You know, as opposed to Tecmo which has created at least two slam dunk games for the system (DOA3, NG), probably more. Not to mention Sega's Smilebit studio's which have cranked out top notch games like JSRF, Gunvalkyrie and Panzer Dragoon Orta.
Coming from the PS2, I was also really surprised to find out that Microsoft was charging an arm and a leg for online play with the XBox. Sony has always provided this for free with the Socom games, and many others.
You get what you pay for. Online play in 95% of PS2 titles is god awful. Tribes: Aerial Assault was the only reason my PS2 stayed online as long as it did.
No, I didn't, I was comparing them to PC games. You only need the wheel if you want the most realism you can get - otherwise it doesn't matter.
For driving games , you do not get nearly the range of motion you get with a wheel when using a control stick. It's a lot easier to make fine adjustments with a wheel than with a controler. Also, being able to adjust the amount of acceleration your car is puting out with an analog pedal is vital for games like GT4. A wheel shows MEASUREABLE IMPROVEMENT over a controller. However, although measureable, there are also plenty of very skilled players who race with a controller.
Depends on your definition of "adaquatly". I've watched guys with, to quote Shawn Micheals, "talent on loan from God" get 18 headshots in a row in Counter-Strike on a PC. It is simply impossible to get that kind of precision with a controller. Also, controllers are crippled on movement/aiming. In Halo for example, you have to stop moving to move your thumb over to one of the buttons if you want to switch weapons or try to butt someone with your rifle.
Your example is on the extreme end of the spectrum. I have seen some bsolutely unbeleivable Halo and Halo 2 videos. They seemed to have very precice control over their charactors and would go on 50 kill long killing sprees or make spectacular flag runs. Sure, they could possibly be even better with a keyboard and mouse, but you know what, it goes back to my point about the racing wheel, that yes the specialty controller (Keyboard and Mouse in a FPS's case) DOES offer some tangable advantages but nowhere near the degree that people like you would beleive.
Just as racing or fighting games need a controller.
You picked just about the two worst types of games to pick for "using controllers". Fighting games "should" be played, according to elitists, on arcade sticks, and Racing games "should" be played with steering wheels. Except they're usually designed for an all-in-one controller, which can handle all of these jobs...racing...arcade sticks...and FPS's...adequitely.
PS - I have nothing against microsoft as a company, unlike most of the posters here. I think they are good for the console market, at least so far, providing an almost Sega Genesis-like amount of freedom for developers. I just think they're making a series of mistakes here that are worthy of Nintendo;)
I agree. While I love my Xbox dearly, the most recent rumors seeming to come along the pipeline (a rumored absence of a Hard Drive, in particular) do not bode well for the next Xbox iteration.
Wireless controllers might be a nice idea on paper, but there are two main problems with them, the very fact that they need batteries. and the fact that they're much easier to lose because they're not plugged into the damn console.
Because all FPS's suck on consoles, Halo included. Also, a lot of first and third person shooters are 'XBoxized', like Theif 3 and Deus Ex 2, and have tiny tiny maps.
If Halo or Halo 2 showed you anything, it was that vastly large maps were certainly possible on the Xbox. Therefore I can only conclude that the tiny tiny maps of Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 were the engine's fault (both of which happened to be the same engine, by the way).
And as soon as you find out where I mentioned Doom 2 or 3, you'll have a point.
Non missionpackness from one of the "top five FPS's of all time". Duh.
I really can't see how you were missing my point. Your statement of calling Halo 2 a bad game simply because it was essentially Halo with some stuff added is simply invalid. I was attempting to demonstrate this by posting an example of a game (Doom 2) that - in spite of being a "mission pack" for an earlier game - was several orders of magnitude better than it's predacessor.
It doesn't matter if Halo 2 is a "mission pack" or not, if the mission pack adds the right things it can vastly transform a game into something totally new and enjoyable all over again. Halo 2 did this in spades.
Kinda what Doom 2 was to Doom, right? And most of the stuff in Doom 3 has been modded into Quake using Terabrae.
You don't see me complaining though. Doom 2 is probably the first on my list of favorite FPS'. The fact that it was just a 'mission pack' is irrelivent.
What exactly were you expecting?
And on a somewhat related note, I loved the ending of Halo 2. I thought it was merely decent, and then I heard people having aneurysms over it ending so abruptly, which made it all the more sweeter.
An obvious jab at World of Warcraft, which happens to be one of the most popular MMORPGS at this point in time, and is the only one that ever held my interest past a day or two.
As programs like Steam have proven, you can still pull respectable sales even without a publisher.
And in some ways it's beneficial. I didn't have to muck around with copy protection or having the CD in the drive at all when I bought Half Life 2 off of Steam. Plus, it doesn't give Vivendi Universal a dime.
And we all know how many/.ers would love to not give the RIAA a dime.
Graphics are nice, but gameplay is what counts. And Halo 2 is just another multiplayer FPS.
Your parent might have exaggerated their claim of Halo 2 being the best FPS ever, but Halo 2 is defeniatly on my top 5 list of best FPS on any system (console or PC) ever. It's not 'just another' FPS, otherwise how could it have managed to stand out from all of the other FPS' avalable on the system?
I also play WoW, and I wouldn't say garbage heap 100% of the time...maybe 90%. Blizzard has its own problems to deal with, but I'm quite happy still.
I was implying that since Blizzard servers are down somewhat often on an otherwise awesome game, I am willing to put up with a game that doesn't have 100% uptime if it's a good game otherwise.
Of course, we can all be thankful MS isn't in the handheld market.. anything they made "handheld" would probably be about the size of a PS2 or Gamecube, and weigh 2 or 3 pounds.
Jesus christ, you people just won't quit will you. Welcome to 2001, they want their LOL XBOX IS HUEG joke back.
If people can figure out Star Fox, they can figure out Rez
And for your information, this thread finally made me cave and buy Katamari Damancy yesterday. Fucking awesome awesome AWESOME game. Probably up there with Rez as underrated titles.:)
I mean, it's a good game. But it seems that people have been waving it recently as the flagship of underplayed games. Why didn't this happen when...say....Rez was released a few years ago.
I really hope people like you don't end up forcing Valve to kill steam. I've had nothing but great results of it, and I really liked the fact that by purchasing it off of steam I...
A. Can download and play CS:S anywhere I have steam installed without CD's B. Bought it without giving a god damned dime to Vivendi.
I honestly would rather have a fantasticly awesome game that is avalable to play 99.5% of the time than a rushed out garbage heap avalable 100% of the time.
But then again, I play World of Warcraft, so take with that what you will.
I guarentee you that there WILL be legitimate ways to play it later on. HL and HL2 are landmark games, and I seriously doubt that Valve would essentially make their backlog unplayable because of shutting down steam.
There is a big and real distinction between cart games, racing games, and other types of driving games. Mario Kart Double Dash is an example of one of the best games in the best cart series, Mario Kart.
I dunno, I liked Mario Kart 64 a lot better. But still, just a matter of preference.
F-Zero GX is an example of probably THE best futuristic racer of all time, clearly surpassing the best of the Wipeout series (and all of the Dreamcast and modern clones) in my opinion.
Oh damn, forgot about F-Zero GX. I had played it a few times, and liked it.
The Need For Speed and Burnout series both have Cube versions, although the Cube never got Burnout 3 after the EA buyout of Criterion. So the Cube may not have a solid Gran Turismo rival, but (going by what I've read and seen about Forza) neither does Xbox.
Meh, I didn't like GT that much. What I had in mind more was Burnout 3 and Project Gotham Racing 2 (the later of which I adore, as I feel like it's a prefect blend of arcade and sim)
Where do you want these analog buttons? The PS2 controller "features" analog sensitivity on all main face buttons and the d-pad of all things, which is about as stupid as it gets. Those buttons were designed with digital usage (on/off only) in mind; you can't take such buttons with such small traveling space (2mm?) and expect them to work well as analog sensors. I have played games like MGS2 and Mad Maestro on my PS2, and it just seems so ridiculous. The same analog buttons that aren't on the GameCube controller are the same analog buttons that aren't on the Xbox controller, BTW.
Incorrect. All of the buttons (except start and back, and with the possible exception of black and white, but nothing overly important is ever assigned to them anyway) on the Xbox controller. They're actually a lot more comforatble than their PS2 counterpart as well. And there are some places where I really miss analog buttons, such as in MGS2, when you slowly release the shoot button, you can put away your gun without shooting.
Thank God. Other PS2 guys might agree with the Xbox guys about this one, but I don't care. Depressable thumbsticks are a good way to guarantee that you will have to program a dead zone into your games, to keep inaccurate presses from registering stick movement. Hell, the PS2 controller and all analog PS controllers that came before it feature dead zones built into the controller hardware. That's not good.
We'll have to Agree to disagree. It seemed intuitive for functions like duck in a FPS.
The black and white buttons are far too recessed to be useful for fast games, and are poorly placed (worse than on The Duke, which had its own funky button placement problems).
I expressed this discontent in my origional post.
The center space of the face of all Xbox controllers is wasted on excessively large branding when it could have been used for supplementary function buttons (like select and start).
In all honesty, I really like where the Xbox put it's start and back buttons. Once you get used to it, it's really convenient, and suddenly pressing...say...back to check your scores in a FPS doesn't seem like that big of a deal. On the Controller S of course, the Fatbody's buttons are entirely out of place.
And the DS already has huge potential for this. All it needs is TCP/IP software to enable internet gaming.
Oh man, when I heard about the wireless capabilities of the DS I was shaking my fist in the air. Now if only people will take advantage of it.
And I'm rather sad to see that some cube fanboy with a few extra mod points decided to mod my post -1 Troll. Christ kids, I don't hate the cube, it's just that I think that Nintendo fumbled the ball on parts of it. Heaven forbid I have anything good to say about M$ LOL.
Nintendo really has nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of software on their system. Although the software they release is spot on, they neglected a few important things.
1. CD space.
I don't care if they are small or have fast access times or anything, if you don't have the space you can't get the content on there. They could only hold a fraction of the amount of data a DVD on the PS2 or Xbox. Multi-discs aren't a solution either, especially for porting games that origionally came on one.
2. Their controller.
In all seriousness, it is just awful. Even worse than the Playstation 2's afterthaught of a controller (Hey, lets take our normal PS2 controller and place thumbsticks in the most unnatural and uncomfortable position ever and say we offer analog control. Come on, even the Dreamcast got this one right). The shoulder buttons have way too much give and aren't springy enough. They might be good for racing games, but since the Gamecube has all of one racing game worth playing on the system (Double Dash).
The overall lack of analog buttons in other places is a pain in the ass too. No depressable thumbsticks either. And whoever decided where the Z button should be placed should be fired. It's a pain, you either have to design the game around the controler or half ass a control system equivilent with random button remappings.
In all honestly, Microsoft may have had an abortion of a first controller, but the Controller S is a fine example of how all controllers should be designed, with the exception of the relocation of the white and black buttons (If they had left them where they were, six button fighing games would have been a lot easier to play) I hope Nintendo takes a cue from them next time around.
3. Their inability to sell anything other than their franchise titles.
The times that Nintendo came up with a new property, like Pikman, they have been totally unable to figure out how to market them to playyers. It's a shame, because games like Pikman 2 deserve a lot more attention then they get.
4. The internet.
I swear Nintendo, if the next Smash Bros doesn't even have LAN support (So people can at least pipe it over Warp Pipe), I'm just giving up. The internet on consoles is not a fad, and the only reason Nintendo has been lagging behind is because it's next to impossible to find the network adapter anywhere. Right now, Xbox is pretty much the only serious game in town when it comes to online console gaming, and I guarentee you that internet enabled Starfox, Smash Bros, and perhaps even a Pokemon MMORPG would make the next system a slam dunk.
I think this is about all I can think of off the top of my head. And for reference, I own all three systems, and while my Xbox gets semi-regular play (now playing second fiddle to my PC), my Gamecube is at my parents house collecting dust along with my PS2.
I know I'm replying to this kind of late, but I found this while meta-modding and thought I should reply to it.
Of course you are not going to agree with everything the government does with your money. However, if the government politely asked you which causes you wanted your tax money donated towards, nothing would get done.
Remember your US History? Shay's rebellion (although it was on a state level instead of on a personal level) was a fine example of this. Nobody else wanted to chip in to help the mayor of Massachusets to put down the rebellion. Nobody else agreed with it. Nobody else cared. That's why the Constitution gives the federal government to tax you, so you will pay for things that you don't agree with or don't care about. If you really care that much about 'pork projects' and 'government', and are THAT adamant about not wanting your tax dollars go toward something, call your congressman. Get people to care. But don't knock a system that's supposed to keep people's selfishness from crippling a government.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't really think of anything about the origional N-Gage that would have made it appeal to anyone.
You win some, you lose some.
You get what you pay for. Online play in 95% of PS2 titles is god awful. Tribes: Aerial Assault was the only reason my PS2 stayed online as long as it did.
For driving games , you do not get nearly the range of motion you get with a wheel when using a control stick. It's a lot easier to make fine adjustments with a wheel than with a controler. Also, being able to adjust the amount of acceleration your car is puting out with an analog pedal is vital for games like GT4. A wheel shows MEASUREABLE IMPROVEMENT over a controller. However, although measureable, there are also plenty of very skilled players who race with a controller.
Depends on your definition of "adaquatly". I've watched guys with, to quote Shawn Micheals, "talent on loan from God" get 18 headshots in a row in Counter-Strike on a PC. It is simply impossible to get that kind of precision with a controller. Also, controllers are crippled on movement/aiming. In Halo for example, you have to stop moving to move your thumb over to one of the buttons if you want to switch weapons or try to butt someone with your rifle.
Your example is on the extreme end of the spectrum. I have seen some bsolutely unbeleivable Halo and Halo 2 videos. They seemed to have very precice control over their charactors and would go on 50 kill long killing sprees or make spectacular flag runs. Sure, they could possibly be even better with a keyboard and mouse, but you know what, it goes back to my point about the racing wheel, that yes the specialty controller (Keyboard and Mouse in a FPS's case) DOES offer some tangable advantages but nowhere near the degree that people like you would beleive.
You picked just about the two worst types of games to pick for "using controllers". Fighting games "should" be played, according to elitists, on arcade sticks, and Racing games "should" be played with steering wheels. Except they're usually designed for an all-in-one controller, which can handle all of these jobs...racing...arcade sticks...and FPS's...adequitely.
I agree. While I love my Xbox dearly, the most recent rumors seeming to come along the pipeline (a rumored absence of a Hard Drive, in particular) do not bode well for the next Xbox iteration.
Wireless controllers might be a nice idea on paper, but there are two main problems with them, the very fact that they need batteries. and the fact that they're much easier to lose because they're not plugged into the damn console.
This was the first thing I thought when I read the article. I'm glad to see someone beat me to it that probably put it better than I did.
If Halo or Halo 2 showed you anything, it was that vastly large maps were certainly possible on the Xbox. Therefore I can only conclude that the tiny tiny maps of Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 were the engine's fault (both of which happened to be the same engine, by the way).
Non missionpackness from one of the "top five FPS's of all time". Duh.
I really can't see how you were missing my point. Your statement of calling Halo 2 a bad game simply because it was essentially Halo with some stuff added is simply invalid. I was attempting to demonstrate this by posting an example of a game (Doom 2) that - in spite of being a "mission pack" for an earlier game - was several orders of magnitude better than it's predacessor.
It doesn't matter if Halo 2 is a "mission pack" or not, if the mission pack adds the right things it can vastly transform a game into something totally new and enjoyable all over again. Halo 2 did this in spades.
You don't see me complaining though. Doom 2 is probably the first on my list of favorite FPS'. The fact that it was just a 'mission pack' is irrelivent.
What exactly were you expecting?
And on a somewhat related note, I loved the ending of Halo 2. I thought it was merely decent, and then I heard people having aneurysms over it ending so abruptly, which made it all the more sweeter.
An obvious jab at World of Warcraft, which happens to be one of the most popular MMORPGS at this point in time, and is the only one that ever held my interest past a day or two.
And in some ways it's beneficial. I didn't have to muck around with copy protection or having the CD in the drive at all when I bought Half Life 2 off of Steam. Plus, it doesn't give Vivendi Universal a dime.
And we all know how many /.ers would love to not give the RIAA a dime.
Your parent might have exaggerated their claim of Halo 2 being the best FPS ever, but Halo 2 is defeniatly on my top 5 list of best FPS on any system (console or PC) ever. It's not 'just another' FPS, otherwise how could it have managed to stand out from all of the other FPS' avalable on the system?
Right? No sane person in his or her right mind would recommend McAfee in any way shape or form, would they?
I was implying that since Blizzard servers are down somewhat often on an otherwise awesome game, I am willing to put up with a game that doesn't have 100% uptime if it's a good game otherwise.
Jesus christ, you people just won't quit will you. Welcome to 2001, they want their LOL XBOX IS HUEG joke back.
If people can figure out Star Fox, they can figure out Rez
:)
And for your information, this thread finally made me cave and buy Katamari Damancy yesterday. Fucking awesome awesome AWESOME game. Probably up there with Rez as underrated titles.
Too bad Sony's past efforts in producing anything online, ever, have been vastly inferior to their alternatives.
I mean, it's a good game. But it seems that people have been waving it recently as the flagship of underplayed games. Why didn't this happen when...say....Rez was released a few years ago.
Just sayin...
I really hope people like you don't end up forcing Valve to kill steam. I've had nothing but great results of it, and I really liked the fact that by purchasing it off of steam I...
A. Can download and play CS:S anywhere I have steam installed without CD's
B. Bought it without giving a god damned dime to Vivendi.
I honestly would rather have a fantasticly awesome game that is avalable to play 99.5% of the time than a rushed out garbage heap avalable 100% of the time.
But then again, I play World of Warcraft, so take with that what you will.
I guarentee you that there WILL be legitimate ways to play it later on. HL and HL2 are landmark games, and I seriously doubt that Valve would essentially make their backlog unplayable because of shutting down steam.
I dunno, I liked Mario Kart 64 a lot better. But still, just a matter of preference. F-Zero GX is an example of probably THE best futuristic racer of all time, clearly surpassing the best of the Wipeout series (and all of the Dreamcast and modern clones) in my opinion.
Oh damn, forgot about F-Zero GX. I had played it a few times, and liked it. The Need For Speed and Burnout series both have Cube versions, although the Cube never got Burnout 3 after the EA buyout of Criterion. So the Cube may not have a solid Gran Turismo rival, but (going by what I've read and seen about Forza) neither does Xbox.
Meh, I didn't like GT that much. What I had in mind more was Burnout 3 and Project Gotham Racing 2 (the later of which I adore, as I feel like it's a prefect blend of arcade and sim) Where do you want these analog buttons? The PS2 controller "features" analog sensitivity on all main face buttons and the d-pad of all things, which is about as stupid as it gets. Those buttons were designed with digital usage (on/off only) in mind; you can't take such buttons with such small traveling space (2mm?) and expect them to work well as analog sensors. I have played games like MGS2 and Mad Maestro on my PS2, and it just seems so ridiculous. The same analog buttons that aren't on the GameCube controller are the same analog buttons that aren't on the Xbox controller, BTW.
Incorrect. All of the buttons (except start and back, and with the possible exception of black and white, but nothing overly important is ever assigned to them anyway) on the Xbox controller. They're actually a lot more comforatble than their PS2 counterpart as well. And there are some places where I really miss analog buttons, such as in MGS2, when you slowly release the shoot button, you can put away your gun without shooting. Thank God. Other PS2 guys might agree with the Xbox guys about this one, but I don't care. Depressable thumbsticks are a good way to guarantee that you will have to program a dead zone into your games, to keep inaccurate presses from registering stick movement. Hell, the PS2 controller and all analog PS controllers that came before it feature dead zones built into the controller hardware. That's not good.
We'll have to Agree to disagree. It seemed intuitive for functions like duck in a FPS. The black and white buttons are far too recessed to be useful for fast games, and are poorly placed (worse than on The Duke, which had its own funky button placement problems).
I expressed this discontent in my origional post. The center space of the face of all Xbox controllers is wasted on excessively large branding when it could have been used for supplementary function buttons (like select and start).
In all honesty, I really like where the Xbox put it's start and back buttons. Once you get used to it, it's really convenient, and suddenly pressing...say...back to check your scores in a FPS doesn't seem like that big of a deal. On the Controller S of course, the Fatbody's buttons are entirely out of place. And the DS already has huge potential for this. All it needs is TCP/IP software to enable internet gaming.
Oh man, when I heard about the wireless capabilities of the DS I was shaking my fist in the air. Now if only people will take advantage of it.
And I'm rather sad to see that some cube fanboy with a few extra mod points decided to mod my post -1 Troll. Christ kids, I don't hate the cube, it's just that I think that Nintendo fumbled the ball on parts of it. Heaven forbid I have anything good to say about M$ LOL.
Nintendo really has nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of software on their system. Although the software they release is spot on, they neglected a few important things.
1. CD space.
I don't care if they are small or have fast access times or anything, if you don't have the space you can't get the content on there. They could only hold a fraction of the amount of data a DVD on the PS2 or Xbox. Multi-discs aren't a solution either, especially for porting games that origionally came on one.
2. Their controller.
In all seriousness, it is just awful. Even worse than the Playstation 2's afterthaught of a controller (Hey, lets take our normal PS2 controller and place thumbsticks in the most unnatural and uncomfortable position ever and say we offer analog control. Come on, even the Dreamcast got this one right). The shoulder buttons have way too much give and aren't springy enough. They might be good for racing games, but since the Gamecube has all of one racing game worth playing on the system (Double Dash).
The overall lack of analog buttons in other places is a pain in the ass too. No depressable thumbsticks either. And whoever decided where the Z button should be placed should be fired. It's a pain, you either have to design the game around the controler or half ass a control system equivilent with random button remappings.
In all honestly, Microsoft may have had an abortion of a first controller, but the Controller S is a fine example of how all controllers should be designed, with the exception of the relocation of the white and black buttons (If they had left them where they were, six button fighing games would have been a lot easier to play) I hope Nintendo takes a cue from them next time around.
3. Their inability to sell anything other than their franchise titles.
The times that Nintendo came up with a new property, like Pikman, they have been totally unable to figure out how to market them to playyers. It's a shame, because games like Pikman 2 deserve a lot more attention then they get.
4. The internet.
I swear Nintendo, if the next Smash Bros doesn't even have LAN support (So people can at least pipe it over Warp Pipe), I'm just giving up. The internet on consoles is not a fad, and the only reason Nintendo has been lagging behind is because it's next to impossible to find the network adapter anywhere. Right now, Xbox is pretty much the only serious game in town when it comes to online console gaming, and I guarentee you that internet enabled Starfox, Smash Bros, and perhaps even a Pokemon MMORPG would make the next system a slam dunk.
I think this is about all I can think of off the top of my head. And for reference, I own all three systems, and while my Xbox gets semi-regular play (now playing second fiddle to my PC), my Gamecube is at my parents house collecting dust along with my PS2.
Opera and Firefox
I know I'm replying to this kind of late, but I found this while meta-modding and thought I should reply to it.
Of course you are not going to agree with everything the government does with your money. However, if the government politely asked you which causes you wanted your tax money donated towards, nothing would get done.
Remember your US History? Shay's rebellion (although it was on a state level instead of on a personal level) was a fine example of this. Nobody else wanted to chip in to help the mayor of Massachusets to put down the rebellion. Nobody else agreed with it. Nobody else cared. That's why the Constitution gives the federal government to tax you, so you will pay for things that you don't agree with or don't care about. If you really care that much about 'pork projects' and 'government', and are THAT adamant about not wanting your tax dollars go toward something, call your congressman. Get people to care. But don't knock a system that's supposed to keep people's selfishness from crippling a government.