Re:History? Not so much.
on
Halo 2 Released
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· Score: 4, Funny
But I simply cannot understand the constant speculation that it might become the "most popular" or "bestselling" game in history.
This is Microsoft History 2004. Other consoles don't exist. This is the best-selling XBOX game in history, and therefore the best-selling console game in history.
I've been playing FFXI since the US PS2 release, and it's very solid. Very solid economy, connections, etc. The only real issue I can remember is the report of people having trouble connecting during an update, and that was supposedly fixed. Of course you have the occasional lag-disconnect, or lag in areas with a lot of action, but that's the nature of the network.
Re:Emphasis on AGAIN
on
Halo 2 Reviews
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· Score: 4, Insightful
WHAT CREATIVE THERE WAS IN HALO 1?
Someone made an XBOX game that didn't completely suck?
Seriously though, you're right on. Halo 1 might have been impressive if it hadn't been delayed for how many years because Bungie sold out. Might. As I said the other day, Doom 1 was revolutionary; everything in the FPS realm has been incremental improvements and regurgitation since.
XBOX fans are just excited because there's hype don't have much else to be excited about. (Funny, sad story: once back when all these consoles were new and sparkly, I talked to a kid in a game shop who had picked Saturn, N64, Dreamcast, and now XBOX. Ouch.)
Ah... moderate or post, moderate or post... let's post:
Can you move objects with your mind? I can't. Therefore I am not very likely to readily believe that anyone can. This is different than saying, for example, "I can't play piano, therefore I doubt anyone can," because playing the piano is an ability which is a matter of degrees.
This is logically unsound. This assumes that TK is something that doesn't need training (or perhaps innate ability). This implies that it exists in a particular manner, which you then claim it does not, because you don't have it. Circular reasoning!
I'm not claiming it does exist or not, and I do agree with your first paragraph: it should be held to the same standards of repeatability as anything else. But the parent poster is who I agree with most. People are unwilling to even study something because it conflicts with their personal beliefs. This is science as a religion, not science as an academic tool.
As a systems admin, I don't want to fuss around with kernels, deciding between a distribution, and all that jazz.
So basically you're lazy and incompetant, unwilling to investigate solutions and make a decision.
With an educational discount, Windows 2003 server costs my department $142 (sure, it's more in a commercial environment),
I can download Fedora Core for free. Or Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo,... the list goes on.
Oh, but wait, you can't make a decision.
I can install it, set it up, run updates on it once in a while, run the baseline security analyzer on it, and forget about it.
More laziness and incompetance. You don't pay attention to advisories? Make sure your setup is tuned for your installation?
Give me a linux that does all this in an easy to use manner, and I'll switch.
So you just want a system that lets you be a lazy, incompetant administrator, because you don't want to have to do anything other than click a button now and again?
Linux actually is easy to administer. A bit of setup and one or two people can maintain a thousand or more Linux boxes. Without that much headache. Sure, they'll have to know Linux, how to use the tools, and maybe even be good. But paying 2 people $80k a year is cheaper than paying 20 people $30k a year.
Sure, I could use apt and the others, but it just takes too much time, and you have to worry about various dependencies and what not.
Ignorance. Anyone who is familiar with these tools knows that dependency maintenance is part of what they do.
I'd like nothing better than to run a Unix variant, but until you bring me a monolithic distribution that just works, I'll have to stay Microsoft for now.
Please do. We don't need lazy, incompetant idiots running our critical boxes.
P.S. Anyone who says the screen is sexy is a liar, too, as pretty much nobody has actually gotten a chance to use it and determine its quality in person.
Pretty much nobody? I suppose the couple people at that little get-together called "E3" don't qualify. Nor do the other couple people who went to that little "TGS" thing.
Or the few people who downloaded the videos from both shows. (Dig around on psp.ign.com)
OK... I don't want to come off as a Sony fanboy, because I'm not. I love Nintendo. So this post will hopefully balance the last and to justice to Nintendo.
I love FFTA, I even like the (slightly cliche, but well-executed) story. It has good graphics and as a whole is a very addictive game with a lot to offer. People can put in what, 120 hours? You can pick it up at almost any time, and suspend and drop it whenever as well. The quest-based gameplay worked excellently, IMHO. When I say "watered-down" I mean the story (although the original's was rather obtuse), the character system (the original had a lot more skills etc.), and even the graphics a bit (there's no good reason I can't rotate the field on the GBA, it doesn't need to smoothly rotate, just shift). But that doesn't mean it's not a great game.
Hopefully the battery thing won't kill Sony too much; 4-6 hours isn't too terrible (at worst, one battery per play session, for long sessions), but it's not the GBA SP. Neither is the DS, so we'll see how they fare head-to-head, but in the past reported battery life is much more optimistic than actual.
However, I want Sony to succeed here because I like Nintendo. They've been sitting back for awhile now, and they need competition to give them a kick in the butt and get them moving. I want amazing new Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc., and not just ports. I don't want Microsoft to come in and eat the gaming market and produce McDonalds games like they've produced McDonalds software.
I guess the moral of the story is that you don't have to decide between the DS and the PSP.
Both have things to offer. So get one of each.
Oh yeah, Katamari Damacy for the PSP would rock. If you want another good shooter, grab Gradius 5. Totally old-school arcade-style shooter, lots of fun.
the games..
That's all that really matters. Have you looked at the lineup for the two systems on ebgames?
Nintendo's games are, for the most part, hand-hend games. The GBA's best titles (Advance Wars, FFT:A), would not work as home console games. They were designed specifically to be 'pick up and play', and put down for an hour, then play again.
GBA games are mostly ports of console games. FFTA is basically a watered-down version of the original FFT, which was for PSX (and worked quite well there). Ports of all the Super Mario Allstars games (as individual carts), ports of Zelda, ports/remakes of old games (Shining, Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy Adventure/Sword of Mana, Metroid ZM, direct NES title ports).
The few titles that have been original (Golden Sun, Metroid Fusion, etc.; you know the ones) haven't been that great, either. Castlevania has been good. Wario Ware was funny and fun. Advance Wars was good. But c'mon here. I bought a GBA and a GBA SP, hoping for a whole new lineup of SNES-era games, and all I got was ports.
The PSP seems to have mostly ports of PS2 games. This won't work, but I suspect most people will ignore this fact, and be turned on by the sexy graphics of the PSP, and the PSP will do well, with shitty games, because most people are too stupid to base their opinion on anything that matters anyway.
I don't know what you're smoking, but you obviously haven't had beyond a cursory glance at what the PSP will be offering. You saw Gran Turismo 4, and heard that there would be Metal Gear, and though "ports!"
There are already a good number of original games lined up. Ren Goku. Mercury. Metal Gear Acid (no, this is not a port, and no, the fact it's turn-based is actually pretty logical). The Gagharv. Ten No Kagi. Many more, go look (psp.ign.com or the like).
It is all about the games. That's what Sony has to offer: a great selection of original games.
Actually, true, I forgot about Thief. I haven't seen it first-hand, but from what I've heard, I'd put it in the same group as Metroid Prime... adventure. (That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. Adventures are far grander things than mere shooters.)
On the other hand (and there are always a few other hands to be on, depending on your home planet), this did say cinematic action, not necessarily shooter. I don't think Thief had enough impact to define this genre, though, so I stick by my Doom vote, but I really hope we start to see deeper first-person games soon.
I just picked up one of these (very cute) little boxes because I wanted a second PS2. Why? Because my first one has a HDD in it (for FFXI), and is hooked up to my computer. However, I also play DDR regularly, in front of the TV, and take it to parties to play. I don't want to take the one with the HDD, and constantly setting up/taking down the console is a pain. (Not to mention the PS2v1 was quite a luggable.) A second one, especially with the new form factor, solves both problems. (And now I can play THUG and some others without splitscreen!;-))
Now, this isn't to say that many people will have reason to buy a PS2. The fact they did this is an obvious sign it's reached maturity. The fact the DS presales outsold the PS2 is hardly a suprise; call me back when it outsells the PS2 in total units shipped. (It might; the handheld market is a much different one from the console market. You could easily have 2+ per household.) But presales beating sales on an already-saturated console? Big whoopteedoo.
Actually, my vote goes to Doom 1. Why? Because nothing has changed significantly since then.
The only game that has gone beyond the basic "run down the hallways and shoot things" is Metroid Prime, but that's an adventure not a shooter so let's not compare apples and oranges.
In fact, most FPS's have taken a step backward since Doom 1. In Doom, the levels were well-architected, had you coming back to areas, and were littered with excellent secret areas. Today, it's "run through area, shoot things, go to next area, repeat". Pretty sad.
Diverse lineup of games (not just the latest quake clone or RTS). I don't just mean adventures, RPGs, platformers, music, and X-sports games; I mean the crazy wonderful things like the recent Katamari Damacy.
It's extremely inexpensive. For Doom 3, upgrades to run it might cost $500+ and that's not including a top-of-the-line video card. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra is $500 alone. With a console, I pay maybe $300 once when it first comes out ($100-$200 a few generations later), and then all I have to buy are games (and maybe the occasional $10 memory card).
Although unlike the parent poster, I like the PS2 controller perhaps the best of the current generation, I agree that they're simply superior by nature due to the fact games can expect that you have one.
The grandparent poster may have a point if all you play is FPS's. Joysticks aren't the greatest for aiming by any means. However, out of the 70+ PS2 games, 10+ cube games, 30+ PS1 games, 20+ GBA games, and hundreds of NES/SNES/Genesis/SMS games I have, only a very few of them are FPS's, so this is a moot point.
In short: if you want some real games, get a console, otherwise be happy with your quake clone-of-the-month.
(Yes I'm bored today.:-)
I also don't recall mentioning any particular XBOX competitor. I support all the ones with good games: Cube, PS2, GBA, DS, PSP, etc. No N-GAGE, no XBOX, etc.)
Easy. Because XBOX owners don't have a whole lot else to play. EA Sports Whatever 200X, Some Port, yadda. There aren't that many exclusive games, and when there are they're big sellers even if they're subpar. (Halo, Fable, etc.)
Mod me down as a troll if you're a fanboy, but you know it's true.
"play online" Score. Xbox has online play figured out, and no one is going to argue that. Of course, there's far too many chatty asshats out there, plus only a minority of Xbox users subscribe. But the underlying service is well constructed.
I'd like to supplement this by saying the PS2 is the only one with FFXI, and that Square Enix's PlayOnline is excellent. This is the game I want to play, and the PS2 has it. (The PC has it too, but 1. it requires Windows which I don't run and 2. it would require far more money upgrading than it would to buy a PS2, hdd, and net adaptor combined.)
Also, THUG, the only other game I care about playing online, was far better in its PS2 support than XBOX or Cube. Maybe THUG2 will fix that.
Otherwise, I don't care about this month's FPS or sports game.
On another topic, I see posts about the PS2's graphics suffering. Maybe. But Halo is looking like a glorified N64 game, and Halo 2 isn't significantly better. Not only that, graphics don't make the game: Katamari Damacy, for instance, has near-first-gen PS2 graphics, and yet it's one of the most unusual, fun games I've played in awhile.
(On the other hand, I've been playing Silent Hill 3-4 recently, and it's one of the few games I can look at after seeing Doom 3 and not say "wow... bland". Wonderful complex texturing and shadow casting.)
"It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan
which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons,
insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather
than be the instrument of his army's downfall."
I've got a Zaurus SL-C860 running pdaXrom. My desktop looks like this. It's quite literally all the day-to-day Linux goodness I need in my pocket. The latest pdaXrom even has a native SDK. I can take notes during a meeting, organize my schedule, try a few lines of code, ssh to a host (bluetooth/gprs/802.11b), browse the web (firefox, konqueror, dillo), email (thunderbird, sylpheed), play nethack/Zangband/etc.
The idea is that I can be anyplace and have access to information I want. I drop by a store to get something, and see a product on sale, but I don't remember what the reviews said. Maybe I'm going to be out longer than expected, and I ssh back and set my PVR to record a show. Perhaps I need to get someplace, and grab them from mapquest. Or I want to see if someone is around, so I log into irc or fire off an email.
There are plenty of uses. Just make sure you have a PDA with an OS that has the software you need.:-)
(Note I haven't yet connected via bluetooth. I've got a symbol bluetooth card, but am still looking for an acceptable phone. 802.11b is wonderful however.)
Yes, because portable devices with moving parts, like Discmans, CD MP3 players, or hard drive MP3 players get terrible battery life. Why, my 40G iHP only gets 16 hours!
Microsoft deliberately designs software that is inherently insecure and refuses to fix the fundamental design flaws no matter how bad the outcome is.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Personally I think Microsoft as a whole is just so incompetant they simply can't pull it off. Business policies, marketting, etc. all come together to make certain things more important than others, and a mindset of "just getting things done" versus "doing things right from the start" roll into the mediocre Microsoft mess we see today.
Unfortunately for them, to fix this, they can't just change a few lines of code. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire corporate culture in all respects. Doing that with a company the size of Microsoft would be pretty tough, especially with a mindset that tells them such things are unneccessary!
Slashdot Mirror
This is Microsoft History 2004. Other consoles don't exist. This is the best-selling XBOX game in history, and therefore the best-selling console game in history.
If you say it enough times, it's true, right?
I've been playing FFXI since the US PS2 release, and it's very solid. Very solid economy, connections, etc. The only real issue I can remember is the report of people having trouble connecting during an update, and that was supposedly fixed. Of course you have the occasional lag-disconnect, or lag in areas with a lot of action, but that's the nature of the network.
We'll get the coast guard right on that.
Someone made an XBOX game that didn't completely suck?
Seriously though, you're right on. Halo 1 might have been impressive if it hadn't been delayed for how many years because Bungie sold out. Might. As I said the other day, Doom 1 was revolutionary; everything in the FPS realm has been incremental improvements and regurgitation since.
XBOX fans are just excited because there's hype don't have much else to be excited about. (Funny, sad story: once back when all these consoles were new and sparkly, I talked to a kid in a game shop who had picked Saturn, N64, Dreamcast, and now XBOX. Ouch.)
Ah... moderate or post, moderate or post... let's post:
This is logically unsound. This assumes that TK is something that doesn't need training (or perhaps innate ability). This implies that it exists in a particular manner, which you then claim it does not, because you don't have it. Circular reasoning!
I'm not claiming it does exist or not, and I do agree with your first paragraph: it should be held to the same standards of repeatability as anything else. But the parent poster is who I agree with most. People are unwilling to even study something because it conflicts with their personal beliefs. This is science as a religion, not science as an academic tool.
Vote for Richard Nixon's Head in 2004!
So basically you're lazy and incompetant, unwilling to investigate solutions and make a decision.
I can download Fedora Core for free. Or Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, ... the list goes on.
Oh, but wait, you can't make a decision.
More laziness and incompetance. You don't pay attention to advisories? Make sure your setup is tuned for your installation?
So you just want a system that lets you be a lazy, incompetant administrator, because you don't want to have to do anything other than click a button now and again?
Linux actually is easy to administer. A bit of setup and one or two people can maintain a thousand or more Linux boxes. Without that much headache. Sure, they'll have to know Linux, how to use the tools, and maybe even be good. But paying 2 people $80k a year is cheaper than paying 20 people $30k a year.
Ignorance. Anyone who is familiar with these tools knows that dependency maintenance is part of what they do.
Please do. We don't need lazy, incompetant idiots running our critical boxes.
Pretty much nobody? I suppose the couple people at that little get-together called "E3" don't qualify. Nor do the other couple people who went to that little "TGS" thing.
Or the few people who downloaded the videos from both shows. (Dig around on psp.ign.com)
OK... I don't want to come off as a Sony fanboy, because I'm not. I love Nintendo. So this post will hopefully balance the last and to justice to Nintendo.
I love FFTA, I even like the (slightly cliche, but well-executed) story. It has good graphics and as a whole is a very addictive game with a lot to offer. People can put in what, 120 hours? You can pick it up at almost any time, and suspend and drop it whenever as well. The quest-based gameplay worked excellently, IMHO. When I say "watered-down" I mean the story (although the original's was rather obtuse), the character system (the original had a lot more skills etc.), and even the graphics a bit (there's no good reason I can't rotate the field on the GBA, it doesn't need to smoothly rotate, just shift). But that doesn't mean it's not a great game.
Hopefully the battery thing won't kill Sony too much; 4-6 hours isn't too terrible (at worst, one battery per play session, for long sessions), but it's not the GBA SP. Neither is the DS, so we'll see how they fare head-to-head, but in the past reported battery life is much more optimistic than actual.
However, I want Sony to succeed here because I like Nintendo. They've been sitting back for awhile now, and they need competition to give them a kick in the butt and get them moving. I want amazing new Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc., and not just ports. I don't want Microsoft to come in and eat the gaming market and produce McDonalds games like they've produced McDonalds software.
I guess the moral of the story is that you don't have to decide between the DS and the PSP. Both have things to offer. So get one of each.
Oh yeah, Katamari Damacy for the PSP would rock. If you want another good shooter, grab Gradius 5. Totally old-school arcade-style shooter, lots of fun.
GBA games are mostly ports of console games. FFTA is basically a watered-down version of the original FFT, which was for PSX (and worked quite well there). Ports of all the Super Mario Allstars games (as individual carts), ports of Zelda, ports/remakes of old games (Shining, Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy Adventure/Sword of Mana, Metroid ZM, direct NES title ports).
The few titles that have been original (Golden Sun, Metroid Fusion, etc.; you know the ones) haven't been that great, either. Castlevania has been good. Wario Ware was funny and fun. Advance Wars was good. But c'mon here. I bought a GBA and a GBA SP, hoping for a whole new lineup of SNES-era games, and all I got was ports.
I don't know what you're smoking, but you obviously haven't had beyond a cursory glance at what the PSP will be offering. You saw Gran Turismo 4, and heard that there would be Metal Gear, and though "ports!"
There are already a good number of original games lined up. Ren Goku. Mercury. Metal Gear Acid (no, this is not a port, and no, the fact it's turn-based is actually pretty logical). The Gagharv. Ten No Kagi. Many more, go look (psp.ign.com or the like).
It is all about the games. That's what Sony has to offer: a great selection of original games.
Actually, true, I forgot about Thief. I haven't seen it first-hand, but from what I've heard, I'd put it in the same group as Metroid Prime... adventure. (That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. Adventures are far grander things than mere shooters.)
On the other hand (and there are always a few other hands to be on, depending on your home planet), this did say cinematic action, not necessarily shooter. I don't think Thief had enough impact to define this genre, though, so I stick by my Doom vote, but I really hope we start to see deeper first-person games soon.
There's a PS2 LCD that worked with the old style PS2. Probably too big for the new one, but I'd imagine you'll see one within a month or two.
Now, this isn't to say that many people will have reason to buy a PS2. The fact they did this is an obvious sign it's reached maturity. The fact the DS presales outsold the PS2 is hardly a suprise; call me back when it outsells the PS2 in total units shipped. (It might; the handheld market is a much different one from the console market. You could easily have 2+ per household.) But presales beating sales on an already-saturated console? Big whoopteedoo.
Actually, my vote goes to Doom 1. Why? Because nothing has changed significantly since then.
The only game that has gone beyond the basic "run down the hallways and shoot things" is Metroid Prime, but that's an adventure not a shooter so let's not compare apples and oranges.
In fact, most FPS's have taken a step backward since Doom 1. In Doom, the levels were well-architected, had you coming back to areas, and were littered with excellent secret areas. Today, it's "run through area, shoot things, go to next area, repeat". Pretty sad.
Duh? That's why it was insightful. Not all sarcasm is meant to be +5 funny.
Although unlike the parent poster, I like the PS2 controller perhaps the best of the current generation, I agree that they're simply superior by nature due to the fact games can expect that you have one.
The grandparent poster may have a point if all you play is FPS's. Joysticks aren't the greatest for aiming by any means. However, out of the 70+ PS2 games, 10+ cube games, 30+ PS1 games, 20+ GBA games, and hundreds of NES/SNES/Genesis/SMS games I have, only a very few of them are FPS's, so this is a moot point.
In short: if you want some real games, get a console, otherwise be happy with your quake clone-of-the-month.
Yeah. That's kinda weird.
I'm still waiting for the XBOX to get one.
(Yes I'm bored today. :-)
I also don't recall mentioning any particular XBOX competitor. I support all the ones with good games: Cube, PS2, GBA, DS, PSP, etc. No N-GAGE, no XBOX, etc.)
I concur. I look forward to Google's ONE GIGABYTE of browser. Firefox only gives me 21MB (with extensions). I'm counting on Google to give us more.
Easy. Because XBOX owners don't have a whole lot else to play. EA Sports Whatever 200X, Some Port, yadda. There aren't that many exclusive games, and when there are they're big sellers even if they're subpar. (Halo, Fable, etc.)
Mod me down as a troll if you're a fanboy, but you know it's true.
I'd like to supplement this by saying the PS2 is the only one with FFXI, and that Square Enix's PlayOnline is excellent. This is the game I want to play, and the PS2 has it. (The PC has it too, but 1. it requires Windows which I don't run and 2. it would require far more money upgrading than it would to buy a PS2, hdd, and net adaptor combined.)
Also, THUG, the only other game I care about playing online, was far better in its PS2 support than XBOX or Cube. Maybe THUG2 will fix that.
Otherwise, I don't care about this month's FPS or sports game.
On another topic, I see posts about the PS2's graphics suffering. Maybe. But Halo is looking like a glorified N64 game, and Halo 2 isn't significantly better. Not only that, graphics don't make the game: Katamari Damacy, for instance, has near-first-gen PS2 graphics, and yet it's one of the most unusual, fun games I've played in awhile.
(On the other hand, I've been playing Silent Hill 3-4 recently, and it's one of the few games I can look at after seeing Doom 3 and not say "wow... bland". Wonderful complex texturing and shadow casting.)
The idea is that I can be anyplace and have access to information I want. I drop by a store to get something, and see a product on sale, but I don't remember what the reviews said. Maybe I'm going to be out longer than expected, and I ssh back and set my PVR to record a show. Perhaps I need to get someplace, and grab them from mapquest. Or I want to see if someone is around, so I log into irc or fire off an email.
There are plenty of uses. Just make sure you have a PDA with an OS that has the software you need. :-)
(Note I haven't yet connected via bluetooth. I've got a symbol bluetooth card, but am still looking for an acceptable phone. 802.11b is wonderful however.)
Yes, because portable devices with moving parts, like Discmans, CD MP3 players, or hard drive MP3 players get terrible battery life. Why, my 40G iHP only gets 16 hours!
Personally I think Microsoft as a whole is just so incompetant they simply can't pull it off. Business policies, marketting, etc. all come together to make certain things more important than others, and a mindset of "just getting things done" versus "doing things right from the start" roll into the mediocre Microsoft mess we see today.
Unfortunately for them, to fix this, they can't just change a few lines of code. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire corporate culture in all respects. Doing that with a company the size of Microsoft would be pretty tough, especially with a mindset that tells them such things are unneccessary!