So, I guess I'm not the only one who thought the amount of time level grinding the game required was excessive. For a while I thought I was just doing something wrong.
The enemies got much stronger than the party very quickly, and leveling took forever until you got the exp. doubler thingie. I'd spend entire two hour sessions just sitting around leveling, just so I could proceed with the game. Stupid.
Don't forget though, it was the Catholics who assembled the various texts into what is now known as the Bible, over a thousand years before Protestants were on the scene. They can do whatever they want since they created it.
-The camera feature on my phone is activated by a single large, marked button, and can't be used while making a call. If you have to worry about hitting it accidentally, you must have very fat fingers.
-AFAIK it doesn't draw power unless in use.
-Yes, I too have been in places that disallow cameras, but I guess I've never needed a phone in those situations
Anyway, I used to think it was a stupid features... until I got one. Now it'd be hard to go back.
As for car stereo remote... changing the volume/station/track without having to look down is very convenient and much safer. I'm not going to pull off the freeway just so I can look down safely. Again, once you have one, you realize how useful it is. Otherwise you just think it's stupid.
Just like with remote controls for car stereos, you don't realize how valuable a seemingly useless and ridiculous feature is until you actually have one. Always having a camera at your disposal has tremendous utility that proves useful in a variety of situations. The camera feature has become so ubiquitous that even the free phones have cameras now. Why would you want something with less utility for the same price?
Not only is bandwidth a problem, but processor speed is also a consideration. For example, I downloaded some h.264 encoded video that was 1280x720. My 2 year old Athlon desktop system choked, incapable of playing the files. My Core Duo notebook played them okay, but used 40% of the processor while doing so, or 80% of one core. I'm not even sure if my notebook, which is only a couple months old, could play back 1920x1080 h.264 encoded video. Technology is going to have to catch up before HiDef downloads become popular.
Regarding character development in Final Fantasy, it depends on the Final Fantasy game.
For example, in Final Fantasy IV, your characters were static and you couldn't do much more than change their equipment.
In Final Fantasy V, you couldn't select your characters, but you could develop them however you wanted, choosing any job/skill you desired.
Final Fantasy VII had characters with few distinct features. All characters could be equipped with all skills/magic.
Final Fantasy VIII had a system unlike anything else. Lots of ways to alter character traits and abilities. Perhaps too many.
While it's true that you can't make your character, depending on the game you can change them to fit your playing style. Also some games offer party customization through diversity. For example the Suikoden series doesn't let you create characters, but with 108 to choose from there are plenty of combinations letting you configure your party to your liking.
Since we're on the subject of 2D games, I might as well mention the fabulous freeware game, Cave Story. Initially, I was somewhat turned off by its primitive graphics, but once you start playing you begin to realize what a gorgeous game it is. The gameplay is top notch, reminiscent of Metroid and later Castlevania games, and the story is actually rather compelling. I cannot get enough of this game.
If you haven't already, download it right now. Don't let the archaic looking graphics turn you away. Don't make the same mistake I did, initially dismissing this wonderful game. Download ane be enthralled by this spectacular work of art.
I didn't read the whole article, but I did skim it, and only saw one mention of a Japanese developed game that was censored for its US release at WalMart's request. But I wonder if WalMart has any impact on Japanese games as a whole, or if this mostly applies to American/Western developers. I'm sure with the exception of big names like SquareEnix, Konami, etc, Japanese developers consider the US market an afterthought. This is probably especially true for niche developers whose games are mostly cult status in the US, such as Nippon Ichi. Any American who buys their games probably doesn't buy them from WalMart. But even the big developers consider Japan their primary market. Are they kowtowing to WalMart too?
I honestly can't see that happening. The controller is made of plastic. It probably weighs less than your average TV remote. You'd have to throw it pretty damn hard to break a TV. The controller would probably break first. Also if you're swinging it like a baseball bat and it slipped, it would likely fly away from the TV.
Also, I've thrown plenty of controllers in my day out of frustration. Haven't broken anything yet, including the controller.
Actually, with the Revo's motion sensitive controller I feel it would be perfect for sports games. A baseball game where you swing the bat rather than press a button would be tremendously fun. A football game where you pass by making an overhand throwing motion towards the intended reciever would be much more interesting than pressing a button. A basketball game where you shoot by... well, you get the idea.
In that case, it makes more sense to introduce a Game Boy Player/Super Game Boy type addon, rather than having you download the game and then only being able to play it on the Revo. Nobody wants to buy the same thing twice.
I dunno about ePSXe. I've not had the best of luck with it. While the higher resolutions are nice, ePSXe's emulation is far from perfect. No game seems to run without it's share of glitches, whether it be sound or graphics, and many games are so glitchy as to be unplayable, or at least unpleasent to play. Also ePSXe seems to suffer from tremendous slowdown, even on my relativly high powered system. In addition development seems to have died years ago, so these problems will likely never be fixed.
I admit ePSXe is an impressive program, but it's not a very good replacement for a real Playstation. If Sony can come up with something for the PSP that can do near perfect PS1 emulation, they'll have a real killer app on their hands.
Oh God. I know that story all too well. A friend of mine told me about a place that serves up something called the Habanero Hamburger. It's a burger smothered habanero sauce, made with meat marinated in habanero. If you can finish it, they'll take your picture and hang it on the wall. Before you're allowed to eat it, you have to sign some kind of liability waiver. I believed at the time I could handle this no problem. I thought my tolerance for jalapenos meant that tackling this would be a piece of cake. I guess I didn't really understand at the time what a habanero was. After one bite I was doing fine. After two I was still going strong. On the third bite it finally hit me and intense pain like nothing else overcame me, but I was determined to carry on. By the fifth bite however it was over. I was incapacitated, having eaten less than half the burger. I rode home lying down in the back of my friend's car, writhing in pain. I haven't been the same since, and this was years ago.
FWIW I installed XFCE on the machine and it was certainly faster than Gnome, but still slower than Windows XP.
But anyway basically you're saying that if I were to run a 5 year old Linux distro on the machine it would give comparable performance to Windows XP? That's nice, but a five year old Linux distro wouldn't be nearly as user friendly or feature rich as Ubuntu or Windows XP. The whole reason I went with Ubuntu was I wanted features and ease of operation. Ubuntu provides those but with a significant performance hit, at least on that old 700 MHz laptop.
Basically my point is that if you want a user friendly desktop OS, XP is a better choice for older machines. If you want to run a server or something Linux probably would be the better choice.
I've heard this legend for so long, that Linux runs better than Windows on older machines, I actually started to believe it. So I installed Ubuntu on an old 700 MHz IBM Thinpad with 256 MB RAM that I was given. It was slow to the point of being unusable. It took three minutes to boot, applications took forever to launch, and it was completely unusable for watching Xvid encoded video. Not to mention the power management features didn't work at all (couldn't suspend or hibernate).
I put Windows XP on it and the performance is much better. Faster boots, power management, and just all around better performance. I can even watch Xvid and H.264 encoded videos on it! Sure if I ran Linux in text mode it might be faster, but that wouldn't really suit my needs. The "Linux is faster on older hardware" myth is just that.
So that's why all the red crosses on the hospitals were removed for the US release of Earthbound. I always thought it was because of Nintendo's objection to "religious imagry"
"Not all fansubbers are guilty of hurting the anime industry. Certain anime shows haven't been considered for US distribution, for whatever reason, only to be licensed later when the enormous success of the fansubbing is uncovered. Such is the case for Azumanga Daioh, now released by ADV Films. At A-Kon 15 in the summer of 2005, an ADV founder admitted that they thought Azumanga Daioh would not be initally popular in America. ADV decided to license this title after witnessing its popularity in the fansub community."
I've tried, really tried to play Nethack, and for a while I was mildly addicted, but the game is too frustrating and unforgiving to be fun for long, and the learning curve is too sharp for casual players. In my case I would always die pretty early on, no matter how I played. I tried reading FAQs and "spoliers" but they didn't really help. I would still die constantly.
I do to, but I need a long break in between. It's like watching a movie. You can only play it for the first time once. After that, you know everything that happens. I'll usually play through old LucasArts games once a year or so.
Slashdot Mirror
So, I guess I'm not the only one who thought the amount of time level grinding the game required was excessive. For a while I thought I was just doing something wrong. The enemies got much stronger than the party very quickly, and leveling took forever until you got the exp. doubler thingie. I'd spend entire two hour sessions just sitting around leveling, just so I could proceed with the game. Stupid.
You obviously know your biblical history better than I. All I meant was that the Catholics decided which books went in the Bible and which didn't.
Don't forget though, it was the Catholics who assembled the various texts into what is now known as the Bible, over a thousand years before Protestants were on the scene. They can do whatever they want since they created it.
-The camera feature on my phone is activated by a single large, marked button, and can't be used while making a call. If you have to worry about hitting it accidentally, you must have very fat fingers.
-AFAIK it doesn't draw power unless in use.
-Yes, I too have been in places that disallow cameras, but I guess I've never needed a phone in those situations
Anyway, I used to think it was a stupid features... until I got one. Now it'd be hard to go back.
As for car stereo remote... changing the volume/station/track without having to look down is very convenient and much safer. I'm not going to pull off the freeway just so I can look down safely. Again, once you have one, you realize how useful it is. Otherwise you just think it's stupid.
Just like with remote controls for car stereos, you don't realize how valuable a seemingly useless and ridiculous feature is until you actually have one. Always having a camera at your disposal has tremendous utility that proves useful in a variety of situations. The camera feature has become so ubiquitous that even the free phones have cameras now. Why would you want something with less utility for the same price?
Variety is a trade publication. It isn't Entertainment Weekly. Of course they are going to use lingo.
Not only is bandwidth a problem, but processor speed is also a consideration. For example, I downloaded some h.264 encoded video that was 1280x720. My 2 year old Athlon desktop system choked, incapable of playing the files. My Core Duo notebook played them okay, but used 40% of the processor while doing so, or 80% of one core. I'm not even sure if my notebook, which is only a couple months old, could play back 1920x1080 h.264 encoded video. Technology is going to have to catch up before HiDef downloads become popular.
What's the margin of error on that?
For example, in Final Fantasy IV, your characters were static and you couldn't do much more than change their equipment.
In Final Fantasy V, you couldn't select your characters, but you could develop them however you wanted, choosing any job/skill you desired.
Final Fantasy VII had characters with few distinct features. All characters could be equipped with all skills/magic.
Final Fantasy VIII had a system unlike anything else. Lots of ways to alter character traits and abilities. Perhaps too many.
While it's true that you can't make your character, depending on the game you can change them to fit your playing style. Also some games offer party customization through diversity. For example the Suikoden series doesn't let you create characters, but with 108 to choose from there are plenty of combinations letting you configure your party to your liking.
guessing not a single web app is served out of his compouter, from IIS and .NET technology (one of the main reasons for having PRO)
Actually, I assume the main reason he would choose Pro is because it lets you join domains. Home doesn't have that ability.
If you haven't already, download it right now. Don't let the archaic looking graphics turn you away. Don't make the same mistake I did, initially dismissing this wonderful game. Download ane be enthralled by this spectacular work of art.
I didn't read the whole article, but I did skim it, and only saw one mention of a Japanese developed game that was censored for its US release at WalMart's request. But I wonder if WalMart has any impact on Japanese games as a whole, or if this mostly applies to American/Western developers. I'm sure with the exception of big names like SquareEnix, Konami, etc, Japanese developers consider the US market an afterthought. This is probably especially true for niche developers whose games are mostly cult status in the US, such as Nippon Ichi. Any American who buys their games probably doesn't buy them from WalMart. But even the big developers consider Japan their primary market. Are they kowtowing to WalMart too?
Also, I've thrown plenty of controllers in my day out of frustration. Haven't broken anything yet, including the controller.
Actually, with the Revo's motion sensitive controller I feel it would be perfect for sports games. A baseball game where you swing the bat rather than press a button would be tremendously fun. A football game where you pass by making an overhand throwing motion towards the intended reciever would be much more interesting than pressing a button. A basketball game where you shoot by... well, you get the idea.
They do, in Japan.
In that case, it makes more sense to introduce a Game Boy Player/Super Game Boy type addon, rather than having you download the game and then only being able to play it on the Revo. Nobody wants to buy the same thing twice.
I admit ePSXe is an impressive program, but it's not a very good replacement for a real Playstation. If Sony can come up with something for the PSP that can do near perfect PS1 emulation, they'll have a real killer app on their hands.
Oh God. I know that story all too well. A friend of mine told me about a place that serves up something called the Habanero Hamburger. It's a burger smothered habanero sauce, made with meat marinated in habanero. If you can finish it, they'll take your picture and hang it on the wall. Before you're allowed to eat it, you have to sign some kind of liability waiver. I believed at the time I could handle this no problem. I thought my tolerance for jalapenos meant that tackling this would be a piece of cake. I guess I didn't really understand at the time what a habanero was. After one bite I was doing fine. After two I was still going strong. On the third bite it finally hit me and intense pain like nothing else overcame me, but I was determined to carry on. By the fifth bite however it was over. I was incapacitated, having eaten less than half the burger. I rode home lying down in the back of my friend's car, writhing in pain. I haven't been the same since, and this was years ago.
But anyway basically you're saying that if I were to run a 5 year old Linux distro on the machine it would give comparable performance to Windows XP? That's nice, but a five year old Linux distro wouldn't be nearly as user friendly or feature rich as Ubuntu or Windows XP. The whole reason I went with Ubuntu was I wanted features and ease of operation. Ubuntu provides those but with a significant performance hit, at least on that old 700 MHz laptop.
Basically my point is that if you want a user friendly desktop OS, XP is a better choice for older machines. If you want to run a server or something Linux probably would be the better choice.
I put Windows XP on it and the performance is much better. Faster boots, power management, and just all around better performance. I can even watch Xvid and H.264 encoded videos on it! Sure if I ran Linux in text mode it might be faster, but that wouldn't really suit my needs. The "Linux is faster on older hardware" myth is just that.
So that's why all the red crosses on the hospitals were removed for the US release of Earthbound. I always thought it was because of Nintendo's objection to "religious imagry"
"Not all fansubbers are guilty of hurting the anime industry. Certain anime shows haven't been considered for US distribution, for whatever reason, only to be licensed later when the enormous success of the fansubbing is uncovered. Such is the case for Azumanga Daioh, now released by ADV Films. At A-Kon 15 in the summer of 2005, an ADV founder admitted that they thought Azumanga Daioh would not be initally popular in America. ADV decided to license this title after witnessing its popularity in the fansub community."
What's the secret? Someone please tell me!
I do to, but I need a long break in between. It's like watching a movie. You can only play it for the first time once. After that, you know everything that happens. I'll usually play through old LucasArts games once a year or so.
If you've got half an hour to waste, check out this Flash parody of the Final Fantasy VI (III) ending.