I prefer the ability to toggle such effects on or off.
In the Initial D arcade games, both players (it was 1 on 1) had to hit their brake pedals before the start of the race to turn off giving the trailing person additional speed. In this manner, veteran players can play on skill.
While Mario Kart's design is for party/group environments, I would feel that giving the ability to turn off such handicaps would give players of skill something to do as well.
Alone in the Dark may have been one of the first survival games to have come out (I played that game on the PC), but it came out at a time when the gaming population was small compared to the overal population.
Resident Evil 1 came out in the Playstation era, with a much larger number of gamers. The game came at the right time, and it won the mindshare.
There is a difference between who came first and who was able to get "on the map." Invention history has shown that being first does not always get you remembered.
If any of this wireless information holds up, I can imagine a very interesting implementation on the Megaman Battle Network franchise. Players can challenge other players by jacking-in to their cart (only if you set the game to accept challenges) and have chip battles and such.
What about people who still want to play good 2D games? Sony pretty much won't allow them to be made on their system unless it is a multi-game disc or uses some of the PS2's capabilities.
For Project Majestic Mix, a fan-tribute album for Final Fantasy music (http://www.kfssstudios.com/), the people needed to get what is called a mechanical license, which is a royalty-based license when someone wants play rearranged/remixed versions of the original music.
The game was already sold when it was first published. The publisher and creators were already compensated. Isn't that the doctrine of first sale? They can't control the aftermarket. Some enterprising person decided to keep the game shrinkwrapped and wait for an eager buyer.
You can complain about copyrights or "sell it or lose it" economic priniciples, but I don't agree with stopping the aftermarket.
Far more growth potential, but also somewhat potentially more instability. At least with American companies, investors have a very good idea of how the market works, the laws, etc. In China, for example, how is an investor going to know if a law or local incident is going to cause market jitters?
For unknowledgeable investors, I'd say stick to the U.S. market. Far east investments have more "risk" in them, simply because it is not your home turf. Don't invest in something you don't have a clue about (Peter Lynch, among others, have said that).
We do know that in most urban areas of Japan, space is at a real premium. Many Japanese players complained about the Xbox's controller size, which eventually led to the Controller S.
So, a smaller machine form factor may just be a way to acknowledge the Japanese market.
Since when does having a girlfriend mean having a money pit? It sounds like the girlfriend is more interested in material goods than you or you are out to make a big, but expensive impression on her.
This person also commissioned a blacksmith to make a Master Sword. He goes one better. He commissioned a leathersmith to create a sheath for it. (delete the space in the URL)
In the screenshots I've seen, objects that Rio can interact with have "tooltip" windows that appear. This will help the player find the right word to use, although Konami says they do have some synonyms built into the system.
The album is not just orchestral music but also world music. There are quite a few different music styles employed on Dear Friends. It not purely orchestral.
I think Nobuo is a decent composer, but I definitely don't agree with his instrument choice. The instrument samples are from older synths, and he did state in an interview that he chooses those, because he is familiar with the older synthesizers. Nobuo does not have a formal music degree.
I don't think you've heard of arranged FF music. Some of the arrangments are truly fantastic and really make his composition shine through. I just wish they would use that kind of instrumentation for FF games.
Besides Gran Turismo and some GTA, another popular driving game is Initial D
http://www.hitmaker.co.jp/game/INITIALD/
Initial D is based on an anime and manga about people street racing in modified Japanese cars.
The arcade game lets you pick a car, and for an additional purchase, you get a magnetic card to save your progress and win/loss records against other drivers (the arcade unit has 2 seats), among other things.
The whole premise is tuning and modding the car to make it go faster or handle better on some challenging courses. Its driving engine isn't as realistic as Gran Turismo, though, but colliding with a wall at high speed in Initial D will drop your speed a lot and your acceleration is messed up for a few seconds.
Back to the original point: When you select a car, you see a whole bunch of Japanese cars to choose from. This is definitely advertising.
To clarify just how difficult a particular segment is relative to the rest of the game.
At the point in the game where this happens, you can, at best, survive 3 or 4 beam shots from the SA-X. Not bad you say? Here is the difficulty.
When you meet up with the SA-X at this point, it is walking back and forth in the room. You are hanging off a ledge on the right side of the room (so sneaking past the SA-X is impossible). You have to drop down to the floor, use a diffusion missile (which flies slightly slower than your beam weapon) to freeze the SA-X for a paltry 3 seconds. Run to the room to the left.
This room is one large corridor with a series of gates. On the ceiling of the gates, thre are red sensor you must shoot at with your beam weapon to open the gate. At this point you are running away from the SA-X, so you must run and shoot diagonally (the game allows you to do diagonal shot easily fortunately) at the sensors to open the gates. All the while the SA-X is chasing you. You can stop to fire a diffusion missile at the SA-X, but it's going to open fire at you, so you have to be quick. So, you're running like crazy opening each gate until you reach a wall. The wall can only be dstroyed with a Power Bomb. The Power Bomb takes 5 seconds to detonate. So, you have to plant the bomb, and freeze the SA-X while you wait for the bomb to explode then run again to the next room where there is a large wall you can jump over and hide.
After this segment, future SA-X battles were not nearly as difficult. The whole game has spikes of difficulty which really make the game balance feel off.
Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo does make money on the hardware. Obviously, software licenses make more, but Nintendo has not been known to sell any system at a loss.
The stuntman's costume seems pretty mediocre quality compared some cosplayers' interpretations of Mitsurugi's 1P outfit.
I prefer the ability to toggle such effects on or off.
In the Initial D arcade games, both players (it was 1 on 1) had to hit their brake pedals before the start of the race to turn off giving the trailing person additional speed. In this manner, veteran players can play on skill.
While Mario Kart's design is for party/group environments, I would feel that giving the ability to turn off such handicaps would give players of skill something to do as well.
Alone in the Dark may have been one of the first survival games to have come out (I played that game on the PC), but it came out at a time when the gaming population was small compared to the overal population.
Resident Evil 1 came out in the Playstation era, with a much larger number of gamers. The game came at the right time, and it won the mindshare.
There is a difference between who came first and who was able to get "on the map." Invention history has shown that being first does not always get you remembered.
http://chudahs-corner.com/reviews/sscx10080.html
Uematsu has basically decided to go freelance.
Many ex-Square composers are now freelance.
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga, etc.)
Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics, Breath of Fire V, Gradius V, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, etc.)
Yoko Shiminoura (Legend of Mana, Parasite Eve, Kingom Hearts, etc.)
Kenji Ito (Romancing Saga, Saga Frontier, etc.)
If any of this wireless information holds up, I can imagine a very interesting implementation on the Megaman Battle Network franchise. Players can challenge other players by jacking-in to their cart (only if you set the game to accept challenges) and have chip battles and such.
What about people who still want to play good 2D games? Sony pretty much won't allow them to be made on their system unless it is a multi-game disc or uses some of the PS2's capabilities.
For Project Majestic Mix, a fan-tribute album for Final Fantasy music (http://www.kfssstudios.com/), the people needed to get what is called a mechanical license, which is a royalty-based license when someone wants play rearranged/remixed versions of the original music.
Apparently, at that location, it has one of the best ways of escaping Earth's gravity with a lot less energy.
There are physics prinicples to back that up, but they elude me. Coriolis effect or something similar.
The game was already sold when it was first published. The publisher and creators were already compensated. Isn't that the doctrine of first sale? They can't control the aftermarket. Some enterprising person decided to keep the game shrinkwrapped and wait for an eager buyer.
You can complain about copyrights or "sell it or lose it" economic priniciples, but I don't agree with stopping the aftermarket.
Far more growth potential, but also somewhat potentially more instability. At least with American companies, investors have a very good idea of how the market works, the laws, etc. In China, for example, how is an investor going to know if a law or local incident is going to cause market jitters?
For unknowledgeable investors, I'd say stick to the U.S. market. Far east investments have more "risk" in them, simply because it is not your home turf. Don't invest in something you don't have a clue about (Peter Lynch, among others, have said that).
We do know that in most urban areas of Japan, space is at a real premium. Many Japanese players complained about the Xbox's controller size, which eventually led to the Controller S.
So, a smaller machine form factor may just be a way to acknowledge the Japanese market.
Since when does having a girlfriend mean having a money pit? It sounds like the girlfriend is more interested in material goods than you or you are out to make a big, but expensive impression on her.
http://www.usatoday.com/
This is from the same person I posted earlier. Again, he commissioned someone to construct the shield.
Pic 1 Pic 2
This person also commissioned a blacksmith to make a Master Sword. He goes one better. He commissioned a leathersmith to create a sheath for it. (delete the space in the URL)
1 21 7&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1
http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=5
I saw an ad for this ocarina in Nintendo Power, but there was a disclaimer that they were not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo.
In the screenshots I've seen, objects that Rio can interact with have "tooltip" windows that appear. This will help the player find the right word to use, although Konami says they do have some synonyms built into the system.
The album is not just orchestral music but also world music. There are quite a few different music styles employed on Dear Friends. It not purely orchestral.
I think Nobuo is a decent composer, but I definitely don't agree with his instrument choice. The instrument samples are from older synths, and he did state in an interview that he chooses those, because he is familiar with the older synthesizers. Nobuo does not have a formal music degree.
I don't think you've heard of arranged FF music. Some of the arrangments are truly fantastic and really make his composition shine through. I just wish they would use that kind of instrumentation for FF games.
Sorry, I can't do a thing about the prices. Japan is expensive.
http://www.cocoebiz.com (in Japan; has English website; sells some not-often heard soundtracks)
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (in Japan, but they speak English fluently and have an English website)
http://www.gamemusic.com (in the U.S.)
All of these are reliable. I've bought from all of them.
Besides Gran Turismo and some GTA, another popular driving game is Initial D
http://www.hitmaker.co.jp/game/INITIALD/
Initial D is based on an anime and manga about people street racing in modified Japanese cars.
The arcade game lets you pick a car, and for an additional purchase, you get a magnetic card to save your progress and win/loss records against other drivers (the arcade unit has 2 seats), among other things.
The whole premise is tuning and modding the car to make it go faster or handle better on some challenging courses. Its driving engine isn't as realistic as Gran Turismo, though, but colliding with a wall at high speed in Initial D will drop your speed a lot and your acceleration is messed up for a few seconds.
Back to the original point: When you select a car, you see a whole bunch of Japanese cars to choose from. This is definitely advertising.
*drives his virtual Mazda RX-7*
To clarify just how difficult a particular segment is relative to the rest of the game.
At the point in the game where this happens, you can, at best, survive 3 or 4 beam shots from the SA-X. Not bad you say? Here is the difficulty.
When you meet up with the SA-X at this point, it is walking back and forth in the room. You are hanging off a ledge on the right side of the room (so sneaking past the SA-X is impossible). You have to drop down to the floor, use a diffusion missile (which flies slightly slower than your beam weapon) to freeze the SA-X for a paltry 3 seconds. Run to the room to the left.
This room is one large corridor with a series of gates. On the ceiling of the gates, thre are red sensor you must shoot at with your beam weapon to open the gate. At this point you are running away from the SA-X, so you must run and shoot diagonally (the game allows you to do diagonal shot easily fortunately) at the sensors to open the gates. All the while the SA-X is chasing you. You can stop to fire a diffusion missile at the SA-X, but it's going to open fire at you, so you have to be quick. So, you're running like crazy opening each gate until you reach a wall. The wall can only be dstroyed with a Power Bomb. The Power Bomb takes 5 seconds to detonate. So, you have to plant the bomb, and freeze the SA-X while you wait for the bomb to explode then run again to the next room where there is a large wall you can jump over and hide.
After this segment, future SA-X battles were not nearly as difficult. The whole game has spikes of difficulty which really make the game balance feel off.
From what you describe, it sounds like the server is simply a matching service and you don't need their server software to do stuff.
Or did somebody reverse engineer the srever code by reading packets?