While I have no doubt that for many applications the PS2 is less powerful than the gamecube, this article is just guff.
"The PS2, does however, have a large Direct Memory Access bandwidth, which will allow the developers to provide a high amount of textures into the game."
Well, that sounds good! If it made sense! But didn't he just say we couldn't have a load of textures? But wait! Some of the textures have had to be reduced from 24-bit to 8 or even "4-bit". Yes, folks, the PS2 is so back they are using 16 colour greyscale! Either that or he's talking out his ass.
His source? "Various Japanese publications." Interesting!
And, despite this uber-DMA, they are still shit out of luck apparently. He continues: "But, if they choose to do this, the game's framerate will drop substantially, this is due to the PS2's, as stated before, limited texture memory capacity."
Sounds pretty technical, not sure if I can follow that!
Bottom line is, Capcom may or may not be having lots of troubles scaling down their engine for the PS2, but this article is not going to give you any insight whatsoever into the technical reasons for this.
Someone should harness the aerobic power of these dance mats, and produce an MMORPG that has an ACTUAL level treadmill, where you level up your character by running on the spot. The next generation of geeks will still live in their parent's basement, but they will all be BUFF AS FUCK!
They are great because they offer you real escapism, a sandbox environment that allows you to be as criminal and anti-social as you want in a (reasonably) realistic representation of a fully functioning city. What's not to like?
In short: the system requires that you delete subaddresses that recieve spam.
No, that's not it at all - subaddresses are mapped to a particular person, only mails from them will get through automatically. This is the whitelist part of it. If someone else uses this address (I dunno, maybe your friend thought it was funny to sign you up for some "joke of the day" list) then their email does not get through, but instead is bounced, with instructions on how to get a valid email subaddress (using the CAPTCHAs), the idea being that automated spammers will be foiled by this stage.
I interpret 'video games' to be those you play through your TV, therefore console games. (Unless you play your PC through a TV out, that messes up the system somewhat)
I remember they got us to prove around about 5 lines of code correct as part of a module in my Comp. Sci. degree. It took around half an hour of non-trivial effort, so good luck getting companies who churn out millions of lines of code to do this. And doesn't it get more complex with increased code size? Is it even feasible for large projects? And what about when you inevitably make a mistake in your calculations?
(Disclaimer : this was quite a while ago, my memory could be faulty. Feel free to correct me!)
It's a great game, but they've really gone mad with the presentation. It looks awesome, but it gets in the way of the gameplay. For example, tracks are selected by geography, which is pretty unintuitive and annoyingly slow. And there is so much damn loading it's not funny.
EA seem to be obssessed with turning everything into an "X-treme Sport". Hence, the introduction hyperactive DJ on "Crash FM" who gives you crash tips and has witty little sayings like (talking about the wine trucks in a certain level) "The number one cause of death on the roads in the Vineyard is drink driving - number two is driving drink!" Tasteful, eh?
Also, if you play to beat your own or your friend's high-scores in crash mode, forget about it in BO3. It does not show you the high scores in game. Yes, you heard me. IT DOES NOT SHOW YOU THE HIGH SCORES AFTER YOU CRASH. You have to quit back to the menu, and enter a separate menu and then select your track *by name* from about 30 and REMEMBER your scores. That fact that loading times are a total bitch makes this a non-starter.
They have also fallen afoul of the latest craze to make every damn thing unlockable. Your first two hours will be a massive blur of literally dozens of "unlocked new car! unlocked new track! new award unlocked" mesages each of which dumps you uncermeniously back to the main menu to watch a little cut scene. There are about 50 odd cars, but they are mostly identikit with only about 5 classes. Unlocking is more a chore than a pleasure when you will only ever use a small fraction of the cars you get.
What else? Well, being EA they have obviously had some sort of meeting where they have agreed to leverage their partners properties or somesuch, hence you have 30 odd tracks from not-quite-made-it-yet bands with comedy track names like "My teenage angst has a bodycount". Though most of it was my taste in music, so that wasn't so bad for me.
Bottom line is though, the core gameply is FANTASTIC. The graphics are amazing, the crashes are amazing, the sheer adrenaline rush is like no other racing game I have played. Just a pity about the EA-ification it seems to have had to undergo.
Hell yeah! That game nearly broke my brain. I was seeing it when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night.
I remember doing the car stealing missions, and I had got everything except the ice-cream van. I looked EVERYWHERE for that thing, spent hours on it, no luck. It was driving me mad. Anyway, one day I was out walking to the shops and I heard the music of an ice cream van.. Instinctivelty I had a surge of excitement and thought "I need one of those" before realising it was in GTA I needed the van, not real life!
I agree with your bad faith argument (charging for what should be free) but another aspect is how it hurts the game experience itself.
Having played Anarchy Online for a bit (now it's free) it struck me just how detrimental these expansions are to the suspension of disbelief in the game (though you only have to look at the chat channels to do that mind you). Your character talks to loads of people in the lobby telling him how great Jobe is, then you try to go to it and up pops a message "you need the Shadowlands expansion pack".
Then you look at some item descriptions, and they say "only available in expansion pack". How the hell would you role-play *that*?
But hey, role-playing in an online game, who am I trying to kid, right?
Nah, in an MMORPG the bad guy just respawns. Imagine, as your party leaves victorious after defeating Sephiroth, and on your way out there is a queue of 100 other parties, lined up like in a post office, waiting for their crack at him. Oh yeah, the other difference is that levelling up is about a hundred times slower, so as to give you a 'challenge'.
Hell yeah! A game that takes place in a fully functioning city, that goes about its business whether you choose to interact with it or not.. it's like Elite, only with crime! And now people are saying it wasn't innovative?
Holy shit. You gotta think though, for the amount of time that guy must have put in and dexterity he obviously has, he should've just spent the time learning the piano or keyboard or something and he would've gained a skill that more than.01% of the population might be impressed by...
Here's a thought - a lot of airlines are very uptight about you using laser devices on their aircraft. They make you remove DVD/CD drives from laptops, and some tell you not to use portable CD players. This will affect the PSP as well, won't it?
Way to not RTFA, dude! Or even the story summary. It's just saying how Gameboys are good at taking kid's minds off their upcoming being-cut-open-with-a-knife event. Having momma and poppa huddle round and hug you like it's the last time they're ever going to see you isn't exactly going to decrease your anxiety now, is it? Whereas a blast on Advance Wars is at least going to make you think of something else for a while. Calm down - the sky is not falling! The days of our infants being raised entirely by robots are still some way off!
Well, man, here's the thing. I think we can assume that bullets go in pretty much a straight line, otherwise the whole premise of 'sniping' or target-shooting is false, which is plainly is not. I believe our physics engines have achieved straight line prediction capability.
Yeah, I'm sure that's what they tell the guys in Indonesia too. "Quit whining! Aren't you glad to have a job? The guy's in China have it far worse you know!"
Just because other people have it worse does not make it right.
Hehe, not as bad as your example, but I was in a clothes shop once, can't remember the name, and I pad in cash. The cashier asked for my name and address and I said "I'd rather not give it" and she looked like I'd slapped her in the face! Whereas it should have been me that was affronted, given I was interrogated for personal information for no good reason at all.
Slashdot Mirror
While I have no doubt that for many applications the PS2 is less powerful than the gamecube, this article is just guff.
"The PS2, does however, have a large Direct Memory Access bandwidth, which will allow the developers to provide a high amount of textures into the game."
Well, that sounds good! If it made sense! But didn't he just say we couldn't have a load of textures?
But wait! Some of the textures have had to be reduced from 24-bit to 8 or even "4-bit". Yes, folks, the PS2 is so back they are using 16 colour greyscale! Either that or he's talking out his ass.
His source? "Various Japanese publications." Interesting!
And, despite this uber-DMA, they are still shit out of luck apparently. He continues:
"But, if they choose to do this, the game's framerate will drop substantially, this is due to the PS2's, as stated before, limited texture memory capacity."
Sounds pretty technical, not sure if I can follow that!
Bottom line is, Capcom may or may not be having lots of troubles scaling down their engine for the PS2, but this article is not going to give you any insight whatsoever into the technical reasons for this.
Someone should harness the aerobic power of these dance mats, and produce an MMORPG that has an ACTUAL level treadmill, where you level up your character by running on the spot. The next generation of geeks will still live in their parent's basement, but they will all be BUFF AS FUCK!
http://www.sniffpetrol.com/AdGT4.jpg
They are great because they offer you real escapism, a sandbox environment that allows you to be as criminal and anti-social as you want in a (reasonably) realistic representation of a fully functioning city. What's not to like?
In short: the system requires that you delete subaddresses that recieve spam.
No, that's not it at all - subaddresses are mapped to a particular person, only mails from them will get through automatically. This is the whitelist part of it.
If someone else uses this address (I dunno, maybe your friend thought it was funny to sign you up for some "joke of the day" list) then their email does not get through, but instead is bounced, with instructions on how to get a valid email subaddress (using the CAPTCHAs), the idea being that automated spammers will be foiled by this stage.
Oh, wait...
I interpret 'video games' to be those you play through your TV, therefore console games. (Unless you play your PC through a TV out, that messes up the system somewhat)
(And no, it isn't any sort of synonym for being laid off I've ever heard. I guess he means the death of some *companies*.)
I remember they got us to prove around about 5 lines of code correct as part of a module in my Comp. Sci. degree. It took around half an hour of non-trivial effort, so good luck getting companies who churn out millions of lines of code to do this.
And doesn't it get more complex with increased code size? Is it even feasible for large projects? And what about when you inevitably make a mistake in your calculations?
(Disclaimer : this was quite a while ago, my memory could be faulty. Feel free to correct me!)
EA seem to be obssessed with turning everything into an "X-treme Sport". Hence, the introduction hyperactive DJ on "Crash FM" who gives you crash tips and has witty little sayings like (talking about the wine trucks in a certain level) "The number one cause of death on the roads in the Vineyard is drink driving - number two is driving drink!" Tasteful, eh?
Also, if you play to beat your own or your friend's high-scores in crash mode, forget about it in BO3. It does not show you the high scores in game. Yes, you heard me. IT DOES NOT SHOW YOU THE HIGH SCORES AFTER YOU CRASH. You have to quit back to the menu, and enter a separate menu and then select your track *by name* from about 30 and REMEMBER your scores. That fact that loading times are a total bitch makes this a non-starter.
They have also fallen afoul of the latest craze to make every damn thing unlockable. Your first two hours will be a massive blur of literally dozens of "unlocked new car! unlocked new track! new award unlocked" mesages each of which dumps you uncermeniously back to the main menu to watch a little cut scene. There are about 50 odd cars, but they are mostly identikit with only about 5 classes. Unlocking is more a chore than a pleasure when you will only ever use a small fraction of the cars you get.
What else? Well, being EA they have obviously had some sort of meeting where they have agreed to leverage their partners properties or somesuch, hence you have 30 odd tracks from not-quite-made-it-yet bands with comedy track names like "My teenage angst has a bodycount". Though most of it was my taste in music, so that wasn't so bad for me.
Bottom line is though, the core gameply is FANTASTIC. The graphics are amazing, the crashes are amazing, the sheer adrenaline rush is like no other racing game I have played. Just a pity about the EA-ification it seems to have had to undergo.
I remember doing the car stealing missions, and I had got everything except the ice-cream van. I looked EVERYWHERE for that thing, spent hours on it, no luck. It was driving me mad. Anyway, one day I was out walking to the shops and I heard the music of an ice cream van.. Instinctivelty I had a surge of excitement and thought "I need one of those" before realising it was in GTA I needed the van, not real life!
Having played Anarchy Online for a bit (now it's free) it struck me just how detrimental these expansions are to the suspension of disbelief in the game (though you only have to look at the chat channels to do that mind you). Your character talks to loads of people in the lobby telling him how great Jobe is, then you try to go to it and up pops a message "you need the Shadowlands expansion pack".
Then you look at some item descriptions, and they say "only available in expansion pack". How the hell would you role-play *that*?
But hey, role-playing in an online game, who am I trying to kid, right?
Maybe you are the ignorant one if you imagine everyone killed was in the military?? This will make sobering reading.
Nah, in an MMORPG the bad guy just respawns. Imagine, as your party leaves victorious after defeating Sephiroth, and on your way out there is a queue of 100 other parties, lined up like in a post office, waiting for their crack at him.
Oh yeah, the other difference is that levelling up is about a hundred times slower, so as to give you a 'challenge'.
Hell yeah! A game that takes place in a fully functioning city, that goes about its business whether you choose to interact with it or not.. it's like Elite, only with crime! And now people are saying it wasn't innovative?
Holy shit. You gotta think though, for the amount of time that guy must have put in and dexterity he obviously has, he should've just spent the time learning the piano or keyboard or something and he would've gained a skill that more than .01% of the population might be impressed by...
Here's a thought - a lot of airlines are very uptight about you using laser devices on their aircraft. They make you remove DVD/CD drives from laptops, and some tell you not to use portable CD players. This will affect the PSP as well, won't it?
As Faith No More so memorably sang..
It's always funny until somone gets hurt...
And then it's just hilarious!
Yeah, that endless stream of FPS, RTSs and level-treadmilling MMORPGs that the PC produces are really inspiring, yeah?
Instanced? What the hell is massively multiplayer about that?
Seriously though, does being instanced detract from the experience in any way?
Way to not RTFA, dude! Or even the story summary.
It's just saying how Gameboys are good at taking kid's minds off their upcoming being-cut-open-with-a-knife event.
Having momma and poppa huddle round and hug you like it's the last time they're ever going to see you isn't exactly going to decrease your anxiety now, is it? Whereas a blast on Advance Wars is at least going to make you think of something else for a while.
Calm down - the sky is not falling! The days of our infants being raised entirely by robots are still some way off!
Simple. You just keep devaluing the dollar! That'll eat right into that debt.
Well, man, here's the thing. I think we can assume that bullets go in pretty much a straight line, otherwise the whole premise of 'sniping' or target-shooting is false, which is plainly is not. I believe our physics engines have achieved straight line prediction capability.
Yeah, I'm sure that's what they tell the guys in Indonesia too.
"Quit whining! Aren't you glad to have a job? The guy's in China have it far worse you know!"
Just because other people have it worse does not make it right.
Hehe, not as bad as your example, but I was in a clothes shop once, can't remember the name, and I pad in cash. The cashier asked for my name and address and I said "I'd rather not give it" and she looked like I'd slapped her in the face!
Whereas it should have been me that was affronted, given I was interrogated for personal information for no good reason at all.