Speaking of PS2 and graphics put to good use, remember when Dynasty Warriors first came out, and you were running around a field fighting against like 25 - 50 on-screen enemies? Or Bangaio or Dodonpachi, shooters which have hundreds (maybe thousands) of sprites on screen? Or Theif 3, where the relatively advanced shading provided shadowed areas where you could hide and perform stealthy actions? Or Splinter Cell, where various vertex and pixel shaders were employed to give you night-vision and infrared?
This list can go on for pages showing examples of how advances in graphics speed and quality led to better gameplay in certain cases. And I could probably list for pages games in which graphics advances couldn't pull them out of the gutter. Simply stated, it's like any other advance in the game industry. Its worth is determined by how it's used.
I'm not a professional programmer, but EVERY book I've bought mentions the coders that stay up all night with coffee/jolt just so they can continue to code.
Every book on coding (well, beyond beginner C/C++) I've ever read mentions the same, but it's always tried to put it in a positive light. It's like they're saying "they stay up all night coding because they love to do it so much! and you will too if you make it through this book!"
But I digress. Last night I stayed up all night to code. Any coder who has a project he or she enjoys to work on will want to stay up to work on it. But when it's work and you're there for like 15 hours a day and not getting overtime, then I have a real problem with that.
I guess it's a job like any other, but it would be better working overtime coding a cool game than, say, the next version of MS Word.
You'd think it would be, but game programming is sometimes completely mind-bending. There's lots of parsing, data management, bug-hunting, optimizing, and deadline-dodging that goes on. It's some of the hardest coding on the planet, as the entire thing has to have a good "feel" and "flow." It's not like you can say "thisGame.feel = great;" There are hours and hours of refinement and tweaking and debugging that go on, all in a very high-pressure environment (especially when you're under a release date or convention deadline). Game coders probably don't have it worse than any other coders, but I'd be hard pressed to say they have it much better.
Best Buy is not a monopoly, no, but they are definitely part of a over-reaching group of retail outlets that are starting to look increasingly the same. You can't boycott Best Buy because whatever reason you use will be equally valid at CompUSA, and doubly valid at PC Richard's and Sons (for the NY/NJ crowd). If you boycott everyone who's got aggressive and deceptive waranty plans, you'll never buy consumer electronics again (except online).
I have to agree with the Best Buy VP on this... especially in pure heartless capitalist mode. Having low-profit customers is always preferable to not having them at all. Also, there's no accounting for how much word-of-mouth advertising they do when they get their good bargains. Their word-of-mouth advertising may be what brings in the real suckers.
I worked at a convenience store chain in New Jersey previously and we prided ourselves on customer service. We were instructed that if a customer was so angry that they would swear at you, stay calm and offer them anything within reason to placate them. Obviously you can't offer someone a free TV at BestBuy to placate them for shitty customer service, but appologizing for angering them would go a very long way in keeping a customer coming back.
Remember: they come back because the want to. The most effective ways to make them want to are to offer good prices and good customer service.
Unfortunately, it's been killing the network where I work as help-desk support. I get so many calls and e-mails about Beagle now that I just keep the Sarc page open all day so I can quote from it and send the link to people. Our server blocks the viral attachment, but we're still bogged down with how many viral messages get sent to us.
So I guess it's newsworthy because video games actually (A) promote exersise! (B) promote being social! (C) contributed to saving this girl's life (in a sense)! I guess it makes the front page because it goes so against the mainstream concept of anti-social violent gaming, thereby making it shocking!
I think it makes headlines on/. because it's (A) tech related in some way, and (B) it's out-of-the-ordinary enough to be noteworthy. I find it a little funny actually, since it's practically the complete opposite of that guy who died in Korea from DVT because he didn't move for a few days while playing MMORPG's.
Also, if this leads to another round of parental censorship, this will give the inevitable YRO article a place to link to.
One difference that I'm really annoyed about is that the Express versions don't have support for 64-bit processors. Shouldn't this be a pull-down list on the projects settings menu at this point?
Your example actually reminds me of Gorillas.... a classic, but with extremely simple gameplay. A bunch of players lobbing a bunch of explosive bananas at each other one at a time... and its simplicity makes it a whole lot of fun.
On the other hand, tho, You have a game like Zelda: Link to the Past, which is a FANTASTIC game -- Then you compare it to Ocrina of Time... and you can see how "Features" can improve a product.
An excellent example, as it also illustrates how new "features" can ruin the feel for certain people, since "feel" is a very very subjective thing. I know at least a few people who think Link to the Past is better than Ocarina of Time, and usually they just say that in 3D "it isn't the same."
You've gotta be joking that in that entire post, you pick out a word misspelled once and bitch about it... expecially when I only fucked up by using the root word (flux). This is why people make fun of slashdotters.
... and abides as one of the 16-bit generation's most memorable games.
I don't know about that... I didn't even know about it until it hit the Jag. Maybe it's cause I'm in the US and it was more popular in Europe (like the Turrican seris). Or maybe I'm just too young.
Based on the ridiculous hype surrounding the XBox (thanks largely, whether you liked it or not, due to Halo), I can see the market functioning like this: PS2 games get stocked en masse and sold. Assuming the XBox is the PS2's nearest competitor, XBox games get stocked en masse and then dumped into the bargain bin. Assuming "nobody" plays on the Cube, Cube games scarcely get stocked at all, and the few that do make the shelves get sold before bargain bin time rolls around.
This actually annoys me a lot, as GCN and X-Box system sales have been pretty even, and I've actually frequently ended up looking for sold-out gamecube games. Forget the debate about which sells more, any way you slice the data, the GCN and X-Box are more comparable than the PS2 and X-Box, and yet the coverage in stores is completely off.
And yet all I'm actually annoyed at is the small GCN selection... I usually can't find anything I'm looking for, much less at a used price.
Nintendo was actually caught out for strong-arming businesses into selling at the MSRP (IIRC), definitely a dirty business tactic, but not quite the same as price-fixing. From what I can tell, most retailers use a mark-up method to set their prices. I'm guessing that If the Nintendo retail prices don't fluxuate much, it's because the price they charge to retail locations doesn't fluxuate much (which, while not entirely dishonest, does tend to artificially increase prices).
I remember going into an EB and taunting the guys there (I'm a Nintendo player) for having 4 TV's in the store... all running X-Boxes. Well, 2 running X-Boxes, the others were off with X-Boxes proudly connected. I (very sarcastically) accused them of bias, to which they replied "::sigh:: EB makes us do this every few months. They make an agreement with Microsoft and we're forced to hype X-Box as much as possible." "That doesn't sound too terrible if you like X-Box." "No, it sucks because our quotas go up."
So, if you were a paranoid GCN freak who thought you were getting shafted, you're half right. It's no big conspiracy or anything, it's just a shifty marketing strategy between EB and MS (though I really don't know what EB gets out of it... maybe exclusive titles, or earlier shipments?)
BTW, I didn't seriously accuse them of bias... I was making a sarcastic joke... I'm not really a paranoid fanboy
Kinda off-topic, but I'm more annoyed by the way links work from Hotmail. For those who don't know, they mangle the URL, and make it pop up in a separate window, inside a frame with a Hotmail banner at the top. If you've been reading the e-mail too long and then click a link, the links have all timed out and the popup script fails. (This almost always happens when I get to the Deep Links at the end of the EFF newsletter.) The kicker is that the popup window titles itself "MSN Hotmail: More Useful Everyday" How is that useful?!?!?!
I recently tried out the *achem* less than legal PSO gamecube hack (lets you run ISO's across 10 MBit ethernet). I'm quite shocked that Zelda: Four Swords runs::gasp:: really well across it. The little video clip in the menu runs at like 1 fps, but the actual game's load-time is barely affected at all.
But Nintendo's great at that. Take Animal Crossing, for example... it's done loading by the time it finishes saying "Nintendo!" at the logo. Try it for yourself, you can take the game out after the logo and boot it on another system. One copy is good for a whole party, since the entire game finishes loading before the title screen is displayed.:)
It would sadden me if it is... since Nintendo has a damn fine working NES emulator on the GCN (you see it in things like animal crossing, and even in second-party stuff like Metroid Prime). Though I do miss the ideology behind things like Tempest 2000 and Super Mario All-Stars... leave the gameplay alone, but update the graphics and sound a little.
Also, I'm suprised to see Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in there. They note it's a poor game. I would say it's main flaws are it is almost impossible to die, and it feels cheap (almost no sprite isn't used multiple times with different colour schemes, including the main character).
Dispite all this, it's still a pretty fun game, and definitely a good pick up for on-the-road strategy. It's at least enough to tide one over until Atlus decides to start GBA development.
also... ditto on Shining Force. One of my favorite series, and definitely one of the first well-known console strategy RPG's.
Another good thing about used games is that they allow stores to justify selling new at a higher price (since there is a low priced alternative). Not that it has any major effect on their pricing, but it certainly makes them look like more of a "bargain" retailer.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of PS2 and graphics put to good use, remember when Dynasty Warriors first came out, and you were running around a field fighting against like 25 - 50 on-screen enemies? Or Bangaio or Dodonpachi, shooters which have hundreds (maybe thousands) of sprites on screen? Or Theif 3, where the relatively advanced shading provided shadowed areas where you could hide and perform stealthy actions? Or Splinter Cell, where various vertex and pixel shaders were employed to give you night-vision and infrared?
This list can go on for pages showing examples of how advances in graphics speed and quality led to better gameplay in certain cases. And I could probably list for pages games in which graphics advances couldn't pull them out of the gutter. Simply stated, it's like any other advance in the game industry. Its worth is determined by how it's used.
But I digress. Last night I stayed up all night to code. Any coder who has a project he or she enjoys to work on will want to stay up to work on it. But when it's work and you're there for like 15 hours a day and not getting overtime, then I have a real problem with that. You'd think it would be, but game programming is sometimes completely mind-bending. There's lots of parsing, data management, bug-hunting, optimizing, and deadline-dodging that goes on. It's some of the hardest coding on the planet, as the entire thing has to have a good "feel" and "flow." It's not like you can say "thisGame.feel = great;" There are hours and hours of refinement and tweaking and debugging that go on, all in a very high-pressure environment (especially when you're under a release date or convention deadline). Game coders probably don't have it worse than any other coders, but I'd be hard pressed to say they have it much better.
Steer clear of Totowa, NJ.
:P
I mean, uh... I don't know this Scep guy at all.
Best Buy is not a monopoly, no, but they are definitely part of a over-reaching group of retail outlets that are starting to look increasingly the same. You can't boycott Best Buy because whatever reason you use will be equally valid at CompUSA, and doubly valid at PC Richard's and Sons (for the NY/NJ crowd). If you boycott everyone who's got aggressive and deceptive waranty plans, you'll never buy consumer electronics again (except online).
I have to agree with the Best Buy VP on this... especially in pure heartless capitalist mode. Having low-profit customers is always preferable to not having them at all. Also, there's no accounting for how much word-of-mouth advertising they do when they get their good bargains. Their word-of-mouth advertising may be what brings in the real suckers.
I worked at a convenience store chain in New Jersey previously and we prided ourselves on customer service. We were instructed that if a customer was so angry that they would swear at you, stay calm and offer them anything within reason to placate them. Obviously you can't offer someone a free TV at BestBuy to placate them for shitty customer service, but appologizing for angering them would go a very long way in keeping a customer coming back.
Remember: they come back because the want to. The most effective ways to make them want to are to offer good prices and good customer service.
Unfortunately, it's been killing the network where I work as help-desk support. I get so many calls and e-mails about Beagle now that I just keep the Sarc page open all day so I can quote from it and send the link to people. Our server blocks the viral attachment, but we're still bogged down with how many viral messages get sent to us.
So I guess it's newsworthy because video games actually (A) promote exersise! (B) promote being social! (C) contributed to saving this girl's life (in a sense)! I guess it makes the front page because it goes so against the mainstream concept of anti-social violent gaming, thereby making it shocking!
I think it makes headlines on /. because it's (A) tech related in some way, and (B) it's out-of-the-ordinary enough to be noteworthy. I find it a little funny actually, since it's practically the complete opposite of that guy who died in Korea from DVT because he didn't move for a few days while playing MMORPG's.
Also, if this leads to another round of parental censorship, this will give the inevitable YRO article a place to link to.
At the very least now you know that DDR is being considered "exercise." That at least makes me happy.
One difference that I'm really annoyed about is that the Express versions don't have support for 64-bit processors. Shouldn't this be a pull-down list on the projects settings menu at this point?
Your example actually reminds me of Gorillas.... a classic, but with extremely simple gameplay. A bunch of players lobbing a bunch of explosive bananas at each other one at a time... and its simplicity makes it a whole lot of fun.
You've gotta be joking that in that entire post, you pick out a word misspelled once and bitch about it... expecially when I only fucked up by using the root word (flux). This is why people make fun of slashdotters.
And yet all I'm actually annoyed at is the small GCN selection... I usually can't find anything I'm looking for, much less at a used price.
Nintendo was actually caught out for strong-arming businesses into selling at the MSRP (IIRC), definitely a dirty business tactic, but not quite the same as price-fixing. From what I can tell, most retailers use a mark-up method to set their prices. I'm guessing that If the Nintendo retail prices don't fluxuate much, it's because the price they charge to retail locations doesn't fluxuate much (which, while not entirely dishonest, does tend to artificially increase prices).
I remember going into an EB and taunting the guys there (I'm a Nintendo player) for having 4 TV's in the store... all running X-Boxes. Well, 2 running X-Boxes, the others were off with X-Boxes proudly connected. I (very sarcastically) accused them of bias, to which they replied "::sigh:: EB makes us do this every few months. They make an agreement with Microsoft and we're forced to hype X-Box as much as possible." "That doesn't sound too terrible if you like X-Box." "No, it sucks because our quotas go up."
So, if you were a paranoid GCN freak who thought you were getting shafted, you're half right. It's no big conspiracy or anything, it's just a shifty marketing strategy between EB and MS (though I really don't know what EB gets out of it... maybe exclusive titles, or earlier shipments?)
BTW, I didn't seriously accuse them of bias... I was making a sarcastic joke... I'm not really a paranoid fanboy
Kinda off-topic, but I'm more annoyed by the way links work from Hotmail. For those who don't know, they mangle the URL, and make it pop up in a separate window, inside a frame with a Hotmail banner at the top. If you've been reading the e-mail too long and then click a link, the links have all timed out and the popup script fails. (This almost always happens when I get to the Deep Links at the end of the EFF newsletter.) The kicker is that the popup window titles itself "MSN Hotmail: More Useful Everyday" How is that useful?!?!?!
I recently tried out the *achem* less than legal PSO gamecube hack (lets you run ISO's across 10 MBit ethernet). I'm quite shocked that Zelda: Four Swords runs ::gasp:: really well across it. The little video clip in the menu runs at like 1 fps, but the actual game's load-time is barely affected at all.
:)
But Nintendo's great at that. Take Animal Crossing, for example... it's done loading by the time it finishes saying "Nintendo!" at the logo. Try it for yourself, you can take the game out after the logo and boot it on another system. One copy is good for a whole party, since the entire game finishes loading before the title screen is displayed.
It would sadden me if it is... since Nintendo has a damn fine working NES emulator on the GCN (you see it in things like animal crossing, and even in second-party stuff like Metroid Prime). Though I do miss the ideology behind things like Tempest 2000 and Super Mario All-Stars... leave the gameplay alone, but update the graphics and sound a little.
Quite possibly... been broke recently, so I haven't been shopping in a while. :-P
also... ditto on Shining Force. One of my favorite series, and definitely one of the first well-known console strategy RPG's.
Another good thing about used games is that they allow stores to justify selling new at a higher price (since there is a low priced alternative). Not that it has any major effect on their pricing, but it certainly makes them look like more of a "bargain" retailer.