s google's search time sensitive to the ms range? Does the NYSE have to be more accurate than the nearest second?
Yes and Holy mother of God, hell yes. Speed is everything in the information age, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the NYSE. If the NYSE went down for just 1 hour, whoever screwed up would be blacklisted from working every single corporation even the world for the rest of their lives. Thats how damned important server stability can necessary.
You response indicates a grave misunderstanding of the difference between the way a company like google serves a precomputed search response vs WOW computing and serving a complex simulation in ms time sensitive real time.
Do you even play WoW? Over 90% of the NPCs run on basic "walk X path and go into attack mode if you see PCs (player characters)". What 'complex simulation' are you talking about? The servers CRASH when there are several hundred players in the same general area at the same time. (See : the near constant server crashes on Dark Iron caused by the Penny-Arcade VS PvP Online fighting and the HORRIBLY executed Ahn'Qiraj gate openings which resulted in constant server crashes for several hours for EACH server.) For crying out loud, they can't even get the servers back up at the time they claim updates will be finished. Granted they can make a good game, but holy fuck if they were running anything important and I was their manager, I'd fire them for incompetence.
Or, illegitmate companies send messages to companies saying 'if you don't pay us, we'll send spam out claiming to be from you just to ruin your company's name.' You must really lack an imagination to simply grasp the concept of extortion. Its a very common, very old form of organized crime. (Smear campaigns anyone?)
It took the IRS 4 years to nail a known murderer for tax evasion. The only reason Al Capone's was caught (relatively) early was because he had a rap sheet the length of a short novel. Don't forget, he was only sentenced 11 years (it was shortened to 6 years) so he DID get off fairly easily. Considering he was a BILLIONAIRE when you account for modern day inflation, thats a pretty small price to pay when you consider what else he could have been charged for. (Murder, violation of the 18th Amendment, impersonation of police officers, etc.)
Iran can't hit the U.S. but the "we have no official affilation with X terrorist organization and we frown upon their actions" behavior is what concerns a lot of people. (The Taliban PUBLICALLY protected and supported Osama Bin Laden and we all saw how eager the U.S. was to go crashing through Afghanistan.)
not even google has experience running an application as scaled as WOW
WOW! Way to make yourself look completely computer ignorant! Google searches trillions of websites simultaneously to millions of users almost hourly. The 5~6 million user base World of Warcraft caters to is water vapor compared to the number of users Google (and GMail and Google Earth and Google Groups and Google News and Froogle to say the least) serves.
And if you want to see a computer system that with enough processing power to make any computer geek cream his pants, just imagine how many supercomputers, PCs, business servers, server farms and specialized computers are connected to the New York Stock Exchange at any given time.
All of a sudden if its worth enough and its more dangerous more fishy/criminal organizations would get into it.
Aren't there already professional (crime) organizations already set up for hacking and spamming purposes? Yeah; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
I think going after companies and websites advertised in SPAM woudld do more damage. Get a 1 mil dollar fine and they wont be making the same mistake twice.
If I made just one PENNY for each spam e-mail I sent out, I'd quit my day job and just become a spammer. $1 million is NOTHING these days. (This is tax-free as well.)
Enemy Territory has co-op? Oh wait, Enemy Territory is MULTIPLAYER ONLY. Way to pull things out of your ass. At the very least you could've pointed to Doom 1 + 2's co-op (backstabbing has never been quite as fun) or Sven's Co-op Mod for Half-Life 1 (a good game with a great co-op mode).
The Third Reich was not as successful as it was simply because it had a (relatively) good system, but because the citizens of Europe had gotten INSANELY complacent by the 1930's. Legislation being made PRIOR to the 1930's which hindered the mobility of the Jews (read: immigration quotas based on religion), legally requiring citizens to declare their religion and then putting it on their ID cards (still in place in some countries) and the virtual branding of Jews ACROSS Europe (Jews have lived in ghettos and been considered to be second-class citizens in the minds of many Europeans for centuries) simply helped lead to the high genocide rate of the Holocaust.
Machines ultimately had little effect on the outcome of Holocaust. Don't forget, even with all the gas chambers, the furnaces, the mass graves, the intentional stavation and allowing disease to spread; the Nazis still failed to execute millions of others that they simply had sitting in the concentration camps. The Nazis weren't above using Jews as slave labor either so one way or another, they would have gotten the job done at least quickly enough to bottleneck their killing.
Not exactly. Counting the (older) main characters out (Adama, Tigh, etc), there isn't really much to prevent the creators from simply saying, 'oh well X character managed to survive the Cylon attack and then simply hid underground until the end of season 2/beginning of season 3.' We already know there were resistance groups and you can simply caulk the 'well why didn't they re-establish contact with Adama earilier' question to poor communications and poor transporation.
(2) Risk to Established Canon
Again, theres already insanely huge gaps in terms of the series's backstory. Are there anymore hidden ammo dumps like the Ragnar Anchorage (from the mini-series), the Battlestar's history/how many were built (its hinted that there were initially over 100 prior to the outbreak of fighting), how/when did Gaius Baltar's become compromised (given the Cylon ability to age, he could've been compromised as a child for all we know), the list goes on.
(3) Anachronistic Special Effects
This is a can of worms. They could 'remain true' to the main series and keep everything low-tech, OR they could use the 'well the only reason why you didn't see things like cell phones was because the Galactica was so old and was supposed to be decommissioned that it was simply never stocked with them. OR when the fighting broke out they were simply scrapped/destroyed for parts/to make sure the Cylons didn't hack into them.'
Even if you don't nitpick, theres a ton of unanswered questions in the series ranging from the technical (if humans inititally created Cylons, how come they're so much more advanced in terms of tech?) to the basic ('technically' humans and Cylons were still at war prior to the entire series, why the hell wasn't the government acting its usual paranoid self and building nuclear bunkers everywhere like the U.S. did in the '50s?)
No offense but this is 2006 not 1997 (the year UO was released). Any MMO system is STILL having server stability problems in this day and age is a piece of crap. Heck even EQ cleaned itself up (relatively) and continues to impress.
It is also a problem in that the management in *product* companies think it is easy to become a world-class *service* company, where the service is being sold to thousands to millions of *household* mass market customers.
The cable company seems to do fairly well at this job. Seriously, if you do your research its not that hard to really plan and prepare for mass market audiences.
WipeOut had its origins as a first-gen PS1 game and it STILL hasn't really broken out of niche status. EyeToy is accepted to be nothing more than a gimmick even by professional reviewers due to the sheer lack of support. The Getaway and Gran Turismo 4 are both niche games (yes they had big sales but they didn't move systems, and overall they're considered to be stagnant at this point.) Syphon Filter is a cheap Metal Gear Solid knock-off that never ventured far from its copycat roots (for the fourth game in the series and its first game on the PS2 they added... FORCED multiplayer. The game is 100% impossible to beat 'completely' without multiplayer.) Twisted Metal flat-out never achieved mainstream success. Its a niche game, the characters are unoriginal (a killer clown? yeah, real original there) and the gameplay has been done better by competitors.
Looked at your local school/college lately? Christmas, Spring Break, Thanksgiving Break, the list goes on. Sure your students can contact you during your break, but thats not saying much. Theres lots of jobs that give PLENTY of time off, the only problem is the pay is unstable so most can't afford this kind of lifestyle.
Special leave? WTF is that referring to?
Two words : maternal leave. Sorry, guys get the shaft here.
Sick days? You're kidding right?
Uh, no. I once had a job where one of my co-workers went to work sick on purpose after working four, 8 hour shifts in two days then passed out because he got high the night before and wanted to foot the medical bill with the company. (The hospital later attibuted it to overexertion and work related stress.)
And as far as actual vacation time, you'll be lucky to be allowed one week AFTER working for the company for a year.
Actually, thats been standard practice for a while now. I don't see anything wrong with this considering the highest turnover rate takes place during the first year of employment.
A lot of Europeans complain that Americans are sheltered and don't know anything about the rest of the world. And why should we? We're hard pressed to find any time to travel. If you travel for just one week out of an entire year, that leaves you with just five available vacation days to plan for friends' weddings, a visit from family, a camping trip, etc.
No offense but if you're spending only one week a year travelling, you've got time management issues. Even if you're a wage worker, its not that hard to take a local bus to some regional tourist site/attraction. In New York state, you can spend an entire weekend visiting museums and not visit them all simply because there are too many.
Most jobs will allow 8 days a year off for vacation, minimum, plus holidays, plus sick days, plus religious holidays, plus special leave. If you plan it out ahead of time, its possible to compound a number of these days into two or even three weeks straight. (Call in sick before Christmas, take Christmas off, spend vacation days on after Christmas, make up excuse as to why you won't be back until after New Years Day. With weekends off, thats very easy to set up. Your boss and co-workers will be riding your ass for it when you get back but it works.)
As for travelling abroad, people would do that more often if the conditions were different. As it stands, travelling abroad is still relatively expensive (plane ticket and hotel for 3 days generally averages $1000 when travelling aboard), the language barrier is different for virtually every country (you learn English to visit the U.S. one of the few countries to rival Russia in terms of land mass, but you learn French for France, German for Germany, Italian for Italy and three different dialects of Chinese for China, wth?) the world isn't all that much 'better' than the U.S. (people pointed to the anti-Bush protesting but then we see riots in France, a weak Spanish government installed after a terrorist attack on a train and a continent so compact its possible to drive across three different countries without even knowing it), and overall people (still) hate Americans (no thanks to Bush).
Slashdot should be a fairly intelligent bunch, yet most of the 20 comments so far read: "I know it will suck, but I'll be there opening night..." What is wrong with you people? Are your lives that devoid of quality that you actually anticipate going to see garbage and wasting your money?
Because video game movies don't necessarily always suck. Mortal Kombat was good, Resident Evil and Doom were both 'ok', and the Pokemon movies (if you could get over the cutesy-ness) destroys box office/retail sales regularly. (Overall they're considered to be fairly good considering dubbing is still a mixed bag and the movies recieve nearly no marketing in the U.S.)
"I'm not really interested in it. I don't think "flashy graphics" should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games."
"I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they're putting such emphasis on the "flashy graphics"; 'Woah, this "flashy graphics" lets you do this!' and I'm thinking - are you messing with us?"
Wow, I want what you're smoking.
I don't think his point is that he is not willing to adapt to a new controller, instead, he's saying that Nintendo seems to be emphasizing the controller itself instead of the things that Nintendo has been traditionally strong in, such as good gameplay and design.
Uhhh... haven't people bitching about Nintendo constantly making "Mario Sequal X now with Jet Boots" and "Legend of Zelda, In Space!"? And god forbid we forget the flaming Nintendo got for using cel-shaded graphics for Wind Waker.
Considering the only original hit game/idea/series hes made is Katamari Damacy (which is simply getting milked at this point), this is not a Sony Shigeru Miyamoto. This is one developer, who did well once but has yet to prove he has staying power.
What have you been playing lately? Episodic gaming has historically been slow to be released, lacking in replay value and short in terms of gameplay time. HL2: Episode One STILL isn't out, BF2's version of 'episodic' expansions have been hit-or-miss, and MMORPGs that attempt this route have generally had too small or too infrequent (free) 'expansions.'
Except the Spathi state that they actually improved the shielding technology and since it was self-imposed, whats was to stop the Spathi from simply turning it back on again? (Yes they could've simply constantly repopped it but after the 3rd or 4th time I think the message would've been clear. "Leave us alone.")
Street Fighter, Megaman (Rockman there), Pokemon, Tekken, Mario, Sonic, and numerous RPG franchises (if you're willing to count them) are examples of major Japanese franchises that will never die.
Street Fighter imploded on itself and never fully recovered. (SF3 is considered to be a failure compared to SF2's insane success.) Mega Man started declining early (around the 4th and 5th games) and actually resulting in a stronger resistance to simply milking the series. (The X games only was SUPPOSED to end at X5 and we all saw the sudden drops in sales with X6 and X7.) Pokemon gets away with this because its graphics were never really up to par even for the most forgiving gamers and because each 'update' generally had something new and clever added. (Internal clock, new Pokemon, wireless connectivity, etc) Tekken is considered to be stagnating since the 3rd game. Slow adoption of online play, poor improvements between games and generally being nothing more than 'more of what we've come to expect.' Mario is fine if you accept the spin-offs, in decline if you don't. No new "true" Mario sequel, Mario Sunshine wasn't as groundbreaking as Mario 64 and Luigi's Mansion as a launch game for the GC instead of a Mario game left a bitter taste for many. Same thing for Sonic. With the exception of the Dragon Quest/Warrior series (which is a beast in and of itself), almost every Japanese styled RPG has some unique twist or change between each sequel. (FF7's materia system to FF8's draw system? Morrowind's bash as fast as you can vs Oblivion's learn to block? The 'Tales of' series's action based combat vs Secret of Mana's arcade-styled combat?)
I saw Will Wright's "Spore" demonstration the other day (use Google Video to find it). It's a simulator that starts you off as a bacteria and pulls the camera back farther and farther until you manage a creature, a society, a world, a galaxy and a universe.
Actually, if you listen to his speech Will Wright states that "Spore" is really nothing more than 6 or so different pre-existing ideas rolled up into one big game using modern technology.
How many platformers did we have in the 80s that completely copied Mario?
Um, not many thanks to Nintendo's draconian rules on publishing games for the NES. (We only got 3 "true" Mario games on the NES in the U.S. (2 if you don't count the second))
Is there a single American game series that has (if I'm counting right) over a dozen sequels each?
Wow, where have you been the past 10 years? The Madden games are virtually the Mega Man or Final Fantasy counterparts in the U.S. A quick search on GameFAQs shows the series dating back to '92, OVER a dozen years old. And no, graphic changes/updates don't count either otherwise every Mega Man and (more so) Final Fantasy game are radically different. If it wasn't for the spin-offs and remakes/collection games, the Madden games (14 games from '92 to '06) would actually outnumber the Mega Man (only 8 in the original series) and Final Fantasy series (only 11 not counting X-2 and XI)
I wouldn't have thought SC3 was bad IF it wasn't for the simple fact that the gameplay was AWFUL. The starmap was a HORRIBLE mess if you couldn't wrap the fact that it attempt to simulate a rotating 3D sphere. Planet management was like trying to run an international business and the only way to communicate was through face-to-face talks. The number of ships actually DECREASED between SC2 and SC3, some of the storyline aspects of SC2 were either changed or outright ignored (why did the Spathi join when in SC2 they sealed themselves off on their home planet?) and the fact that the plot was piss-poor. (A supernatural race of beings comes into the galaxy to harvest food and you prevent the mass harvesting of life simply by fixing their food container? Very lame after SC2's genocide inspired storyline.)
provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
Mortaring of voting stations. Bombing civilian marketplaces. Use of car bombs. The bombing of religious targets. Terrorizing local civilians. Concealment of arms and munitions (bomb vests). The failure to make attempts to avoid civilian casualities. The use of public executions. Kidnappings.
Nope, about 99% of the insurgents fail to adhere to this rule. Geneva Convention rights are therefore forfeited.
Then who is judging Saddam currently? Either there is a stable/legitimate/internationally recognized civilian court system in Iraq, or there isn't. So you are saying Saddam is right?
Depends, do you want to recognize the U.N. and many other foreign governments (such as Iran) claims that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was completely illegal and unauthorized under international law and therefore technically Saddam still President of Iraq? If you go this route then Saddam is -legally- authorized even under U.S. law to executed millions of Iraqi citizens for treason against the state and for collaboration with the enemy. (Aiding and abetting the enemy)
Or do you want to go against the wishes of the international community, and side with the U.S. and its allies (such as Britain) and claim that the invasion was legitimate (for whatever reason) and therefore Saddam is no longer the President? If you go this route your are in direct violation with the U.N., international law and the general concensus of the international community. (The invasion and overthrowing of a government without U.N. approval)
All civilians are to be dealt with using the civilian court system, of either their own country or that of the occupying power.
Wow, way to shoot down your own argument. There is currently no (stable/legitimate/internationally recognized) civilian court system in Iraq so all civilians caught on the battlefield are technically arrested by the U.S./coalition forces. Geneva Convention doesn't apply under those circumstances.
There is, purposefully, no "crack" through which someone can fall through and end up with no rights whatsoever.
Unless you go to a country that has no recognized legal system (some do not recognize the legitimacy of the Iraqi courts), and/or a country that has no internationally recognized government in which case all court cases are null and void in the eyes of the international community (China's illegal mock trials regarding political disadents), and/or if you're capture by military/militant forces who have little to no restraint held by a higher authority in which case they can shoot you in the back and just claim you tried running away (see: any war), and/or you're caught performing espionage activities in a military area in which case you're a spy and you forfeit even the Geneva Convention rights (Vietnam War most notably).
Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
If you know where to look, its VERY, VERY EASY to fall through the "cracks".
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and Holy mother of God, hell yes. Speed is everything in the information age, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the NYSE. If the NYSE went down for just 1 hour, whoever screwed up would be blacklisted from working every single corporation even the world for the rest of their lives. Thats how damned important server stability can necessary.
You response indicates a grave misunderstanding of the difference between the way a company like google serves a precomputed search response vs WOW computing and serving a complex simulation in ms time sensitive real time.
Do you even play WoW? Over 90% of the NPCs run on basic "walk X path and go into attack mode if you see PCs (player characters)". What 'complex simulation' are you talking about? The servers CRASH when there are several hundred players in the same general area at the same time. (See : the near constant server crashes on Dark Iron caused by the Penny-Arcade VS PvP Online fighting and the HORRIBLY executed Ahn'Qiraj gate openings which resulted in constant server crashes for several hours for EACH server.) For crying out loud, they can't even get the servers back up at the time they claim updates will be finished. Granted they can make a good game, but holy fuck if they were running anything important and I was their manager, I'd fire them for incompetence.
Or, illegitmate companies send messages to companies saying 'if you don't pay us, we'll send spam out claiming to be from you just to ruin your company's name.' You must really lack an imagination to simply grasp the concept of extortion. Its a very common, very old form of organized crime. (Smear campaigns anyone?)
It took the IRS 4 years to nail a known murderer for tax evasion. The only reason Al Capone's was caught (relatively) early was because he had a rap sheet the length of a short novel. Don't forget, he was only sentenced 11 years (it was shortened to 6 years) so he DID get off fairly easily. Considering he was a BILLIONAIRE when you account for modern day inflation, thats a pretty small price to pay when you consider what else he could have been charged for. (Murder, violation of the 18th Amendment, impersonation of police officers, etc.)
Iran can't hit the U.S. but the "we have no official affilation with X terrorist organization and we frown upon their actions" behavior is what concerns a lot of people. (The Taliban PUBLICALLY protected and supported Osama Bin Laden and we all saw how eager the U.S. was to go crashing through Afghanistan.)
WOW! Way to make yourself look completely computer ignorant! Google searches trillions of websites simultaneously to millions of users almost hourly. The 5~6 million user base World of Warcraft caters to is water vapor compared to the number of users Google (and GMail and Google Earth and Google Groups and Google News and Froogle to say the least) serves.
And if you want to see a computer system that with enough processing power to make any computer geek cream his pants, just imagine how many supercomputers, PCs, business servers, server farms and specialized computers are connected to the New York Stock Exchange at any given time.
Aren't there already professional (crime) organizations already set up for hacking and spamming purposes? Yeah; hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.
I think going after companies and websites advertised in SPAM woudld do more damage. Get a 1 mil dollar fine and they wont be making the same mistake twice.
If I made just one PENNY for each spam e-mail I sent out, I'd quit my day job and just become a spammer. $1 million is NOTHING these days. (This is tax-free as well.)
Same thing vice versa, George Bush (Jr.) doesn't represent the opinion of the WHOLE population of the U.S., just the elites who ignore public opinion.
Enemy Territory has co-op? Oh wait, Enemy Territory is MULTIPLAYER ONLY. Way to pull things out of your ass. At the very least you could've pointed to Doom 1 + 2's co-op (backstabbing has never been quite as fun) or Sven's Co-op Mod for Half-Life 1 (a good game with a great co-op mode).
Machines ultimately had little effect on the outcome of Holocaust. Don't forget, even with all the gas chambers, the furnaces, the mass graves, the intentional stavation and allowing disease to spread; the Nazis still failed to execute millions of others that they simply had sitting in the concentration camps. The Nazis weren't above using Jews as slave labor either so one way or another, they would have gotten the job done at least quickly enough to bottleneck their killing.
Not exactly. Counting the (older) main characters out (Adama, Tigh, etc), there isn't really much to prevent the creators from simply saying, 'oh well X character managed to survive the Cylon attack and then simply hid underground until the end of season 2/beginning of season 3.' We already know there were resistance groups and you can simply caulk the 'well why didn't they re-establish contact with Adama earilier' question to poor communications and poor transporation.
(2) Risk to Established Canon
Again, theres already insanely huge gaps in terms of the series's backstory. Are there anymore hidden ammo dumps like the Ragnar Anchorage (from the mini-series), the Battlestar's history/how many were built (its hinted that there were initially over 100 prior to the outbreak of fighting), how/when did Gaius Baltar's become compromised (given the Cylon ability to age, he could've been compromised as a child for all we know), the list goes on.
(3) Anachronistic Special Effects
This is a can of worms. They could 'remain true' to the main series and keep everything low-tech, OR they could use the 'well the only reason why you didn't see things like cell phones was because the Galactica was so old and was supposed to be decommissioned that it was simply never stocked with them. OR when the fighting broke out they were simply scrapped/destroyed for parts/to make sure the Cylons didn't hack into them.'
Even if you don't nitpick, theres a ton of unanswered questions in the series ranging from the technical (if humans inititally created Cylons, how come they're so much more advanced in terms of tech?) to the basic ('technically' humans and Cylons were still at war prior to the entire series, why the hell wasn't the government acting its usual paranoid self and building nuclear bunkers everywhere like the U.S. did in the '50s?)
It is also a problem in that the management in *product* companies think it is easy to become a world-class *service* company, where the service is being sold to thousands to millions of *household* mass market customers.
The cable company seems to do fairly well at this job. Seriously, if you do your research its not that hard to really plan and prepare for mass market audiences.
WipeOut had its origins as a first-gen PS1 game and it STILL hasn't really broken out of niche status.
EyeToy is accepted to be nothing more than a gimmick even by professional reviewers due to the sheer lack of support.
The Getaway and Gran Turismo 4 are both niche games (yes they had big sales but they didn't move systems, and overall they're considered to be stagnant at this point.)
Syphon Filter is a cheap Metal Gear Solid knock-off that never ventured far from its copycat roots (for the fourth game in the series and its first game on the PS2 they added... FORCED multiplayer. The game is 100% impossible to beat 'completely' without multiplayer.)
Twisted Metal flat-out never achieved mainstream success. Its a niche game, the characters are unoriginal (a killer clown? yeah, real original there) and the gameplay has been done better by competitors.
Looked at your local school/college lately? Christmas, Spring Break, Thanksgiving Break, the list goes on. Sure your students can contact you during your break, but thats not saying much. Theres lots of jobs that give PLENTY of time off, the only problem is the pay is unstable so most can't afford this kind of lifestyle.
Special leave? WTF is that referring to?
Two words : maternal leave. Sorry, guys get the shaft here.
Sick days? You're kidding right?
Uh, no. I once had a job where one of my co-workers went to work sick on purpose after working four, 8 hour shifts in two days then passed out because he got high the night before and wanted to foot the medical bill with the company. (The hospital later attibuted it to overexertion and work related stress.)
And as far as actual vacation time, you'll be lucky to be allowed one week AFTER working for the company for a year.
Actually, thats been standard practice for a while now. I don't see anything wrong with this considering the highest turnover rate takes place during the first year of employment.
No offense but if you're spending only one week a year travelling, you've got time management issues. Even if you're a wage worker, its not that hard to take a local bus to some regional tourist site/attraction. In New York state, you can spend an entire weekend visiting museums and not visit them all simply because there are too many.
Most jobs will allow 8 days a year off for vacation, minimum, plus holidays, plus sick days, plus religious holidays, plus special leave. If you plan it out ahead of time, its possible to compound a number of these days into two or even three weeks straight. (Call in sick before Christmas, take Christmas off, spend vacation days on after Christmas, make up excuse as to why you won't be back until after New Years Day. With weekends off, thats very easy to set up. Your boss and co-workers will be riding your ass for it when you get back but it works.)
As for travelling abroad, people would do that more often if the conditions were different. As it stands, travelling abroad is still relatively expensive (plane ticket and hotel for 3 days generally averages $1000 when travelling aboard), the language barrier is different for virtually every country (you learn English to visit the U.S. one of the few countries to rival Russia in terms of land mass, but you learn French for France, German for Germany, Italian for Italy and three different dialects of Chinese for China, wth?) the world isn't all that much 'better' than the U.S. (people pointed to the anti-Bush protesting but then we see riots in France, a weak Spanish government installed after a terrorist attack on a train and a continent so compact its possible to drive across three different countries without even knowing it), and overall people (still) hate Americans (no thanks to Bush).
Because video game movies don't necessarily always suck. Mortal Kombat was good, Resident Evil and Doom were both 'ok', and the Pokemon movies (if you could get over the cutesy-ness) destroys box office/retail sales regularly. (Overall they're considered to be fairly good considering dubbing is still a mixed bag and the movies recieve nearly no marketing in the U.S.)
"I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they're putting such emphasis on the "flashy graphics"; 'Woah, this "flashy graphics" lets you do this!' and I'm thinking - are you messing with us?"
Wow, I want what you're smoking.
I don't think his point is that he is not willing to adapt to a new controller, instead, he's saying that Nintendo seems to be emphasizing the controller itself instead of the things that Nintendo has been traditionally strong in, such as good gameplay and design.
Uhhh... haven't people bitching about Nintendo constantly making "Mario Sequal X now with Jet Boots" and "Legend of Zelda, In Space!"? And god forbid we forget the flaming Nintendo got for using cel-shaded graphics for Wind Waker.
Considering the only original hit game/idea/series hes made is Katamari Damacy (which is simply getting milked at this point), this is not a Sony Shigeru Miyamoto. This is one developer, who did well once but has yet to prove he has staying power.
What have you been playing lately? Episodic gaming has historically been slow to be released, lacking in replay value and short in terms of gameplay time. HL2: Episode One STILL isn't out, BF2's version of 'episodic' expansions have been hit-or-miss, and MMORPGs that attempt this route have generally had too small or too infrequent (free) 'expansions.'
Except the Spathi state that they actually improved the shielding technology and since it was self-imposed, whats was to stop the Spathi from simply turning it back on again? (Yes they could've simply constantly repopped it but after the 3rd or 4th time I think the message would've been clear. "Leave us alone.")
Street Fighter imploded on itself and never fully recovered. (SF3 is considered to be a failure compared to SF2's insane success.)
Mega Man started declining early (around the 4th and 5th games) and actually resulting in a stronger resistance to simply milking the series. (The X games only was SUPPOSED to end at X5 and we all saw the sudden drops in sales with X6 and X7.)
Pokemon gets away with this because its graphics were never really up to par even for the most forgiving gamers and because each 'update' generally had something new and clever added. (Internal clock, new Pokemon, wireless connectivity, etc)
Tekken is considered to be stagnating since the 3rd game. Slow adoption of online play, poor improvements between games and generally being nothing more than 'more of what we've come to expect.'
Mario is fine if you accept the spin-offs, in decline if you don't. No new "true" Mario sequel, Mario Sunshine wasn't as groundbreaking as Mario 64 and Luigi's Mansion as a launch game for the GC instead of a Mario game left a bitter taste for many. Same thing for Sonic.
With the exception of the Dragon Quest/Warrior series (which is a beast in and of itself), almost every Japanese styled RPG has some unique twist or change between each sequel. (FF7's materia system to FF8's draw system? Morrowind's bash as fast as you can vs Oblivion's learn to block? The 'Tales of' series's action based combat vs Secret of Mana's arcade-styled combat?)
Actually, if you listen to his speech Will Wright states that "Spore" is really nothing more than 6 or so different pre-existing ideas rolled up into one big game using modern technology.
How many platformers did we have in the 80s that completely copied Mario?
Um, not many thanks to Nintendo's draconian rules on publishing games for the NES. (We only got 3 "true" Mario games on the NES in the U.S. (2 if you don't count the second))
Is there a single American game series that has (if I'm counting right) over a dozen sequels each?
Wow, where have you been the past 10 years? The Madden games are virtually the Mega Man or Final Fantasy counterparts in the U.S. A quick search on GameFAQs shows the series dating back to '92, OVER a dozen years old. And no, graphic changes/updates don't count either otherwise every Mega Man and (more so) Final Fantasy game are radically different. If it wasn't for the spin-offs and remakes/collection games, the Madden games (14 games from '92 to '06) would actually outnumber the Mega Man (only 8 in the original series) and Final Fantasy series (only 11 not counting X-2 and XI)
I wouldn't have thought SC3 was bad IF it wasn't for the simple fact that the gameplay was AWFUL. The starmap was a HORRIBLE mess if you couldn't wrap the fact that it attempt to simulate a rotating 3D sphere. Planet management was like trying to run an international business and the only way to communicate was through face-to-face talks. The number of ships actually DECREASED between SC2 and SC3, some of the storyline aspects of SC2 were either changed or outright ignored (why did the Spathi join when in SC2 they sealed themselves off on their home planet?) and the fact that the plot was piss-poor. (A supernatural race of beings comes into the galaxy to harvest food and you prevent the mass harvesting of life simply by fixing their food container? Very lame after SC2's genocide inspired storyline.)
Mortaring of voting stations. Bombing civilian marketplaces. Use of car bombs. The bombing of religious targets. Terrorizing local civilians. Concealment of arms and munitions (bomb vests). The failure to make attempts to avoid civilian casualities. The use of public executions. Kidnappings.
Nope, about 99% of the insurgents fail to adhere to this rule. Geneva Convention rights are therefore forfeited.
(Note: I did not say anything about torture.)
Depends, do you want to recognize the U.N. and many other foreign governments (such as Iran) claims that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was completely illegal and unauthorized under international law and therefore technically Saddam still President of Iraq? If you go this route then Saddam is -legally- authorized even under U.S. law to executed millions of Iraqi citizens for treason against the state and for collaboration with the enemy. (Aiding and abetting the enemy)
Or do you want to go against the wishes of the international community, and side with the U.S. and its allies (such as Britain) and claim that the invasion was legitimate (for whatever reason) and therefore Saddam is no longer the President? If you go this route your are in direct violation with the U.N., international law and the general concensus of the international community. (The invasion and overthrowing of a government without U.N. approval)
I never said, "under US law". In fact, I never even use the word "law" in that entire line. You're putting words in my mouth.
Wow, way to shoot down your own argument. There is currently no (stable/legitimate/internationally recognized) civilian court system in Iraq so all civilians caught on the battlefield are technically arrested by the U.S./coalition forces. Geneva Convention doesn't apply under those circumstances.
There is, purposefully, no "crack" through which someone can fall through and end up with no rights whatsoever.
Unless you go to a country that has no recognized legal system (some do not recognize the legitimacy of the Iraqi courts), and/or a country that has no internationally recognized government in which case all court cases are null and void in the eyes of the international community (China's illegal mock trials regarding political disadents), and/or if you're capture by military/militant forces who have little to no restraint held by a higher authority in which case they can shoot you in the back and just claim you tried running away (see: any war), and/or you're caught performing espionage activities in a military area in which case you're a spy and you forfeit even the Geneva Convention rights (Vietnam War most notably).
Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
If you know where to look, its VERY, VERY EASY to fall through the "cracks".