Well Crysis came out November 2007, so you're actually about 2 and a 1/4 years behind game releases.
I do however agree with what you're saying. It works great for console games too, especially if you can manage to stay an entire generation behind the current gen. Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 all have graphics good enough for me and nearly all of the games for each of those systems can be had for less than $10 with shipping on amazon.com. It's basically the same way with the PC games too, except like you said, the games have been patched by then so they'll actually run properly and the hardware is cheaper too. It doesn't make much sense to spend $300 on a top notch graphics card today when you can get it a year from now for ~$100.
I do know that when a game gets the Adult Only rating, it's effectively been banned because none of the major retailers will carry an AO rated game. I'm not too sure, but I think that the big 3 consoles won't even license a game for their system if it gets rated AO. So I would imagine they have a similar policy about games not being rated.
I guess it depends on where you live. I did live in Austin and there were tons of reviews for everything. I move to San Antonio and most places only have 2 to 4 reviews. So the chance of 1 or 2 business owner reviews that has a greater influence than when there's 40 reviews of the place. I mainly use it just to find a certain kind of business. If I want a place that mainly sells hamburgers and don't want generic fast food, I just search for hamburgers on yelp. You do have to read the reviews though cause some people do give some low scores for stupid stuff. "Waiter called me Jake when my name is Jack!! I'm never going there again!!" (2 stars)
I still don't understand this argument of "vastly superior performance" with the hard to set up vs the easy to set up distros. I've been using ubuntu for a whole 2 days now. Not very long I know, but what's so much better with those other distros? Firefox opens and is useable in seconds. Openoffice opens and is useable in seconds. My computer seems a little slow from power on till the point I get to select ubuntu from the bootlist, but after that the os is up and useable within 30-45 seconds.
Ubuntu's pretty nice so far. The install was the easiest I've ever experienced. I've played around with linux distros over the years but have never kept any on my system for more than a week. Usually something doesn't work, I spend a few days trying to fix it. Then I say screw it and go back to xp where everything was already working. I mean really, Ubuntu is kicking XP's ass right now. I tested my printer. Just plugged it in and it recognized not just a generic printer, but the specific printers manufacturer and model. With XP it just recognizes a USB connection, then after 5 minutes gives up and show the little "unknown hardware" icon in the device manager. I've got a little bluetooth usb stick. With XP, it doesn't recognize it properly and I have to install all this crap off of the cd that came with it. With Ubuntu, it just recognizes it and gives me bluetooth capabilities within seconds.
The only issue I'm having with it right now is that it doesn't seem to see my SATA HD at all. I also haven't tested out my webcams yet but I hardly use them anyway. Also there seems to be no trace of my wireless card, but I had that disabled in XP since I never used it anyway.
First distro I tried was Debian. This was back around 2003. I'm sure things have changed now, but back then with the installer, it asked too many questions. It would ask you where your mouse was and then it seemed to give you a list of 20 options. Same with the keyboard, sound card, video card, and network card. I could read the list and feel confident with my selections for some of the options but not for all of them. If I remember right, after it turned on and booted up it just left you at the command prompt. I had to ask in an irc room why all the screenshots show a desktop and why all I saw was just a black screen with "login:". Someone told me I had to type startx after logging in and that seemed to work. No network connection, no sound, and the highest resolution I could go to was 640x480.
Next one I tried was Mandrake. I think this was version 8 or 9. Still around 2003-2004. Anyways that one installed more like ubuntu did today. It did let you chose which packages / programs to install. After installing it, everything worked except for the sound. I couldn't get the sound issue figured out after about a week so that was it for Mandrake.
I'm not too sure why everyone says windows XP is a resource hog compared to linux. It looks like I'm using 325mb out of 2gigs of ram on ubuntu right now. On XP that might be 500-600mb of ram used, but performance wise you can't tell the difference. Plus the ram usage builds linearly. I mean, I'd imagine if I was using 700mb of ram on ubuntu that I'd be using 900-1000mb of ram on XP. CPU wise, both operating systems seem to leave 99% of the cpu at idle power. I understand that if you only have running what you want running, that the computer has less to process and can get its task done quicker and more efficiently. But there is a line where you just can't tell or measure the difference anymore.
Maybe you meant reliability and not having the OS crash on you? For the 6 hours a day I'm on my computer it usually never crashed with XP. Now of course most of those linux people talk about having their computers running for weeks to months at a time without a restart. That's great for a server type setup, but that's just an enormous waste of energy for the home desktop user.
The only thing they charged real money for before in BF Heroes was just the costumes. I don't know how many people would spend real money to dress up their virtual character, but I can tell you that I was not one of them. There really must not have been that many people that wanted to pay for clothing for their character.
The pricing for the weapons and bandages and such were so cheap. It took 15 to 20 minutes of playing to be able to buy the upgraded weapon for your character that was good for 7 days and a package of band-aids. It looks like the prices have shot up 10x. So now you'd have to play 150 to 200 minutes to be able to buy that upgraded weapon. That's a level of time where it feels like you've actually earned something. Why do so many people complain on the internet?
Anyways the game kind of sucks and so I don't care much what is happening with it now.
Ahh, you forgot to remember that the UK gets screwed over with game pricing. All they do now is just change the dollar sign to a pound sign. So that means here in the states we should probably see it for $50. The problem I see is that you gotta buy a $60 game and the $50 natal add-on, and that really comes out to something closer to a $110 impulse buy.
I was going to ask where your from, but from looking at your profile I guess it's NYC. Wow, I can't believe they got rules and regulations regarding newspaper disposal.
Geeze that Sheevaplug thing looks awesome. I was reading the wiki and noticed that fit-pc thing too. I'm definitely gonna get myself one of those for Christmas. I could use something in the background to run emule 24/7, and for other times when I just surf the internet for a few hours. Right now my system pulls 200watts with the monitor and speakers on. With both off it's still using 140w. The sheevaplug probably wouldn't pay for itself for me in electricity savings though, just with fun activities.
I know exactly what you're talking about, and I've thought the same thing before too, not just with games but with other things too. Really with anything that comes out in a limited edition amount.
Even more interesting would be if they offered a special secret gift or something to all who paid above average price. It would slowly make that average price rise, and a special secret gift could be nothing more than just a post card / thank you note in the mail.
Well, I was 12 when I discovered Warcraft 2. I did the same thing, but it was for a few reasons. I've never played any RTS games before, and I thought it was neat as hell telling other people what to do and watch them do it. I thought it was cool how there would be a forest, and then I'd tell the idiot peasants to cut it down, and then the forest would be gone! Also I wanted to get the highest score possible to see how high the ranks on the little score summary screen you see after each stage.
After that game I never did the resource hoarding thing again. Though most of the times in RTS games I have trouble actually spending all my money. I'll end up beating a campaign stage with half of my earned money still sitting unspent.
Making babies is natural but killing people is not, so that's what I never understood about the ratings system here. If anything, for any violent tv show, movie, or game, they should get a worse rating if the violence is unrealistic. If you see someone get shot, and then they're up and running 5 seconds later, like Arnold in commando, that should be an instant X rating. I've never been shot before, but I can imagine it friggin hurts.
I had the same exact conversation with my parents too. Later I found out from my little brother that there was one kid in his school that got paid $50 for each C they got, $100 for each B, and something like $150 for each A they got, every 6 weeks grading period. This was when he was in highschool which was from 2005 till a few weeks ago when he graduated.
Jeeze, this highschool puts you in 8 classes, and that kid was getting $50 for each C. You gotta be a freaking idiot to get under a C in any highschool course, especially in the normal ones and not the AP type classes. I can't believe his parents were giving him at least $400 every 6 weeks.
Now my parents never gave me any kind of allowance. It was ok though because of two reasons. I don't think I was spoiled, but I more or less got whatever I wanted. I mean, within reason. I really felt like I never asked for something unless it was something I wanted really, really bad. Now another reason I got no allowance, I never had any chores. I was under the impression that to get an allowance you had to do chores. I remember even asking my parents to give me chores once so I could get an allowance, but they told me there wasn't really anything for me to do. Dad was always scared I'd cut my foot off or something if I cut the yard, mom was scared I'd mess up the clothes if I washed them, and with vacuuming and washing the dishes, I guess my mom just liked having something to do. She was just a house mom so her whole day mostly consisted of watching tv.
Anyways, when I have kids I'm not sure how I'm gonna encourage them with school. I really want to tell them that your grades really don't matter until highschool, and even then they only matter if you plan on going into a 4-year university. If they go to community college first like me, then the highschool grades definitely wont matter for getting in, but they might matter for getting scholarships.
Hehe, bunny hopping was around before counterstrike. I remember doing it in Quake 2.
Also in Doom, they had that strafe walk thing. You strafe and walk forward, and you could angle it to the direction you want to walk, but you would go twice as fast.
Well I always played Mario with friends. With Mario64 you couldn't do this, and I found it kind of sucky because of that.
Mario Bros 3 was excellent, Super Mario World on snes was excellent, Mario 64 was something different. It showed 3d games could work and be fun, but I'd of preferred to see the same 2d scroller built with 3d graphics at the time.
You should never play any game that's directly tied to a movie. Especially one that comes out the same time the actual movie comes out.
First you know they got a small budget. The game itself is categorized by the movie industry the same way a movie-themed lunch box is. Just as extra merchandise to turn a quick buck.
Second you know they don't have a realistic time frame to make these games good. There's no "When it's done" type speak. There's no "Hopefully we'll have it out by Q4 2009". It's out when the movie comes out, regardless of how much is fixed or broken.
Third, if you actually care about the stories in games, then you know movie games don't have very good stories. There's no imagination with it since you already know the plot-line. You already know what's going to happen since you've already seen the movie. Again this isn't a big deal to most people but it does matter to some.
Ok, I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed. I didn't even know there was a new terminator movie coming out until I heard an ad on the radio a few weeks ago.
"Offline" is one that bugs me. People say they downloaded it offline. When they talk about where they downloaded a music cd or a movie or something from. If you get something offline, that means you didn't get it on the internet. If you got it on the internet, then you got it online.
And yeah, the download thing, people say that too. Move a file to a USB drive? Well technically I guess you could say you downloaded file X to your thumb drive, though just saying you put file X or transfered file X would be more appropriate.
Jeeze you should be glad these people are admitting their faults. They're basically telling you what their level of understanding is with respect to computers.
People are used to crap breaking on them. I mean I am. People my age don't know what stuff was built like "in the good old days". Most of the junk is one-time use type stuff anyway, so nobody cares if it breaks after it does its job.
I got a waffle maker handed down to me from my grandmother. It's a GE waffle maker. Thing is heavy as hell. Feels like it's made out of solid steel.
Anyways it was probably made in the 50s or 60s, and it still works. But that's about it. It's pretty crappy. Apparently non-stick surfaces didn't exist back then so you have to spray an assload of pam on it every single time before you pour in the waffle mix. So if you're going to pour the mix in 3 or 4 times, you gotta spray first each time. Also as I said before, the entire thing is made out of some kind of metal. So the entire outer casing gets pretty damn hot and can burn you. Think of toasters today, you can touch the side while they're on without getting a damn burn! The handles have a plastic cover to them, but because of all the metal in them they get pretty hot. You have to open it up quick so you don't burn yourself. The temperature dial has the same problem. It's more of a lever than a dial. Anyways it's also just a metal stick that heats up while the waffle maker heats up. It's coated in that melted vinyl stuff but it doesn't dissipate the heat well. So that means again you have to move it quick so you don't burn yourself.
Now let's look at the cheap $10 disposable waffle maker you can get today. Nonstick surfaces are standard. The outer casing would be made out of some kind of plastic. The handles would definitely be completely made out of plastic, there would be no solid rods of metal inside of them carrying heat. The controls would be placed away from the heatsource and would probably be some kind of completely plastic knob that wouldn't get really hot when making waffles.
So anyways, you'd make waffles for a few months with the $10 maker, and then you'd get tired of it. A few years later you'll try making waffles again and you'll find your waffle maker doesn't work anymore. Big deal.
Sorry I'm not too familiar with how it works at gamestop. I've only been in one three times in my life, and I've known about the place since they've been called Funcoland. Two of those times were to buy something but they were out of it, so I just walked across the shopping center to Toys-R-Us and they had it. I was just trying to support a gaming store at the time.
I think the only used game I ever bought from there was Sega GT for the xbox for something like $3. That was an ok deal I think. Only new game I ever bought from there was C&C generals. That was more of an impulse buy when I was there with my friend. It was only $10, but wtf, he got a shiny new DVD case and I got an old beatup box. Normally I'd care, but since it was only $10 and more of an impulse thing it didn't matter to me.
Ok, just think for a minute people. How convenient is it to go to a GameStop? They're usually in malls, or sometimes in small shopping centers. Those are two places you only go to when you need to buy crap you don't really need.
Now with Walmart, they already have an entire store full of everything you could find at a strip mall but cheaper, plus groceries.
So this means there's a lot of people that go there on a weekly basis. Not just any people, but people that can't afford the rip offs at the mall. This new option will appeal to them, though I suspect maybe the system might be too complicated for them to figure out.
Anyways, walmart advantages: 1.) Convenient location 2.) 24 hour trade in ability 3.) Completely automated, no talking to people to do the trade in
Gamestop advantages: 1.) Maybe better quality control since the games have to be checked first? Though the walmart setup might have the games get checked by a human first before they get resold to consumers. Also it might be cheaper just to accept all games even if some are horribly scratched since they don't have to pay 1 or 2 people $7.25 per hour coming this July. So maybe this isn't really an advantage.
I don't even play console FPS game. I prefer PC ones and like you just mentioned, they are definitely superior. However, someone's gotta defend consoles so let me try:
Advantages of consoles: 1. No install process. Just stick your disc in the hole and have fun. That's what she said! 2. Universal hardware. This means no dealing with graphics settings. No spending 15 to 30 minutes tweaking the settings to get the perfect balance of good looks and good frame rate. Also for developers, this means they don't have to develop for the "average system". Instead they already know exactly what hardware they're building for. Lastly this also means for online play, the playing field is more even. Everyone has the same hardware, so they have the same frame rates. Only difference is the ping between them. 3. Universal control system. Everyone's stuck using the gamepad so everyone has the same controls. PC games, some people try to use a gamepad or joystick and fail horribly. All of us using mouse and keyboard, well some have more desk space for moving their mouse than others. 4. Ease of updates. I gotta say console games are insanely easier to update than pc games. Maybe not for the developer, but definitely for the end user. You try to get online with your console game, it says update needed, press X to download. Then you just sit there bored for 5 to 10 minutes and you're all done. Some PC games are that way. Some have the courtesy to at least tell you there's an update, but you still gotta go to the website, download the patch, and install it. Others don't even tell you. You just wonder why you can't connect to any servers.
That's it. I can't think of any more advantages a console has. As funny as this sounds, if anything I'd say a PC has more of an arcade feel than a console. Why? One you've got the screen 2 or 3 feet right in front of you, the other you're sitting on the couch with a screen on the other side of the room.
I agree paying for something like xbox live is retarded. That was my little brothers main reason for getting a PS3 over the 360. The PS3 comes out cheaper in the long run when you don't have to pay $50 or $60 per year for online play that you don't use very often. Once a week or two is about how often he does online play with his console.
You know, that view actually is close to the way the restaurants works.
You go in, and the waiter gives you service for your whole meal, then at the end of it you decide if you'll tip them great, ok, or not at all.
Sadly though, this is illegal with software but perfectly legal in a restaurant. Also of note is that you pay for the food regardless, it's the service fee / tip that's optional.
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Well Crysis came out November 2007, so you're actually about 2 and a 1/4 years behind game releases.
I do however agree with what you're saying. It works great for console games too, especially if you can manage to stay an entire generation behind the current gen. Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 all have graphics good enough for me and nearly all of the games for each of those systems can be had for less than $10 with shipping on amazon.com. It's basically the same way with the PC games too, except like you said, the games have been patched by then so they'll actually run properly and the hardware is cheaper too. It doesn't make much sense to spend $300 on a top notch graphics card today when you can get it a year from now for ~$100.
I do know that when a game gets the Adult Only rating, it's effectively been banned because none of the major retailers will carry an AO rated game. I'm not too sure, but I think that the big 3 consoles won't even license a game for their system if it gets rated AO. So I would imagine they have a similar policy about games not being rated.
I guess it depends on where you live. I did live in Austin and there were tons of reviews for everything. I move to San Antonio and most places only have 2 to 4 reviews. So the chance of 1 or 2 business owner reviews that has a greater influence than when there's 40 reviews of the place. I mainly use it just to find a certain kind of business. If I want a place that mainly sells hamburgers and don't want generic fast food, I just search for hamburgers on yelp. You do have to read the reviews though cause some people do give some low scores for stupid stuff. "Waiter called me Jake when my name is Jack!! I'm never going there again!!" (2 stars)
I still don't understand this argument of "vastly superior performance" with the hard to set up vs the easy to set up distros. I've been using ubuntu for a whole 2 days now. Not very long I know, but what's so much better with those other distros? Firefox opens and is useable in seconds. Openoffice opens and is useable in seconds. My computer seems a little slow from power on till the point I get to select ubuntu from the bootlist, but after that the os is up and useable within 30-45 seconds.
Ubuntu's pretty nice so far. The install was the easiest I've ever experienced. I've played around with linux distros over the years but have never kept any on my system for more than a week. Usually something doesn't work, I spend a few days trying to fix it. Then I say screw it and go back to xp where everything was already working. I mean really, Ubuntu is kicking XP's ass right now. I tested my printer. Just plugged it in and it recognized not just a generic printer, but the specific printers manufacturer and model. With XP it just recognizes a USB connection, then after 5 minutes gives up and show the little "unknown hardware" icon in the device manager. I've got a little bluetooth usb stick. With XP, it doesn't recognize it properly and I have to install all this crap off of the cd that came with it. With Ubuntu, it just recognizes it and gives me bluetooth capabilities within seconds.
The only issue I'm having with it right now is that it doesn't seem to see my SATA HD at all. I also haven't tested out my webcams yet but I hardly use them anyway. Also there seems to be no trace of my wireless card, but I had that disabled in XP since I never used it anyway.
First distro I tried was Debian. This was back around 2003. I'm sure things have changed now, but back then with the installer, it asked too many questions. It would ask you where your mouse was and then it seemed to give you a list of 20 options. Same with the keyboard, sound card, video card, and network card. I could read the list and feel confident with my selections for some of the options but not for all of them. If I remember right, after it turned on and booted up it just left you at the command prompt. I had to ask in an irc room why all the screenshots show a desktop and why all I saw was just a black screen with "login:". Someone told me I had to type startx after logging in and that seemed to work. No network connection, no sound, and the highest resolution I could go to was 640x480.
Next one I tried was Mandrake. I think this was version 8 or 9. Still around 2003-2004. Anyways that one installed more like ubuntu did today. It did let you chose which packages / programs to install. After installing it, everything worked except for the sound. I couldn't get the sound issue figured out after about a week so that was it for Mandrake.
I'm not too sure why everyone says windows XP is a resource hog compared to linux. It looks like I'm using 325mb out of 2gigs of ram on ubuntu right now. On XP that might be 500-600mb of ram used, but performance wise you can't tell the difference. Plus the ram usage builds linearly. I mean, I'd imagine if I was using 700mb of ram on ubuntu that I'd be using 900-1000mb of ram on XP. CPU wise, both operating systems seem to leave 99% of the cpu at idle power. I understand that if you only have running what you want running, that the computer has less to process and can get its task done quicker and more efficiently. But there is a line where you just can't tell or measure the difference anymore.
Maybe you meant reliability and not having the OS crash on you? For the 6 hours a day I'm on my computer it usually never crashed with XP. Now of course most of those linux people talk about having their computers running for weeks to months at a time without a restart. That's great for a server type setup, but that's just an enormous waste of energy for the home desktop user.
The only thing they charged real money for before in BF Heroes was just the costumes. I don't know how many people would spend real money to dress up their virtual character, but I can tell you that I was not one of them. There really must not have been that many people that wanted to pay for clothing for their character.
The pricing for the weapons and bandages and such were so cheap. It took 15 to 20 minutes of playing to be able to buy the upgraded weapon for your character that was good for 7 days and a package of band-aids. It looks like the prices have shot up 10x. So now you'd have to play 150 to 200 minutes to be able to buy that upgraded weapon. That's a level of time where it feels like you've actually earned something. Why do so many people complain on the internet?
Anyways the game kind of sucks and so I don't care much what is happening with it now.
Ahh, you forgot to remember that the UK gets screwed over with game pricing. All they do now is just change the dollar sign to a pound sign. So that means here in the states we should probably see it for $50. The problem I see is that you gotta buy a $60 game and the $50 natal add-on, and that really comes out to something closer to a $110 impulse buy.
I was going to ask where your from, but from looking at your profile I guess it's NYC. Wow, I can't believe they got rules and regulations regarding newspaper disposal.
Geeze that Sheevaplug thing looks awesome. I was reading the wiki and noticed that fit-pc thing too. I'm definitely gonna get myself one of those for Christmas. I could use something in the background to run emule 24/7, and for other times when I just surf the internet for a few hours. Right now my system pulls 200watts with the monitor and speakers on. With both off it's still using 140w. The sheevaplug probably wouldn't pay for itself for me in electricity savings though, just with fun activities.
I know exactly what you're talking about, and I've thought the same thing before too, not just with games but with other things too. Really with anything that comes out in a limited edition amount.
Even more interesting would be if they offered a special secret gift or something to all who paid above average price. It would slowly make that average price rise, and a special secret gift could be nothing more than just a post card / thank you note in the mail.
Well, I was 12 when I discovered Warcraft 2. I did the same thing, but it was for a few reasons. I've never played any RTS games before, and I thought it was neat as hell telling other people what to do and watch them do it. I thought it was cool how there would be a forest, and then I'd tell the idiot peasants to cut it down, and then the forest would be gone! Also I wanted to get the highest score possible to see how high the ranks on the little score summary screen you see after each stage.
After that game I never did the resource hoarding thing again. Though most of the times in RTS games I have trouble actually spending all my money. I'll end up beating a campaign stage with half of my earned money still sitting unspent.
Making babies is natural but killing people is not, so that's what I never understood about the ratings system here. If anything, for any violent tv show, movie, or game, they should get a worse rating if the violence is unrealistic. If you see someone get shot, and then they're up and running 5 seconds later, like Arnold in commando, that should be an instant X rating. I've never been shot before, but I can imagine it friggin hurts.
I had the same exact conversation with my parents too. Later I found out from my little brother that there was one kid in his school that got paid $50 for each C they got, $100 for each B, and something like $150 for each A they got, every 6 weeks grading period. This was when he was in highschool which was from 2005 till a few weeks ago when he graduated.
Jeeze, this highschool puts you in 8 classes, and that kid was getting $50 for each C. You gotta be a freaking idiot to get under a C in any highschool course, especially in the normal ones and not the AP type classes. I can't believe his parents were giving him at least $400 every 6 weeks.
Now my parents never gave me any kind of allowance. It was ok though because of two reasons. I don't think I was spoiled, but I more or less got whatever I wanted. I mean, within reason. I really felt like I never asked for something unless it was something I wanted really, really bad. Now another reason I got no allowance, I never had any chores. I was under the impression that to get an allowance you had to do chores. I remember even asking my parents to give me chores once so I could get an allowance, but they told me there wasn't really anything for me to do. Dad was always scared I'd cut my foot off or something if I cut the yard, mom was scared I'd mess up the clothes if I washed them, and with vacuuming and washing the dishes, I guess my mom just liked having something to do. She was just a house mom so her whole day mostly consisted of watching tv.
Anyways, when I have kids I'm not sure how I'm gonna encourage them with school. I really want to tell them that your grades really don't matter until highschool, and even then they only matter if you plan on going into a 4-year university. If they go to community college first like me, then the highschool grades definitely wont matter for getting in, but they might matter for getting scholarships.
Hehe, bunny hopping was around before counterstrike. I remember doing it in Quake 2.
Also in Doom, they had that strafe walk thing. You strafe and walk forward, and you could angle it to the direction you want to walk, but you would go twice as fast.
Well I always played Mario with friends. With Mario64 you couldn't do this, and I found it kind of sucky because of that.
Mario Bros 3 was excellent, Super Mario World on snes was excellent, Mario 64 was something different. It showed 3d games could work and be fun, but I'd of preferred to see the same 2d scroller built with 3d graphics at the time.
You should never play any game that's directly tied to a movie. Especially one that comes out the same time the actual movie comes out.
First you know they got a small budget. The game itself is categorized by the movie industry the same way a movie-themed lunch box is. Just as extra merchandise to turn a quick buck.
Second you know they don't have a realistic time frame to make these games good. There's no "When it's done" type speak. There's no "Hopefully we'll have it out by Q4 2009". It's out when the movie comes out, regardless of how much is fixed or broken.
Third, if you actually care about the stories in games, then you know movie games don't have very good stories. There's no imagination with it since you already know the plot-line. You already know what's going to happen since you've already seen the movie. Again this isn't a big deal to most people but it does matter to some.
Ok, I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed. I didn't even know there was a new terminator movie coming out until I heard an ad on the radio a few weeks ago.
"Offline" is one that bugs me. People say they downloaded it offline. When they talk about where they downloaded a music cd or a movie or something from. If you get something offline, that means you didn't get it on the internet. If you got it on the internet, then you got it online.
And yeah, the download thing, people say that too. Move a file to a USB drive? Well technically I guess you could say you downloaded file X to your thumb drive, though just saying you put file X or transfered file X would be more appropriate.
Jeeze you should be glad these people are admitting their faults. They're basically telling you what their level of understanding is with respect to computers.
People are used to crap breaking on them. I mean I am. People my age don't know what stuff was built like "in the good old days". Most of the junk is one-time use type stuff anyway, so nobody cares if it breaks after it does its job.
I got a waffle maker handed down to me from my grandmother. It's a GE waffle maker. Thing is heavy as hell. Feels like it's made out of solid steel.
Anyways it was probably made in the 50s or 60s, and it still works. But that's about it. It's pretty crappy. Apparently non-stick surfaces didn't exist back then so you have to spray an assload of pam on it every single time before you pour in the waffle mix. So if you're going to pour the mix in 3 or 4 times, you gotta spray first each time. Also as I said before, the entire thing is made out of some kind of metal. So the entire outer casing gets pretty damn hot and can burn you. Think of toasters today, you can touch the side while they're on without getting a damn burn! The handles have a plastic cover to them, but because of all the metal in them they get pretty hot. You have to open it up quick so you don't burn yourself. The temperature dial has the same problem. It's more of a lever than a dial. Anyways it's also just a metal stick that heats up while the waffle maker heats up. It's coated in that melted vinyl stuff but it doesn't dissipate the heat well. So that means again you have to move it quick so you don't burn yourself.
Now let's look at the cheap $10 disposable waffle maker you can get today. Nonstick surfaces are standard. The outer casing would be made out of some kind of plastic. The handles would definitely be completely made out of plastic, there would be no solid rods of metal inside of them carrying heat. The controls would be placed away from the heatsource and would probably be some kind of completely plastic knob that wouldn't get really hot when making waffles.
So anyways, you'd make waffles for a few months with the $10 maker, and then you'd get tired of it. A few years later you'll try making waffles again and you'll find your waffle maker doesn't work anymore. Big deal.
Sorry I'm not too familiar with how it works at gamestop. I've only been in one three times in my life, and I've known about the place since they've been called Funcoland. Two of those times were to buy something but they were out of it, so I just walked across the shopping center to Toys-R-Us and they had it. I was just trying to support a gaming store at the time.
I think the only used game I ever bought from there was Sega GT for the xbox for something like $3. That was an ok deal I think. Only new game I ever bought from there was C&C generals. That was more of an impulse buy when I was there with my friend. It was only $10, but wtf, he got a shiny new DVD case and I got an old beatup box. Normally I'd care, but since it was only $10 and more of an impulse thing it didn't matter to me.
Ok, just think for a minute people. How convenient is it to go to a GameStop? They're usually in malls, or sometimes in small shopping centers. Those are two places you only go to when you need to buy crap you don't really need.
Now with Walmart, they already have an entire store full of everything you could find at a strip mall but cheaper, plus groceries.
So this means there's a lot of people that go there on a weekly basis. Not just any people, but people that can't afford the rip offs at the mall. This new option will appeal to them, though I suspect maybe the system might be too complicated for them to figure out.
Anyways, walmart advantages:
1.) Convenient location
2.) 24 hour trade in ability
3.) Completely automated, no talking to people to do the trade in
Gamestop advantages:
1.) Maybe better quality control since the games have to be checked first? Though the walmart setup might have the games get checked by a human first before they get resold to consumers. Also it might be cheaper just to accept all games even if some are horribly scratched since they don't have to pay 1 or 2 people $7.25 per hour coming this July. So maybe this isn't really an advantage.
I don't even play console FPS game. I prefer PC ones and like you just mentioned, they are definitely superior. However, someone's gotta defend consoles so let me try:
Advantages of consoles:
1. No install process. Just stick your disc in the hole and have fun. That's what she said!
2. Universal hardware. This means no dealing with graphics settings. No spending 15 to 30 minutes tweaking the settings to get the perfect balance of good looks and good frame rate. Also for developers, this means they don't have to develop for the "average system". Instead they already know exactly what hardware they're building for. Lastly this also means for online play, the playing field is more even. Everyone has the same hardware, so they have the same frame rates. Only difference is the ping between them.
3. Universal control system. Everyone's stuck using the gamepad so everyone has the same controls. PC games, some people try to use a gamepad or joystick and fail horribly. All of us using mouse and keyboard, well some have more desk space for moving their mouse than others.
4. Ease of updates. I gotta say console games are insanely easier to update than pc games. Maybe not for the developer, but definitely for the end user. You try to get online with your console game, it says update needed, press X to download. Then you just sit there bored for 5 to 10 minutes and you're all done. Some PC games are that way. Some have the courtesy to at least tell you there's an update, but you still gotta go to the website, download the patch, and install it. Others don't even tell you. You just wonder why you can't connect to any servers.
That's it. I can't think of any more advantages a console has. As funny as this sounds, if anything I'd say a PC has more of an arcade feel than a console. Why? One you've got the screen 2 or 3 feet right in front of you, the other you're sitting on the couch with a screen on the other side of the room.
I agree paying for something like xbox live is retarded. That was my little brothers main reason for getting a PS3 over the 360. The PS3 comes out cheaper in the long run when you don't have to pay $50 or $60 per year for online play that you don't use very often. Once a week or two is about how often he does online play with his console.
Is that really so different from asking someone why don't they just go out and jack cars instead of playing gta?
I guess it is kind of since it's unreasonable to expect someone to go out and commit crimes, but playing an instrument is ok.
Yeah but I'm sure that increases your odds about as much as buying 20 lotto tickets instead of 1 does.
You know, that view actually is close to the way the restaurants works.
You go in, and the waiter gives you service for your whole meal, then at the end of it you decide if you'll tip them great, ok, or not at all.
Sadly though, this is illegal with software but perfectly legal in a restaurant. Also of note is that you pay for the food regardless, it's the service fee / tip that's optional.