About the only thing Action Quake II and CS have in common is a (relatively) realistic damage model. Headshots kill, arm shots hurt less then torso, etc.
Action Quake was John Woo style action. It was probably most popular in free for all modes where you'd shoot at everything that moves.
Whereas CounterStrike is... we all know how CounterStrike is.
Sega couldn't possibly be doing something worse. For a company in financial trouble, the arcade isn't exactly a great place to be. Business is down exponentially.
I hope it all works out for Sega. The games they put out are consistently the most fun and original on the market. This doesn't seem to be a good move though.
This movie backs off from the controversial religion-bashing of Dogma
It's as if he sat down and thought about what statement he could possibly get the MOST wrong.
Dogma is anything but bashing religion. What Dogma criticizes is the way some people choose to blindly worship the church. This, like most things, upset the church. Dogma is actually a very pro religion film, albeit one with plenty of good dick and fart jokes. The message Kevin wanted you to take away from the film is believe in god because you think it's right, not because some old institution tells you to.
What nobody seems to be bringing up is that a Sims TV show is a horrendous idea. The Sims simulates boring everyday life. This is not a good idea to make a show out of, even with the gimmick of using user-made characters.
I have to stand back, just dumbfounded that somebody actually greenlighted this show. I refuse to beleive there's no better pilots being shopped around. I guess this is -1 troll but does anyone have any interest in seeing this show?
Maybe if the movie was about necromancers and wizards defeating endless waves of skeletons in dungeons and searching for rare items or something, Blizzard may have a case. But according to the IMDB it's just about a drug cartel and a man nicknamed Diablo.
I can't design a game called 'Satan' and expect no movie to ever use his name.
How long is it before someone cracks it? Given the high profile of the case I imagine there will be a crack for it at some level within a week. Maybe less.
It'll take a while, but soon enough the crack will be mainstream. Napster's around for a bit longer.
I posted it as a reply to another thread, but now I'm going to make it it's own. Don't be surprised if I get repetitive.
Yes, there's a lot of games that put style above substance. Last year's Mortyr is a textbook example. But there loads of games coming out all the time that manage to have gameplay despite thier state of the art graphics.
Last year's the Sims is easily one of the most original games I've ever played (and yes there have been other "life simulators" but nothing does it even close to as well as The Sims). No goals, no big bosses, no leveling up, just a game.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Series - These games are just raw gameplay. I still freeskate all the time just because it's fun, not because of the skater's poly count.
CounterStrike - Took the stale state of multiplayer FPSs, and with no corporate funding broke every convention we know. According to GameSpy It's now played more then Quake III and Unreal Tournament combined and those games had millions backing them.
Nintendo should in no way have the right to insult the current state of the game industry. They're system caters to a certain crowd (adolescents and pre-adolescents) and it does it very well. But fact is in the system's entire life span they have had maybe 5 games worth the money it costs to buy them. And 3 of them were based on already established Nintendo characters. When Nintendo (not Rare, Nintendo) releases a solid game that doesn't star a character from their 8-bit glory days, then they can talk.
I'm so sick of seeing this complaint. It's like saying every movie since 1927 has merely been a vehicle for talking and you'll only watch movies from before that because that's when the writers would really focus on the plot. There are plenty of fun games that also happen to have advanced graphics.
Metal Gear Solid has incredible, state of the art graphics. Sure the game was more complex then Pitfall, but did that make it bad? Of course not. It was a fantastic game. Now it wasn't good because of the graphics, it was good because it was a tight, well told adventure. The graphics were just the metaphorical icing on the cake.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 are another example. They are just instant classics and for pure fun factor they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Mario Kart and Metroid. Both are as addictive as crack, and incredibly fun. Despite throughly beating the hell out of Tony Hawk 2 15 times, I still go back and play around in the free skate mode because it's just raw gameplay. Sure, there's pretty graphics too, but I don't keep coming back becuase of the polygon count in the skaters.
Again, old Atrai games are fun. But don't write off any game made in the past ten years just because there's a handfull that are style over substance. There's plenty that are a solid combination of both.
I agree, sort of. This could present other options to Napster far beyond what it seems though. If a small record label wanted their fair share, they could register with Napster. Mabey a payment-per-download system for non RIAA musicians. Napster, could in effect, nullify the Big Five when the contract expires. Musicans could just sign with Napster, with no contractural obligations, (other than Napsters agreement to pay the musicians), allow their music to be distributed on Napster, and still keep whatever other sponsors and promotors they would like to manage things like concerts and the like, and never have to deal with the RIAA co's to gain notoriety or distribution. Napster, in many ways, could become the next Big Five.
How long then before Napster becomes the evil empire controlling our music?
How can Napster possibly hope to stay in buisness if they do this?
Wait... where are they getting money from in the first place? They're all over the news, but I don't see any ads in the program or anything.
I know there were several groups funding their legal fees, but where are they gonna raise a billion dollars?
In a case like this, I imagine the RIAA would pick one of the bigger OpenNap servers and make an example by taking them to court. I'm sure some guy with a DSL line won't be able to put up with the RIAA's unlimited legal fees, and most other OpenNap servers would fear the worst and close.
Not to troll or anything, but as far as I can tell your website is just a rip off of AmIHotOrNot, with the word "bangable" instead of "hot".
I'd like to see this work. I know if Something Awful or X-Entertainment put a tipbox up, I'll be first in line to send a buck or two their way.
-Jeff
Re:My Generation's "Kennedy was Shot" moment
on
The Challenger
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· Score: 1
I was born in 1982 and don't remember the Challeneger explosion. This does bring up the interesting question of what my generations defining moment is. We (thankfully) don't really a tragedy like this to relate to.
I'm not sure what this says about society, but I think the OJ car chase might very well be the defining moment of my generation.
I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.
For the time being, we don't all have broadband connections, but the MPAA knows that's not to far off in the future. They're trying to kill DivX off now before it gets to widespread.
Finally, let's say DivX;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.
That's probably what the RIAA was thinking when they didn't worry about MP3s a few years ago. Scour may be down for now, but sooner then you think getting movies will be just as easy as getting MP3s is now. Most people won't venture into the slums of New York for bootleg videos, but the beauty of the Internet is being able to access the slums from your very own home.
Don't think I'm trying to condemn DivX. A tight, high quality video standard has a lot more uses then just video piracy. Plus it's fun to see the Internet community make a better product then Microsoft.
Maybe "video game rock stars" would have been a more appropriate phrase. You're right Kojima didn't do the actual programming, but he did bring the whole thing together. Can anybody name who actually operated the cameras on Hitchcock's films?
Actually, I'm sure someone can. But you get the point.
Game programmers are already becoming more and more recognizable by name. Carmack, Romero, Sweeny, Steed, McGee, and basically anyone who worked on Doom are now actual names who people recognize and associate with qualtiy. The general public may not know the name Carmack, but with the age of the average gamer rising every year, it's not unlikely video games will eventually become an accepted art form like film is today. And with them, the programmers will become what I call "programming rock stars".
If this happens, Metal Gear Solid will be seen as a milestone in videogame art and Hideo Kojima as the electronic Buster Keaton. Metal Gear Solid already has better plot, character development and action then a good percentage of movies today.
American McGee's Alice has levels that rival any film I've seen this year. The gameplay is mediocre at best, but the backgrounds rival anything I've seen on the big screen in recent memory. Old Man Murray called it "the first pretentious art house video game". The description's not far off.
Other notable games that have more atmosphere then most Hollywood prouction include Silent Hill (which is creepier then your grandfather naked), Street Fighter (which has developed an excellent backstory), and Resident Evil (B-movie atmosphere, but atmosphere none the less).
In any case, it should be interesting to see Romero handle the e-paparazzi.
For example, I liked the game Quarantine for the PC. You're a taxi driver taking people around a futuristic city that's filled with psychos and diseased people (yeah, I'm pretty twisted, get used to it). I'm 99.99% sure they haven't sold a copy of this in 3 or 4 years, so why not throw it on a FTP or web site somewhere with a new license and make it available to anyone who wants it?
The problem is that these FTPs don't just come out of nowhere. Someone has to pay for the box to run it on, the bandwith it takes, etc. While whoever made Quarantine might not mind you getting it for free at this point, I doubt they are willing to pay for you to do it.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
The problem here is that while most games don't sell after 4 or 5 years, some do. What about Myst, Duke Nukem 3D or Doom? They don't top the charts anymore, but I'm sure are purchased throughout the country. What about games that are sold years later in compilation packages? Sierra had one of these a year or two ago with all the King's Quests and old Roberta Williams games whose copyrights would have run out under your system. I beleive id has one of these too.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you in the case of Quarantine, but if they have to protect the copywrites of the few companies who want to commercially sell their games five years later.
While the 6th Day is obviously no Blade Runner or Dark City, it's certainly not as empty a movie as some of you are making it out to be.
Obviously when you pay 9 bucks to to see an Arnold movie, you're paying to watch the stuff blow up. But like Total Recall before it, the Sixth Day does contain some surprisingly poignant scenes. (spoilers coming up)
The scene when clone Adam (Schwarzenegger) discovers that he is the clone
is surprising. Sure it's no Keyser Soze plot twist, but the scene made me wonder if I died and my family cloned me, would I even know? It's also surpsing that a major Hollywood movie let's us follow around the clone and grow attached to him, when it turns out he is in fact the imposter he is trying to kill.
Drucker's death scene (the bad guy) is long and about as subtle as a meat
hammer, but it's then that Drucker realizes he's not going to be eternal. Someone else who is just like him is going to be having all the fun. The eternal life is to everybody else, not yourself.
When Drucker kills Dr. Weir (Duvall) I had to question if what he was
doing was so bad. The doctor and his wife would be happily back together,
she wouldn't have cystic fibrosis, the doctor would still have the love of
his life and they both would be happy. But then again I'm a firm believer
that ignorance sometimes is bliss.
The movie isn't going to win any awards for the script, but you can't write it off as intellectually devoid simply because it has some explosions. The 6th Day manages to be one of those rare mixes of philosophy and ass-kicking, with a bit more emphasis on the ass-kicking.
I mean, what fun would it be if Arnold just talked Drucker down from that roof. Chasing him with a helicopter rotor is a lot more fun.
I think it's only a matter of time until Nintendo goes software only. They stand to make mad cash money bling bling if they release a Mario for an already established system. The only halfway decent games for the N64 were all developed by either Nintendo or Rare. You need more third party support then that to win the console wars.
Sure a new Metroid will likely be fantastic, but what Nintendo needs is a new great game. I hope there's a ZeldaCube, MarioCube, KirbyCube, etc. but it's time for Nintendo to move beyond their old NES characters.
Pokemon, of course is the exception, but I think Nintendo may be banking a little to heavily on the annoying vermin. Obviously Pokemon's target audience is going to grow up some time. The game isn't ageless like Mario.
And then where Nintendo be? Well they'll have some of the most talented game developers every and the best video game properties of all time. Why not develop for Sony?
They will however likely stay in the handheld market. They seem to have the monopoly there, and with GameBoy Advance looking solid I don't see them losing that anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
About the only thing Action Quake II and CS have in common is a (relatively) realistic damage model. Headshots kill, arm shots hurt less then torso, etc.
Action Quake was John Woo style action. It was probably most popular in free for all modes where you'd shoot at everything that moves.
Whereas CounterStrike is... we all know how CounterStrike is.
Sam & Max 2 is on the horizon too.
first post w00 i love bcp 7 days!
I hope it all works out for Sega. The games they put out are consistently the most fun and original on the market. This doesn't seem to be a good move though.
It's as if he sat down and thought about what statement he could possibly get the MOST wrong.
Dogma is anything but bashing religion. What Dogma criticizes is the way some people choose to blindly worship the church. This, like most things, upset the church. Dogma is actually a very pro religion film, albeit one with plenty of good dick and fart jokes. The message Kevin wanted you to take away from the film is believe in god because you think it's right, not because some old institution tells you to.
I have to stand back, just dumbfounded that somebody actually greenlighted this show. I refuse to beleive there's no better pilots being shopped around. I guess this is -1 troll but does anyone have any interest in seeing this show?
-Jeff
Maybe if the movie was about necromancers and wizards defeating endless waves of skeletons in dungeons and searching for rare items or something, Blizzard may have a case. But according to the IMDB it's just about a drug cartel and a man nicknamed Diablo.
I can't design a game called 'Satan' and expect no movie to ever use his name.
-Jeff
It'll take a while, but soon enough the crack will be mainstream. Napster's around for a bit longer.
Until they start charging me anyways.
-Jeff
Yes, there's a lot of games that put style above substance. Last year's Mortyr is a textbook example. But there loads of games coming out all the time that manage to have gameplay despite thier state of the art graphics.
Last year's the Sims is easily one of the most original games I've ever played (and yes there have been other "life simulators" but nothing does it even close to as well as The Sims). No goals, no big bosses, no leveling up, just a game.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Series - These games are just raw gameplay. I still freeskate all the time just because it's fun, not because of the skater's poly count.
CounterStrike - Took the stale state of multiplayer FPSs, and with no corporate funding broke every convention we know. According to GameSpy It's now played more then Quake III and Unreal Tournament combined and those games had millions backing them.
Nintendo should in no way have the right to insult the current state of the game industry. They're system caters to a certain crowd (adolescents and pre-adolescents) and it does it very well. But fact is in the system's entire life span they have had maybe 5 games worth the money it costs to buy them. And 3 of them were based on already established Nintendo characters. When Nintendo (not Rare, Nintendo) releases a solid game that doesn't star a character from their 8-bit glory days, then they can talk.
-Jeff
Metal Gear Solid has incredible, state of the art graphics. Sure the game was more complex then Pitfall, but did that make it bad? Of course not. It was a fantastic game. Now it wasn't good because of the graphics, it was good because it was a tight, well told adventure. The graphics were just the metaphorical icing on the cake.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 are another example. They are just instant classics and for pure fun factor they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Mario Kart and Metroid. Both are as addictive as crack, and incredibly fun. Despite throughly beating the hell out of Tony Hawk 2 15 times, I still go back and play around in the free skate mode because it's just raw gameplay. Sure, there's pretty graphics too, but I don't keep coming back becuase of the polygon count in the skaters.
Again, old Atrai games are fun. But don't write off any game made in the past ten years just because there's a handfull that are style over substance. There's plenty that are a solid combination of both.
-Jeff
How long then before Napster becomes the evil empire controlling our music?
-Jeff
How can Napster possibly hope to stay in buisness if they do this? Wait... where are they getting money from in the first place? They're all over the news, but I don't see any ads in the program or anything. I know there were several groups funding their legal fees, but where are they gonna raise a billion dollars?
-Jeff
In a case like this, I imagine the RIAA would pick one of the bigger OpenNap servers and make an example by taking them to court. I'm sure some guy with a DSL line won't be able to put up with the RIAA's unlimited legal fees, and most other OpenNap servers would fear the worst and close.
-Jeff
I'd like to see this work. I know if Something Awful or X-Entertainment put a tipbox up, I'll be first in line to send a buck or two their way.
-Jeff
I was born in 1982 and don't remember the Challeneger explosion. This does bring up the interesting question of what my generations defining moment is. We (thankfully) don't really a tragedy like this to relate to.
I'm not sure what this says about society, but I think the OJ car chase might very well be the defining moment of my generation.
-Jeff
For the time being, we don't all have broadband connections, but the MPAA knows that's not to far off in the future. They're trying to kill DivX off now before it gets to widespread.
Finally, let's say DivX ;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.
That's probably what the RIAA was thinking when they didn't worry about MP3s a few years ago. Scour may be down for now, but sooner then you think getting movies will be just as easy as getting MP3s is now. Most people won't venture into the slums of New York for bootleg videos, but the beauty of the Internet is being able to access the slums from your very own home.
Don't think I'm trying to condemn DivX. A tight, high quality video standard has a lot more uses then just video piracy. Plus it's fun to see the Internet community make a better product then Microsoft.
-Jeff
Actually, I'm sure someone can. But you get the point.
-Jeff
If this happens, Metal Gear Solid will be seen as a milestone in videogame art and Hideo Kojima as the electronic Buster Keaton. Metal Gear Solid already has better plot, character development and action then a good percentage of movies today.
American McGee's Alice has levels that rival any film I've seen this year. The gameplay is mediocre at best, but the backgrounds rival anything I've seen on the big screen in recent memory. Old Man Murray called it "the first pretentious art house video game". The description's not far off.
Other notable games that have more atmosphere then most Hollywood prouction include Silent Hill (which is creepier then your grandfather naked), Street Fighter (which has developed an excellent backstory), and Resident Evil (B-movie atmosphere, but atmosphere none the less).
In any case, it should be interesting to see Romero handle the e-paparazzi.
-Jeff
The problem is that these FTPs don't just come out of nowhere. Someone has to pay for the box to run it on, the bandwith it takes, etc. While whoever made Quarantine might not mind you getting it for free at this point, I doubt they are willing to pay for you to do it.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
The problem here is that while most games don't sell after 4 or 5 years, some do. What about Myst, Duke Nukem 3D or Doom? They don't top the charts anymore, but I'm sure are purchased throughout the country. What about games that are sold years later in compilation packages? Sierra had one of these a year or two ago with all the King's Quests and old Roberta Williams games whose copyrights would have run out under your system. I beleive id has one of these too.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you in the case of Quarantine, but if they have to protect the copywrites of the few companies who want to commercially sell their games five years later.
-Jeff
-Jeff
Obviously when you pay 9 bucks to to see an Arnold movie, you're paying to watch the stuff blow up. But like Total Recall before it, the Sixth Day does contain some surprisingly poignant scenes. (spoilers coming up)
The movie isn't going to win any awards for the script, but you can't write it off as intellectually devoid simply because it has some explosions. The 6th Day manages to be one of those rare mixes of philosophy and ass-kicking, with a bit more emphasis on the ass-kicking.
I mean, what fun would it be if Arnold just talked Drucker down from that roof. Chasing him with a helicopter rotor is a lot more fun.
-Jeff
I think it's only a matter of time until Nintendo goes software only. They stand to make mad cash money bling bling if they release a Mario for an already established system. The only halfway decent games for the N64 were all developed by either Nintendo or Rare. You need more third party support then that to win the console wars. Sure a new Metroid will likely be fantastic, but what Nintendo needs is a new great game. I hope there's a ZeldaCube, MarioCube, KirbyCube, etc. but it's time for Nintendo to move beyond their old NES characters. Pokemon, of course is the exception, but I think Nintendo may be banking a little to heavily on the annoying vermin. Obviously Pokemon's target audience is going to grow up some time. The game isn't ageless like Mario. And then where Nintendo be? Well they'll have some of the most talented game developers every and the best video game properties of all time. Why not develop for Sony? They will however likely stay in the handheld market. They seem to have the monopoly there, and with GameBoy Advance looking solid I don't see them losing that anytime soon.
-Jeff