No, we're not. The first one was passed off as a fad before the second came out, and it's top-down view wasn't real enough to cause a stir. When 3 came out, the ultra real gang violence was attacked by several groups, and Vice City was nearly pulled from shelves several times because of racial-related violence(anybody remember the"kill the cubans" line? It's not in versions made after about 9 months ago). I wouldn't really agree that this is the first GTA game to draw contraversy, and I certainly wouldn't agree that it's only because he's black.
The Italians didn't get much press coverage if they were complaining about the protagonist of the first game. Yes, the violence itself was an issue, and probably will remain an issue (and it was in the first and second games as well, despite your own down-playing of it due to the top-down view, the very idea that you could car-jack someone in a game caused controversy). The "Kill the Cubans/Haitians" thing, as you noted, didn't have an effect until maybe a year ago, and Vice City was released almost 2 years ago. It had already sold most of the copies it will sell for the PS2 and PC before the controversy over those lines even started, and the fact that they pulled it precisely shows how rediculous this whole thing is (after all, the gangs called themselves The Cubans and The Haitians, and it was the latter that got the lines pulled, not the Cubans).
My point was not that this was the first to draw controversy. My point was simply to point out that this game has not changed in any fundamental line from the previous 2, and it's drawing this particular controversy simply because the main character (and many of the characters in the game's setting, I'd imagine) is black, instead of being of European descent like the previous games. People weren't complaining about the main character's ethnicity or even the ethnicity of most of the other characters in the games before (the "kill the cubans/haitians" thing had everything to do with the exact statement, or it wouldn't have stopped with the modification of a couple of sound files), they simply complained about the violence in general terms.
I'm going to take things out of order a bit, because the points are somewhat separated...
How can I be a bigot? Whatever your race is, I certainly can feel related. Many Brazilians are in the same condition as I am, maybe I am more conscious (having done some extensive genealogic research) of my multi-ethnicity. When filling forms with "race/ethnicity", I usually seek for the "all of the above" option...:-)
What appalled me in your link was the fact that this woman *is* in fact intermarried with a white guy and she fears and have nightmares with black folks. This is a sign IMHO that *she* has serious problems.
The whole point of the piece was that people need to remember that racism isn't just a white problem, or homophobia isn't just a heterosexual problem, it's something that everyone needs to address. Additionally, just because you're black (or in your personal case, multi-ethnic) doesn't make you immune to being racist.
But USofAns, more than European people, apparently segregate much more deeply, by race, by religion, etc. They don't seem to intermarry as commonly as down here.
I really couldn't say, because I have never been to Europe. However, I would say that in the US the line seems to be much more along class lines than racial lines. Unfortunately, class and racial lines have a tendency to coincide to a large degree in the US. If you find that you're in a city in the US and the locals are primarily black or latino, there's a good chance that you're in an area where people make less money, and therefore in a lower-class neighborhood. If most of the people are white, you simply have to look at the size and maintenance of the homes to determine the class of the neighborhood, because there are white neighborhoods at all levels of the "class struggle".
From my own experience, having lived both in California and Virginia (the latter having been the capital of the Confederacy), racial mixing (both in families and in neighborhoods) is actually more common in the south, where integration was actually forced into being in the last century, than in the west, where people generally don't consider segregation to be an issue (it's not that they believe segregation is ok, they simply don't believe, and many probably wouldn't, they'd have a problem if black or latino people moved into their neighborhoods). The lines are still drawn primarily by how much money you make on the west coast as they are in the south, but no one forced people to integrate along racial lines in California, therefore most of them never did.
I grew up in a primarily white neighborhood in southern California, middle class (probably upper middle class now that housing prices have sky-rocketed), where the most common minority was latino, at roughly 5% (the white population being roughly 87%). When I moved to Virginia, sharing a place with a co-worker, we were literally the only white people on our block, and I'll admit that initially it made me nervous. However, I have to add that it wasn't just the fact that most of the people living around me were black that made me nervous, but it was also the fact that I could not possibly have found a place in southern California that was that cheap to live in without qualifying for government assistance (which is to say, living in welfare housing projects). This made me believe that I was living in what was probably a bad part of town, somewhere you might have to keep your car alarmed and possibly not leave your home unoccupied for too long, should someone decide to break in and either trash the place or steal all of your stuff.
As I continued to live there, though, I realized that I was actually living in a lower-middle-class neighborhood and that housing was simply significantly cheaper anywhere in the state than it was in California. The people living around me primarily had jobs in similar areas (not computers, but working for similar companies; despite working as a software developer there are very few people tha
Movies are quite different and you know that. Actors are what drive the industry. If minorities were only used as criminals, yes, ban them. But we know that's not true. I can easily name movies that had black people, white people and every other type in the position of violence. It is more equal than video games.
But can you name any movies that portrayed life in South-Central L.A., especially relating to gangs, from the late 80s through the early 90s, that does not portray the majority of the people in that area (or even just the majority of the gang members) as black or latino? It's hard to say that movies are quite different when the game derives heavily from the movies themselves for it's backdrop. If someone never saw Scarface or Miami Vice before playing Vice City, I could understand if they didn't pick up on where the game drew its influence, and its entire world, but that doesn't excuse them from their ignorance if they believe its an accurate portrayal of life in Florida in the early to mid 80s. The same should only be held for GTA San Andreas, but because the movies they drew from for the early 90s L.A setting were primarily depicting the "plight of the urban minority youth", of course we're going to end up with a game that's heavily filled with urban minority youth behaving violently.
Frankly, I would expect an american company, to have learned from its past and not promote these types of stupidity. In a way, it's disrespectful for what most of us have stood up against. Worse yet, it's plain wrong in that it gives "black", "latino", and any other races that get depicted in this fasion. After all, isn't America supposed to be about equality of people and power? Isn't this just plain slanderous of an entire group of people who will now be seen more as thieves and other assorted criminals? We dont' want to put criminals in power, but minorities should be ok, yet we slight them in this way? Shame on you GTA producers.
The simple fact is that the basis for the entire game is centered around the "gangsta-rap-culture" movies produced in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. Most of these movies obtained their direction (especially in the form of writing, acting, etc) from the very people that are supposedly being slandered by this game.
People like to talk about the music and movie industries taking advantage of people, but in the end, "gangsta" rappers were among the first people to take control over their own careers by creating their own record labels and taking on most of the production positions normally filled by whoever the record label feels like putting in the studio. The primary reason they did this, of course, was that labels wouldn't touch their music until the early 90s unless there was someone else to take the heat for the language and portrayal of violence. Once the music became popular, of course, the movie deals came, and in many cases the artists exerted similar (though not to the same extent, due to the difference in the type of knowledge required) control.
Now we have someone making a game based around the image that these movies and music portrayed, much like their previous GTA title was based heavily on the image portrayed by a combination of Miami Vice, Scarface, and other movies and TV shows portraying cops and gangsters in the 80s. This particular game company has learned that taking essentially the same game (GTA3) and putting period elements on it makes it more appealing to the demographic that is supposed to be mature enough to play these games in the first place (after all, what do people born after 1985 really have to feel nostalgic about from the 80s, or really remember about the explosion of "gangsta rap" in the late 80s and early 90s?).
Then again, if it were simply another white or Italian protagonist, we'd only be hearing about the violence itself, unless some gang in the game was named after their race.
I recall games like Doom II at the time around Mario 64, and it's not at all better than Mario 64 for 3D.
Quake, for one, was available before the N64. The best 3D graphics cards for gaming were still add-in boards (Voodoo 1 and, shortly after the N64 launched, the Voodoo 2), but more and more games were coming out supporting various 3D cards.
Not to mention that the PS1 was doing 3D graphics long before the N64 was launched.
So we're supposed to ignore the last 4 GTA titles just because the one coming up will have a black character to represent the player?
Only white people can commit violence in video games now? And here I thought people were complaining because there weren't enough minorities in video games, now you can't put them into video games without someone complaining about the way they're portrayed (come on, this isn't like that Duke3D-engine game from a few years ago featuring an Asian protagonist, but then no one complained about the depiction of white people in Redneck Rampage, either).
Personally, i'm 23, with slightly above-average-sized hands, and I have no problems using the controllers on the PS2 and Gamecube that I own. And as I said before, I actually found the original XBox controller to be too big, not 12-year old sized.
and I'm 26, with generally above-average-sized hands, and I found the original XBox controller to be so perfect that I actually bought one (since my XBox came with the Japanese controller).
On the other hand, I have no problems with the Wavebird (except for the Z button, though I find it tolerable when I'm using it semi-frequently, such as in Mario Kart), and only slight problems with the PS2 controllers (primarily the R1/2/L1/2 button positioning compared to the balance of the controller). The DreamCast had the worst controllers, in my opinion, simply because the grips tended to turn inwards, causing the same type of problems that I have with using straight keyboards for more than a few minutes.
I've never really heard anyone complaining about Bush mixing politics and religion... Sure, he mentions God in his speeches sometimes, but many politicians do that. Just because he's religious doesn't make him bad.
His desire for an amendment to ban gay marriages is one example of mixing politics and religion. Another, which isn't really as important politically, but is from the viewpoint of the outside world, is his portrayal of himself as a crusader in the war on terror. The Crusades would be considered by many as one of the worst things done in the name of the Christian God, and bringing that image to mind when pursuing a war is not a good thing. Beyond those two points he's been fairly successful at downplaying the religious points behind many of his policies. The call for a ban on gay marriage, though, is only winning votes from the religious right and hate-mongers (not necessarily the same people), and the idea of putting such a thing into an amendment to the constitution goes against not only the very purpose of many past constitutional amendments (women's rights and civil rights, for instance), but against the "small government" ideal that the Republican party sometimes claims to stand for (in other words, banning gay marriage extends the federal government into the lives of individual citizens even further).
On the other hand, you might be referring to the "faith based initiatives", and frankly, I don't see why people have a problem with that.... government funds help all sorts of organizations that help people... as long as the religious organizations don't discriminate against those they help, what's the problem?
Personally, I don't see a problem with that as long as the government gives no favortism to those organizations over any other. On the other hand, many of the organizations receiving those particular funds do specifically discriminate against those that refuse to at least pay lip service to the organization's faith. Even the Salvation Army recently had problems with its policies in this area.
I'm not saying you, PainKillR-CE, are this way, but why are so many people scared of religion. I'm not particularly religious - certainly less so than John Kerry, and I'm a firm supporter of separation of church and state ("under God" doesn't belong in the pledge, although I think it's just a waste of time and resources trying to get rid of it), but I don't see how these iniatives are a negative.
If you look back on history, you'll see that as more of the founding fathers became distant memories (despite the fact that we instruct our children on the historical idea of these people), the government has become far more lax regarding the religious clause of the Constitution, even as the populace itself has become less religious. Yes, I believe that trying to tear down religious monuments and take out "under God" (which was placed into the pledge not too long ago) is a waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, I believe that only because it's distracting from the real issues in this specific area and allowing opponents more freedom to degrade the freedom from religious oppression by citing these examples of frivelous lawsuits.
Many people came to this country for freedom from religious oppression and persecution, only to find that today that only matters if your religion doesn't allow for gay marriage, and only preaches about the God of the Old and New Testaments.
There was a time (not so long ago) when I felt comfortable voting Republican because I believed that the religious right was generally held in check within Congress (preventing even an over-zealously religious President from going too far). However, the last 4 years have shown that the only thing I agree with this President on are the war(s) and tax cuts, and that Congress won't hold him in check on anything (short of an amendment, which is always hard to pass). If I could find someone that I felt really was in line with my own beliefs in terms of what our government should
Sorry I didn't see this comment earlier, had to go through my posting record...
I also used to love the snes version of MarioKart... After completing all the new levels on the GBA.. playing it back mirror THEN unlocking the same ones I used to play on my snes was great... why didnt they do that for Zelda? If they created a new plot, a few extra areas (instead of 1 new dungeon) but used the existing graphics sets/engine the game would have been a gem in my eyes....
That's a very good point, and also shows where I tend to be stuck between nostalgia and wanting more out of new games. I'm glad to have the original, but would prefer it came with something else. In many ways, this is why I like what they've done with Metroid Prime/Fusion/Zero Mission, making the original game unlockable, but at the same time I find it irritating to have to buy multiple titles (though I bought them willingly for the titles themselves) to unlock something that should have little value to the company. In the end, though, they've also released it as a $20 cartridge, showing there is some value to the company, even if few people are willing to buy it. I also have to wonder how much it costs to produce and distribute those games in the first place, as I can't see them going too far below this price point with a cartridge anyway. Additionally, I love the many-in-one packages, but hate the fact that they're usually padded out with crappy games (or bad ports, or games that can't be controlled well without specific controllers that don't exist on the system). So, in a way, I like the Nintendo GBA Classics series because I can pick and choose which games I want, but hate it because it seems that the prices aren't likely to go down, and the originals can't possibly retain that kind of value.
As an older gamer I have no use for the 4-player option, its hard enough finding a fellow GBA owner nevermind 4 of them!
Sometimes I feel the same way, but I've used it as an excuse, to myself, to evangelize the platform to my friends. I also bought one for my wife (well, I bought it for myself and then gave it to her when I could buy myself a black one; additionally, I may have to buy another copy of WarioWare if I ever want to play it again, or maybe the new Pokemon will get her off it). I may buy one for her older brother for XMas, because I know he enjoys SRPG games, but only owns an XBox (he traded in his GameCube, sacriledge, but understandable for KOTOR). A friend of mine has shown interest due to the SRPGs and Metroid titles, though an FPS Metroid hasn't drawn any interest in the Cube from him. Other than that, I pretty much am stuck in single-player most of the time, though I'll have to say that Mario Kart draws people out of the woodwork left and right, whether it's the Cube or the GBA version.
But like you missed a lot of the snes titles I did with the genesis/megadrive.. although I played a lot of them emulated, there was never a game that really stuck out that I have plans on going back to.. sure it was a nice change...
I actually agree on this point. Most of the Genesis titles really had a draw for me as fairly good ports of arcade titles, but in the end it turned into a mix of hard-to-find titles with cult appeal and numerous bland titles. In the end, the only Genesis title I owned was Sonic, and when I got the Sonic compilation for the Cube, I sold my Genesis. Most of my time with the system was used either borrowing games from friends, or using Cox Cable's subscription service that allowed me to choose from 20-30 games that rotated out occasionally (and in the end I think I primarily played Mortal Kombat 3). Soon after that, I left for college and left the Genesis with my step-brothers (and played a hell of a lot of KI and Mario Kart on the SNES my roommate brought with him).
As you say though, a lot of it is simply marketing and street cred.. I've seen a lot of bad comments regarding Reggie but I honestly believe he'll help to put Nintendo back into the chri
I think you'll find, though, that those of us that don't like Bush primarily because of his mixing of religion and politics don't really have anyone else to vote for. The Libertarian candidate, for instance, went on TV and told people to vote for him so that John Kerry would win, and the mixture of a Democrat president and Republican congress would revert the government to a stagnant state. Then there's the views against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is likely to grate on those people which don't want to vote for Bush primarily because of his legislation of moral issues (or things like expansion of government services like medicare).
This is like the Betamax / VHS argument all over again. Betamax was the better technology but because of clever marketing only, VHS succeeded.
Not really. PC game developers want new features supported by the API they use and the graphics cards said API will run on. OpenGL has extensions, which make it easy to add features, but not all cards will support the same extensions. Therefore, support for any given feature is quite varied for a range of cards that support a particular OpenGL spec. Beyond that, how long did it take OpenGL to go from 1.0 to 1.2?
On the flip side, Microsoft adds features to Direct3D based on requests from video card manufacturers and game developers, usually releasing a new version (with backwards compatability intact in most cases) every year. This has allowed Direct3D to go from nearly 0 acceptance from developers to almost total domination of the games market in a relatively short time.
The quality of the APIs is somewhat relative (in this case), as many developers will simply stick with what they're used to. The features supported from any card supporting DirectX 7,8, or 9, on the other hand, are quite uniform where the API is specified by Microsoft. This makes the API more attractive to developers. The quality of a given implementation of either API is often left to the hardware manufacturers (and their driver developers), and over time the game developers have managed to push those manufacturers that wish to stay in the business to improve their implementations (in the case of both DirectX and OpenGL).
How depressing. I just droped $500 on my 256mb Geforce FX 5900 Ultra back in September and, less than a year later, it's going to be two or three revisions behind? Usually a top model card takes a year to be replaced, let alone be replaced twice or thrice over.
Graphics cards have been on a 6-month cycle since nVidia took over the market from 3dfx, with only occasional (maybe 2 or 3 in the last 6 years) breaks in that cycle. Therefore, a top-model card is about $100 cheaper 6 months after its release, because there's a newer top-model card.
Of course, in many cases there isn't a new generation of cards on a 6-month period (usually every 12 months), but there are faster versions of the same generation of cards.
On the other hand, the only reason I spent so much on a card was I wanted to build a new power house machine in preperation for Half Life 2 which at the time was slated with a SPECIFIC DAY of September 29th for release (I had already bought my copy in preperation on Amazon).
Well, in the future, make sure you set aside that money to buy a new video card on the day that copy of HL23 or Doom51 comes out, instead of buying a new card in anticipation of a (even an announced, verified by the developer) release date. New video cards come out all the time, and each release tends to drive down the prices on perfectly good cards. Whether the delay is on the scale of Doom 3 (what was it, 6-9 months?) or HL2 (who knows any longer), you will either be able to buy the same card for less money, or a better card for the same money. Then again, you could have been enjoying your card on other games that actually shipped in the interim.
I don't really care to connect two cards together anyway. Just build me a single super kick ass card.
On the other hand, what if you could buy 1 really super kick ass card, and then buy another 1 in 6 months when HL2 is supposed to come out (no, not really, I have no idea when it's coming out) to get better performance without having to spend nearly twice as much on the latest, greatest card? I know it helped me out significantly when I bought my first computer that I could buy 1 Voodoo 2 card for $300 and then buy another one a few months down the line (still at $300) to get better performance than anything available at the time (for consumer-level graphics anyway), rather than wait another year for the $300 cards to match the performance of the SLI setup. It matches quite well with the reason I build my computers myself anyway: distribution of cost. Anyone can afford to buy a better computer if they can distribute the cost over time (one reason credit is so popular) than if they have to cough up all of the money at once (of course, when you're buying $300-800 parts, even the distributed costs can be a significant hit to the wallet).
Jesus Christ, I just want to play the game, not let it rule my life.
Then you'll be fine. The game runs great on my P4-2.0 GHz w/ 512MB RAM and a similar video card to what you have (I've long since forgotten the exact number, I bought it to replace a GF4Ti that stopped working). I can't crank the graphics and resolution, but it still looks better than most other games out there.
The box says a 1.5GHz machine is the requirement with a GeForce 3 so I'm sure I'm fine, but why make a game that you need a top of the line machine to play at high settings? That's stupid and alienates 90% of your fan base for years until they upgrade to machines eventually that will run it.
Though I doubt it will run well on a 1.5GHz machine with a GF3 card, you have to realize that new machines sell with significantly better specs than that. My machine is over 2 years old (except for the graphics card, which still isn't top of the line) and runs the game fine.
The game is clearly targeted at the same audience any previous id game was released to, meaning that the requirements are not going to work for the person that doesn't really play many games, but the game will work fine for almost anyone that plays any 3D games at all. For those that must have the absolute top performance, there is a significant benefit for owners of top-of-the-line machines, which is clearly a selling point to some individuals.
The opposing view-point is to make a game that runs at its best on a mid-range machine. This satisfies many gamers that can't justify the purchase of expensive PC hardware just for gaming, but irritates many gamers that want to see what their hardware can really do before its out-dated by new cards and CPUs. It also leads to some level of decline when 2-5 year old consoles can compete graphically with up-to-date computers, as technology tuned for TV resolutions doesn't need to push as many polygons to look good (comparatively).
At which time I'm sure Doom 4 will be out and need a quad processor system and 4 video cards.
Probably. The one thing I've always liked about id's games is that they tend to push for the game to run on whatever top-of-the-line system is available at the time they start development, rather than developing for the most common system specs available at the start. The most obvious reason for this is that, by the time the game is released, those systems will be much closer to the most common system. Add in the significant work done in optimizations for the newest GPUs and processors as they were released (during the game's development), and there're benefits to be had for those that bought the newest stuff, while the people that aren't buying new hardware at release can still play. Considering this game's had one of id's longest development cycles, at about 4 years, most of the people that were aware of the game before its release have done some upgrading in the development period.
Which is exactly why it's going to take a while for video game graphics to look like current movie technology. You have 1/60th of a second to render a frame for a PC or console game, but a given frame in a movie like LoTR or Spider-Man may have taken hours or days to render, often using more powerful computers (and/or clusters).
Interesting that Iran is mentioned, as you might want to consider the significance of having a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time: http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/MEast.h tm http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/801.htm
I think you could almost argue that it's more the inability of children these days to understand what true gameplay really is.
It's neither. It's simply a matter of kids trying to look cool to their friends. When a kid reaches a certain age, he's afraid that his friends will think he's a wuss because he's playing Animal Crossing or Mario Sunshine, and they won't think he's cool if he hasn't played 3000+ hours of GTA. There's nothing new about this, either, except perhaps if you were a teenager when Atari was your major source of video game entertainment at home. It's one of the reasons the Sega Genesis did so well, and is also one of the reasons the PlayStation took over the market.
The games we grew up with on the SNES and in the arcades are totally different from the ones the kids are growing up with now. Too much emphasis is on the graphics (DOOM3 perfect example) and the graphics are the only thing selling most of these games.
Umm... never mind that THE major selling point of consoles in the 16-bit era was the 16-bit graphics. The SNES and the arcade machines were part of the lock-step march of graphics technology that continues to this day. The difference today is that the marketing droids know that they won't be able to market the 256-bit console, because the next one just might still use 256-bit graphics chips, and someone will mention that their CPU is only a 32 or 64 bit chip.
Most kids now, don't have the attention spam to complete the 96+ levels of Mario and have more money to spend on new games every fortnight than to actually complete the games they already have.
We all likely completed more games as a kid than we possibly can now, yet I have far more games than I did as a kid, and more games than any kid I know, despite the fact that most of the kids I know get new games far more often than I did as a kid. As for completing Mario, we all learned the shortcuts on SMB1 and could run through that game faster than watching the average movie. From the SNES onward you didn't even have to do it in one sitting.
I remember the playground fights between the nintendo and megadrive/genesis fanboys... I always felt that although Nintendo paid more attention to the small details in games, SEGA sold most of theirs simply because they were adult orientated. It pissed me off that Mortal Kombat on the SNES had grey blood... because Nintendo refused to unleash the 'realism' to their followers.
Yet again, adult-oriented proved to mean "older kids will really want this because it's 'mature'".
Being a huge Zelda fam, I was very disappointed to see the kiddy style cell shading in The Wind Waker... but it didnt stop me appreciating the time spent creating what I began to realise was a masterpiece in itself. Nintendo started targetting the children... and not realising that times have changed since my schoolroom arguments. Nintendo used to own the kids market and they've just recently realised that is not the case anymore.
The only thing that's changed with time is that the companies making the "adult" consoles aren't firmly rooted in the arcades. Otherwise, the schoolroom arguments are still the same, and Nintendo's still targeting the same audience.
With Doom 3 I can understand that ID's game is more a technology preview than anything else (to sell the engine rather than the game itself) I respect that. I also respect the GTA series of games and remember that when they almost banned the original GTA -- I wanted it more !!
The further I go the more I realize that you simply are caught between nostalgia and the need for better graphics and more gore, despite trying to resist it in favour of the game-play of the older games. As for Doom 3, from what I've played (only a few hours), the game wouldn't have been possible on previous 3D technology, yet it still brings out at least some of the feel of the original game (which relied heavily on advanced 2D technology). Sometimes we have to p
I could hunt & peck ~40wpm, but I found that when I learned to touch type, I could get 80wpm on a bad day (when my hands are cramping up and I'm correcting spelling errors constantly).
On the other hand, no matter how quickly a person can type, it's not going to help them one bit with their spelling and grammar.
I did the same thing (went to best buy), though I wasn't actually there to buy Doom 3, I just happened to run into the giant display full of copies of the game (which they set down in the middle of the aisle between the computer stuff and the PDAs) when I was on my way to buy a USB hub and wireless adapter. If the game stores don't have copies for people that didn't pre-order, then they should be losing sales to stores that do (since Best Buy was also doing pre-orders and had plenty of copies on the floor).
Actually, it's been a while since multiplayer games were a "niche" martket. They have since replaced SP FPSes as the dominant force in the market.
Right, which is why less than 10% of the copies of Half-Life sold were actually played online, despite it having mods that became the most-played online FPS games at various times, even long after its release.
I'm going to play through the game because I bought it, but after 7 hours today of gaming (with breaks), I can honestly say that Doom 3 isn't much to write home about. It better get real good, real fast for it to not be a total waste of my time.
Why, exactly, would you spend 7 hours in one day playing a game you aren't enjoying? I played it for perhaps 2 hours yesterday and was actually enjoying it quite a bit, which is probably the first time I can say that about a PC FPS in quite some time (at least in single player mode). On the other hand, I found the beginning of the game (before you get a weapon) an uninspiring knock-off of Half-Life (a game which I didn't like before TFC came out).
Graphically, Farcry beat D3 to the punch, but neither have me raving.
I haven't played Farcry yet, unfortunately, but I'd have to say that I've found the few examples of interesting graphics to be more along the lines of "we stuck this into the level to show off this effect for E3 demos". On the other hand, these were mostly lighting effects, and in the end the contrast between light and dark is really what makes this game possible.
Personally, I've found the game-play enjoyable, but haven't even tried to push the graphics beyond 1024x768 @ Medium, yet, as my graphics card is not absolutely top-of-the-line and the CPU is over 2 years old. Besides, it plays great at those levels, and it's been a while since I cared enough to go spend $500+ getting my computer up to snuff for a $50 game that plays fine on what I already have.
Square-Enix on the other hand gives us FFXII, Dragon Warrior 8, and FFTA which was basically the same game as FFT.
Never mind FF XI, Front Mission 4, Drakengard, FF:Crystal Chronicles, and so on, then... Besides, in the PS1 later years/PS2 Launch period, they also gave us Bushido Blade 2, FF VIII, FF IX, and eventually FF X. Beyond that, if FFT and FFTA are basically the same game, then Front Mission 4 may as well be lumped right in with them (and, of course, Front Mission 3).
Realistically, Square-Enix has barely had time to develop into something beyond Squaresoft and Enix moving management into the same building.
I don't see Doom around much any more, but almost every game store that still sells PC games has a copy of Quake (full version) laying around for $5 or $10. Hardly the kind of money to justify piracy, even for those that can justify pirating games in the first place.
If you're going to buy the game then WTF is the point of using FreeDoom or some other version when you have the real thing?
The primary purpose of most of these releases is to extend the engine in one way or another. Often they add improved graphics and modifications to the control capabilities (especially with Doom ports, which may add mouselook and jumping, for example). In many cases you'll want to replace much of the original content anyway to take advantage of the additions to the engine.
Then, of course, there's the fact that both of these games were originally written for DOS. Although Windows (and Linux, and Mac) versions were released, they can often be harder to find, while a source port may run better anyway.
It's not full adult, it's having reached a minimum level of rationality. If it weren't an age limit, it'd be periodic, mandatory testing. Which do you prefer?
Somehow I prefer the idea of periodic mandatory testing. Still, I have two primary questions: 1) When would testing begin (and how often would it be done)?
2) What do you do with the people over 18 that can't show a minimum level of rationality (and how do you determine if they've tricked the test, which could go for those that pass it under age, as well)?
#1 would reintroduce some arbitrary numbers into the system, and #2 introduces some issues with priviledges and rights that are given to people at certain ages. After all, if someone doesn't show a minimum level of rationality, should they be allowed to drive? vote? buy tobacco? consume alcohol?
In the end, we're stuck with arbitrary numbers that make little sense. Even the testing itself would introduce fairly arbitrary numbers unless the scores required were adjusted periodically according to the levels generally found in the population.
The poster answered the question himself quite well, but then contradicted himself. Additionally, your quote is not of someone at MS, but of the author of the article. As I pointed out in my own post, MS already shipped the very same GNU software with commercial software, as they sold the Interix package before the SFU 3.5 release that made it free (as in beer).
I think it was simply the use of references to religions I'm not deeply familiar with (Christianity, Hindu) in very specific ways (Jesus alongside Old Testament prophets, movement along the spiritual ranking of souls) that threw me off. It's always nice to see the inter-relations between the various religions, but in the end, it's more important to get the point across clearly.
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No, we're not. The first one was passed off as a fad before the second came out, and it's top-down view wasn't real enough to cause a stir. When 3 came out, the ultra real gang violence was attacked by several groups, and Vice City was nearly pulled from shelves several times because of racial-related violence(anybody remember the"kill the cubans" line? It's not in versions made after about 9 months ago). I wouldn't really agree that this is the first GTA game to draw contraversy, and I certainly wouldn't agree that it's only because he's black.
The Italians didn't get much press coverage if they were complaining about the protagonist of the first game. Yes, the violence itself was an issue, and probably will remain an issue (and it was in the first and second games as well, despite your own down-playing of it due to the top-down view, the very idea that you could car-jack someone in a game caused controversy). The "Kill the Cubans/Haitians" thing, as you noted, didn't have an effect until maybe a year ago, and Vice City was released almost 2 years ago. It had already sold most of the copies it will sell for the PS2 and PC before the controversy over those lines even started, and the fact that they pulled it precisely shows how rediculous this whole thing is (after all, the gangs called themselves The Cubans and The Haitians, and it was the latter that got the lines pulled, not the Cubans).
My point was not that this was the first to draw controversy. My point was simply to point out that this game has not changed in any fundamental line from the previous 2, and it's drawing this particular controversy simply because the main character (and many of the characters in the game's setting, I'd imagine) is black, instead of being of European descent like the previous games. People weren't complaining about the main character's ethnicity or even the ethnicity of most of the other characters in the games before (the "kill the cubans/haitians" thing had everything to do with the exact statement, or it wouldn't have stopped with the modification of a couple of sound files), they simply complained about the violence in general terms.
I'm going to take things out of order a bit, because the points are somewhat separated...
:-)
How can I be a bigot? Whatever your race is, I certainly can feel related. Many Brazilians are in the same condition as I am, maybe I am more conscious (having done some extensive genealogic research) of my multi-ethnicity. When filling forms with "race/ethnicity", I usually seek for the "all of the above" option...
What appalled me in your link was the fact that this woman *is* in fact intermarried with a white guy and she fears and have nightmares with black folks. This is a sign IMHO that *she* has serious problems.
The whole point of the piece was that people need to remember that racism isn't just a white problem, or homophobia isn't just a heterosexual problem, it's something that everyone needs to address. Additionally, just because you're black (or in your personal case, multi-ethnic) doesn't make you immune to being racist.
But USofAns, more than European people, apparently segregate much more deeply, by race, by religion, etc. They don't seem to intermarry as commonly as down here.
I really couldn't say, because I have never been to Europe. However, I would say that in the US the line seems to be much more along class lines than racial lines. Unfortunately, class and racial lines have a tendency to coincide to a large degree in the US. If you find that you're in a city in the US and the locals are primarily black or latino, there's a good chance that you're in an area where people make less money, and therefore in a lower-class neighborhood. If most of the people are white, you simply have to look at the size and maintenance of the homes to determine the class of the neighborhood, because there are white neighborhoods at all levels of the "class struggle".
From my own experience, having lived both in California and Virginia (the latter having been the capital of the Confederacy), racial mixing (both in families and in neighborhoods) is actually more common in the south, where integration was actually forced into being in the last century, than in the west, where people generally don't consider segregation to be an issue (it's not that they believe segregation is ok, they simply don't believe, and many probably wouldn't, they'd have a problem if black or latino people moved into their neighborhoods). The lines are still drawn primarily by how much money you make on the west coast as they are in the south, but no one forced people to integrate along racial lines in California, therefore most of them never did.
I grew up in a primarily white neighborhood in southern California, middle class (probably upper middle class now that housing prices have sky-rocketed), where the most common minority was latino, at roughly 5% (the white population being roughly 87%). When I moved to Virginia, sharing a place with a co-worker, we were literally the only white people on our block, and I'll admit that initially it made me nervous. However, I have to add that it wasn't just the fact that most of the people living around me were black that made me nervous, but it was also the fact that I could not possibly have found a place in southern California that was that cheap to live in without qualifying for government assistance (which is to say, living in welfare housing projects). This made me believe that I was living in what was probably a bad part of town, somewhere you might have to keep your car alarmed and possibly not leave your home unoccupied for too long, should someone decide to break in and either trash the place or steal all of your stuff.
As I continued to live there, though, I realized that I was actually living in a lower-middle-class neighborhood and that housing was simply significantly cheaper anywhere in the state than it was in California. The people living around me primarily had jobs in similar areas (not computers, but working for similar companies; despite working as a software developer there are very few people tha
Movies are quite different and you know that. Actors are what drive the industry. If minorities were only used as criminals, yes, ban them. But we know that's not true. I can easily name movies that had black people, white people and every other type in the position of violence. It is more equal than video games.
But can you name any movies that portrayed life in South-Central L.A., especially relating to gangs, from the late 80s through the early 90s, that does not portray the majority of the people in that area (or even just the majority of the gang members) as black or latino? It's hard to say that movies are quite different when the game derives heavily from the movies themselves for it's backdrop. If someone never saw Scarface or Miami Vice before playing Vice City, I could understand if they didn't pick up on where the game drew its influence, and its entire world, but that doesn't excuse them from their ignorance if they believe its an accurate portrayal of life in Florida in the early to mid 80s. The same should only be held for GTA San Andreas, but because the movies they drew from for the early 90s L.A setting were primarily depicting the "plight of the urban minority youth", of course we're going to end up with a game that's heavily filled with urban minority youth behaving violently.
Frankly, I would expect an american company, to have learned from its past and not promote these types of stupidity. In a way, it's disrespectful for what most of us have stood up against. Worse yet, it's plain wrong in that it gives "black", "latino", and any other races that get depicted in this fasion. After all, isn't America supposed to be about equality of people and power? Isn't this just plain slanderous of an entire group of people who will now be seen more as thieves and other assorted criminals? We dont' want to put criminals in power, but minorities should be ok, yet we slight them in this way? Shame on you GTA producers.
The simple fact is that the basis for the entire game is centered around the "gangsta-rap-culture" movies produced in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. Most of these movies obtained their direction (especially in the form of writing, acting, etc) from the very people that are supposedly being slandered by this game.
People like to talk about the music and movie industries taking advantage of people, but in the end, "gangsta" rappers were among the first people to take control over their own careers by creating their own record labels and taking on most of the production positions normally filled by whoever the record label feels like putting in the studio. The primary reason they did this, of course, was that labels wouldn't touch their music until the early 90s unless there was someone else to take the heat for the language and portrayal of violence. Once the music became popular, of course, the movie deals came, and in many cases the artists exerted similar (though not to the same extent, due to the difference in the type of knowledge required) control.
Now we have someone making a game based around the image that these movies and music portrayed, much like their previous GTA title was based heavily on the image portrayed by a combination of Miami Vice, Scarface, and other movies and TV shows portraying cops and gangsters in the 80s. This particular game company has learned that taking essentially the same game (GTA3) and putting period elements on it makes it more appealing to the demographic that is supposed to be mature enough to play these games in the first place (after all, what do people born after 1985 really have to feel nostalgic about from the 80s, or really remember about the explosion of "gangsta rap" in the late 80s and early 90s?).
Then again, if it were simply another white or Italian protagonist, we'd only be hearing about the violence itself, unless some gang in the game was named after their race.
I recall games like Doom II at the time around Mario 64, and it's not at all better than Mario 64 for 3D.
Quake, for one, was available before the N64. The best 3D graphics cards for gaming were still add-in boards (Voodoo 1 and, shortly after the N64 launched, the Voodoo 2), but more and more games were coming out supporting various 3D cards.
Not to mention that the PS1 was doing 3D graphics long before the N64 was launched.
So we're supposed to ignore the last 4 GTA titles just because the one coming up will have a black character to represent the player?
Only white people can commit violence in video games now? And here I thought people were complaining because there weren't enough minorities in video games, now you can't put them into video games without someone complaining about the way they're portrayed (come on, this isn't like that Duke3D-engine game from a few years ago featuring an Asian protagonist, but then no one complained about the depiction of white people in Redneck Rampage, either).
Personally, i'm 23, with slightly above-average-sized hands, and I have no problems using the controllers on the PS2 and Gamecube that I own. And as I said before, I actually found the original XBox controller to be too big, not 12-year old sized.
and I'm 26, with generally above-average-sized hands, and I found the original XBox controller to be so perfect that I actually bought one (since my XBox came with the Japanese controller).
On the other hand, I have no problems with the Wavebird (except for the Z button, though I find it tolerable when I'm using it semi-frequently, such as in Mario Kart), and only slight problems with the PS2 controllers (primarily the R1/2/L1/2 button positioning compared to the balance of the controller). The DreamCast had the worst controllers, in my opinion, simply because the grips tended to turn inwards, causing the same type of problems that I have with using straight keyboards for more than a few minutes.
Or you could just get a USB number pad...
Even stores like Wal-Mart and Target are starting to carry these for laptop users.
I've never really heard anyone complaining about Bush mixing politics and religion... Sure, he mentions God in his speeches sometimes, but many politicians do that. Just because he's religious doesn't make him bad.
His desire for an amendment to ban gay marriages is one example of mixing politics and religion. Another, which isn't really as important politically, but is from the viewpoint of the outside world, is his portrayal of himself as a crusader in the war on terror. The Crusades would be considered by many as one of the worst things done in the name of the Christian God, and bringing that image to mind when pursuing a war is not a good thing. Beyond those two points he's been fairly successful at downplaying the religious points behind many of his policies. The call for a ban on gay marriage, though, is only winning votes from the religious right and hate-mongers (not necessarily the same people), and the idea of putting such a thing into an amendment to the constitution goes against not only the very purpose of many past constitutional amendments (women's rights and civil rights, for instance), but against the "small government" ideal that the Republican party sometimes claims to stand for (in other words, banning gay marriage extends the federal government into the lives of individual citizens even further).
On the other hand, you might be referring to the "faith based initiatives", and frankly, I don't see why people have a problem with that.... government funds help all sorts of organizations that help people... as long as the religious organizations don't discriminate against those they help, what's the problem?
Personally, I don't see a problem with that as long as the government gives no favortism to those organizations over any other. On the other hand, many of the organizations receiving those particular funds do specifically discriminate against those that refuse to at least pay lip service to the organization's faith. Even the Salvation Army recently had problems with its policies in this area.
I'm not saying you, PainKillR-CE, are this way, but why are so many people scared of religion. I'm not particularly religious - certainly less so than John Kerry, and I'm a firm supporter of separation of church and state ("under God" doesn't belong in the pledge, although I think it's just a waste of time and resources trying to get rid of it), but I don't see how these iniatives are a negative.
If you look back on history, you'll see that as more of the founding fathers became distant memories (despite the fact that we instruct our children on the historical idea of these people), the government has become far more lax regarding the religious clause of the Constitution, even as the populace itself has become less religious. Yes, I believe that trying to tear down religious monuments and take out "under God" (which was placed into the pledge not too long ago) is a waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, I believe that only because it's distracting from the real issues in this specific area and allowing opponents more freedom to degrade the freedom from religious oppression by citing these examples of frivelous lawsuits.
Many people came to this country for freedom from religious oppression and persecution, only to find that today that only matters if your religion doesn't allow for gay marriage, and only preaches about the God of the Old and New Testaments.
There was a time (not so long ago) when I felt comfortable voting Republican because I believed that the religious right was generally held in check within Congress (preventing even an over-zealously religious President from going too far). However, the last 4 years have shown that the only thing I agree with this President on are the war(s) and tax cuts, and that Congress won't hold him in check on anything (short of an amendment, which is always hard to pass). If I could find someone that I felt really was in line with my own beliefs in terms of what our government should
Sorry I didn't see this comment earlier, had to go through my posting record...
I also used to love the snes version of MarioKart... After completing all the new levels on the GBA.. playing it back mirror THEN unlocking the same ones I used to play on my snes was great... why didnt they do that for Zelda? If they created a new plot, a few extra areas (instead of 1 new dungeon) but used the existing graphics sets/engine the game would have been a gem in my eyes....
That's a very good point, and also shows where I tend to be stuck between nostalgia and wanting more out of new games. I'm glad to have the original, but would prefer it came with something else. In many ways, this is why I like what they've done with Metroid Prime/Fusion/Zero Mission, making the original game unlockable, but at the same time I find it irritating to have to buy multiple titles (though I bought them willingly for the titles themselves) to unlock something that should have little value to the company. In the end, though, they've also released it as a $20 cartridge, showing there is some value to the company, even if few people are willing to buy it. I also have to wonder how much it costs to produce and distribute those games in the first place, as I can't see them going too far below this price point with a cartridge anyway. Additionally, I love the many-in-one packages, but hate the fact that they're usually padded out with crappy games (or bad ports, or games that can't be controlled well without specific controllers that don't exist on the system). So, in a way, I like the Nintendo GBA Classics series because I can pick and choose which games I want, but hate it because it seems that the prices aren't likely to go down, and the originals can't possibly retain that kind of value.
As an older gamer I have no use for the 4-player option, its hard enough finding a fellow GBA owner nevermind 4 of them!
Sometimes I feel the same way, but I've used it as an excuse, to myself, to evangelize the platform to my friends. I also bought one for my wife (well, I bought it for myself and then gave it to her when I could buy myself a black one; additionally, I may have to buy another copy of WarioWare if I ever want to play it again, or maybe the new Pokemon will get her off it). I may buy one for her older brother for XMas, because I know he enjoys SRPG games, but only owns an XBox (he traded in his GameCube, sacriledge, but understandable for KOTOR). A friend of mine has shown interest due to the SRPGs and Metroid titles, though an FPS Metroid hasn't drawn any interest in the Cube from him. Other than that, I pretty much am stuck in single-player most of the time, though I'll have to say that Mario Kart draws people out of the woodwork left and right, whether it's the Cube or the GBA version.
But like you missed a lot of the snes titles I did with the genesis/megadrive.. although I played a lot of them emulated, there was never a game that really stuck out that I have plans on going back to.. sure it was a nice change...
I actually agree on this point. Most of the Genesis titles really had a draw for me as fairly good ports of arcade titles, but in the end it turned into a mix of hard-to-find titles with cult appeal and numerous bland titles. In the end, the only Genesis title I owned was Sonic, and when I got the Sonic compilation for the Cube, I sold my Genesis. Most of my time with the system was used either borrowing games from friends, or using Cox Cable's subscription service that allowed me to choose from 20-30 games that rotated out occasionally (and in the end I think I primarily played Mortal Kombat 3). Soon after that, I left for college and left the Genesis with my step-brothers (and played a hell of a lot of KI and Mario Kart on the SNES my roommate brought with him).
As you say though, a lot of it is simply marketing and street cred.. I've seen a lot of bad comments regarding Reggie but I honestly believe he'll help to put Nintendo back into the chri
I think you'll find, though, that those of us that don't like Bush primarily because of his mixing of religion and politics don't really have anyone else to vote for. The Libertarian candidate, for instance, went on TV and told people to vote for him so that John Kerry would win, and the mixture of a Democrat president and Republican congress would revert the government to a stagnant state. Then there's the views against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is likely to grate on those people which don't want to vote for Bush primarily because of his legislation of moral issues (or things like expansion of government services like medicare).
This is like the Betamax / VHS argument all over again. Betamax was the better technology but because of clever marketing only, VHS succeeded.
Not really. PC game developers want new features supported by the API they use and the graphics cards said API will run on. OpenGL has extensions, which make it easy to add features, but not all cards will support the same extensions. Therefore, support for any given feature is quite varied for a range of cards that support a particular OpenGL spec. Beyond that, how long did it take OpenGL to go from 1.0 to 1.2?
On the flip side, Microsoft adds features to Direct3D based on requests from video card manufacturers and game developers, usually releasing a new version (with backwards compatability intact in most cases) every year. This has allowed Direct3D to go from nearly 0 acceptance from developers to almost total domination of the games market in a relatively short time.
The quality of the APIs is somewhat relative (in this case), as many developers will simply stick with what they're used to. The features supported from any card supporting DirectX 7,8, or 9, on the other hand, are quite uniform where the API is specified by Microsoft. This makes the API more attractive to developers. The quality of a given implementation of either API is often left to the hardware manufacturers (and their driver developers), and over time the game developers have managed to push those manufacturers that wish to stay in the business to improve their implementations (in the case of both DirectX and OpenGL).
How depressing. I just droped $500 on my 256mb Geforce FX 5900 Ultra back in September and, less than a year later, it's going to be two or three revisions behind? Usually a top model card takes a year to be replaced, let alone be replaced twice or thrice over.
Graphics cards have been on a 6-month cycle since nVidia took over the market from 3dfx, with only occasional (maybe 2 or 3 in the last 6 years) breaks in that cycle. Therefore, a top-model card is about $100 cheaper 6 months after its release, because there's a newer top-model card.
Of course, in many cases there isn't a new generation of cards on a 6-month period (usually every 12 months), but there are faster versions of the same generation of cards.
On the other hand, the only reason I spent so much on a card was I wanted to build a new power house machine in preperation for Half Life 2 which at the time was slated with a SPECIFIC DAY of September 29th for release (I had already bought my copy in preperation on Amazon).
Well, in the future, make sure you set aside that money to buy a new video card on the day that copy of HL23 or Doom51 comes out, instead of buying a new card in anticipation of a (even an announced, verified by the developer) release date. New video cards come out all the time, and each release tends to drive down the prices on perfectly good cards. Whether the delay is on the scale of Doom 3 (what was it, 6-9 months?) or HL2 (who knows any longer), you will either be able to buy the same card for less money, or a better card for the same money. Then again, you could have been enjoying your card on other games that actually shipped in the interim.
I don't really care to connect two cards together anyway. Just build me a single super kick ass card.
On the other hand, what if you could buy 1 really super kick ass card, and then buy another 1 in 6 months when HL2 is supposed to come out (no, not really, I have no idea when it's coming out) to get better performance without having to spend nearly twice as much on the latest, greatest card? I know it helped me out significantly when I bought my first computer that I could buy 1 Voodoo 2 card for $300 and then buy another one a few months down the line (still at $300) to get better performance than anything available at the time (for consumer-level graphics anyway), rather than wait another year for the $300 cards to match the performance of the SLI setup. It matches quite well with the reason I build my computers myself anyway: distribution of cost. Anyone can afford to buy a better computer if they can distribute the cost over time (one reason credit is so popular) than if they have to cough up all of the money at once (of course, when you're buying $300-800 parts, even the distributed costs can be a significant hit to the wallet).
Jesus Christ, I just want to play the game, not let it rule my life.
Then you'll be fine. The game runs great on my P4-2.0 GHz w/ 512MB RAM and a similar video card to what you have (I've long since forgotten the exact number, I bought it to replace a GF4Ti that stopped working). I can't crank the graphics and resolution, but it still looks better than most other games out there.
The box says a 1.5GHz machine is the requirement with a GeForce 3 so I'm sure I'm fine, but why make a game that you need a top of the line machine to play at high settings? That's stupid and alienates 90% of your fan base for years until they upgrade to machines eventually that will run it.
Though I doubt it will run well on a 1.5GHz machine with a GF3 card, you have to realize that new machines sell with significantly better specs than that. My machine is over 2 years old (except for the graphics card, which still isn't top of the line) and runs the game fine.
The game is clearly targeted at the same audience any previous id game was released to, meaning that the requirements are not going to work for the person that doesn't really play many games, but the game will work fine for almost anyone that plays any 3D games at all. For those that must have the absolute top performance, there is a significant benefit for owners of top-of-the-line machines, which is clearly a selling point to some individuals.
The opposing view-point is to make a game that runs at its best on a mid-range machine. This satisfies many gamers that can't justify the purchase of expensive PC hardware just for gaming, but irritates many gamers that want to see what their hardware can really do before its out-dated by new cards and CPUs. It also leads to some level of decline when 2-5 year old consoles can compete graphically with up-to-date computers, as technology tuned for TV resolutions doesn't need to push as many polygons to look good (comparatively).
At which time I'm sure Doom 4 will be out and need a quad processor system and 4 video cards.
Probably. The one thing I've always liked about id's games is that they tend to push for the game to run on whatever top-of-the-line system is available at the time they start development, rather than developing for the most common system specs available at the start. The most obvious reason for this is that, by the time the game is released, those systems will be much closer to the most common system. Add in the significant work done in optimizations for the newest GPUs and processors as they were released (during the game's development), and there're benefits to be had for those that bought the newest stuff, while the people that aren't buying new hardware at release can still play. Considering this game's had one of id's longest development cycles, at about 4 years, most of the people that were aware of the game before its release have done some upgrading in the development period.
Which is exactly why it's going to take a while for video game graphics to look like current movie technology. You have 1/60th of a second to render a frame for a PC or console game, but a given frame in a movie like LoTR or Spider-Man may have taken hours or days to render, often using more powerful computers (and/or clusters).
Interesting that Iran is mentioned, as you might want to consider the significance of having a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time:h tm
http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/MEast.
http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/801.htm
I think you could almost argue that it's more the inability of children these days to understand what true gameplay really is.
It's neither. It's simply a matter of kids trying to look cool to their friends. When a kid reaches a certain age, he's afraid that his friends will think he's a wuss because he's playing Animal Crossing or Mario Sunshine, and they won't think he's cool if he hasn't played 3000+ hours of GTA. There's nothing new about this, either, except perhaps if you were a teenager when Atari was your major source of video game entertainment at home. It's one of the reasons the Sega Genesis did so well, and is also one of the reasons the PlayStation took over the market.
The games we grew up with on the SNES and in the arcades are totally different from the ones the kids are growing up with now. Too much emphasis is on the graphics (DOOM3 perfect example) and the graphics are the only thing selling most of these games.
Umm... never mind that THE major selling point of consoles in the 16-bit era was the 16-bit graphics. The SNES and the arcade machines were part of the lock-step march of graphics technology that continues to this day. The difference today is that the marketing droids know that they won't be able to market the 256-bit console, because the next one just might still use 256-bit graphics chips, and someone will mention that their CPU is only a 32 or 64 bit chip.
Most kids now, don't have the attention spam to complete the 96+ levels of Mario and have more money to spend on new games every fortnight than to actually complete the games they already have.
We all likely completed more games as a kid than we possibly can now, yet I have far more games than I did as a kid, and more games than any kid I know, despite the fact that most of the kids I know get new games far more often than I did as a kid. As for completing Mario, we all learned the shortcuts on SMB1 and could run through that game faster than watching the average movie. From the SNES onward you didn't even have to do it in one sitting.
I remember the playground fights between the nintendo and megadrive/genesis fanboys... I always felt that although Nintendo paid more attention to the small details in games, SEGA sold most of theirs simply because they were adult orientated. It pissed me off that Mortal Kombat on the SNES had grey blood... because Nintendo refused to unleash the 'realism' to their followers.
Yet again, adult-oriented proved to mean "older kids will really want this because it's 'mature'".
Being a huge Zelda fam, I was very disappointed to see the kiddy style cell shading in The Wind Waker... but it didnt stop me appreciating the time spent creating what I began to realise was a masterpiece in itself. Nintendo started targetting the children... and not realising that times have changed since my schoolroom arguments. Nintendo used to own the kids market and they've just recently realised that is not the case anymore.
The only thing that's changed with time is that the companies making the "adult" consoles aren't firmly rooted in the arcades. Otherwise, the schoolroom arguments are still the same, and Nintendo's still targeting the same audience.
With Doom 3 I can understand that ID's game is more a technology preview than anything else (to sell the engine rather than the game itself) I respect that. I also respect the GTA series of games and remember that when they almost banned the original GTA -- I wanted it more !!
The further I go the more I realize that you simply are caught between nostalgia and the need for better graphics and more gore, despite trying to resist it in favour of the game-play of the older games. As for Doom 3, from what I've played (only a few hours), the game wouldn't have been possible on previous 3D technology, yet it still brings out at least some of the feel of the original game (which relied heavily on advanced 2D technology). Sometimes we have to p
I could hunt & peck ~40wpm, but I found that when I learned to touch type, I could get 80wpm on a bad day (when my hands are cramping up and I'm correcting spelling errors constantly).
On the other hand, no matter how quickly a person can type, it's not going to help them one bit with their spelling and grammar.
I did the same thing (went to best buy), though I wasn't actually there to buy Doom 3, I just happened to run into the giant display full of copies of the game (which they set down in the middle of the aisle between the computer stuff and the PDAs) when I was on my way to buy a USB hub and wireless adapter. If the game stores don't have copies for people that didn't pre-order, then they should be losing sales to stores that do (since Best Buy was also doing pre-orders and had plenty of copies on the floor).
Actually, it's been a while since multiplayer games were a "niche" martket. They have since replaced SP FPSes as the dominant force in the market.
Right, which is why less than 10% of the copies of Half-Life sold were actually played online, despite it having mods that became the most-played online FPS games at various times, even long after its release.
I'm going to play through the game because I bought it, but after 7 hours today of gaming (with breaks), I can honestly say that Doom 3 isn't much to write home about. It better get real good, real fast for it to not be a total waste of my time.
Why, exactly, would you spend 7 hours in one day playing a game you aren't enjoying? I played it for perhaps 2 hours yesterday and was actually enjoying it quite a bit, which is probably the first time I can say that about a PC FPS in quite some time (at least in single player mode). On the other hand, I found the beginning of the game (before you get a weapon) an uninspiring knock-off of Half-Life (a game which I didn't like before TFC came out).
Graphically, Farcry beat D3 to the punch, but neither have me raving.
I haven't played Farcry yet, unfortunately, but I'd have to say that I've found the few examples of interesting graphics to be more along the lines of "we stuck this into the level to show off this effect for E3 demos". On the other hand, these were mostly lighting effects, and in the end the contrast between light and dark is really what makes this game possible.
Personally, I've found the game-play enjoyable, but haven't even tried to push the graphics beyond 1024x768 @ Medium, yet, as my graphics card is not absolutely top-of-the-line and the CPU is over 2 years old. Besides, it plays great at those levels, and it's been a while since I cared enough to go spend $500+ getting my computer up to snuff for a $50 game that plays fine on what I already have.
Square-Enix on the other hand gives us FFXII, Dragon Warrior 8, and FFTA which was basically the same game as FFT.
Never mind FF XI, Front Mission 4, Drakengard, FF:Crystal Chronicles, and so on, then... Besides, in the PS1 later years/PS2 Launch period, they also gave us Bushido Blade 2, FF VIII, FF IX, and eventually FF X. Beyond that, if FFT and FFTA are basically the same game, then Front Mission 4 may as well be lumped right in with them (and, of course, Front Mission 3).
Realistically, Square-Enix has barely had time to develop into something beyond Squaresoft and Enix moving management into the same building.
Are these games even sold anymore?
I don't see Doom around much any more, but almost every game store that still sells PC games has a copy of Quake (full version) laying around for $5 or $10. Hardly the kind of money to justify piracy, even for those that can justify pirating games in the first place.
If you're going to buy the game then WTF is the point of using FreeDoom or some other version when you have the real thing?
The primary purpose of most of these releases is to extend the engine in one way or another. Often they add improved graphics and modifications to the control capabilities (especially with Doom ports, which may add mouselook and jumping, for example). In many cases you'll want to replace much of the original content anyway to take advantage of the additions to the engine.
Then, of course, there's the fact that both of these games were originally written for DOS. Although Windows (and Linux, and Mac) versions were released, they can often be harder to find, while a source port may run better anyway.
It's not full adult, it's having reached a minimum level of rationality. If it weren't an age limit, it'd be periodic, mandatory testing. Which do you prefer?
Somehow I prefer the idea of periodic mandatory testing. Still, I have two primary questions:
1) When would testing begin (and how often would it be done)?
2) What do you do with the people over 18 that can't show a minimum level of rationality (and how do you determine if they've tricked the test, which could go for those that pass it under age, as well)?
#1 would reintroduce some arbitrary numbers into the system, and #2 introduces some issues with priviledges and rights that are given to people at certain ages. After all, if someone doesn't show a minimum level of rationality, should they be allowed to drive? vote? buy tobacco? consume alcohol?
In the end, we're stuck with arbitrary numbers that make little sense. Even the testing itself would introduce fairly arbitrary numbers unless the scores required were adjusted periodically according to the levels generally found in the population.
They question the above poster was posing is why?
The poster answered the question himself quite well, but then contradicted himself. Additionally, your quote is not of someone at MS, but of the author of the article. As I pointed out in my own post, MS already shipped the very same GNU software with commercial software, as they sold the Interix package before the SFU 3.5 release that made it free (as in beer).
I think it was simply the use of references to religions I'm not deeply familiar with (Christianity, Hindu) in very specific ways (Jesus alongside Old Testament prophets, movement along the spiritual ranking of souls) that threw me off. It's always nice to see the inter-relations between the various religions, but in the end, it's more important to get the point across clearly.