Re:More like "thank god we didn't get them"
on
Consoles M.I.A.
·
· Score: 1
There's a graphical version of hunt the wumpus? *Drives to his time machine and takes a trip back to the future*
More like "thank god we didn't get them"
on
Consoles M.I.A.
·
· Score: 1
4 bad systems (ok the wonder swan had potential, and MSX did have metal gear). Anyone who knows a little about those systems though knows even if they came to america, they would be Jaguar/3D0 of the era, they were ok at best.
Btw, Hunt the wumpus was freeware, (hell it was a basic game). Why don't you compare commander keen to castlevania, apogee software wins with ID backing them up:)
Re:Give us functions we don't need instead of rumb
on
Sony Defends Rumble Loss
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sixaxis != Wii's motion detection. Six axis is an attempt to bring it however it was put into the system late because they had to do something to replace Rumble. Not because it is better then rumble.
Yes wireless is important but Blue tooth again isn't something you need to trade for rumble. 360 has wireless AND rumble. Wii has wireless, motion detection and rumble. See where this is going? Sony is missing a valuable piece. It might not be important but acting like it's a good thing they skipped rumble and ignoring the fact that they were infringing on a copyright isn't smart, it's silly.
Don't believe sony's hype, if they wanted they could do rumble, sixaxis, bluetooth, battery life, and probably thrown in some other random technology and made it work easily. But according to them they had to get rid of rumble to make the other three available? Baloney.
Sony is currently scared shitless because people arn't killing each other to get their PS3, this is their big push to sell what they don't have, to make people go "I really need a PS3" the problem is people arn't acting like that because unlike with the ps2, we have 360s available, we have a completely new system for games on the other side, and the Sony brass has been acting so insane people arn't listening. And yet there's still very few exclusive games for it, and most of them arn't impressing people.
Blue tooth? Sixaxis? Battery life? all buzzwords (well the last is good but everyone now has great battery life). The only reason they added Sixaxis is because of the lack of rumble. Blue tooth isn't needed or isn't crucial because the 360 has great connection system. Battery life is good but if you have a rechargable who really cares if you get 3 days or 6 days? Just replug it in at the end of the sessions.
Sony is trying to hype again. They claim they didn't take down Lik-sang, now they are trying to tell us their bastardized controller is better? Really they are giving us a 360 version of the Wii controller, No one asked for it, and no one really needs it but they'll create a need and then fill it.
Reading early reports on their controller I must admit I feel sorry for them, they were so far ahead last generation and I feel no need to even get a PS3 this generation.
Is a bad choice? It's not really an HD movie.. King Kong at least hard large screen appeal especially with the CG. But Talledaga night? Not to meantion Will Farrell.... I think they just chose a movie that no one would buy in HD normally, just to get an easy freebie.
Sony really needs to pick up the slack. The PS3 would have ended the format war easily, but Sony has completely screwed that pooch. Perhaps it's Sony's fate. they did get CD and DVD, but this is sounding more like Betamax. It's true it'll be better in the long run to adopt Blu-ray, but god if it's not starting out like a lame duck.
On the other hand HD-DVD isn't exactly shining either. Both format really needs to show why "you need this now". My parents have a 50 inch CRT, and still watch VHS on it, it gives a great picture (Better then broadcast tv), DVDs also look great, they have no need to go to a new format, to rebuy all the dvds and tapes on it. That simple fact makes me wonder if it's worth it. Hell they even got the extended editions of Lord of the rings on single DVDs. Perhaps it's just not necessary yet, and won't be until we go beyond 1080p. Of course if your so anal you must have the perfect resolution go ahead, but I'll stick with my DVDs for a while (Still don't like tapes, but that's me, my parents can't get their movies on DVDs still, and for some don't feel the need.)
Think about it this way. Assume XP gets 3 teraflops out of your machine. Comparing the stats between the two OSes, you'll see XP is about half the specs or so. So in theory it will do twice as much, Vista will then get around 1.5 Tera flops.
Of course this isn't the way it works, double the specs just means double the requirements, so it might be more 2 tera flops vs. 3 tera flops. But the point is any computer running Vista will only last a fraction as long as a computer running xp. It could be 3/4ths as long, or 1/2. We really don't know, even those who have seen vista can't tell you, but an assured fact is Vista is more power intensive so any length of time Xp would last you, Vista will last you less.
The simple answer is Vista won't really cost you more if you take this option... But assuming your the type of person who buys stuff from dell, you'll be buying a new computer sooner the next time around because you're working on Vista.
This is all assuming vista is as secure as XP, If Vista works worse, then the company can make money off of tech calls. If Vista has more ability for spyware to attach... but in the end the bottom line is these people will be lookung for a new computer earlier.
"National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy" sounds good, right? Except let's peel back the skin and see who hosts it. This is a group who is telling developers about how to handle their games.
I'll live with that, because there's other problems in Gamesfirst's criticism.
Now explain to me why every journalist should rush to this event... explain to me why I should be climbing the walls to get in. Explain how anyone gives a shit about it?
The simple answer is they don't. Has anyone heard of it? I sure as hell haven't, and I work in the industry. There's three problems with this criticism.
A. Who cares? The fans don't care for these types of "let's hold hands events", developers should either already have been included or don't care.
B. Why go? It sounds from the website about the confrence that there's a considerable expense to go to this. This is the first annual event? Did they actually invite people or did they say they were holding this event and told everyone? Did they try to work out a deal or just expected everyone to rush to their confrence? And if all this is not enough. It's in IOWA. That's not local to... anything really. I've spent my whole life avoiding Iowa.
C. Why them? This is the heart of the matter and the biggest problem. Again this sounds like a group who either isn't worth listening to or doesn't change opinions. Either way that's fine, those are the two areas most groups excel at, but knowing their stance enough. Does anyone know how many confrences exist in a single year? The answer is too many already. Does the mainstream media have to go to everyone one? Nope. Now, if they really were invited to this event that's fine, but we don't know that. We don't know if anyone knew it was happening. Do a search on the name of the confrence, you see the home site, then gamesfirst. It sounds like no one really knew about the confrence.
So let's sum up. Gamesfirst went to something that not many people probably heard of, anyone who cares about probably went to, that no one knew if it was worth spending money to go to, and that was out of the place. Good for them, now we know why some of us haven't heard of them before.
A cursory examination of Gamesfirst's site, makes me wonder if we should even shill for them with an article about it. They have an "interesting" site to say the least.
If you look at it that way, you're right. It might be cool.
If you look at it another way, the worse instruction manual they give you or ingame hint system, the more money they can get this way. Madden has always been a hard game to master, but if they remove all the "how to's" in the game it would be stupid, but now it makes more money for the company.
Think about it. You are hiring someone to deal with your computer systems, no matter WHAT business you're in the computer systems are not just necessary, they are mandatory. Stop treating them as if they arn't important.
Take three simple steps.
A. Make sure your IT department is trust worthy. First step. Background checks. We all hate them, guess what, those should be mandatory, in all businesses. Get back information at least. You don't have to disqualify, but at least know who you're hiring. Not doing this makes you friendlier, but it's dangerous on every level. Don't like that idea. Don't work at that company, but if you have valuable data, why arn't you doing this?
If you heard of them screwing over someone else, you better not hire them, no matter what they say. Contact old employers, they might be able to say some stuff, but listen to what they say, if they say something like "There was a large problem at the end of his term" don't risk it if you don't know what the problem was. They might not say something about this, but it's better safe then sorry. Realize also if he leaves on bad terms some places will slander him even though they arn't supposed to, but at least you might know what to expect.
B. Treat them well. Don't under pay employees first off. I had a job in Finance where I was payed 24K yearly for 60 hours of work weeks and I was doing all the certification (not enjoyable at all.) I'm a moral guy, if I wasn't I could figure out an easy way to skim. That company did over a million dollars of business a day, you don't think some of those 0s and 1s could get to another account easy? Again I'm moral but why risk it, I could easily have read other people's mail if I felt the need. I didn't but again I have morals. Treat them like human beings. Not amazing, but don't shit on them (and that company really did that too).
C. Make sure you have a head tech that is extremely dependable and willing to lock out people on a moment's notice, from home, from Mars, from the bathroom. I don't care how much you trust people. I don't care how rude you think this is. If there's any hint that something like this might happen you better be sure as hell to lock them out. If someone quits on good terms, you still lock them out when you both agree it's over. If someone quits on bad terms you make sure they don't touch a computer alone, their computer is locked down immediatly, and all processes attributed to them are deader then dead. If someone is extremely pissed off at the company one day, for what ever reason you might want to subtly track what they do. You won't catch everyone, and you should catch no one. But if you catch someone doing something it's worth it.
One other thing is don't ask them to spy on anyone with out a reason. If you see someone doing something secretive that might be a good reason, if you know someone is unhappy, maybe, but generally spying on people will either make them think more devious or make them feel wrong. Not good in either way.
This doesn't mean monitor everyone every second of the day, but you sure as hell better know what's going on and make sure your top level security guy is trustworthy because this only works if he's happy, never think two guys are more trustworthy as one, that's a huge mistake. If your head's are in on a screw deal, you're screwed, even if you did everything else right.
And don't hide shit from computer guys. They eventually will find out and it just proves you don't trust them. That alone makes them angrier than anything. If you want them to be an admin give them 100 percent admin. Don't let them resent you.
Unfortunatly I never saw her in action. At the same time however, from wikipedia they claim she's been out of contact for 2 years? So perhaps it's time she returns or we get Alyx!
Honestly this does sound interesting. But I'm still not sure how useful it'll be in the end. If they had speech generation tacked on it's be a pure win. But synthesized speech has been completely crap for years, we might be getting closer but I'd much rather watch something like nude news, than a poorly synthesized voice. Only because it has higher entertainment values.
But if they could hit the synthesizer just right and make it sound completely natural, this could be a valuable technology. Imagine booting up your Wii and one morning, instead of the weather forcast, you get a gamer news story with this technology. Might not be too shabby for the future.
Seriously, there's a reason why we all stopped using IE. Was it crashes, bugs, it being too tightly linked to the OS, or just "I hate Microsoft". What ever the reason was most of us didn't leave IE because they wanted more features. You can get tabbed browsing for IE.
That reason we leave is the exact reason why we will never return to IE, even with a great interface. We know track history for the company, and even if IE7 looks like it's bug free, we'll know there's memory leaks, crashes around the corner or what ever. It doesn't even matter if they EXIST, we will believe it has these problems just because we left IE for a reason.
There might be a few people who leave Firefox for IE especially since Firefox loses a little extension support with it's new version but we're not going to suddenly be like forgetting every reason we avoid Microsoft products.
If they had a great way for me to click a button and add an RSS feed to my google homepage. (They have something LIKE that but I don't know about that exactly, yet...) That's all I need for RSS.
Personally I think RSS feeds need better integration. The live bookmark idea sucks, I can't stand it because I have to open up each book mark to look at it. I rather get too much info in a second then have to take minutes to search all my feeds, I don't use many, but something makes me not want to trust live feeds. What would be better is a simple page just with a list of feeds I've been looking at and then if anything is new on them, such as google's personalized homepages.
That all being said, Firefox still will beat IE7 in my book, I don't care if I get free sex with IE7. With how buggy IE6,5,4 was I'd probably get AIDS from it.
Cliify B does talk up a good game, but from the videos I've seen of his game he's hitting the marks. The AI in the game in intense. The cover is well done (something many games seem to screw up... Perfect Dark Zero).
Let's not go sling mud around about how crappy the game is until you actually play the game. Daikatana looked like a great game until we actually played it and saw the frogs of death, the water of doom, and the bees of mildly annoyance.
I don't think anyone listens to a comedian (cartoonist or other style) and immediatly believes him (or at least they shouldn't). But if you know his writing, this isn't it. Not even his most "serious" pieces are close to this. He always writes in some slight satirical style. This doesn't have a single joke, and for that it sounds like it's kosher. He's probably truthful about this. I can't imagine him trying to falsify this, it doesn't seem his style.
Insteresting that they named those three. With Metal Gear Solid 2, I've heard nothing but praise for it, except for the fact there's a great deal of cutscenes, but fans of the series don't mind. Raiden might not be loved (I like his animations) but he didn't kill that game, in fact I'd rank Metal Gear Solid 2 higher then Metal gear solid 1 just because there was so much interaction in the world. I've heard far worse things said about Metal Gear Solid 3 (in fact many fans just didn't finish much of it).
Adventure of Link isn't exactly a sequal unless you mean a game where everything is completely different except the story. top down vs. Side scrolling. RPG style vs adventure. The only similarities tend to be the main character and it's a story sequal. Imagine if the next Metal Gear solid is a RPG. Is that a sequal or an offshoot? I don't love the game, but at the same time I don't know many people who call it a sequal unless it's the same way Yoshi's island is a "sequal".
Doom 3 is a retelling of the original. The only real complaint I ever heard is it's not too scary and it's dark. Not exactly bashing but then again is it a sequal? Not exactly or at least a sequal that came over 10 years later. Who expected it to be as good now there's competition.
Why not take stuff like Devil May Cry. Xenosaga (which never reached Xenogears' levels of popularity) or Final Fantasy X2, Might and Magic 9, Dynasty Warriors 4, Tony Hawk Under Ground (or the sequal or the American wasteland), or Tomb raider. They did nail some egregious errors (deus ex 2, Final Fantasy 8) but it seems they could only think of a handle full and just looked for games that grew some hatred, but wasn't exactly "bad" games.
I really didn't expect help. I was outraged at their business practice, and sent them a letter telling them so. Will it change anything? No, but at least they'll know how a lot of these new games they've released on the marketplace has lost them business there if anything.
The thing that makes me mad and the reason I bring it back is my email had nothing to do with getting my system online, and that's the only response I ever got. I didn't expect a response even though they promised one. But giving a completely erroneous response is just putrid. I really like the 360, I really like everything about the system, but Microsoft hasn't changed.
Let's look at it this way. I assume I run a mall, and we got 3 game stores (we are kewl like that). And a fourth opens up. They charge 200 percent more than the other malls. That's fine because it's competition. But remember I run the mall, not the store.
Let's look at it another way, Assume I now have those 4 stores. Store four is not doing well, they decide to drop their prices to half the price of the other stores. This is troubling because then everything becomes sales and in fighting. But again I run the mall, if the contract/lease says so (and you better believe Microsoft can do this), I can remove that store from my mall.
I'm sorry Microsoft, you own the marketplace. If you disagree you pull support. There's a lot of competition to even get ON the marketplace, and guess what. You run it so you decide who gets on. Pull support from Lumines, and give it to someone better. Stop allowing people to over charge for games on your service because it has ruined what was a giant boon for you.
Microsoft also charges companies for ever thing on the marketplace (whether it's a share of the profits or a flat rate for patches). I'm sure they are getting rich off the over price because how ever many units sold I'm sure they get a couple bucks. It benefits them to make us pay multiple times.
" You know about Arcade, but, you know, for Marketplace, we have over 1,500 pieces of content in Marketplace; we have over 70 million downloads. " Again we use weasel numbers. 70 Million DOWNLOADs. notice he doesn't meantion purchases. How many people download a demo? I'd be willing to put it in the 200K on the first week (Saint's row got 300K at record highs).
Microsoft realizes they don't have to be competetive any more. They can back anyone they want, just like they do with their OS business, because they are the only ones out. Sony has lost a huge amount of faith from consumers so what does Microsoft have to realize.
And realize not a single game has dropped in price on the Marketplace since it's been released. Why should they? There's not used games out there to compete with, there's no other way to get this game. They actually have a monopoly on it to the point you no longer can get it elsewhere. Why do you think people have been so anti download service consoles. Because of this exact situation, you'll no longer have an alternative then to pay the price Microsoft demands.
In a related news, I wrote microsoft talking about the fact that this is a horrible move. Guess what I got back. Instruction on how to connect my Xbox 360. I'm not even joking. Don't think this is the end, because Microsoft will continue to screw customers on the Xbox Live Marketplace until we say "enough", we've seen it with Windows, Office, and now they have pulled back their lips and shown what they have started on the console market.
define legally acquired. No really do it. Do you mean buying it on a CD and using it on something you created yourself. Your fine.
However realize when you buy an Ipod, you're agreeing to use it the way Apple says you can. That means no changing it so it suddenly plays videos if it didn't before. You can, they likely won't hurt you, but the device itself has an agreement somewhere built into it.
On the other hand do you mean the music you download from Itunes? Read the licensing agreements and other agreements regarding music you buy from it. I don't own either thing (Itunes song or an Ipod) But I'm sure both limits the way you're allowed to use the item.
To my knowledge the Itunes song is licensed to you, for your use with itunes and Ipods. You arn't buying the song, you're buying a license to use it how they decide you can use it. Similar to Microsoft Windows (you might own the software and the CD key, neither really doesn't cost much, but the license to use Microsoft windows is what costs 100+ dollars, which is why your university might sell you it for 5 bucks. Because they sell you parts, but after you leave the school you lose the license. Again will they do anything? Probably not.)
As someone else said, if we talked ethically and morally we could argue this, but this is part of a licensing agreement you agree to when you create your accounts or make your purchases.
I was going to quote that because it sounds like he's a bad super villian, or a horrible hero saying stuff like that. He makes Static Shock look like a good idea for "super hero".
Hell, isn't this just another threat? I have used this type of phrase before, but it's usually when every single fact backs me up and usually it's one of those times I'll flame back someone who's completely made fun of me, and willing to scorch the earth. But who actually attacked Jacko? Who made him look stupid in public except himself.
I nominate Thompson, to be known as Wacko Jacko, giving Michael Jackson a rest from the nom de plume. He certainly has the insanity to go the distance.
In other news Jack Thompson is crying bloody murder about the fact Bully allows the main protagnist to kiss boys. Because of this he thinks it has to be a Mature game now? I really think someone has to put his foot down and say "stop bothering us". It can be the press, the public, the politicians, the courts, or the companies. Hopefully this is the first step.
Fight scene between romeo and tybalt = 1000 Macbeth's sollique = 1 time (your college professor likely had an account). Out out damm spot = 10000 (Lady macbeth in a slip?)
The problem I forsee is while Shakesphere is a bit baudy, and very clever, he's a writer. His characters move a lot and act out scenes. Will we be watching plays? Will we be part of the excellent fight scenes? or will everything be fighting?
I forsee this having problems but if it's faithful it could be fun... if it's free:)
The CELL processor. Just notice how successful the Cell already is.
To be honest, Microsoft wants to make a profit, the best way is to do everything in house, but seeing how low the quality of their systems are I don't know if we want them to work on processors? Imagine now you're phone stop working because the processor breaks? That's impossible you say? Well it was rare for a console to stop working before Sony and Microsoft got into the market, and at the same time Nintendo seems to have high quality assurance.
First off I work at ONE game development company, we get treated well, but this is not a standard for the industry.
There's the same split in society. People who buy it immediatly, people who wait for reviews, and people who wait for price drops, there's no rule for the industry or for the game. And btw we go "ooh" and "ahhh" to tech demos. We have guys who buy every EA sports game, we have guys who buy none. We have guys who play Smash brothers every day at lunch. We have guys who haven't owned a video game system in years, but plays board games weekly. We have magic fans, we have Warhammer 40000 fans.
However the best thing about my company is we get all that here. We can ask each other what's good or not. If we get sick of a game we sell it to someone else at the company, and there's a whole gamer culture here.
But the simple answer is we do the same in the industry as outside the industry. The only bonus is you work with gamers so instead of having to go to ebay, you can trade internally, get similar prices and get it from reputable sources rather then some guy on ebay, but in the end it's not different then regular society except everyone here is likely a gamer in some way.
I was going to meantion System Shock 1, but that was more anticipated fear, than raw horror. But good games, I will say Eternal Darkness really took the "creepiness" to new levels.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a graphical version of hunt the wumpus? *Drives to his time machine and takes a trip back to the future*
4 bad systems (ok the wonder swan had potential, and MSX did have metal gear). Anyone who knows a little about those systems though knows even if they came to america, they would be Jaguar/3D0 of the era, they were ok at best.
:)
Btw, Hunt the wumpus was freeware, (hell it was a basic game). Why don't you compare commander keen to castlevania, apogee software wins with ID backing them up
Sixaxis != Wii's motion detection. Six axis is an attempt to bring it however it was put into the system late because they had to do something to replace Rumble. Not because it is better then rumble.
Yes wireless is important but Blue tooth again isn't something you need to trade for rumble. 360 has wireless AND rumble. Wii has wireless, motion detection and rumble. See where this is going? Sony is missing a valuable piece. It might not be important but acting like it's a good thing they skipped rumble and ignoring the fact that they were infringing on a copyright isn't smart, it's silly.
Don't believe sony's hype, if they wanted they could do rumble, sixaxis, bluetooth, battery life, and probably thrown in some other random technology and made it work easily. But according to them they had to get rid of rumble to make the other three available? Baloney.
Sony is currently scared shitless because people arn't killing each other to get their PS3, this is their big push to sell what they don't have, to make people go "I really need a PS3" the problem is people arn't acting like that because unlike with the ps2, we have 360s available, we have a completely new system for games on the other side, and the Sony brass has been acting so insane people arn't listening. And yet there's still very few exclusive games for it, and most of them arn't impressing people.
I probably should modify that.
VHS LOOKS better then old tv shows and some normal broadcast tv over cable.
This is more like trying to watch a 90s sitcom on a non-hd channel.
I am almost afraid to try Nick At Nite, or TV land just because I've seen what 10 years has given us.
Blue tooth? Sixaxis? Battery life? all buzzwords (well the last is good but everyone now has great battery life). The only reason they added Sixaxis is because of the lack of rumble. Blue tooth isn't needed or isn't crucial because the 360 has great connection system. Battery life is good but if you have a rechargable who really cares if you get 3 days or 6 days? Just replug it in at the end of the sessions.
Sony is trying to hype again. They claim they didn't take down Lik-sang, now they are trying to tell us their bastardized controller is better? Really they are giving us a 360 version of the Wii controller, No one asked for it, and no one really needs it but they'll create a need and then fill it.
Reading early reports on their controller I must admit I feel sorry for them, they were so far ahead last generation and I feel no need to even get a PS3 this generation.
Is a bad choice? It's not really an HD movie.. King Kong at least hard large screen appeal especially with the CG. But Talledaga night? Not to meantion Will Farrell.... I think they just chose a movie that no one would buy in HD normally, just to get an easy freebie.
Sony really needs to pick up the slack. The PS3 would have ended the format war easily, but Sony has completely screwed that pooch. Perhaps it's Sony's fate. they did get CD and DVD, but this is sounding more like Betamax. It's true it'll be better in the long run to adopt Blu-ray, but god if it's not starting out like a lame duck.
On the other hand HD-DVD isn't exactly shining either. Both format really needs to show why "you need this now". My parents have a 50 inch CRT, and still watch VHS on it, it gives a great picture (Better then broadcast tv), DVDs also look great, they have no need to go to a new format, to rebuy all the dvds and tapes on it. That simple fact makes me wonder if it's worth it. Hell they even got the extended editions of Lord of the rings on single DVDs. Perhaps it's just not necessary yet, and won't be until we go beyond 1080p. Of course if your so anal you must have the perfect resolution go ahead, but I'll stick with my DVDs for a while (Still don't like tapes, but that's me, my parents can't get their movies on DVDs still, and for some don't feel the need.)
is really actually making a good business move.
Think about it this way. Assume XP gets 3 teraflops out of your machine. Comparing the stats between the two OSes, you'll see XP is about half the specs or so. So in theory it will do twice as much, Vista will then get around 1.5 Tera flops.
Of course this isn't the way it works, double the specs just means double the requirements, so it might be more 2 tera flops vs. 3 tera flops. But the point is any computer running Vista will only last a fraction as long as a computer running xp. It could be 3/4ths as long, or 1/2. We really don't know, even those who have seen vista can't tell you, but an assured fact is Vista is more power intensive so any length of time Xp would last you, Vista will last you less.
The simple answer is Vista won't really cost you more if you take this option... But assuming your the type of person who buys stuff from dell, you'll be buying a new computer sooner the next time around because you're working on Vista.
This is all assuming vista is as secure as XP, If Vista works worse, then the company can make money off of tech calls. If Vista has more ability for spyware to attach... but in the end the bottom line is these people will be lookung for a new computer earlier.
"National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy" sounds good, right? Except let's peel back the skin and see who hosts it. This is a group who is telling developers about how to handle their games.
... anything really. I've spent my whole life avoiding Iowa.
I'll live with that, because there's other problems in Gamesfirst's criticism.
Now explain to me why every journalist should rush to this event... explain to me why I should be climbing the walls to get in. Explain how anyone gives a shit about it?
The simple answer is they don't. Has anyone heard of it? I sure as hell haven't, and I work in the industry. There's three problems with this criticism.
A. Who cares? The fans don't care for these types of "let's hold hands events", developers should either already have been included or don't care.
B. Why go? It sounds from the website about the confrence that there's a considerable expense to go to this. This is the first annual event? Did they actually invite people or did they say they were holding this event and told everyone? Did they try to work out a deal or just expected everyone to rush to their confrence? And if all this is not enough. It's in IOWA. That's not local to
C. Why them? This is the heart of the matter and the biggest problem. Again this sounds like a group who either isn't worth listening to or doesn't change opinions. Either way that's fine, those are the two areas most groups excel at, but knowing their stance enough. Does anyone know how many confrences exist in a single year? The answer is too many already. Does the mainstream media have to go to everyone one? Nope. Now, if they really were invited to this event that's fine, but we don't know that. We don't know if anyone knew it was happening. Do a search on the name of the confrence, you see the home site, then gamesfirst. It sounds like no one really knew about the confrence.
So let's sum up. Gamesfirst went to something that not many people probably heard of, anyone who cares about probably went to, that no one knew if it was worth spending money to go to, and that was out of the place. Good for them, now we know why some of us haven't heard of them before.
A cursory examination of Gamesfirst's site, makes me wonder if we should even shill for them with an article about it. They have an "interesting" site to say the least.
If you look at it that way, you're right. It might be cool.
If you look at it another way, the worse instruction manual they give you or ingame hint system, the more money they can get this way. Madden has always been a hard game to master, but if they remove all the "how to's" in the game it would be stupid, but now it makes more money for the company.
I'm not saying EA would. But they are EA...
Think about it. You are hiring someone to deal with your computer systems, no matter WHAT business you're in the computer systems are not just necessary, they are mandatory. Stop treating them as if they arn't important.
Take three simple steps.
A. Make sure your IT department is trust worthy. First step. Background checks. We all hate them, guess what, those should be mandatory, in all businesses. Get back information at least. You don't have to disqualify, but at least know who you're hiring. Not doing this makes you friendlier, but it's dangerous on every level. Don't like that idea. Don't work at that company, but if you have valuable data, why arn't you doing this?
If you heard of them screwing over someone else, you better not hire them, no matter what they say. Contact old employers, they might be able to say some stuff, but listen to what they say, if they say something like "There was a large problem at the end of his term" don't risk it if you don't know what the problem was. They might not say something about this, but it's better safe then sorry. Realize also if he leaves on bad terms some places will slander him even though they arn't supposed to, but at least you might know what to expect.
B. Treat them well. Don't under pay employees first off. I had a job in Finance where I was payed 24K yearly for 60 hours of work weeks and I was doing all the certification (not enjoyable at all.) I'm a moral guy, if I wasn't I could figure out an easy way to skim. That company did over a million dollars of business a day, you don't think some of those 0s and 1s could get to another account easy? Again I'm moral but why risk it, I could easily have read other people's mail if I felt the need. I didn't but again I have morals. Treat them like human beings. Not amazing, but don't shit on them (and that company really did that too).
C. Make sure you have a head tech that is extremely dependable and willing to lock out people on a moment's notice, from home, from Mars, from the bathroom. I don't care how much you trust people. I don't care how rude you think this is. If there's any hint that something like this might happen you better be sure as hell to lock them out. If someone quits on good terms, you still lock them out when you both agree it's over. If someone quits on bad terms you make sure they don't touch a computer alone, their computer is locked down immediatly, and all processes attributed to them are deader then dead. If someone is extremely pissed off at the company one day, for what ever reason you might want to subtly track what they do. You won't catch everyone, and you should catch no one. But if you catch someone doing something it's worth it.
One other thing is don't ask them to spy on anyone with out a reason. If you see someone doing something secretive that might be a good reason, if you know someone is unhappy, maybe, but generally spying on people will either make them think more devious or make them feel wrong. Not good in either way.
This doesn't mean monitor everyone every second of the day, but you sure as hell better know what's going on and make sure your top level security guy is trustworthy because this only works if he's happy, never think two guys are more trustworthy as one, that's a huge mistake. If your head's are in on a screw deal, you're screwed, even if you did everything else right.
And don't hide shit from computer guys. They eventually will find out and it just proves you don't trust them. That alone makes them angrier than anything. If you want them to be an admin give them 100 percent admin. Don't let them resent you.
Unfortunatly I never saw her in action. At the same time however, from wikipedia they claim she's been out of contact for 2 years? So perhaps it's time she returns or we get Alyx!
Honestly this does sound interesting. But I'm still not sure how useful it'll be in the end. If they had speech generation tacked on it's be a pure win. But synthesized speech has been completely crap for years, we might be getting closer but I'd much rather watch something like nude news, than a poorly synthesized voice. Only because it has higher entertainment values.
But if they could hit the synthesizer just right and make it sound completely natural, this could be a valuable technology. Imagine booting up your Wii and one morning, instead of the weather forcast, you get a gamer news story with this technology. Might not be too shabby for the future.
This might be a stupid question, but is google reader, google homepage?
Seriously, there's a reason why we all stopped using IE. Was it crashes, bugs, it being too tightly linked to the OS, or just "I hate Microsoft". What ever the reason was most of us didn't leave IE because they wanted more features. You can get tabbed browsing for IE.
That reason we leave is the exact reason why we will never return to IE, even with a great interface. We know track history for the company, and even if IE7 looks like it's bug free, we'll know there's memory leaks, crashes around the corner or what ever. It doesn't even matter if they EXIST, we will believe it has these problems just because we left IE for a reason.
There might be a few people who leave Firefox for IE especially since Firefox loses a little extension support with it's new version but we're not going to suddenly be like forgetting every reason we avoid Microsoft products.
If they had a great way for me to click a button and add an RSS feed to my google homepage. (They have something LIKE that but I don't know about that exactly, yet...) That's all I need for RSS.
Personally I think RSS feeds need better integration. The live bookmark idea sucks, I can't stand it because I have to open up each book mark to look at it. I rather get too much info in a second then have to take minutes to search all my feeds, I don't use many, but something makes me not want to trust live feeds. What would be better is a simple page just with a list of feeds I've been looking at and then if anything is new on them, such as google's personalized homepages.
That all being said, Firefox still will beat IE7 in my book, I don't care if I get free sex with IE7. With how buggy IE6,5,4 was I'd probably get AIDS from it.
No one can, and that's why he's John Romero.
Cliify B does talk up a good game, but from the videos I've seen of his game he's hitting the marks. The AI in the game in intense. The cover is well done (something many games seem to screw up... Perfect Dark Zero).
Let's not go sling mud around about how crappy the game is until you actually play the game. Daikatana looked like a great game until we actually played it and saw the frogs of death, the water of doom, and the bees of mildly annoyance.
I don't think anyone listens to a comedian (cartoonist or other style) and immediatly believes him (or at least they shouldn't). But if you know his writing, this isn't it. Not even his most "serious" pieces are close to this. He always writes in some slight satirical style. This doesn't have a single joke, and for that it sounds like it's kosher. He's probably truthful about this. I can't imagine him trying to falsify this, it doesn't seem his style.
MGS 2. Zelda 2 Adventure of Link. Doom 3.
Insteresting that they named those three. With Metal Gear Solid 2, I've heard nothing but praise for it, except for the fact there's a great deal of cutscenes, but fans of the series don't mind. Raiden might not be loved (I like his animations) but he didn't kill that game, in fact I'd rank Metal Gear Solid 2 higher then Metal gear solid 1 just because there was so much interaction in the world. I've heard far worse things said about Metal Gear Solid 3 (in fact many fans just didn't finish much of it).
Adventure of Link isn't exactly a sequal unless you mean a game where everything is completely different except the story. top down vs. Side scrolling. RPG style vs adventure. The only similarities tend to be the main character and it's a story sequal. Imagine if the next Metal Gear solid is a RPG. Is that a sequal or an offshoot? I don't love the game, but at the same time I don't know many people who call it a sequal unless it's the same way Yoshi's island is a "sequal".
Doom 3 is a retelling of the original. The only real complaint I ever heard is it's not too scary and it's dark. Not exactly bashing but then again is it a sequal? Not exactly or at least a sequal that came over 10 years later. Who expected it to be as good now there's competition.
Why not take stuff like Devil May Cry. Xenosaga (which never reached Xenogears' levels of popularity) or Final Fantasy X2, Might and Magic 9, Dynasty Warriors 4, Tony Hawk Under Ground (or the sequal or the American wasteland), or Tomb raider. They did nail some egregious errors (deus ex 2, Final Fantasy 8) but it seems they could only think of a handle full and just looked for games that grew some hatred, but wasn't exactly "bad" games.
I really didn't expect help. I was outraged at their business practice, and sent them a letter telling them so. Will it change anything? No, but at least they'll know how a lot of these new games they've released on the marketplace has lost them business there if anything.
The thing that makes me mad and the reason I bring it back is my email had nothing to do with getting my system online, and that's the only response I ever got. I didn't expect a response even though they promised one. But giving a completely erroneous response is just putrid. I really like the 360, I really like everything about the system, but Microsoft hasn't changed.
Let's look at it this way. I assume I run a mall, and we got 3 game stores (we are kewl like that). And a fourth opens up. They charge 200 percent more than the other malls. That's fine because it's competition. But remember I run the mall, not the store.
Let's look at it another way, Assume I now have those 4 stores. Store four is not doing well, they decide to drop their prices to half the price of the other stores. This is troubling because then everything becomes sales and in fighting. But again I run the mall, if the contract/lease says so (and you better believe Microsoft can do this), I can remove that store from my mall.
I'm sorry Microsoft, you own the marketplace. If you disagree you pull support. There's a lot of competition to even get ON the marketplace, and guess what. You run it so you decide who gets on. Pull support from Lumines, and give it to someone better. Stop allowing people to over charge for games on your service because it has ruined what was a giant boon for you.
Microsoft also charges companies for ever thing on the marketplace (whether it's a share of the profits or a flat rate for patches). I'm sure they are getting rich off the over price because how ever many units sold I'm sure they get a couple bucks. It benefits them to make us pay multiple times.
" You know about Arcade, but, you know, for Marketplace, we have over 1,500 pieces of content in Marketplace; we have over 70 million downloads. " Again we use weasel numbers. 70 Million DOWNLOADs. notice he doesn't meantion purchases. How many people download a demo? I'd be willing to put it in the 200K on the first week (Saint's row got 300K at record highs).
Microsoft realizes they don't have to be competetive any more. They can back anyone they want, just like they do with their OS business, because they are the only ones out. Sony has lost a huge amount of faith from consumers so what does Microsoft have to realize.
And realize not a single game has dropped in price on the Marketplace since it's been released. Why should they? There's not used games out there to compete with, there's no other way to get this game. They actually have a monopoly on it to the point you no longer can get it elsewhere. Why do you think people have been so anti download service consoles. Because of this exact situation, you'll no longer have an alternative then to pay the price Microsoft demands.
In a related news, I wrote microsoft talking about the fact that this is a horrible move. Guess what I got back. Instruction on how to connect my Xbox 360. I'm not even joking. Don't think this is the end, because Microsoft will continue to screw customers on the Xbox Live Marketplace until we say "enough", we've seen it with Windows, Office, and now they have pulled back their lips and shown what they have started on the console market.
define legally acquired. No really do it. Do you mean buying it on a CD and using it on something you created yourself. Your fine.
However realize when you buy an Ipod, you're agreeing to use it the way Apple says you can. That means no changing it so it suddenly plays videos if it didn't before. You can, they likely won't hurt you, but the device itself has an agreement somewhere built into it.
On the other hand do you mean the music you download from Itunes? Read the licensing agreements and other agreements regarding music you buy from it. I don't own either thing (Itunes song or an Ipod) But I'm sure both limits the way you're allowed to use the item.
To my knowledge the Itunes song is licensed to you, for your use with itunes and Ipods. You arn't buying the song, you're buying a license to use it how they decide you can use it. Similar to Microsoft Windows (you might own the software and the CD key, neither really doesn't cost much, but the license to use Microsoft windows is what costs 100+ dollars, which is why your university might sell you it for 5 bucks. Because they sell you parts, but after you leave the school you lose the license. Again will they do anything? Probably not.)
As someone else said, if we talked ethically and morally we could argue this, but this is part of a licensing agreement you agree to when you create your accounts or make your purchases.
I was going to quote that because it sounds like he's a bad super villian, or a horrible hero saying stuff like that. He makes Static Shock look like a good idea for "super hero".
Hell, isn't this just another threat? I have used this type of phrase before, but it's usually when every single fact backs me up and usually it's one of those times I'll flame back someone who's completely made fun of me, and willing to scorch the earth. But who actually attacked Jacko? Who made him look stupid in public except himself.
I nominate Thompson, to be known as Wacko Jacko, giving Michael Jackson a rest from the nom de plume. He certainly has the insanity to go the distance.
In other news Jack Thompson is crying bloody murder about the fact Bully allows the main protagnist to kiss boys. Because of this he thinks it has to be a Mature game now? I really think someone has to put his foot down and say "stop bothering us". It can be the press, the public, the politicians, the courts, or the companies. Hopefully this is the first step.
Fight scene between romeo and tybalt = 1000
:)
Macbeth's sollique = 1 time (your college professor likely had an account).
Out out damm spot = 10000 (Lady macbeth in a slip?)
The problem I forsee is while Shakesphere is a bit baudy, and very clever, he's a writer. His characters move a lot and act out scenes. Will we be watching plays? Will we be part of the excellent fight scenes? or will everything be fighting?
I forsee this having problems but if it's faithful it could be fun... if it's free
The CELL processor. Just notice how successful the Cell already is.
To be honest, Microsoft wants to make a profit, the best way is to do everything in house, but seeing how low the quality of their systems are I don't know if we want them to work on processors? Imagine now you're phone stop working because the processor breaks? That's impossible you say? Well it was rare for a console to stop working before Sony and Microsoft got into the market, and at the same time Nintendo seems to have high quality assurance.
First off I work at ONE game development company, we get treated well, but this is not a standard for the industry.
There's the same split in society. People who buy it immediatly, people who wait for reviews, and people who wait for price drops, there's no rule for the industry or for the game. And btw we go "ooh" and "ahhh" to tech demos. We have guys who buy every EA sports game, we have guys who buy none. We have guys who play Smash brothers every day at lunch. We have guys who haven't owned a video game system in years, but plays board games weekly. We have magic fans, we have Warhammer 40000 fans.
However the best thing about my company is we get all that here. We can ask each other what's good or not. If we get sick of a game we sell it to someone else at the company, and there's a whole gamer culture here.
But the simple answer is we do the same in the industry as outside the industry. The only bonus is you work with gamers so instead of having to go to ebay, you can trade internally, get similar prices and get it from reputable sources rather then some guy on ebay, but in the end it's not different then regular society except everyone here is likely a gamer in some way.
I was going to meantion System Shock 1, but that was more anticipated fear, than raw horror. But good games, I will say Eternal Darkness really took the "creepiness" to new levels.