I loved Niven's Ringworld series. And Halo took my breath away when I finally set foot on the surface. I thought it was a fantastic rendition of a ringworld. And the early level, where you are looking for the cartographer, felt so much like cruising around and ancient & mysterious & abandonned ringworld.
Then I learned just how important a game designer really is. The game started to suck when I had ot ross the bridge, fight through 3 large rooms full of enemies, then cross another bridge and fight 3 large rooms full of enemies then cross another bridge..... well, you get the point.
It achieved true suckdom with the flood. After about 4 levels of the same fricking levels I wanted to scratch out an eye. I think I would have been blind once I finished even if I was a spider.
Part of the super midway games compilation. I played that game like a million damn times in the arcades. I love playing against the computer, and I've been considering getting a second PSP just so I can play other people. Yes, I know there are alternative ways to play (MAME + kailera), but for simple ease-of-use, the PSP + Cyberball is great. Of course, the little analog nubbin sucks balls. But I've gotten used to it... but no so used to it that I don't scour eBay looking for arcade units for sale nearby.
I've got other games for it, but they don't get played much.
Steam is not perfect, and maybe it doesn't quite rock, but it does shake a little bit.
I really like that Steam frees me from having the CD in the drive. I really, really like that. I don't care that Steam connects to the mothership everytime I log onto my system. Tho, admittedly, I wish it were a little bit faster at realizing the mothership was unavailable.
I have no plans on sharing any of the games with other people. But I have reformatted & reinstalled, and Steam asked for my ID & pwd and let me select which game I wanted to re-download. Sure, a media install would have been faster, but if it was critical for me to play immediately I spose I woulda made backups before the reinstall.
I like that I can preorder things & have the downloaded & nearly-ready to go on release day. I have never had issues getting a game authenticated. I've heard other folks have, but I haven't experienced any issues.
What I have had issues with a couple times are random game patches that "fix" a bug but create other "features". And the Valve support system has not helped me very much - it took quite a bit of forum-digging to find my issues.
I stopped trying to use the "friends" feature. It never worked before, but supposedly they fixed it. Don't care, tho.... xfire does a better job of tracking my gaming friends.
Whenever someone asks me what classes I had to take to get my programming job, I tell them "the required classes to gain the knowledge for this job: genetics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, 3 years of chemistry, and the usual stuff like bacteriology and zoology". And a.COM bubble where they hired anyone who could turn on a computer. And maybe was breathing. But I digress.
Eventually I tell them that I started with a BS in Genetics followed by a MS in Biology. During this time I noticed that all the biologists where unable to use their computers, so I started doing ti because I had a rather strong background in computers - I only went genetics because of a flip of the coin (heads: genetics, tails: comp sci. Heads...). As I was finishing the Bio MS I took a couple of programming classes and really enjoyed them. I asked how long it would take ot get a BS in CS, and they said I could go right in the MS program. I said Hell Yeah! and took a year of undergrad classes so I could catch up to the regular students. Then it was all grad CS stuff. In fact I just turned in my final project - training neural networks to play games. I enjoyed it.
When I was young & in my prime (and an underemployed student) I rarely bought anythign but instead ogt "free" versions from friends.
I'm employed, and a father, and now I buy the games.
My 3.5yo son loves robots. So last week I bought the LEGO Star Wars game. He has no clue who R2D2 is, but dammit, he knows R2 is a robot, so he wants to play! My boy was crying he was so excited to play the game.
The install was slow, but it it was copying media to the HD, so thats fine. I'll sacrifice space for speed. After a few minutes it finished and I started the game. My boy was holding a joystick, staring at the screen, and just shaking. I thought he was gonna start seizing.
"Wrong Disc Inserted"
Yeah, turns out EIDOS released a version of the game with defective copy protection. Their website flat out tells you that the disc is defective if it says "Disc 1" in yellow text on the disk. Ours does. We bought this year-old game brand frickin new, and its defective. And EIDOS knew it. Their website gives you a number to call to order a replacement.
So instead of 'splaining to junior that EIDOS quality control needs a kick to the sack, I hit up good ol'gamecopyworld and found a no-cd crack. Game starts right on up. The downside is the cracked version is not what I'd call stable, so I'm gonna have to send off for a replacement CD anyway, but at least we can keep the boy playing with robots until EIDOS sends the replacement.
So if EIDOS knows they released a bad batch, then why haven't they recalled the shitty ones & replaced them already? Strike one for EIDOS. I'd tell them I was so pissed that I refuse to buy the next Boobraider, except Lara Croft bored me to tears so it would be an empty threat.
I think the copy protection of Steam & CD-keys works very well. I don't find Steam intrusive; I don't have a problem with it. I never "loan" out cdkeys because I'm keen on not getting banned. Of course, these work best on online games.
I've played in a couple of Auto Assault weekend beta events.
*WARNING* I don't play any MMORPG's. I do play Planetside. A bunch. So my opinions might be tainted...
The game is pretty. The landscapes are cool. Its obvious that the designers put a ton of work into it. I couldn't get too far on the beta weekends; I think I got one toon to level 9 (I have a family that keeps interfering with my online life...). I made it out of the tutorial and the n00b zone, and was exploring the slightly-less-n00bish zone when I went to sleep.
It got boring very, very fast. It starts off like road warrior/mad-max, but as you progress the enemies get inexplicably tougher. I mean, they are both humans, but one dude gets squished as soon as I drive over him, but this other guy damages my car instead AND keeps on shooting me as I drive by. I just had a hard time grokking that. I kinda understand that most(all?) MMORPGs are like that. My fault, I 'spose. Once the enemies got too hard to kill (and its a very short gradient from easy -> minor challenge -> nyah! nyah! you can't hit me!) I gave up running missions and just tried to see as much of the zone as I could before the beta window was over.
I never saw anyone doing PvP, but I know this weekend was supposed ot be the big "beat the dev's" weekend, so I assume the PvP was taking place somewhere.
I bought one for work, and it worked so well I bought a second for home use. I was unable to use my beloved mx700 because it caused my palm to hurt. Same with a trackball. But this mouse is very comfortable & usable. It does take a couple of days to get used to using it. On the bright side, nobody ever messes with my computer because they can't wrap their brain around my mouse!
It plays OK in games. I find it occasionally "sticks" in one place for a few seconds. Its rare enough that it doesn't affect the overall gaming experience. I use this mouse in Planetside, BF2, CS:S, FEAR, etc.
They recently released a new driver which does seem to have helped a lot.
I do recommend:
Using a clean, non-reflective (fabric) mousepad
Remapping the buttons so that the top button is LMB, the middle button is RMB, and the bottom button does nothing...
ATI card by any chance? Using the 5.13 drivers? The ones which secretly detected F.E.A.R. and applied some outdated game-enhancement logic? You know, the logic that made F.E.A.R. single-player demo run like the shizzle on ATI cards, but makes the retail F.E.A.R. run like the fizzle?
I have a pretty good gaming system. I updated to the cat 5.13 drivers, and suddenly F.E.A.R. was getting 10fps. I tweaked everything, and nothing fixed it. I was teh dumb and actually played about 1/4 of the game like this. I renamed FEAR.exe to FEARme.exe and suddenly I got 45+fps.
The Strategic Commander was great, but was mistakenly marketed towards RTS gamers. Its real beauty was FPS. I used it for a couple years until I upgraded to a N52. In fact, while the N52 is a superior gaming product, all of my N52 layouts are direct decendents of the Strategic Commander layouts....
I had a Saitek Gamers Keyboard. Man, did that thing suck. Great hardware. Lousy gaming support. At release it would lock up several popular games (Star Wars BattleFrton comes to mind, as well as my crack addiction, PlanetSide). Saitek refused to fix it; a player discovered that you needed to disable the onboard volume controls in Winders device manager before their keyboard would work. Their drivers/software won't autoload profiles, either, so you need to manually change profiels. The N52 apparently has no such issues....
I recently bought a G15 and its awesome. Great keyboard. The macro keys haven't proved useful yet, but the customizable LCD has. Its nice to get system status info (cpu load, ram usage) while playign a full screen game. Plus I wrote my own LCD module to help me deal with a game with a long & storied history of crashing (cough... cough... Planetside).
The BF2 game is a naughty limerick scrawled inside a public restroom.
Unadvertised features of BF2:
Server Browser doesn't understand why PING! values matter, so it guesses (999 for a server down the street?)
Server Browser is sensitive and doesn't take kindly to rough handling. Poke it a few times, or change its filters, and it just stops working
Damage feels random. Drop any two players in a jar; shake them up: I honestly couldn't predict which would win
Virtually impossible to destroy air units
Some teammates show as being on the other team
Some class abilities damn near useless (engineers) because idiot teammates keep driving over your VERY WELL MARKED land mines & the punish you for the resulting teamkills
Choose your unlock weapons carefully, cuz you can't go back and change them once your realize how bad the are unbalanced
Lethal sniper rifles aren't acccurate or lethal. They're mostly just frustrating.
Base game has been patched, but major issues abound. So EA/DICE release an expansion instead of making the main game solid. Added bonus: expansion is supposedly buggier. I wouldn't know first hand; my wallet voted NO
EA/DICE allows players with Spec Forces to use those unique weapons in the game. This pissed me off as it feels like they are trying to force people to buy the expansion in order to keep up with the arms race.
more..... but I gotta work instead
On the plus side, they did release a SDK, and I think once I have some time I'll try making a mod to the game.
Its entertaining for a bit, but I found it hard to control. Once I figured out how to control it, I was able to make it to the final level in one sitting. Lost its replay value right there.
The "cut scenes" are funny - Mark Healey & friends (badly) acting out their wannabe kung fu dreams. The game was innovative, fun to play, surprising, hyperkinetic and funny. I didn't try multiplayer so I can't comment on it.
I have a LifeDrive. I spent last night & this morning trying to trick it into booting. See, it took one look at all of its neat built-in features & chose to swallow its tongue instead. I ended up having to do a hard reset (30 min to reformat the drive) & restore from the last hotsync - no problem, except this only restored main memory; the hard drive contents are lost.
I love my Palms (go ahead: laugh). I started with a well-used Pilot 5000, upgraded to an old VII, switched to a Zire 71 when my dog broke the VII, and then finally to a LifeDrive when it was released.
The LifeDrive has all the usual PDA suspects. I have a bunch of MP3 devices, and they do a betetr job that the LD, so I don't play MP3's on it (its built-in speakers suck; headphones are ok). The built-in wifi is pretty good; I check email around the house all the time. The built-in browser is ok; good for checking stock prices and reading wap.slashdot.org. Its got a great screen, and plays lots of time-killer games. Oddly enough, the thing that I like the best is that its a portable video keg. I've got a 3yo boy and a collection of movies, clips, shorts, etc. from around the web. Keeps him entertained when we're out & about.
So whats killing Palm? I actually feel used & abused by Palm. I bought a $500 LifeDrive, and I feel they've ignored its frequent crashes. Its been 6 months on they've only released minor patch to fix wifi access with some access points. The constant crashing remains ignored. Rumors on the boards say they are working towards a huge, device-fixing patch. I'd rather have a slew of smaller, stable patches to fix specific problems. At least I'd know Palm was doing somethign about its problems. Instead they've released a new set of devices. Oh, the stability problems are fixed in the new Palm T800. Except for its problems, which will be fixed in the future T1000. Except for....
Isn't the one advantage of consoles that they insure, to the game developer, that all hardware will be the same? No more trying to handle special cases, just code & hit PLAY.
Suddenly I'm seeing visions of some 14yo bongmaster staring at a screen, trying to play his new game, "Morto Kombato 12: Just Like The Others", but stuck wondering what to do about the message "To Play This Game You Must First Upgrade to InDirectX 15f".
That would be Core Combat. Yikes.
Oddly enough, Core Combat was delivered to address a specific desire voiced by Planetside players: urban-style combat (ie. fight in cities). The Core is beautiful to behold. Shiny rocks hither & yon. Nifty little zip lines to move you around. Too bad it sucked soooooo badly. People went to the Core only briefly. I consider it a chore, nay - a punishment! - to go to the Core.
I've never quite understood why Planetside never took off. As a FPS, its awesome. Huge, complex, multi-layered battles take place every single day. Varied terrain makes each conflict different. Like tanks? Got tanks. Like planes? Got planes.
One thing about planetside I appreciate is that history buffs who think they would have handled a war better really get their chance to do so. By leading squads players eventually get abilities to help lead their factions assault. Some of them really are good leaders. Too bad many of them demonsrate the truth behind the saying "crap floats to the top"
I think maybe the monthly fee scares some folks. I think the pure-FPS combat also scares a lot of MMORPG folks. Its not like EQ/CoH/SW/etc. where you just click on the victim & queue up actions; you actually have to aim & dodge & pull the trigger!
The biggest problem for PS is that Sony has somewhat abandoned it. They stopped advertising it a long time ago. Even when they did advertise, they did poorly - the last ad I saw looked like a 320x320 picture blown up to a half-page magazine ad: u-g-l-y. The game was rushed out of development early because they knew people would bolt to SWG a month later. The devs have actually done a good job finishing the game and adding features. The current producer is very involved with the players on the forums, and I like his enthusiasm for the game. The latest feature added are Mechs. I like them; not everyone seems to share my opinion. They are new, so everyone is tryign them out still (its Mechside!). Eventually they will even out & find their role int he conflict.
I would like to see a global win condition for the game. Something like in WWII Online where if one side wins, they reset the server. That would certainly make the game more interesting. They discussed having sanctuary strikes a while back; I'd realy like to see them instead.
The game has a very steep learning curve; its not easy for a new player to just log on & start contributing. The online manuals explain the game, but they don't do so well enough for a new player to read & then jump into the game. I've thought about making a newbie guide. One day I'll find the time.
They should burn a bunch of install dvd's, attach a 2-week demo key, and include them in some big magazine. But not until they make it easier (ie. "Planetside for Total n00bs") for the new folks.
I didn't really know what I wanted to do after high school. This was about 2 millenia ago, in computer terms (or about 1988), and I was filling out my college applications. I had always liked computers (C=64's rule!), and had written a few things here & there. I had also liked playing/reading Gamma World stuff (yeah, D&D nut who evolved into GW), and mutants were what made GW fun. For some reason, this led me to do well in the genetics section of 11th grade biology.
As I sat there, filling out the application form, I was deciding between going into computer science or going into genetics. I decided on genetics, since I certanly didn't want to spend all day sitting on my arse in front of a monitor!
Fastforward a few years, add on a BS in Genetics and a MS in Biology. And mix in the realization that I was spending all day sitting on my arse in front of a lab bench! Not much of an improvement.
But it turns out modern genetics is heavily computer oriented, and I started playing with the labs computers. Pretty soon I was writing little excel macros, then java proggies to help visualize genetic linkage groups. Pretty soon I switched to a computer job within the lab, and haven't looked back since.
I was looking for a job during the dot BOOM, when code monkeys were in such demand that you got hired if you knew C (or any other letter in the alphabet), and could prove you had a pulse. The pulse part was even negotiable. 4 years later, I'm one of the lead coders, and manage a large project for the company. I'm also finishing up a MS in CS, so if it becomes time to hunt for a job again, I'll at least be able to say I have a CS degree. I'm very happy with the switch. The money is a huge improvement over being in biotech; but I also like the job much better. And yes, I sit in front of a monitor all day. But the chair has better padding than the lab bench stool ever did...
It takes balls to make games the right way. Nowadays, everyone is all twitterpated with how their game has a billyuns & billyuns of colors. So its nice to see a modern game company CHOOSING to use CGA color schemes... and I tell you, it works! Its too bad flames don't look good in burnt umber, 'cuz with all the light browns, browns, dark browns, and oranges, I almost thought I was looking at Quake!
The SC is awesome for fps games. I'm using it intensely for Planetside right now - I hope it never wears out. The only other one I've seen like it is from Belkin, and it looks weak compared to the strategic commander. Now I'm worried, I might have to hunt for another so I'm not DOA when/if my SC dies..
I tried finding someone at MS who would give me the file layout for the SC key files. I don't like their editing program right now; its not good for coming up with long macros. No love from the MS groupies on that one. Maybe now that they have really, REALLY discontinued it...
I'm not a fan of the RIAA and it's nice to see them finally getting their head on straight about this. It's going to be tedious and expensive, but it's the only legitimate legal means for them to deal with this. In reality they are better served by the existence of P2P because people still end up buying albums and concert tickets, but regardless, the law is the law.
Umm... I don't think the RIAA cares about concert tickets, do they? They worry about the publishers, not the artists.
Slashdot Mirror
Just apply some mild electerical stimulus. Trick the muscles into contracting while they are forming in the vat.
Bring on the vat-b-que!
I loved Niven's Ringworld series. And Halo took my breath away when I finally set foot on the surface. I thought it was a fantastic rendition of a ringworld. And the early level, where you are looking for the cartographer, felt so much like cruising around and ancient & mysterious & abandonned ringworld.
Then I learned just how important a game designer really is. The game started to suck when I had ot ross the bridge, fight through 3 large rooms full of enemies, then cross another bridge and fight 3 large rooms full of enemies then cross another bridge..... well, you get the point.
It achieved true suckdom with the flood. After about 4 levels of the same fricking levels I wanted to scratch out an eye. I think I would have been blind once I finished even if I was a spider.
Cyberball 2072.
Part of the super midway games compilation. I played that game like a million damn times in the arcades. I love playing against the computer, and I've been considering getting a second PSP just so I can play other people. Yes, I know there are alternative ways to play (MAME + kailera), but for simple ease-of-use, the PSP + Cyberball is great. Of course, the little analog nubbin sucks balls. But I've gotten used to it... but no so used to it that I don't scour eBay looking for arcade units for sale nearby.
I've got other games for it, but they don't get played much.
Steam is not perfect, and maybe it doesn't quite rock, but it does shake a little bit.
I really like that Steam frees me from having the CD in the drive. I really, really like that. I don't care that Steam connects to the mothership everytime I log onto my system. Tho, admittedly, I wish it were a little bit faster at realizing the mothership was unavailable.
I have no plans on sharing any of the games with other people. But I have reformatted & reinstalled, and Steam asked for my ID & pwd and let me select which game I wanted to re-download. Sure, a media install would have been faster, but if it was critical for me to play immediately I spose I woulda made backups before the reinstall.
I like that I can preorder things & have the downloaded & nearly-ready to go on release day. I have never had issues getting a game authenticated. I've heard other folks have, but I haven't experienced any issues.
What I have had issues with a couple times are random game patches that "fix" a bug but create other "features". And the Valve support system has not helped me very much - it took quite a bit of forum-digging to find my issues.
I stopped trying to use the "friends" feature. It never worked before, but supposedly they fixed it. Don't care, tho.... xfire does a better job of tracking my gaming friends.
Whenever someone asks me what classes I had to take to get my programming job, I tell them "the required classes to gain the knowledge for this job: genetics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, 3 years of chemistry, and the usual stuff like bacteriology and zoology". And a .COM bubble where they hired anyone who could turn on a computer. And maybe was breathing. But I digress.
Eventually I tell them that I started with a BS in Genetics followed by a MS in Biology. During this time I noticed that all the biologists where unable to use their computers, so I started doing ti because I had a rather strong background in computers - I only went genetics because of a flip of the coin (heads: genetics, tails: comp sci. Heads...). As I was finishing the Bio MS I took a couple of programming classes and really enjoyed them. I asked how long it would take ot get a BS in CS, and they said I could go right in the MS program. I said Hell Yeah! and took a year of undergrad classes so I could catch up to the regular students. Then it was all grad CS stuff. In fact I just turned in my final project - training neural networks to play games. I enjoyed it.
POTS have a new theme song:
"Bomb the Wales; Bomb The Wales
Drop the Big One on their.... umm.. Tales?"
When I was young & in my prime (and an underemployed student) I rarely bought anythign but instead ogt "free" versions from friends.
p port/FaqSearchResults.jsp?problemType=3&searchText =&game=177&platform=3
I'm employed, and a father, and now I buy the games.
My 3.5yo son loves robots. So last week I bought the LEGO Star Wars game. He has no clue who R2D2 is, but dammit, he knows R2 is a robot, so he wants to play! My boy was crying he was so excited to play the game.
The install was slow, but it it was copying media to the HD, so thats fine. I'll sacrifice space for speed. After a few minutes it finished and I started the game. My boy was holding a joystick, staring at the screen, and just shaking. I thought he was gonna start seizing.
"Wrong Disc Inserted"
Yeah, turns out EIDOS released a version of the game with defective copy protection. Their website flat out tells you that the disc is defective if it says "Disc 1" in yellow text on the disk. Ours does. We bought this year-old game brand frickin new, and its defective. And EIDOS knew it. Their website gives you a number to call to order a replacement.
http://support.eidosinteractive.com/GI/CustomerSu
So instead of 'splaining to junior that EIDOS quality control needs a kick to the sack, I hit up good ol'gamecopyworld and found a no-cd crack. Game starts right on up. The downside is the cracked version is not what I'd call stable, so I'm gonna have to send off for a replacement CD anyway, but at least we can keep the boy playing with robots until EIDOS sends the replacement.
So if EIDOS knows they released a bad batch, then why haven't they recalled the shitty ones & replaced them already? Strike one for EIDOS. I'd tell them I was so pissed that I refuse to buy the next Boobraider, except Lara Croft bored me to tears so it would be an empty threat.
I think the copy protection of Steam & CD-keys works very well. I don't find Steam intrusive; I don't have a problem with it. I never "loan" out cdkeys because I'm keen on not getting banned. Of course, these work best on online games.
I've played in a couple of Auto Assault weekend beta events.
*WARNING* I don't play any MMORPG's. I do play Planetside. A bunch. So my opinions might be tainted...
The game is pretty. The landscapes are cool. Its obvious that the designers put a ton of work into it. I couldn't get too far on the beta weekends; I think I got one toon to level 9 (I have a family that keeps interfering with my online life...). I made it out of the tutorial and the n00b zone, and was exploring the slightly-less-n00bish zone when I went to sleep.
It got boring very, very fast. It starts off like road warrior/mad-max, but as you progress the enemies get inexplicably tougher. I mean, they are both humans, but one dude gets squished as soon as I drive over him, but this other guy damages my car instead AND keeps on shooting me as I drive by. I just had a hard time grokking that. I kinda understand that most(all?) MMORPGs are like that. My fault, I 'spose. Once the enemies got too hard to kill (and its a very short gradient from easy -> minor challenge -> nyah! nyah! you can't hit me!) I gave up running missions and just tried to see as much of the zone as I could before the beta window was over.
I never saw anyone doing PvP, but I know this weekend was supposed ot be the big "beat the dev's" weekend, so I assume the PvP was taking place somewhere.
It plays OK in games. I find it occasionally "sticks" in one place for a few seconds. Its rare enough that it doesn't affect the overall gaming experience. I use this mouse in Planetside, BF2, CS:S, FEAR, etc.
They recently released a new driver which does seem to have helped a lot.
I do recommend:
ATI card by any chance? Using the 5.13 drivers? The ones which secretly detected F.E.A.R. and applied some outdated game-enhancement logic? You know, the logic that made F.E.A.R. single-player demo run like the shizzle on ATI cards, but makes the retail F.E.A.R. run like the fizzle?
I have a pretty good gaming system. I updated to the cat 5.13 drivers, and suddenly F.E.A.R. was getting 10fps. I tweaked everything, and nothing fixed it. I was teh dumb and actually played about 1/4 of the game like this. I renamed FEAR.exe to FEARme.exe and suddenly I got 45+fps.
I want my 1/4 FEAR back...!
The Strategic Commander was great, but was mistakenly marketed towards RTS gamers. Its real beauty was FPS. I used it for a couple years until I upgraded to a N52. In fact, while the N52 is a superior gaming product, all of my N52 layouts are direct decendents of the Strategic Commander layouts....
I had a Saitek Gamers Keyboard. Man, did that thing suck. Great hardware. Lousy gaming support. At release it would lock up several popular games (Star Wars BattleFrton comes to mind, as well as my crack addiction, PlanetSide). Saitek refused to fix it; a player discovered that you needed to disable the onboard volume controls in Winders device manager before their keyboard would work. Their drivers/software won't autoload profiles, either, so you need to manually change profiels. The N52 apparently has no such issues....
I recently bought a G15 and its awesome. Great keyboard. The macro keys haven't proved useful yet, but the customizable LCD has. Its nice to get system status info (cpu load, ram usage) while playign a full screen game. Plus I wrote my own LCD module to help me deal with a game with a long & storied history of crashing (cough... cough... Planetside).
The BF2 game is a naughty limerick scrawled inside a public restroom.
Unadvertised features of BF2:
On the plus side, they did release a SDK, and I think once I have some time I'll try making a mod to the game.
I didn't know SCO was headquartered on Mauritius.....
Its entertaining for a bit, but I found it hard to control. Once I figured out how to control it, I was able to make it to the final level in one sitting. Lost its replay value right there.
The "cut scenes" are funny - Mark Healey & friends (badly) acting out their wannabe kung fu dreams. The game was innovative, fun to play, surprising, hyperkinetic and funny. I didn't try multiplayer so I can't comment on it.
I have a LifeDrive. I spent last night & this morning trying to trick it into booting. See, it took one look at all of its neat built-in features & chose to swallow its tongue instead. I ended up having to do a hard reset (30 min to reformat the drive) & restore from the last hotsync - no problem, except this only restored main memory; the hard drive contents are lost.
I love my Palms (go ahead: laugh). I started with a well-used Pilot 5000, upgraded to an old VII, switched to a Zire 71 when my dog broke the VII, and then finally to a LifeDrive when it was released.
The LifeDrive has all the usual PDA suspects. I have a bunch of MP3 devices, and they do a betetr job that the LD, so I don't play MP3's on it (its built-in speakers suck; headphones are ok). The built-in wifi is pretty good; I check email around the house all the time. The built-in browser is ok; good for checking stock prices and reading wap.slashdot.org. Its got a great screen, and plays lots of time-killer games. Oddly enough, the thing that I like the best is that its a portable video keg. I've got a 3yo boy and a collection of movies, clips, shorts, etc. from around the web. Keeps him entertained when we're out & about.
So whats killing Palm? I actually feel used & abused by Palm. I bought a $500 LifeDrive, and I feel they've ignored its frequent crashes. Its been 6 months on they've only released minor patch to fix wifi access with some access points. The constant crashing remains ignored. Rumors on the boards say they are working towards a huge, device-fixing patch. I'd rather have a slew of smaller, stable patches to fix specific problems. At least I'd know Palm was doing somethign about its problems. Instead they've released a new set of devices. Oh, the stability problems are fixed in the new Palm T800. Except for its problems, which will be fixed in the future T1000. Except for....
Isn't the one advantage of consoles that they insure, to the game developer, that all hardware will be the same? No more trying to handle special cases, just code & hit PLAY.
Suddenly I'm seeing visions of some 14yo bongmaster staring at a screen, trying to play his new game, "Morto Kombato 12: Just Like The Others", but stuck wondering what to do about the message "To Play This Game You Must First Upgrade to InDirectX 15f".
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?1.8e-1
I don't know if there is enough tin foil to save us all....
They also decorated the various pine-like trees with christmas lights.
No xmas palm trees or cactus tho....
That would be Core Combat. Yikes. Oddly enough, Core Combat was delivered to address a specific desire voiced by Planetside players: urban-style combat (ie. fight in cities). The Core is beautiful to behold. Shiny rocks hither & yon. Nifty little zip lines to move you around. Too bad it sucked soooooo badly. People went to the Core only briefly. I consider it a chore, nay - a punishment! - to go to the Core. I've never quite understood why Planetside never took off. As a FPS, its awesome. Huge, complex, multi-layered battles take place every single day. Varied terrain makes each conflict different. Like tanks? Got tanks. Like planes? Got planes. One thing about planetside I appreciate is that history buffs who think they would have handled a war better really get their chance to do so. By leading squads players eventually get abilities to help lead their factions assault. Some of them really are good leaders. Too bad many of them demonsrate the truth behind the saying "crap floats to the top" I think maybe the monthly fee scares some folks. I think the pure-FPS combat also scares a lot of MMORPG folks. Its not like EQ/CoH/SW/etc. where you just click on the victim & queue up actions; you actually have to aim & dodge & pull the trigger! The biggest problem for PS is that Sony has somewhat abandoned it. They stopped advertising it a long time ago. Even when they did advertise, they did poorly - the last ad I saw looked like a 320x320 picture blown up to a half-page magazine ad: u-g-l-y. The game was rushed out of development early because they knew people would bolt to SWG a month later. The devs have actually done a good job finishing the game and adding features. The current producer is very involved with the players on the forums, and I like his enthusiasm for the game. The latest feature added are Mechs. I like them; not everyone seems to share my opinion. They are new, so everyone is tryign them out still (its Mechside!). Eventually they will even out & find their role int he conflict. I would like to see a global win condition for the game. Something like in WWII Online where if one side wins, they reset the server. That would certainly make the game more interesting. They discussed having sanctuary strikes a while back; I'd realy like to see them instead. The game has a very steep learning curve; its not easy for a new player to just log on & start contributing. The online manuals explain the game, but they don't do so well enough for a new player to read & then jump into the game. I've thought about making a newbie guide. One day I'll find the time. They should burn a bunch of install dvd's, attach a 2-week demo key, and include them in some big magazine. But not until they make it easier (ie. "Planetside for Total n00bs") for the new folks.
Maybe HP is now reselling Software Assaurance to the DND?
In which case, its upgrade protection, not outright theft. Oh, wait.....
I didn't really know what I wanted to do after high school. This was about 2 millenia ago, in computer terms (or about 1988), and I was filling out my college applications. I had always liked computers (C=64's rule!), and had written a few things here & there. I had also liked playing/reading Gamma World stuff (yeah, D&D nut who evolved into GW), and mutants were what made GW fun. For some reason, this led me to do well in the genetics section of 11th grade biology.
As I sat there, filling out the application form, I was deciding between going into computer science or going into genetics. I decided on genetics, since I certanly didn't want to spend all day sitting on my arse in front of a monitor!
Fastforward a few years, add on a BS in Genetics and a MS in Biology. And mix in the realization that I was spending all day sitting on my arse in front of a lab bench! Not much of an improvement.
But it turns out modern genetics is heavily computer oriented, and I started playing with the labs computers. Pretty soon I was writing little excel macros, then java proggies to help visualize genetic linkage groups. Pretty soon I switched to a computer job within the lab, and haven't looked back since.
I was looking for a job during the dot BOOM, when code monkeys were in such demand that you got hired if you knew C (or any other letter in the alphabet), and could prove you had a pulse. The pulse part was even negotiable. 4 years later, I'm one of the lead coders, and manage a large project for the company. I'm also finishing up a MS in CS, so if it becomes time to hunt for a job again, I'll at least be able to say I have a CS degree. I'm very happy with the switch. The money is a huge improvement over being in biotech; but I also like the job much better. And yes, I sit in front of a monitor all day. But the chair has better padding than the lab bench stool ever did...
It takes balls to make games the right way. Nowadays, everyone is all twitterpated with how their game has a billyuns & billyuns of colors. So its nice to see a modern game company CHOOSING to use CGA color schemes... and I tell you, it works! Its too bad flames don't look good in burnt umber, 'cuz with all the light browns, browns, dark browns, and oranges, I almost thought I was looking at Quake!
.... and apparently his webserver is, too. Apparently the MindStorm bricks were discontinued 'cuz they can't handle a good slashdotting.
The SC is awesome for fps games. I'm using it intensely for Planetside right now - I hope it never wears out. The only other one I've seen like it is from Belkin, and it looks weak compared to the strategic commander. Now I'm worried, I might have to hunt for another so I'm not DOA when/if my SC dies..
I tried finding someone at MS who would give me the file layout for the SC key files. I don't like their editing program right now; its not good for coming up with long macros. No love from the MS groupies on that one. Maybe now that they have really, REALLY discontinued it...
I'm not a fan of the RIAA and it's nice to see them finally getting their head on straight about this. It's going to be tedious and expensive, but it's the only legitimate legal means for them to deal with this. In reality they are better served by the existence of P2P because people still end up buying albums and concert tickets, but regardless, the law is the law.
Umm... I don't think the RIAA cares about concert tickets, do they? They worry about the publishers, not the artists.