The only weak point I could find in the original Damacy was the multiplayer. The arena was aggrivatingly small and once someone got ahead it was too easy to stay there. I think a vs mode that abolished the picking up of the other player's Katamari would've been better (it's way too easy to win that way), just determine the winner based on size alone. The 2 player mode announced in the article where both control the katamari sounds like it would be aggrivating. I'd be much happier with a race to the biggest; mebbe even include special items that would leave behind a trap item when rolled over with effects like exploding items off the katamari, reversing the player's controls, or similar MarioKart-esque mayhem.
Come on guys, at least TRY to differentiate your product some. The screenshot I saw look almost identical to Wind Waker, aside from the lack of a jaunty green outfit. Methinks Big N has a point on this one.
Natalie Portman can act, and has demonstrated this sufficiently in other works she's done.
HOWEVER, having said that, her performances in the last 2 SW movies were just craptacular. My personal opinion is that it stems from the overuse of green screens - a lot of actors seem to have trouble realistically portraying the scenes they're in without any backdrop or real sets to give them environmental cues. And I can't think of any other movie series that uses as much green-screen editing as the prequel trilogy.
Well, they did have around that many in OPEN beta, but OB only lasted for little over a week. The closed beta period lasted much much longer with nowhere near that many participants. Basically, it seems like they were only concerned with heavy stress testing enough to make sure the servers didn't melt thru the floor and decided to leave the scaling issues for later. This was probably put off to meet a christmas ship date.
In their defense, you can't realistically go into a release/new business EXPECTING to shatter sales records and have a massive customer base from day 1. Rather you have to plan for a middle-of-the-road customer base with plans to scale up as popularity increases (hopefully). So basically this is to be expected IMO, and I think their actions over the last month or so have reflected their genuine desire to catch up to the incredible demand levied on them.
Go to a brand-new restaurant, you might have to wait in line for the first few weeks...
Oh my gods in heaven READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU COMMENT ON IT! The summary text on/. is misleading in that it features the quote he made about being a MMO item/char trader. That was meant to demonstrate his experience with MMO economies, not to be a statement of purpose for the whole article. If you had taken the time to RTFA you would have seen that it is a rather insightful analysis of MMO economies with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of WoW's. As far as it's value as an article goes, a game's economy is one of the biggest driving forces of any long-term MMO and such mini-economies are currently being looked at by governments and economists as a possible model for real-life economic theories to emerge from or as a testing ground for them. It's NOT an article crying about the policies Blizzard has chosen to implement as far as item/account sales goes. It's an analysis of their economy from the perspective of someone who has a lot of experience with the subject.
If you're gonna rant for 10 paragraphs about an article, have the common decency to READ IT FIRST. It's like writing a book review after just reading the jacket cover. Take some time. Hear what he has to say. Then if he still irritates you, flame on.
As a side note, I mostly agree with the anti-selling posts. I just hate to see the insightful points made wasted on the wrong argument. Perhaps the subtext on/. was purposely set to mislead readers into thinking it was a rant about the denial of his chosen profession in WoW and thus attract more interest in the article (read: flamewar). Or mebbe it was just coincidence. *shrugs*
After having obtained a copy of the first season of Clone Wars and watched it all back to back I realized how much fast-forwarding they had to do to make each 3 minute episode entertaining. I for one thought the series was good, if a bit watery on plot (and who can blame them - Lucas isn't likely to give them many plot tidbits with EP3 imminent), but the action was solid and enough to satisfy in a 3-minute format. True SW fans would've liked something more robust I'm sure, but you can't stretch plot over 10 days of 3-minute shorts and expect ppl to be able to soak up deep plotlines.
The Sith initate was cool, the action in the rest of them was pretty spiffy. All I was really looking for out of this was the Star Wars equivalent of a Kung-fu movie - all action, little story. But to my surprise, that one moment in the first season where Anakin and Amidala exchange a look as he takes off for battle displayed more real emotion and caring to me than any of the hollow-acted "love" sequences in Ep2. But then I give Hayden/Natalie the benefit of the doubt and just consider those parts to be stiff and unnatural in EP2 because he's restraining the true evil bastard he wants to be. At least I hope so, if this turns into Dawson's Galaxy at the end I'm gonna be ill.
The 3-minute shorts didn't work for people, this isn't like the early theatres where you HAD to watch the serial shorts to see the movie. People have short attention spans these days and you'd better get everything you wanna say across while the hype waves run high.
Another good site for cancelled comedies/toons
on
Retro Vision
·
· Score: 5, Informative
One site they forgot to mention was Digital Archive Project. They use a P2P community for the legal trading of cancelled shows. They're very good about removing things that go to video or are otherwise re-sold. It's kinda nice to see someone using P2P for something legal and worthwhile. Lots of animated series, comedy shows, and sci-fi/fantasy series. (the. Worth a click.
This is a huge disappointment, my favorite games have always been adventure games and the Lucasarts ones have always been the cream of the crop. To see this genre fail and falter wounds me. Doubly so, to see the razor sharp barbed wit of Steve Purcell swept under the carpet yet again. Sam & Max is the funniest comic/cartoon/game I've ever read/watched/played and I was waiting, wallet all a-quiver, to buy this one when it hit. Based on the latest stream of crap pouring from the Lucas media group's outlets, I can only presume George has fallen to the Dark Side, and is even now hatching a plan to slip Ewoks into Ep3.
I don't like this heavy trend Lucasarts has made towards console-based game design and development only. Some games were meant to be PC-only - the goofy controls in the latest Monkey Island installment should prove that. Mouse/kb > gamepad for these kind of games. And don't even get me started on FPS and RTS, both are tailor-made for mice. But going for the largest market is the corporately correct thing to do, so I guess us PC gamers will shiver in the cold winter of sterile gaming, brewing up our own indie adventure games like peasants boiling shoes for soup.
At least Syberia seems to have survived to breed another, even if it had to sell it's soul to the art world to do so. I personally found the game beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and mind-numbingly boring. A sequel I think of with much the same enthusiasm I would have for a new coffee-table book of log-cabin paintings.
Bring back adventure games! Interactive Storytelling is not dead, it's just been forgotten in the back of the Entertainment Media toy chest, along with Reading Books and Playing Board Games. Email Lucasarts(webjedi@lucasarts.com) and rage against the dying of this light with me. Or just flame them. Or whatever, just make a stir to help make this country safe for domesticated animal crimefighters to thrive in once again.
Back when I had Earthlink DSL, my phone service was cut off for a few days and I was still able to use DSL although the phone line itself was dead. BellSouth was my phone provider. I didn't know it was any different with other providers. Or perhaps it was only becuause I had service that was suspended, thus never being fully cut off. Dunno for sure, but naked DSL service may not be completely unheard of.
Excellent, now we have the physical training and experimental super-heroes coming up on the horizon. There's already been reports of the first mutant to publicly reveal herself. X-Ray Girl will live in history. Oh sure it's not much of a power really, but it's a start.
I just know if I now concentrate hard enough mine will emerge.... my luck it'd just give me Super-Aneurysm-Causing powers.
"The attribute Max owns is 'bullet-time,' like Volvo owns the word 'safety' and McDonalds owns 'fast'"
Um, well actually I (and quite a few other people I imagine) associate 'bullet-time' with The Matrix. Max Payne just happened to use similar effects in the game, capitalizing on the slo-mo hype following the movie. I'm not 100% sure if my timeline is correct but I remember there being parallels to the movie effect when the game came out. Oh I'll grant that's the big hook of the game. That and metaphors that drag out long enough to make Raymond Chandler develop a nervous tic. But to say MP 'owns' bullet-time is a bit presumptuous.
If they didn't have explaining to do, they wouldn't be doing these interviews. Period.
I don't agree - I think this latest wave of Nintendo-bashing is the very reason they're trying to get their side of the story out. Granted, they had a slow start and now with 3 successful consoles to develop games for that take upwards of 2 years to complete, some licensees are jumping off the big N's ship. But Nintendo is far from out of the game and is actually in a very strong position to come back IMO. As long as they can produce good games, and they still can, they will continue to be a significant force in the market.
Nintendo does have a long history of not trusting it's precious franchise with certain game developers and/or burdening licensees with restrictions and non-standard technical requirements; the recent bailouts shouldn't come as too much of a surprise in this light. But if they can survive the disaster that was the N64, then they can survive this. I don't understand what triggered this rush of story after story of how Nintendo's failing and faltering, but I can't help seeing them as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, but it's badness was so immense that the sheer forces unleashed by its sucking created an incredibly dense area of anti-fun that no entertainment can exist in, more commonly known as a "Crap Hole". One game player probe was sent in but was never recovered; presumably he's still trying to find a point at which the camera can see what he's fighting.
Next week... the theory of Parallel Sequels and proving the existence of "dark levels".
Repetitive suspense scenes, godawful voice acting, and plots with holes Nemesis could hopscotch through without ducking have leeched much of the suspense away I fear. As with many horror movies and games, the first will always be the best. The most potent fear is that of the unknown.
Not to say that it can't be done, but it's gonna take a restructuring of Craven-esque proportions to bring back the chills and screams to the series.
And don't get me started on Resident Dino, I don't have the strength. Something has survived.... and it wasn't gameplay, plot, or thrills.
That the game is basically an upgraded version of Gorrillas.
Actually Worms owes most of it's style to the ancient days of Scorched Earth. Still a great game, the best ones never go out of style. There have been quite a few remakes of it, even a 3d version.
I do like the whimsical twist Worms added to the trajectory-combat gaming scene. It's still the one game every one of my friends can agree on playing at LAN parties. Can't wait to get the new one.
The problem there is many people trying to talk at once (the whole massively part of MMORPGs). And if there's anything like the number of tells, guild chat, and immediate-area chatting that usually goes on in MMO games it would get very confusing and hard to differentiate between the conversations. All in all, a keyboard is a better solution; voice chat works great in some games (shooters, action games, RTS) but with as many people talking at once as there are in MMORPGs it would be like roleplaying in a packed club.
For someone intent on getting and enjoying a copy of a book without paying for it (the only situation to worry about) they don't have much choice besides e-books, do they?
Yet I have heard rumors of these archaic buildings with collections of books that they scandalously lend out for free. These "lye berrys" must be stopped at once:)
Copyright 2003, RIAA. All rights reserved. Public transcription or distribution of this propaganda is prohibited and may be punishable by a fine of up to $150,000, 20 years in prison, and the severe beating of your family.
I have one real problem with the current CD paradigm of music distribution, and it boils down to the fact that I don't want half of the songs that are so generously included on the album. I end up having to pay 15 bucks for one song I like, all too often never playing the other tracks because they're thrown-together crap. This isn't always the case, but it seems more and more CDs are like this. Sure, occasionally I found another non-single song I liked on the album but I don't like being forced to buy all the rough for the one diamond in it. And CD-singles aren't always available for the songs I want.
When I buy books, I don't have to buy most of an author's collection to get the one book I want.
When I buy art, I don't have to buy the artist's entire portfolio for one painting.
When I buy a game, I don't have to buy the whole series the game is based on.
Why is the music industry different in this respect?
Single-song purchasing via downloads I fully support and I think Apple's initiative in this is a step towards the future of music.
It's not like writers don't have their work show up on Kazza et al as well. I periodically scan for my books, and I usually see them available.
Welllll... while this is true, ebooks are not quite the same. Reading off a computer screen, especially a novel, can be very tiring after a while. Until digital paper or some other method of displaying digital print portably without eye strain is perfected and marketed, paper books will continue to be the readers' choice. With MP3s the quality is usually on par with CDs.
Local police are following up harassment complaints filed against a large dog in a suit and a rabbity thing with teeth like a SkillSaw noticed in the area. Conventioneers cited aggrivation in the form of winding pointless conversations punctuated with witty repartee, continuous offers of strange junk such as fish magnets or hands-in-jars, and occasional pummeling and/or gratuitous violence inflicted by the cute yet lethal white animal accompanying the well dressed canine. Reports of similar disturbances at the Biggest Ball of Twine in the World, the Mystery Vortex, and Frog Rock seem unrelated. When asked why Frog Rock looks nothing like a frog, officials had no comment.
Friends of mine who have Capcom vs SNK 2 EO have complained of some lag problems at times, but from what they say it's not as bad as you would think. There's a relatively small amount of information being passed by a 2D fighting game so unless you hit a hard lag spike or just have a really bad connection to your opponent, the game plays smoothly.
This Friday, popular game character Mario was honored with a spot on the Sony Metreon's Walk of Game. The plumber graciously recieved his Star and subsequently killed the 4 Sony presenters when they shook his wildly flashing invincible hand.
You know, I should be surprised by the tone this article takes, but somehow I'm not. More and more major game review sites are taking the corporate marketing juice and injecting it into articles. GameSpy's been teetering on the brink of corporate lapdog status for a while, looks like they're taking the final plunge.
As far as the article's content goes:
Don't be hatin'???
What is there to love here, exactly?
The article goes on to talk about the new concepts that these 2 systems are introducing, and I agree that these concepts are the up-and-coming as far as gaming goes (wide-area wireless, downloaded content). But they're not there yet. All too often gaming systems that are on the cutting edge of technology rely solely on new technology to sell the system, forgetting the minor details of good games and playability. Turbografx, 3DO, Jaguar, all with the latest technology when they came out, all now a brief burp in gaming history.
Also, just because these consoles have good innovations is NO REASON to buy the system. It IS a good reason to use this technology to make an system that's actually good. I believe the best thing to come out of this will be to break some ground for the next-gen systems to build on. But the systems themselves are likely to fall and fall hard.
On a side note, I'll believe the Phantom exists when I see a picture that's not CG.
Slashdot Mirror
The only weak point I could find in the original Damacy was the multiplayer. The arena was aggrivatingly small and once someone got ahead it was too easy to stay there. I think a vs mode that abolished the picking up of the other player's Katamari would've been better (it's way too easy to win that way), just determine the winner based on size alone. The 2 player mode announced in the article where both control the katamari sounds like it would be aggrivating. I'd be much happier with a race to the biggest; mebbe even include special items that would leave behind a trap item when rolled over with effects like exploding items off the katamari, reversing the player's controls, or similar MarioKart-esque mayhem.
Come on guys, at least TRY to differentiate your product some. The screenshot I saw look almost identical to Wind Waker, aside from the lack of a jaunty green outfit. Methinks Big N has a point on this one.
Natalie Portman can act, and has demonstrated this sufficiently in other works she's done.
HOWEVER, having said that, her performances in the last 2 SW movies were just craptacular. My personal opinion is that it stems from the overuse of green screens - a lot of actors seem to have trouble realistically portraying the scenes they're in without any backdrop or real sets to give them environmental cues. And I can't think of any other movie series that uses as much green-screen editing as the prequel trilogy.
Still, no excuse. Carrie Fisher > Natalie.
Link to higher rez QT version
:)
Get it before the server asplodes
Well, they did have around that many in OPEN beta, but OB only lasted for little over a week. The closed beta period lasted much much longer with nowhere near that many participants. Basically, it seems like they were only concerned with heavy stress testing enough to make sure the servers didn't melt thru the floor and decided to leave the scaling issues for later. This was probably put off to meet a christmas ship date.
In their defense, you can't realistically go into a release/new business EXPECTING to shatter sales records and have a massive customer base from day 1. Rather you have to plan for a middle-of-the-road customer base with plans to scale up as popularity increases (hopefully). So basically this is to be expected IMO, and I think their actions over the last month or so have reflected their genuine desire to catch up to the incredible demand levied on them.
Go to a brand-new restaurant, you might have to wait in line for the first few weeks...
Oh my gods in heaven READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE YOU COMMENT ON IT! The summary text on /. is misleading in that it features the quote he made about being a MMO item/char trader. That was meant to demonstrate his experience with MMO economies, not to be a statement of purpose for the whole article. If you had taken the time to RTFA you would have seen that it is a rather insightful analysis of MMO economies with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of WoW's. As far as it's value as an article goes, a game's economy is one of the biggest driving forces of any long-term MMO and such mini-economies are currently being looked at by governments and economists as a possible model for real-life economic theories to emerge from or as a testing ground for them. It's NOT an article crying about the policies Blizzard has chosen to implement as far as item/account sales goes. It's an analysis of their economy from the perspective of someone who has a lot of experience with the subject.
/. was purposely set to mislead readers into thinking it was a rant about the denial of his chosen profession in WoW and thus attract more interest in the article (read: flamewar). Or mebbe it was just coincidence. *shrugs*
If you're gonna rant for 10 paragraphs about an article, have the common decency to READ IT FIRST. It's like writing a book review after just reading the jacket cover. Take some time. Hear what he has to say. Then if he still irritates you, flame on.
As a side note, I mostly agree with the anti-selling posts. I just hate to see the insightful points made wasted on the wrong argument. Perhaps the subtext on
The 3 minute episodes. Hands down.
After having obtained a copy of the first season of Clone Wars and watched it all back to back I realized how much fast-forwarding they had to do to make each 3 minute episode entertaining. I for one thought the series was good, if a bit watery on plot (and who can blame them - Lucas isn't likely to give them many plot tidbits with EP3 imminent), but the action was solid and enough to satisfy in a 3-minute format. True SW fans would've liked something more robust I'm sure, but you can't stretch plot over 10 days of 3-minute shorts and expect ppl to be able to soak up deep plotlines.
The Sith initate was cool, the action in the rest of them was pretty spiffy. All I was really looking for out of this was the Star Wars equivalent of a Kung-fu movie - all action, little story. But to my surprise, that one moment in the first season where Anakin and Amidala exchange a look as he takes off for battle displayed more real emotion and caring to me than any of the hollow-acted "love" sequences in Ep2. But then I give Hayden/Natalie the benefit of the doubt and just consider those parts to be stiff and unnatural in EP2 because he's restraining the true evil bastard he wants to be. At least I hope so, if this turns into Dawson's Galaxy at the end I'm gonna be ill.
The 3-minute shorts didn't work for people, this isn't like the early theatres where you HAD to watch the serial shorts to see the movie. People have short attention spans these days and you'd better get everything you wanna say across while the hype waves run high.
One site they forgot to mention was Digital Archive Project. They use a P2P community for the legal trading of cancelled shows. They're very good about removing things that go to video or are otherwise re-sold. It's kinda nice to see someone using P2P for something legal and worthwhile. Lots of animated series, comedy shows, and sci-fi/fantasy series. (the. Worth a click.
This is a huge disappointment, my favorite games have always been adventure games and the Lucasarts ones have always been the cream of the crop. To see this genre fail and falter wounds me. Doubly so, to see the razor sharp barbed wit of Steve Purcell swept under the carpet yet again. Sam & Max is the funniest comic/cartoon/game I've ever read/watched/played and I was waiting, wallet all a-quiver, to buy this one when it hit. Based on the latest stream of crap pouring from the Lucas media group's outlets, I can only presume George has fallen to the Dark Side, and is even now hatching a plan to slip Ewoks into Ep3.
I don't like this heavy trend Lucasarts has made towards console-based game design and development only. Some games were meant to be PC-only - the goofy controls in the latest Monkey Island installment should prove that. Mouse/kb > gamepad for these kind of games. And don't even get me started on FPS and RTS, both are tailor-made for mice. But going for the largest market is the corporately correct thing to do, so I guess us PC gamers will shiver in the cold winter of sterile gaming, brewing up our own indie adventure games like peasants boiling shoes for soup.
At least Syberia seems to have survived to breed another, even if it had to sell it's soul to the art world to do so. I personally found the game beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and mind-numbingly boring. A sequel I think of with much the same enthusiasm I would have for a new coffee-table book of log-cabin paintings.
Bring back adventure games! Interactive Storytelling is not dead, it's just been forgotten in the back of the Entertainment Media toy chest, along with Reading Books and Playing Board Games. Email Lucasarts(webjedi@lucasarts.com) and rage against the dying of this light with me. Or just flame them. Or whatever, just make a stir to help make this country safe for domesticated animal crimefighters to thrive in once again.
Back when I had Earthlink DSL, my phone service was cut off for a few days and I was still able to use DSL although the phone line itself was dead. BellSouth was my phone provider. I didn't know it was any different with other providers. Or perhaps it was only becuause I had service that was suspended, thus never being fully cut off. Dunno for sure, but naked DSL service may not be completely unheard of.
Excellent, now we have the physical training and experimental super-heroes coming up on the horizon. There's already been reports of the first mutant to publicly reveal herself. X-Ray Girl will live in history. Oh sure it's not much of a power really, but it's a start.
I just know if I now concentrate hard enough mine will emerge.... my luck it'd just give me Super-Aneurysm-Causing powers.
"The attribute Max owns is 'bullet-time,' like Volvo owns the word 'safety' and McDonalds owns 'fast'"
Um, well actually I (and quite a few other people I imagine) associate 'bullet-time' with The Matrix. Max Payne just happened to use similar effects in the game, capitalizing on the slo-mo hype following the movie. I'm not 100% sure if my timeline is correct but I remember there being parallels to the movie effect when the game came out. Oh I'll grant that's the big hook of the game. That and metaphors that drag out long enough to make Raymond Chandler develop a nervous tic. But to say MP 'owns' bullet-time is a bit presumptuous.
If they didn't have explaining to do, they wouldn't be doing these interviews. Period.
I don't agree - I think this latest wave of Nintendo-bashing is the very reason they're trying to get their side of the story out. Granted, they had a slow start and now with 3 successful consoles to develop games for that take upwards of 2 years to complete, some licensees are jumping off the big N's ship. But Nintendo is far from out of the game and is actually in a very strong position to come back IMO. As long as they can produce good games, and they still can, they will continue to be a significant force in the market.
Nintendo does have a long history of not trusting it's precious franchise with certain game developers and/or burdening licensees with restrictions and non-standard technical requirements; the recent bailouts shouldn't come as too much of a surprise in this light. But if they can survive the disaster that was the N64, then they can survive this. I don't understand what triggered this rush of story after story of how Nintendo's failing and faltering, but I can't help seeing them as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Perception is everything.
Yes, but it's badness was so immense that the sheer forces unleashed by its sucking created an incredibly dense area of anti-fun that no entertainment can exist in, more commonly known as a "Crap Hole". One game player probe was sent in but was never recovered; presumably he's still trying to find a point at which the camera can see what he's fighting.
Next week... the theory of Parallel Sequels and proving the existence of "dark levels".
Repetitive suspense scenes, godawful voice acting, and plots with holes Nemesis could hopscotch through without ducking have leeched much of the suspense away I fear. As with many horror movies and games, the first will always be the best. The most potent fear is that of the unknown.
Not to say that it can't be done, but it's gonna take a restructuring of Craven-esque proportions to bring back the chills and screams to the series.
And don't get me started on Resident Dino, I don't have the strength. Something has survived.... and it wasn't gameplay, plot, or thrills.
That the game is basically an upgraded version of Gorrillas.
Actually Worms owes most of it's style to the ancient days of Scorched Earth. Still a great game, the best ones never go out of style. There have been quite a few remakes of it, even a 3d version.
I do like the whimsical twist Worms added to the trajectory-combat gaming scene. It's still the one game every one of my friends can agree on playing at LAN parties. Can't wait to get the new one.
The problem there is many people trying to talk at once (the whole massively part of MMORPGs). And if there's anything like the number of tells, guild chat, and immediate-area chatting that usually goes on in MMO games it would get very confusing and hard to differentiate between the conversations. All in all, a keyboard is a better solution; voice chat works great in some games (shooters, action games, RTS) but with as many people talking at once as there are in MMORPGs it would be like roleplaying in a packed club.
For someone intent on getting and enjoying a copy of a book without paying for it (the only situation to worry about) they don't have much choice besides e-books, do they?
:)
Yet I have heard rumors of these archaic buildings with collections of books that they scandalously lend out for free. These "lye berrys" must be stopped at once
Copyright 2003, RIAA. All rights reserved. Public transcription or distribution of this propaganda is prohibited and may be punishable by a fine of up to $150,000, 20 years in prison, and the severe beating of your family.
I have one real problem with the current CD paradigm of music distribution, and it boils down to the fact that I don't want half of the songs that are so generously included on the album. I end up having to pay 15 bucks for one song I like, all too often never playing the other tracks because they're thrown-together crap. This isn't always the case, but it seems more and more CDs are like this. Sure, occasionally I found another non-single song I liked on the album but I don't like being forced to buy all the rough for the one diamond in it. And CD-singles aren't always available for the songs I want.
When I buy books, I don't have to buy most of an author's collection to get the one book I want.
When I buy art, I don't have to buy the artist's entire portfolio for one painting.
When I buy a game, I don't have to buy the whole series the game is based on.
Why is the music industry different in this respect?
Single-song purchasing via downloads I fully support and I think Apple's initiative in this is a step towards the future of music.
It's not like writers don't have their work show up on Kazza et al as well. I periodically scan for my books, and I usually see them available.
Welllll... while this is true, ebooks are not quite the same. Reading off a computer screen, especially a novel, can be very tiring after a while. Until digital paper or some other method of displaying digital print portably without eye strain is perfected and marketed, paper books will continue to be the readers' choice. With MP3s the quality is usually on par with CDs.
Darwin vs. RIAA - Adapt or die
Local police are following up harassment complaints filed against a large dog in a suit and a rabbity thing with teeth like a SkillSaw noticed in the area. Conventioneers cited aggrivation in the form of winding pointless conversations punctuated with witty repartee, continuous offers of strange junk such as fish magnets or hands-in-jars, and occasional pummeling and/or gratuitous violence inflicted by the cute yet lethal white animal accompanying the well dressed canine. Reports of similar disturbances at the Biggest Ball of Twine in the World, the Mystery Vortex, and Frog Rock seem unrelated. When asked why Frog Rock looks nothing like a frog, officials had no comment.
I just couldn't resist. If you're confused, get enlightened.
"Mind if I drive?"
"Not if you don't mind me clawing at the dash and shrieking like a cheerleader."
Friends of mine who have Capcom vs SNK 2 EO have complained of some lag problems at times, but from what they say it's not as bad as you would think. There's a relatively small amount of information being passed by a 2D fighting game so unless you hit a hard lag spike or just have a really bad connection to your opponent, the game plays smoothly.
San Francisco Chronicle - the near future
This Friday, popular game character Mario was honored with a spot on the Sony Metreon's Walk of Game. The plumber graciously recieved his Star and subsequently killed the 4 Sony presenters when they shook his wildly flashing invincible hand.
You know, I should be surprised by the tone this article takes, but somehow I'm not. More and more major game review sites are taking the corporate marketing juice and injecting it into articles. GameSpy's been teetering on the brink of corporate lapdog status for a while, looks like they're taking the final plunge.
As far as the article's content goes:
Don't be hatin'???
What is there to love here, exactly?
The article goes on to talk about the new concepts that these 2 systems are introducing, and I agree that these concepts are the up-and-coming as far as gaming goes (wide-area wireless, downloaded content). But they're not there yet. All too often gaming systems that are on the cutting edge of technology rely solely on new technology to sell the system, forgetting the minor details of good games and playability. Turbografx, 3DO, Jaguar, all with the latest technology when they came out, all now a brief burp in gaming history.
Also, just because these consoles have good innovations is NO REASON to buy the system. It IS a good reason to use this technology to make an system that's actually good. I believe the best thing to come out of this will be to break some ground for the next-gen systems to build on. But the systems themselves are likely to fall and fall hard.
On a side note, I'll believe the Phantom exists when I see a picture that's not CG.