I'm in a similar situation, although losing Windows games doesn't bother me. Unfortunately, there is still lots of software I need to use that is Windows and/or x86 only (Symbian dev environment, for example). I am also completely fed up with using both Linux and Windows and have really enjoyed the few times I have used a Mac for work. If I could get a Yonah Powerbook with MacOSX and an updated VMware/Virtual PC I would switch in about five seconds.
I'm 11 hours into RE4 and it hadn't even occurred to me that you can't move and shoot. I guess it's partly because it's not an FPS, partly because it's so much fun to play, but also because in all the FPS games I do play (Battlefield 1942/2 etc), you very rarely move and shoot anyway, as you won't hit anything.
It does worry me that the art of writing - writing something that is enjoyable to read for the use of language alone - is virtually dead on the internet.
A *good* videogame can be far more entertaining than a film, and the up front investment in a game is higher: it might take £30 and two hours gaming to realise a game sucks. Mainstream media devotes a lot of space to reviews of films and it is taken seriously enough to be an academic subject, why shouldn't we expect well-written reviews of games?
Isn't it inevitable that many game reviews are childish and shallow when many of the games reviewed are equally childish and shallow? You wouldn't expect a detailed structural and emotional analysis in a review of American Pie 4, why would you expect it in a review of Quake 4?
Until you have worldwide, extremely fast, unmetered, wireless internet access, thin client laptops are not going to catch on. The whole point of a laptop is that you can work anywhere.
4 million in Japan and 5 million in the US leaves just 1 million sales in the rest of the world, presumably mostly in Europe. In terms of market size, Europe is pretty big, I wonder why the DS sales are so much lower?
But if they upgrade the iBooks first, won't they be significantly more powerful than the Powerbooks for a while. Assuming Apple is going for a new Pentium M of some kind, that is.
Also, the layout is completely broken here (Firefox 1.5 Linux). The columns of text are about 1.5 times the height of the background box, making it unreadable. I think it's to do with font size.
For me, the DS would be far more comfortable if they cut the bottom left corner off to make it easier to reach the touchscreen and rounded the edges off like the sides of an iPod Mini.
I agree, it would be odd for Nintendo to release yet another variation on the GBA. I think we will see the DS growing in importance even more. It seems a perfect platform for Nintendo to get the idea out there that graphics aren't that important, having fun is.
My wishlist would be: - Legend of Zelda DS - Starcraft DS - An improved DS, about half the weight and thickness
This is hardly surprising. Buying DVDs, CDs, games etc in the UK, the high street shops have a crappy selection, poor layout, overly loud music blaring and high prices. I was looking through some of the post-christmas sales offers and the prices only just matched Amazon's, even with a bunch of coupons.
I would think a potential problem is that people will play Counterstrike or Battlefield 2 for hundreds of hours, while many single player games are around 25 hours. I've found since I stopped online gaming a while back, I game for the same amount of total time, it's just with more games.
Oh come on, Lost is good but not great: it's a 13 episode show stretched out far too thin. In order for a drama like that to remain interesting, you either have to have incredibly interesting characters, or something has to actually happen. Lost has neither of those, so it just remains mediocre.
PC games are not necessarily taking advantage of the higher resolution: you could play the original Half Life in 1600x1200 and it wouldn't look *that* much better, because the textures are still designed for 800x600 or so. It's kind of an arms race thing.
I'm sure there's been a lot of work on the backend, but the interface in Writer doesn't seem much improved over 1.1.x. No direct manipulation or even preview of formatting changes, styles gallery doesn't display a preview of the formatting of each style, formatting dialogs are modal, same odd text boxes jumping around the page behaviour as Word...
I really want to like OO.org 2, but the developers aren't making it easy.
Indeed, I only have 16 Djinn. The annoying thing is, without resorting to cheating and looking at a walkthrough, there is no way of knowing that this isn't enough before hand. My party defeats every monster apart from the final ones without taking any significant damage, so I am now faced either with a dull backtrack through the maps to find Djinn or giving up.
I wish Nintendo were better at getting its games released in the UK: I'm not sure FF IV even has a release date here yet, Trauma center is out next March, I've seen nothing to indicate a Mario and Luigi 2 UK release date yet. I guess I should just start ordering from lik-sang.com, but the customs charges put me off.
I can't see Labour getting in easily next time: they've got another three or four years of this increasingly bad policy making to hang themselves with. The Tories under Cameron and the LibDems under whoever replaces Kennedy (I vote Simon Hughes) are going to pick up a lot of seats. My prediction is for a hung parliament and some sort of lib/lab pact again.
Of course, you can get a DS with three or four games for the price of a PSP. And, IMHO, there are a lot of very good games for the DS. Castlevania, Mario64 DS, Sonic Rush, Mario&Luigi2, Advance Wars DS for starters, plus a load more in the pipeline (Super Monkey Ball DS should be fun). Of course, it doesn't have quite the stylish looks of the PSP, but then who notices what the handheld looks like while playing?
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I'm in a similar situation, although losing Windows games doesn't bother me. Unfortunately, there is still lots of software I need to use that is Windows and/or x86 only (Symbian dev environment, for example). I am also completely fed up with using both Linux and Windows and have really enjoyed the few times I have used a Mac for work. If I could get a Yonah Powerbook with MacOSX and an updated VMware/Virtual PC I would switch in about five seconds.
Enough with the speculation, just get the damn things released already. I'm desperate for an Intel Powerbook here.
I'm 11 hours into RE4 and it hadn't even occurred to me that you can't move and shoot. I guess it's partly because it's not an FPS, partly because it's so much fun to play, but also because in all the FPS games I do play (Battlefield 1942/2 etc), you very rarely move and shoot anyway, as you won't hit anything.
It does worry me that the art of writing - writing something that is enjoyable to read for the use of language alone - is virtually dead on the internet.
A *good* videogame can be far more entertaining than a film, and the up front investment in a game is higher: it might take £30 and two hours gaming to realise a game sucks. Mainstream media devotes a lot of space to reviews of films and it is taken seriously enough to be an academic subject, why shouldn't we expect well-written reviews of games?
Isn't it inevitable that many game reviews are childish and shallow when many of the games reviewed are equally childish and shallow? You wouldn't expect a detailed structural and emotional analysis in a review of American Pie 4, why would you expect it in a review of Quake 4?
Until you have worldwide, extremely fast, unmetered, wireless internet access, thin client laptops are not going to catch on. The whole point of a laptop is that you can work anywhere.
So basically, screw everyone else in normal cars, I want to protect my family. Nice.
4 million in Japan and 5 million in the US leaves just 1 million sales in the rest of the world, presumably mostly in Europe. In terms of market size, Europe is pretty big, I wonder why the DS sales are so much lower?
But if they upgrade the iBooks first, won't they be significantly more powerful than the Powerbooks for a while. Assuming Apple is going for a new Pentium M of some kind, that is.
Also, the layout is completely broken here (Firefox 1.5 Linux). The columns of text are about 1.5 times the height of the background box, making it unreadable. I think it's to do with font size.
For me, the DS would be far more comfortable if they cut the bottom left corner off to make it easier to reach the touchscreen and rounded the edges off like the sides of an iPod Mini.
It's not that hard to see if there's a 'const' in the function prototype, is it?
I agree, it would be odd for Nintendo to release yet another variation on the GBA. I think we will see the DS growing in importance even more. It seems a perfect platform for Nintendo to get the idea out there that graphics aren't that important, having fun is.
My wishlist would be:
- Legend of Zelda DS
- Starcraft DS
- An improved DS, about half the weight and thickness
This is hardly surprising. Buying DVDs, CDs, games etc in the UK, the high street shops have a crappy selection, poor layout, overly loud music blaring and high prices. I was looking through some of the post-christmas sales offers and the prices only just matched Amazon's, even with a bunch of coupons.
I would think a potential problem is that people will play Counterstrike or Battlefield 2 for hundreds of hours, while many single player games are around 25 hours. I've found since I stopped online gaming a while back, I game for the same amount of total time, it's just with more games.
Oh come on, Lost is good but not great: it's a 13 episode show stretched out far too thin. In order for a drama like that to remain interesting, you either have to have incredibly interesting characters, or something has to actually happen. Lost has neither of those, so it just remains mediocre.
Yeah, because 6 games are nowhere near as much fun as a minor improvement in graphical quality.
PC games are not necessarily taking advantage of the higher resolution: you could play the original Half Life in 1600x1200 and it wouldn't look *that* much better, because the textures are still designed for 800x600 or so. It's kind of an arms race thing.
I'm sure there's been a lot of work on the backend, but the interface in Writer doesn't seem much improved over 1.1.x. No direct manipulation or even preview of formatting changes, styles gallery doesn't display a preview of the formatting of each style, formatting dialogs are modal, same odd text boxes jumping around the page behaviour as Word...
I really want to like OO.org 2, but the developers aren't making it easy.
Exactly: IMHO, .0.x updates should be bugfixes only, with no new features. It would certainly make distro upgrade much easier.
Indeed, I only have 16 Djinn. The annoying thing is, without resorting to cheating and looking at a walkthrough, there is no way of knowing that this isn't enough before hand. My party defeats every monster apart from the final ones without taking any significant damage, so I am now faced either with a dull backtrack through the maps to find Djinn or giving up.
I wish Nintendo were better at getting its games released in the UK: I'm not sure FF IV even has a release date here yet, Trauma center is out next March, I've seen nothing to indicate a Mario and Luigi 2 UK release date yet. I guess I should just start ordering from lik-sang.com, but the customs charges put me off.
I can't see Labour getting in easily next time: they've got another three or four years of this increasingly bad policy making to hang themselves with. The Tories under Cameron and the LibDems under whoever replaces Kennedy (I vote Simon Hughes) are going to pick up a lot of seats. My prediction is for a hung parliament and some sort of lib/lab pact again.
Of course, you can get a DS with three or four games for the price of a PSP. And, IMHO, there are a lot of very good games for the DS. Castlevania, Mario64 DS, Sonic Rush, Mario&Luigi2, Advance Wars DS for starters, plus a load more in the pipeline (Super Monkey Ball DS should be fun). Of course, it doesn't have quite the stylish looks of the PSP, but then who notices what the handheld looks like while playing?