I have both XL2 and Nemesis and must say I enjoy Nemesis MUCH more, although I haven't had much time to play either much yet. Nemesis is something different, where XL2 feels like just an expansion pack.
I don't see why reviewers are hating:
similar character controls - yes certain characters control very similarly, but guess what.... THEY ARE SIMILAR!!! The important differences are deffinately here: the Hulk controls like a lumbering giant, Spiderman whizzes around like a freaking bug, and Storm flies around like a goddess. I think they nailed the control mechanics.
Color/Lighting - I've never seen anything quite like what was done in this game. It's sort of a cross between cell shading and standard 3D, I think it looks similar to modern-day comic art. I like it, but everyone is entightled to their opinion.
Not to mention the wonderful character models(good bump mapping!!!!), perfect use of sounds/audio, and best character animations I've ever seen.
Turns out Copy protection schemes just don't sell very well (exception: IPod.. not the rule).
I bought my iPod before DRMed AAC; there was an upgrade later so you could play AAC and DRMed AAC files on the iPod. The only DRM on my iPod when I got it was a sticker on the screen saying "Don't steal music". It was only after the iPod exploded onto the scene that Apple expanded it from being an MP3/WAV only device.
This is a good way to send a message to the slashdot mangement. If no one even looks at his postings eventually he'll be fired. I just took Zonk off my acceptable authors.
With the $45 NDS Dev Kit + Compact Flash card and an original copy of hexen or heretic you can play DS Heretic or
DS Hexen. I only have an 8MB GBA flashcart which isn't enough space to try these out...
The total cost is about the same as 2 DS games, plus you can now watch movies and do all the cool homebrew stuff on your DS.
The article was pretty pro-microsoft until the last quote:
"The volume of data in Enchant Arms won't fit into a single DVD. It's an RPG, so we're thinking it would be inevitable that we release it on two discs," says Takeuchi. "But to be honest, that's even looking grim."
Multiple disks are one sure fire way to ruin a player's immersion in a game world.
The DS's firmware isn't flashable in it's normal form, so games can NEVER update the firmware to stop hacks. Once something is working on your DS it will work forever no matter what game you buy in the future.You can still flash the firmware to get rid of the stupid epilepsy warning and allow DS code to run from the GBA cart.
The red DSs that were just released in China and Japan have an updated firmware that disables older hacks, but those have already been worked around.
Mario Kart is still coming out in November of this year. Metroid could be good, but I don't see it being great, but the game I'm really jonesing for is the Zelda for DS which should be out sometime in 2006.
Re:The Borg Jokes Are Dead
on
MS & Game Rentals
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Wow Bill looks old in that picture... He's turning 50 in October but I'd think someone that rich wouldn't be showing their age that much.
"But, the fracturing will occur well after launch, over the course of five years."
You could be right, but if MS expects to give the HD-DVD disc format a fighting chance then they have to release the 360 HD-DVD version next year. The PS3 and 360 are the vehicles to get HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movie players into households. If MS waits till 2007 they would be better off upgrading to a Blu-Ray drive.
"Rare makes some awesome games, and have proved that they don't need Nintendo for that."
Which game has "proved" they don't need Nintendo: Conker Live and Reloaded where they port a classic N64 title and F#$CK up the camera positioning, or Grabbed by the Ghoulies? I was a HUGE Rare fan, but their current stuff is crap.
I am also planning on the Revolution being my next console, although not fer at least a couple years.
In any case. I seriously doubt there are any Windows 95/DOS games that don't work on XP. If you're having problems, try DOSbox.
Some Win9X games that just won't run on XP include NHL 99, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000, and Starship Titanic. Hell, Microsoft accidently broke Halo with XP-SP2.
Having multiple versions fractures the market, which means that a lot of the cooler stuff that says "XBox 360 compatible" is going to have an asterisks after it.
Microsoft already announced that the 360 will be upgraded "in the future" with HD-DVD and now this article confirms that there will be a version of the 360 without a hard drive. So, if you buy a 360 at launch you are paying a premium for a console with hard disk which games will not utilize, and a DVD drive that will be outdated soon. This isn't like the Nintendo's GameBoy, the original GameBoy had a LONG run before fracturing into multiple versions(color,pocket), same with the GBA(SP,mini), and the PS2(IR upgrade,PStwo).
It's not quite what you were asking for but I use the Image Zoom plugin for firefox and it lets you right click on any image and blow it up. This has advantages and drawbacks over Opera's zoom, but for me it's better than Opera's zoom.
I really doubt it,
Simpler games would no longer have a market in "official" PSP games. While Lumines is a great game, could you see buying it for $40 when 1000 variations of tetris are available for free? This would also hold true for any genre that could be made by homebrew authors.
Homebrew games would be competing directly with the official titles. If one good homebrew game came out in each major genre I could easily see a LOT of PSPs sold without a single game sale.
How does allowing homebrew software ever net Sony profit?
Allowing customer returns sacrafices profits in the short term so that profits increase in the long term because of return shopping(most stores make sure of this by only allowing store credit on returns). Allowing unsigned code on the PSP increases losses in the short term AND decreases profits in the long run due to less game sales.
I could see Sony allowing homebrew like they did with the PS2, as an expensive Linux add-on. Although this time all they would have to include is a UMD disc that loads code off a memory stick.
Nope, the same support for older games since the begining. A few PS1 games don't work, but something like 99.5% do. The PS2 isn't emulating PS1 games, the chip that handles the controllers and memory cards on the PS2 is a PS1.
I currently have a modded XBox and that list of gamecube games is exactly what is influencing my decision right now. I hope Nintendo's emulation strategy carries over to the DS, at least for NES and SNES titles.
Wow, your an ass...
I'm not a big enough XBox fanboy to know who Major Nelson was either. However after looking it up your "confirmation" is still ridiculous. Someone who works on XBox Live grabbed a PR dude and the PR dude said "Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360". The blog was written to dispel rumors that you would have to "purchase a new 'version'" of your original games for them to work on the 360. It was also written 2.5 months ago when MS first announced backwards compatibility was going to make it into the 360 for sure.
"I highly doubt wine has a hardware emulation layer, since a huge percentage of desktop Linux boxes are x86 or some compatible 64-bit architecture"
Wine doesn't really have a hardware emulation level when running on x86, but when running on different architecture
QEMU can be used as a hardware emulation layer under wine.
"I'm fairly sure a 3+Ghz chip can emulate a 733Mhz one (celeron, not PIII, by the way), especially one with a smaller instruction set like x86("
The x86 has a MUCH larger instruction set than PowerPC RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computer) CPU, you have that backwards. The Celeron in the XBox only differs from a PIII in that it has half the cache(128K vs 256K), but you are correct that it is a Celeron.
"My parents 133Mhz celeron can emulate an N64, which is much more specialised and not-computer-like than the 360 will be, and my PC can do it plus some heavy texture up-scaling and anti-aliasing)."
UltraHLE and many other N64 emulators are special cases. UltraHLE is more API emulation than hardware emulation, but this is only because the most N64 games used a VERY narrow set of instructions, any game that did anything exotic has to be specially tweeked.
"Yes, [the 360's CPU is] simplistic, but so is the xbox CPU, and I'd guess that they're limited in mostly the same areas."
HA! The PIII Celeron is still a relatively modern desktop CPU with MMX and SSE, which deals with generic code with good branch prediction and out-of-order execution. This is exactly the stuff that was left out on the 360's CPU which will need very finely tuned code to perform well.
"The reason wine devs have so much trouble making wine work is that they don't know how windows works."
Yes, Microsoft is the best qualified company to rewrite Windows, but Windows is also probably the largest collection of kludges ever. Reimplimenting just the XBox's implementation of DirectX7 100% accurately would be an amazing feat.
"$10? Is that supposed to make you seem sure of yourself?"
Nope, but a wager would make this a lot more interesting, how about it?
Another problem is that the authors of this article apparently doesn't understand console emulation, which is why their estimated playable titles number ("let's speculate that number is somewhere between five and 20") is so ridiculous.
It's likely Microsoft is going to need to take a less orthodox route to emulating the XBox than most game emulators take. Emulators fall into two basic categories:
Hardware Emulation:
Very compatible but also very slow, this is the route almost all game emulators take. The aim is to emulate the system's hardware, chip by chip and run the same software on top of this that the console would have run.
API Emulation:
Generally very fast, very buggy, and also very complicated. The idea is to intercept all API calls and translate them to native calls. There is usually a hardware emulation layer to fall back to when a call can't be translated. Famous emulators of this type include Wine and Executor
It's VERY unlikely Microsoft could simply emulate every chip in the XBox1, the 360's CPU is simply not that powerful. It is impossible to emulate one CPU across multiple cores, so the 360 would be emulating a PIII 733MHz on a single core. The clock speed of the 360 is impressive but the chip is EXTREMELY simplistic, it doesn't even support out of order execution. Microsoft would also need to license a lot of patents from NVidia to emulate the GPU. This leaves Microsoft stuck rewriting Wine from scratch before November, and tweeking the emulator for each and every game.
I will bet you $10US that less than 20 games for the original XBox are officially supported on the XBox 360 by Microsoft when it launches in November.
Almost exactly correct, DVI and HDMI do differ in that DVI does not support interlaced modes while HDMI does. So if your console only supports 1080i and not 1080p(like the current XBox and the XBox 360) then you are going to have to go down to 720p for the signal to work on DVI. Requiring progressive scan video isn't a huge drawback since progressive scan looks crisper than interlaced. HDMI video can be connected to DVI with a simple bit of wire (no conversion circuitry required).
The 360 is lacking HDMI, trumpeting Hi-Def on a console with only an analog signal just seems wrong. Component Hi-Def is basically VGA where HDMI is basically DVI.
1080p isn't really higher resolution than 1080i, but it should look prettier. I personally want HDMI so that I can easily hook stuff up to my DVI monitor.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why reviewers are hating:
- similar character controls - yes certain characters control very similarly, but guess what.... THEY ARE SIMILAR!!! The important differences are deffinately here: the Hulk controls like a lumbering giant, Spiderman whizzes around like a freaking bug, and Storm flies around like a goddess. I think they nailed the control mechanics.
- Color/Lighting - I've never seen anything quite like what was done in this game. It's sort of a cross between cell shading and standard 3D, I think it looks similar to modern-day comic art. I like it, but everyone is entightled to their opinion.
Not to mention the wonderful character models(good bump mapping!!!!), perfect use of sounds/audio, and best character animations I've ever seen.Turns out Copy protection schemes just don't sell very well (exception: IPod .. not the rule).
I bought my iPod before DRMed AAC; there was an upgrade later so you could play AAC and DRMed AAC files on the iPod. The only DRM on my iPod when I got it was a sticker on the screen saying "Don't steal music". It was only after the iPod exploded onto the scene that Apple expanded it from being an MP3/WAV only device.
I forgot to mention the best thing about getting the NDS dev kit; you can reflash your firmware to get rid of that annoying epilepsy warning.
This is a good way to send a message to the slashdot mangement. If no one even looks at his postings eventually he'll be fired. I just took Zonk off my acceptable authors.
With the $45 NDS Dev Kit + Compact Flash card and an original copy of hexen or heretic you can play DS Heretic or DS Hexen. I only have an 8MB GBA flashcart which isn't enough space to try these out...
The total cost is about the same as 2 DS games, plus you can now watch movies and do all the cool homebrew stuff on your DS.
um....
8 disks
The DS's firmware isn't flashable in it's normal form, so games can NEVER update the firmware to stop hacks. Once something is working on your DS it will work forever no matter what game you buy in the future.You can still flash the firmware to get rid of the stupid epilepsy warning and allow DS code to run from the GBA cart.
The red DSs that were just released in China and Japan have an updated firmware that disables older hacks, but those have already been worked around.
Mario Kart is still coming out in November of this year. Metroid could be good, but I don't see it being great, but the game I'm really jonesing for is the Zelda for DS which should be out sometime in 2006.
Wow Bill looks old in that picture... He's turning 50 in October but I'd think someone that rich wouldn't be showing their age that much.
"But, the fracturing will occur well after launch, over the course of five years."
You could be right, but if MS expects to give the HD-DVD disc format a fighting chance then they have to release the 360 HD-DVD version next year. The PS3 and 360 are the vehicles to get HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movie players into households. If MS waits till 2007 they would be better off upgrading to a Blu-Ray drive.
"Rare makes some awesome games, and have proved that they don't need Nintendo for that."
Which game has "proved" they don't need Nintendo: Conker Live and Reloaded where they port a classic N64 title and F#$CK up the camera positioning, or Grabbed by the Ghoulies? I was a HUGE Rare fan, but their current stuff is crap.
I am also planning on the Revolution being my next console, although not fer at least a couple years.
In any case. I seriously doubt there are any Windows 95/DOS games that don't work on XP. If you're having problems, try DOSbox.
Some Win9X games that just won't run on XP include NHL 99, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000, and Starship Titanic. Hell, Microsoft accidently broke Halo with XP-SP2.
Having multiple versions fractures the market, which means that a lot of the cooler stuff that says "XBox 360 compatible" is going to have an asterisks after it.
Microsoft already announced that the 360 will be upgraded "in the future" with HD-DVD and now this article confirms that there will be a version of the 360 without a hard drive. So, if you buy a 360 at launch you are paying a premium for a console with hard disk which games will not utilize, and a DVD drive that will be outdated soon. This isn't like the Nintendo's GameBoy, the original GameBoy had a LONG run before fracturing into multiple versions(color,pocket), same with the GBA(SP,mini), and the PS2(IR upgrade,PStwo).
It's not quite what you were asking for but I use the Image Zoom plugin for firefox and it lets you right click on any image and blow it up. This has advantages and drawbacks over Opera's zoom, but for me it's better than Opera's zoom.
I really doubt it,
Simpler games would no longer have a market in "official" PSP games. While Lumines is a great game, could you see buying it for $40 when 1000 variations of tetris are available for free? This would also hold true for any genre that could be made by homebrew authors.
Homebrew games would be competing directly with the official titles. If one good homebrew game came out in each major genre I could easily see a LOT of PSPs sold without a single game sale.
How does allowing homebrew software ever net Sony profit?
Allowing customer returns sacrafices profits in the short term so that profits increase in the long term because of return shopping(most stores make sure of this by only allowing store credit on returns). Allowing unsigned code on the PSP increases losses in the short term AND decreases profits in the long run due to less game sales.
I could see Sony allowing homebrew like they did with the PS2, as an expensive Linux add-on. Although this time all they would have to include is a UMD disc that loads code off a memory stick.
Nope, the same support for older games since the begining. A few PS1 games don't work, but something like 99.5% do. The PS2 isn't emulating PS1 games, the chip that handles the controllers and memory cards on the PS2 is a PS1.
I currently have a modded XBox and that list of gamecube games is exactly what is influencing my decision right now. I hope Nintendo's emulation strategy carries over to the DS, at least for NES and SNES titles.
Wow, your an ass...
I'm not a big enough XBox fanboy to know who Major Nelson was either. However after looking it up your "confirmation" is still ridiculous. Someone who works on XBox Live grabbed a PR dude and the PR dude said "Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360". The blog was written to dispel rumors that you would have to "purchase a new 'version'" of your original games for them to work on the 360. It was also written 2.5 months ago when MS first announced backwards compatibility was going to make it into the 360 for sure.
The anonymous source said it was true, so it must be!!!
Almost exactly correct, DVI and HDMI do differ in that DVI does not support interlaced modes while HDMI does. So if your console only supports 1080i and not 1080p(like the current XBox and the XBox 360) then you are going to have to go down to 720p for the signal to work on DVI. Requiring progressive scan video isn't a huge drawback since progressive scan looks crisper than interlaced. HDMI video can be connected to DVI with a simple bit of wire (no conversion circuitry required).
and the sound as you said.
The 360 is lacking HDMI, trumpeting Hi-Def on a console with only an analog signal just seems wrong. Component Hi-Def is basically VGA where HDMI is basically DVI.
MS has said that they may include HDMI sometime in the future. HDMI is currently planned to be a requirment for Hi-Def HD-DVD players, so it makes sense that whenever the 360 gets it's HD-DVD drive it will also be upgraded to output digital HDTV(HDMI) and support 1080p.
1080p isn't really higher resolution than 1080i, but it should look prettier. I personally want HDMI so that I can easily hook stuff up to my DVI monitor.