First off let me start by explaining who owns the Xbox Live Marketplace. Microsoft. Period. This is like someone drawing a comic (the developer) and I own a shop. If I think you're charging too much, not giving enough, or not being nice, you're not in my shop. PERIOD. So all the fault with the problems come back to Microsoft in that Microsoft allowed them to happen.
Now let's get into the Xbox Live Arcade. There's a large amount of good games on it. Let's start with Geometry wars, Marble blast, and Mutant storm. These are three excellent games that came out almost at launch. Each of them are great in different ways.
But not all games were great at launch, the biggest problem child is Bankshot Billards 2, which they gave away for free with the 12 month live boxes. That's a 15 dollar value! Except it's not. Backshot billards 2 is a below average game for anyone who doesn't REALLLLY like pool. And this brings us to the big problem, the value of the games are skewed.
Can someone tell me why I'm paying 5 dollars for Contra, or Defender? I can shell that out for sinstar easily, but when you don't even know if the co-op online is going to work. Why am I paying 15 dollars for Small Arms (though fun, isn't worth that much single player)? There's a great many games that are overpriced, and the biggest problem is that those prices will NOT go down, why should they? Microsoft has a monopoly on the market.
In addition Microsoft has allowed really shady customers (sharks) into the kiddie pool. Lumines Live for instance is stated as being a full game. However when you pay 15 dollars for it you find out "It's not a full game". You miss out on mission/Puzzle/ Vs. Cpu, and other modes. So really all you get is base mode and skin mode. Nice. Then you shell out even more for Advanced mode (Btw if you paid for Lumines, that's actually worth it). A better system would have been to give away the entire engine for free, but only allow full play if you buy the base pack or advance pack or another pack (which hasn't even been released yet). Microsoft should have just said no to that idea. All told a consumer will have to pay almost 40 bucks for what they can get on the PS2 for 20 or the PSP for 20? Not a good move.
And to make matters more complicated, Microsoft has screwed the developer by placing rules in place to make sure your Arcade game is no bigger then 50 megs. Which results in Developers screwing consumers by charging more for the second download so they can get around that rule (See Lumines again). Many good games won't be able to exist on the Arcade, but easily will exist on PS3's marketplace style stuff. How they will do Symphony of the Night on the Arcade will be interesting.
This isn't to say Microsoft doesn't have good choices. The limit in price for a Xbox Live game is 1200 points I believe (might be 1600 but I don't think so). They only give out a certain amount of tickets so no matter how much people want to flood the arcade with retro crap they can't just do it. But still Microsoft has a huge boone and they need to focus their energies on new games.
That being said there has been a turn around recently from a week marketplace to a good one. Small Arms while over priced is interesting, Assault heroes this week is a great buy, and Roboblitz is a really interesting game. However right around any corner is a pile of Retro games waiting to junk up the month.
The biggest boone out of all the rubble is demos. Wii needs to get something like that. Ps3 should already have it. The marketplace demos are good, but the Arcade demos sell more games then anything. And that's the core of the solution. Try before you buy and enjoy what's worth money. Geometry wars and mutant storm, yes. Retro games, probably not.
There's a lot of other Microsoft flaws with marketplace operations (microsoft points, themes and pictures for sale even though you buy the game, overcharging for themes and pictures) but that's the core of the marketplace, not the arcade itself.
Of course it's subjective. How you hold the mouse, how you move it, that's all up to you.
What this is doing though is it's taking the non subjective parts of the mouse. the DPI, the sensativity, the "malfunction speed". Basically the important information that can be measured and analysis that.
Now if you want a cordless or a corded mouse you'll knock a bunch of the top 10 off right there, but on the other hand out of those remaining you'll have an idea what to look for. Who cares if a mouse feels right if the mouse next to it feels a little worse but has a better sensativitiy and won't crap out on you.
You know the one who claims not to have caught an STD, but you've seen her around the free clinic a few times? You know the one. She has documents that say she has a clean bill of health but somehow you don't think there's a Doctor Fakopsky.
Then of course you go out with her and the next day you know what falls off? We've all had that experience, haven't we?
Oddly enough that sounds exactly like IE7. I'll stick with my hotter girlfriend, Firefox. It's true she might have "enhancements" and she might be a little "slower" but at least she's not sleeping around like IE.
This is still not a solution. I can use 100 percent of energy today, or 10 percent of the energy. The only difference is in the second solution we will have 10 times as much energy. That's all well and good, but the problem is we are a remarkably stupid race. If we lower ourselves to 10 percent of our current energy, many of us will claim "problem solved".
The true solution is to find a good renewable energy supply and then deal with the making our energy meet what can be easily renewed. Hydrogen is only a temporary stopgap. It might make a good battery, but it won't be a viable energy source.
On the other hand Wind and Solar only appears to work in small amounts. Wind takes a large amount of land and solar is just too damm expensive, and I don't mean just monetarily (remember money is no object, our perception of what something is worth is what's important.) in the long run.
I'd love to see some option, however reducing our consumption before we have a solution will only result in the solution being delayed, until we're running out of energy again, and then we'll have even less energy to deal with.
I say we get started with asteroid mining! See unlike the other solutions suggested, this one is cool, and even with a low chance of it working, at least we'll be focused on exploring our universe rather then just complaining about how stuff doesn't work on our planet.
1. XNA allows you to build stuff for your PC for free, and pay 100 bucks a month for building for the 360? WOW! unless you care about the second half, ANY compiler allowed you to build stuff for your PC for Free. What's worse is unless a prospective employee has creators club (or wants to get it) they can't really see your work unless it's on the PC. So basically you're stuck.
Instead you can get Visual Studio with just DirectX and learn how to REALLY program, rather then relying on an enviroment. If XNA is easy to use, everyone will use it and there will be a lot of worthless demos. Companies want to see that you programmed, not that you did something easy.
2. C# is not a great programming language. Ok it has uses. However making games is NOT one of them. If you program for a console you're probably in C++ if you're not programming for a console you use what language you want. C# might make some stuff easier, but unless you know C++ you're not going to be a real asset to a company.
In addition C# is Microsoft's programming language. It's a bastard of C++ and Java, basically so Microsoft could own a language. Don't buy into it. Java and C++ are both good languages as well, I have heard of few jobs that want C# currently.
3. As people have mentioned to get access you need to pay 100 bucks a month then your friend has to pay 100 a month, then your other friend has to pay 100 a month. It's not a "cheap" development studio. A cheap development studio is your PC. Besides which unless you know how to do multi core processing (don't you DARE say you do unless you've done it and shipped a product, it's much harder then you realize) the 360 is going to be weaker then your PC. It's true you don't have a unified system, but even on the 360 you no longer have it with hard drives and non hard drives. In addition you have to submit to Microsoft's rules at times (mostly during production), which limits your freedom a little more.
This might be an option for some people but if you're doing professional grade work you will almost definatly have a dev kit. If you arn't it doesn't really matter because the work is the important part, not the final product so skip XNA and work on other stuff. The only person who needs XNA is the idiot who MUST program in C# and must program on the 360. Just remember anything you do in XNA will likely be only for the PC and 360, and not for any other console.
Microsoft is doing good positioning themselves, but if you look into their motives it's not for the fans. It's to improve their brands (C#, XNA, Xbox 360, DirectX). Unless you want to only support those brands you are better off moving on.
The most important decision to make now is "what do I want to do". It's a hard one, but start by looking into what field you want to go after? Game programming? Any that give you lots of money? IT?
Next thing you need to do after deciding that is start focusing on it. If you want to be a game programmer, start programming your own game. A company that hires you won't just look at your education, they'll look what else you've done, and a big bonus is "self starting". It doesn't matter if you don't know how to make a finished game or a finished project you can learn how to do the final stuff, and most of the time they don't care. What will matter is that you've designed something and worked towards it. In addition the code can show the employers "I know how to code".
If you want to go into IT start looking for work now. Anything you do outside of the field isn't going to help you too much in the long run, but be sure to learn as much as you can about networks and hardware for it (routers and so on, not just lan adapters). Try to learn Linux as well for IT, that might not help you but it's good to know it so you can work with networking apps with out dealing with the BS that Microsoft gives developers (dear god, what ever you do don't expect CSocket to be all you need for networking experience).
If you want to make money start networking. And I mean P2P.. Or rather that's person to person. Talk to people who can help you get jobs in major companies. You want a job in finance to make the most money the fastest.
Overall it's important to take a direction and start working towards it. The biggest mistake you can make is think your goal is to radical to start working towards it (something I had to learn.. Now I work at a video game company. What I always wanted to do.)
The second mistake you can make is undervaluing your skills. Don't take a job for 24K, even if they promise a pay raise in 3 monthes (finance, personal experience.) Demand 40K a year at the minimum. Short and simple that's the bare minimum you deserve and that's even low. If you're in a good job, you should be making more.
Also always be willing to move, that'll give you many more options, and don't be afraid to seek out big name companies to apply to. Nothing is wrong with apply somewhere expecting relocation expense. They should be provided.
Don't worry if you get into something and don't like it. You're still learning and no one expects you to be a good coder yet, school is to teach you the basics, they'll train you to be the programmer they want (or they arn't worth working for).
True, but would like be as cool with a voice? The answer is a flat no. Link is a silent protagonist, he might shout when attacking but you have two choices, either make him remain silent (and thus keeping it as a true adventure) or have him talk and say stuff the player would never accept.
The style of hero that Link uses is the same as the DQ hero almost always. It allows an adventure game to be more indepth without forcing people to put words in their mouth which tends to be weak at best. You almost always end up with one of three speaking systems.
A. The "no option" system. The hero says what ever he's scripted to and the player at home feels a lose of connection the first time the hero says something unobvious (Like a scene where the hero is talking about lunch but the player wants to say "my arm's glowing!" since it is!
B. The "worthless option system" The player chooses from 4 options, 3 have a little more information, the 4th has the "continue playing command" Oblivion did ok with this as some options were important but on a whole it's good for exploration games bad for everything else. Personally it's the best we have and it's not good enough.
C. The "Good bad ugly" options. Kotor shows this one, it's great if you're five. The bottom answer is always darkside points the top answer is always light side points, and the middle is neither? YAWN! Honestly this is the worst of the bunch because it belittles the player. Yet bioware loves it.
Shodan was creepy but the hacker has no voice and is only slightly male (from the opening video of the original game) That's great but to trust in nintendo to bring the Ganondorf voice I imagine into a game is also to believe they will ignore every other version of ganondorf's voice. It's simply too much to ask them after 10 games. But then again they finally don't have to worry about storage space (as much) so maybe they will have the next zelda game have voice acting? Who knows. and maybe it won't be a total failure.
P.S. System shock rocks and shodan is still scary at least to me.
I think it's more then permission, the difference in a black hat and a white hat comes down to real intentions. Saying you're trying to inform people means bullshit because it's just that. If you want to inform people, inform people of the problem as well as the airline, meantion you have a working prototype but that's it. Don't start handing it out blindly to random people.
Just because you have a new technology doesn't mean make it available to everyone with out at least trying to inform those who should be informed. that means TSA, DHS or what ever group. If you did this for better security work WITH them. Acting like they should automatically know what you've done is just stupid, what ever his purpose it wasn't done the correct way, which means in the end it wasn't done for the right reason. If you honestly think it's something to expose, start by telling the company and if they insist it's unimportant that's when you announce it to the world. If it is still ignored then you should consider sharing instructions/devices/ or what ever with the world.
Well I'd say yeah. Nintendo is taking the strap problem serious which is pretty awesome. They know for the most part the strap isn't the problem, it's a problem with people letting go of the controllers completely, but I'm sure they'll figure out someway to make people happy. However I'm sure they can't go around giving free tvs away for idiots who let go of the controller (and seriously that's fair) but they should probably offer a free stronger strap. Of course those who couldn't hang on to their controller really shouldn't expect much more. I've yet to have an occasion where the controller flew out of my hand.
Then again on Sony's side, there's so many known problems with the console, this update feels like lipservice at best, and it's not even solving any problem that a normal person would have. What's worse this is a problem their console has and they arn't even acting like it's a real problem or taking it seriously. But the priority of video feeds? That's crucial, except what happens when my 1080i TV revert to 480p because I don't have 720p?
Oh that's right, it's Next gen and HD generation? That's when graphics and games are amazing... as long as you have the right tv, and the right connector, and the right game, and sony will be glad to sell you them all, for more money.
Microsoft has become a more caring company then sony, they are at least finally repairing Xbox 360 with drive problems for free. Sony, well I guess the good news is under 400,000 people will be effected by these problems.
I was more refering to the Elebits Wiiconnect24. Animal crossing, and other stuff that is online connectivity but could work with a central server rather then being online at the same time.
A couple games has some Wiiconnect24 support coming. Elebits will next week, and a couple other have plans for it.
I'm tentative about claiming the Wii has any good online. Online is good and all but with out a solid online platform having to share friends codes is more than a little annoying. Especially if we are forced to both be on at the same time.
I'm very hopeful for some good support, don't know how pokemon battle revolution does it but I know that won't be the breakaway hit for online..
Re:The 360 is console done right, Wii is console .
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Two Weeks with the Wii
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Pretty much exactly what he said. It's like an online pissing contest to the extreme. That combined with gamerscore (basically total achievements for all games you've played). It gives you a reason to go for a perfect game, or to master the small parts of the game.
But like I said, it works. I can't even explain why it's important but for some reason I feel it is, and I know others who do. It's not a big loss for something like Zelda, or something that's only on the Wii, but with Marvel Ultimate Alliance (which was fun btw) in the back of my head there was "you could have played it on the xbox 360 and gotten achievements". Something that the Ps3 and the Wii doesn't have (though the ps3 claims to have entitlements, I have heard nothing about it other then the name).
The 360 is console done right, Wii is console ...
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Two Weeks with the Wii
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Done better. PS3 is failure of marketing.
The 360 is a really solid, machine, I'm completely impressed by the options they have launched with.
On the other hand though the Wii is a console that is innovative and unique. The big missing point is achievements (yes they are important) but the Wii controller and everything else earned it the center stage in my apartment.
The PS3 on the other hand is so dead to me after all the hype, the failed launch, the lackluster system and so on. I'll pick one up when some amazing rpgs are out but even Metal Gear Solid 4 is not enough. Especially with it's price point.
For the Wii though Avoid red steel, but check out Excite trucks, Zelda (duh), and trauma center (if you don't have it for the DS). And Elebits is sounding to be the Second half of the One two launch combo.
I'm hopeful for the Wii, with talented developers (not EA) we can have some amazing games on an amazing system. Konami is already releasing Elebits and with more attention some really radical games can come out. But that's still not enough for me to discount my 360, which is fun, has better graphics and has achievements (again they are important, don't ask me why). It appeals to me in every way the Wii doesn't and that's fine as well.
Personally I think it really is a wonderous time to be a gamer. If you have yet to try the system I highly advise you to give it a shot, because it'll revive that kid who shook the controller to make mario jump "Farther".
This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford is
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Wii, DS, Not Cannibals
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Yamaha, or some other motorcycle company. It's not. If you're going to get a motorcycle you're going to get a yamaha, if you want a truck/car you get a ford. If you need both, you'll get a ford and a yamaha.
The only person that the DS and the Wii competes over is the guy who is only going to buy 1 system or handheld. And in the past the DS was competing with the PSP for that anyways (and winning for the most part).
This is true, the point I was making is you're going to get nothing better than analog signal. If you're doing a big screen tv you'll want HD signal. CBS for instance doesn't offer it on my cable package (or anywhere really to my knowledge.) Which I personally hate especially because they broadcast a ton of NFL games (true I could go get the sunday ticket from a satilite company).
I probably should have said "not every station is in High Def" even though a high def station doesn't broadcast everything in high def, some of the more recent shows should be bigger/better. And I could have added "not every rectn show is in High def" I believe smallville just started HD, but if you watch a Smallville from 2004, it's not in HD (and you'll hate them for that after the first 24 hours).
Right, because the conservatives complain about who holds the money... no wait that's just the liberals still.
Just because I use the word doesn't mean you have to spring into action and attack, maybe I'm right in that it's got a liberal slant. Or are we going to pretend that because the average news station is to the left of Fox news, then Fox is the only slanted news station... Yeah that's good story too, too bad I don't buy it either.
Ok ATM RFID... yeah I can see that being stupid (though it takes a bit of paranoia, not much though once I woke up and thought about it). However this is NOT NEWS. Ok it is news, but it's old news, it's news for liberals, it's not news for geeks. If anyone didn't know this then here's another statistic they trot out every so often. 10 percent of the world owns 90 percent of the wealth. (DEAR GOD!)
Can we get back to posting dupes and biased pieces about the industry? I long for those days. The reason I don't read CNN is because of stuff like this. What's next? An indepth analysis on the death count of the Iraq civilians, of course slanted to make us look like we killed them all instead of insurgents?
Should have said "co-op over Live". Split screen co-op is ok on big tvs, but I find it to be lacking something (you're sitting right next to someone playing a game. And now that I'm out of college even multiplayer games done that way is a rare experience)
CRTs can't handle progressive scan to my knowledge, don't know why, don't care. However you're buying into those idiots who tell you buy 1080p. BUY IT BUY IT!!!
Personally I spent 500 dollars, I got a 52 inch CRT. Guess what? That's my tv for the next 5-10 years. When I buy my next tv, I'll probably have it in the same room as my 52 inch still. When I buy a third, that 52 will be my bedroom tv. I still have a 300 dollar tv that I bought almost 10 years ago that works perfectly and I still use to watch dvds in my bedroom. True it's got a DVI-D connector, not a HDMI, it works the same. I don't have HDCP... boohoo, I didn't buy into the Media/MPAAs hype about blu-ray and HD-DVD requiring it
You don't NEED 1080p, you don't NEED all these crazy formats, you can enjoy yourself with something that does just 1080i. You'll save yourself anywhere from 1/10 to 1/4th the price if you realize what you need to be happy. Guess what, when that 1080p drop to around the same price, you can buy it. You just saved paid 1/5 the price to 1/2 the price. Major savings.
After you get your tv, don't run out and buy an HD player, that's the idiots way. Go buy a DVD player that upscales your dvds. Now they might not look amazingly perfect, but exactly how is a movie filmed more then 10 years ago going to look perfect? We didn't have HD cameras back the you can remaster it all you want, but you can't get what they have promised, from now on HD DVD and Bluray will work, but do you really want to pay 500 bucks for a dvd player, and have to rebuy all your dvds? I sure as hell don't. For 70 bucks I got something I'm extremely happy with. When these HD dvds drop to a reasonable price (which even new DVDs really haven't reach yet) Then we can talk about that.
Cable? You're going to pay more for this, face it, and not every station is in digital, and old tv shows look like shit. But this is one of the few areas you should invest in. Scrubs might not be funnier in HD, but 24 sure as hell is. And Sports in HD? Nothing compares. But the price? Well nothing we can do about this. I don't want to lose my analog signal though because that tv in the bedroom shouldn't require a HD tuner just so it can pick up the news and a football game.
CRTs arn't bad for the price currently and should be considered as an entry level investment. They are becoming "dirt cheap" and will only drop in price. They might weigh a little more but you're not going to move them more then once or twice. But if you're so pent up on getting 1080p go ahead, waste money just because people tell you it's so important. Of course in 10 years realize we'll have 2160p or some other bullshit format that the successor to HD-DVD has that they tell you is required because it just improves the picture so much. And at that time I'll pick up my 1080p tv for 300 bucks or so. Personally I'm just happy to enjoy a nice big screen picture and I can live with it.
What is it about halo that makes all the fanboys just wiggle. I'm by no means anti-first person shooter, and I enjoy other stuff in the Microsoft game studios, but I've yet to see a good reason to get interested in Halo. Even Halo 2 didn't offer co-op, which would be the one thing these games have been missing. Maybe it's that I just prefer the Mouse Keyboard combo, but even there on the Computer, I'd much rather play Half-life 2 than Halo.
It certainly wasn't the first, isn't the best or anything. But for some reason rabid fans play it like it's counterstrike, except paying 50 dollars a year, just to play it online, while making snide comments about WOW's pay to play system. It's far from the only FPS with story, it's far from the best game on the Xbox, it's really lacking in anything unremarkable except it's a FPS on the console, of which there's many of them now.
The funnier thing is they realized this and with the Superman game it wasn't in production until AFTER the movie came out. Basically the time from the movie to the game was the total time in "actual production" so basically they solved that problem and ended up screwing themselves in the end.
I don't know if anyone knows the exact figures (as such I can't give them away) but EA pays multi million dollars contracts for licensing. The Godfather license they KNEW they were never going to make back (it's so large you wouldn't believe it) yet they bought it any way. They are the Sony/microsoft of game development, so caught up in the war and the fighting that they just dig themselves into holes they can't get out of.
The Madden franchise will save them of course, and be well worth all the money they drop on it, but the superman franchise, the Godfather franchise, and the rest are just screwing themselves over and over. EA has one goal, to license good franchises and make games out of them, and in that respect they do excellent work... Notice I don't say they make good games, or support the franchise, because really, they don't.
EA does spend a lot of money on game development, but that doesn't mean they are doing it right, or like everyone. The correct (at least according to companies I've talked to) development cycle is one enormous budget game, which allows you to correctly tailor an engine to your genre, and then a couple other games that uses that engine. You don't reuse an engine 50 times, but you don't throw away all the work that you do. EA knows this, but developing a new game like Superman or Godfather will always be expensive because they don't enter that with an engine in place, if you're going to have to rewrite your engine for every game you do, you're not being smart about it.
It's one thing to go to a Playboy mansion and act respectable, it's another thing to give a interview that is laced with swears, and at the end admit you're drunk. And then telling Sony Marketting representive to go get fucked.
The second one is the guy I respect, a guy who's a gamer who makes games for gamers. Game designers should realize your in the game industry, it's supposed to be fun as well as work, and from the look of it that's Jaffe's motto as well. Best video I've seen all year.
Sonic isn't "bad ass". Sonic is like Bart Simpson. Not a trouble maker persay, He wouldn't shoot a teacher, but definatly tries to be too cool for school. Unfortunatly even he too is now a lame shadow of himself (funny thing, both were created at the same time, and both fell upon their swords about the same time)
I think the big problem for sonic is speed. Even in Sonic's 2d adventures, the camera had minor issues, in his 3d adventures you have two options. Make the camera always exist behind him even if it is in a wall, or make it follow him but because of his extreme speed it won't always point at him.
Sega's solution? Screw it up even worse than those two ideas would have. Camera control isn't "easy" however Sega chose to make it as hyperactive as sonic himself. It's playable, but could have been done way better.
New characters I'm mixed on, Shadow sucks, but Knuckles works, Big is interesting, but Amy is lame. Besides with out 300 characters how else will they be able to do Super Sega fighters Brawl? oh wait did I spoil the announcement?
The goal of a sonic game should be allow a extremely skilled player to go through the entire game in seconds, while a newcomer should take a couple minutes. Basically don't put huge walls that require insanely annoying jumping puzzles, or if you do, have an optional but well planned out path that sonic can hit at super speed. Sonic is about speed, not combat.
Having other levels where you explore and have to get three gems, or use a different character is up to Sega, but if I'm playing sonic I'm going fast, if I'm playing tales, I'm going fast and hovering, if I'm playing Knuckles I'm flying. It's not rocket science.
Slashdot Mirror
First off let me start by explaining who owns the Xbox Live Marketplace. Microsoft. Period. This is like someone drawing a comic (the developer) and I own a shop. If I think you're charging too much, not giving enough, or not being nice, you're not in my shop. PERIOD. So all the fault with the problems come back to Microsoft in that Microsoft allowed them to happen.
Now let's get into the Xbox Live Arcade. There's a large amount of good games on it. Let's start with Geometry wars, Marble blast, and Mutant storm. These are three excellent games that came out almost at launch. Each of them are great in different ways.
But not all games were great at launch, the biggest problem child is Bankshot Billards 2, which they gave away for free with the 12 month live boxes. That's a 15 dollar value! Except it's not. Backshot billards 2 is a below average game for anyone who doesn't REALLLLY like pool. And this brings us to the big problem, the value of the games are skewed.
Can someone tell me why I'm paying 5 dollars for Contra, or Defender? I can shell that out for sinstar easily, but when you don't even know if the co-op online is going to work. Why am I paying 15 dollars for Small Arms (though fun, isn't worth that much single player)? There's a great many games that are overpriced, and the biggest problem is that those prices will NOT go down, why should they? Microsoft has a monopoly on the market.
In addition Microsoft has allowed really shady customers (sharks) into the kiddie pool. Lumines Live for instance is stated as being a full game. However when you pay 15 dollars for it you find out "It's not a full game". You miss out on mission/Puzzle/ Vs. Cpu, and other modes. So really all you get is base mode and skin mode. Nice. Then you shell out even more for Advanced mode (Btw if you paid for Lumines, that's actually worth it). A better system would have been to give away the entire engine for free, but only allow full play if you buy the base pack or advance pack or another pack (which hasn't even been released yet). Microsoft should have just said no to that idea. All told a consumer will have to pay almost 40 bucks for what they can get on the PS2 for 20 or the PSP for 20? Not a good move.
And to make matters more complicated, Microsoft has screwed the developer by placing rules in place to make sure your Arcade game is no bigger then 50 megs. Which results in Developers screwing consumers by charging more for the second download so they can get around that rule (See Lumines again). Many good games won't be able to exist on the Arcade, but easily will exist on PS3's marketplace style stuff. How they will do Symphony of the Night on the Arcade will be interesting.
This isn't to say Microsoft doesn't have good choices. The limit in price for a Xbox Live game is 1200 points I believe (might be 1600 but I don't think so). They only give out a certain amount of tickets so no matter how much people want to flood the arcade with retro crap they can't just do it. But still Microsoft has a huge boone and they need to focus their energies on new games.
That being said there has been a turn around recently from a week marketplace to a good one. Small Arms while over priced is interesting, Assault heroes this week is a great buy, and Roboblitz is a really interesting game. However right around any corner is a pile of Retro games waiting to junk up the month.
The biggest boone out of all the rubble is demos. Wii needs to get something like that. Ps3 should already have it. The marketplace demos are good, but the Arcade demos sell more games then anything. And that's the core of the solution. Try before you buy and enjoy what's worth money. Geometry wars and mutant storm, yes. Retro games, probably not.
There's a lot of other Microsoft flaws with marketplace operations (microsoft points, themes and pictures for sale even though you buy the game, overcharging for themes and pictures) but that's the core of the marketplace, not the arcade itself.
Of course it's subjective. How you hold the mouse, how you move it, that's all up to you.
What this is doing though is it's taking the non subjective parts of the mouse. the DPI, the sensativity, the "malfunction speed". Basically the important information that can be measured and analysis that.
Now if you want a cordless or a corded mouse you'll knock a bunch of the top 10 off right there, but on the other hand out of those remaining you'll have an idea what to look for. Who cares if a mouse feels right if the mouse next to it feels a little worse but has a better sensativitiy and won't crap out on you.
You know the one who claims not to have caught an STD, but you've seen her around the free clinic a few times? You know the one. She has documents that say she has a clean bill of health but somehow you don't think there's a Doctor Fakopsky.
Then of course you go out with her and the next day you know what falls off? We've all had that experience, haven't we?
Oddly enough that sounds exactly like IE7. I'll stick with my hotter girlfriend, Firefox. It's true she might have "enhancements" and she might be a little "slower" but at least she's not sleeping around like IE.
This is still not a solution. I can use 100 percent of energy today, or 10 percent of the energy. The only difference is in the second solution we will have 10 times as much energy. That's all well and good, but the problem is we are a remarkably stupid race. If we lower ourselves to 10 percent of our current energy, many of us will claim "problem solved".
The true solution is to find a good renewable energy supply and then deal with the making our energy meet what can be easily renewed. Hydrogen is only a temporary stopgap. It might make a good battery, but it won't be a viable energy source.
On the other hand Wind and Solar only appears to work in small amounts. Wind takes a large amount of land and solar is just too damm expensive, and I don't mean just monetarily (remember money is no object, our perception of what something is worth is what's important.) in the long run.
I'd love to see some option, however reducing our consumption before we have a solution will only result in the solution being delayed, until we're running out of energy again, and then we'll have even less energy to deal with.
I say we get started with asteroid mining! See unlike the other solutions suggested, this one is cool, and even with a low chance of it working, at least we'll be focused on exploring our universe rather then just complaining about how stuff doesn't work on our planet.
You might ask "why am I so anti-XNA"?
Well three reasons since you asked so nicely.
1. XNA allows you to build stuff for your PC for free, and pay 100 bucks a month for building for the 360? WOW! unless you care about the second half, ANY compiler allowed you to build stuff for your PC for Free. What's worse is unless a prospective employee has creators club (or wants to get it) they can't really see your work unless it's on the PC. So basically you're stuck.
Instead you can get Visual Studio with just DirectX and learn how to REALLY program, rather then relying on an enviroment. If XNA is easy to use, everyone will use it and there will be a lot of worthless demos. Companies want to see that you programmed, not that you did something easy.
2. C# is not a great programming language. Ok it has uses. However making games is NOT one of them. If you program for a console you're probably in C++ if you're not programming for a console you use what language you want. C# might make some stuff easier, but unless you know C++ you're not going to be a real asset to a company.
In addition C# is Microsoft's programming language. It's a bastard of C++ and Java, basically so Microsoft could own a language. Don't buy into it. Java and C++ are both good languages as well, I have heard of few jobs that want C# currently.
3. As people have mentioned to get access you need to pay 100 bucks a month then your friend has to pay 100 a month, then your other friend has to pay 100 a month. It's not a "cheap" development studio. A cheap development studio is your PC. Besides which unless you know how to do multi core processing (don't you DARE say you do unless you've done it and shipped a product, it's much harder then you realize) the 360 is going to be weaker then your PC. It's true you don't have a unified system, but even on the 360 you no longer have it with hard drives and non hard drives. In addition you have to submit to Microsoft's rules at times (mostly during production), which limits your freedom a little more.
This might be an option for some people but if you're doing professional grade work you will almost definatly have a dev kit. If you arn't it doesn't really matter because the work is the important part, not the final product so skip XNA and work on other stuff. The only person who needs XNA is the idiot who MUST program in C# and must program on the 360. Just remember anything you do in XNA will likely be only for the PC and 360, and not for any other console.
Microsoft is doing good positioning themselves, but if you look into their motives it's not for the fans. It's to improve their brands (C#, XNA, Xbox 360, DirectX). Unless you want to only support those brands you are better off moving on.
The most important decision to make now is "what do I want to do". It's a hard one, but start by looking into what field you want to go after? Game programming? Any that give you lots of money? IT?
Next thing you need to do after deciding that is start focusing on it. If you want to be a game programmer, start programming your own game. A company that hires you won't just look at your education, they'll look what else you've done, and a big bonus is "self starting". It doesn't matter if you don't know how to make a finished game or a finished project you can learn how to do the final stuff, and most of the time they don't care. What will matter is that you've designed something and worked towards it. In addition the code can show the employers "I know how to code".
If you want to go into IT start looking for work now. Anything you do outside of the field isn't going to help you too much in the long run, but be sure to learn as much as you can about networks and hardware for it (routers and so on, not just lan adapters). Try to learn Linux as well for IT, that might not help you but it's good to know it so you can work with networking apps with out dealing with the BS that Microsoft gives developers (dear god, what ever you do don't expect CSocket to be all you need for networking experience).
If you want to make money start networking. And I mean P2P.. Or rather that's person to person. Talk to people who can help you get jobs in major companies. You want a job in finance to make the most money the fastest.
Overall it's important to take a direction and start working towards it. The biggest mistake you can make is think your goal is to radical to start working towards it (something I had to learn.. Now I work at a video game company. What I always wanted to do.)
The second mistake you can make is undervaluing your skills. Don't take a job for 24K, even if they promise a pay raise in 3 monthes (finance, personal experience.) Demand 40K a year at the minimum. Short and simple that's the bare minimum you deserve and that's even low. If you're in a good job, you should be making more.
Also always be willing to move, that'll give you many more options, and don't be afraid to seek out big name companies to apply to. Nothing is wrong with apply somewhere expecting relocation expense. They should be provided.
Don't worry if you get into something and don't like it. You're still learning and no one expects you to be a good coder yet, school is to teach you the basics, they'll train you to be the programmer they want (or they arn't worth working for).
True, but would like be as cool with a voice? The answer is a flat no. Link is a silent protagonist, he might shout when attacking but you have two choices, either make him remain silent (and thus keeping it as a true adventure) or have him talk and say stuff the player would never accept.
The style of hero that Link uses is the same as the DQ hero almost always. It allows an adventure game to be more indepth without forcing people to put words in their mouth which tends to be weak at best. You almost always end up with one of three speaking systems.
A. The "no option" system. The hero says what ever he's scripted to and the player at home feels a lose of connection the first time the hero says something unobvious (Like a scene where the hero is talking about lunch but the player wants to say "my arm's glowing!" since it is!
B. The "worthless option system" The player chooses from 4 options, 3 have a little more information, the 4th has the "continue playing command" Oblivion did ok with this as some options were important but on a whole it's good for exploration games bad for everything else. Personally it's the best we have and it's not good enough.
C. The "Good bad ugly" options. Kotor shows this one, it's great if you're five. The bottom answer is always darkside points the top answer is always light side points, and the middle is neither? YAWN! Honestly this is the worst of the bunch because it belittles the player. Yet bioware loves it.
Shodan was creepy but the hacker has no voice and is only slightly male (from the opening video of the original game) That's great but to trust in nintendo to bring the Ganondorf voice I imagine into a game is also to believe they will ignore every other version of ganondorf's voice. It's simply too much to ask them after 10 games. But then again they finally don't have to worry about storage space (as much) so maybe they will have the next zelda game have voice acting? Who knows. and maybe it won't be a total failure.
P.S. System shock rocks and shodan is still scary at least to me.
I think it's more then permission, the difference in a black hat and a white hat comes down to real intentions. Saying you're trying to inform people means bullshit because it's just that. If you want to inform people, inform people of the problem as well as the airline, meantion you have a working prototype but that's it. Don't start handing it out blindly to random people.
Just because you have a new technology doesn't mean make it available to everyone with out at least trying to inform those who should be informed. that means TSA, DHS or what ever group. If you did this for better security work WITH them. Acting like they should automatically know what you've done is just stupid, what ever his purpose it wasn't done the correct way, which means in the end it wasn't done for the right reason. If you honestly think it's something to expose, start by telling the company and if they insist it's unimportant that's when you announce it to the world. If it is still ignored then you should consider sharing instructions/devices/ or what ever with the world.
Well I'd say yeah. Nintendo is taking the strap problem serious which is pretty awesome. They know for the most part the strap isn't the problem, it's a problem with people letting go of the controllers completely, but I'm sure they'll figure out someway to make people happy. However I'm sure they can't go around giving free tvs away for idiots who let go of the controller (and seriously that's fair) but they should probably offer a free stronger strap. Of course those who couldn't hang on to their controller really shouldn't expect much more. I've yet to have an occasion where the controller flew out of my hand.
Then again on Sony's side, there's so many known problems with the console, this update feels like lipservice at best, and it's not even solving any problem that a normal person would have. What's worse this is a problem their console has and they arn't even acting like it's a real problem or taking it seriously. But the priority of video feeds? That's crucial, except what happens when my 1080i TV revert to 480p because I don't have 720p?
Oh that's right, it's Next gen and HD generation? That's when graphics and games are amazing... as long as you have the right tv, and the right connector, and the right game, and sony will be glad to sell you them all, for more money.
Microsoft has become a more caring company then sony, they are at least finally repairing Xbox 360 with drive problems for free. Sony, well I guess the good news is under 400,000 people will be effected by these problems.
It'll be the best looking cube game or a good looking wii game (I hope). either way it will look good.
Gameplay is about the same, the only difference is how you move the aiming reticule, and how you attack (press a button, wiggle the controller)
All in all it's the same review, and easily worth the price. I say that with out playing the cube game, but knowing it's a faithful port.
I was more refering to the Elebits Wiiconnect24. Animal crossing, and other stuff that is online connectivity but could work with a central server rather then being online at the same time.
A couple games has some Wiiconnect24 support coming. Elebits will next week, and a couple other have plans for it.
I'm tentative about claiming the Wii has any good online. Online is good and all but with out a solid online platform having to share friends codes is more than a little annoying. Especially if we are forced to both be on at the same time.
I'm very hopeful for some good support, don't know how pokemon battle revolution does it but I know that won't be the breakaway hit for online..
Pretty much exactly what he said. It's like an online pissing contest to the extreme. That combined with gamerscore (basically total achievements for all games you've played). It gives you a reason to go for a perfect game, or to master the small parts of the game.
But like I said, it works. I can't even explain why it's important but for some reason I feel it is, and I know others who do. It's not a big loss for something like Zelda, or something that's only on the Wii, but with Marvel Ultimate Alliance (which was fun btw) in the back of my head there was "you could have played it on the xbox 360 and gotten achievements". Something that the Ps3 and the Wii doesn't have (though the ps3 claims to have entitlements, I have heard nothing about it other then the name).
Done better. PS3 is failure of marketing.
The 360 is a really solid, machine, I'm completely impressed by the options they have launched with.
On the other hand though the Wii is a console that is innovative and unique. The big missing point is achievements (yes they are important) but the Wii controller and everything else earned it the center stage in my apartment.
The PS3 on the other hand is so dead to me after all the hype, the failed launch, the lackluster system and so on. I'll pick one up when some amazing rpgs are out but even Metal Gear Solid 4 is not enough. Especially with it's price point.
For the Wii though Avoid red steel, but check out Excite trucks, Zelda (duh), and trauma center (if you don't have it for the DS). And Elebits is sounding to be the Second half of the One two launch combo.
I'm hopeful for the Wii, with talented developers (not EA) we can have some amazing games on an amazing system. Konami is already releasing Elebits and with more attention some really radical games can come out. But that's still not enough for me to discount my 360, which is fun, has better graphics and has achievements (again they are important, don't ask me why). It appeals to me in every way the Wii doesn't and that's fine as well.
Personally I think it really is a wonderous time to be a gamer. If you have yet to try the system I highly advise you to give it a shot, because it'll revive that kid who shook the controller to make mario jump "Farther".
Yamaha, or some other motorcycle company. It's not. If you're going to get a motorcycle you're going to get a yamaha, if you want a truck/car you get a ford. If you need both, you'll get a ford and a yamaha.
The only person that the DS and the Wii competes over is the guy who is only going to buy 1 system or handheld. And in the past the DS was competing with the PSP for that anyways (and winning for the most part).
This is true, the point I was making is you're going to get nothing better than analog signal. If you're doing a big screen tv you'll want HD signal. CBS for instance doesn't offer it on my cable package (or anywhere really to my knowledge.) Which I personally hate especially because they broadcast a ton of NFL games (true I could go get the sunday ticket from a satilite company).
I probably should have said "not every station is in High Def" even though a high def station doesn't broadcast everything in high def, some of the more recent shows should be bigger/better. And I could have added "not every rectn show is in High def" I believe smallville just started HD, but if you watch a Smallville from 2004, it's not in HD (and you'll hate them for that after the first 24 hours).
Right, because the conservatives complain about who holds the money... no wait that's just the liberals still.
Just because I use the word doesn't mean you have to spring into action and attack, maybe I'm right in that it's got a liberal slant. Or are we going to pretend that because the average news station is to the left of Fox news, then Fox is the only slanted news station... Yeah that's good story too, too bad I don't buy it either.
Ok ATM RFID... yeah I can see that being stupid (though it takes a bit of paranoia, not much though once I woke up and thought about it). However this is NOT NEWS. Ok it is news, but it's old news, it's news for liberals, it's not news for geeks. If anyone didn't know this then here's another statistic they trot out every so often. 10 percent of the world owns 90 percent of the wealth. (DEAR GOD!)
Can we get back to posting dupes and biased pieces about the industry? I long for those days. The reason I don't read CNN is because of stuff like this. What's next? An indepth analysis on the death count of the Iraq civilians, of course slanted to make us look like we killed them all instead of insurgents?
Should have said "co-op over Live". Split screen co-op is ok on big tvs, but I find it to be lacking something (you're sitting right next to someone playing a game. And now that I'm out of college even multiplayer games done that way is a rare experience)
CRTs can't handle progressive scan to my knowledge, don't know why, don't care. However you're buying into those idiots who tell you buy 1080p. BUY IT BUY IT!!!
Personally I spent 500 dollars, I got a 52 inch CRT. Guess what? That's my tv for the next 5-10 years. When I buy my next tv, I'll probably have it in the same room as my 52 inch still. When I buy a third, that 52 will be my bedroom tv. I still have a 300 dollar tv that I bought almost 10 years ago that works perfectly and I still use to watch dvds in my bedroom. True it's got a DVI-D connector, not a HDMI, it works the same. I don't have HDCP... boohoo, I didn't buy into the Media/MPAAs hype about blu-ray and HD-DVD requiring it
You don't NEED 1080p, you don't NEED all these crazy formats, you can enjoy yourself with something that does just 1080i. You'll save yourself anywhere from 1/10 to 1/4th the price if you realize what you need to be happy. Guess what, when that 1080p drop to around the same price, you can buy it. You just saved paid 1/5 the price to 1/2 the price. Major savings.
After you get your tv, don't run out and buy an HD player, that's the idiots way. Go buy a DVD player that upscales your dvds. Now they might not look amazingly perfect, but exactly how is a movie filmed more then 10 years ago going to look perfect? We didn't have HD cameras back the you can remaster it all you want, but you can't get what they have promised, from now on HD DVD and Bluray will work, but do you really want to pay 500 bucks for a dvd player, and have to rebuy all your dvds? I sure as hell don't. For 70 bucks I got something I'm extremely happy with. When these HD dvds drop to a reasonable price (which even new DVDs really haven't reach yet) Then we can talk about that.
Cable? You're going to pay more for this, face it, and not every station is in digital, and old tv shows look like shit. But this is one of the few areas you should invest in. Scrubs might not be funnier in HD, but 24 sure as hell is. And Sports in HD? Nothing compares. But the price? Well nothing we can do about this. I don't want to lose my analog signal though because that tv in the bedroom shouldn't require a HD tuner just so it can pick up the news and a football game.
CRTs arn't bad for the price currently and should be considered as an entry level investment. They are becoming "dirt cheap" and will only drop in price. They might weigh a little more but you're not going to move them more then once or twice. But if you're so pent up on getting 1080p go ahead, waste money just because people tell you it's so important. Of course in 10 years realize we'll have 2160p or some other bullshit format that the successor to HD-DVD has that they tell you is required because it just improves the picture so much. And at that time I'll pick up my 1080p tv for 300 bucks or so. Personally I'm just happy to enjoy a nice big screen picture and I can live with it.
What is it about halo that makes all the fanboys just wiggle. I'm by no means anti-first person shooter, and I enjoy other stuff in the Microsoft game studios, but I've yet to see a good reason to get interested in Halo. Even Halo 2 didn't offer co-op, which would be the one thing these games have been missing. Maybe it's that I just prefer the Mouse Keyboard combo, but even there on the Computer, I'd much rather play Half-life 2 than Halo.
It certainly wasn't the first, isn't the best or anything. But for some reason rabid fans play it like it's counterstrike, except paying 50 dollars a year, just to play it online, while making snide comments about WOW's pay to play system. It's far from the only FPS with story, it's far from the best game on the Xbox, it's really lacking in anything unremarkable except it's a FPS on the console, of which there's many of them now.
The funnier thing is they realized this and with the Superman game it wasn't in production until AFTER the movie came out. Basically the time from the movie to the game was the total time in "actual production" so basically they solved that problem and ended up screwing themselves in the end.
I don't know if anyone knows the exact figures (as such I can't give them away) but EA pays multi million dollars contracts for licensing. The Godfather license they KNEW they were never going to make back (it's so large you wouldn't believe it) yet they bought it any way. They are the Sony/microsoft of game development, so caught up in the war and the fighting that they just dig themselves into holes they can't get out of.
The Madden franchise will save them of course, and be well worth all the money they drop on it, but the superman franchise, the Godfather franchise, and the rest are just screwing themselves over and over. EA has one goal, to license good franchises and make games out of them, and in that respect they do excellent work... Notice I don't say they make good games, or support the franchise, because really, they don't.
EA does spend a lot of money on game development, but that doesn't mean they are doing it right, or like everyone. The correct (at least according to companies I've talked to) development cycle is one enormous budget game, which allows you to correctly tailor an engine to your genre, and then a couple other games that uses that engine. You don't reuse an engine 50 times, but you don't throw away all the work that you do. EA knows this, but developing a new game like Superman or Godfather will always be expensive because they don't enter that with an engine in place, if you're going to have to rewrite your engine for every game you do, you're not being smart about it.
It's one thing to go to a Playboy mansion and act respectable, it's another thing to give a interview that is laced with swears, and at the end admit you're drunk. And then telling Sony Marketting representive to go get fucked.
The second one is the guy I respect, a guy who's a gamer who makes games for gamers. Game designers should realize your in the game industry, it's supposed to be fun as well as work, and from the look of it that's Jaffe's motto as well. Best video I've seen all year.
Sonic isn't "bad ass". Sonic is like Bart Simpson. Not a trouble maker persay, He wouldn't shoot a teacher, but definatly tries to be too cool for school. Unfortunatly even he too is now a lame shadow of himself (funny thing, both were created at the same time, and both fell upon their swords about the same time)
I think the big problem for sonic is speed. Even in Sonic's 2d adventures, the camera had minor issues, in his 3d adventures you have two options. Make the camera always exist behind him even if it is in a wall, or make it follow him but because of his extreme speed it won't always point at him.
Sega's solution? Screw it up even worse than those two ideas would have. Camera control isn't "easy" however Sega chose to make it as hyperactive as sonic himself. It's playable, but could have been done way better.
New characters I'm mixed on, Shadow sucks, but Knuckles works, Big is interesting, but Amy is lame. Besides with out 300 characters how else will they be able to do Super Sega fighters Brawl? oh wait did I spoil the announcement?
The goal of a sonic game should be allow a extremely skilled player to go through the entire game in seconds, while a newcomer should take a couple minutes. Basically don't put huge walls that require insanely annoying jumping puzzles, or if you do, have an optional but well planned out path that sonic can hit at super speed. Sonic is about speed, not combat.
Having other levels where you explore and have to get three gems, or use a different character is up to Sega, but if I'm playing sonic I'm going fast, if I'm playing tales, I'm going fast and hovering, if I'm playing Knuckles I'm flying. It's not rocket science.