> "The Avengers: Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, The Sub-Mariner, Iron Man... And let's not forget Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and the entire Fantastic Four!"
Although never officially a member, Spidey had his share of cameos too.
What I'd really like to see is the alternate Fantastic Four: Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Hulk, and Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is getting his own movie soon enough, anyway...
The Avengers (original): Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Ant-Man, if memory serves. So, with Ant-Man, 3 of the 5 already will have had their own movies, and Thor and Iron Man are pretty recognizable. (Of course, who knows what sort of weird line-up they will end up with? The Vision would be cool.)
Dr. Strange: A master of the mystic, showed up in the Avengers, Spider-Man, and any cosmic cross-over storylines, but his own comic was right good.
Power Pack: A group of kids who got some pretty cool superpowers, I read all of these when I was a kid. Could make a killer kids' movie.
Hawkeye: Kinda unfair to compare a guy who has "eye" in his name to a blind guy, isn't it? More like "The Green Arrow without charisma, but empowered with purple instead of green".
Of all of these, Nick Fury, Black Panther, and Shang-Chi (who?) make me the most skeptical. I would love to see a Dr. Strange movie though.
Katamari Damacy, by all accounts I can find, sold like hotcakes once word got around. It certainly did well enough for the game publishers to sit up and notice it.
Aside from the fact that list doesn't take into account MMORPGs, by the numbers the most popular games appear to be on consoles.
As of 2004: -Console and portable software sales: $6.2 billion, up 8% from 2003 -PC game sales: $1.1 billion, down 2% from 2003 (doesn't take subscription revenue or game downloads into account) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Sales)
As far as which gamers are more "serious" I can only guess. Personally, I try not to take my games too seriously. Anyway, my friends are all cheap, they play Enemy Territory.:)
I agree that the XP video driver issues are overblown. It will be interesting to see what happens with Apple's x86 machines in this regard; I hope that the Mac gets broader options for video, and I hope that the driver issue is a non-issue.
It seems to be a question, and not just for video, of whether you'd rather have fewer options and greater compatibility (Mac) or a lot of options and questionable compatibility (Linux), with Windows in the middle of that spectrum, which is certainly a part of the broad appeal of Windows.
That's odd, because on the Apple Store, it sure looks like you can choose either an ATI Radeon 9600, 9650, x850 XT, or Nvidia GeForce 6800 when you order your PowerMac.
And while that may be "limiting" the options, I would certainly not say you have "no" options. Maybe if you choose a Mac Mini you have no video card options, but, OTOH, you're choosing the Mac Mini.
My Mac does the Photoshop/MSOffice thing, as well as games:MMORPGs (World of Warcraft), FPSs (Unreal), and -- eh, I haven't really played any RTS's since Starcraft, so I can't speak to that.
It can also run the all the nifty open source *nix tools as needed, which I assume do the brunt of the "heavy lifting" to which you refer.
Don't forget "defending your network against arbitrary changes due to 'needed' applications"; not to mention constantly dealing with every possible network problem, or rather striving to prove that it's not your problem, since everyone believes the firewall must be to blame.
For some reason, people see storage and backups in a much more reasonable light. For some reason, having those tangible drives (that the managers never see anyway) is more justifiable on a budget than these "security practices", even if the end goal of data preservation is the same.
I think we can all agree this isn't a brilliant approach. Contrarians, however, get more press, even if this does seem kind of like reverse-FUD.
Securing the individual boxes is *always* a good idea, and there are a million tools to help with this, like nmap/Nessus to see where the weaknesses on the network are, Cisco's Security Agent to protect at the kernel and network level of the device in question...
Throwing out the firewall is a moronic idea, however, not only because you're discarding in-depth security, but you're also losing a host of other security tools like stateful session tracking, address translation, and site-to-site VPN capability.
After the keynote, Apple's Phil Schiller stated that there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
It would be nice if they were doing this because it came from the old-school initiative of "wouldn't it be cool if..." rather than as a business tactic to "respond to the Linux threat". And maybe, just maybe, they are.
Is it the corporations or the industry analysts that suck the life out of otherwise interesting projects like these?
"Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is an entirely new game in the Grand Theft Auto series and brings an unprecedented mobile dimension to this epic experience. The original storyline and all new missions take place in Liberty City, featuring the interactive, open environment, superb voice talent and diverse music that have become pioneering trademarks of the series."
Sounds like it will be better than the Gameboy one looked... I'm excited, and I'm really hoping for WiFi multiplayer...
I was going to take a look, but I got bored waiting for every single widget on the page to load up the graphics that would show me how the real graphics are "loading...".
There may or may not be a hot Lara Croft there, but I'll never know, because that website is just slow and way too overdesigned.
Actually, a couple of posts above this one mention that there is a Windows program called Acid that can probably the GarageBand loop file format (and that the Acid developers worked on GarageBand, even). So no need to be yelling about something that isn't obviously true, and might not be true at all.
Although, interestingly, NIN has been using Macs to assemble their music since the beginning; "Pretty Hate Machine" was put together by Trent Reznor on a Macintosh Quadra back in '89.
(3). Gameplay. I'll use Burnout 3 as an example. It is easily the best racing game many gamers have ever played, and yet, unlike most other games in the genre, it doesn't feature one brand name car-- but has stunning gameplay. It didn't even need heavy marketing, because the word of mouth was so effective. I still enjoy old school NES Double Dribble, for that matter, a basketball game featuring no-name stick figures.
You don't need big names to make a good game, even a sports game.
Let's see, you didn't want to play against others, didn't want to play a character, and didn't want to play with people who can't (or won't) spell correctly. Assholes aside, sounds like you shouldn't be playing MMORPGs at all.
My advice is to unplug from the network and go get your MCSE (Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert).
I think PvP servers can be more friendly, since your guilds band together out of the common goal of obliterating the enemy, and not so you can all just hold hands and level together.
If I have a technical issue and I post it in the forum. Most of the time it is ignored.
If I post a genuine thread in the general forum, it is almost always ignored...
Blizzard has stated that, if you have a problem, posting it in the forums is not the best way to let them know. Email them. Call them. Or, even, page a GM in-game. I don't know, is that "breaking the rules"?
Yes, there have been some issues, but they haven't seemed that godawful to me. It's still one of the best games ever created, and even if I only get on for 4 hours in a single month, I've gotten my fifteen bucks worth. C'mon, that's the price of two movies at the theater. One, if you have a girlfriend.
The only things I'm tired of are Blizzard's "planned outages" which they notify you of 30 minutes before, the random login server fuckups, and all of the people whining about lag.
Lag is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, on this very website. You can see it when you look at your webportal or when you turn on your XBox Live. You can feel it when you VPN in to work... when you go to The Cathedral of Light... when you eFile.
If you read the article, the experiment was successful, and put pressure on EA to lower their prices.
Also in the article, they are only talking about raising prices for the next-generation consoles-- i.e. the PS3 and X-Box 2. There is no mention of what they will or will not do for the current platforms (only speculation).
Slashdot Mirror
> "The Avengers: Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, The Sub-Mariner, Iron Man... And let's not forget Ant-Man, Hawkeye, and the entire Fantastic Four!"
Although never officially a member, Spidey had his share of cameos too.
What I'd really like to see is the alternate Fantastic Four: Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Hulk, and Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is getting his own movie soon enough, anyway...
The Avengers (original): Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk, Ant-Man, if memory serves. So, with Ant-Man, 3 of the 5 already will have had their own movies, and Thor and Iron Man are pretty recognizable. (Of course, who knows what sort of weird line-up they will end up with? The Vision would be cool.)
Dr. Strange: A master of the mystic, showed up in the Avengers, Spider-Man, and any cosmic cross-over storylines, but his own comic was right good.
Power Pack: A group of kids who got some pretty cool superpowers, I read all of these when I was a kid. Could make a killer kids' movie.
Hawkeye: Kinda unfair to compare a guy who has "eye" in his name to a blind guy, isn't it? More like "The Green Arrow without charisma, but empowered with purple instead of green".
Of all of these, Nick Fury, Black Panther, and Shang-Chi (who?) make me the most skeptical. I would love to see a Dr. Strange movie though.
Katamari Damacy, by all accounts I can find, sold like hotcakes once word got around. It certainly did well enough for the game publishers to sit up and notice it.
Aside from the fact that list doesn't take into account MMORPGs, by the numbers the most popular games appear to be on consoles.
:)
As of 2004:
-Console and portable software sales: $6.2 billion, up 8% from 2003
-PC game sales: $1.1 billion, down 2% from 2003 (doesn't take subscription revenue or game downloads into account)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Sales)
As far as which gamers are more "serious" I can only guess. Personally, I try not to take my games too seriously. Anyway, my friends are all cheap, they play Enemy Territory.
I agree that the XP video driver issues are overblown. It will be interesting to see what happens with Apple's x86 machines in this regard; I hope that the Mac gets broader options for video, and I hope that the driver issue is a non-issue.
It seems to be a question, and not just for video, of whether you'd rather have fewer options and greater compatibility (Mac) or a lot of options and questionable compatibility (Linux), with Windows in the middle of that spectrum, which is certainly a part of the broad appeal of Windows.
You have no options.
That's odd, because on the Apple Store, it sure looks like you can choose either an ATI Radeon 9600, 9650, x850 XT, or Nvidia GeForce 6800 when you order your PowerMac.
And while that may be "limiting" the options, I would certainly not say you have "no" options. Maybe if you choose a Mac Mini you have no video card options, but, OTOH, you're choosing the Mac Mini.
My Mac does the Photoshop/MSOffice thing, as well as games:MMORPGs (World of Warcraft), FPSs (Unreal), and -- eh, I haven't really played any RTS's since Starcraft, so I can't speak to that.
It can also run the all the nifty open source *nix tools as needed, which I assume do the brunt of the "heavy lifting" to which you refer.
No need for both a Windows *and* a Linux box.
Don't forget "defending your network against arbitrary changes due to 'needed' applications"; not to mention constantly dealing with every possible network problem, or rather striving to prove that it's not your problem, since everyone believes the firewall must be to blame. For some reason, people see storage and backups in a much more reasonable light. For some reason, having those tangible drives (that the managers never see anyway) is more justifiable on a budget than these "security practices", even if the end goal of data preservation is the same.
I think we can all agree this isn't a brilliant approach. Contrarians, however, get more press, even if this does seem kind of like reverse-FUD.
Securing the individual boxes is *always* a good idea, and there are a million tools to help with this, like nmap/Nessus to see where the weaknesses on the network are, Cisco's Security Agent to protect at the kernel and network level of the device in question...
Throwing out the firewall is a moronic idea, however, not only because you're discarding in-depth security, but you're also losing a host of other security tools like stateful session tracking, address translation, and site-to-site VPN capability.
True. Interesting quote from this article:
It would be nice if they were doing this because it came from the old-school initiative of "wouldn't it be cool if..." rather than as a business tactic to "respond to the Linux threat". And maybe, just maybe, they are.
Is it the corporations or the industry analysts that suck the life out of otherwise interesting projects like these?
More detailed story from the linked source.
Blurb from Rockstar.com:
Sounds like it will be better than the Gameboy one looked... I'm excited, and I'm really hoping for WiFi multiplayer...
I was going to take a look, but I got bored waiting for every single widget on the page to load up the graphics that would show me how the real graphics are "loading...".
There may or may not be a hot Lara Croft there, but I'll never know, because that website is just slow and way too overdesigned.
Nades have also been around for ages, though not sticky ones.
GoldenEye for the N64 had sticky mines. That thing came out in 1996 or so. Pretty much the same thing.
Nothing like throwing a sticky mine on some poor chap's head.
I stand corrected. That's the last time I trust the first Google result to jog my ancient memory.
Actually, a couple of posts above this one mention that there is a Windows program called Acid that can probably the GarageBand loop file format (and that the Acid developers worked on GarageBand, even). So no need to be yelling about something that isn't obviously true, and might not be true at all.
Although, interestingly, NIN has been using Macs to assemble their music since the beginning; "Pretty Hate Machine" was put together by Trent Reznor on a Macintosh Quadra back in '89.
No, no... set B had no video games, so they just smoked dope instead. Of course they were non-violent.
This article is why Slashdot was invented. Kudos.
There's No Such Agency.
No one likes a nosy neighbor, but they don't mind borrowing his power tools.
You missed one:
(3). Gameplay. I'll use Burnout 3 as an example. It is easily the best racing game many gamers have ever played, and yet, unlike most other games in the genre, it doesn't feature one brand name car-- but has stunning gameplay. It didn't even need heavy marketing, because the word of mouth was so effective. I still enjoy old school NES Double Dribble, for that matter, a basketball game featuring no-name stick figures.
You don't need big names to make a good game, even a sports game.
Let's see, you didn't want to play against others, didn't want to play a character, and didn't want to play with people who can't (or won't) spell correctly. Assholes aside, sounds like you shouldn't be playing MMORPGs at all.
My advice is to unplug from the network and go get your MCSE (Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert).
I think PvP servers can be more friendly, since your guilds band together out of the common goal of obliterating the enemy, and not so you can all just hold hands and level together.
Also...
If I have a technical issue and I post it in the forum. Most of the time it is ignored.
If I post a genuine thread in the general forum, it is almost always ignored...
Blizzard has stated that, if you have a problem, posting it in the forums is not the best way to let them know. Email them. Call them. Or, even, page a GM in-game. I don't know, is that "breaking the rules"?
Yes, there have been some issues, but they haven't seemed that godawful to me. It's still one of the best games ever created, and even if I only get on for 4 hours in a single month, I've gotten my fifteen bucks worth. C'mon, that's the price of two movies at the theater. One, if you have a girlfriend.
The only things I'm tired of are Blizzard's "planned outages" which they notify you of 30 minutes before, the random login server fuckups, and all of the people whining about lag.
Lag is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, on this very website. You can see it when you look at your webportal or when you turn on your XBox Live. You can feel it when you VPN in to work... when you go to The Cathedral of Light... when you eFile.
If you read the article, the experiment was successful, and put pressure on EA to lower their prices.
Also in the article, they are only talking about raising prices for the next-generation consoles-- i.e. the PS3 and X-Box 2. There is no mention of what they will or will not do for the current platforms (only speculation).