The tech's been around since the beginning of the year at least. I first ran across this while shopping for a new laptop in February -- some of the Sony Vaio models had come out with it by then. Now a few other people have it as well (obviously). From what I understand, it makes a pretty decent impact on battery life.
This generation we're seeing more and more games on consoles that are multiplayer only. Want a good split-screen shooter on the Wii? You're fucked. Closest thing is online-only Metal of Honor Heroes 2. Want to play Halo 3 co-op with three friends? I hope you have another console somewhere. Found that one out after buying two controllers. I bought Battalion Wars 2 a while back to play with my wife and to my great shock found out that multiplayer was online-only. Hadn't even bothered to check the box because it never even occurred to me that this shit could start happening on consoles.
There's loads of other examples. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that consoles are headed that way too. It seems like everything is adjusting for a more spread-out world (see Diablo III not supporting LAN games) and it's shitty and depressing for those of us who prefer to get together with friends to play games. I'm not saying there shouldn't be online play, I'm just saying that it shouldn't come at the cost of split-screen or LAN.
For the most part, I agree with you. I used to preach the whole graphics-are-irrelevant thing as well until I found Dwarf Fortress. While it's a great game and I personally love the graphics, NONE of my friends will give it so much as a chance because of them. They all concede that it's probably an amazing game but all of them pass it off with "the graphics aren't for me". I'd normally just figure they're all retarded, but this is a lot of people, most of whom are also bored with the status quo in gaming, rejecting a very new and very unique game because the Dwarves look like Qs and the cats are 'c's.
I guess what I'm getting at is that graphics matter to some extent. For me personally, SNES-level (or early-mid-90s level DOS) graphics are perfect. I can like pretty much anything if it's a stylistic choice (which I kinda see DF as being), but I guess people's standards vary.
Trauma Center: New Blood came out last November. I played it co-op with my brother, and it is pretty awesome. I didn't play the original, though, so I'm not sure how it compares.
I guess the bottom line is that X-Box Live doesn't hold an appeal to me. My friends aren't big console owners and we all grew up playing split-screen every weekend. It's really hard to move that experience online for me for some reason. I think also because of the way we grew up, gaming is kind of an exclusive experience -- it's something you do with your friends and once strangers start joining in it loses its appeal.
On top of all that, we are all hardcore Smash Bros fans (playing it obsessively since Apr 28 or 29, 1999) and that's basically unplayable online. All the other fighting games feel too slow and limited, no offense. I think it's just a preference for a different style really.:-) Shooters, unless they're REALLY good (ie, Perfect Dark or Time Splitters) don't tend captivate us for long either.
Have you played Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii? I'm sure it's pretty different from RE4, but it would be a closer experience than Zelda or Mario. Same with it probably not being half as good without the Wiimote, too. I played Metroid Prime 1 on the GC for all of 20 minutes before getting bored, but there's something crazy good about MP3's controls.
I love this argument. I have both a Wii and a 360, and the 360's been played during exactly three weeks in the last six months. Once for Viva Pinata, once for GTA4, and again for GTA a few months later. Compared to that, the Wii is in constant use. I'm still playing through Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, I've recently beat Lost Winds, and Smash Bros is a constant obsession, especially when anyone comes over. Boom Blox gets played every time there's anyone over as well. My wife uses My Pokemon Ranch to store excess Pokemon from the DS games every single day.
So there's my anecdotal evidence. My 360 has a thick layer of dust on it; my Wii is played regularly and even comes with me when I visit my friends. It's possible that the reason I still have so many games left to play is that I have maybe 2 hours or so per week left over for single-player gaming, but this whole "Wiis just sit around gathering dust" bullshit is really baffling to me.
In my opinion, the only thing the Wii is lacking is a good splitscreen shooter. Red Steel is crap, and Metal of Honor: Heroes 2 dashed my hopes by being online-only. I hate this stupid online-only trend this generation.
They track mud in, can drop anything anywhere and say that they found it there. That can't be done with email.
Sure they can. They just create a nice real-looking email and paste it into their log. Maybe fix a few TCP sequence numbers and all set. On the other hand, if you encrypted your email, they wouldn't be able to do that without the key, which presumably you would only be forced to hand over once all the evidence was already on the table (ie, by a judge).
Finally, items found in a house search is enough for prosecution. A quote from an email is not.
Yet.
Besides, even the SS didn't really need to evesdrop. If they wanted information, they'd kick down your door, torture your little girl until YOU cracked, and put you on a train somewhere with a bunch of people with stars sewn into their clothing.
If our society reaches that point, we'll obviously have other things to worry about. For now, we might as well keep defending our email privacy.
Re:Notability is fundamental to verifiability
on
Has Wikipedia Peaked?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The problem with that is their definition of "sources that are independent of the subject". They don't count blogs, even well-known and respected blogs (for example, Joystiq), as valid sources so things like Fanboys Online (a webcomic) or The Noob (another one) are deleted, even though they shouldn't be.
Personally, I used to be a frequent contributor to Wikipedia, but having to justify every article I was really interested in editing to some powerhungry asshole out for an ego boost got really tiresome, so I stopped. I know other people with the same experience, and would be willing to bet that this experience represents a large chunk of Wikipedia's decline.
You have a good point. This stuff is happening all over, with spyware and advertising in games along with this macrotransaction gouging. I think right now is the most important time to vote with your dollars: don't buy BF2142 (advertising, possibly spyware depending on whose report you read), consider the amount of un-realistic in-game advertising in a game before your purchase (Dodge ads have no place in the post-apocalyptic future), and so forth.
That's not what he said, though. He said that he wouldn't be emotionally available enough to raise the child himself. He didn't say that he wasn't emotionally available enough to raise the child with help from his wife. When I was young, my dad travelled over europe as a guest lecturer because there was no money to make in Russia. He'd be gone for months at a time. No way in hell he could have raised us alone, but my mom was there too, and it really worked out. When he'd come home he'd spend time with us and we had (and still have) a closer bond to him than, I'd say, 60% of American kids have toward their fathers nowadays. Conversely, after we moved to the US and my parents got divorced, my mom now too busy to be emotionally available 100% of the time. It wasn't THAT bad, but it was noticeably worse than with two parents.
So, the GP or GGP or whatever did his planning to the best of his ability. While plans should include a plan B in case of divorce, I've been in his situation and I know what the absolute conviction of "divorces only happen to other people" feels like.
Mostly what I liked about it was that it was like playing UT on the N64:-). I didn't really play any non-DOS games on the PC at that time, so I hadn't seen or heard of UT. RW was more fast-paced than PD, and a few of my friends who were too intimidated by PD for some reason were all for playing Rage Wars.
Plus, there's something really funny about running around as the velociraptor while playing "catch the monkey" or whatever that mode is called.
But yeah, I guess you're right. Had I played UT beforehand, I wouldn't have gotten into Rage Wars. As for Turok 1 and 2, I didn't know that they even had multiplayer, and I didn't really play Rage Wars for single player at all (just enough to unlock whatever there was to unlock, I think).
Later on, when I got UT for the simple reason that it also ran on Linux, it singlehandedly catapulted me and my friends into having LAN parties. Looking back, I can definitely see what you mean about the gameplay being similar.
You know what? You're awesome. I had thought that PD's development talent and tech all died from neglect, but Time Splitters looks really good. I almost got it a while back, when there was a lot of hype about it coming out, but unfortunately I didn't. It does look very awesome from reading about it, and I think I'll try to pick it up later tonight. Thanks!
Also, you're right on about Diddy Kong Racing. That's another game I forgot. Also Mario Tennis. I haven't played the others, though.
Slashdot Mirror
The tech's been around since the beginning of the year at least. I first ran across this while shopping for a new laptop in February -- some of the Sony Vaio models had come out with it by then. Now a few other people have it as well (obviously). From what I understand, it makes a pretty decent impact on battery life.
I had to read that post *four* times to catch it, but hey, you have a missing apostrophe!
This generation we're seeing more and more games on consoles that are multiplayer only. Want a good split-screen shooter on the Wii? You're fucked. Closest thing is online-only Metal of Honor Heroes 2. Want to play Halo 3 co-op with three friends? I hope you have another console somewhere. Found that one out after buying two controllers. I bought Battalion Wars 2 a while back to play with my wife and to my great shock found out that multiplayer was online-only. Hadn't even bothered to check the box because it never even occurred to me that this shit could start happening on consoles.
There's loads of other examples. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that consoles are headed that way too. It seems like everything is adjusting for a more spread-out world (see Diablo III not supporting LAN games) and it's shitty and depressing for those of us who prefer to get together with friends to play games. I'm not saying there shouldn't be online play, I'm just saying that it shouldn't come at the cost of split-screen or LAN.
For the most part, I agree with you. I used to preach the whole graphics-are-irrelevant thing as well until I found Dwarf Fortress. While it's a great game and I personally love the graphics, NONE of my friends will give it so much as a chance because of them. They all concede that it's probably an amazing game but all of them pass it off with "the graphics aren't for me". I'd normally just figure they're all retarded, but this is a lot of people, most of whom are also bored with the status quo in gaming, rejecting a very new and very unique game because the Dwarves look like Qs and the cats are 'c's.
I guess what I'm getting at is that graphics matter to some extent. For me personally, SNES-level (or early-mid-90s level DOS) graphics are perfect. I can like pretty much anything if it's a stylistic choice (which I kinda see DF as being), but I guess people's standards vary.
Trauma Center: New Blood came out last November. I played it co-op with my brother, and it is pretty awesome. I didn't play the original, though, so I'm not sure how it compares.
Hmm.. Interesting..
I guess the bottom line is that X-Box Live doesn't hold an appeal to me. My friends aren't big console owners and we all grew up playing split-screen every weekend. It's really hard to move that experience online for me for some reason. I think also because of the way we grew up, gaming is kind of an exclusive experience -- it's something you do with your friends and once strangers start joining in it loses its appeal.
On top of all that, we are all hardcore Smash Bros fans (playing it obsessively since Apr 28 or 29, 1999) and that's basically unplayable online. All the other fighting games feel too slow and limited, no offense. I think it's just a preference for a different style really. :-) Shooters, unless they're REALLY good (ie, Perfect Dark or Time Splitters) don't tend captivate us for long either.
Have you played Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii? I'm sure it's pretty different from RE4, but it would be a closer experience than Zelda or Mario. Same with it probably not being half as good without the Wiimote, too. I played Metroid Prime 1 on the GC for all of 20 minutes before getting bored, but there's something crazy good about MP3's controls.
I love this argument. I have both a Wii and a 360, and the 360's been played during exactly three weeks in the last six months. Once for Viva Pinata, once for GTA4, and again for GTA a few months later. Compared to that, the Wii is in constant use. I'm still playing through Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, I've recently beat Lost Winds, and Smash Bros is a constant obsession, especially when anyone comes over. Boom Blox gets played every time there's anyone over as well. My wife uses My Pokemon Ranch to store excess Pokemon from the DS games every single day.
So there's my anecdotal evidence. My 360 has a thick layer of dust on it; my Wii is played regularly and even comes with me when I visit my friends. It's possible that the reason I still have so many games left to play is that I have maybe 2 hours or so per week left over for single-player gaming, but this whole "Wiis just sit around gathering dust" bullshit is really baffling to me.
In my opinion, the only thing the Wii is lacking is a good splitscreen shooter. Red Steel is crap, and Metal of Honor: Heroes 2 dashed my hopes by being online-only. I hate this stupid online-only trend this generation.
using a gas torch to weld up a time capsule in 2008 is like using punch tape to store your data in the capsule
If you scroll up a bit, you can see someone suggesting exactly that :-)
Another vote for NX here. I've been using it for years and VNC doesn't hold a candle.
Also, NX tunnels communications over ssh, so if you're ok punching ssh through the firewall (or already do so), there's no problem.
Dude, come om! Yu misspeled 'right' to! Dont make tipos when corecting peaple!
They track mud in, can drop anything anywhere and say that they found it there. That can't be done with email.
Sure they can. They just create a nice real-looking email and paste it into their log. Maybe fix a few TCP sequence numbers and all set. On the other hand, if you encrypted your email, they wouldn't be able to do that without the key, which presumably you would only be forced to hand over once all the evidence was already on the table (ie, by a judge).
Finally, items found in a house search is enough for prosecution. A quote from an email is not.
Yet.
Besides, even the SS didn't really need to evesdrop. If they wanted information, they'd kick down your door, torture your little girl until YOU cracked, and put you on a train somewhere with a bunch of people with stars sewn into their clothing.
If our society reaches that point, we'll obviously have other things to worry about. For now, we might as well keep defending our email privacy.
The problem with that is their definition of "sources that are independent of the subject". They don't count blogs, even well-known and respected blogs (for example, Joystiq), as valid sources so things like Fanboys Online (a webcomic) or The Noob (another one) are deleted, even though they shouldn't be.
Personally, I used to be a frequent contributor to Wikipedia, but having to justify every article I was really interested in editing to some powerhungry asshole out for an ego boost got really tiresome, so I stopped. I know other people with the same experience, and would be willing to bet that this experience represents a large chunk of Wikipedia's decline.
It's the snakes. They act as wireless repeaters.
My v180 died in under a month...
But I ran it over with my chair...
You have a good point. This stuff is happening all over, with spyware and advertising in games along with this macrotransaction gouging. I think right now is the most important time to vote with your dollars: don't buy BF2142 (advertising, possibly spyware depending on whose report you read), consider the amount of un-realistic in-game advertising in a game before your purchase (Dodge ads have no place in the post-apocalyptic future), and so forth.
I cast magic missile!
In Soviet Russia, BSD confirms the GNAA trolls are dying? :-(
That's not what he said, though. He said that he wouldn't be emotionally available enough to raise the child himself. He didn't say that he wasn't emotionally available enough to raise the child with help from his wife. When I was young, my dad travelled over europe as a guest lecturer because there was no money to make in Russia. He'd be gone for months at a time. No way in hell he could have raised us alone, but my mom was there too, and it really worked out. When he'd come home he'd spend time with us and we had (and still have) a closer bond to him than, I'd say, 60% of American kids have toward their fathers nowadays. Conversely, after we moved to the US and my parents got divorced, my mom now too busy to be emotionally available 100% of the time. It wasn't THAT bad, but it was noticeably worse than with two parents.
So, the GP or GGP or whatever did his planning to the best of his ability. While plans should include a plan B in case of divorce, I've been in his situation and I know what the absolute conviction of "divorces only happen to other people" feels like.
Not a problem. They're just gonna pile it all on the back of a truck and send it into space, no matter what any senator says!
Dude, the Madobemedia Flash player is installed on 97% of all browsers. I'm sure they'll have it installed.
What's a J-? Is that like worse than an F-?
Not worse, but bigger.
What is this ... ja..pan?
Is it a cooking utensil?
Mostly what I liked about it was that it was like playing UT on the N64 :-). I didn't really play any non-DOS games on the PC at that time, so I hadn't seen or heard of UT. RW was more fast-paced than PD, and a few of my friends who were too intimidated by PD for some reason were all for playing Rage Wars.
Plus, there's something really funny about running around as the velociraptor while playing "catch the monkey" or whatever that mode is called.
But yeah, I guess you're right. Had I played UT beforehand, I wouldn't have gotten into Rage Wars. As for Turok 1 and 2, I didn't know that they even had multiplayer, and I didn't really play Rage Wars for single player at all (just enough to unlock whatever there was to unlock, I think).
Later on, when I got UT for the simple reason that it also ran on Linux, it singlehandedly catapulted me and my friends into having LAN parties. Looking back, I can definitely see what you mean about the gameplay being similar.
You know what? You're awesome. I had thought that PD's development talent and tech all died from neglect, but Time Splitters looks really good. I almost got it a while back, when there was a lot of hype about it coming out, but unfortunately I didn't. It does look very awesome from reading about it, and I think I'll try to pick it up later tonight. Thanks!
Also, you're right on about Diddy Kong Racing. That's another game I forgot. Also Mario Tennis. I haven't played the others, though.
Starfox 64. I forgot Starfox 64. How could I forget Starfox 64?