... and I don't want to give anything away, but Ars is pretty much on the money. The atmosphere the game creates is just outstanding, within five minutes I was getting rather nervous and contemplating turning the lights back on.
There's a tonne of great touches, fantastic audio work and really slick visual effects. So it's another first person shooter, but it really does stand head and shoulders above any other single player game I've got my hands on since Half Life 2.
Can't wait for the PC demo to see how my hardware handles it.
Another thing is that they've thinned the line between 'their network' and 'my Xbox'
Well, yeah I almost agree with you on that point, but again, it's their network. If I want access to it, I have to consent to them auditing my hardware. If I don't want them auditing my shit, then there's no reason for me to allow it, they just won't let me play with the other 'cool' xbox Live kids. This hardware inspection isn't forced upon anybody, it's just part of the deal they offer for a free gaming network (or $50AU per year for the Gold membership). No arms being twisted, no family being threatened.
I can deal with that, I'll just start using one of the alternatives.
For the record, I have only played on Live once or twice, and I *own* the games I play.
It's their network, why shouldn't they ban people that don't play by their rules?
I say this as somebody that purchased a 360 less than a week ago, and loaded up the hacked firmware for my drive less than 24 hours ago.
Am I bummed? Not really. It's a private network, they can do whatever they like with it. Doing anything I want with my hardware sure as shit is my right, but I shouldn't expect other people to be forced to allow me to play on their servers like it's some base human right being violated.
I know when I was gaming on my C64 I never had to listen to spoiled pre-teens fling insults at one another or had to rely on an ever growing list of ignored players just to try and enjoy the experience I'd forked out for.
The games might have been garbage, but I recall the experiences with more fondness than anything I've picked up recently.
I don't even need to go back that far, the 90's had a lot of fantastic games that I still play and have a lot more fun with than running another damn WoW instance, or another round of Countersrike: OMGSNIPERFAGZ!!LAWLZ Edition.
Serious question. How do they expect to make this work?
I'm a fan of the Guitar Hero series, my wife loves it too and her girlfriends really enjoy the Singstar series of games. We were discussing a 'Band Hero' style game a few nights ago while they belted out some crap pop songs, but how is this going to work, honestly?
Two people playing Guitar Hero takes up a whole lot of screen real estate, as does a pair of people singing together. How are they going to combine the two and somehow add drums to the mix?
I'd love it to happen, but honestly I don't see how this is going to work terribly well. Even on our gaming display (not massive, but 42") it would get very crowded, very quickly with instructions, guides, scoring, etc..etc...etc..
This distribution method is awesome, but of course it doesn't solve the problem of poor content. Not yet anyway.
If distribution gets so cheap and easy to do, there's real potential for indy film makers to get their work seen. Dupe their movie to a few hard drives and hand them out in person, or send their local cinema a link to a torrent of their work and offer it to be screened for free or at minimal costs. The potential for new, unsigned work and interesting local cinema is massive, if only the big players don't lock the system down with horrible license fees.
"Of course you can show your indy film on our projection gear, it's free! Oh, but the codec will cost you thirty grand." etc...etc...etc...
A friend of mine is a manager / projectionist at a cinema and I was discussing this kind of thing with her last week.
Digital distribution (through teh intarweb / closed network, not hard drives you chumps..) would make her life much, much easier, make it easier to fill more sessions with less cost and generally make life rather rosy for cinema workers and projectionists everywhere.
Many years ago I was setting up some spiffy new computers for a local kindergarten.
At the time I had fairly long hair, a goatee and was dressed head to toe in black. Black shoes, black trousers, black long sleeve business shirt, black tie. Not so much trying to make a statement, but I kept most of my wardrobe black so I always had something that would go with everything else. I lacked imagination, ok?
Anyway, I'm setting up one of these machines and I turn around to find a small girl sitting on the table watching me. She was probably five years old.
I said to her, "Hello sweetie, could you please hand that to me", pointing to the mouse sitting next to her and flashing my most pleasant smile.
She looked at me with a really miserable look and said "No."
"Oh" I remarked. "Why is that?" I asked, expecting her to tell me that teacher had instructed her not to talk to strangers, or some other good moral learning.
"Because, you're the bad man." I held back a bit of shock and proceeded to grab my own damn mouse and finish the job.
I wasn't just any bad man, I was *THE* bad man. Knowing I scared children so much kinda broke my heart. The next day I trimmed my goatee, got a haircut and started wearing Hawaiian shirts to work.
So I guess my advice is: When improving kindergartens through IT services, wear Hawaiian shirts.
I was unable to give my copy of Halo away (came with the Xbox...). Nobody would take it. I ended up turning it into a frisbee and had a hell of a lot more fun with it that way.
Seriously. A bloody ordinary Windows port of one of the more dull console shooters I've had a tinker with in years. About halfway through I just couldn't fight back the tears of boredom anymore.
I'd imagine millions of people still play Solitaire, by the 'merits' Halo has, I'm fairly certain it deserves a spot in this arbitrary list too.
Seriously though, this kind of thing scares the hell out of me. I think that things like the "barely legal" scene and other pornography that depicts or 'disguises' older women as teenagers is pretty fucking pathetic, but that just means I don't engage in it, doesn't mean I'm going to go out and "ruin" it for anybody else. Nobody is hurt by it and it sure as shit isn't my place to decide what consenting adults can look at or even produce.
If anybody can explain to me why these so awfully 'moral' people want to fuck with everybody else quietly minding their own business, I'd really appreciate it.
Seriously. Upon seeing this news I have gone from "No chance of wanting a PS3" to thinking "Shit, might just have to pick one up after the Australian launch".
I am a Gran Turismo whore of the highest order....
"When Nintendo passed on buying Rare Perfect Dark Zero had been in development for 12 months, Kameo for 18 and both of those games were only released in 2005 (meaning they were in development for 5+ years)."
Neither Kameo no Perfect Dark Zero were that great.
I have fond memories of Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Conkers Bad Fur Day, but the nostalgia may be clouding my judgement. Going back and playing these games now, they're not bad for a quick laugh, but they're not holding the attention the way I remember it.
Where they really a great developer at all? Three stand out games and a bunch of other really, really ordinary titles doesn't really scream greatness to me. Especially considering the long development cycle of the games you mentioned, shouldn't the end result have been something truly outstanding?
You generate your WoW character. You then fire up Glider, and enter the game.
You then set waypoints and alter variables that will determine how your character will respond to threats, bad guys, etc. How far it will pull a target in from, how often it will heal, will it skin corpses, so on and so forth.
Once the characterics are set, and the waypoints are all selected, you kick it off and the character will wander between your waypoints, killing enemies in the manner you suggested, until it's all looted out.
Personally, I got no problem with it, if I still bothered to play WoW (dropped my subscription a week ago).
Oh, bullshit. Running across the same vague field, then hiding behind the same damn rocks until you get into an alien space ship and spend the rest of the game running around identical corridors.
I love my Xbox, but I truly despise Halo. Ordinary on so many levels, but obviously appeals on the lowest common denominator factor. Aliens, shooting shit, and packed in with a bunch of systems.
Hell, I can't even give my copy away, came free with the box and it's like cancer, just can't shake it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've forked over my $100 (seems the average new game price down here) now give me the finished product thanks very much.
... and I don't want to give anything away, but Ars is pretty much on the money. The atmosphere the game creates is just outstanding, within five minutes I was getting rather nervous and contemplating turning the lights back on.
There's a tonne of great touches, fantastic audio work and really slick visual effects. So it's another first person shooter, but it really does stand head and shoulders above any other single player game I've got my hands on since Half Life 2.
Can't wait for the PC demo to see how my hardware handles it.
... but sir, in all honesty, it's not the job of the fucking government to fucking tell me what words are fine for me to use.
Fuck my government, fuck it right in its collective neck. This pandering to the extreme christian right by our Prime Minister is completely sickening.
I live in a very well populated part of regional Australia. I can barely get DSL at 1500/256 and I pay through the nose for it.
The state of Australian telecoms is utterly shameful and no amount of empty promises by this clusterfuck is going to change things.
I can deal with that, I'll just start using one of the alternatives.
For the record, I have only played on Live once or twice, and I *own* the games I play.
It's their network, why shouldn't they ban people that don't play by their rules?
I say this as somebody that purchased a 360 less than a week ago, and loaded up the hacked firmware for my drive less than 24 hours ago.
Am I bummed? Not really. It's a private network, they can do whatever they like with it. Doing anything I want with my hardware sure as shit is my right, but I shouldn't expect other people to be forced to allow me to play on their servers like it's some base human right being violated.
I know when I was gaming on my C64 I never had to listen to spoiled pre-teens fling insults at one another or had to rely on an ever growing list of ignored players just to try and enjoy the experience I'd forked out for.
The games might have been garbage, but I recall the experiences with more fondness than anything I've picked up recently.
I don't even need to go back that far, the 90's had a lot of fantastic games that I still play and have a lot more fun with than running another damn WoW instance, or another round of Countersrike: OMGSNIPERFAGZ!!LAWLZ Edition.
So we get Fallout 3 *and* a Fallout MMORPG?
Should I file for that divorce now or later?
Serious question. How do they expect to make this work?
I'm a fan of the Guitar Hero series, my wife loves it too and her girlfriends really enjoy the Singstar series of games. We were discussing a 'Band Hero' style game a few nights ago while they belted out some crap pop songs, but how is this going to work, honestly?
Two people playing Guitar Hero takes up a whole lot of screen real estate, as does a pair of people singing together. How are they going to combine the two and somehow add drums to the mix?
I'd love it to happen, but honestly I don't see how this is going to work terribly well. Even on our gaming display (not massive, but 42") it would get very crowded, very quickly with instructions, guides, scoring, etc..etc...etc..
..... sorry, had an afterthought.
This distribution method is awesome, but of course it doesn't solve the problem of poor content. Not yet anyway.
If distribution gets so cheap and easy to do, there's real potential for indy film makers to get their work seen. Dupe their movie to a few hard drives and hand them out in person, or send their local cinema a link to a torrent of their work and offer it to be screened for free or at minimal costs. The potential for new, unsigned work and interesting local cinema is massive, if only the big players don't lock the system down with horrible license fees.
"Of course you can show your indy film on our projection gear, it's free! Oh, but the codec will cost you thirty grand." etc...etc...etc...
A friend of mine is a manager / projectionist at a cinema and I was discussing this kind of thing with her last week.
Digital distribution (through teh intarweb / closed network, not hard drives you chumps..) would make her life much, much easier, make it easier to fill more sessions with less cost and generally make life rather rosy for cinema workers and projectionists everywhere.
It's a Good Thing(tm).
Many years ago I was setting up some spiffy new computers for a local kindergarten.
At the time I had fairly long hair, a goatee and was dressed head to toe in black. Black shoes, black trousers, black long sleeve business shirt, black tie. Not so much trying to make a statement, but I kept most of my wardrobe black so I always had something that would go with everything else. I lacked imagination, ok?
Anyway, I'm setting up one of these machines and I turn around to find a small girl sitting on the table watching me. She was probably five years old.
I said to her, "Hello sweetie, could you please hand that to me", pointing to the mouse sitting next to her and flashing my most pleasant smile.
She looked at me with a really miserable look and said "No."
"Oh" I remarked. "Why is that?" I asked, expecting her to tell me that teacher had instructed her not to talk to strangers, or some other good moral learning.
"Because, you're the bad man." I held back a bit of shock and proceeded to grab my own damn mouse and finish the job.
I wasn't just any bad man, I was *THE* bad man. Knowing I scared children so much kinda broke my heart. The next day I trimmed my goatee, got a haircut and started wearing Hawaiian shirts to work.
So I guess my advice is: When improving kindergartens through IT services, wear Hawaiian shirts.
If you think this article is awesome, wait until my submission hits; "Why is water wet?".
I was unable to give my copy of Halo away (came with the Xbox...). Nobody would take it. I ended up turning it into a frisbee and had a hell of a lot more fun with it that way.
Seriously. A bloody ordinary Windows port of one of the more dull console shooters I've had a tinker with in years. About halfway through I just couldn't fight back the tears of boredom anymore.
I'd imagine millions of people still play Solitaire, by the 'merits' Halo has, I'm fairly certain it deserves a spot in this arbitrary list too.
Splendid news then.
When it drops in price, I am sure the PS3 will look awesome next to my much-used George Foreman Grill.
... but the initial estimate of a cool thousand bucks seems awfully likely. Think I'll get a 360 instead. It'll look nice next to my Wii.
My interest just dropped to zero.
I've been really looking forward to this, but the prospect of another 'mmo' honestly just angries up my blood.
I can eat my breakfast in the dark!
Thanks China!
Fuck, wish I'd thought of that one :(
Seriously though, this kind of thing scares the hell out of me. I think that things like the "barely legal" scene and other pornography that depicts or 'disguises' older women as teenagers is pretty fucking pathetic, but that just means I don't engage in it, doesn't mean I'm going to go out and "ruin" it for anybody else. Nobody is hurt by it and it sure as shit isn't my place to decide what consenting adults can look at or even produce.
If anybody can explain to me why these so awfully 'moral' people want to fuck with everybody else quietly minding their own business, I'd really appreciate it.
Well, holy titty fucking christ.
Seriously. Upon seeing this news I have gone from "No chance of wanting a PS3" to thinking "Shit, might just have to pick one up after the Australian launch".
I am a Gran Turismo whore of the highest order....
"When Nintendo passed on buying Rare Perfect Dark Zero had been in development for 12 months, Kameo for 18 and both of those games were only released in 2005 (meaning they were in development for 5+ years)."
Neither Kameo no Perfect Dark Zero were that great. I have fond memories of Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Conkers Bad Fur Day, but the nostalgia may be clouding my judgement. Going back and playing these games now, they're not bad for a quick laugh, but they're not holding the attention the way I remember it. Where they really a great developer at all? Three stand out games and a bunch of other really, really ordinary titles doesn't really scream greatness to me. Especially considering the long development cycle of the games you mentioned, shouldn't the end result have been something truly outstanding?
It's pretty straight forward.
You generate your WoW character. You then fire up Glider, and enter the game.
You then set waypoints and alter variables that will determine how your character will respond to threats, bad guys, etc. How far it will pull a target in from, how often it will heal, will it skin corpses, so on and so forth.
Once the characterics are set, and the waypoints are all selected, you kick it off and the character will wander between your waypoints, killing enemies in the manner you suggested, until it's all looted out.
Personally, I got no problem with it, if I still bothered to play WoW (dropped my subscription a week ago).
Oh, bullshit. Running across the same vague field, then hiding behind the same damn rocks until you get into an alien space ship and spend the rest of the game running around identical corridors.
I love my Xbox, but I truly despise Halo. Ordinary on so many levels, but obviously appeals on the lowest common denominator factor. Aliens, shooting shit, and packed in with a bunch of systems.
Hell, I can't even give my copy away, came free with the box and it's like cancer, just can't shake it.