"Your honor, when Miss Sanders woke up all she saw was Mr. Andrewman standing over her muttering "this isn't the game.. This isn't the game" and was thrown back into shock cracking her head open on the concrete"
The article is right, if this doesn't get you excited nothing will.
It also takes the 360 launch and the PS3 launch and makes them both decently laughable.
But I don't know if it'll be a great launch, time will tell. Though with Metroid Prime, and Zelda it's going to be great for nintendo fans, a Hawk game, and Madden (perhaps working with the new controller and not the VC controlleR) that's going to be exciting.
Excite Trucks and Dragon quest Swords is interesting.
The only flaw is that there's a LOT of racing games. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing but it will be interesting in the least if the controller is good for that I'm hopeful for a good GT style sim. I'm also hopeful for interesting online multiplayer in Crystal Chronicles.
The only thing I wonder about is COD3, NFS carbon, and Madden are all made by huge companies, Madden should be ready in time, but the other two... I am not sure if they'll make their dates.
Last I checked I noticed that when people said "I'll google it" they are talking about going to a computer or cellphone, opening up google and doing a search for X. They don't use MSN or Yahoo or some other crap for it. Googling something means getting the best core sample of the internet and finding your truth in it, and the best way remains google.
On the other hand Google's a bit insane here. As people have said Xerox did well, except now everything is acceptable when you Xerox stuff, and the Xerox company has dropped quite a bit from the public eye, especially with HP on the move. I white-out (wite-out) paper work though, I scotchguard (ok I never used that actually), I used post-its.
The problem though is I think Google knows it will not always be number 1, and they are afraid of becoming a "xerox" rather then a post-it.
I mean come on, people he's a glory hound just like Stern. I'm glad you all like him enough to go around and do anything he says, but ask yourself "why should we?" Think of the other great comedians, Chappelle never told people to go around screwing up other people's legitimate things. Christopher Titus did in that show but made it humorousnot serious. Why would anyone do anything a comedian tells them to do on a tv show? It just gives them an overinflated ego so they'll continue to create stupid and moronic stunts like this to get more news coverage, and you the viewer gets nothing if not banned from what ever place it's happening.
It just goes to show the fact that Colbert has followers that as so gullible they'll do what ever he tells them. But sadly I've a feeling he's growing too big too fast. Either the media is going to stop listening to him, or his fans will or he's just going to order something too outlandish and get bit on the butt for it when no one pays attention. At least then he'll be spoofing Geraldo.
I mean everyone seems to think the Homeland security is out to get us?
Let's consider the other side. How many people already investigate every patch microsoft sends us even before this announcement? How fast did we learn about the Genuine Advantage Disadvantage?
The fact is we know exactly what's in the patches, we've heard nothing about a bad patch or a big brother patch, the sort of thing these guys hunt for in the first place? So why is everyone paranoid?
I think the scarier thing is that Homeland security is normally a very tight lipped organization, they didn't meantion a threat but I believe we have to believe that they know of a plan to attack windows based machines on a wide scale and in a viral format, probably at a level no one could ever imagine?
If you really think they are out to get us, feel free to check the updates, crack them and find any secrets they have there. Post them on underground boards and with in a week we'll have a way to circumvent them. But you're probably not going to find anything. Instead you're probably going to find a virus in the upcoming weeks that would have crippled the nation but instead just bounced weakly off the computers because of the updates that came out this week.
Seriously why is Microsoft bringing out the Argo? The biggest problem with the system is the base thing that we only know what it's trying to be. But seriously, how likely is it that Microsoft is going to bring out a product that will rival Apple.
It's the same here. Sony needed big games and even when they got Konami to give them solid snake what did they end up with? Metal gear acid? Not the blockbuster they needed. I don't fault Konami, why give Sony's new system a completely unique game that would work on the PS2, give them something unique for their game system that might be more portable.
The biggest problem comes in that I look at my DS and then look at a PSP. I pay more for the system, more for the games? Have to buy memory sticks? The cost of the system isn't 300 to 150 it's more like 350 to 150 + 20 bucks more per game.
Now if the GBA was the best Nintendo gave us, then yes the PSP would rock it's socks, but the DS has a touch screen, and dual screens. It might not be perfect for all games, but it certainly is far better than what the PSP brought to the table (larger memory space and multimedia, which if people really wanted, was available for the DS in import format). It has yet to get the developer buy in that it needs, and it's mostly getting games from people who would never make a DS game in the first place.
And then again the DS constantly gets Nintendo games, Sony doesn't make first party games (at least not to the length nintendo does).
Sony's going to have a long hard 5 years coming up. The PS3 is going to stumble at best, and fail out right at worse. The PSP is not going anywhere and just becoming controversal, the music industry isn't picking up. But they do still have good electronics at least.
Oh I'm surely not saying that a human musician has an easier job than Midi Scoring. The distinction I'm making is more that the Midi is clever use of hardware rather then expertly done music. Do I think that the guy who did FF6 is better than wing commander? not in the least (and when we factor in my personal hero's name (Spector) to the equation WC is much better) but at the same time, it's not the same style score. FF6 score was done by a musician for the most part. Wing Commander score was done by a programmer. Their greatness is equal, but their path is definatly different.
Then won't those same games be a couple thousand dollar a piece?
I mean we can make games for niches but they still have to break even. While not every game has to be a GTA. We also have to remain true to the fact that we arn't an industry where people throw away money. We have to sell games to remain in business. So a game that will appeal to only a few people will not be a popular choice. People just won't throw money away, something Hollywood seems to do more each year.
On the other side though there's a lot of "high brow" games if you're accepting them being popular. Sims 2, Spore, and other games as people have meantion that move towards art. But the fact is you're still making games to be solid, Not making games as art. If you want to make art, make art. Games are entertainment, something movies were once and as such they exist only to be sold or bought. If you want a game to be made to the point that only a few would accept it or buy it then you'd also have to understand the converse in that the game itself would cost many times what it currently does, to the point of costing close to one thousand dollars. At that point those buying it are buying something other then entertainment, but the fact is no one is willing to risk that much on such a venture because the return is likely non existant.
It's not Piracy exactly that's killing it. But Yes Piracy is hurting it quite a bit. A great deal of piracy started with game companies not properly supporting the PC industry in the first place. AKA Not releasing demos, not making easy to install games.
I've started playing Xbox 360 ports of PC games, not because I'm a console gamer but because I remember Doom 3. When I first got Doom 3 I was thrilled, my hardware was FAR better then the spec. Everything beat it. Except it wasn't installing right. My sound drivers continually screwed me up. I could never get the sound right, and Doom 3 is a full game experience. I ended up having to wait til I bought a new computer (not even a full reformat helped in the end).
The fact that I have to dick around with Drivers just infuriates me. If I buy hardware I should get a working driver that complies with a standard ATI and NVIDIA create. I should not have to constantly get drivers because they changed the way the game interfaces with the card. And then I have to grab a new DirectX because that's changed, then I have to do the same for the sound card and so on. There should be an interface between the computer and hardware that actually works correctly from day 1. That interface then should connect into DirectX and OpenGL. Perhaps NVidia doesn't allow DirectX use all the card from the first day. That's fine. But updating drivers every time a major game gets released is ridiculous. It's not about performance. The problem is it's about the game crashes unless you have the latest driver.
That's not even getting into the fact that you might not be able to use the latest driver. Or the Product's company might have to give you a patch a month or two after the release of the game to fix the problem. Or maybe something is wrong with your computer that it doesn't like and you get random performance that only 2 other people out of 200 ever see.
The fact is there's so much randomness with the PC that gamers who like games really have started walking away from it. It's true Quake 4 doesn't feel exactly right on the 360, but me not having to deal with 50 little problems because of my rig makes that feeling ok.
I'll admit when Bioshock comes out I'll be trying it on the PC. I want the better controls and more immersive feel. But I'm sure it'll be a hassle to even get it working again.
Now that's just why some of us don't play games on computer.
Companies on the other hand don't want to make games on computers because they are afraid of piracy and rightly so. To Pirate games on the PC or Dreamcast is simple compared to piracy on the 360 or PS2. So instead of a number like 60 percent of people who play the game bought the game legally. It's more like 90 percent on a console. And that's a better number to them. Game companies don't require 100 percent of the games to be legit. They understand piracy and moding is a fact of life, and the fact is that even if a console was 100 percent secure, if it isn't as easy to work for as the 360 or PS3 they wouldn't make games for it.
The PC will continue to get games tailor made for it. But games that are shipping on other platforms probably will not see a PC version for a couple monthes if not a year.
On the other hand a lot of PC games get huge boosts from modding communities, and that alone is why you'll never see PC gaming die. People want to have stuff like Oblivion and Half life 2 on the PC because while they are fun on the consoles, the true abilities of those games are only available on the PC.
So yeah, the PC market is definatly dying. And piracy is definatly helping it along. But it will never die completely. It's still the cheapest platform to develop for and it has the most tools available, so even if the corporations leave, indies will still remain.
Those were less scoring and more properly manipulating midi, but yes. Wing Commander and Loom both had excellent scores for their time. The problem with Wing Commander that I remember is you heard the same bit of music after every battle, the same bit of music for the battle, but it was well done.
And people didn't buy Adlib cards. They bought Adlib Compatible to save 50 bucks. Yes they had to work on the settings in the games, but they saved money:)
See that's the problem. Only one file is found but everyone acts like hackers ALWAYS find the files.
They don't. I can't give the names of the games, but I work in the industry and know for a bunch of guys that I worked with that often ESRB has told people "remove this or get a higher rating" and it's removed from the gameplay, but not the data (removing it from the data takes more work, and can cause problems). So the code remains but it's not found. ONE piece of code was found and everyone acts like no one else has ever done it, just because it's never been found.
Many games offer bonuses for people who play it completely with out cheats. Some games final versions doesn't come with cheats.
In addition producers adds and removes content from the game up to two weeks before the game. That means 2 weeks to play through the game complete evaluation and rate it. Again not a huge problem but stuff like Oblivion would be nearly impossible.
"Rating games on only partial content: Unlike the present system, the ESRB would be forced to play games in their entirety"
This sounds like a good idea. Let's see them however play through games like Spore, GTA, or Oblivion in their ENTIRETY! That would be a week or two of solid gameplay.
On the other hand let's see them play through Daikatana, or Ninja Gaiden Black. One is just so bad that no person can play through it with out it being absolute pain. Ninja Gaiden Black on the other hand is so hard that one wonders how they would do that sans cheats.
And then on the third group is games like Dead Rising. It's not going to be a very long game but imagine a game with 10 different paths where you can do anything and can take 200 hours to beat in their entirety." Are we asking the ESRB to play ALL the way through these games? I can't imagine a single person playing through a half of the games that come out in one year, not to meantion all of them.
"Withholding content: Publishers would be on the hook for failing to completely reveal content to the ESRB."
So we have to tell the ESRB about the content that we removed from a game, that has no way for the player to access, that can only be available by a hacker who then unlocked the data by reverse engineering the game? Great. The company I am at edited out a couple of these things that would up the rating to appease it. Let's be honest that's what people do, the fact people hack these games especially ones as popular as GTA isn't a problem. The fact that people expect the game to still be the same rating as when they start modding the game is.
That's just great. Why don't we ban modding as a whole, then people can't get access to code, and thus the game will remain boring and bland as when it first came out.
If Microsoft's browser worked as well or better than Firefox does, most of us wouldn't take Microsoft back.
If Microsoft browser crashed once a day people still wouldn't change away from it until someone physically did it for them.
IE is hard coded into XP and has it's own form of compliance that some people still have to accept at times. Especially if they wish to do business with Microsoft
Well number 1 Microsoft doesn't care about because really, that group is lost forever.
Number 2 Microsoft doesn't care about because they really can't do anything wrong for that group. They don't want to learn firefox no matter how easy it is. Avast is a great option for them but even there they have to learn it.
Number 3 is their bonus. There's documents that you have to load special extensions in Firefox just to read correctly. At my work they suggest IE for the Work wiki. (yes we have a wiki for our projects, it works well) The reason is not because they like IE. They basically demand Firefox outside of the intranet, but because IE allows you to hardcode image locations and that makes it easier to code. Not a big problem for me personally.
The fact though is IE doesn't have to comply to standards to become used. They already are, and they will remain the majority for years to come because they are the tool of convence. Firefox will continue to make inroads but I don't believe they can wrestle it away from the house wives who only go online to look at pictures of their kids because there's nothing Firefox can offer them over what IE already offers. Sure there's tons of need tools Firefox has, but for those users Firefox install time outways the usefulness of it and that's the EXACT reason why IE7 is still as bad as the neighborhood whore.
I am an old school gamer. I remember when the great sound tracks were Final Fantasy VI and to an extent Link to the Past.
This event is being held at an RPG event, but if ever there was a time it should make the jump to an all over event now. No longer is well done scores held only to the RPG. Metal Gear Solid had an amazing score along side it.
It's true that many games instead opt for commercial music, but at the same time, many more games such as Ico and Shadows of the Colossus and even god of war are working towards better music. It was only a generation or two ago that the only places a real score was worked on was RPGs and even there it was mostly in the SquareSoft realm to really put the resources these companies are able to place on it now.
The question is with the way the price of music is (at least 50K just to have a song in a tv show), will more games opt for a cheaper but more personalized soundtrack. It's true it wouldn't be worth the effort for large games like GTA, where the music needs to be licensed, but for a game like Dead rising, the entire game can last with out a single licensed piece of music, and can have some interesting applications of music.
In it's own area look at Konami's extreme amounts of music that they have produced for the bemani series. That alone tells me that game studios may be able to produce music on the same levels as Record studios, perhaps for a fraction of the price.
I swear I'm not into midget goat porn, which involves two girls, a guy, and a alien look alike!! I swear honey, I'm just not attracted to those things.
On the other hand RIAA is probably having a field day. "AHA Mr. Kinglink, you searched for 'Download music free'. Bwahahaha! You're ass is mine!"
When we talk about Castlevania, I reach in my bag and pull out Symphony of the night and Castlevania 3, both are excellent games. I don't go pull out Castlevania and I'm hestitant to pull out Castlevania 2.
When I talk about Zelda, I look to Link to the Past, and then The original before Ocerina (though that's a fine job)
Just because some of us talk about old games doen't mean we wouldn't play them again. Some people just want to complain and name bad games or just games they think of fondly, and that's fine, that's them, but some of us remember great games that we really love. Stuff like System shock, which immersed you in interactive story, but also didn't force you into long drawn out cut scenes. A game that basically was exactly perfect. Want to just follow the known path, that's fine but for the most part the story is pretty important to know what you're doing. You can hear the story at any time, but it's up to the player. That game is still the number 1 in my book.
Personally I only talk about games that I would be willing to forget completely and replay through again. But the question is why haven't games grown exponentially. We have over a thousand times the space as Final Fantasy VI and Link to the Past but nothing has cleanly beaten those two. It's not because people arn't trying. It's because people are wasting that space with FMVs and graphics, where as those two games couldn't contain great graphics, they didn't have the room for it. FFVII might have appeared to be amazing but in that single game it set the entire industry back years which we have yet to climb out of. The entire opera scene is more impactful than the famous spoiler. Kefka's betrayal is more amazing, and yet both are done with 16 bit graphics that aren't even pre rendered. The classic games had limitations so every addition to the game had to be carefully planned out and that might be why they are great.
The problem becomes people keep yelling for better graphics, but the fact is better graphics have never meant better games. Better gameplay, immersion, and story is what gamers really want. It's a case of gamers not knowing what they really want in the end.
But the case modder themselves shouldn't give a crap about the case, because they're going to change it anyways.
I fully agree with you, it could look like a dog crap but give the performance of full VR and people would buy it. Because they want that functionality. I've never seen someone say "I don't want that system because it looks ugly". I've seen people make fun of the Xbox's size, but that's just because it's Microsoft, and it was a giant system. Personally I made those same taunts. But it could have been the Venus de Milo with a bigger chest and I still would have figured out some jokes about it.
Personally I believe the question of outward console design is only brought up when there's nothing good to say about the inside. It'll always be about the games, while the design will be the subject of taunts, the reason for the taunts are deeper.
1.Shitty booths. This includes booth babes, DJs, loud music, and annoying lights. Shit like EA would blow 10 million on to make their booth the best
2.Indie Developers. Yes you got more exposure there than anywhere, but you also paid way too much for it, and for the most part if they wanted to talk to indies, they would. But if IGN writer has to write 8 stories on 8 games, they might not have time to look at your game. It was better than nothing, but worse than a expo for independants.
3. Small time magazines. You weren't invited to very private showing inside the boothes themselves, instead you had to go get to games, but what's that? Some loser who pretended to be in the business is infront of you in line and has been playing for 30 minutes, wasting your time? You have to play the game write an article or reaction and go to the next game and do your job.
1. at least gives shwag, but definatly doesn't help when your hung over. 2 never did that well at E3 as it was, but at least they had a hand in the expo. 3 however is the ones who really got shafted because they weren't part of the invited groups they had to fight every way.
Personally E3 should have been more closed doors than it was, I'm hopeful that E3 becomes an Expo where Indies can get the same attention that big names do. It's certainly not going to hurt the big names to go smaller because now they don't have to deal with annoying non-industry professionals wasting their time and resources.
Personally I think the most helpful would be a Indie trade show, perhaps produced by a small group. Basically your company has to be under 25 people and not owned by a parent company to join, the only people who could come in are verified media or people at those companies in it for 2 days, and on the third day, industry people can go, on the fourth day open it up to the crowds.
At the same time a month or two later or before have a TGS style show. TGS is aimed at the consumers, not the media, just have a huge game show. We're almost there with PAX, so go in that vein.
But E3 as it was, was as bloated and horrid as it comes.
Sorry, the original POP was pretty bad overall unless you could master the sword fighting.
The new one DID look good, and did play well but it's about as graphics over gameplay as they came. I didn't find the action that intense, and the rewind time is about the only great idea. Other than that it's very reminscent of a good version of Tomb Raider. (AKA tomb raider with out lara croft, so having to survive on it's own merits)
There's nothing wrong about Zelda having RPG elements, if you want to bitch and moan about RPGs, go ahead yet zelda has been that way since the begining.
All I'm saying is BG&E is not adult Zelda. It just doesn't have anything similar to zelda, while it might be fun, it's a bad comparision.
Apparently he doesn't like the NES design Or the Xbox Or the Gamecube, Or the Ps2 Or the Ps3 Or the Xbox 360 Or the Wii Or the Jaguar.
But apparently the Gensis, Master system and Dreamcast were great for him. That's wonderful, except Sega's not around for a reason, Sega might knows how to make a good looking game system, but if you can't make a good game system under it you get screwed.
Personally I think anyone who thinks any of the current systems needs a redesign might be right, but let's be honest. The best looking system can still not work. I owned a genesis and a NES, a Super Nes, A N64 (which was "sleak" but crap) a Gamecube, a PSX, a PS2, and a Xbox 360. And if I had to go back in time but not get one of them, guess which one it would be? The Genesis.
Gamers arn't looking for a good looking game system, gamers are looking for a good playing game system. Genesis is the most game system looking out of my list, but the fact is that it didn't help it be a good actual game system in the least is the real problem.
I mean look at the grandfathers of our industry. The Atari with it's ugly ridges and huge switches. Oooooh baby.+
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I can just imagine the lawsuit.
"Your honor, when Miss Sanders woke up all she saw was Mr. Andrewman standing over her muttering "this isn't the game.. This isn't the game" and was thrown back into shock cracking her head open on the concrete"
The article is right, if this doesn't get you excited nothing will.
It also takes the 360 launch and the PS3 launch and makes them both decently laughable.
But I don't know if it'll be a great launch, time will tell. Though with Metroid Prime, and Zelda it's going to be great for nintendo fans, a Hawk game, and Madden (perhaps working with the new controller and not the VC controlleR) that's going to be exciting.
Excite Trucks and Dragon quest Swords is interesting.
The only flaw is that there's a LOT of racing games. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing but it will be interesting in the least if the controller is good for that I'm hopeful for a good GT style sim. I'm also hopeful for interesting online multiplayer in Crystal Chronicles.
The only thing I wonder about is COD3, NFS carbon, and Madden are all made by huge companies, Madden should be ready in time, but the other two... I am not sure if they'll make their dates.
"Now use the table saw to cut off your leg"
"It has skin sensing features! I can't use it to cut my leg."
"Hmm damm it, wait a second I'll go get you a hand saw"
Last I checked I noticed that when people said "I'll google it" they are talking about going to a computer or cellphone, opening up google and doing a search for X. They don't use MSN or Yahoo or some other crap for it. Googling something means getting the best core sample of the internet and finding your truth in it, and the best way remains google.
On the other hand Google's a bit insane here. As people have said Xerox did well, except now everything is acceptable when you Xerox stuff, and the Xerox company has dropped quite a bit from the public eye, especially with HP on the move. I white-out (wite-out) paper work though, I scotchguard (ok I never used that actually), I used post-its.
The problem though is I think Google knows it will not always be number 1, and they are afraid of becoming a "xerox" rather then a post-it.
I mean come on, people he's a glory hound just like Stern. I'm glad you all like him enough to go around and do anything he says, but ask yourself "why should we?" Think of the other great comedians, Chappelle never told people to go around screwing up other people's legitimate things. Christopher Titus did in that show but made it humorousnot serious. Why would anyone do anything a comedian tells them to do on a tv show? It just gives them an overinflated ego so they'll continue to create stupid and moronic stunts like this to get more news coverage, and you the viewer gets nothing if not banned from what ever place it's happening.
It just goes to show the fact that Colbert has followers that as so gullible they'll do what ever he tells them. But sadly I've a feeling he's growing too big too fast. Either the media is going to stop listening to him, or his fans will or he's just going to order something too outlandish and get bit on the butt for it when no one pays attention. At least then he'll be spoofing Geraldo.
I mean everyone seems to think the Homeland security is out to get us?
Let's consider the other side. How many people already investigate every patch microsoft sends us even before this announcement? How fast did we learn about the Genuine Advantage Disadvantage?
The fact is we know exactly what's in the patches, we've heard nothing about a bad patch or a big brother patch, the sort of thing these guys hunt for in the first place? So why is everyone paranoid?
I think the scarier thing is that Homeland security is normally a very tight lipped organization, they didn't meantion a threat but I believe we have to believe that they know of a plan to attack windows based machines on a wide scale and in a viral format, probably at a level no one could ever imagine?
If you really think they are out to get us, feel free to check the updates, crack them and find any secrets they have there. Post them on underground boards and with in a week we'll have a way to circumvent them. But you're probably not going to find anything. Instead you're probably going to find a virus in the upcoming weeks that would have crippled the nation but instead just bounced weakly off the computers because of the updates that came out this week.
Seriously why is Microsoft bringing out the Argo? The biggest problem with the system is the base thing that we only know what it's trying to be. But seriously, how likely is it that Microsoft is going to bring out a product that will rival Apple.
It's the same here. Sony needed big games and even when they got Konami to give them solid snake what did they end up with? Metal gear acid? Not the blockbuster they needed. I don't fault Konami, why give Sony's new system a completely unique game that would work on the PS2, give them something unique for their game system that might be more portable.
The biggest problem comes in that I look at my DS and then look at a PSP. I pay more for the system, more for the games? Have to buy memory sticks? The cost of the system isn't 300 to 150 it's more like 350 to 150 + 20 bucks more per game.
Now if the GBA was the best Nintendo gave us, then yes the PSP would rock it's socks, but the DS has a touch screen, and dual screens. It might not be perfect for all games, but it certainly is far better than what the PSP brought to the table (larger memory space and multimedia, which if people really wanted, was available for the DS in import format). It has yet to get the developer buy in that it needs, and it's mostly getting games from people who would never make a DS game in the first place.
And then again the DS constantly gets Nintendo games, Sony doesn't make first party games (at least not to the length nintendo does).
Sony's going to have a long hard 5 years coming up. The PS3 is going to stumble at best, and fail out right at worse. The PSP is not going anywhere and just becoming controversal, the music industry isn't picking up. But they do still have good electronics at least.
Oh I'm surely not saying that a human musician has an easier job than Midi Scoring. The distinction I'm making is more that the Midi is clever use of hardware rather then expertly done music. Do I think that the guy who did FF6 is better than wing commander? not in the least (and when we factor in my personal hero's name (Spector) to the equation WC is much better) but at the same time, it's not the same style score. FF6 score was done by a musician for the most part. Wing Commander score was done by a programmer. Their greatness is equal, but their path is definatly different.
Then won't those same games be a couple thousand dollar a piece?
I mean we can make games for niches but they still have to break even. While not every game has to be a GTA. We also have to remain true to the fact that we arn't an industry where people throw away money. We have to sell games to remain in business. So a game that will appeal to only a few people will not be a popular choice. People just won't throw money away, something Hollywood seems to do more each year.
On the other side though there's a lot of "high brow" games if you're accepting them being popular. Sims 2, Spore, and other games as people have meantion that move towards art. But the fact is you're still making games to be solid, Not making games as art. If you want to make art, make art. Games are entertainment, something movies were once and as such they exist only to be sold or bought. If you want a game to be made to the point that only a few would accept it or buy it then you'd also have to understand the converse in that the game itself would cost many times what it currently does, to the point of costing close to one thousand dollars. At that point those buying it are buying something other then entertainment, but the fact is no one is willing to risk that much on such a venture because the return is likely non existant.
It's not Piracy exactly that's killing it. But Yes Piracy is hurting it quite a bit. A great deal of piracy started with game companies not properly supporting the PC industry in the first place. AKA Not releasing demos, not making easy to install games.
I've started playing Xbox 360 ports of PC games, not because I'm a console gamer but because I remember Doom 3. When I first got Doom 3 I was thrilled, my hardware was FAR better then the spec. Everything beat it. Except it wasn't installing right. My sound drivers continually screwed me up. I could never get the sound right, and Doom 3 is a full game experience. I ended up having to wait til I bought a new computer (not even a full reformat helped in the end).
The fact that I have to dick around with Drivers just infuriates me. If I buy hardware I should get a working driver that complies with a standard ATI and NVIDIA create. I should not have to constantly get drivers because they changed the way the game interfaces with the card. And then I have to grab a new DirectX because that's changed, then I have to do the same for the sound card and so on. There should be an interface between the computer and hardware that actually works correctly from day 1. That interface then should connect into DirectX and OpenGL. Perhaps NVidia doesn't allow DirectX use all the card from the first day. That's fine. But updating drivers every time a major game gets released is ridiculous. It's not about performance. The problem is it's about the game crashes unless you have the latest driver.
That's not even getting into the fact that you might not be able to use the latest driver. Or the Product's company might have to give you a patch a month or two after the release of the game to fix the problem. Or maybe something is wrong with your computer that it doesn't like and you get random performance that only 2 other people out of 200 ever see.
The fact is there's so much randomness with the PC that gamers who like games really have started walking away from it. It's true Quake 4 doesn't feel exactly right on the 360, but me not having to deal with 50 little problems because of my rig makes that feeling ok.
I'll admit when Bioshock comes out I'll be trying it on the PC. I want the better controls and more immersive feel. But I'm sure it'll be a hassle to even get it working again.
Now that's just why some of us don't play games on computer.
Companies on the other hand don't want to make games on computers because they are afraid of piracy and rightly so. To Pirate games on the PC or Dreamcast is simple compared to piracy on the 360 or PS2. So instead of a number like 60 percent of people who play the game bought the game legally. It's more like 90 percent on a console. And that's a better number to them. Game companies don't require 100 percent of the games to be legit. They understand piracy and moding is a fact of life, and the fact is that even if a console was 100 percent secure, if it isn't as easy to work for as the 360 or PS3 they wouldn't make games for it.
The PC will continue to get games tailor made for it. But games that are shipping on other platforms probably will not see a PC version for a couple monthes if not a year.
On the other hand a lot of PC games get huge boosts from modding communities, and that alone is why you'll never see PC gaming die. People want to have stuff like Oblivion and Half life 2 on the PC because while they are fun on the consoles, the true abilities of those games are only available on the PC.
So yeah, the PC market is definatly dying. And piracy is definatly helping it along. But it will never die completely. It's still the cheapest platform to develop for and it has the most tools available, so even if the corporations leave, indies will still remain.
Those were less scoring and more properly manipulating midi, but yes. Wing Commander and Loom both had excellent scores for their time. The problem with Wing Commander that I remember is you heard the same bit of music after every battle, the same bit of music for the battle, but it was well done.
:)
And people didn't buy Adlib cards. They bought Adlib Compatible to save 50 bucks. Yes they had to work on the settings in the games, but they saved money
See that's the problem. Only one file is found but everyone acts like hackers ALWAYS find the files.
They don't. I can't give the names of the games, but I work in the industry and know for a bunch of guys that I worked with that often ESRB has told people "remove this or get a higher rating" and it's removed from the gameplay, but not the data (removing it from the data takes more work, and can cause problems). So the code remains but it's not found. ONE piece of code was found and everyone acts like no one else has ever done it, just because it's never been found.
Many games offer bonuses for people who play it completely with out cheats. Some games final versions doesn't come with cheats.
In addition producers adds and removes content from the game up to two weeks before the game. That means 2 weeks to play through the game complete evaluation and rate it. Again not a huge problem but stuff like Oblivion would be nearly impossible.
"Rating games on only partial content: Unlike the present system, the ESRB would be forced to play games in their entirety"
This sounds like a good idea. Let's see them however play through games like Spore, GTA, or Oblivion in their ENTIRETY! That would be a week or two of solid gameplay.
On the other hand let's see them play through Daikatana, or Ninja Gaiden Black. One is just so bad that no person can play through it with out it being absolute pain. Ninja Gaiden Black on the other hand is so hard that one wonders how they would do that sans cheats.
And then on the third group is games like Dead Rising. It's not going to be a very long game but imagine a game with 10 different paths where you can do anything and can take 200 hours to beat in their entirety." Are we asking the ESRB to play ALL the way through these games? I can't imagine a single person playing through a half of the games that come out in one year, not to meantion all of them.
"Withholding content: Publishers would be on the hook for failing to completely reveal content to the ESRB."
So we have to tell the ESRB about the content that we removed from a game, that has no way for the player to access, that can only be available by a hacker who then unlocked the data by reverse engineering the game? Great. The company I am at edited out a couple of these things that would up the rating to appease it. Let's be honest that's what people do, the fact people hack these games especially ones as popular as GTA isn't a problem. The fact that people expect the game to still be the same rating as when they start modding the game is.
That's just great. Why don't we ban modding as a whole, then people can't get access to code, and thus the game will remain boring and bland as when it first came out.
Well number 1 Microsoft doesn't care about because really, that group is lost forever.
Number 2 Microsoft doesn't care about because they really can't do anything wrong for that group. They don't want to learn firefox no matter how easy it is. Avast is a great option for them but even there they have to learn it.
Number 3 is their bonus. There's documents that you have to load special extensions in Firefox just to read correctly. At my work they suggest IE for the Work wiki. (yes we have a wiki for our projects, it works well) The reason is not because they like IE. They basically demand Firefox outside of the intranet, but because IE allows you to hardcode image locations and that makes it easier to code. Not a big problem for me personally.
The fact though is IE doesn't have to comply to standards to become used. They already are, and they will remain the majority for years to come because they are the tool of convence. Firefox will continue to make inroads but I don't believe they can wrestle it away from the house wives who only go online to look at pictures of their kids because there's nothing Firefox can offer them over what IE already offers. Sure there's tons of need tools Firefox has, but for those users Firefox install time outways the usefulness of it and that's the EXACT reason why IE7 is still as bad as the neighborhood whore.
I am an old school gamer. I remember when the great sound tracks were Final Fantasy VI and to an extent Link to the Past.
This event is being held at an RPG event, but if ever there was a time it should make the jump to an all over event now. No longer is well done scores held only to the RPG. Metal Gear Solid had an amazing score along side it.
It's true that many games instead opt for commercial music, but at the same time, many more games such as Ico and Shadows of the Colossus and even god of war are working towards better music. It was only a generation or two ago that the only places a real score was worked on was RPGs and even there it was mostly in the SquareSoft realm to really put the resources these companies are able to place on it now.
The question is with the way the price of music is (at least 50K just to have a song in a tv show), will more games opt for a cheaper but more personalized soundtrack. It's true it wouldn't be worth the effort for large games like GTA, where the music needs to be licensed, but for a game like Dead rising, the entire game can last with out a single licensed piece of music, and can have some interesting applications of music.
In it's own area look at Konami's extreme amounts of music that they have produced for the bemani series. That alone tells me that game studios may be able to produce music on the same levels as Record studios, perhaps for a fraction of the price.
Purely academic!
I swear I'm not into midget goat porn, which involves two girls, a guy, and a alien look alike!! I swear honey, I'm just not attracted to those things.
On the other hand RIAA is probably having a field day. "AHA Mr. Kinglink, you searched for 'Download music free'. Bwahahaha! You're ass is mine!"
I thought it was 21 this year? (wasn't it around 1985 that arpanet started to become commercialized?)
All I know is I can't wait for the 21st birthday, then we can all go out buy the internet shots.
Going to bet it's going to lose a few packets the next day, if you know what I mean.
When we talk about Castlevania, I reach in my bag and pull out Symphony of the night and Castlevania 3, both are excellent games. I don't go pull out Castlevania and I'm hestitant to pull out Castlevania 2.
When I talk about Zelda, I look to Link to the Past, and then The original before Ocerina (though that's a fine job)
Just because some of us talk about old games doen't mean we wouldn't play them again. Some people just want to complain and name bad games or just games they think of fondly, and that's fine, that's them, but some of us remember great games that we really love. Stuff like System shock, which immersed you in interactive story, but also didn't force you into long drawn out cut scenes. A game that basically was exactly perfect. Want to just follow the known path, that's fine but for the most part the story is pretty important to know what you're doing. You can hear the story at any time, but it's up to the player. That game is still the number 1 in my book.
Personally I only talk about games that I would be willing to forget completely and replay through again. But the question is why haven't games grown exponentially. We have over a thousand times the space as Final Fantasy VI and Link to the Past but nothing has cleanly beaten those two. It's not because people arn't trying. It's because people are wasting that space with FMVs and graphics, where as those two games couldn't contain great graphics, they didn't have the room for it. FFVII might have appeared to be amazing but in that single game it set the entire industry back years which we have yet to climb out of. The entire opera scene is more impactful than the famous spoiler. Kefka's betrayal is more amazing, and yet both are done with 16 bit graphics that aren't even pre rendered. The classic games had limitations so every addition to the game had to be carefully planned out and that might be why they are great.
The problem becomes people keep yelling for better graphics, but the fact is better graphics have never meant better games. Better gameplay, immersion, and story is what gamers really want. It's a case of gamers not knowing what they really want in the end.
But the case modder themselves shouldn't give a crap about the case, because they're going to change it anyways.
I fully agree with you, it could look like a dog crap but give the performance of full VR and people would buy it. Because they want that functionality. I've never seen someone say "I don't want that system because it looks ugly". I've seen people make fun of the Xbox's size, but that's just because it's Microsoft, and it was a giant system. Personally I made those same taunts. But it could have been the Venus de Milo with a bigger chest and I still would have figured out some jokes about it.
Personally I believe the question of outward console design is only brought up when there's nothing good to say about the inside. It'll always be about the games, while the design will be the subject of taunts, the reason for the taunts are deeper.
I tried to be as ridiculous as possible. I can't believe I failed.
There were three problems with E3.
1.Shitty booths. This includes booth babes, DJs, loud music, and annoying lights. Shit like EA would blow 10 million on to make their booth the best
2.Indie Developers. Yes you got more exposure there than anywhere, but you also paid way too much for it, and for the most part if they wanted to talk to indies, they would. But if IGN writer has to write 8 stories on 8 games, they might not have time to look at your game. It was better than nothing, but worse than a expo for independants.
3. Small time magazines. You weren't invited to very private showing inside the boothes themselves, instead you had to go get to games, but what's that? Some loser who pretended to be in the business is infront of you in line and has been playing for 30 minutes, wasting your time? You have to play the game write an article or reaction and go to the next game and do your job.
1. at least gives shwag, but definatly doesn't help when your hung over. 2 never did that well at E3 as it was, but at least they had a hand in the expo. 3 however is the ones who really got shafted because they weren't part of the invited groups they had to fight every way.
Personally E3 should have been more closed doors than it was, I'm hopeful that E3 becomes an Expo where Indies can get the same attention that big names do. It's certainly not going to hurt the big names to go smaller because now they don't have to deal with annoying non-industry professionals wasting their time and resources.
Personally I think the most helpful would be a Indie trade show, perhaps produced by a small group. Basically your company has to be under 25 people and not owned by a parent company to join, the only people who could come in are verified media or people at those companies in it for 2 days, and on the third day, industry people can go, on the fourth day open it up to the crowds.
At the same time a month or two later or before have a TGS style show. TGS is aimed at the consumers, not the media, just have a huge game show. We're almost there with PAX, so go in that vein.
But E3 as it was, was as bloated and horrid as it comes.
Sorry, the original POP was pretty bad overall unless you could master the sword fighting.
The new one DID look good, and did play well but it's about as graphics over gameplay as they came. I didn't find the action that intense, and the rewind time is about the only great idea. Other than that it's very reminscent of a good version of Tomb Raider. (AKA tomb raider with out lara croft, so having to survive on it's own merits)
There's nothing wrong about Zelda having RPG elements, if you want to bitch and moan about RPGs, go ahead yet zelda has been that way since the begining.
All I'm saying is BG&E is not adult Zelda. It just doesn't have anything similar to zelda, while it might be fun, it's a bad comparision.
He's a hater pure and simple.
Apparently he doesn't like the NES design
Or the Xbox
Or the Gamecube,
Or the Ps2
Or the Ps3
Or the Xbox 360
Or the Wii
Or the Jaguar.
But apparently the Gensis, Master system and Dreamcast were great for him. That's wonderful, except Sega's not around for a reason, Sega might knows how to make a good looking game system, but if you can't make a good game system under it you get screwed.
Personally I think anyone who thinks any of the current systems needs a redesign might be right, but let's be honest. The best looking system can still not work. I owned a genesis and a NES, a Super Nes, A N64 (which was "sleak" but crap) a Gamecube, a PSX, a PS2, and a Xbox 360. And if I had to go back in time but not get one of them, guess which one it would be? The Genesis.
Gamers arn't looking for a good looking game system, gamers are looking for a good playing game system. Genesis is the most game system looking out of my list, but the fact is that it didn't help it be a good actual game system in the least is the real problem.
I mean look at the grandfathers of our industry. The Atari with it's ugly ridges and huge switches. Oooooh baby.+