If you're still playing a game from 2003, you're probably not buying many new games are you? If lots of people do what you do, doesn't that mean that they won't have a lot of money to develop new games? And don't you get bored playing the same game for years on end? Sure I still play an even older game, the PSone port of Diablo now and then, but it's not my primary game.
I have a hypothesis that the modding community sprung up in part due to the lackluster release schedule of PC developers and high school/college kids without money for new games.
PC Devs (1998): Here's our new game. enjoy PC Gamers (1998): Thanks. PC Gamers (1998): We're done, when's the sequel coming out. PC Devs: (1998): Soon. PC Gamers: (1998): Okay.
PC Gamers (1999): When's that sequel coming out? PC Devs: (1999): Soon. PC Gamers (1999) It's been a year. PC Devs (1999): It takes time.
PC Gamers (2000): When's the sequel coming out? PC Devs (2000): Soon, but we decided to rewrite the engine from the ground up instead of tweaking and improving the original so it's going to be a while longer. PC Gamers (2000): Ooookaaaay. Modders (2000): We figured out their data formats and have created our Dethstryke mod. PC Gamers (2000): That's interesting, looks like fun. PC Devs (2000): We won't sue you and maybe it'll keep the gamers off our backs.
PC Gamers (2001): When's that sequel coming out? PC Devs (2001): Soon. PC Gamers (2001): You do know that in the console world the game would have had a sequel by now. PC Devs (2001): Yes, but we're PC devs only, we don't work that way, our teams are smaller. PC Gamers (2001): But you got your start doing console dev and your game is getting an enhanced port to the PS2! PC Devs (2001): Shhh, don't tell anyone.
PC Gamers (2002): When's the sequel coming out? PC Devs (2002) Well it takes time and we decided to switch to a new engine again. PC Gamers (2002): But it's going to take even longer now! Modders (2002): Oh yeah, we figured out how to use the enhanced PS2 textures in our Dethstryke mod. PC Gamers (2002): That's cool, back to Dethstryke.
PC Gamers (2003): When's the sequel coming out? PC Devs (2003): Well it was this year, but our beta code got stolen so we're re-writing multiplayer. PC Gamers (2003): You guys are incompetent. PC Devs (2003) We know, but you love our game and are still playing a mod of it. PC Gamers (2003): We wouldn't be if the sequel came out when it was supposed to...three years ago.
PC Devs (2004): Yay our sequel is out. PC Gamers (2004) Finally!.....Hey where's the promised extra stuff. PC Devs (2004) We ran out of time, but it's coming in an addon pack. PC Gamers (2004): Ran out of time? You had six years! PC Devs (2004): Suck it up, you're addicts needing a new fix. By the way, Xbox port is next year.
PC Gamers (2005) The Xbox port kinda sucks, and where's the additional stuff you promised. PC Devs (2005) Soon, we hope. PC Gamers (2005): Here we go again. PC Devs (2005) You love us. PC Gamers (2005): Some of us are still playing Dethstryke and haven't bought the new game.
PC Devs (2007): We are pleased to announce the simultaneous release of our Gamma box on Windows, Xbox 360 and PS3. PC Gamers (2007) Whaaat? You mean they're getting that promised stuff we should have got in 2004 at the same time we are? PC Devs (2007): Yes. The PS3 version was done by an external team though, they forgot to put mouse support in. What's with those crazy PS3 owners wanting to use mice WITH their dual shocks? PC Gamers (2007): We suppose that gives them analog movement AND analog aiming. By the way, why should we purchase the PC version if there's minimal differences between the three? PC Devs (2007): Mods! And mouse aiming. PC Gamers (2007): But you just said that it's physically possible to support mice and we know that the Xbox 360 and PS3 have download services that could offer mods and map packs. PC Devs (2007): Suck it
Mario 64 is a crappy platformer, at least compared to the PSone Spyro games. Part of it is the camera, being an early 3D platformer they hadn't really figured out what to do with the camera yet. I also blame Miyamoto in part, that whole "garden" aesthetic of his doesn't necessarily translate to good games.
Which led to the vast majority of good 32bit and last generation platformers being PSone and PS2 games and not the Gamecube.
I've almost finished the survival book from that annoying girl
Moira! Easily one of my favorite NPC's in the game. She's just a perky cutie patootie with that cute accent.
Another favorite is Cerberus, a Mr. Gutsy you might encounter sometime.
I'm on my way to that city that was built out of an aircraft carrier over in the corner of the map.
Rivet City. Good place to pick up some better gear if you haven't done tons of exploring and side quests. It can be tough to get there without a longer range weapon, depending on where you cross.
That asshole was from Sony Pictures (in charge of Sony's movie business), not Sony Computer Entertainment (in charge of Playstation stuff). Sony is a very schizophrenic company, the branches of which are semi-independent don't necessarily get along.
You do know that you can buy downloadables directly with the PSP now ever since last October with firmware 5.00. Do you have an old firmware or something? Because obviously you don't love your PSP enough to know that.
Also the second method you describe using the PC version of the PSN store is incorrect, what you do is hook your PSP directly to the PC with a USB cable, a PS3 is not required as an intermediary.
The Fallout IP belonged to Interplay, not Black Isle. they could do whatever they wanted with it, including selling the IP for single player Fallout games to Bethesda.
So no matter how much the Fallout oldbies complain that Fallout 3 isn't a real Fallout game, and that it should have been isometric, turn based and done by Black Isle, it's all irrelevant now.
I bought my PS3 for Yellow Dog Linux, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and the ability to keep on playing my library of PS1/PS2 games, plus all the PS2 RPG's they keep on releasing. Won't that thing (the PS2) ever die as an RPG platform?
It takes time to get used to dual analog controls, and if you're a PC gamer it's going to be worse for you since you haven't developed the fine motor skills with your thumb to use the right stick effectively. Which means that you'll be frustrated and complain about how the controls suck, I've seen it before. Your best bet is to NOT play competitive multiplayer FPS's on your console but other games until you build up your right thumb skills.
As for the players, well you can try playing at hours they won't be, or find more "casual" players (who tend to be older and less likely to be assholes). We got the players you describe on the PS2/PS3 too.
As for the graphics 1920x1080 is what we call 1080p, same resolution, so I don't know what you're complaining about, unless the games you played didn't run at that resolution
"Cannon" is a weapon, "canon" is the word you want.:-)
Fallout 3 is canon, there's no one else making fallout games is there, so guess who gets to decide what's in it and what's canon, the developer and publisher, not the community.
As for BoS, it's a fun little Diablo clone set in the "Fallout universe", sure, there's some differences from what the Fallout 1/2 diehards consider "canon", but they can shut the hell up because they don't make the games or own the franchise. Don't run it on a 80GB CECHE01 PS3 though, it has texture glitching like all the Snowblind Engine games have on the PS3, only to a much much worse extent.
As in: "I'm Brock Brickson, Captain of the Space Service, stalwart hero, this is my second in command Trace Dirkson the guy with a lady in every spaceport, our bon-vivant ships doctor, Dr. John Clark, our appeasing scientist Dr. Neville Smythe, and our plucky space Cadet Timmy Thompson with his space monkey Buppo.
but my point is, in this day and age that term is becoming stretched beyond its initial meaning.
Valid point.
Your argument seems to be insinuating that you actually believe consoles will die out and be totally replaced by "versatile" computers. As once consoles take on all the aspects of an end user desktop computer, they will in fact be one and the same.
Not exactly, I think that consoles with additional traditional computing functionality may replace "second computers" in some households. For example, when I use our Windows machine I tend do so only for Second Life, and if I could run that on the PS3 I would. I don't need Windows to read my e-mail, or browse the web. I don't even need it to to open a PDF or other online document or to create my own documents. That frees up the Windows box for other family members to use.
That's great for you, but that doesn't make it any less of a dedicated, closed system with limited potential beyond it's basic design. The PS3 has limited hardware configuration potential and therefore has limited uses, it is not what I would call a general computing device.
How does that make it any different from say, a Mac Mini. Both can/do run a general purpose operating system, so how does that not make the PS3 a general computing device (at least while it's running Linux) For goodness sakes, I could do "the LAMP" thing on it. It runs CUPS as it's printing services, same as that Mac Mini does and I have a HP LaserJet hooked up to it. It's default shell is Bash, just like that Mac Mini. It has USB 2.0, Wired and Wireless Ethernet and Bluetooth, the hard drive is user upgradeable and I have the version with the built in SD/MMC/MS/CF card slots. I can rdesktop into the Vista laptop, the vista laptop can ssh and X forward into the PS3. Both machines can print to the printers connected to each one. It's got vim AND emacs. OpenOffice is installed. It's essentially running RHEL through Terrasofts/Fixstars PPC/Cell version of CentOS. So tell me again it isn't a general computing device.
You could always connect a gamepad to your PC and play Oblivion or Fallout 3 that way...as god intended. Then you could write a book "How I, Doches, learned to stop worrying and love the gamepad"
Even using Ubuntu, I've found most of my configuration tasks have to be done using sudo gedit blah
You're killing me, it should be sudo vim blah:-) Oh okay, I suppose if you must you can use sudo emacs blah
I often copy install commands directly off webpages, because damnit, I'm not typing out a half-dozen full lines of cryptic commands to install something! If I need 26 packages to get this program to run, you can bet I'm copying the install command without looking up what every package does.
Me too, sometimes, though it's usually not necessary, because yum (and apt-get for you) are supposed to handle dependency checking. (I'm running Yellow Dog Linux 6.1)
I once asked a friend after she had some virus/trojan trouble why she didn't dump Windows for Linux (she has a geek in her household that could support her) She said: Quicken/Quickbooks (she has an accounting/bookkeeping side business)
Buying a single and expensive (from my view) computer that only plays games AND investing in games to play only on it just wasn't worth the money to me.
Some people don't have or want to spend the money to have (and keep upgrading) a gaming-class PC. For them, buying a cheaper PC (and replacing it less often), and a console (and replacing it every 5-6 years) saves them money. Besides, when you're playing games on the computer, no one else can use it for anything else. For many families having separate functions in two machines makes sense.
With a personal computer, I can play games AND do other things on/with it. Much more cost effective in the long run, IMHO.
The current consoles can do other things as well and aren't just limited to gaming, which makes them more appealing in the long run.:-) Ever run Linux on a PS2 or PS3? I have/do.
I don't see why you'd want to play a 3D platformer on a PC, sure you could add a gamepad, but then you'd have a console so what's the point?
See, just like adding a gamepad to a PC adds versatility, adding a mouse (and a keyboard) adds versatility to a console. I've got a few of those PSone RTS's and yes I had a PSone mouse, worked fine.
The points are:
Price Performance The ability to hook that machine easily to the biggest screen in the house The ability to play games other than FPS's RTS's and WoW. (I know, there are games other than those but sometimes it seems like that's the only games slashdot PC gamers care about) Party gaming.
When i was growing up everyone was playing games on spectrum 48ks/Commodore 64,
You're from the UK, aren't you. Things are different in the US, here consoles appeared before computers in the home really took off. You guys probably didn't get the really early stuff that we did since we created the video game industry in the first place. While Codemasters did stuff on tape for your cheap Speccy's (disk drives never did have much penetration in the UK did they, for example most C64 games in the UK were tape games, but here, all the best games were floppy games.), they were doing Dizzy games for the NES.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're still playing a game from 2003, you're probably not buying many new games are you? If lots of people do what you do, doesn't that mean that they won't have a lot of money to develop new games? And don't you get bored playing the same game for years on end? Sure I still play an even older game, the PSone port of Diablo now and then, but it's not my primary game.
I have a hypothesis that the modding community sprung up in part due to the lackluster release schedule of PC developers and high school/college kids without money for new games.
PC Devs (1998): Here's our new game. enjoy
PC Gamers (1998): Thanks.
PC Gamers (1998): We're done, when's the sequel coming out.
PC Devs: (1998): Soon.
PC Gamers: (1998): Okay.
PC Gamers (1999): When's that sequel coming out?
PC Devs: (1999): Soon.
PC Gamers (1999) It's been a year.
PC Devs (1999): It takes time.
PC Gamers (2000): When's the sequel coming out?
PC Devs (2000): Soon, but we decided to rewrite the engine from the ground up instead of tweaking and improving the original so it's going to be a while longer.
PC Gamers (2000): Ooookaaaay.
Modders (2000): We figured out their data formats and have created our Dethstryke mod.
PC Gamers (2000): That's interesting, looks like fun.
PC Devs (2000): We won't sue you and maybe it'll keep the gamers off our backs.
PC Gamers (2001): When's that sequel coming out?
PC Devs (2001): Soon.
PC Gamers (2001): You do know that in the console world the game would have had a sequel by now.
PC Devs (2001): Yes, but we're PC devs only, we don't work that way, our teams are smaller.
PC Gamers (2001): But you got your start doing console dev and your game is getting an enhanced port to the PS2!
PC Devs (2001): Shhh, don't tell anyone.
PC Gamers (2002): When's the sequel coming out?
PC Devs (2002) Well it takes time and we decided to switch to a new engine again.
PC Gamers (2002): But it's going to take even longer now!
Modders (2002): Oh yeah, we figured out how to use the enhanced PS2 textures in our Dethstryke mod.
PC Gamers (2002): That's cool, back to Dethstryke.
PC Gamers (2003): When's the sequel coming out?
PC Devs (2003): Well it was this year, but our beta code got stolen so we're re-writing multiplayer.
PC Gamers (2003): You guys are incompetent.
PC Devs (2003) We know, but you love our game and are still playing a mod of it.
PC Gamers (2003): We wouldn't be if the sequel came out when it was supposed to...three years ago.
PC Devs (2004): Yay our sequel is out.
PC Gamers (2004) Finally!.....Hey where's the promised extra stuff.
PC Devs (2004) We ran out of time, but it's coming in an addon pack.
PC Gamers (2004): Ran out of time? You had six years!
PC Devs (2004): Suck it up, you're addicts needing a new fix. By the way, Xbox port is next year.
PC Gamers (2005) The Xbox port kinda sucks, and where's the additional stuff you promised.
PC Devs (2005) Soon, we hope.
PC Gamers (2005): Here we go again.
PC Devs (2005) You love us.
PC Gamers (2005): Some of us are still playing Dethstryke and haven't bought the new game.
PC Devs (2007): We are pleased to announce the simultaneous release of our Gamma box on Windows, Xbox 360 and PS3.
PC Gamers (2007) Whaaat? You mean they're getting that promised stuff we should have got in 2004 at the same time we are?
PC Devs (2007): Yes. The PS3 version was done by an external team though, they forgot to put mouse support in. What's with those crazy PS3 owners wanting to use mice WITH their dual shocks?
PC Gamers (2007): We suppose that gives them analog movement AND analog aiming. By the way, why should we purchase the PC version if there's minimal differences between the three?
PC Devs (2007): Mods! And mouse aiming.
PC Gamers (2007): But you just said that it's physically possible to support mice and we know that the Xbox 360 and PS3 have download services that could offer mods and map packs.
PC Devs (2007): Suck it
Mario 64 is a crappy platformer, at least compared to the PSone Spyro games. Part of it is the camera, being an early 3D platformer they hadn't really figured out what to do with the camera yet. I also blame Miyamoto in part, that whole "garden" aesthetic of his doesn't necessarily translate to good games.
Which led to the vast majority of good 32bit and last generation platformers being PSone and PS2 games and not the Gamecube.
Moira! Easily one of my favorite NPC's in the game. She's just a perky cutie patootie with that cute accent.
Another favorite is Cerberus, a Mr. Gutsy you might encounter sometime.
Rivet City. Good place to pick up some better gear if you haven't done tons of exploring and side quests. It can be tough to get there without a longer range weapon, depending on where you cross.
They've been able to offer rentals for a looong time, but just haven't done so.
If you check the information on your PSN downloads (hit triangle and choose information you see fields that say:
Starts: (when you bought it)
Expires ( just has a "-")
Hours Left (Which says currently "No Time Limit")
Same goes for the PS3.
That asshole was from Sony Pictures (in charge of Sony's movie business), not Sony Computer Entertainment (in charge of Playstation stuff). Sony is a very schizophrenic company, the branches of which are semi-independent don't necessarily get along.
Wrong.
You do know that you can buy downloadables directly with the PSP now ever since last October with firmware 5.00. Do you have an old firmware or something? Because obviously you don't love your PSP enough to know that.
Also the second method you describe using the PC version of the PSN store is incorrect, what you do is hook your PSP directly to the PC with a USB cable, a PS3 is not required as an intermediary.
It does count, Bethesda owns the Fallout IP for single player games so if they say it's Fallout, it's Fallout.
The Fallout IP belonged to Interplay, not Black Isle. they could do whatever they wanted with it, including selling the IP for single player Fallout games to Bethesda.
So no matter how much the Fallout oldbies complain that Fallout 3 isn't a real Fallout game, and that it should have been isometric, turn based and done by Black Isle, it's all irrelevant now.
I bought my PS3 for Yellow Dog Linux, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and the ability to keep on playing my library of PS1/PS2 games, plus all the PS2 RPG's they keep on releasing. Won't that thing (the PS2) ever die as an RPG platform?
A year ago? More like 7 months, and it's a big game, so people are still playing it. It's not even a budget game priced game yet.
the news is that Bethesda originally claimed that technical reasons of some sort would keep Fallout 3 DLC from being on the PS3.
The folks complaining about bugs are playing the PC version rather than the 360 or PS3 version which are pretty much bug free as you said.
It takes time to get used to dual analog controls, and if you're a PC gamer it's going to be worse for you since you haven't developed the fine motor skills with your thumb to use the right stick effectively. Which means that you'll be frustrated and complain about how the controls suck, I've seen it before. Your best bet is to NOT play competitive multiplayer FPS's on your console but other games until you build up your right thumb skills.
As for the players, well you can try playing at hours they won't be, or find more "casual" players (who tend to be older and less likely to be assholes). We got the players you describe on the PS2/PS3 too.
As for the graphics 1920x1080 is what we call 1080p, same resolution, so I don't know what you're complaining about, unless the games you played didn't run at that resolution
"Cannon" is a weapon, "canon" is the word you want. :-)
Fallout 3 is canon, there's no one else making fallout games is there, so guess who gets to decide what's in it and what's canon, the developer and publisher, not the community.
As for BoS, it's a fun little Diablo clone set in the "Fallout universe", sure, there's some differences from what the Fallout 1/2 diehards consider "canon", but they can shut the hell up because they don't make the games or own the franchise. Don't run it on a 80GB CECHE01 PS3 though, it has texture glitching like all the Snowblind Engine games have on the PS3, only to a much much worse extent.
Brock Brickson or Brick Brockson
As in: "I'm Brock Brickson, Captain of the Space Service, stalwart hero, this is my second in command Trace Dirkson the guy with a lady in every spaceport, our bon-vivant ships doctor, Dr. John Clark, our appeasing scientist Dr. Neville Smythe, and our plucky space Cadet Timmy Thompson with his space monkey Buppo.
You (and I to a lesser extent) are not the "average Joe". Most people DO have TV's in their house and many have only one computer.
Are you sure they wouldn't work? They have HDMI, so it's possible to hook your console (meaning Xbox360 and PS3) to a monitor.
Valid point.
Not exactly, I think that consoles with additional traditional computing functionality may replace "second computers" in some households. For example, when I use our Windows machine I tend do so only for Second Life, and if I could run that on the PS3 I would. I don't need Windows to read my e-mail, or browse the web. I don't even need it to to open a PDF or other online document or to create my own documents. That frees up the Windows box for other family members to use.
How does that make it any different from say, a Mac Mini. Both can/do run a general purpose operating system, so how does that not make the PS3 a general computing device (at least while it's running Linux) For goodness sakes, I could do "the LAMP" thing on it. It runs CUPS as it's printing services, same as that Mac Mini does and I have a HP LaserJet hooked up to it. It's default shell is Bash, just like that Mac Mini. It has USB 2.0, Wired and Wireless Ethernet and Bluetooth, the hard drive is user upgradeable and I have the version with the built in SD/MMC/MS/CF card slots. I can rdesktop into the Vista laptop, the vista laptop can ssh and X forward into the PS3. Both machines can print to the printers connected to each one. It's got vim AND emacs. OpenOffice is installed. It's essentially running RHEL through Terrasofts/Fixstars PPC/Cell version of CentOS. So tell me again it isn't a general computing device.
You mean it's not just me? I've seen that happen on Firefox under YDL 6.1 for the last couple of releases.
Money, perhaps even hats made out of money.
You could always connect a gamepad to your PC and play Oblivion or Fallout 3 that way...as god intended. Then you could write a book "How I, Doches, learned to stop worrying and love the gamepad"
And before Lotus, Visicalc. :-)
You're killing me, it should be sudo vim blah :-) Oh okay, I suppose if you must you can use sudo emacs blah
Me too, sometimes, though it's usually not necessary, because yum (and apt-get for you) are supposed to handle dependency checking. (I'm running Yellow Dog Linux 6.1)
I once asked a friend after she had some virus/trojan trouble why she didn't dump Windows for Linux (she has a geek in her household that could support her) She said: Quicken/Quickbooks (she has an accounting/bookkeeping side business)
Some people don't have or want to spend the money to have (and keep upgrading) a gaming-class PC. For them, buying a cheaper PC (and replacing it less often), and a console (and replacing it every 5-6 years) saves them money. Besides, when you're playing games on the computer, no one else can use it for anything else. For many families having separate functions in two machines makes sense.
The current consoles can do other things as well and aren't just limited to gaming, which makes them more appealing in the long run. :-) Ever run Linux on a PS2 or PS3? I have/do.
Let's turn this around:
I don't see why you'd want to play a 3D platformer on a PC, sure you could add a gamepad, but then you'd have a console so what's the point?
See, just like adding a gamepad to a PC adds versatility, adding a mouse (and a keyboard) adds versatility to a console. I've got a few of those PSone RTS's and yes I had a PSone mouse, worked fine.
The points are:
Price
Performance
The ability to hook that machine easily to the biggest screen in the house
The ability to play games other than FPS's RTS's and WoW. (I know, there are games other than those but sometimes it seems like that's the only games slashdot PC gamers care about)
Party gaming.
You're from the UK, aren't you. Things are different in the US, here consoles appeared before computers in the home really took off. You guys probably didn't get the really early stuff that we did since we created the video game industry in the first place. While Codemasters did stuff on tape for your cheap Speccy's (disk drives never did have much penetration in the UK did they, for example most C64 games in the UK were tape games, but here, all the best games were floppy games.), they were doing Dizzy games for the NES.