You're not missing much. While I haven't tried it in a while when I did the game was basically one big slot machine.
You buy ammo at a cost of about 1 cent a shot, you then shoot animals and hope that whatever they drop is worth more than the ammo you use - it almost always won't be, once in a blue moon you hit the jackpot and make a profit.
You buy mining equipment and survey charges at 10 cents a go, you let off the charges to locate minerals and hope the minerals are worth more than the charges you use - it almost always won't be, once in a blue moon you hit the jackpot and make a profit.
I'm sure you've spotted the pattern by now so I won't waste my time how any of the other "gameplay options" such as crafting work. I'm suprised no one has tried to apply gambling laws to the thing yet because that's all the game is with an admittedly pretty front end dropped over it.
Could you name these "out of print" Wii games because I'm not aware of any that aren't still available.
The top four most downloaded Wii games at the pirate bay were all released in the last month, the fith is Mario Galaxy which certainly isn't out of print.
To be fair Ubisoft are one of the few 3rd party publishers who seem to "get" the Wii. Games like No More Heroes and the Raving Rabbids games (one of the few mini games collections where creative use of waggle adds rather than detracts from the quality of the game) suggest TMNT is in with a chance of being pretty good. From what I read they are not simply taking from the children's cartoons but using comic books and the films as a resource as well which is a positive sign in itself.
I still have hope it will turn out to be Brawl 1.2 - largely the same with a few balance tweaks and a decent online system.
Stop me if I'm wrong but one of the main reasons many people (myself included) stick to Windows is because of its games catalogue.
Doesn't the Xbox by giving us a cheap alternative to upgrading to Vista and buying a new graphics card free us from the need to keep windows on the desktop?
In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say...something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand.- Paul Dirac
Thanks for the info which shows that despite the DS massively outselling all other consoles it doesn't have a single game in the top five software sales.
Remember easy piracy may be a good selling point for hardware the same may not be true for software.
Take a look at the glasses in the article.
They're just a pair of polarised lenses like you'd get for an IMAX film(no shutter job or anything). Unless your present TV can display pictures at double a comfortable refresh rate alternating between two different light polarisations you are going to need a new one.
It may well work in non 3D mode on an normal TV but then what's the point? Nintendo got the Wii where it was today in part by ignoring HD and passing the cost saving on to the customer, do you really think Sony are going to do any better by taking their mistake this generation even further. To drive a decent image this hypothetical PS4 is going to have to effectively run at twice the frame rate of a 2D console. That means either a massively higher cost or lower image quality and probably both.
1) Come last in the present generation by releasing the most expensive console.
2) Release a console in the next generation that requires everyone to buy a new TV to support it.
3) ???????
4) Profit!
The estimate you read was wrong.
I have a power monitor linked up to my electricity meter which feeds the power usage back to a monitor in the flat. We have a base use (fridges, lights, a laptop or two) of about 200-300 watts most of the time. Here are some numbers measured for "wll warts":
Ammount of power a mobile phone charger adds to this (tested Nokia and Motorola chargers) - less than 1 watt (reads as zero on my plug in watt meter)
Ammount a laptop uses in standby mode (the 150 watt power supply the biggest item of this type we have) - 1 watt
I'm all for cutting money off my electricity bill but the reality is that these much deamonised wall warts have very little effect.
The reall offenders are stuff like leaving the tv on, overfilling the kettle and worst of all the electric hob which has to run at 2kW for ten minutes before you start cooking.
The advert at the top of the page right now may well be telling you that you can save a fortune buy paying someone to learn how to run wii games for free (it is for me).
I'd hope that none of you would fall for this but be aware that all these sites provide is a bundle of freely available software including the twilight hack and homebrew channel. The makers of this software are not at all pleased about this sort of thing.
Is there any way to mod an advert down?
Because in the case of the DMCA type issues most of these laws are introduced following the requests of US based companies with US government support?
Unfortunately unlike you guys over the pond whe can't vote the US government out of power meaning they have no need to moderate their requests.
If you take a look at the web page for the game it's pretty clear why it isn't selling so well on Windows.
The game looks awful for a start, perhaps this is a good choice given the available games on Mac/Linux it's more appealing but for Windows it looks like the kind of Half-life (one not two) mod you'd expect to get for free and play for few hours at most.
Not only that but it sells for $19.99 I have no idea if this is a good deal for a Mac/Linux game but running through what I can get for the same price or less on Steam it's pretty clear why it isn't selling on Windows.
And given the price of a 1TB drive these days what makes you think they won't be included in the next generation of consoles once they're even cheaper?
Isn't the point of the topic not that companies can't make a profit but that high second hand sales destroy the long term sales of a game and thus mean making a good game does not provide more of a profit than a bad one? So why not just give up on making good games and make crappy film tie-ins etc. or sports game near identical to the previous year's version that will make you lots in their first week.
This is not the case in the UK. Certainly for the tests given to 11 year olds schools are given target numbers to reach each attainment level (children will be going or level 3-5 at this point)no shows are effectively counted as a fail (your class of 30 needs 29 above level 3 and two don't take the test then you just failed to meet your target). I helped reading questions for a small group during these tests. One girl was sick (not one who would increase any average) on the day and ended up being driven in to the school, being sat in the Head Teacher's office with a sick bucket to take the test and then driven home again.
Equally the need to hit levels did lead to a focus on those borderline pupils. The few who were never going to meet the minimum standard were largely ignored as were the brightest members of the class who were going to hit the top level without effort.
Now, if they wanted to acknowledge that the "old" consoles, etc. are just because of our real-life tech limitations, then I could go with touchscreens like TNG on the bridge, but the Enterprise was also a warship, and they wouldn't use the latest and greatest tech on it. They would rely on older "more proven" technologies for critical systems.
Surely 300 years in the future touchscreens will be old, proven technology.
I heard that if anyone ever possessed both Duke Nuem Forever and a graphics card powerful enough to run it then the game would cease to exist and be replaced with something more complicated.
Others say that the developers have in fact already done this several times.
In his interview here Tennant claims his choice for the next doctor is Wee Jimmy Krankie.
I'm sure a woman who has spent the whole of here entertainment career pretending to be her husband's son would go down just great. (Hey if Fry can be his own grandfather why can't Doctor Who get in on the action).
I guess if we can't have the Krankies then I'd settle for Alan Rickman as second best though...
If there was a visible feedback that a vote had or hadn't been placed (say a printed paper record) then the voter could immediately see that they hadn't pressed a final OK button and correct the issue.
As it is it appears there was no feedback or indication that there was a final step needed after selecting the correct candidate.
That depends, will the new car be incapable of running on a lot of the old roads I like driving on and will I be unable to drive on future roads with my old car?
Advertising standards won't do a thing.
T-mobile UK are presently running an advertising campaign stating "no one gives more minutes for £30". It has been pointed out that other providers gives more minutes for less than £30 but the adverts have been allowed to continue.
If they can get away with that then I'm sure they can continue to get away with their somewhat limited definition of the word unlimited.
Spore gave us infinity minus three too few installs.
Red Alert 3 will give us infinity minus five too few installs. Not an improvement in my book.
I don't think the install limit is really about piracy anyway, it's a method to force you to buy the game more than once and to prevent you from buying it second hand.
For those who have never played it Beneath a Steel Sky runs on just about anything through ScummVM.
Even better it is now freeware and you can legally download it from the same site for nothing. Go get it.
Now put 700 nuclear plants in the deserts of Nevada. You have enough power for everyone to live at the energy consumption level of the US.
Not quite
From Wikipedia US electricity consuption per capita (2005 figures) works out to 12.8 MWh/year.
Multiply that by 6.5 billion people gives 83.2 billion MWh/year.
The US's 103 nuclear reactors' highest ever output (2004) was 788.5 million MWh.
Put the numbers together and you find you need around 10,900 nuclear reactors working at the average output for a US nuclear power stations.
Were every one of those stations to be the same design as the world's largest nuclear power station (which actually consists of 7 operating units) you'd still need 1150 of the things to match US power consumption rates.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not missing much. While I haven't tried it in a while when I did the game was basically one big slot machine.
You buy ammo at a cost of about 1 cent a shot, you then shoot animals and hope that whatever they drop is worth more than the ammo you use - it almost always won't be, once in a blue moon you hit the jackpot and make a profit.
You buy mining equipment and survey charges at 10 cents a go, you let off the charges to locate minerals and hope the minerals are worth more than the charges you use - it almost always won't be, once in a blue moon you hit the jackpot and make a profit.
I'm sure you've spotted the pattern by now so I won't waste my time how any of the other "gameplay options" such as crafting work. I'm suprised no one has tried to apply gambling laws to the thing yet because that's all the game is with an admittedly pretty front end dropped over it.
Could you name these "out of print" Wii games because I'm not aware of any that aren't still available.
The top four most downloaded Wii games at the pirate bay were all released in the last month, the fith is Mario Galaxy which certainly isn't out of print.
To be fair Ubisoft are one of the few 3rd party publishers who seem to "get" the Wii. Games like No More Heroes and the Raving Rabbids games (one of the few mini games collections where creative use of waggle adds rather than detracts from the quality of the game) suggest TMNT is in with a chance of being pretty good. From what I read they are not simply taking from the children's cartoons but using comic books and the films as a resource as well which is a positive sign in itself.
I still have hope it will turn out to be Brawl 1.2 - largely the same with a few balance tweaks and a decent online system.
Stop me if I'm wrong but one of the main reasons many people (myself included) stick to Windows is because of its games catalogue.
Doesn't the Xbox by giving us a cheap alternative to upgrading to Vista and buying a new graphics card free us from the need to keep windows on the desktop?
In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say...something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand.- Paul Dirac
Thanks for the info which shows that despite the DS massively outselling all other consoles it doesn't have a single game in the top five software sales.
Remember easy piracy may be a good selling point for hardware the same may not be true for software.
Take a look at the glasses in the article.
They're just a pair of polarised lenses like you'd get for an IMAX film(no shutter job or anything). Unless your present TV can display pictures at double a comfortable refresh rate alternating between two different light polarisations you are going to need a new one.
It may well work in non 3D mode on an normal TV but then what's the point? Nintendo got the Wii where it was today in part by ignoring HD and passing the cost saving on to the customer, do you really think Sony are going to do any better by taking their mistake this generation even further. To drive a decent image this hypothetical PS4 is going to have to effectively run at twice the frame rate of a 2D console. That means either a massively higher cost or lower image quality and probably both.
1) Come last in the present generation by releasing the most expensive console.
2) Release a console in the next generation that requires everyone to buy a new TV to support it.
3) ???????
4) Profit!
The estimate you read was wrong.
I have a power monitor linked up to my electricity meter which feeds the power usage back to a monitor in the flat. We have a base use (fridges, lights, a laptop or two) of about 200-300 watts most of the time. Here are some numbers measured for "wll warts":
Ammount of power a mobile phone charger adds to this (tested Nokia and Motorola chargers) - less than 1 watt (reads as zero on my plug in watt meter)
Ammount a laptop uses in standby mode (the 150 watt power supply the biggest item of this type we have) - 1 watt
I'm all for cutting money off my electricity bill but the reality is that these much deamonised wall warts have very little effect.
The reall offenders are stuff like leaving the tv on, overfilling the kettle and worst of all the electric hob which has to run at 2kW for ten minutes before you start cooking.
The advert at the top of the page right now may well be telling you that you can save a fortune buy paying someone to learn how to run wii games for free (it is for me).
I'd hope that none of you would fall for this but be aware that all these sites provide is a bundle of freely available software including the twilight hack and homebrew channel. The makers of this software are not at all pleased about this sort of thing.
Is there any way to mod an advert down?
Because in the case of the DMCA type issues most of these laws are introduced following the requests of US based companies with US government support?
Unfortunately unlike you guys over the pond whe can't vote the US government out of power meaning they have no need to moderate their requests.
If you take a look at the web page for the game it's pretty clear why it isn't selling so well on Windows.
The game looks awful for a start, perhaps this is a good choice given the available games on Mac/Linux it's more appealing but for Windows it looks like the kind of Half-life (one not two) mod you'd expect to get for free and play for few hours at most.
Not only that but it sells for $19.99 I have no idea if this is a good deal for a Mac/Linux game but running through what I can get for the same price or less on Steam it's pretty clear why it isn't selling on Windows.
And given the price of a 1TB drive these days what makes you think they won't be included in the next generation of consoles once they're even cheaper?
Isn't the point of the topic not that companies can't make a profit but that high second hand sales destroy the long term sales of a game and thus mean making a good game does not provide more of a profit than a bad one? So why not just give up on making good games and make crappy film tie-ins etc. or sports game near identical to the previous year's version that will make you lots in their first week.
This is not the case in the UK. Certainly for the tests given to 11 year olds schools are given target numbers to reach each attainment level (children will be going or level 3-5 at this point)no shows are effectively counted as a fail (your class of 30 needs 29 above level 3 and two don't take the test then you just failed to meet your target). I helped reading questions for a small group during these tests. One girl was sick (not one who would increase any average) on the day and ended up being driven in to the school, being sat in the Head Teacher's office with a sick bucket to take the test and then driven home again.
Equally the need to hit levels did lead to a focus on those borderline pupils. The few who were never going to meet the minimum standard were largely ignored as were the brightest members of the class who were going to hit the top level without effort.
Surely 300 years in the future touchscreens will be old, proven technology.
I heard that if anyone ever possessed both Duke Nuem Forever and a graphics card powerful enough to run it then the game would cease to exist and be replaced with something more complicated.
Others say that the developers have in fact already done this several times.
In his interview here Tennant claims his choice for the next doctor is Wee Jimmy Krankie.
I'm sure a woman who has spent the whole of here entertainment career pretending to be her husband's son would go down just great. (Hey if Fry can be his own grandfather why can't Doctor Who get in on the action).
I guess if we can't have the Krankies then I'd settle for Alan Rickman as second best though...
If there was a visible feedback that a vote had or hadn't been placed (say a printed paper record) then the voter could immediately see that they hadn't pressed a final OK button and correct the issue.
As it is it appears there was no feedback or indication that there was a final step needed after selecting the correct candidate.
That depends, will the new car be incapable of running on a lot of the old roads I like driving on and will I be unable to drive on future roads with my old car?
Technically "Fuck y'all" would be 2.33333333 words....
Advertising standards won't do a thing.
T-mobile UK are presently running an advertising campaign stating "no one gives more minutes for £30". It has been pointed out that other providers gives more minutes for less than £30 but the adverts have been allowed to continue.
If they can get away with that then I'm sure they can continue to get away with their somewhat limited definition of the word unlimited.
Spore gave us infinity minus three too few installs.
Red Alert 3 will give us infinity minus five too few installs. Not an improvement in my book.
I don't think the install limit is really about piracy anyway, it's a method to force you to buy the game more than once and to prevent you from buying it second hand.
For those who have never played it Beneath a Steel Sky runs on just about anything through ScummVM.
Even better it is now freeware and you can legally download it from the same site for nothing. Go get it.
Not quite
From Wikipedia US electricity consuption per capita (2005 figures) works out to 12.8 MWh/year.
Multiply that by 6.5 billion people gives 83.2 billion MWh/year.
The US's 103 nuclear reactors' highest ever output (2004) was 788.5 million MWh.
Put the numbers together and you find you need around 10,900 nuclear reactors working at the average output for a US nuclear power stations.
Were every one of those stations to be the same design as the world's largest nuclear power station (which actually consists of 7 operating units) you'd still need 1150 of the things to match US power consumption rates.