Civilization: The Board Game - Not a direct translation of CIV III but provides players an opportunity for intense military, political and economic strategy. 2-6 players (standard and advanced rules)
How funny... the computer game was highly inspired by Avalon Hill's Civilization/Advanced Civilization board games. Then the computer game gets made back into a board game - it's come full circle.:)
Depends on the people you're buying for with Fluxx. If they're just wanting to have fun and enjoy some silliness, by all means, it is a good game. If they actually want to learn to play a game well and develop strategy, then don't get them near Fluxx - it's pretty much a luck only game.
It seems you either love it or hate it, and you often can't guess which until you try it.
I'm embarassed to admit it, but I've been watching that show. I taped it last night, because I was busy elsewhere, and planned on watching it tonite to see what happens. After all, who would spoil the results of a show like that on a place like Slashdot? I figured nobody would.
BUT SOMEONE HAS TO GO AND POST A DAMN OFFTOPIC MESSAGE IN A CONVERSATION AND RUIN IT FOR ME! WTF are you doing??? Where's an army carrying clue-by-fours when you need them?
No kidding. I have no problem going to the gym, doing 15-30 minutes of weight work, then doing 30-60 minutes of cardio on various machines. I do it at least 3 times a week. But I still find myself gasping for air and struggling with some of the tougher DDR songs, even after playing for a year and a half.
Heck, I can't even get further than the freeze on Max 300 heavy - my legs have nothing left in them, and I pretty much collapse onto the platform at that point. I don't even know if I have the skills to finish, because I don;t have the endurance.
Why? It's not like you're even made of the same stuff that you were a month ago. The molecules of your body are constantly changing - you literally are what you eat. So if you were made from different molecules, how is that any different from normal life - other than being done more quickly?
I'm not claiming your average Joe Engineer would be able to get all the materials together to build a nuclear weapon - and similarly, I'd expect that your average Joe Engineer won't have the means to construct nanoviruses. At least not for a long time. For a significant time period, I'd expect the people with the access to the tools and the knowledge to do so will be small in number, and even then not exactly free to do as they wish.
And yes, eventually extremists will have the means to start researching the ability to create nanoviruses - but how long after the technology is out there? Iraq and Al Queda were working on chemical and biological weapons - how many decades after the US and other less rogue regimes/groups developed them? It's the same with nuclear weapons - the US had them in the 40's. Only now are they starting to get into the hands of countries that may not have the best motives. It doesn't make sense to assume that as soon as the large corporate/US government lab have the means to create nanoviruses that rogue elements will be able to do so.
Still, most of this is meaningless speculation - disasterbation, if you will. We don't know what would be involved in constructing one, what kind of limitations might apply to nanoviruses, and what kind of means there may be to detect/destroy them. Perhaps by the time such creations as really in the realm of possibility, something like the proposed "utility fog" may be developed, and able to keep such particles away. Or some sort of nano-membrane developed that actively inspects each and every atom/molecule allowed to pass through.
I don't claim what you propose won't happen. I do think that it is still far enough off that we cannot determine how likely/unlikely such an event is, and cannot adequately figure out means to defend against such instances.
Believe me, I've read EoC a couple times at least. At least Drexler doesn't go all over-dramatic with his depictions of the dangers that molecular nanotechnology does present - and offers some suggestions for ways to address those issues.
I would just never suggest using fiction to demonstrate the drawbacks to a technology unless it is exceptionally well-done and scientifically accurate. Which Crichton is not.
I don't disagree that eventually, no matter what attempts the corporations may make, the assembler machines will get out. The key is that the corps are going to do everything they can to prevent it, and to make it as difficult as possible for the machines to be useful when they get out.
Perhaps the feed stock systems they use will be made intentionally complex, something that is extremely difficult to duplicate, making any escaped machines nearly non-functional. Perhaps there would be internal mechanisms that react to broadcast signals inside the facility, and when the machines leave the signal, small explosives go off to destroy the interior mechanisms, making the interesting parts little more than useless rubble.
And don't forget the lobbying for much stronger "intellectual property" protections that will be claimes as needed to protect the companies and their incentive for R&D. Considering the effect that removing/duplicating their machines could have, I could see such actions being treated even more seriously than credit card crimes are today.
Don't forget, though, that in all of this, the machines will still need raw materials to manufacture objects. And there is no chance these raw materials will be free - at least in the forseeable future. If suddenly most people don't even have the option to work, due to so much being able to be created without human involvement, how do you pay for the raw materials?
(Oh, and if you're in the mood for a seriously long-term investment, I'd consider purchasing a garbage dump. After all, when they develop molecular machines to the point that they can disassemble existing things, the dump becomes an ENORMOUS source of raw materials.)
Well, you could have a disgruntled engineer construct a rogue nuclear weapon and use it to destroy a city. There are plenty of unaccounted for nuclear materials out there, and it's not like all the plans for nuclear weapons are in top secret military facilities. But yet nobody has done so yet.
A case could be made that by the time a person gains the education to be able to construct such a device (nuclear weapon/rogue nanomachine), that the people with the means and the mental issues to cause such destruction/death will be weeded out. And if you read Drexler's book Engines of Creation, there are proposed systems that could be constructed to keep check of nanomachines. The key is to focus on developing the defensive systems as quickly as possible, to minimize the time period that nanomachines could exist unchecked in the wild.
Pehaps the number one method of preventing such occurences is to try and find the way to minimize the number of people with such strong hatred of other people as to be willing to do that. We're not making any attempts to do so at the moment...
I would like to believe such a society is not only possible, but likely. However, I don't see a good way to get from here to there. In most western societies, capitalism seems to be a de-facto system, with few people questioning if it's the best way to do things.
How do we go from a system where everything has a value, and you only get items or services of value by providing items of services of equivalent values, to a system where things are free? The current system would encourage a company who developed assemblers to hold onto those assemblers, and instead of selling systems that can produce wide arrays of products, just making the products and selling them. There is no incentive to sell such production machines, since they could be seen as sabotaging any future profit the company could make. "But they no longer need to make money" you can point out - but even today, people and companies that have all the money they need are still trying to earn more.
If someone invented an assembler mechanism today, and started giving away machines that could make just about anything needed, society would collapse. Without a good path from here to there, it might be quite an unpleasant road.
Not to go too off-topic here, but why do you need to send the particles? Why not just disassemble an object, and send the plans on how to reassemble the object to the destination point, where the object can be rebuilt? You could even reassemble the object with the materials in the place it was sent, since you already have the materials there.
It would limit what you could assemble at the destination point to what materials you have on hand, though.
And a philosophical question to go with it - if you disassemble a unique object, and rebuild it in point B with all new molecules, is it the same object? Or do the different molecules make it a "different" object, even though there is absolutely no identifiable difference?
If you just read the exchange of letters, well, it does appear that Drexler does not properly address some of Smalley's points. Drexler points out that "fingers" are not needed, that there are other mechanisms for guiding the molecules to their reaction point. But he never elaborates on what these mechanisms are, nor addresses Smalley's issue about molecular reactions not being as simple as assembling Lego bricks.
I suppose if I finished reading my copy of Drexler's Nanosystems, I'd see more information about proposed methods of directing molecules and getting the desired reactions, but it's still not there in these letters.
Smalley is making one hell of a claim though, going from criticizing Drexler for not having clearly articulated (to his satisfaction) the methods of molecular assembly, to claiming that molecular assemblers are impossible. As Drexler points out with the quote from Smalley - when a scientist claims something is impossible, they are more than likely incorrect.
I understand Smalley's perspective, by trying to dissuade fears of runaway nanomachines and the like - but that doesn't mean Drexler's idea is wrong, but that the idiots that assume any nanomachine invented will instantly start replicating itself and turning the planet into grey goo. There's a higher likelihood of humanity being wiped out by a meteor impact, nuclear war, or the appearance of a super-virus than the grey goo occuring.
Yes, learn from Michael Crichton. That any technology will inevitably be used by people in ways that will cause it to break down or go haywire in various ways that break the laws of nature yet make for exciting movie plots. But somehow when everything goes wrong, events will happen to allow them to cover it all up so nobody knows it happened.
Yes, his books can be entertaining. But taking fiction that appears to be grounded in science, and breaking various physical laws to make the story more interesting only serves to misrepresent what can happen. Prey takes his dramatic licence to quite the extreme - there are plenty of critiques on the book around demonstrating that Crichton seems to be less and less interested in actual science as time goes on.
I can't even pass Legend Road using the keyboard! (Yay for Stepmania!) With exertion like that, though, I would suspect that stamina can still become an issue rather quickly, though obviously Take has built his up quite a bit.
My only Oni pass so far as been Nearly=130 - and they replaced DDRMAX2 with Extreme right after I completed it the first time, so I never even got to try it again. Been working on Soul 6 on and off, since it seems to be the easiest one available.
Now, if I only had a nice DDR platform to play at home instead of those crappy pads that I refuse to even touch anymore...
He did pick an easier 9-footer though.:) Even standards like Matsuri Japan is a bit more demanding than Paranoia KCET Clean Mix - or insane 9-footers like So Deep, Paranoia Dirty Mix, Exotic Ethnic, Healing Vision Angelic Mix. I guess he was trying to conserv a little more stamina for the tougher ones.
I still think 37 1/2 hours of DDR, even on easier levels, is one hell of an accomplishment. Playing it that constantly, without breaks, is probably comparable to doing a slow jog for that long. Unless he stuck completely to one-footers and beginner songs:)
Now if he played Max 300 at 9 Feet for 37 1/2 hours without missing a step, then his feat would be worthy of a record.
That's TEN feet:)
And somehow I doubt you could find someone who could do Max 300 Heavy over and over for 37 1/2 MINUTES, let alone hours. I can't get past the freeze to even finish the song (legs give out every time). I am still in awe of Take's World Record - Paranoia KCET Heavy x 2, Max 300 heavy x 2, Maxx Unlimited Heavy x 2, Kakumei heavy. Even he skimped with less than 10 footers for the first two songs.
I myself buy a game if it's good. I'll put up with the stereotypes, and most serious female gamers are used to putting up with them, and aren't going to exclude an entire game just because of poor choices of avatar. So such a thing won't cause me to not play the game - and usually, if the avatars are blatantly over the top, the game sucks anyways.
However, such images are going to have an affect on less serious female gamers. When the game characters are clearly designed to appeal to teenage boys, the girl who is curious about games and sees that is much more likely not to play it - and to make stereotypical judgements about the game industry. It's not that a bad avatar choice will turn off ALL female gamers - just that systematic choices in that direction by the game industry does strongly push an entire - and large - group of people away from games.
And I'm sorry I overreacted a bit to your attempted joke. I didn't mean to come across like I was attacking you just for being male - if that's what you felt, I apologize. No hard feelings?
To be fair, all the guys are muscular, tanned, and athletic.
You don't get it. Guys can choose avatars based on either the "that's what I wanna look like" feeling (the overly-muscular and attractive avatars), or the "I wanna do that!" feeling (women who look straight out of a porn movie - often with matching wardrobe in fantasy games).
Women don't choose based on the "I wanna do that character" feeling. And besides, it doesn't seem like a huge request just to have some realistic choices for avatars.
At least your side gets the fat chick.
And what the fuck is this supposed to mean? We don't want to choose the blond sex-kitten avatar so our only other choice is a fat female character? This is just plain insulting.
The review and book make a good point - that us women DO prefer to use female avatars when we're playing (exceptions for online play, where the harassment by the socially inept "a/s/l" types makes hiding the fact valuable). Yet so many games either don't give us the opportunity, having only a male character, or when they do choose, the choices, seem to be clearly made for 14 year-old boys, with women that are endowed as if they were full of silicon/saline.
Diablo II is a great example of what there could be - three female characters, none of them looking ridiculous. Or some of the Quake 3 characters.
It seems like adding such a choice couldn't really hurt the game in many situations, except for the FMV-loaded games - though even some of them could probably be done differently to allow that kind of freedom.
There are plenty of non-old age means for them to die. And if you assume that those dangers are equally likely to affect a couple-year old sea urchin and the 200 year old one, it just means living to older and older ages are progressively less and less likely.
And the fewer there are that live to the really old ages, the less likely they are to be found by people, just because they become progressively smaller percentages of the sea urchin population.
I also doubt there are a lot of records of the various sizes of sea urchins that have been found. For all we know, there could have been thousand plus year old ones that have been collected by people, and either killed as a nuisance, or had their sex organs shipped off to a Japanese restaurant somewhere in Japan or the USA or Canada or such, and eaten in a little soy sauce, with no clue they were eating the oldest living animal on the planet. Heck, the single time I tried sea urchin may have been that one, for all we know. (note that I did not like it at all...)
I picked it up yesterday, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. My last Mario Kart experience was Super Mario Kart, back in my college dorm room. It was a popular place for people to hang out at, and the game got a lot of use.
Compared to SMK, there is a lot of advancement here. Sure, I really miss the ghost tracks and the feather, but the feel is most definitely still there. As I never touched the N64 version (never touched an N64 period), I can't compare it. But does it have to be a huge revolution from Mario Kart 64? It's not like that's all that matters. If it's a great game, it doesn't matter how much or how little is new - just as long as it's fun!
This is why we see so many projects started to clone an existing game - you can get a group of people to, say, copy X-Com UFO Defense, or Civilization, or Dance Dance Revolution, because they know what the final product should turn out to be.
Trying to create a new game results in much more difficulty, as you have people disagreeing over what the design should be, each person gets their own features in and then wants to keep them in regardless of the game balance, and so on.
Open source works wonders when the end goal is understood by the participants. Trying to come up with entirely new features and ideas is a lot tougher, and more prone to disagreement. Creativity is a lot harder to collaborate on.
GameFaqs still has the Gamecube release of Midway Arcade Treasures listed as Dec. 1st, unlike the 17th listed here - anyone know of any statements by Midway or whoever that can confirm the release date for it?
I am planning on getting it the day it comes out - regardless of the fact that I already have all of these games for MAME on my PC - and not only do I have all of them, for many of them I have mutliple different romsets. Gauntlet, for example, seems to have as many as 15-20 romsets, with various releases as they developed the game, foreign versions, often with multiple releases, and even 2 player versions. I can wish they'd have multiple versions available, as the final version of Gauntlet is overly hard, probably the only release of the game where it is pretty much impossible to play forever on one credit when you get good enough. (Don't believe you can do it at all? The MAME Action Replay Project has various recordings of people playing Gauntlet for a hundred plus levels on one credit.
But even though I already have it on the PC, I want the comfort of being able to sit on the couch and play these games, using the incredibly well-designed Gamecube controller, and enjoying the larger screen and sound piped through the stereo system. I want to be able to play 4 player Gauntlet without having to crowd people around a PC keyboard. And it's a way to further encourage companies to release compilations of their older games, so we can enjoy them again.
But why-oh-why did they not include Gauntlet II in this compilation? The MAME folks could surely tell us that it wasn't hard to add Gauntlet II after they had Gauntlet in there. It's not like it was a big hardware change from the first one...
What's really cool about this is that the cabinet is the same as the original Space Invaders cabinet! This is a big difference from the cabinets that we've been used to seeing arcade games in for so long. It will REALLY stand out at an arcade.
Good thing we invented the SUV instead of personal jetpacks, or some nonsense.
Imagine if computers went down the same development route that led to SUVs...
They'd use three times the electricity to get the same amount of work done, they'd take up all of your desk, they'd be more likely to crash, and when they did so, all your data would be safe, but anyone nearby not using one of these machines would have all of their data erased.
Slashdot Mirror
Civilization: The Board Game - Not a direct translation of CIV III but provides players an opportunity for intense military, political and economic strategy. 2-6 players (standard and advanced rules)
:)
How funny... the computer game was highly inspired by Avalon Hill's Civilization/Advanced Civilization board games. Then the computer game gets made back into a board game - it's come full circle.
Depends on the people you're buying for with Fluxx. If they're just wanting to have fun and enjoy some silliness, by all means, it is a good game. If they actually want to learn to play a game well and develop strategy, then don't get them near Fluxx - it's pretty much a luck only game.
It seems you either love it or hate it, and you often can't guess which until you try it.
I'm embarassed to admit it, but I've been watching that show. I taped it last night, because I was busy elsewhere, and planned on watching it tonite to see what happens. After all, who would spoil the results of a show like that on a place like Slashdot? I figured nobody would.
BUT SOMEONE HAS TO GO AND POST A DAMN OFFTOPIC MESSAGE IN A CONVERSATION AND RUIN IT FOR ME! WTF are you doing??? Where's an army carrying clue-by-fours when you need them?
No kidding. I have no problem going to the gym, doing 15-30 minutes of weight work, then doing 30-60 minutes of cardio on various machines. I do it at least 3 times a week. But I still find myself gasping for air and struggling with some of the tougher DDR songs, even after playing for a year and a half.
Heck, I can't even get further than the freeze on Max 300 heavy - my legs have nothing left in them, and I pretty much collapse onto the platform at that point. I don't even know if I have the skills to finish, because I don;t have the endurance.
Why? It's not like you're even made of the same stuff that you were a month ago. The molecules of your body are constantly changing - you literally are what you eat. So if you were made from different molecules, how is that any different from normal life - other than being done more quickly?
I'm not claiming your average Joe Engineer would be able to get all the materials together to build a nuclear weapon - and similarly, I'd expect that your average Joe Engineer won't have the means to construct nanoviruses. At least not for a long time. For a significant time period, I'd expect the people with the access to the tools and the knowledge to do so will be small in number, and even then not exactly free to do as they wish.
And yes, eventually extremists will have the means to start researching the ability to create nanoviruses - but how long after the technology is out there? Iraq and Al Queda were working on chemical and biological weapons - how many decades after the US and other less rogue regimes/groups developed them? It's the same with nuclear weapons - the US had them in the 40's. Only now are they starting to get into the hands of countries that may not have the best motives. It doesn't make sense to assume that as soon as the large corporate/US government lab have the means to create nanoviruses that rogue elements will be able to do so.
Still, most of this is meaningless speculation - disasterbation, if you will. We don't know what would be involved in constructing one, what kind of limitations might apply to nanoviruses, and what kind of means there may be to detect/destroy them. Perhaps by the time such creations as really in the realm of possibility, something like the proposed "utility fog" may be developed, and able to keep such particles away. Or some sort of nano-membrane developed that actively inspects each and every atom/molecule allowed to pass through.
I don't claim what you propose won't happen. I do think that it is still far enough off that we cannot determine how likely/unlikely such an event is, and cannot adequately figure out means to defend against such instances.
Believe me, I've read EoC a couple times at least. At least Drexler doesn't go all over-dramatic with his depictions of the dangers that molecular nanotechnology does present - and offers some suggestions for ways to address those issues.
I would just never suggest using fiction to demonstrate the drawbacks to a technology unless it is exceptionally well-done and scientifically accurate. Which Crichton is not.
I don't disagree that eventually, no matter what attempts the corporations may make, the assembler machines will get out. The key is that the corps are going to do everything they can to prevent it, and to make it as difficult as possible for the machines to be useful when they get out.
Perhaps the feed stock systems they use will be made intentionally complex, something that is extremely difficult to duplicate, making any escaped machines nearly non-functional. Perhaps there would be internal mechanisms that react to broadcast signals inside the facility, and when the machines leave the signal, small explosives go off to destroy the interior mechanisms, making the interesting parts little more than useless rubble.
And don't forget the lobbying for much stronger "intellectual property" protections that will be claimes as needed to protect the companies and their incentive for R&D. Considering the effect that removing/duplicating their machines could have, I could see such actions being treated even more seriously than credit card crimes are today.
Don't forget, though, that in all of this, the machines will still need raw materials to manufacture objects. And there is no chance these raw materials will be free - at least in the forseeable future. If suddenly most people don't even have the option to work, due to so much being able to be created without human involvement, how do you pay for the raw materials?
(Oh, and if you're in the mood for a seriously long-term investment, I'd consider purchasing a garbage dump. After all, when they develop molecular machines to the point that they can disassemble existing things, the dump becomes an ENORMOUS source of raw materials.)
Well, you could have a disgruntled engineer construct a rogue nuclear weapon and use it to destroy a city. There are plenty of unaccounted for nuclear materials out there, and it's not like all the plans for nuclear weapons are in top secret military facilities. But yet nobody has done so yet.
A case could be made that by the time a person gains the education to be able to construct such a device (nuclear weapon/rogue nanomachine), that the people with the means and the mental issues to cause such destruction/death will be weeded out.
And if you read Drexler's book Engines of Creation, there are proposed systems that could be constructed to keep check of nanomachines. The key is to focus on developing the defensive systems as quickly as possible, to minimize the time period that nanomachines could exist unchecked in the wild.
Pehaps the number one method of preventing such occurences is to try and find the way to minimize the number of people with such strong hatred of other people as to be willing to do that. We're not making any attempts to do so at the moment...
I would like to believe such a society is not only possible, but likely. However, I don't see a good way to get from here to there. In most western societies, capitalism seems to be a de-facto system, with few people questioning if it's the best way to do things.
How do we go from a system where everything has a value, and you only get items or services of value by providing items of services of equivalent values, to a system where things are free? The current system would encourage a company who developed assemblers to hold onto those assemblers, and instead of selling systems that can produce wide arrays of products, just making the products and selling them. There is no incentive to sell such production machines, since they could be seen as sabotaging any future profit the company could make. "But they no longer need to make money" you can point out - but even today, people and companies that have all the money they need are still trying to earn more.
If someone invented an assembler mechanism today, and started giving away machines that could make just about anything needed, society would collapse. Without a good path from here to there, it might be quite an unpleasant road.
Not to go too off-topic here, but why do you need to send the particles? Why not just disassemble an object, and send the plans on how to reassemble the object to the destination point, where the object can be rebuilt? You could even reassemble the object with the materials in the place it was sent, since you already have the materials there.
It would limit what you could assemble at the destination point to what materials you have on hand, though.
And a philosophical question to go with it - if you disassemble a unique object, and rebuild it in point B with all new molecules, is it the same object? Or do the different molecules make it a "different" object, even though there is absolutely no identifiable difference?
If you just read the exchange of letters, well, it does appear that Drexler does not properly address some of Smalley's points. Drexler points out that "fingers" are not needed, that there are other mechanisms for guiding the molecules to their reaction point. But he never elaborates on what these mechanisms are, nor addresses Smalley's issue about molecular reactions not being as simple as assembling Lego bricks.
I suppose if I finished reading my copy of Drexler's Nanosystems, I'd see more information about proposed methods of directing molecules and getting the desired reactions, but it's still not there in these letters.
Smalley is making one hell of a claim though, going from criticizing Drexler for not having clearly articulated (to his satisfaction) the methods of molecular assembly, to claiming that molecular assemblers are impossible. As Drexler points out with the quote from Smalley - when a scientist claims something is impossible, they are more than likely incorrect.
I understand Smalley's perspective, by trying to dissuade fears of runaway nanomachines and the like - but that doesn't mean Drexler's idea is wrong, but that the idiots that assume any nanomachine invented will instantly start replicating itself and turning the planet into grey goo. There's a higher likelihood of humanity being wiped out by a meteor impact, nuclear war, or the appearance of a super-virus than the grey goo occuring.
Yes, learn from Michael Crichton. That any technology will inevitably be used by people in ways that will cause it to break down or go haywire in various ways that break the laws of nature yet make for exciting movie plots. But somehow when everything goes wrong, events will happen to allow them to cover it all up so nobody knows it happened.
Yes, his books can be entertaining. But taking fiction that appears to be grounded in science, and breaking various physical laws to make the story more interesting only serves to misrepresent what can happen. Prey takes his dramatic licence to quite the extreme - there are plenty of critiques on the book around demonstrating that Crichton seems to be less and less interested in actual science as time goes on.
I can't even pass Legend Road using the keyboard! (Yay for Stepmania!) With exertion like that, though, I would suspect that stamina can still become an issue rather quickly, though obviously Take has built his up quite a bit.
My only Oni pass so far as been Nearly=130 - and they replaced DDRMAX2 with Extreme right after I completed it the first time, so I never even got to try it again. Been working on Soul 6 on and off, since it seems to be the easiest one available.
Now, if I only had a nice DDR platform to play at home instead of those crappy pads that I refuse to even touch anymore...
He did pick an easier 9-footer though. :) Even standards like Matsuri Japan is a bit more demanding than Paranoia KCET Clean Mix - or insane 9-footers like So Deep, Paranoia Dirty Mix, Exotic Ethnic, Healing Vision Angelic Mix. I guess he was trying to conserv a little more stamina for the tougher ones.
:)
I still think 37 1/2 hours of DDR, even on easier levels, is one hell of an accomplishment. Playing it that constantly, without breaks, is probably comparable to doing a slow jog for that long. Unless he stuck completely to one-footers and beginner songs
Now if he played Max 300 at 9 Feet for 37 1/2 hours without missing a step, then his feat would be worthy of a record.
:)
That's TEN feet
And somehow I doubt you could find someone who could do Max 300 Heavy over and over for 37 1/2 MINUTES, let alone hours. I can't get past the freeze to even finish the song (legs give out every time). I am still in awe of Take's World Record - Paranoia KCET Heavy x 2, Max 300 heavy x 2, Maxx Unlimited Heavy x 2, Kakumei heavy. Even he skimped with less than 10 footers for the first two songs.
I myself buy a game if it's good. I'll put up with the stereotypes, and most serious female gamers are used to putting up with them, and aren't going to exclude an entire game just because of poor choices of avatar. So such a thing won't cause me to not play the game - and usually, if the avatars are blatantly over the top, the game sucks anyways.
However, such images are going to have an affect on less serious female gamers. When the game characters are clearly designed to appeal to teenage boys, the girl who is curious about games and sees that is much more likely not to play it - and to make stereotypical judgements about the game industry. It's not that a bad avatar choice will turn off ALL female gamers - just that systematic choices in that direction by the game industry does strongly push an entire - and large - group of people away from games.
And I'm sorry I overreacted a bit to your attempted joke. I didn't mean to come across like I was attacking you just for being male - if that's what you felt, I apologize. No hard feelings?
To be fair, all the guys are muscular, tanned, and athletic.
You don't get it. Guys can choose avatars based on either the "that's what I wanna look like" feeling (the overly-muscular and attractive avatars), or the "I wanna do that!" feeling (women who look straight out of a porn movie - often with matching wardrobe in fantasy games).
Women don't choose based on the "I wanna do that character" feeling. And besides, it doesn't seem like a huge request just to have some realistic choices for avatars.
At least your side gets the fat chick.
And what the fuck is this supposed to mean? We don't want to choose the blond sex-kitten avatar so our only other choice is a fat female character? This is just plain insulting.
The review and book make a good point - that us women DO prefer to use female avatars when we're playing (exceptions for online play, where the harassment by the socially inept "a/s/l" types makes hiding the fact valuable). Yet so many games either don't give us the opportunity, having only a male character, or when they do choose, the choices, seem to be clearly made for 14 year-old boys, with women that are endowed as if they were full of silicon/saline.
Diablo II is a great example of what there could be - three female characters, none of them looking ridiculous. Or some of the Quake 3 characters.
It seems like adding such a choice couldn't really hurt the game in many situations, except for the FMV-loaded games - though even some of them could probably be done differently to allow that kind of freedom.
There are plenty of non-old age means for them to die. And if you assume that those dangers are equally likely to affect a couple-year old sea urchin and the 200 year old one, it just means living to older and older ages are progressively less and less likely.
And the fewer there are that live to the really old ages, the less likely they are to be found by people, just because they become progressively smaller percentages of the sea urchin population.
I also doubt there are a lot of records of the various sizes of sea urchins that have been found. For all we know, there could have been thousand plus year old ones that have been collected by people, and either killed as a nuisance, or had their sex organs shipped off to a Japanese restaurant somewhere in Japan or the USA or Canada or such, and eaten in a little soy sauce, with no clue they were eating the oldest living animal on the planet. Heck, the single time I tried sea urchin may have been that one, for all we know. (note that I did not like it at all...)
I picked it up yesterday, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. My last Mario Kart experience was Super Mario Kart, back in my college dorm room. It was a popular place for people to hang out at, and the game got a lot of use.
Compared to SMK, there is a lot of advancement here. Sure, I really miss the ghost tracks and the feather, but the feel is most definitely still there. As I never touched the N64 version (never touched an N64 period), I can't compare it. But does it have to be a huge revolution from Mario Kart 64? It's not like that's all that matters. If it's a great game, it doesn't matter how much or how little is new - just as long as it's fun!
I think you hit on one of the key points here.
This is why we see so many projects started to clone an existing game - you can get a group of people to, say, copy X-Com UFO Defense, or Civilization, or Dance Dance Revolution, because they know what the final product should turn out to be.
Trying to create a new game results in much more difficulty, as you have people disagreeing over what the design should be, each person gets their own features in and then wants to keep them in regardless of the game balance, and so on.
Open source works wonders when the end goal is understood by the participants. Trying to come up with entirely new features and ideas is a lot tougher, and more prone to disagreement. Creativity is a lot harder to collaborate on.
GameFaqs still has the Gamecube release of Midway Arcade Treasures listed as Dec. 1st, unlike the 17th listed here - anyone know of any statements by Midway or whoever that can confirm the release date for it?
I am planning on getting it the day it comes out - regardless of the fact that I already have all of these games for MAME on my PC - and not only do I have all of them, for many of them I have mutliple different romsets. Gauntlet, for example, seems to have as many as 15-20 romsets, with various releases as they developed the game, foreign versions, often with multiple releases, and even 2 player versions. I can wish they'd have multiple versions available, as the final version of Gauntlet is overly hard, probably the only release of the game where it is pretty much impossible to play forever on one credit when you get good enough. (Don't believe you can do it at all? The MAME Action Replay Project has various recordings of people playing Gauntlet for a hundred plus levels on one credit.
But even though I already have it on the PC, I want the comfort of being able to sit on the couch and play these games, using the incredibly well-designed Gamecube controller, and enjoying the larger screen and sound piped through the stereo system. I want to be able to play 4 player Gauntlet without having to crowd people around a PC keyboard. And it's a way to further encourage companies to release compilations of their older games, so we can enjoy them again.
But why-oh-why did they not include Gauntlet II in this compilation? The MAME folks could surely tell us that it wasn't hard to add Gauntlet II after they had Gauntlet in there. It's not like it was a big hardware change from the first one...
What's really cool about this is that the cabinet is the same as the original Space Invaders cabinet! This is a big difference from the cabinets that we've been used to seeing arcade games in for so long. It will REALLY stand out at an arcade.
Good thing we invented the SUV instead of personal jetpacks, or some nonsense.
Imagine if computers went down the same development route that led to SUVs...
They'd use three times the electricity to get the same amount of work done, they'd take up all of your desk, they'd be more likely to crash, and when they did so, all your data would be safe, but anyone nearby not using one of these machines would have all of their data erased.
Sounds like advancement to me...