I can't play games on my PC. Sitting down in front of it immediately puts me into work mode...
The Cube is cheap, less then 99 bucks, starts up in a few seconds, needs no installation, has no problem with stupid copy protection destroying your drives, will still work with your games in 5 or 10 years. Try playing a 10 years old game on your current PC:-)
It seems to be easily available in Europe. I own a copy and ordered a second copy a few days ago on amazon.de. They had it in stock.
The game itself it pretty cool. The story mode is a lot of fun (with plenty of minigames, like four-way mole whacking), but a bit too easy. The music is mostly well done, with some of techno-styled Mario tracks.
For those who are interested, there's a new Tetris coming out for the DS. It sports online gaming, and multiplayer gaming for up to 10 players. Revo-europe.com has info and screenshots.
To kill the used games market, companies like Sony could conceivably lock a game so it can only be used with one console. One way to do that would be to include a code with each game, which you then had to enter into your console to play the game. That code would be verified online and then locked to your console or online account, similar to an online game.
That would kill the used games market quite cleanly.
However, it would also be an extremely bad idea.
The more people own a console, the more attractive it becomes. That is because you can exchange games with your friends. I bought a Gamecube the day it came out. I own dozens of Cubes. Most of my friends bought Cubes, too, because they can lend games from me.
It must be a similar situation with the PS2, only even stronger. Since many people own PS2 consoles, the console becomes a lot more attractive to new buyers.
A console where you could not give games to your pals is a console which will fail for exactly this reason.
Now, you could argue that you don't want your customers to lend each other games, since they won't buy those games. I don't think this is a valid point, since:
You only lend games for a given amount of time, most often a week or two. If the game is good, people will buy it anyway, so it's kind of like free advertisment or a demo.
If you want to lend games from your friends, you have to have something for them to get in exchange, so you're pushing each other into buying more games
Playing games is in many ways a social activity. You play games with other people, and you talk to other people about the games you play, you lend games to firneds. This is good for gaming, and locking games to consoles takes a lot of that social activity away, which makes the console a lot less attractive.
By killing second hand sales, gaming companies would kill a lot of what makes gaming interesting, and a lot of what makes people buy consoles in the first place.
It would seem rather silly to have TWO branches of portables, one of which seems very much a superset of the other one.
I'd love to see a true GBA successor from Nintendo (with better graphics, analog sticks, and so on). I think the portable market can sustain at least two different architectures (see DS and PSP, which seems to be doing acceptably, despite the fact that there are pretty much no good games available for it). If you can own both of these markets, why not do it?
If Nintendo came out with a GBA successor in, say, a year, which would be both cheaper than the PSP and beat it graphics-wise, they might pick up a fair bit of market share without hurting the DS too much, since it is so unique.
People would still buy DS consoles for the games which can't be bought on any other console, and they would buy a GBA2 simply because it would be the newest, best portable console.
Are the PlayStation bundled with a digital controller and the PlayStation bundled with a Dual Shock controller "two different consoles"?
First of all, I specifically said "portable Nintendo consoles". Second, you can buy analog controllers if you want them. Third, the PS had no online gaming.
Fourth, yes, they are different consoles from the perspective of the developers, because now they have to target two different hardware sets. This is bad, because the big advantage of consoles is that developers can target a single set of hardware and always know what users own. Having the Xbox 360 with and without a hard disk is similarly stupid, by the way. As was the Sega CD and the N64 drive.
Hardware upgrades hardly ever work, and thus are hardly ever attempted, fortunately. Nintendo isn't quite as stupid as they used to be.
Now, we all know that Nintendo doesn't really listen to game pundits, but the addition of an analog stick, much like the addition of a backlit screen makes a whole lot of sense.
But then you'd have two different consoles, not only two different versions. Games would have to be made with both consoles in mind, and online gaming would become unfair since some players would be at an advantage.
Significantly changing the functionality of the console in a new version of the hardware is most likely not something which will ever happen with a Nintendo handheld. All Gameboy, GBC and GBA versions were essentially equal, only with different form factors and screens.
...if you're from Japan, that is. Seems in Japan, DS consoles are quite popular with the elder folks, since they like to play Brain Training on it. And I'm not kidding.
Let's see what happens once Nintendo releases that game over here.
If money equivilents were OK, I could just steal a car and pay for the gas used (or perhaps pay you based on the IRS approved milage fee).
Obviously, paying exactly the damage you caused is generally not a good and suitable punishment. The punishment should fit the crime, not the monetary damage caused by the crime. Clearly, in some cases, the monetary penalty should be higher than the damage caused. It's also possible to see cases where it would be the other way around.
However, you should note that there's a difference between your example and the case here: He has to pay a whole lot more than a bit of gas.
There are of course cases where a monetary penalty - any monetary penalty - is not severe enough. To me, this particular case does not seem to be one of them.
Besides, how exactly does sending him to jail give the company any of the money back?
It doesn't. The court-ordered restitution is giving the company its money back.
Then why are you arguing that the company lost money and therefore he should go to jail? Seems to me the company didn't lose any money after all, and all Christmas bonuses are intact.
Can you give a better Christmas bonus because you sent him to jail?
No, but I can be happy that a common vandal is off the street.
That's shortsighted, because in six month's time, he'll be out again, only now he won't be able to get a job because nobody will hire him after he's spent three months in prison. So instead of somebody who made a mistake, paid for it and returned to be a productive member of society, you really do have created a common vandal.
Of course, it's quite possible that you would want this to happen. If you think people don't deserve a second chance, or that the can't change, then it may be okay for society to accept more common vandals. I think people do deserve a second chance, and I think people can change.
See, I'm personally not a big fan of white-collar crime. I know some people want to look the other way, but I don't think crime is OK just because the target isn't an individual. I'm kind of funny that way.
Unfortunately, you aren't funny at all. If you were, at least I'd get a good laugh out of this.
Nobody here defended white colar crime. Nobody here claimed crime was okay. Nobody here asked that anyone should look the other way.
I merely questioned the punishment chosen for this particular crime. I did not question the punishment chosen for all white collar crimes or that white collar crimes should be punished. I did not question that he should be punished.
On behalf of everyone who works at companies to give Christmas bonuses based on the last year's profit: kiss my ass.
No, really.
Really? Thank you, but I'd rather not.
And I doubt the harm he caused affected anyone's bonus. It probably took the company a few manhours to recover the data from backup, and it cost the person who was affected a day's work at most. That's a few thousand bucks of lost productivity, hardly a sum which makes any difference at the end of the quarter.
Besides, how exactly does sending him to jail give the company any of the money back? Can you give a better Christmas bonus because you sent him to jail?
I never advocated not punishing him. How about having him pay for the damage he caused instead of sending him to jail? That would be better for him and better for the company!
I do know that if you caused my boss to lose $20,000, my life and that of my coworkers would be measurable less good for a while.
And how exactly does sending him to jail change any of that?
Oh, and while we're talking about Christmas bonuses: Isn't Christmas the time of forgiveness? Sending a person to jail because you might get half a buck less Christmas bonus hardly sounds very Christmas-y to me.
It's easy to say that he should not go to jail. Far harder to think of another punishment. So what's your answer? Kill him outright? Give him a cookie?
Is this a joke? Can you seriously not think of another way to punish him?
How about a monetary penality? Having him pay for the problems he caused?
I've seen lots of similar comments about how what he did was wrong and that he should therefore go to jail.
I don't think anyone claims what he did was not wrong, but jail time isn't the only answer our society has to crime. The question here is not whether what he did was wrong. The question is whether he should go to jail for it.
I say no. We already send too many people to jail. Generally, jail time is bad. It costs our society money, and it makes the situation worse for those spending the time in jail, and it makes our society worse because these people will most likely come out of the jail a worse person than when they went in.
This person here didn't harm anyone. He harmed a company. And he didn't do anything which can't be undone by recovering the data from a backup. Really, what he did was wrong, but it is hardly something worth putting him in jail for.
Yeah, and why don't people drive real cars instead of playing racing games? Why don't they enlist in the military instead of playing first person shooters? Why don't they jump on real turtles instead of playing Mario?
Geez, it's a game. It's not a dog replacement. I'm getting tired of reading this same stupid comment in each Nintendogs article.
Anway, I've written about this before here and here, so I won't repeat those arguments.
So, when you shift your argument only when your losing... probably means the argument isn't all that good.
Uhm... Nintendo isn't losing. They made a conscious decision to have slower hardware. They weren't forced to have slower hardware. They decided on it.
It's a tradeoff: If you want the fastest hardware, get a PS3. If you want adequate hardware at a lower price with a funny controller, get the Revolution.
Teenagers want hot girls with large boobies, so why aren't they buying those games?
Because you can't play those games using only one hand. The Revolution should change that.
I know the "one-hand-thing" sounds like a joke, but I'm actually pretty serious. If I'm playing games, I don't want to be constantly distracted by naked women. Not because I don't like naked women, but because I can't concentrate on playing the game while there are naked women on the screen. And if I want to see naked women, I don't want to have to play a game in order to see them.
It's encouraging to hear that people programming handheld devices, which could possibly end up being things like GPS/sat-nav, don't understand the language.
Oh, they probably do understand the language. Just not your language.
No, but they're sure to know whether, say, Bioware is buying ads. Rip on NWN enough, and the result is predictable.
Look, if you're claiming that ads influence game ratings at major sites or magazines, you need a bit more than "the results are predictable". Do you have any evidence at all?
But you're just proving what I said. Lunar is a bad game. They wrote a bad review and gave it a rating which is below most of their ratings. So the reviewing process works.
No, they gave it a review that said essentially that it was something to be scraped off your shoe with a stick, but gave it a score that said "Meh, it's ok."
First of all, the review was bad, so your whole "ads influence reviews" idea doesn't work. Second, you don't read a lot of gaming mags, do you? 50% means "crap". 70% means "meh, okay", 80% means "good", 90% means "great". Scores below 50% are usually reserved for games which not only play crappy, but also have bugs or technical problems or crappy graphics. Lunar has none of that.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to claim it's not and important game, or not a good game, because it's both important and good. It's just not something that interests me personally.
Whether it's a good game is an opinion. Whether it's an "important" game needs some evidence, and that doesn't mean Sales numbers. Other than having thirty-two sequels, expansion packs, etc (par for the course, since it's an EA game now), what was so special about it?
Are you seriously asking me what's special about The Sims? First you claim that Gun was more important than Nintendogs, now you don't understand what's special about The Sims?
Anyway, let me ask you this: Why the heck do you think Gun is special? What exactly is special about GTA in the wild west?
I'm surprised you even have one, considering the people you seem to hang out with.
Those would be called "grown ups with better things to do than play with Virtual Pets."
Haha, now you're just funny. Or sad. Seriously, if your idea of a grown up is "sombody with better things to do than play with virtual pets", then, well, grow up. Either your friends are so busy that they don't play games at all, or they're just juvenile. Only juveniles care about looking like adults. Adults play what they like, even if it involves virtual pets.
Or I just realized that the concept was boring and a waste of my time.
Oh well, I think it's pointless to discuss this particular idea any further. If you think that you can judge a universally acclaimed game like Nintendogs after playing it for two minutes on a system somebody else set up, more power to you. The rest of the world pretty much disagrees, but whatever floats your boat.
That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact that all magazines seem to agree that this game is better than most other games. Frankly, I value the opinion of these people - people who get to play all new games, play them for quite some time and then rate them based on their experience - somewhat more than the opinion of somebody who played the game for two frickin' minutes.
Good for you. I'm not going to trust the reviews of anyone who's primary source of revenue is selling advertising for the same product they're reviewing.
User reviews and blog reviews for the game were just as positive, not to mention that any serious magazine has different divisions handling ads and content. The people writing the reviews usually don't even know if the studies involved with the games they're reviewing have bought ads in the mag, until the actually read the mag after it goes to print.
Prime Example from recent memory: "Lunar: Dragon Song" reviewed in "Game Informer." They had NOTHING good to say about the game. They were just shy of saying whoever conceived it should be taken out back and shot in the head, after he sobers up from whatever drugs he was on that made him form such a bane on humanity.
Yet, numerically, the game got a 5/10.
But you're just proving what I said. Lunar is a bad game. They wrote a bad review and gave it a rating which is below most of their ratings. So the reviewing process works.
No, not all games are pointless. It's called a "win condition." A goal to strive for. Diddling virtual people around in circles, putting them in pools then removing the ladders, or stocking the fridges with beer and then removing the toilet are only fun for about 2 minutes. The Sims isn't a "game", it's a "toy."
Obviously, you didn't play The Sims for too long either, because The Sims, while not having a winning condition, has a Goal. Nintendogs is even better: Not only does it have goals, it even has winning conditions! Of course, you only played it for two minutes and never found out about that, but still thought you should post to/. about what a crappy game Nintendogs is compared to Gun.
That you didn't even understand the basic game mechanics of Nintendogs doesn't really speak in favor of your opinion.
And for the record, I don't like The Sims, either. But that doesn't mean I'm going to claim it's not and important game, or not a good game, because it's both important and good. It's just not something that interests me personally.
The only person I know who doesn't think it's the most repugnantly stupid idea since the Virtual Boy is my girlfriend
I'm surprised you even have one, considering the people you seem to hang out with.
Wouldn't you agree that dismissing a game after playing it for 2 minutes
Nope. If the game bored me after two minutes, then I'd say buying it would be a bit foolish.
Well. I don't know how to put this without insulting you, but really... dismissing a game - any game - after two minutes of playtime is just stupid.
Especially if it's a game like Nintendogs. When playing Nintendogs for two minutes, you either didn't get to the real game (as buying a dog takes quite a bit more than two minutes) or you played with a dog somebody else "set up", which makes the whole thing pretty pointless to begin with as the dog couldn't possibly have been able to recognize your voice.
The first two minutes of almost any game are boring. I recently started playing Final Fantasy, which most people agree is a pretty good game. Guess what, doring the first half hour of gaming, nothing actually happens. Broken Sword, which is an utterly awesome game, only starts to become interesting after about an hour of playtime. If you're really dismissing a game after only two minutes, you're not a gamer.
especially a game which got an average rating of 85% (per gamerankings) - could be just a tad premature?
Hardly. Gamerankings is an aggregation of game rags' reviews, which have about nothing to do with my buying decisions.
That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact that all magazines seem to agree that this game is better than most other games. Frankly, I value the opinion of these people - people who get to play all new games, play them for quite some time and then rate them based on their experience - somewhat more than the opinion of somebody who played the game for two frickin' minutes.
I'm sure as hell not going to value gamerankings over the fact that the game bored me. Hell, The Sims got 89% on GR, and that "game" was utterly pointless too.
Uh-huh. You probably decided that the Sims sucked after two minutes, too. And as for The Sims being pointless... Look, all games are pointless. They're games. Gun is just as pointless as The Sims. If you want something which isn't pointless, read a physics book. Or go kiss your girlfriend. Or go buy flowers for your mum. But don't whine about games being pointless. All of them are. That's why we play them. To get away from all the real stuff.
So no, I don't think I was premature. I think N-dogs was a stupid idea, a gimmick, and would have been a waste of money. If you like it, more power to you. Enjoy it. That doesn't make it "important."
No, me liking it doesn't make it important, just as you disliking it doesn't make it unimportant. Nintendogs isn't important because I like it. It's important because most people like it, and because it's different, and because it changed a lot of people's perception of games and of Nintendo.
2 minutes with Nintendogs on the display unit was enough to make me wonder about people all over again.
Wouldn't you agree that dismissing a game after playing it for 2 minutes - especially a game which got an average rating of 85% (per gamerankings) - could be just a tad premature?
Look, you can't possibly have seen more than a few % of the game after playing it for 2 minutes, and that's not even taking into account that the whole idea of Nintendogs is that you buy, name, train and play with your own dog in the game, not with a dog somebody else set up on a display unit.
Slashdot Mirror
And that's a good thing :-)
I can't play games on my PC. Sitting down in front of it immediately puts me into work mode...
The Cube is cheap, less then 99 bucks, starts up in a few seconds, needs no installation, has no problem with stupid copy protection destroying your drives, will still work with your games in 5 or 10 years. Try playing a 10 years old game on your current PC :-)
It seems to be easily available in Europe. I own a copy and ordered a second copy a few days ago on amazon.de. They had it in stock.
The game itself it pretty cool. The story mode is a lot of fun (with plenty of minigames, like four-way mole whacking), but a bit too easy. The music is mostly well done, with some of techno-styled Mario tracks.
For those who are interested, there's a new Tetris coming out for the DS. It sports online gaming, and multiplayer gaming for up to 10 players. Revo-europe.com has info and screenshots.
Can hardly wait :-)
To kill the used games market, companies like Sony could conceivably lock a game so it can only be used with one console. One way to do that would be to include a code with each game, which you then had to enter into your console to play the game. That code would be verified online and then locked to your console or online account, similar to an online game.
That would kill the used games market quite cleanly.
However, it would also be an extremely bad idea.
The more people own a console, the more attractive it becomes. That is because you can exchange games with your friends. I bought a Gamecube the day it came out. I own dozens of Cubes. Most of my friends bought Cubes, too, because they can lend games from me.
It must be a similar situation with the PS2, only even stronger. Since many people own PS2 consoles, the console becomes a lot more attractive to new buyers.
A console where you could not give games to your pals is a console which will fail for exactly this reason.
Now, you could argue that you don't want your customers to lend each other games, since they won't buy those games. I don't think this is a valid point, since:
Playing games is in many ways a social activity. You play games with other people, and you talk to other people about the games you play, you lend games to firneds. This is good for gaming, and locking games to consoles takes a lot of that social activity away, which makes the console a lot less attractive.
By killing second hand sales, gaming companies would kill a lot of what makes gaming interesting, and a lot of what makes people buy consoles in the first place.
I'd love to see a true GBA successor from Nintendo (with better graphics, analog sticks, and so on). I think the portable market can sustain at least two different architectures (see DS and PSP, which seems to be doing acceptably, despite the fact that there are pretty much no good games available for it). If you can own both of these markets, why not do it?
If Nintendo came out with a GBA successor in, say, a year, which would be both cheaper than the PSP and beat it graphics-wise, they might pick up a fair bit of market share without hurting the DS too much, since it is so unique.
People would still buy DS consoles for the games which can't be bought on any other console, and they would buy a GBA2 simply because it would be the newest, best portable console.
First of all, I specifically said "portable Nintendo consoles". Second, you can buy analog controllers if you want them. Third, the PS had no online gaming.
Fourth, yes, they are different consoles from the perspective of the developers, because now they have to target two different hardware sets. This is bad, because the big advantage of consoles is that developers can target a single set of hardware and always know what users own. Having the Xbox 360 with and without a hard disk is similarly stupid, by the way. As was the Sega CD and the N64 drive.
Hardware upgrades hardly ever work, and thus are hardly ever attempted, fortunately. Nintendo isn't quite as stupid as they used to be.
But then you'd have two different consoles, not only two different versions. Games would have to be made with both consoles in mind, and online gaming would become unfair since some players would be at an advantage.
Significantly changing the functionality of the console in a new version of the hardware is most likely not something which will ever happen with a Nintendo handheld. All Gameboy, GBC and GBA versions were essentially equal, only with different form factors and screens.
...if you're from Japan, that is. Seems in Japan, DS consoles are quite popular with the elder folks, since they like to play Brain Training on it. And I'm not kidding.
Let's see what happens once Nintendo releases that game over here.
Sounds like a good plan... if you're an asshole.
If GQD can make a profit reprinting the GC version of Resident Evil 3, why didn't Capcom do it itself? Is Capcom simply not willing to take the risk?
Obviously, paying exactly the damage you caused is generally not a good and suitable punishment. The punishment should fit the crime, not the monetary damage caused by the crime. Clearly, in some cases, the monetary penalty should be higher than the damage caused. It's also possible to see cases where it would be the other way around.
However, you should note that there's a difference between your example and the case here: He has to pay a whole lot more than a bit of gas.
There are of course cases where a monetary penalty - any monetary penalty - is not severe enough. To me, this particular case does not seem to be one of them.
Then why are you arguing that the company lost money and therefore he should go to jail? Seems to me the company didn't lose any money after all, and all Christmas bonuses are intact.
That's shortsighted, because in six month's time, he'll be out again, only now he won't be able to get a job because nobody will hire him after he's spent three months in prison. So instead of somebody who made a mistake, paid for it and returned to be a productive member of society, you really do have created a common vandal.
Of course, it's quite possible that you would want this to happen. If you think people don't deserve a second chance, or that the can't change, then it may be okay for society to accept more common vandals. I think people do deserve a second chance, and I think people can change.
Unfortunately, you aren't funny at all. If you were, at least I'd get a good laugh out of this.
Nobody here defended white colar crime. Nobody here claimed crime was okay. Nobody here asked that anyone should look the other way.
I merely questioned the punishment chosen for this particular crime. I did not question the punishment chosen for all white collar crimes or that white collar crimes should be punished. I did not question that he should be punished.
Really? Thank you, but I'd rather not.
And I doubt the harm he caused affected anyone's bonus. It probably took the company a few manhours to recover the data from backup, and it cost the person who was affected a day's work at most. That's a few thousand bucks of lost productivity, hardly a sum which makes any difference at the end of the quarter.
Besides, how exactly does sending him to jail give the company any of the money back? Can you give a better Christmas bonus because you sent him to jail?
I never advocated not punishing him. How about having him pay for the damage he caused instead of sending him to jail? That would be better for him and better for the company!
And how exactly does sending him to jail change any of that?
Oh, and while we're talking about Christmas bonuses: Isn't Christmas the time of forgiveness? Sending a person to jail because you might get half a buck less Christmas bonus hardly sounds very Christmas-y to me.
Is this a joke? Can you seriously not think of another way to punish him?
How about a monetary penality? Having him pay for the problems he caused?
I've seen lots of similar comments about how what he did was wrong and that he should therefore go to jail.
I don't think anyone claims what he did was not wrong, but jail time isn't the only answer our society has to crime. The question here is not whether what he did was wrong. The question is whether he should go to jail for it.
I say no. We already send too many people to jail. Generally, jail time is bad. It costs our society money, and it makes the situation worse for those spending the time in jail, and it makes our society worse because these people will most likely come out of the jail a worse person than when they went in.
This person here didn't harm anyone. He harmed a company. And he didn't do anything which can't be undone by recovering the data from a backup. Really, what he did was wrong, but it is hardly something worth putting him in jail for.
Yeah, and why don't people drive real cars instead of playing racing games? Why don't they enlist in the military instead of playing first person shooters? Why don't they jump on real turtles instead of playing Mario?
Geez, it's a game. It's not a dog replacement. I'm getting tired of reading this same stupid comment in each Nintendogs article.
Anway, I've written about this before here and here, so I won't repeat those arguments.
Uhm... Nintendo isn't losing. They made a conscious decision to have slower hardware. They weren't forced to have slower hardware. They decided on it.
It's a tradeoff: If you want the fastest hardware, get a PS3. If you want adequate hardware at a lower price with a funny controller, get the Revolution.
Neither of them wins, it's a design decision.
Because you can't play those games using only one hand. The Revolution should change that.
I know the "one-hand-thing" sounds like a joke, but I'm actually pretty serious. If I'm playing games, I don't want to be constantly distracted by naked women. Not because I don't like naked women, but because I can't concentrate on playing the game while there are naked women on the screen. And if I want to see naked women, I don't want to have to play a game in order to see them.
Oh, they probably do understand the language. Just not your language.
Maybe you should try talking to them in C? :-)
What patent?
Anyway, since WebKit is open source, so is most of Dashboard.
Threby making sure that people won't have to use Mac OS X anymore?
And why would they do that?
Look, if you're claiming that ads influence game ratings at major sites or magazines, you need a bit more than "the results are predictable". Do you have any evidence at all?
First of all, the review was bad, so your whole "ads influence reviews" idea doesn't work. Second, you don't read a lot of gaming mags, do you? 50% means "crap". 70% means "meh, okay", 80% means "good", 90% means "great". Scores below 50% are usually reserved for games which not only play crappy, but also have bugs or technical problems or crappy graphics. Lunar has none of that.
Are you seriously asking me what's special about The Sims? First you claim that Gun was more important than Nintendogs, now you don't understand what's special about The Sims?
Anyway, let me ask you this: Why the heck do you think Gun is special? What exactly is special about GTA in the wild west?
Haha, now you're just funny. Or sad. Seriously, if your idea of a grown up is "sombody with better things to do than play with virtual pets", then, well, grow up. Either your friends are so busy that they don't play games at all, or they're just juvenile. Only juveniles care about looking like adults. Adults play what they like, even if it involves virtual pets.
Oh well, I think it's pointless to discuss this particular idea any further. If you think that you can judge a universally acclaimed game like Nintendogs after playing it for two minutes on a system somebody else set up, more power to you. The rest of the world pretty much disagrees, but whatever floats your boat.
User reviews and blog reviews for the game were just as positive, not to mention that any serious magazine has different divisions handling ads and content. The people writing the reviews usually don't even know if the studies involved with the games they're reviewing have bought ads in the mag, until the actually read the mag after it goes to print.
But you're just proving what I said. Lunar is a bad game. They wrote a bad review and gave it a rating which is below most of their ratings. So the reviewing process works.
Obviously, you didn't play The Sims for too long either, because The Sims, while not having a winning condition, has a Goal. Nintendogs is even better: Not only does it have goals, it even has winning conditions! Of course, you only played it for two minutes and never found out about that, but still thought you should post to /. about what a crappy game Nintendogs is compared to Gun.
That you didn't even understand the basic game mechanics of Nintendogs doesn't really speak in favor of your opinion.
And for the record, I don't like The Sims, either. But that doesn't mean I'm going to claim it's not and important game, or not a good game, because it's both important and good. It's just not something that interests me personally.
I'm surprised you even have one, considering the people you seem to hang out with.
Okay, sorry, cheap shot :-)
Well. I don't know how to put this without insulting you, but really... dismissing a game - any game - after two minutes of playtime is just stupid.
Especially if it's a game like Nintendogs. When playing Nintendogs for two minutes, you either didn't get to the real game (as buying a dog takes quite a bit more than two minutes) or you played with a dog somebody else "set up", which makes the whole thing pretty pointless to begin with as the dog couldn't possibly have been able to recognize your voice.
The first two minutes of almost any game are boring. I recently started playing Final Fantasy, which most people agree is a pretty good game. Guess what, doring the first half hour of gaming, nothing actually happens. Broken Sword, which is an utterly awesome game, only starts to become interesting after about an hour of playtime. If you're really dismissing a game after only two minutes, you're not a gamer.
That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact that all magazines seem to agree that this game is better than most other games. Frankly, I value the opinion of these people - people who get to play all new games, play them for quite some time and then rate them based on their experience - somewhat more than the opinion of somebody who played the game for two frickin' minutes.
Uh-huh. You probably decided that the Sims sucked after two minutes, too. And as for The Sims being pointless... Look, all games are pointless. They're games. Gun is just as pointless as The Sims. If you want something which isn't pointless, read a physics book. Or go kiss your girlfriend. Or go buy flowers for your mum. But don't whine about games being pointless. All of them are. That's why we play them. To get away from all the real stuff.
No, me liking it doesn't make it important, just as you disliking it doesn't make it unimportant. Nintendogs isn't important because I like it. It's important because most people like it, and because it's different, and because it changed a lot of people's perception of games and of Nintendo.
Wouldn't you agree that dismissing a game after playing it for 2 minutes - especially a game which got an average rating of 85% (per gamerankings) - could be just a tad premature?
Look, you can't possibly have seen more than a few % of the game after playing it for 2 minutes, and that's not even taking into account that the whole idea of Nintendogs is that you buy, name, train and play with your own dog in the game, not with a dog somebody else set up on a display unit.