Slashdot? Well, show me that story from a respected news source, and then we'll talk, buddy!
Uhm, just kidding. It seems that the 'actually merged' talk going on early this year was actually 'haven't signed the papers yet but we're going to, honest!' - and eventually, they didn't sign the papers.
FWIW, this wasn't posted on the front page - you must have sections collapsed. It's a Games-specific post.
I'm excited about Doom, but I am a little worried about how the story will get integrated in there - previous id games aren't generally very story-rich. Maybe it doesn't matter, as long as the gameplay's all there, though.
So, while it's stupid to pull a title just for Jackson associations, it might be argued that, if the game had been any higher-profile a title, they might have delayed the release. So, I would claim, not insane. YMMV.
It's called Wild Divine, we covered it most recently a couple of months ago, and I haven't heard what it's like, or even if it's out. But it looks, uhm, intriguing. Or something.
It may be that it was just a fan describing an imaginary TV commercial - I'd also heard that it was available online, but that may be further misinformation, hurrah. Anyhow, there's people talking about it here.
I believe Midway have already released a bunch of these retro-styled titles for PS1 - one of them is Arcade Party Pak, and there are a few others.
As for why they've targeted PS2, I think people like the idea of buying a new PS2 game with the content, even if it could theoretically be done on a PS1. Also, Xbox and GameCube don't have such decent backwards-compatible options, heh.
But then again, if the amount of console software out there are still rising at a certain rate, but the hardware no longer increases at that rate, it still may be a problem - although I agree, not a cosmically bad situation.
Actually, I think more a problem toward the end of a console's life cycle is the amount of good quality older games available at budget prices, and the quick pricing-down of new titles because there's such a glut on the market. But this is probably separate of install-base.
There were/are plenty of NES compilation carts available, even back in 1990 - I actually found an old '190-in-1' at my local flea market in California last year, though they're much more difficult to track down nowadays, and mainly only hold novelty value.
The bootlegs tended to run with the much smaller-sized and more basic games, though, because you can fit more on a cart. A good source of info about cool/random unofficial carts is theredeye.net, especially his (warning, NES nudity!) archive. There are some very cool + totally unplayably bad 'conversions' of Street Fighter II and even Mortal Kombat covered on there, too.
I think the street date of that Weekly Jump magazine is probably after/on the 19th, but somebody in Japan is getting copies early and posting them online, though I'm not sure - I would think Square Enix wouldn't want to scoop their own press conference by printing details early elsewhere. The magazine itself is _very_ popular, it seems - has a larger circulation than any US game-related magazine, though it seems like it covers other stuff too:
"What is JUMP?
WEEKLY JUMP, rival publication of WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY, is a "phone book" anthology published every week, with a circulation over 4 million. It is filled with some of today's hottest titles targeted for school age boys, many of them familiar to anime fans. JUMP has among its esteemed alumni: DRAGON BALL, VIDEO GIRL AI, CITY HUNTER, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, KIMAGURE ORANGE ROAD, SAINT SEIYA, SLAM DUNK, and YUU YUU HAKUSHO / POLTERGEIST REPORT."
The Copyright Office/Library Of Congress ruling only applies to access protection circumvention under the DMCA - all copyrights are still valid, so if you copy 'abandonware', or even circumvent copy protection, it's still illegal.
There's been a lot of confusion about this, unfortunately, but the access circumvention was mainly to allow official institutions (who may or may not be allowed to keep a limited amount of copies for archival purposes) to archive old software properly. There's some possibility that if you personally own old software that only has access controls, and you want to make a copy, that may be allowed, but IANAL, heh.
Random thought - if the Gran Turismo competition was really judged on the spot, how can Sony guarantee the winner will be in Gran Turismo 4? Don't they have to get prior permission from the car manufacturer before announcing it? What would have happened if an obscure make that Sony had no deal with was the best car at the show?
Also, good news - a Virtua Racing remake is in the third batch of Sega Ages 3D titles - GameSpot has hands-on impressions - yay. I used to play the original arcade machine a heck of a lot, so it's pretty tempting.
It's worth pointing out that the remakes are _somewhat_ enhanced - for example, Space Harrier has been converted to 3D and has proper 3D explosions, etc.
But I think I'd prefer to get lots of good emulated versions on one disc than one 'updated' version - see Midway's Arcade Treasures for an excellent-looking emulation-based compilation I'm really looking forward to.
Fair comment. We may try to tone down the more abstract MMOG stories a bit in the future - people start asking the same questions after a while, and it blends together a little bit.:)
Actually, although it's not Rockstar North doing The Warriors, it's Rockstar Vancouver, I believe - but they're still a non-American game developer, so the point is still good, heh.
It's just a nicely put-together article summarizing some of the neater details in the comparison. Considering they use the Scarface soundtrack in the game, I think everyone is well aware that there's a homage already - this writes it all up in a worthwhile way and points out some extra cool things, though. Honestly.:P
FWIW, I only had to go back a day to find a mainpage story that had some software released with a version on it and specific updates - the Linux kernel, as it happens.
I thought this update was worth posting because it added the stunt mode, which is an entirely custom-designed mode for GTA and sounds pretty darn cool. Of course, we don't post every single version update for every single game mod - just the ones that are kinda cool. But, as the saying goes, and just so I can start and finish this post with acronyms, YMMV.
Interesting.. I notice that DreamcastHistory.com (great site, btw) has a copy of a prototype disc for Propeller Arena, and reference 'the version that's floating around', implying there's a leaked version somewhere-or-other, I would guess on Usenet, bah.
Sorry, noticed this late - yes, the Games subsection is only intended to be read by clickin the 'Games' section link on the left of the main page, so we get many fewer (but still significant amounts) of comments. Yay.
The fact that the N-Gage can run decent emulators and homebrew Series 60 software seems to be the best-kept secret of the launch - I wonder if Nokia completely failed to mention it so they could highlight the N-Gage specific launch titles? I know there was someone posting about this earlier, and I was kinda sceptical that they were even correct, it's been so badly publicized.
So it's definitely going to be tempting to pick up if it gets cheap enough, considering there's going to be some decent retro emulation action to be had on it. Yay.
Something worth mentioning, and hinted at in the articles, is that the extra in-game items (and other new content?) _MIGHT_ be coming to Xbox consumers over Xbox Live. And since it's quite possible that DaveCBio works for BioWare, well.. he might know what he's talking about, I guess. Worth watching out for.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot? Well, show me that story from a respected news source, and then we'll talk, buddy!
Uhm, just kidding. It seems that the 'actually merged' talk going on early this year was actually 'haven't signed the papers yet but we're going to, honest!' - and eventually, they didn't sign the papers.
FWIW, this wasn't posted on the front page - you must have sections collapsed. It's a Games-specific post.
I'm excited about Doom, but I am a little worried about how the story will get integrated in there - previous id games aren't generally very story-rich. Maybe it doesn't matter, as long as the gameplay's all there, though.
Well, after the charges that broke this week, around the time of the game's release, CBS pulled its Jackson special, and a marching band struck 'Thriller' from their repertoire for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
So, while it's stupid to pull a title just for Jackson associations, it might be argued that, if the game had been any higher-profile a title, they might have delayed the release. So, I would claim, not insane. YMMV.
It's called Wild Divine, we covered it most recently a couple of months ago, and I haven't heard what it's like, or even if it's out. But it looks, uhm, intriguing. Or something.
It may be that it was just a fan describing an imaginary TV commercial - I'd also heard that it was available online, but that may be further misinformation, hurrah. Anyhow, there's people talking about it here.
I believe Midway have already released a bunch of these retro-styled titles for PS1 - one of them is Arcade Party Pak, and there are a few others.
As for why they've targeted PS2, I think people like the idea of buying a new PS2 game with the content, even if it could theoretically be done on a PS1. Also, Xbox and GameCube don't have such decent backwards-compatible options, heh.
But then again, if the amount of console software out there are still rising at a certain rate, but the hardware no longer increases at that rate, it still may be a problem - although I agree, not a cosmically bad situation.
Actually, I think more a problem toward the end of a console's life cycle is the amount of good quality older games available at budget prices, and the quick pricing-down of new titles because there's such a glut on the market. But this is probably separate of install-base.
There were/are plenty of NES compilation carts available, even back in 1990 - I actually found an old '190-in-1' at my local flea market in California last year, though they're much more difficult to track down nowadays, and mainly only hold novelty value.
The bootlegs tended to run with the much smaller-sized and more basic games, though, because you can fit more on a cart. A good source of info about cool/random unofficial carts is theredeye.net, especially his (warning, NES nudity!) archive. There are some very cool + totally unplayably bad 'conversions' of Street Fighter II and even Mortal Kombat covered on there, too.
I think the street date of that Weekly Jump magazine is probably after/on the 19th, but somebody in Japan is getting copies early and posting them online, though I'm not sure - I would think Square Enix wouldn't want to scoop their own press conference by printing details early elsewhere. The magazine itself is _very_ popular, it seems - has a larger circulation than any US game-related magazine, though it seems like it covers other stuff too:
"What is JUMP? WEEKLY JUMP, rival publication of WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY, is a "phone book" anthology published every week, with a circulation over 4 million. It is filled with some of today's hottest titles targeted for school age boys, many of them familiar to anime fans. JUMP has among its esteemed alumni: DRAGON BALL, VIDEO GIRL AI, CITY HUNTER, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, KIMAGURE ORANGE ROAD, SAINT SEIYA, SLAM DUNK, and YUU YUU HAKUSHO / POLTERGEIST REPORT."
Not enough room in the story to clarify it, but the first link says:
"Please note: this release includes only the Windows client version. Mac client, Linux client, and Linux server will be released at a later time."
Doh.
The Copyright Office/Library Of Congress ruling only applies to access protection circumvention under the DMCA - all copyrights are still valid, so if you copy 'abandonware', or even circumvent copy protection, it's still illegal.
There's been a lot of confusion about this, unfortunately, but the access circumvention was mainly to allow official institutions (who may or may not be allowed to keep a limited amount of copies for archival purposes) to archive old software properly. There's some possibility that if you personally own old software that only has access controls, and you want to make a copy, that may be allowed, but IANAL, heh.
Random thought - if the Gran Turismo competition was really judged on the spot, how can Sony guarantee the winner will be in Gran Turismo 4? Don't they have to get prior permission from the car manufacturer before announcing it? What would have happened if an obscure make that Sony had no deal with was the best car at the show?
Also, good news - a Virtua Racing remake is in the third batch of Sega Ages 3D titles - GameSpot has hands-on impressions - yay. I used to play the original arcade machine a heck of a lot, so it's pretty tempting.
It's worth pointing out that the remakes are _somewhat_ enhanced - for example, Space Harrier has been converted to 3D and has proper 3D explosions, etc.
But I think I'd prefer to get lots of good emulated versions on one disc than one 'updated' version - see Midway's Arcade Treasures for an excellent-looking emulation-based compilation I'm really looking forward to.
Fair comment. We may try to tone down the more abstract MMOG stories a bit in the future - people start asking the same questions after a while, and it blends together a little bit. :)
Actually, although it's not Rockstar North doing The Warriors, it's Rockstar Vancouver, I believe - but they're still a non-American game developer, so the point is still good, heh.
It's just a nicely put-together article summarizing some of the neater details in the comparison. Considering they use the Scarface soundtrack in the game, I think everyone is well aware that there's a homage already - this writes it all up in a worthwhile way and points out some extra cool things, though. Honestly. :P
Thanks for the heads-up, guys, a rogue horizontal ad got into the vertical ad-space and caused havoc, havoc, I tell you. We're looking at it.
FWIW, I only had to go back a day to find a mainpage story that had some software released with a version on it and specific updates - the Linux kernel, as it happens.
I thought this update was worth posting because it added the stunt mode, which is an entirely custom-designed mode for GTA and sounds pretty darn cool. Of course, we don't post every single version update for every single game mod - just the ones that are kinda cool. But, as the saying goes, and just so I can start and finish this post with acronyms, YMMV.
Interesting.. I notice that DreamcastHistory.com (great site, btw) has a copy of a prototype disc for Propeller Arena, and reference 'the version that's floating around', implying there's a leaked version somewhere-or-other, I would guess on Usenet, bah.
Sorry, noticed this late - yes, the Games subsection is only intended to be read by clickin the 'Games' section link on the left of the main page, so we get many fewer (but still significant amounts) of comments. Yay.
The fact that the N-Gage can run decent emulators and homebrew Series 60 software seems to be the best-kept secret of the launch - I wonder if Nokia completely failed to mention it so they could highlight the N-Gage specific launch titles? I know there was someone posting about this earlier, and I was kinda sceptical that they were even correct, it's been so badly publicized.
So it's definitely going to be tempting to pick up if it gets cheap enough, considering there's going to be some decent retro emulation action to be had on it. Yay.
Exact link is http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/239651.asp
Something worth mentioning, and hinted at in the articles, is that the extra in-game items (and other new content?) _MIGHT_ be coming to Xbox consumers over Xbox Live. And since it's quite possible that DaveCBio works for BioWare, well.. he might know what he's talking about, I guess. Worth watching out for.
Um, Half-Life 2? I'm aware it's not developed by Sierra, but nonetheless..