It's kind of hard to explain, but it's a good game. This is coming from someone who really hates learning new card games and such.
You can also learn it fairly quickly, because there aren't too many rules to it. I usually have to re-learn it every time I play (because it's usually months or even years between times when I'm with the members of my family that have this game), but it always comes back fairly quickly. I think I might pick it up myself sometime soon, as it's been quite a while since I last played.
Rummikub is a fun Rummy-based tile game, as well, and can be found in most stores that carry board games (toysrus.com/amazon has it, as well). I grew up playing it with my family, so I would imagine a few people probably already have it.
Attachment rate is actually a very poor measure, mainly because it is incredibly skewed by people that own a system and buy a mere handful of games in the system's lifespan. As I've said in similar arguments before, everyone and their mama owns a PS2, a GTA game, and a Madden game.
That's the attachment rate for games, though. I believe we were specifically talking about the attachment rate for the online adapter. In other words, 10% of the people that own an XBox have bought a Live subscription. Oh, and I have a PS2, 2 GTA games, and have never owned a Madden game (just played the newest one shortly after it came out, and really didn't find any reason for it to be considered any better than even Microsoft's football game from last year).
The people that play online are largely the same people that buy dozens of games for their systems.
It'd be interesting to see whether or not that's true. I currently have probably 3 dozen PS2 games, and not one of them has an online component. I have probably 1/3rd as many XBox games and 1 of them has online play and another is Live aware (for downloadable content). That's just a personal note, though. My youngest step-brother was the first person I knew to put a PS2 online, and I'm not sure how many online games he has (at the time there was only one, an off-road ATV game).
Funny how, in a press release explaining SOCOM 2 shattering a sales record, the first quote out of an SCEA representative's mouth was: "With SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, we have created one of the most intense and complete online experiences available on any console or personal computer".
Clearly, Sony understands. As does Microsoft.
Yes, though Sony's claim is hyperbole, especially when they include the PC. It is quite clear that although SOCOM II has a larger percentage of it's players online than Half-Life, the latter has still put far more players online. And that example is just one of many.
Re:does this strike anyone else as useless?
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Exactly. I recently picked up the Windows XP Annoyances book, and though most of the things in there (so far) have been either obvious or things I really don't care about, I have found a few more detailed and in-depth items that are useful, as well as some links to some shareware that might prove useful.
OReilly also released a Windows XP pocket reference which I may start picking up for everyone I know getting started on that OS that doesn't have much experience with computers (or just doesn't seem to learn). The book starts with the very basics (like what is left- and right- and double- click and what do they do), but goes onto some nice detail on the command line utilities and registry entries. Well worth $10-12 a pop if even half the people I give it to actually answer some of their own questions with it.
now if he ponys up and gets hammered too then i'll win BUT...if he decides to play strategically and plays against me sober, he's got a shot.
I haven't tried playing this one while drunk, but either I was always better at Super Mario Kart (SNES) when I was drunk or everyone else just got a lot worse than I did when we were drunk. Since it was basically one of the two games we always played when we got together to get smashed, I really couldn't say anything more.
That being said, I should have a review of Mario Kart: DD up tomorrow morning, on the same site as this article;)
I disagree with you about the one shot, one kill nature of DoD.
You're disagreeing with something he never said;) He mentioned one-kill rounds, which refers to Counterstrike, where you die and you're out, and rounds last maybe 5 minutes.
Personally, I only play CS in LAN games, where I can have a good laugh with someone when I die, and watch the game progress over people's shoulders while I'm dead rather than trying to spectate (if the server allows it at all). I haven't even tried an HL mod in a couple of years, anyway, and spent most of my time playing TFC, which has completely different methods for encouraging teamplay (which most people seem to forget anyway).
He does have a point about the attachment rate, though. Even if you look at PC games, the only ones that have a better ratio of online users to purchases are the MMO games, and there's a good chance that Blizzard does better than the FPS games.
Half-Life has long been the most popular FPS online, and has never had more than 1% of their CDKeys online at any one time, with a total that might run as high as 5% (considering 7 million sales in the US, it's a better number than it might seem, but not a large return on investment).
Console games have a bigger potential audience, and it looks like the attach rate for online play may be higher (though with the online purchase not being attached to a particular game in the case of Live or adapters for the PS2 and GC that could be a misleading statistic). The question is whether or not people are ready to put their consoles online and play the games online. I really don't think you're going to see a definitive answer until the next generation, especially if one of the next-gen consoles comes with a broadband adapter standard and free online play on at least some titles. For the standard single-/multi- player games PC developers found that multiplayer will be a feature that sells titles but isn't used by most of the player base, meaning that charging your users doesn't work. On the other hand you have the MMO model, which works great for pulling in money if you can get it right.
Still, I would've loved to have seen online play for Mario Kart, but it didn't happen, and I knew it wasn't going to happen before I even pre-ordered the game (granted I pre-ordered the day before it came out, when there were already reviews from the major game sites). It's not like I have to play online to play multiplayer, it would just be nice when there's no one else around.
As a reminder, remember when the DC (District of Columbia, not Dreamcast) sniper was running loose?
Just a side note: when I turned on the local news to check the weather this morning, the sniper trial news came on (this trial is being held in the city where I work, the trial of the other guy involved was held nearby), I saw a nice sketch of the sniper as well as images labelled 'Matrix' and 'Ghost Recon'. Apparently now his defense is 'The Matrix made me do it and Ghost Recon showed me how, but really I'm crazy and the other guy convinced me to do it'.
Just a little heads up that the mass media might be talking about games again by the end of the day. Or maybe they'll just skip it.
Baldur's Gate doesn't get a mention because it was developed by Bioware and published by Black Isle. Therefore, Black Isle didn't develop BG, and it doesn't get mentioned, except by the 50% or so of the people here that don't seem to know who created BG and it's engine.
I guess KOTOR, the Legacy of Kain series, Eternal Darkness, every Metroid game, Whiplash, and BloodRayne 2 don't count, eh? And those are just the ones I've actually played or am looking forward to.
KOTOR and some of the Kain titles are the only ones on that list that've been released for the PC. Even those sold better on the consoles. Perhaps you may want to try again?
While the multiplayer/MMO market is sizeable, I think that companies who bet on it to the detriment of all single-player games are going to lose in a big way.
Sony's pretty much bet the farm on the MMO market, but only because they hit the jackpot out of the gate (EQ). EQ and the licensing fees for PS2 games is keeping Sony's entire business afloat. KOTOR is the first Star Wars game on the PC in a while that has done well without being an FPS.
A lot of people (including myself) are interested in playing through a story-based scenario at our own pace, not hunting up loot and levelling for 8 hours a day or playing FPS/RTS games on the same maps over and over.
That pretty much sums up why I have a DreamCast, PS2, GameCube, and XBox. My PC's still powerful enough to handle any game I've thrown at it, but I haven't bought a PC game in almost 6 months, whereas I buy console games at least once a month (several at a time). I would be perfectly happy to play PC games if they weren't all WW2 and counterterrorist wannabe-realistic FPS games at the moment.
The only reason I buied a new PC instead of a console was, because I like to play with my clan on LAN-Parties. I wonder how long until Console will catch up there and provide Consoles with Lan-Party "Support"
They already do. Halo supports play over LAN on the XBox, PS2 games can use the network adapter for LAN play, and Nintendo's shipped two titles (Mario Kart and Kirby's Air Ride) that support LAN play. Of course, you have to have a TV for each console, but then a 20" TV costs a hell of a lot less than a 20" monitor (and you can usually find someone with a couple of TVs large enough for split screen play for 2-4 players).
The only real question is when it will become standard for games to support LAN connections, rather than being either single player only or internet play being the only option for the network connection. The practice of putting 2-4 controller ports on a console and supporting them in most games has pretty much put consoles on a slightly different track from PCs when it comes to multiplayer gaming, as PC gaming had the LAN games first, and then people tunneled them over the internet until internet support became standard.
I know that even the XBox is easier to bring around to a LAN party than my computer (though with some of the newer form factors that can be changed).
Just a note that it takes a bit of work to get Fallout 1 working under Win2k or XP, but Fallout 2 seems to work just fine. You might also be able to find the games in the bargain games section of WalMart, depending on local stock, or at some game stores, depending on how much of their old PC game stock they've kept around (used to be able to get a lot of old games at EBGames and GameStop, but they seem to be shifting towards consoles now).
It's not like the resulting barrels of lard can actually get anywhere carrying a weapon. "Oh no, it's a gun, let's run". Everyone leaves room, fat kid with gun passes out trying to chase them down.
Except, as anyone in the south can attest, the need of the obese to commit violence is quite possibly the reason that guns were invented in the first place. After all, who's a fat kid with a knife going to harm? Bullets can outrun people regardless of what shape they're in, fat kids can't.
Why not just collect the names of the 50% of parents who's children don't think they understand the ratings and put them on a black list? The retailers will then be forbidden to sell these people or their children *any* games or other merchandise until the parents have attended a 4-hour lecture on game ratings which includes a visual tour of the footage that is most often attributed to those ratings (I'm talking about the scenes from Manhunt here for the M rating since parents don't seem to get it, though most would agree Manhunt should have been AO, then find some hentai game for that AO footage). Then play back some different footage at the end of the lecture as a quiz, forcing them to identify the ratings of 5 different games from each rating group based on that footage (which, of course, would make them better at this than I am, which is perfectly fine by me, since I actually play the games before I recommend them to any parent for their children).
If you can get WalMart behind this plan, we'll really be set, because then some poor soccer mom will have to sit through this crap just to get that cheap blouse she saw in the Sunday ads.
How come the rating system is E, Y, M, AO or instead of G, PG, PG-13, R? (I would assume that it has something to do with the MPOAA not allowing it.)
The MPAA owns the trademark to the G - NC-17 ratings. Current IP law requires trademark owners to pursue all infringement of trademarks in court, or risk losing those trademarks. Further, if the MPAA lost their trademarks, any movie could be put on a shelf with a G rating on the box, and no one could stop them (except maybe a class-action lawsuit from the parents of children that were set in front of Debbie Does Dallas because the parents were too stupid to realize it was rated G for G-string-eating-lesbian-action).
It does point out that most of the children spend as much time outside of school in front of the TV (watching TV and playing games) as most adults spend at a full-time job. Combine that with the fact that they have to sit still all day at school (with maybe an hour dedicated to PE, which still isn't an hour of activity), and you have a whole lot of kids that don't move much except their thumbs, and that particular activity only accounts for about 1/5th of the time they spend in front of the TV.
Yes, children do need to eat healthier and be more active, but the article isn't pointing specifically at video games for this, just pointing out that it's one of many (and not even the biggest part of) activities children do which aren't very active, and which take up most of their time outside of school.
During this year we conducted the largest student survey in the history of the report card. 778 students in grades four through twelve representing public and private schools in urban, suburban and rural areas throughout the country took part. The average age was 13.5. Key findings included:... Only 50% of parents understand the ratings according to students.
No follow-up to find out if the parents actually did understand the ratings? I know my gf's younger brother thinks he understands the ratings better than anyone else, especially when it comes to something rated R or M ('Im not supposed to watch that', he makes a very big deal about the fact that someone is letting him watch something rated R or play something rated M, even if his parents have looked at it and decided it's ok for him, because they are concerned about such things). I could understand if 50% of parents don't understand video game ratings, IF the people that were actually polled were the parents themselves. Asking the students if their parents understood the ratings, though, is just another bs statistic.
# 77% of boys own M-rated games with one in five reporting that they purchased an M-rated game without their parent's knowledge.
So the obvious question is, were they simply boasting about being able to buy an M-rated game without their parents knowing about it? Actually, I see 20% of 77% as a pretty good number considering how bad some other studies have tried to make this seem. Then again, with most of the respondants being under 16 and some of them being 17 or older, you have to wonder what percentage of those under 17 own M-rated games and how many bought them without their parents knowing. How did someone under 16 get the money for a game? (ok, I admit that I had some under the table jobs as a kid, but my parents still knew about them).
# Only one out of five students report that their parents have ever prevented them from purchasing a game because of its rating.
How many of the ones that weren't prevented included those parents that understood the ratings? Letting a teenager have an M-rated game can be as much a sign of understanding the rating and knowing the game is ok as not understanding/caring.
The implications of this large survey show that retail enforcement and parent education need improvement. Parent education, however, is not enough if they do not understand the need to observe the ratings. Parent education about the ratings need to include the answer to the question "Why pay attention to ratings?"
Well, this is about the most obvious statement (the last two sentences) I've ever seen. If the parents don't understand the need to pay attention to the ratings, then they have not been properly educated in the first place. It's not simply a matter of telling them that games have ratings, it's also a matter of letting them know that we're not talking about Pac-Man and Space Invaders here.
Overall, I can't say I disagree with a lot of what they actually have to say here, I just think that they put forward some misleading numbers. Overall, parents do need to be educated about the ratings system, and it needs to be made clear to them that these ratings are in place for the same reason that movie ratings are in place. They need to realize that games can put images on the screen every bit as detailed as many movies, and that they involve their children through interaction. In other words, parents that won't let their kids view R-rated movies shouldn't be letting their kids play M-rated games, and in any case parents should be aware of what their kids are watching or playing.
See also: the popularity of solid-state media players because they are never affected by movement.
The interesting thing about this, imo, is that I have an MP3 CD player that I bought specifically to use in my car, and it is completely useless for normal CDs (my car is not exactly a smooth ride), but has never had a problem when playing back MP3s (it uses something like a 2MB buffer, which is quite a bit for an MP3 file, but is ~1/10th as effective for standard CD playback). I've certainly used much better portable CD players in my time, even significantly older ones, so I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem or not.
quick, tell me why my launch PS2 runs perfectly fine, even though i've spent countless thousands of gaming hours on it, and i've never sent it back to sony for anything.
I'm wondering the same thing, as I've never had a problem with mine, but I've heard enough to worry about it. My question, though, is do you have a DVD player? I'm guessing that most of the problems have been coming from people that are using their systems for more than just gaming, and I'm obviously worried because instead of just buying a cheap DVD/CD player to replace some broken items, I've just been using the PS2 (I have a DVD player in the bedroom, but I bought it to replace a broken VCR, as it's a VHS combo player).
not to mention the fact that none of my Friends have had any problems with any of their PS2s. the Problem really isn't as big as the media likes to hype it up to be
One of my friends rigged up a filter because he found that if he played the same game for a long time he would get dust and scratches on his disc, even though it had only been in the PS2 the whole time. My step-brother's first PS2 wouldn't read DVDs, so he traded it in for another one. Neither my friend nor I have a launch PS2, but the one my step-brother bought that couldn't read DVDs was a launch PS2, and it was a factory defect. Frankly, I don't see a lot of media hype, I heard about the problems when I spent a good part of a day hanging out in a game store (my girlfriend works at a mall and I was waiting for her). 4 people bought either a new PS2 or an XBox within a few hours mentioning that their PS2 had been getting disc read errors. The person working at the store even mentioned that if it worked even once in a while it might be worth bringing in because the store would buy it from them if it worked when they tested it.
i've heard just as much complaining about the X-Box's reliability as i have for the PS2. the GC is pretty solid though.
Maybe I missed it, but it really doesn't seem as pervasive. Part of that is probably just the simple fact of numbers, since the PS2 has been out longer and has sold so many more consoles. Then again, I work in a weird mix of people, so I actually know more XBox owners than PS2 owners (by a significant margin, too).
This sounds like a fairly minor problem, one in which a small parrt of the game ceases to function coorrectly after the player has played the game for a *year!*. And Nintendo are going to absorb a massive cost to fix this!
Note that it's not after the player has 'played' the game for a year, but rather a year after the player first played it. It's mostly a semantic issue, but the player doesn't really have to have played the game long, they just have to have had it for a long time, and played it at least once soon after they got it.
There are many PC titles released this year which did not function correctly out of the box (including ETM, Halo, DE2, etc etc etc...). They have had varying levels of support which range from "deplorable" to "barely scraping through". Maybe some of these titles will be fixed over the next six months, maybe not. But one might argue that the cost of diistrivutting upadtes to PC consumers is far less than that to GBA players, so one might aargue patches to fix major, much less minor issues would be far more readily available.
The real difference is with the hardware. When you release a GBA game, you have 3 hardware platforms to support, and they are functionally equivalent (in other words, a GBA, GBA-SP, and GB Player should all work the same way anyway). When you release a PC game, you have no idea what the end-user will have, so you test for what you can afford. On the other hand, replacing a few million Pokemon carts is a lot more expensive than emailing a few news sites the FTP to download a patch the nite before you let the whole world know that your patch is ready, and then paying for the bandwidth while your server gets crushed by the load (then again, maybe that's only Half-Life, which outsold any Pokemon game anyway).
The NES did not have custom CPUs. It did have a universe of different ways to do bank switching (mappers) though.
The MMC5 chip had a math module and replaced some other CPU functions (though admittedly most of it is simple things like the clock). Konami developed an LS1 chip that produced better sound and graphics. Of course most of the MMC chips were just that, Memory Mapping Chips.
The SNES on the other hand, had many games with custom chips (SuperFX, etc). This can be read about here.
The point still stands, although the NES was the system in which Nintendo and it's various developers (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party) learned that they could use hardware in the cartridge to massage the data before sending it to the console (thereby making the game look and sound better), the SNES is where they really made significant gains in this. That being said, these chips cost money, and I still remember paying $60-70 for certain NES games because of this and the large chunks (relatively speaking) of memory needed for some save games.
To keep to the point, Nintendo will most likely have to replace the cartridges. The ROM in GBA cartridges is pretty fast, since most of the code is run directly from the ROM. Flash chips with that kind of performance is prohibitively expensive for games that cost about $40.
Exactly, the cost of fast ROM chips that they could simply flash would be prohibitive. That being said, it is possible that they found a method that could load the fix onto existing carts through saved games or that they have additional space for the patch in the same RAM that holds the saves. It's still much more likely that they'd simply move the saved games over to a new cart with the patch applied and then bury all the old carts or recycle any reusable parts.
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It's kind of hard to explain, but it's a good game. This is coming from someone who really hates learning new card games and such.
You can also learn it fairly quickly, because there aren't too many rules to it. I usually have to re-learn it every time I play (because it's usually months or even years between times when I'm with the members of my family that have this game), but it always comes back fairly quickly. I think I might pick it up myself sometime soon, as it's been quite a while since I last played.
Oops, I also just noticed that it's a Spiel des Jahres from 1980.
Rummikub is a fun Rummy-based tile game, as well, and can be found in most stores that carry board games (toysrus.com/amazon has it, as well). I grew up playing it with my family, so I would imagine a few people probably already have it.
So then the real question is, do people from the UK realize how offended some people are at being called Yanks?
Attachment rate is actually a very poor measure, mainly because it is incredibly skewed by people that own a system and buy a mere handful of games in the system's lifespan. As I've said in similar arguments before, everyone and their mama owns a PS2, a GTA game, and a Madden game.
That's the attachment rate for games, though. I believe we were specifically talking about the attachment rate for the online adapter. In other words, 10% of the people that own an XBox have bought a Live subscription. Oh, and I have a PS2, 2 GTA games, and have never owned a Madden game (just played the newest one shortly after it came out, and really didn't find any reason for it to be considered any better than even Microsoft's football game from last year).
The people that play online are largely the same people that buy dozens of games for their systems.
It'd be interesting to see whether or not that's true. I currently have probably 3 dozen PS2 games, and not one of them has an online component. I have probably 1/3rd as many XBox games and 1 of them has online play and another is Live aware (for downloadable content). That's just a personal note, though. My youngest step-brother was the first person I knew to put a PS2 online, and I'm not sure how many online games he has (at the time there was only one, an off-road ATV game).
Funny how, in a press release explaining SOCOM 2 shattering a sales record, the first quote out of an SCEA representative's mouth was: "With SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, we have created one of the most intense and complete online experiences available on any console or personal computer".
Clearly, Sony understands. As does Microsoft.
Yes, though Sony's claim is hyperbole, especially when they include the PC. It is quite clear that although SOCOM II has a larger percentage of it's players online than Half-Life, the latter has still put far more players online. And that example is just one of many.
Exactly. I recently picked up the Windows XP Annoyances book, and though most of the things in there (so far) have been either obvious or things I really don't care about, I have found a few more detailed and in-depth items that are useful, as well as some links to some shareware that might prove useful.
OReilly also released a Windows XP pocket reference which I may start picking up for everyone I know getting started on that OS that doesn't have much experience with computers (or just doesn't seem to learn). The book starts with the very basics (like what is left- and right- and double- click and what do they do), but goes onto some nice detail on the command line utilities and registry entries. Well worth $10-12 a pop if even half the people I give it to actually answer some of their own questions with it.
now if he ponys up and gets hammered too then i'll win BUT...if he decides to play strategically and plays against me sober, he's got a shot.
;)
I haven't tried playing this one while drunk, but either I was always better at Super Mario Kart (SNES) when I was drunk or everyone else just got a lot worse than I did when we were drunk. Since it was basically one of the two games we always played when we got together to get smashed, I really couldn't say anything more.
That being said, I should have a review of Mario Kart: DD up tomorrow morning, on the same site as this article
I disagree with you about the one shot, one kill nature of DoD.
;) He mentioned one-kill rounds, which refers to Counterstrike, where you die and you're out, and rounds last maybe 5 minutes.
You're disagreeing with something he never said
Personally, I only play CS in LAN games, where I can have a good laugh with someone when I die, and watch the game progress over people's shoulders while I'm dead rather than trying to spectate (if the server allows it at all). I haven't even tried an HL mod in a couple of years, anyway, and spent most of my time playing TFC, which has completely different methods for encouraging teamplay (which most people seem to forget anyway).
He does have a point about the attachment rate, though. Even if you look at PC games, the only ones that have a better ratio of online users to purchases are the MMO games, and there's a good chance that Blizzard does better than the FPS games.
Half-Life has long been the most popular FPS online, and has never had more than 1% of their CDKeys online at any one time, with a total that might run as high as 5% (considering 7 million sales in the US, it's a better number than it might seem, but not a large return on investment).
Console games have a bigger potential audience, and it looks like the attach rate for online play may be higher (though with the online purchase not being attached to a particular game in the case of Live or adapters for the PS2 and GC that could be a misleading statistic). The question is whether or not people are ready to put their consoles online and play the games online. I really don't think you're going to see a definitive answer until the next generation, especially if one of the next-gen consoles comes with a broadband adapter standard and free online play on at least some titles. For the standard single-/multi- player games PC developers found that multiplayer will be a feature that sells titles but isn't used by most of the player base, meaning that charging your users doesn't work. On the other hand you have the MMO model, which works great for pulling in money if you can get it right.
Still, I would've loved to have seen online play for Mario Kart, but it didn't happen, and I knew it wasn't going to happen before I even pre-ordered the game (granted I pre-ordered the day before it came out, when there were already reviews from the major game sites). It's not like I have to play online to play multiplayer, it would just be nice when there's no one else around.
As a reminder, remember when the DC (District of Columbia, not Dreamcast) sniper was running loose?
Just a side note: when I turned on the local news to check the weather this morning, the sniper trial news came on (this trial is being held in the city where I work, the trial of the other guy involved was held nearby), I saw a nice sketch of the sniper as well as images labelled 'Matrix' and 'Ghost Recon'. Apparently now his defense is 'The Matrix made me do it and Ghost Recon showed me how, but really I'm crazy and the other guy convinced me to do it'.
Just a little heads up that the mass media might be talking about games again by the end of the day. Or maybe they'll just skip it.
Baldur's Gate doesn't get a mention because it was developed by Bioware and published by Black Isle. Therefore, Black Isle didn't develop BG, and it doesn't get mentioned, except by the 50% or so of the people here that don't seem to know who created BG and it's engine.
"Wowa... hold on a second boys, that plot has people having an emotional reaction. Can we dumb this down a little?"
Which is more or less what Interplay did, and why we've got Fallout Tactics and the coming Fallout BoS and even BoS 2 starting development.
I bought it at WalMart and still see it there from time to time in the cheap section.
I guess KOTOR, the Legacy of Kain series, Eternal Darkness, every Metroid game, Whiplash, and BloodRayne 2 don't count, eh? And those are just the ones I've actually played or am looking forward to.
KOTOR and some of the Kain titles are the only ones on that list that've been released for the PC. Even those sold better on the consoles. Perhaps you may want to try again?
While the multiplayer/MMO market is sizeable, I think that companies who bet on it to the detriment of all single-player games are going to lose in a big way.
Sony's pretty much bet the farm on the MMO market, but only because they hit the jackpot out of the gate (EQ). EQ and the licensing fees for PS2 games is keeping Sony's entire business afloat. KOTOR is the first Star Wars game on the PC in a while that has done well without being an FPS.
A lot of people (including myself) are interested in playing through a story-based scenario at our own pace, not hunting up loot and levelling for 8 hours a day or playing FPS/RTS games on the same maps over and over.
That pretty much sums up why I have a DreamCast, PS2, GameCube, and XBox. My PC's still powerful enough to handle any game I've thrown at it, but I haven't bought a PC game in almost 6 months, whereas I buy console games at least once a month (several at a time). I would be perfectly happy to play PC games if they weren't all WW2 and counterterrorist wannabe-realistic FPS games at the moment.
The only reason I buied a new PC instead of a console was, because I like to play with my clan on LAN-Parties. I wonder how long until Console will catch up there and provide Consoles with Lan-Party "Support"
They already do. Halo supports play over LAN on the XBox, PS2 games can use the network adapter for LAN play, and Nintendo's shipped two titles (Mario Kart and Kirby's Air Ride) that support LAN play. Of course, you have to have a TV for each console, but then a 20" TV costs a hell of a lot less than a 20" monitor (and you can usually find someone with a couple of TVs large enough for split screen play for 2-4 players).
The only real question is when it will become standard for games to support LAN connections, rather than being either single player only or internet play being the only option for the network connection. The practice of putting 2-4 controller ports on a console and supporting them in most games has pretty much put consoles on a slightly different track from PCs when it comes to multiplayer gaming, as PC gaming had the LAN games first, and then people tunneled them over the internet until internet support became standard.
I know that even the XBox is easier to bring around to a LAN party than my computer (though with some of the newer form factors that can be changed).
Just a note that it takes a bit of work to get Fallout 1 working under Win2k or XP, but Fallout 2 seems to work just fine. You might also be able to find the games in the bargain games section of WalMart, depending on local stock, or at some game stores, depending on how much of their old PC game stock they've kept around (used to be able to get a lot of old games at EBGames and GameStop, but they seem to be shifting towards consoles now).
It's not like the resulting barrels of lard can actually get anywhere carrying a weapon. "Oh no, it's a gun, let's run". Everyone leaves room, fat kid with gun passes out trying to chase them down.
Except, as anyone in the south can attest, the need of the obese to commit violence is quite possibly the reason that guns were invented in the first place. After all, who's a fat kid with a knife going to harm? Bullets can outrun people regardless of what shape they're in, fat kids can't.
Why not just collect the names of the 50% of parents who's children don't think they understand the ratings and put them on a black list? The retailers will then be forbidden to sell these people or their children *any* games or other merchandise until the parents have attended a 4-hour lecture on game ratings which includes a visual tour of the footage that is most often attributed to those ratings (I'm talking about the scenes from Manhunt here for the M rating since parents don't seem to get it, though most would agree Manhunt should have been AO, then find some hentai game for that AO footage). Then play back some different footage at the end of the lecture as a quiz, forcing them to identify the ratings of 5 different games from each rating group based on that footage (which, of course, would make them better at this than I am, which is perfectly fine by me, since I actually play the games before I recommend them to any parent for their children).
If you can get WalMart behind this plan, we'll really be set, because then some poor soccer mom will have to sit through this crap just to get that cheap blouse she saw in the Sunday ads.
How come the rating system is E, Y, M, AO or instead of G, PG, PG-13, R? (I would assume that it has something to do with the MPOAA not allowing it.)
The MPAA owns the trademark to the G - NC-17 ratings. Current IP law requires trademark owners to pursue all infringement of trademarks in court, or risk losing those trademarks. Further, if the MPAA lost their trademarks, any movie could be put on a shelf with a G rating on the box, and no one could stop them (except maybe a class-action lawsuit from the parents of children that were set in front of Debbie Does Dallas because the parents were too stupid to realize it was rated G for G-string-eating-lesbian-action).
It does point out that most of the children spend as much time outside of school in front of the TV (watching TV and playing games) as most adults spend at a full-time job. Combine that with the fact that they have to sit still all day at school (with maybe an hour dedicated to PE, which still isn't an hour of activity), and you have a whole lot of kids that don't move much except their thumbs, and that particular activity only accounts for about 1/5th of the time they spend in front of the TV.
Yes, children do need to eat healthier and be more active, but the article isn't pointing specifically at video games for this, just pointing out that it's one of many (and not even the biggest part of) activities children do which aren't very active, and which take up most of their time outside of school.
During this year we conducted the largest student survey in the history of the report card. 778 students in grades four through twelve representing public and private schools in urban, suburban and rural areas throughout the country took part. The average age was 13.5. Key findings included: ...
Only 50% of parents understand the ratings according to students.
No follow-up to find out if the parents actually did understand the ratings? I know my gf's younger brother thinks he understands the ratings better than anyone else, especially when it comes to something rated R or M ('Im not supposed to watch that', he makes a very big deal about the fact that someone is letting him watch something rated R or play something rated M, even if his parents have looked at it and decided it's ok for him, because they are concerned about such things). I could understand if 50% of parents don't understand video game ratings, IF the people that were actually polled were the parents themselves. Asking the students if their parents understood the ratings, though, is just another bs statistic.
# 77% of boys own M-rated games with one in five reporting that they purchased an M-rated game without their parent's knowledge.
So the obvious question is, were they simply boasting about being able to buy an M-rated game without their parents knowing about it? Actually, I see 20% of 77% as a pretty good number considering how bad some other studies have tried to make this seem. Then again, with most of the respondants being under 16 and some of them being 17 or older, you have to wonder what percentage of those under 17 own M-rated games and how many bought them without their parents knowing. How did someone under 16 get the money for a game? (ok, I admit that I had some under the table jobs as a kid, but my parents still knew about them).
# Only one out of five students report that their parents have ever prevented them from purchasing a game because of its rating.
How many of the ones that weren't prevented included those parents that understood the ratings? Letting a teenager have an M-rated game can be as much a sign of understanding the rating and knowing the game is ok as not understanding/caring.
The implications of this large survey show that retail enforcement and parent education need improvement. Parent education, however, is not enough if they do not understand the need to observe the ratings. Parent education about the ratings need to include the answer to the question "Why pay attention to ratings?"
Well, this is about the most obvious statement (the last two sentences) I've ever seen. If the parents don't understand the need to pay attention to the ratings, then they have not been properly educated in the first place. It's not simply a matter of telling them that games have ratings, it's also a matter of letting them know that we're not talking about Pac-Man and Space Invaders here.
Overall, I can't say I disagree with a lot of what they actually have to say here, I just think that they put forward some misleading numbers. Overall, parents do need to be educated about the ratings system, and it needs to be made clear to them that these ratings are in place for the same reason that movie ratings are in place. They need to realize that games can put images on the screen every bit as detailed as many movies, and that they involve their children through interaction. In other words, parents that won't let their kids view R-rated movies shouldn't be letting their kids play M-rated games, and in any case parents should be aware of what their kids are watching or playing.
See also: the popularity of solid-state media players because they are never affected by movement.
The interesting thing about this, imo, is that I have an MP3 CD player that I bought specifically to use in my car, and it is completely useless for normal CDs (my car is not exactly a smooth ride), but has never had a problem when playing back MP3s (it uses something like a 2MB buffer, which is quite a bit for an MP3 file, but is ~1/10th as effective for standard CD playback). I've certainly used much better portable CD players in my time, even significantly older ones, so I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem or not.
quick, tell me why my launch PS2 runs perfectly fine, even though i've spent countless thousands of gaming hours on it, and i've never sent it back to sony for anything.
I'm wondering the same thing, as I've never had a problem with mine, but I've heard enough to worry about it. My question, though, is do you have a DVD player? I'm guessing that most of the problems have been coming from people that are using their systems for more than just gaming, and I'm obviously worried because instead of just buying a cheap DVD/CD player to replace some broken items, I've just been using the PS2 (I have a DVD player in the bedroom, but I bought it to replace a broken VCR, as it's a VHS combo player).
not to mention the fact that none of my Friends have had any problems with any of their PS2s. the Problem really isn't as big as the media likes to hype it up to be
One of my friends rigged up a filter because he found that if he played the same game for a long time he would get dust and scratches on his disc, even though it had only been in the PS2 the whole time. My step-brother's first PS2 wouldn't read DVDs, so he traded it in for another one. Neither my friend nor I have a launch PS2, but the one my step-brother bought that couldn't read DVDs was a launch PS2, and it was a factory defect. Frankly, I don't see a lot of media hype, I heard about the problems when I spent a good part of a day hanging out in a game store (my girlfriend works at a mall and I was waiting for her). 4 people bought either a new PS2 or an XBox within a few hours mentioning that their PS2 had been getting disc read errors. The person working at the store even mentioned that if it worked even once in a while it might be worth bringing in because the store would buy it from them if it worked when they tested it.
i've heard just as much complaining about the X-Box's reliability as i have for the PS2. the GC is pretty solid though.
Maybe I missed it, but it really doesn't seem as pervasive. Part of that is probably just the simple fact of numbers, since the PS2 has been out longer and has sold so many more consoles. Then again, I work in a weird mix of people, so I actually know more XBox owners than PS2 owners (by a significant margin, too).
This sounds like a fairly minor problem, one in which a small parrt of the game ceases to function coorrectly after the player has played the game for a *year!*. And Nintendo are going to absorb a massive cost to fix this!
Note that it's not after the player has 'played' the game for a year, but rather a year after the player first played it. It's mostly a semantic issue, but the player doesn't really have to have played the game long, they just have to have had it for a long time, and played it at least once soon after they got it.
There are many PC titles released this year which did not function correctly out of the box (including ETM, Halo, DE2, etc etc etc...). They have had varying levels of support which range from "deplorable" to "barely scraping through". Maybe some of these titles will be fixed over the next six months, maybe not. But one might argue that the cost of diistrivutting upadtes to PC consumers is far less than that to GBA players, so one might aargue patches to fix major, much less minor issues would be far more readily available.
The real difference is with the hardware. When you release a GBA game, you have 3 hardware platforms to support, and they are functionally equivalent (in other words, a GBA, GBA-SP, and GB Player should all work the same way anyway). When you release a PC game, you have no idea what the end-user will have, so you test for what you can afford. On the other hand, replacing a few million Pokemon carts is a lot more expensive than emailing a few news sites the FTP to download a patch the nite before you let the whole world know that your patch is ready, and then paying for the bandwidth while your server gets crushed by the load (then again, maybe that's only Half-Life, which outsold any Pokemon game anyway).
The NES did not have custom CPUs. It did have a universe of different ways to do bank switching (mappers) though.
The MMC5 chip had a math module and replaced some other CPU functions (though admittedly most of it is simple things like the clock). Konami developed an LS1 chip that produced better sound and graphics. Of course most of the MMC chips were just that, Memory Mapping Chips.
The SNES on the other hand, had many games with custom chips (SuperFX, etc). This can be read about here.
The point still stands, although the NES was the system in which Nintendo and it's various developers (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party) learned that they could use hardware in the cartridge to massage the data before sending it to the console (thereby making the game look and sound better), the SNES is where they really made significant gains in this. That being said, these chips cost money, and I still remember paying $60-70 for certain NES games because of this and the large chunks (relatively speaking) of memory needed for some save games.
To keep to the point, Nintendo will most likely have to replace the cartridges. The ROM in GBA cartridges is pretty fast, since most of the code is run directly from the ROM. Flash chips with that kind of performance is prohibitively expensive for games that cost about $40.
Exactly, the cost of fast ROM chips that they could simply flash would be prohibitive. That being said, it is possible that they found a method that could load the fix onto existing carts through saved games or that they have additional space for the patch in the same RAM that holds the saves. It's still much more likely that they'd simply move the saved games over to a new cart with the patch applied and then bury all the old carts or recycle any reusable parts.