You can even kill people without having to go to jail by outsmarting the law!
You see, it's legal to kill tresspassers, so I just put up "no tresspassing" signs on my lawn (I have a house on a street corner) and when people cut across my lawn (even an inch or two!) I shoot them with my rifle from my attic window! Sure the cops always show up, but I just tell them "They were tresspassing, so technically it was legal for me to kill them." and they just go "ohhh! Yeah, we'll get these bodies out of here for you now." and leave.
IT'S PERFECT, JUST LIKE YOUR IDEA THAT BUYING A THING ONCE ENTITLES YOU TO DOWNLOAD COPIES OF IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR EVER!!!!!!!
I was just fighting with a Raedeon card last night that would REFUSE to install on a PC with a week old install of XP. It gave a cryptic error that isn't mentioned in the documentation, nor on ATI's site, nor on the manufacturer's (PowerColor) site, hell I only found a few hits on google for it, most of which were in german.
It's all about the drivers. I've owned 4 ATI products. Starting with a first gen Rage chip card that gave me no problems, then two cards over the next couple years (both All In Wonder pros) that were both returned within a day or two of buying them, and now my Gamecube. The first card (in like 1997 or 1998) and my Gamecube are the only ATI products I have ever encountered that worked right.
And strangley enough, all I've EVER had problems with were driver issues. WHY? How can one company be so bad in ONE AREA for SO LONG?
Why is this a troll? Because someone disagrees with it? I'm serious. This is a pointless, ridiculous article. Don't like my comments? Respond with words. Hell, even an "overrated" moderation would have been okay. But how is this a troll? Look at my post history for pete's sake. Ugh.
Wow. I had a typo. I guess this invalidates the rest of my arguments, huh?
As for your first point, Halo was being developed for PC and Mac (Actually Mac first) by Bungee. Then they got bought by Microsoft. What did you expect to happen? Sure the console business is all about exclusives. But Blizzard has done nothing but say that this WOULDN'T be an exclusive title. In fact the only thing they've said is that they have no plans to put it out on the PC.
GTA III never had Nintendo or MS logos associated with it during it's development. I can't think of a single example where a game was supposed to come out on a platform and then it changed last second. Except in the case of a buy out. Will MS buy Blizzard? I doubt it, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.
As for point 2, try to follow with me now. I'll use as many small words as I can. The current Playstation (that would be the Playstation 2) supports backwards compatibility. Hence, people expect it now. If the PS3 were to not support backwards compatibility at LEAST to the PS2, then that would be a step backwards. It would be a feature in the PS2 that is missing form the PS3.
Your third point is rather a good one, but I still can't agree 100%. Sure I've heard of PSO. It's the only Gamecube online game right now. And to be honest, I don't know anyone that has it, or the online adapters. People aren't exactly beating down the door of my local retailers to get them. MMORPGs are popular on PCs because PCs are set up to make them enjoyable. The lack of a keyboard or network connections out of the box really hurts the consoles for MMORPGs. The X-Box, of course has a decent install base for it's online service, so it's really just a matter of a lack of a keyboard there. But so far, the Gamecube's (much to my disappointment) and the PS2's online offerings have been a joke. A sad, sad joke.
Why publish rumors? That's not journalism, that's just speculation. I *can* do that. And that's my criticism: If I can write the article from right here in my home, without making a phone call or getting out and doing any research; hell, without even firing up Google, then it's not good journalism. At best it's editorialism. Stupid editorialism at that. At worst, it's just garbage. But you've inspired me. I think I'll go into videogame journalism.
Here are my predictions for Sony's next generation console:
1) It will be called the "Playstation 3". 2) It will use optical media. 3) The PS3 "cell's" much hyped grid based tech will be just that - hype. 4) It will retail the Triangle Square X Circle controls. 5) You will be able to hook it up to most televisions. 6) It will probably have a form factor resembling a piece of consumer electronics. My inside sources at Sony tell me that the rumors saying that the case would resemble a potted plant are completely untrue. Officials at Sony could not be reached for comment.
There you have it folks. Just remember. When the PS3 doesn't look like a potted plant, you HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!
1) They're saying that Ghost is going to be x-box only since they've only been showing screen shots of the x-box version? Huh? The x-box has the nicest graphics. It makes sense that they'll only show screen shots and videos for one platform and they'll use the one that looks nicest.
Not to mention that if you go to the Ghost homepage what do you see at the bottom of the very first page? A PS2 logo, and a Gamecube logo, right next to the X-Box logo.
Every trailer and ad I've seen has the same thing too. Is blizzard just lying? They just want to put the other logos on everything because they think they look cool? No, somehow I think blizard is saying it will be on all three consoles for a reason.
2) The perdictions about the PS3. It'll have CD and DVD playback, and backwards compatability with the PS1 and PS2. Well duh. Why would they take a step BACK from their current generation? That's not a prediction, that's an expectation.
Likewise, the Ethernet and hard drive. X-Box has them now, so they've upped the ante for the next generation. It's not a wild prediction to say that every next gen console will include these features. Just like the coming of the Saturn, and PS1 ensured that all consoles to come in the next generation would use optical media instead of cartriges.
3) Starwars Galaxies not coming to consoles! Wow. that one blew me away! You mean to tell me that a game genre that is best on the PC and that PCs are best equiped to handel won't be coming to consoles?!? I mean they might stand to loose HUNDREDS of sales from this not being on the PS2. The x-box I can see selling quite a few of these, but let's be real here. This is a PC game first, a console game second, if at all.
What exactly is the point of this article? Everything that isn't obvious seems to be just plain stupid (for instance the Ghost exclusivity).
It's a verticly scrolling shooter game in the same genre as Gradius or R-Type. And it has two player cooperative play.
GREAT gameplay. My only gripe is that it was ported from an arcade game with a vertical (portrait) aspect ratio, so you either get black bars on the sides of your TV screen, or you get the top and bottom of your view cut off.
They also ask "What Console or Consoles do you or have you owned?" and give you a drop down box where you can only select one of the following options from:
Atari, Sega, SONY, Nintendo, Other, NONE
Um, Atari has had two systems that I can think of off the top of my head, I believe more than that. Sega has had at LEAST four if you don't count expansions like the Sega CD or 32X. Nintendo has had four not counting portables, Sony (why is it in all caps?) has had two consoles so far, and what do you do if you've owned / own more than one brand?
There's all kinds of diffrent ways of measuring this.
One can argue that a game like Shadowgate may have given you 20 hours of play time inisially (or 40 or 100, depending) but that it's not worth ever picking up again after beating it.
Super Mario 3 on the other hand can be beaten for the first time in just a few hours by a good player. But it has enormous replay value. I still play it today.
The same can be said for gams today. I rented Luigi's Mansion. The game is georgous, and I didn't put it down until I beat it. But I'm very glad I didn't buy it. Not only was it very short, and easy, (I think I only died once) but there wasn't much point in replaying it.
Ikaruga on the other hand...
Not to mention that there are games that regardless of skill level, simply dwarf games that were considered huge in the past. Zelda Ocarina of Time seemed like a real world. I know that the world had edges, and I even knew about where those edges were by the end of the game. But I never felt constrained. Compare that to any NES game.
Half-Life I played over and over again. It's great game play and a great story. Ditto for Starcraft and ditto for both games expansion packs (Op4, Blue Shift and Brood War).
But there were old games that I beat quickly. Loom for instance, I beat in a single sitting. Amazing game, but I've only played it once. Out of This World was only like 10 hours (if that) and once I beat it, it was just like Shadow Gate: formulaic. Once you know how to beat it it will never challenge you again. I've picked up Out of This World agian since beating it, but only because I had friends that wanted to see it beaten. Because of the nature of the game, it was easy to show them in like an hour.
I will admit that games on average tend to have less replay value once beaten these days. I'm less likely to play Mario Sunshine from beginning to end again than I am to play Super Mario 3 that way. But I think you get a lot more out of a game the first time today. There's also far fewer games that are diffacult to the point of being unfun (Destination Earthstar, Golgo 13, and Super Glove Ball come to mind).
Games sometimes come with extras these days. But it's not as common as most people don't care. I miss the extras that came with the Wing Commander games, they were cool. But it's the games that made them really cool.
You're saying that games have stayed at $50 since the 1980s That's not staying the same, that's a steady DECREASE in price!
I can remember paying a lot for new hot release games. $60 (or was it more?) for SMB3 when it came out. $70 for a shity Star Trek The Next Generation game when it came out for the SNES. $60 for Half-Life when it was new.
According to this calculator, $50 in 1990 dollars is $69.67 in 2002 dollars. $50 today is $35.88 in 1990 dollars.
I'm not saying we should ever be hapy about prices going up (even if it's just a market adjustment) but this is over due. I can't remember video game prices ever going up long term in flat dollars.
I know that games and movies are vastly different, but consider this: I pay $10 to see a new movie release, regardless of the cost of production. Why should it be any different for games?
Because it's a diffrent business model. When you pay to SEE a movie, you're buying a service from a thater. Even if costs are diffrent, it's so little and diffacult to explain to the consumer that it's easier just o charge a flat rate per ticket. Note that there are exceptions: The IMAX theater I saw Reloaded at charged extra for Reloaded shows.
When you BUY a movie on VHS or DVD however, which is a more apples to apples comparison, the prices tend to hover around the same, but 1) They can be diffrent. and 2) If they don't start out fiddrent, then they usually adjust themselves based on quality / popularity / age.
The same is true of video games. Most are released at a certain price (~$50) and most don't stay there for very long unless people think they are worth it (Zelda, Metroid, GTA III, Half-Life, etc).
$50 may be a lot. Sure. Wait a month. Still don't want to pay $40? Wait another month. The only games I pay that much for are new releases. There are plenty of older and used games out there that I don't have to pay $50 all the time.
I too remember paying $40 or $50 for games in the 1980s.
That's 14-23 years ago, people. A can of soda cost $0.25 from a machine. Now they cost between $0.50 (if you're lucky) and $1.50 in most places. An 85 Mustang GT had an MSRP of ~$10,000. Now that's $24,330.
Maybe these are bad examples. But I'm not sure what would be good ones.
I also remember paying like $60 or something insane (at the time) like that for Super Mario Bros. 3 durring the quarter it was released in the U.S (1989 or 1990).
Video games have been incredibly stable in dollars (before inflation), and have fallen stedily in real dollars over the past couple decades. At this point, I'm not sure a price jump is something we can complain about. It sucks yeah, but it's over due.
It's particularly sad with Wing Commander, because the video games rocked so hard, III and IV were the closest games I've ever played to being in a movie, and the movie was written and directed by the creator of the games Chris Roberts.
I have no idea how or why it sucked so bad given those elements.
That said, there are exceptions to the "all translations will suck" rule.
Batman I and II were a great movies based on a comic.
Ditto for X-Men I and II. Note that I do not read comics at all, but I enjoyed all those films.
Toom Raider the movie didn't suck. But to be fair, I though the games sucked.
Batman the video game on the NES was awesome.
The Alien vs. Predator games I've played all rocked HARD.
That short list said, I'm still hopeful.
There's talk of a Metroid movie that I'll be first in line to see them fuck up. (In my mind, that movie would have to be little or no dialog, like the first Conan movie with an anonymous actress portraying Samus. If they load it up with lots of dialog or friendly characters, it won't be the same story.)
I hear there's also a Max Payne movie in the works. That should be interesting too.
I'd also like to see a Zelda movie. Not a cartoon, a serious fantasy adventure movie done in roughly the style of Lord Of The Rings.
As these games get better and better from a plot standpoint, and now that the video game industry rivals the movie industry, perhaps videogame / movie ports will start to get better treatment. But I won't hold my breath.
Rereading my own links, apparently the altitude is 25,000 ft. I had thought I had read 100,000 somewhere. Or perhaps I was thinking of the ejection seats that flew on Columbia's first couple of flights.
Actually, there's a plan for bailing out of the shuttle. It's not good durring ascent, or above a certain altitude (100,000 ft.?) durring reentry and aproach, but they CAN leave the craft.
Neither of those incidents you cited occurred in the last 25 years (as the grandparent post specified and you quoted). His/her statment is correct. It may or may not matter when those incidents happened, but (s)he's factually correct. Durring the last 25 years, the Soviet Union and Russian space programs have had no known fatalities as a direct result of manned space flight.
STACY KEACH: There are many striking contrasts between Russian and American airbases, not the least of which is overall appearance. In the United States, daily FOD sweeps -- for Foreign Object Damage -- clear the flight line of the smallest bits of litter that could wreck a jet engine. At Russian airfields, metal scrap is tossed in the open. The grass is allowed to grow tall, even on the runways. Birds, lethal to an engine if sucked inside, gather freely in the fields around the tarmac. To the Russians, there is an undeniable logic behind the mess. After all, the field of combat would hardly be cleaner.
JEFFREY ETHELL: Walking around a Russian airbase is quite a unique experience for an American, who is used to seeing everything picked up and nothing that can get in the airplane. And here, that isn't the case. It doesn't need to be.
STACY KEACH: Russian jets are designed to perform in less than ideal conditions. Retractable titanium grates protect the engine intakes on the SU-27, -30, and -35. The MIG-29 has doors that automatically shut on its intakes to keep them from inhaling debris. During take-off and landing, the MIG's engine breathes through slits at the top of the wings.
JEFFREY ETHELL: They build airplanes like tanks. The US Air Force and the West builds airplanes like fine watches.
STACY KEACH: The US builds sleek, sophisticated fighters that require teams of trained specialists to service them. Leading the pack are the Navy's big F-14 "Tomcat" and the F-18 "Hornet." Small and agile,the F-18 is good for both ground attacks and air combat. The heavier F-14 carries a larger weapons load and more fuel than the F-18. The primary jet of the US Air Force is the single-engine F-16 "Fighting Falcon." It provides excellent visibility, the fastest, tightest turn rate of anything in the air -- and pilot comfort. The lightweight plane fits around the pilot like a glove. He doesn't so much fly this jet as "wear" it.
LT. R. GORDON FOGG: The F-16 is the Porsche of airplanes. I mean, it handles great. It goes fast. It feels good. Your seats recline to help you with the G-forces. Everything's right out here like a big video game. And it's a sweet ride.
STACY KEACH: While the Russians admire American planes, they consider them almost too delicate for the rigors of war.
LT. COL. ALEXANDER GARNOV: Our military aircraft was designed for battle. It's built for war, not to just stand there and look pretty. Here behind me, you have an example of this. You can't break this plane. You could land it on its fuselage and they'd come out, pick it up, lower the landing gear, clear the engine, and you could take off again.
JEFFREY ETHELL: We go at it with a scalpel, trying to very, very carefully hone the capability, build the weapon. They go at it with a sledge hammer.
I know that TRDS does more than transmit TV signals, but that *is* a part of it. The shuttle almost never takes off with just one purpose. Just look at all the stuff that was going on on 51L.
Your point is taken though. Let's keep the astronauts involved in real science, exploration and maintaince. Things that unmanned launch vehicles can't do. And let's use unmanned launch vehicles for everything else.
I agree that it's high time NASA reevaluated the shuttle's usefulness. If only for it's limitations.
But saying that space program research would yield more useful tech for man kind than military research is just laughable.
Do you have any IDEA how long the list of technologies are that came from military applications? GPS, night vision, the jet engine, (just to touch the tip of the aviation related iceberg), THE INTERNET.
On the other hand, who says that any of these have anything to do with their parent programs? If there never was a space program would there have been Velco? If there was no Army, would there be night vision?
I'd say yes. But they wouldn't have appeared when they did. Most good ideas will come regardless of if one individual thinks of them or not.
I'm as big a proponent of manned space flight and space exploration in general as anyone, but we need to be doing it WELL. The shuttle was sold to the american people as a versatile, "space truck" that would have low turn around times, low maintaince costs, and would be able to do things like service satelites in orbit.
It's more expensive than unmanned rockets, It's more expensive than DISPOSABLE rockets, and it can't service most satelites because satelites have to be put into a special (mostly useless) orbit for the shuttle to even be able to reach them.
Let's start work on something like the delta clipper, or SOMETHING BETTER.
Hell, if they could extend the shuttle's capabilaties some how, that might work, but they aren't. They're barley keeping them flying.
I'll be glad to see the shuttle go up again. It will be a big symbolic point of moving on from the Columbia disaster. But I will be estatic the say (hopefully) I see the Space Shuttle's replacement take off. If a replacement were designed today, it would probably use circa 1995-2000 tech and take off in the 2010s. But it would sure beat the hell out of trying to operate the shuttle fleet into the 2020s.
P.S. I'm also a big proponent of the military. Just like I like having police patroling my streets. I just wish America would use it's military for more good. Iraq was a start. Not because of terrorism or WMD, but because ousting that dictator was the right thing to do. Now why can't we help out in places like the Congo? We've got the might, now why not use it to do some good?
Fuck pasifism. Like communism, it only works with 100% participation. Until everyone aggrees to become a pacifist, nobody can safely be a pacifist.
I didn't say they were identical. I said they were the same platform. As for the GBA player using GBA components, I doubt it, as I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo is still MANUFACTURING new GBAs. Some people (myself included) prefer the old style to the new one. And I'm sure parrents who are buying them for their kids appreciate the lower price tag on the older ones.
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Yeah, I love that! The law is so stupid!
You can even kill people without having to go to jail by outsmarting the law!
You see, it's legal to kill tresspassers, so I just put up "no tresspassing" signs on my lawn (I have a house on a street corner) and when people cut across my lawn (even an inch or two!) I shoot them with my rifle from my attic window! Sure the cops always show up, but I just tell them "They were tresspassing, so technically it was legal for me to kill them." and they just go "ohhh! Yeah, we'll get these bodies out of here for you now." and leave.
IT'S PERFECT, JUST LIKE YOUR IDEA THAT BUYING A THING ONCE ENTITLES YOU TO DOWNLOAD COPIES OF IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN FOR EVER!!!!!!!
Aren't we both just so clever?
I was just fighting with a Raedeon card last night that would REFUSE to install on a PC with a week old install of XP. It gave a cryptic error that isn't mentioned in the documentation, nor on ATI's site, nor on the manufacturer's (PowerColor) site, hell I only found a few hits on google for it, most of which were in german.
It's all about the drivers. I've owned 4 ATI products. Starting with a first gen Rage chip card that gave me no problems, then two cards over the next couple years (both All In Wonder pros) that were both returned within a day or two of buying them, and now my Gamecube. The first card (in like 1997 or 1998) and my Gamecube are the only ATI products I have ever encountered that worked right.
And strangley enough, all I've EVER had problems with were driver issues. WHY? How can one company be so bad in ONE AREA for SO LONG?
Why is this a troll? Because someone disagrees with it? I'm serious. This is a pointless,
ridiculous article. Don't like my comments? Respond with words. Hell, even an "overrated" moderation would have been okay. But how is this a troll? Look at my post history for pete's sake. Ugh.
Wow. I had a typo. I guess this invalidates the rest of my arguments, huh?
As for your first point, Halo was being developed for PC and Mac (Actually Mac first) by Bungee. Then they got bought by Microsoft. What did you expect to happen? Sure the console business is all about exclusives. But Blizzard has done nothing but say that this WOULDN'T be an exclusive title. In fact the only thing they've said is that they have no plans to put it out on the PC.
GTA III never had Nintendo or MS logos associated with it during it's development. I can't think of a single example where a game was supposed to come out on a platform and then it changed last second. Except in the case of a buy out. Will MS buy Blizzard? I doubt it, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.
As for point 2, try to follow with me now. I'll use as many small words as I can. The current Playstation (that would be the Playstation 2) supports backwards compatibility. Hence, people expect it now. If the PS3 were to not support backwards compatibility at LEAST to the PS2, then that would be a step backwards. It would be a feature in the PS2 that is missing form the PS3.
Your third point is rather a good one, but I still can't agree 100%. Sure I've heard of PSO. It's the only Gamecube online game right now. And to be honest, I don't know anyone that has it, or the online adapters. People aren't exactly beating down the door of my local retailers to get them. MMORPGs are popular on PCs because PCs are set up to make them enjoyable. The lack of a keyboard or network connections out of the box really hurts the consoles for MMORPGs. The X-Box, of course has a decent install base for it's online service, so it's really just a matter of a lack of a keyboard there. But so far, the Gamecube's (much to my disappointment) and the PS2's online offerings have been a joke. A sad, sad joke.
Why publish rumors? That's not journalism, that's just speculation. I *can* do that. And that's my criticism: If I can write the article from right here in my home, without making a phone call or getting out and doing any research; hell, without even firing up Google, then it's not good journalism. At best it's editorialism. Stupid editorialism at that. At worst, it's just garbage. But you've inspired me. I think I'll go into videogame journalism.
Here are my predictions for Sony's next generation console:
1) It will be called the "Playstation 3".
2) It will use optical media.
3) The PS3 "cell's" much hyped grid based tech will be just that - hype.
4) It will retail the Triangle Square X Circle controls.
5) You will be able to hook it up to most televisions.
6) It will probably have a form factor resembling a piece of consumer electronics. My inside sources at Sony tell me that the rumors saying that the case would resemble a potted plant are completely untrue. Officials at Sony could not be reached for comment.
There you have it folks. Just remember. When the PS3 doesn't look like a potted plant, you HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!
This list is ridiculous.
1) They're saying that Ghost is going to be x-box only since they've only been showing screen shots of the x-box version? Huh? The x-box has the nicest graphics. It makes sense that they'll only show screen shots and videos for one platform and they'll use the one that looks nicest.
Not to mention that if you go to the Ghost homepage what do you see at the bottom of the very first page? A PS2 logo, and a Gamecube logo, right next to the X-Box logo.
Every trailer and ad I've seen has the same thing too. Is blizzard just lying? They just want to put the other logos on everything because they think they look cool? No, somehow I think blizard is saying it will be on all three consoles for a reason.
2) The perdictions about the PS3. It'll have CD and DVD playback, and backwards compatability with the PS1 and PS2. Well duh. Why would they take a step BACK from their current generation? That's not a prediction, that's an expectation.
Likewise, the Ethernet and hard drive. X-Box has them now, so they've upped the ante for the next generation. It's not a wild prediction to say that every next gen console will include these features. Just like the coming of the Saturn, and PS1 ensured that all consoles to come in the next generation would use optical media instead of cartriges.
3) Starwars Galaxies not coming to consoles! Wow. that one blew me away! You mean to tell me that a game genre that is best on the PC and that PCs are best equiped to handel won't be coming to consoles?!? I mean they might stand to loose HUNDREDS of sales from this not being on the PS2. The x-box I can see selling quite a few of these, but let's be real here. This is a PC game first, a console game second, if at all.
What exactly is the point of this article? Everything that isn't obvious seems to be just plain stupid (for instance the Ghost exclusivity).
Also try Ikaruga.
It's a verticly scrolling shooter game in the same genre as Gradius or R-Type. And it has two player cooperative play.
GREAT gameplay. My only gripe is that it was ported from an arcade game with a vertical (portrait) aspect ratio, so you either get black bars on the sides of your TV screen, or you get the top and bottom of your view cut off.
They also ask "What Console or Consoles do you or have you owned?" and give you a drop down box where you can only select one of the following options from:
Atari, Sega, SONY, Nintendo, Other, NONE
Um, Atari has had two systems that I can think of off the top of my head, I believe more than that. Sega has had at LEAST four if you don't count expansions like the Sega CD or 32X. Nintendo has had four not counting portables, Sony (why is it in all caps?) has had two consoles so far, and what do you do if you've owned / own more than one brand?
So's BMX XXX.
No, really.
Stop laughing.
That was just Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. was not released until the NES.
There's all kinds of diffrent ways of measuring this.
One can argue that a game like Shadowgate may have given you 20 hours of play time inisially (or 40 or 100, depending) but that it's not worth ever picking up again after beating it.
Super Mario 3 on the other hand can be beaten for the first time in just a few hours by a good player. But it has enormous replay value. I still play it today.
The same can be said for gams today. I rented Luigi's Mansion. The game is georgous, and I didn't put it down until I beat it. But I'm very glad I didn't buy it. Not only was it very short, and easy, (I think I only died once) but there wasn't much point in replaying it.
Ikaruga on the other hand...
Not to mention that there are games that regardless of skill level, simply dwarf games that were considered huge in the past. Zelda Ocarina of Time seemed like a real world. I know that the world had edges, and I even knew about where those edges were by the end of the game. But I never felt constrained. Compare that to any NES game.
Half-Life I played over and over again. It's great game play and a great story. Ditto for Starcraft and ditto for both games expansion packs (Op4, Blue Shift and Brood War).
But there were old games that I beat quickly. Loom for instance, I beat in a single sitting. Amazing game, but I've only played it once. Out of This World was only like 10 hours (if that) and once I beat it, it was just like Shadow Gate: formulaic. Once you know how to beat it it will never challenge you again. I've picked up Out of This World agian since beating it, but only because I had friends that wanted to see it beaten. Because of the nature of the game, it was easy to show them in like an hour.
I will admit that games on average tend to have less replay value once beaten these days. I'm less likely to play Mario Sunshine from beginning to end again than I am to play Super Mario 3 that way. But I think you get a lot more out of a game the first time today. There's also far fewer games that are diffacult to the point of being unfun (Destination Earthstar, Golgo 13, and Super Glove Ball come to mind).
They learned from that mistake. The Gamecube was designed from the ground up to be easy to develop for because of just that reason.
When is the last time there was a price increase in video games?
This is not a rhetorical question.
Ever heard of inflation?
Games sometimes come with extras these days. But it's not as common as most people don't care. I miss the extras that came with the Wing Commander games, they were cool. But it's the games that made them really cool.
You're saying that games have stayed at $50 since the 1980s That's not staying the same, that's a steady DECREASE in price!
I can remember paying a lot for new hot release games. $60 (or was it more?) for SMB3 when it came out. $70 for a shity Star Trek The Next Generation game when it came out for the SNES. $60 for Half-Life when it was new.
According to this calculator, $50 in 1990 dollars is $69.67 in 2002 dollars. $50 today is $35.88 in 1990 dollars.
I'm not saying we should ever be hapy about prices going up (even if it's just a market adjustment) but this is over due. I can't remember video game prices ever going up long term in flat dollars.
I know that games and movies are vastly different, but consider this: I pay $10 to see a new movie release, regardless of the cost of production. Why should it be any different for games?
Because it's a diffrent business model. When you pay to SEE a movie, you're buying a service from a thater. Even if costs are diffrent, it's so little and diffacult to explain to the consumer that it's easier just o charge a flat rate per ticket. Note that there are exceptions: The IMAX theater I saw Reloaded at charged extra for Reloaded shows.
When you BUY a movie on VHS or DVD however, which is a more apples to apples comparison, the prices tend to hover around the same, but 1) They can be diffrent. and 2) If they don't start out fiddrent, then they usually adjust themselves based on quality / popularity / age.
The same is true of video games. Most are released at a certain price (~$50) and most don't stay there for very long unless people think they are worth it (Zelda, Metroid, GTA III, Half-Life, etc).
$50 may be a lot. Sure. Wait a month. Still don't want to pay $40? Wait another month. The only games I pay that much for are new releases. There are plenty of older and used games out there that I don't have to pay $50 all the time.
Thank you.
I too remember paying $40 or $50 for games in the 1980s.
That's 14-23 years ago, people. A can of soda cost $0.25 from a machine. Now they cost between $0.50 (if you're lucky) and $1.50 in most places.
An 85 Mustang GT had an MSRP of ~$10,000. Now that's $24,330.
Maybe these are bad examples. But I'm not sure what would be good ones.
I also remember paying like $60 or something insane (at the time) like that for Super Mario Bros. 3 durring the quarter it was released in the U.S (1989 or 1990).
Video games have been incredibly stable in dollars (before inflation), and have fallen stedily in real dollars over the past couple decades. At this point, I'm not sure a price jump is something we can complain about. It sucks yeah, but it's over due.
It's particularly sad with Wing Commander, because the video games rocked so hard, III and IV were the closest games I've ever played to being in a movie, and the movie was written and directed by the creator of the games Chris Roberts.
I have no idea how or why it sucked so bad given those elements.
That said, there are exceptions to the "all translations will suck" rule.
Batman I and II were a great movies based on a comic.
Ditto for X-Men I and II. Note that I do not read comics at all, but I enjoyed all those films.
Toom Raider the movie didn't suck. But to be fair, I though the games sucked.
Batman the video game on the NES was awesome.
The Alien vs. Predator games I've played all rocked HARD.
That short list said, I'm still hopeful.
There's talk of a Metroid movie that I'll be first in line to see them fuck up. (In my mind, that movie would have to be little or no dialog, like the first Conan movie with an anonymous actress portraying Samus. If they load it up with lots of dialog or friendly characters, it won't be the same story.)
I hear there's also a Max Payne movie in the works. That should be interesting too.
I'd also like to see a Zelda movie. Not a cartoon, a serious fantasy adventure movie done in roughly the style of Lord Of The Rings.
As these games get better and better from a plot standpoint, and now that the video game industry rivals the movie industry, perhaps videogame / movie ports will start to get better treatment. But I won't hold my breath.
Rereading my own links, apparently the altitude is 25,000 ft. I had thought I had read 100,000 somewhere. Or perhaps I was thinking of the ejection seats that flew on Columbia's first couple of flights.
Actually, there's a plan for bailing out of the shuttle. It's not good durring ascent, or above a certain altitude (100,000 ft.?) durring reentry and aproach, but they CAN leave the craft.
The official NASA write up on it is here.
Here's a good diagram of it.
Here's a site with some good info on it, including pics of the tests that NASA did with the system on other aircraft.
A random image of a shuttle crew member training to bail out with this system.
And here's a wonderful article explaining it again with a step by step procedure at the bottom of the page.
Neither of those incidents you cited occurred in the last 25 years (as the grandparent post specified and you quoted). His/her statment is correct. It may or may not matter when those incidents happened, but (s)he's factually correct. Durring the last 25 years, the Soviet Union and Russian space programs have had no known fatalities as a direct result of manned space flight.
It's not so much that it "just works" it's that they design things and, indeed do everything with a diffrent philosophy.
The old story about the pencil and the million dollar space pen may not be true, but it reflects the diffrence between the US and Russia perfectly.
Case in point contrasting the Russian Air Force with ours:
STACY KEACH: There are many striking contrasts between Russian and American airbases, not the least of which is overall appearance. In the United States, daily FOD sweeps -- for Foreign Object Damage -- clear the flight line of the smallest bits of litter that could wreck a jet engine. At Russian airfields, metal scrap is tossed in the open. The grass is allowed to grow tall, even on the runways. Birds, lethal to an engine if sucked inside, gather freely in the fields around the tarmac. To the Russians, there is an undeniable logic behind the mess. After all, the field of combat would hardly be cleaner.
JEFFREY ETHELL: Walking around a Russian airbase is quite a unique experience for an American, who is used to seeing everything picked up and nothing that can get in the airplane. And here, that isn't the case. It doesn't need to be.
STACY KEACH: Russian jets are designed to perform in less than ideal conditions. Retractable titanium grates protect the engine intakes on the SU-27, -30, and -35. The MIG-29 has doors that automatically shut on its intakes to keep them from inhaling debris. During take-off and landing, the MIG's engine breathes through slits at the top of the wings.
JEFFREY ETHELL: They build airplanes like tanks. The US Air Force and the West builds airplanes like fine watches.
STACY KEACH: The US builds sleek, sophisticated fighters that require teams of trained specialists to service them. Leading the pack are the Navy's big F-14 "Tomcat" and the F-18 "Hornet." Small and agile,the F-18 is good for both ground attacks and air combat. The heavier F-14 carries a larger weapons load and more fuel than the F-18. The primary jet of the US Air Force is the single-engine F-16 "Fighting Falcon." It provides excellent visibility, the fastest, tightest turn rate of anything in the air -- and pilot comfort. The lightweight plane fits around the pilot like a glove. He doesn't so much fly this jet as "wear" it.
LT. R. GORDON FOGG: The F-16 is the Porsche of airplanes. I mean, it handles great. It goes fast. It feels good. Your seats recline to help you with the G-forces. Everything's right out here like a big video game. And it's a sweet ride.
STACY KEACH: While the Russians admire American planes, they consider them almost too delicate for the rigors of war.
LT. COL. ALEXANDER GARNOV: Our military aircraft was designed for battle. It's built for war, not to just stand there and look pretty. Here behind me, you have an example of this. You can't break this plane. You could land it on its fuselage and they'd come out, pick it up, lower the landing gear, clear the engine, and you could take off again.
JEFFREY ETHELL: We go at it with a scalpel, trying to very, very carefully hone the capability, build the weapon. They go at it with a sledge hammer.
I can see the congressional hearing now: "Our brave astronauts lost their lives to bring us 500 channels?"
You mean like the TRDS satellite that was carried aboard STS 51L (Challenger's final flight.)
I know that TRDS does more than transmit TV signals, but that *is* a part of it. The shuttle almost never takes off with just one purpose. Just look at all the stuff that was going on on 51L.
Your point is taken though. Let's keep the astronauts involved in real science, exploration and maintaince. Things that unmanned launch vehicles can't do. And let's use unmanned launch vehicles for everything else.
I agree that it's high time NASA reevaluated the shuttle's usefulness. If only for it's limitations.
But saying that space program research would yield more useful tech for man kind than military research is just laughable.
Do you have any IDEA how long the list of technologies are that came from military applications? GPS, night vision, the jet engine, (just to touch the tip of the aviation related iceberg), THE INTERNET.
On the other hand, who says that any of these have anything to do with their parent programs? If there never was a space program would there have been Velco? If there was no Army, would there be night vision?
I'd say yes. But they wouldn't have appeared when they did. Most good ideas will come regardless of if one individual thinks of them or not.
I'm as big a proponent of manned space flight and space exploration in general as anyone, but we need to be doing it WELL. The shuttle was sold to the american people as a versatile, "space truck" that would have low turn around times, low maintaince costs, and would be able to do things like service satelites in orbit.
It's more expensive than unmanned rockets, It's more expensive than DISPOSABLE rockets, and it can't service most satelites because satelites have to be put into a special (mostly useless) orbit for the shuttle to even be able to reach them.
Let's start work on something like the delta clipper, or SOMETHING BETTER.
Hell, if they could extend the shuttle's capabilaties some how, that might work, but they aren't. They're barley keeping them flying.
I'll be glad to see the shuttle go up again. It will be a big symbolic point of moving on from the Columbia disaster. But I will be estatic the say (hopefully) I see the Space Shuttle's replacement take off. If a replacement were designed today, it would probably use circa 1995-2000 tech and take off in the 2010s. But it would sure beat the hell out of trying to operate the shuttle fleet into the 2020s.
P.S. I'm also a big proponent of the military. Just like I like having police patroling my streets. I just wish America would use it's military for more good. Iraq was a start. Not because of terrorism or WMD, but because ousting that dictator was the right thing to do. Now why can't we help out in places like the Congo? We've got the might, now why not use it to do some good?
Fuck pasifism. Like communism, it only works with 100% participation. Until everyone aggrees to become a pacifist, nobody can safely be a pacifist.
Hey! Now that was uncalled for!
As a porn site owner, I find being lumped in with spammers and these clowns a bit offensive.
I didn't say they were identical. I said they were the same platform. As for the GBA player using GBA components, I doubt it, as I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo is still MANUFACTURING new GBAs. Some people (myself included) prefer the old style to the new one. And I'm sure parrents who are buying them for their kids appreciate the lower price tag on the older ones.
The Gameboy Advance and the Gameboy Advance SP are the same platform. Just a diffrent form factor. They both play exactly the same games.