained to her that the game contained violence, picking up prostitutes, shooting cops, etc. She walked over to her 11ish-year-old boy, discussed the matter with him briefly, and bought the game.
Nice, eh?
Also, the ESRB needs to establish a firm guideline on disabled content (which is different from "hidden" content that can be enabled through cheats, etc.) Many games have forgotten or ignored content. For example, there were several clean titles based on the classic Doom and Wolf3d engines (Chex Quest, Noah's Ark) etc. These games were very childish, but the horrible Doom monsters - complete with gory deaths - were still packed into the wadfiles. They just never made an appearance in-game. Likewise, games may have localization data or similar left in that may be controversial in different areas.
The ESRB needs to make a firm policy on the game _data_ as distinct from the game _content_ (content is stuff in the game - data is stuff in the files). Hot Coffee was not physically in the game anywhere - it was physically on the media, but there was no way to access it in-game. The ESRB needs clear guidelines on this.
The future considerations of the medium may make this more complicated. After all, in the future, technological solutions to problems may involve throwing clothes over nude models (a-la Maya cloth). This may go so far as to include nipples for the purpose of providing headlights. Therefore, a trivial hack would be to remove the clothes.
Well, let's compare what you're training it to do. If it's the semi-transelike state I get when I play the average racing game, it's just muscle memory and subconsciously memorizing the track - pretty much just conditioning.
Alternately, if it's actual puzzle solving a-la The Incredible Machine, then maybe you're training yourself in something useful.
Hmm. What I wonder is how there appears to be snow on the hillside - I mean, that suggests that the ice is blowing away (unless that's a trick of their colour retouching). Maybe that ice lake is only temporary?
The problem is that I think all those names were already used for satellites of the gas giants. They really should've reserved the Roman gods for planets.
I would make teaching science class simpler - the old Pluto is just downgraded to a Kuiperoid comet, and the new Pluto is there. The solar system retains 9 planets, and the names remain the same. People just have to remember that most of the size and location information about Pluto is different, plus it no longer has it's moon Charon... but how many non-science-nerds knew that anyhow. All the sciency people can go know the news, and the rest of the people can ignore it without being confused.
Rename the old Pluto Persephone. I'm pretty sure that was the unofficial name they used in the '80s when they thought they'd found a planet the last time.
This is a big advantage - gamers are used to seeing Nintendo's characters in a variety of genres, so Nintendo can innovate new games while leveraging their popular brands. Nobody else has properties like that (well, maybe a few, like Crash and Megaman). Bungie couldn't release Master Chief Cricket, but Nintendo can have Mario Tennis, Mario RPG, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Mario Sunshine, Dr. Mario, Paper Mario, etc. - and they're all solid games, so the brand doesn't get diluted (unlike many attempts to branch out where the spin-off games quickly gain reputations as tepid crap).
So Nintendo has found "freedom to innovate" through clever branding.
Now, I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't play consoles often, but if I wanted one it'd be the GC. Why? Because the GC has the best party games. PS2 suffers from having only 2 standard ports, and as flightstick manufacturers learned about the PC - only the standard hardware really gets the games. XBox is so fixated on being online, that party-games (besides the Halo series) take a back seat. Plus, XBox games are so behind-view-oriented that almost all the party games are split-screen, while GC has many of the more pleasant (but more limited) shared-screen affairs.
Idunno, exploding barrels are pretty much an Id thing. I don't see many games including them except Id. Plus, at least exploding barrels add to the gameplay - by exploding, they create new possible strategies for the players. Crates are just lazy map geometry - boxes are pretty easy to do in BSP editors, and crates are very pleasently box-shaped.
Barrels are more like swinging blades, lava, crushers, conveyor belts, etc. They're cliches, but they often do contribute nicely to gameplay.
I agree. The strength of doom wasn't the typical run & gun, it was the _scale_ of the run & gun. Rooms absolutely packed full of imps. The only games I've seen that expand on this concept properly are Serious Sam and Abuse. Quake 4 looks like it'll be Quake 2 all over again - room after room of odd little battles. Not as "boo, an imp" as doom 3, but still not the glorious carnage of doom 2. When will we ever see another "Dead Simple"? Or better yet, when will we see something on the monstrous scale as the Kleer horde of Serious Sam's "Metropolis".
The abysmal failure of the easily-piratable Dreamcast would be a strong counterargument, if Sega's weak videogames weren't a stronger one (PowerStone 2, Chu Chu Rocket, and VOOT excepted of course).
In that veign, today's mindless-but-story-driven action games will be looked back upon with the same twisted mix of disgust and amusement that black-and-white Ed Wood shlock and pulp horror films are today. Prior generations will be viewed as the experimental phase of the field - like when moving pictures were all tricks of optical illusions and video cameras were experimental toys, and silent films relied on bizarre creative tricks to convey meaning.
Doom is the modern Wizard of Oz - an impressive technical achievement, and kinda fun - but kinda campy and stupid in hindsight. Perhaps Zork is the modern Metropolis? Idunno. Repetative Asian CRPGs are the modern Spaghetti Westerns?
And MMOs. MMOs are a revolutionary destruction of the art into the lowest-common-denominator. MMOs are the modern sitcoms. WoW is the Cosby show.
Television is perfectly good art when people want it to be. See HBO for good examples of artful TV (eg. first season of Six Feet Under). Alternately, for the anime freaks, consider Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Consider Simpsons, back in it's prime. Simpsons was the definition of TV that was both art and pop (like Shakespeare) - formulaic, yet creative; tasteless, yet deep; nostalgic, yet current; etc.
Amen. I've seen what happens when you have well-written games - you get FF8. The game had perfectly decent dialogue and a compelling story that was incredibly annoying and slow to crawl through. The game tried to tell a nice story, and in the end it felt like you were just clicking through a nice story, instead of playing.
Apparently. And soon, they'll have hardware leverage too - by getting the 360 gamepad as the new game hardware, they're trying to further entrench themselves as the only solution for PC gaming. I mean, if someone develops a PC title specifically for the 360 pad, what happens with the port to linux or mac?
Of course, it might be a wash anyways given past failures of PC game controllers.
Damn. beat me to it. Anybody wonder why Zonk puts odd little game-reviews like this to front page, and yet leaves the GTA Hot Coffee stuff in the sectional?
Amen. I was overjoyed when I heard of a console getting a touchscreen (finally, a pointing device for consoles so FPS and RTS console games can avoid suckage).... and then was disappointed when I realised that Nintendo would be making it, and so the main games would be Mario and stuff. Fortunately, Nintendo is making neat stuff for the DS.
I do wonder why they even bothered with the second screen - I haven't seen many games that justify the expense of even having it. The touchscreen and wireless are the real big deal.
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I think what OSS junkies want is more of a list of games that have a) free source and b) open or free-for-noncommercial content. This allows them to be pleasently hackable by end-users.
Of course, any listing of such games would be deluged with tetris and reversi clones and it would have to be well organised to actually find the meatier projects. After all, to some people Chess is a "strategy game", so finding RTS titles among all the boardgames in listings sites is often tricky.
heh, my dad tried to give me one of those because I told him I didn't want a newer keyboard cluttered with uncecessary web buttons and a win-key (play a lot of games on ctrl and alt, win-key makes a mess). While the tactile feedback of those old things is nice, the keyboard is deafeningly loud.
Personally, I'm fine with minimal feedback, and would love the fact that this mouse seems to be quiet. I want one.
Not according to a certain English rock band.
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" -- Pink Floyd.
Responsabilities too much? Salary too low? Working overtime?
Simple solution: don't. If they don't pay you enough to work more than 8 hours, don't work more than 8 hours. Even if that means the software won't make release date. Your job is to code. Making sure the software works and is released on time is your boss's job.
I've seen many internet cafes (LAN shops, whatever you want to call them) and I've never seen one card or run parental controls. I think the better idea would be just to require that people get a uname/pwd at the front counter before they use it so you can avoid having the neighbors filch your ph4t p1p3.
Heheh, I actually saw GTA:Vice City sold to a parent once. The clerk quietly explained to her that the game contained violence, picking up prostitutes, shooting cops, etc. She walked over to her 11ish-year-old boy, discussed the matter with him briefly, and bought the game.
Nice, eh?
Also, the ESRB needs to establish a firm guideline on disabled content (which is different from "hidden" content that can be enabled through cheats, etc.) Many games have forgotten or ignored content. For example, there were several clean titles based on the classic Doom and Wolf3d engines (Chex Quest, Noah's Ark) etc. These games were very childish, but the horrible Doom monsters - complete with gory deaths - were still packed into the wadfiles. They just never made an appearance in-game. Likewise, games may have localization data or similar left in that may be controversial in different areas.
The ESRB needs to make a firm policy on the game _data_ as distinct from the game _content_ (content is stuff in the game - data is stuff in the files). Hot Coffee was not physically in the game anywhere - it was physically on the media, but there was no way to access it in-game. The ESRB needs clear guidelines on this.
The future considerations of the medium may make this more complicated. After all, in the future, technological solutions to problems may involve throwing clothes over nude models (a-la Maya cloth). This may go so far as to include nipples for the purpose of providing headlights. Therefore, a trivial hack would be to remove the clothes.
Whoa, I missed that one before. Didn't realise there was frost on mars.
Well, let's compare what you're training it to do. If it's the semi-transelike state I get when I play the average racing game, it's just muscle memory and subconsciously memorizing the track - pretty much just conditioning.
Alternately, if it's actual puzzle solving a-la The Incredible Machine, then maybe you're training yourself in something useful.
What I find amusing is how they provided a picture for those of you with oldskool 3d glasses:
8 BE_1.html#subhead4
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMGKA80
And they include a super-high-res version of that too.
Sustainable... no, but you might be able to use this to help a small outpost last a long time.
Hmm. What I wonder is how there appears to be snow on the hillside - I mean, that suggests that the ice is blowing away (unless that's a trick of their colour retouching). Maybe that ice lake is only temporary?
The problem is that I think all those names were already used for satellites of the gas giants. They really should've reserved the Roman gods for planets.
Howard Dean. Dunno if he's in anybody's pocket, but he proved you can get a good campaign going through weblog-based fundraising. Too bad about Yearg.
I would make teaching science class simpler - the old Pluto is just downgraded to a Kuiperoid comet, and the new Pluto is there. The solar system retains 9 planets, and the names remain the same. People just have to remember that most of the size and location information about Pluto is different, plus it no longer has it's moon Charon... but how many non-science-nerds knew that anyhow. All the sciency people can go know the news, and the rest of the people can ignore it without being confused.
Rename the old Pluto Persephone. I'm pretty sure that was the unofficial name they used in the '80s when they thought they'd found a planet the last time.
This is a big advantage - gamers are used to seeing Nintendo's characters in a variety of genres, so Nintendo can innovate new games while leveraging their popular brands. Nobody else has properties like that (well, maybe a few, like Crash and Megaman). Bungie couldn't release Master Chief Cricket, but Nintendo can have Mario Tennis, Mario RPG, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Mario Sunshine, Dr. Mario, Paper Mario, etc. - and they're all solid games, so the brand doesn't get diluted (unlike many attempts to branch out where the spin-off games quickly gain reputations as tepid crap).
So Nintendo has found "freedom to innovate" through clever branding.
Now, I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't play consoles often, but if I wanted one it'd be the GC. Why? Because the GC has the best party games. PS2 suffers from having only 2 standard ports, and as flightstick manufacturers learned about the PC - only the standard hardware really gets the games. XBox is so fixated on being online, that party-games (besides the Halo series) take a back seat. Plus, XBox games are so behind-view-oriented that almost all the party games are split-screen, while GC has many of the more pleasant (but more limited) shared-screen affairs.
Plus, I already got a DVD player.
Idunno, exploding barrels are pretty much an Id thing. I don't see many games including them except Id. Plus, at least exploding barrels add to the gameplay - by exploding, they create new possible strategies for the players. Crates are just lazy map geometry - boxes are pretty easy to do in BSP editors, and crates are very pleasently box-shaped.
Barrels are more like swinging blades, lava, crushers, conveyor belts, etc. They're cliches, but they often do contribute nicely to gameplay.
I agree. The strength of doom wasn't the typical run & gun, it was the _scale_ of the run & gun. Rooms absolutely packed full of imps. The only games I've seen that expand on this concept properly are Serious Sam and Abuse. Quake 4 looks like it'll be Quake 2 all over again - room after room of odd little battles. Not as "boo, an imp" as doom 3, but still not the glorious carnage of doom 2. When will we ever see another "Dead Simple"? Or better yet, when will we see something on the monstrous scale as the Kleer horde of Serious Sam's "Metropolis".
The abysmal failure of the easily-piratable Dreamcast would be a strong counterargument, if Sega's weak videogames weren't a stronger one (PowerStone 2, Chu Chu Rocket, and VOOT excepted of course).
In that veign, today's mindless-but-story-driven action games will be looked back upon with the same twisted mix of disgust and amusement that black-and-white Ed Wood shlock and pulp horror films are today. Prior generations will be viewed as the experimental phase of the field - like when moving pictures were all tricks of optical illusions and video cameras were experimental toys, and silent films relied on bizarre creative tricks to convey meaning.
Doom is the modern Wizard of Oz - an impressive technical achievement, and kinda fun - but kinda campy and stupid in hindsight. Perhaps Zork is the modern Metropolis? Idunno. Repetative Asian CRPGs are the modern Spaghetti Westerns?
And MMOs. MMOs are a revolutionary destruction of the art into the lowest-common-denominator. MMOs are the modern sitcoms. WoW is the Cosby show.
Television is perfectly good art when people want it to be. See HBO for good examples of artful TV (eg. first season of Six Feet Under). Alternately, for the anime freaks, consider Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Consider Simpsons, back in it's prime. Simpsons was the definition of TV that was both art and pop (like Shakespeare) - formulaic, yet creative; tasteless, yet deep; nostalgic, yet current; etc.
Amen. I've seen what happens when you have well-written games - you get FF8. The game had perfectly decent dialogue and a compelling story that was incredibly annoying and slow to crawl through. The game tried to tell a nice story, and in the end it felt like you were just clicking through a nice story, instead of playing.
Apparently. And soon, they'll have hardware leverage too - by getting the 360 gamepad as the new game hardware, they're trying to further entrench themselves as the only solution for PC gaming. I mean, if someone develops a PC title specifically for the 360 pad, what happens with the port to linux or mac?
Of course, it might be a wash anyways given past failures of PC game controllers.
Damn. beat me to it. Anybody wonder why Zonk puts odd little game-reviews like this to front page, and yet leaves the GTA Hot Coffee stuff in the sectional?
Amen. I was overjoyed when I heard of a console getting a touchscreen (finally, a pointing device for consoles so FPS and RTS console games can avoid suckage).... and then was disappointed when I realised that Nintendo would be making it, and so the main games would be Mario and stuff. Fortunately, Nintendo is making neat stuff for the DS.
I do wonder why they even bothered with the second screen - I haven't seen many games that justify the expense of even having it. The touchscreen and wireless are the real big deal.