to those lacking hd-tv's, i reccomend doing what i did: shell out 40 bucks for the xbox 360's vga adaptor and plug it into a crt computer monitor. its like getting a cheap HDTV for your xbox! there's a plug that you can use to have the audio go through pc speakers, too (i think the vga adaptor actually included it.... but i forget: i actually already routed my game consoles through my pc's "line in,")
if you're on your 4th xbox, and are getting symptoms that make you think that you'll have to exchange it again, you're probably doing something wrong. the probability of getting that many flawed systems is very low, i'd think. I'm still using my first machine, and it works fine. if its overheating, try moving it away from the wall. let the vents in the back of the system do their job!
the other thing i do, is.. one online account per system. i don't mind my friends playing with me, but their accounts are local only. it is, at the end of the day, *my* system. as it stands, the only time i log out of it, is when one of my friends wants to play dead rising (so they can play on their own account and not overwrite my save data.)
if you skip the theater experience for snakes on a plane, you may as well not bother watching it at all. this movie is meant to be viewed in a crowded theater full of rambunctious viewers, not alone on your couch. the showing I went to, the audience was hooting and hollaring and clapping (the movie got applause at the end, even!) and, while this would be annoying during most movies, Snakes on a Plane is a precision exercise in making a purposefully bad movie for sake of comedy. It was like going to see a "midnight movie," only in a mainstream theater, and it was the best time i've had at a movie theater in a very long time.
in my opinion, games where "the game is the thing" are the most highbrow art you'll find in gaming. look at the arcade classics: they didn't tell a story, they usually didn't have defined characters, all it was, was gameplay, distilled to its purest element. inevitably, you'd lose, the goal of early arcade games was to simply put that off while trying to make as high a score as you can. kind of like life, don't you think?
the reason men play female avatars is because they want a character that is appealing to them to look at. the reason women don't play male avatars is because women want a character that they can associate with.
there. i answered it for you. that wasn't so difficult, and it didn't even require a psychological degree for me to come up with that.
(disclaimer: I have not read the article in its entirety yet, so if it states the same thing, then please forgive me for coming to the same conclusion on my own.)
thats exactly what i hated about the directors cut: it explains too much! without that, donnie darko is a bit of a 'rorshach test' in film form: everyone gets something different out of it.
i guess we know what NeMon'ess got out of it: nothing. one could assume s/he takes everything at face value.
by that standard, i think master chief makes for an excellent mascot for the xbox. he's heavy, and armored, doesn't really have any personality, and kicks a bit of ass.
the story i've heard is that they wanted the title to connotate foolishness...... one of the translations from japanese for that was "ass," and clearly "Ass Kong" was not an acceptable name.. so they got another name for Ass, and got..... Donkey.
no idea how true that is, but i like this story better than "stubborn monkey"
i just used up the last of my mod points, otherwise you'd be getting pluses for insightful. i totally agree with you on this: based on the excerpt, Carmack destroyed the world, to spite romero, who was playing a game as he saw fit, which just happened to not be the way Carmack wanted to play it. well, guess what: when you're the DM, you should be able to remain level-headed and also retain control. if he didn't want romero to have the book, he should have had a thief steal it in the night, or have some kind of effect that destroys it, or something else. if you're the GM, it is very easy to take away unbalancing artifacts from your players, or guide them away from a behavior which is upsetting the gameplay (reward them when the game goes a good direction, punish them when it doesn't don't.)
judging from this exceprt, sounds to me as if Carmack is a bit bipolar as a DM: santa claus for letting him have the item in the first place, but unreasonable for destroying the world because one player is using the item in a way the GM hadn't counted on.
i actually enjoyed daikatana for what it was: a fun first person shooter with a cheesy story and dated graphics (due to it taking too long in development.) if it had come out 2 years before, it would have been a completely different story (but half-life would probably have still crushed it, just like it crushed Sin, which was highly under-rated.)
Everblue 2 for ps2. everblue 1 never came out in US, but i picked the sequel up on a whim, because it sounded like a wierd enough game that it might just be awesome. Everblue 2 is a scuba-diving RPG, actually, and you wouldn't think that would sound scary.... a game where you dive to the bottom of the ocean and take photos of fish or salvage things, in order to gain money, to buy better scuba equipment....... BUT....
there are a few very scary moments in it.
there's a scene where you are diving into the wreckage of a sunken cruise ship, and you get inside of it and its pitch black, no sunlight can filter down that deep, and when you're actually in the ship, all light is blocked out. the water is murky. your flashlight allows you to see only a scant few feet in front of you. you know there are sharks in the area, and in the gameplay segments, there is actually only one music: a theme that plays when sharks (which can eat you) are around. so, as you explore the ship, you come across a doorway, and you open it, and its an old indoor swimming pool... and you hear the shark theme, which, as a gamer playing it, lets you know that there are threats nearby, and that you should be very very cautious and try not to panic, and that something big and scary could lunge for my throat at any moment.....
my experience with this area was one of the few times a game has honestly scared me. its one of those moments where I was so immersed that I forget i was playing a game. its a tight, enclosed level, and i hear the sharks, and I know that i need to be on the lookout for threats.... and then, all of a sudden, i run smack into a ghostly white face, illuminated by my flashlight and made more scary by the murky water.......
after jumping up and dropping my controller, because i totally wasn't expecting to find any ghastly apparitions, i realize that what I'm looking at is not a ghost, but a statue, remnants of the luxurious decorations of the cruiseliner. nothing as out of the ordinary as I'd thought, but the atmosphere, and the fact that I knew i was in dangerous waters, and then the running smack into the thing just made me jump and still gives me the heebeejeebees. truly effective game design... and unfortunately, in a game that almost nobody has ever played.
i'm in the same boat. i'm trying to indoctrinate my friends, but.. they all think its a bit too nerdy. even the ones that read and collect comics! i'm all "dude, we shop at the same store, just different sides! give it a try!" but no dice.
they've announced a new duck hunt game for the Wii. I sort of hope they *don't* make it gory: the original was very cartoony, and had that dog, and it was all very comical. to this day, i'm still convinced the ducks aren't actually dead, just stunned, like when elmer fudd shoots daffy duck.
there was a version of Lode Runner for the NES. even had a level editor (but, if i recall, no way to pull up your levels after you turned off the machine.)
humorous, then, that the most popular arcade games the past few years are things like Dance Dance Revolution. no using of the hands, indeed! the movie was right!
My DS Lite has a dead pixel too, and its making me very angry. i'm having the urge to throw it against the wall, only then it will never be covered by the warranty, and I'd probably put a hole in the wall!
if you're a sucker and pre-ordered it at EB or some other boutique store, they probably won't exchange it (the eb rep told me that their warranty only covers stuck pixels if there is a clump of 5 or more, which is bullshit.) here is how you can set up a repair with nintendo: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/repair/repair_for m_us.jsp
you may need to register your serial number for the warranty to work. after filling out that form, it'll take 4-10 business days to recieve your UPS return label, and 3-4 more business days to repair it and return it.. so i guess i'll just have to play something else for the next couple weeks.
actually, the "let live" policy is because you now live in urban houston, texas, as opposed to.. how large was the town in Oklahoma that you lived in? people in large urban areas are too busy with their own crap to worry about what other people are doing: folks in smaller towns have less going on for them, so they fill their attention "gap" with what other people around them are doing.
and many Texas communities *do* have pockets of awesomeness, but step too far outside those, and you'll get your face smashed in by a well-flung bible. I've lived in texas all my life, but most of that was in a smaller city (corpus christi). now i'm in Houston, and it is a great place to live in contrast. Austin is even more liberal than Houston, especially if you can get in near where the college kids are at.
I hate in-game advertisements, but realistic product placement in a reality-themed world is acceptable. crazy taxi did this: you had to take people to *real* locations, like Tower Records, or the Levi store, or KFC... granted, it seemed a little odd that people wanted to pay a taxi to go to KFC, but then again, the way I drive, it seems a bit odd that they'd get in the taxi at all.
in my opinion, if product placement can add to a gameworld, awesome. but collectible Bawl's bottlecaps in "brotherhood of steel" = "NO, GOD NO, FUCK NO, LEAVE ME ALONE!"
don't you think it would be better with Wario? imagine a GTA game with wario doing his shoulder charge into a funky mushroom kingdom car, knocking toads out of the top, and then hopping in and toodling off. I think that would be a workable gameplay mechanic given the right context.
i have a similar problem, and I thought 'hmm, maybe i'll check the gameshops.' unfortunately, the people at the gameshops (that are *just* games, and not game-comic hybrid) are incredibly rude to me. I'm not sure if its because I'm in 'newb' status (I've been out of the pen and paper loop for a few years) or if its because I'm not exactly 'one of the guys' and they just don't know how to talk to me without making complete asses of themselves (every time i've been in these places, i was the only one who wasn't a droolingly-nerdy guy; the stereotypes are true!)
but either way, i'd love to get back into gaming, but its difficult to do so!
Slashdot Mirror
Now you can just accuse someone and ruin their life?
cool! i accuse the politicians responsible for this thing of touching me inapropriately.
to those lacking hd-tv's, i reccomend doing what i did: shell out 40 bucks for the xbox 360's vga adaptor and plug it into a crt computer monitor. its like getting a cheap HDTV for your xbox!
there's a plug that you can use to have the audio go through pc speakers, too (i think the vga adaptor actually included it.... but i forget: i actually already routed my game consoles through my pc's "line in,")
if you're on your 4th xbox, and are getting symptoms that make you think that you'll have to exchange it again, you're probably doing something wrong. the probability of getting that many flawed systems is very low, i'd think. I'm still using my first machine, and it works fine. if its overheating, try moving it away from the wall. let the vents in the back of the system do their job! the other thing i do, is.. one online account per system. i don't mind my friends playing with me, but their accounts are local only. it is, at the end of the day, *my* system. as it stands, the only time i log out of it, is when one of my friends wants to play dead rising (so they can play on their own account and not overwrite my save data.)
yes, but battle arena toshinden sucked, but they're *still* making virtua fighter games on other platforms. go figure.
not really sure what my point is: the saturn still failed.
if you skip the theater experience for snakes on a plane, you may as well not bother watching it at all. this movie is meant to be viewed in a crowded theater full of rambunctious viewers, not alone on your couch.
the showing I went to, the audience was hooting and hollaring and clapping (the movie got applause at the end, even!) and, while this would be annoying during most movies, Snakes on a Plane is a precision exercise in making a purposefully bad movie for sake of comedy. It was like going to see a "midnight movie," only in a mainstream theater, and it was the best time i've had at a movie theater in a very long time.
more, please!
i.. sort of don't get it. i've been busy playing dead rising on my xbox 360 this weekend. what did i miss?
in my opinion, games where "the game is the thing" are the most highbrow art you'll find in gaming. look at the arcade classics: they didn't tell a story, they usually didn't have defined characters, all it was, was gameplay, distilled to its purest element. inevitably, you'd lose, the goal of early arcade games was to simply put that off while trying to make as high a score as you can. kind of like life, don't you think?
Blaster Master is a game. Master Blaster runs barter town.
i'm shocked you didn't mention the ad for pole position.
It'll bust your crank and leave skidmarks on your soul!
the reason men play female avatars is because they want a character that is appealing to them to look at.
the reason women don't play male avatars is because women want a character that they can associate with.
there. i answered it for you. that wasn't so difficult, and it didn't even require a psychological degree for me to come up with that.
(disclaimer: I have not read the article in its entirety yet, so if it states the same thing, then please forgive me for coming to the same conclusion on my own.)
thats exactly what i hated about the directors cut: it explains too much! without that, donnie darko is a bit of a 'rorshach test' in film form: everyone gets something different out of it.
i guess we know what NeMon'ess got out of it: nothing. one could assume s/he takes everything at face value.
by that standard, i think master chief makes for an excellent mascot for the xbox. he's heavy, and armored, doesn't really have any personality, and kicks a bit of ass.
the story i've heard is that they wanted the title to connotate foolishness...... one of the translations from japanese for that was "ass," and clearly "Ass Kong" was not an acceptable name.. so they got another name for Ass, and got..... Donkey. no idea how true that is, but i like this story better than "stubborn monkey"
i just used up the last of my mod points, otherwise you'd be getting pluses for insightful. i totally agree with you on this: based on the excerpt, Carmack destroyed the world, to spite romero, who was playing a game as he saw fit, which just happened to not be the way Carmack wanted to play it. well, guess what: when you're the DM, you should be able to remain level-headed and also retain control. if he didn't want romero to have the book, he should have had a thief steal it in the night, or have some kind of effect that destroys it, or something else. if you're the GM, it is very easy to take away unbalancing artifacts from your players, or guide them away from a behavior which is upsetting the gameplay (reward them when the game goes a good direction, punish them when it doesn't don't.)
judging from this exceprt, sounds to me as if Carmack is a bit bipolar as a DM: santa claus for letting him have the item in the first place, but unreasonable for destroying the world because one player is using the item in a way the GM hadn't counted on.
i actually enjoyed daikatana for what it was: a fun first person shooter with a cheesy story and dated graphics (due to it taking too long in development.) if it had come out 2 years before, it would have been a completely different story (but half-life would probably have still crushed it, just like it crushed Sin, which was highly under-rated.)
Everblue 2 for ps2. everblue 1 never came out in US, but i picked the sequel up on a whim, because it sounded like a wierd enough game that it might just be awesome. Everblue 2 is a scuba-diving RPG, actually, and you wouldn't think that would sound scary.... a game where you dive to the bottom of the ocean and take photos of fish or salvage things, in order to gain money, to buy better scuba equipment....... BUT....
there are a few very scary moments in it.
there's a scene where you are diving into the wreckage of a sunken cruise ship, and you get inside of it and its pitch black, no sunlight can filter down that deep, and when you're actually in the ship, all light is blocked out. the water is murky. your flashlight allows you to see only a scant few feet in front of you. you know there are sharks in the area, and in the gameplay segments, there is actually only one music: a theme that plays when sharks (which can eat you) are around. so, as you explore the ship, you come across a doorway, and you open it, and its an old indoor swimming pool... and you hear the shark theme, which, as a gamer playing it, lets you know that there are threats nearby, and that you should be very very cautious and try not to panic, and that something big and scary could lunge for my throat at any moment.....
my experience with this area was one of the few times a game has honestly scared me. its one of those moments where I was so immersed that I forget i was playing a game. its a tight, enclosed level, and i hear the sharks, and I know that i need to be on the lookout for threats.... and then, all of a sudden, i run smack into a ghostly white face, illuminated by my flashlight and made more scary by the murky water.......
after jumping up and dropping my controller, because i totally wasn't expecting to find any ghastly apparitions, i realize that what I'm looking at is not a ghost, but a statue, remnants of the luxurious decorations of the cruiseliner. nothing as out of the ordinary as I'd thought, but the atmosphere, and the fact that I knew i was in dangerous waters, and then the running smack into the thing just made me jump and still gives me the heebeejeebees. truly effective game design... and unfortunately, in a game that almost nobody has ever played.
i'm in the same boat. i'm trying to indoctrinate my friends, but.. they all think its a bit too nerdy. even the ones that read and collect comics! i'm all "dude, we shop at the same store, just different sides! give it a try!" but no dice.
*sigh*
they've announced a new duck hunt game for the Wii. I sort of hope they *don't* make it gory: the original was very cartoony, and had that dog, and it was all very comical. to this day, i'm still convinced the ducks aren't actually dead, just stunned, like when elmer fudd shoots daffy duck.
there was a version of Lode Runner for the NES. even had a level editor (but, if i recall, no way to pull up your levels after you turned off the machine.)
humorous, then, that the most popular arcade games the past few years are things like Dance Dance Revolution. no using of the hands, indeed! the movie was right!
My DS Lite has a dead pixel too, and its making me very angry. i'm having the urge to throw it against the wall, only then it will never be covered by the warranty, and I'd probably put a hole in the wall!
r ouble_spot.jsp
r m_us.jsp
here is what nintendo's customer support page has to say about stuck pixels: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/dslite/t
if you're a sucker and pre-ordered it at EB or some other boutique store, they probably won't exchange it (the eb rep told me that their warranty only covers stuck pixels if there is a clump of 5 or more, which is bullshit.) here is how you can set up a repair with nintendo: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/repair/repair_fo
you may need to register your serial number for the warranty to work. after filling out that form, it'll take 4-10 business days to recieve your UPS return label, and 3-4 more business days to repair it and return it.. so i guess i'll just have to play something else for the next couple weeks.
actually, the "let live" policy is because you now live in urban houston, texas, as opposed to.. how large was the town in Oklahoma that you lived in? people in large urban areas are too busy with their own crap to worry about what other people are doing: folks in smaller towns have less going on for them, so they fill their attention "gap" with what other people around them are doing.
and many Texas communities *do* have pockets of awesomeness, but step too far outside those, and you'll get your face smashed in by a well-flung bible. I've lived in texas all my life, but most of that was in a smaller city (corpus christi). now i'm in Houston, and it is a great place to live in contrast. Austin is even more liberal than Houston, especially if you can get in near where the college kids are at.
I hate in-game advertisements, but realistic product placement in a reality-themed world is acceptable. crazy taxi did this: you had to take people to *real* locations, like Tower Records, or the Levi store, or KFC... granted, it seemed a little odd that people wanted to pay a taxi to go to KFC, but then again, the way I drive, it seems a bit odd that they'd get in the taxi at all.
in my opinion, if product placement can add to a gameworld, awesome. but collectible Bawl's bottlecaps in "brotherhood of steel" = "NO, GOD NO, FUCK NO, LEAVE ME ALONE!"
don't you think it would be better with Wario? imagine a GTA game with wario doing his shoulder charge into a funky mushroom kingdom car, knocking toads out of the top, and then hopping in and toodling off. I think that would be a workable gameplay mechanic given the right context.
i have a similar problem, and I thought 'hmm, maybe i'll check the gameshops.' unfortunately, the people at the gameshops (that are *just* games, and not game-comic hybrid) are incredibly rude to me. I'm not sure if its because I'm in 'newb' status (I've been out of the pen and paper loop for a few years) or if its because I'm not exactly 'one of the guys' and they just don't know how to talk to me without making complete asses of themselves (every time i've been in these places, i was the only one who wasn't a droolingly-nerdy guy; the stereotypes are true!)
but either way, i'd love to get back into gaming, but its difficult to do so!