I think you're maybe missing the point of the Gamasutra article.
Video games are a unique medium since they can operate on a spectrum, running between cinema (think mgs4) and toys/tools (think sims or rpg maker or the mtv music tracker). Operating inside of this space, I think what Matsuura is getting at, video games can live as interactive art, and what better way to do that than with music?
Parappa at the time was revolutionary because it was one of the first music games allowing you to not only play in time with music, but to add your own elements of creation with the freestyle mode. Which was pretty sweet, but most music games since then have been just derivatives - press the button at the right time and score points.
This is what makes guitar hero rather boring.
Playing a piece of music is exciting not only because of the skill involved, but what kind of feeling the musician puts into playing the piece. It's a very personal thing. Not to mention how fun jamming with friends is. I think Matsuura wants video games to connect with music on a more deeper level. The latest marching band game lets you direct a band, which is another aspect of music, the concept of tempo. This is something that a lot of people are familiar with, but it will be exciting to have a game where it is immediately accessible to anyone that can hold a wiimote.
I'd love to hear what Matsuura thinks of Elektroplankton. I know there's a big divide in people who play it, since most people don't consider it a game. But if you sit down with it with a pair of headphones and actually think for a moment about what is happening, there's a lot of fun there. At least, I think, for people who like making noises.
I think there's a lot of fun to be had in games that bring music to people in unexpected ways. Games that allow people who don't consider themselves musical or have the time to invest into instruments to be able to enjoy an experience closer to what some musicians enjoy. And in that respect, a game like guitar hero is very primitive since it just records hits and misses and gives you a score - the reward for memorizing a song.
Hey, not to say that orchestral soundtracks and catchy hooks don't have their place. They're fitting and moving in the more traditional game experience. I think just that there's a lot of untapped potential in games that you don't see since everyone is so focused on rehashing tired but marketable concepts.
XBMC is probably one of the most useful programs I've ever set up, and if anyone is considering making a cheap media center pc, it's best just to buy an xbox instead.
XBMC is ridiculously easy to operate (the menus are designed correctly and actually make sense), it plays everything right off the bat (something my PC wouldn't even do), has an amazing amount of useful features (automatic mp3 encoding and tagging from CD, imdb and allmusicguide look up for movies and albums) and even networks flawlessly with no serious set up. I've only had a few minor issues with the key layouts using the standard DVD remote, but it's easy to customize so it's not too big a problem.
As soon as I installed it I realized this is what Microsoft should be selling if it were at all feasible to market without dragging it down with annoying DRM.
...it would be like preventing women from announcing that they're women in an environment in which it is possible or even likely that men would harrass them.
Of course the inclusion of HD in consoles is a good thing. I'll go ahead and state the obvious that HD penetration is also quite low. Sure, including HD as a system feature is a good idea, but touting it as a major selling point and a revolution in gaming is quite stupid.
Personally (and I'm sure a lot of people feel this way) because of the low penetration and the high prices of HDTV's, what real interest am I supposed to have in a feature that I'm not going to be using until maybe 5 or 6 years down the road?
This "more of the same" mentality is (of course) not based upon what the first few months of launch has shown (which obviously has little bearing on predicting the success of the console) but the sort of gaming that consoles has brought us this round. When I've had to pass on the majority of knock offs that have been coming out for PS2, Xbox, and GC in favor of playing the originals on DC, PS, SNES, and N64, something is wrong. It's not like it's some sort of secret, console gaming is stagnating, and the current generation wasn't all that stellar to begin with.
It's going to be a long long time before I go out to replace any of the 10 tv's in this house. I've been playing games at near "HD" quality on my PC for ages now. Sure HL2 looks brilliant at high resolution, but (unfortunately) it doesn't play any better than it does at 640x480.
I'm seriously disinterested with this next line of consoles. The PS3 and the Xbox360 promise high-definition gaming, but what else? I just get the feeling I'm going to be playing this generation's games on the next generation's platform, since developers couldn't be bothered to come up with new ideas.
The only console I'm excited for this round is the Revolution, which is odd because a gimmicky little controller really shouldn't be such an integral selling point for me.
Does it really make sense to say that teaching game design is wrong because most games are violent? Wouldn't it make more sense to base an argument fighting game design courses based upon games' infancy as a medium, and its potential lack of academic value?
It just doesn't seem real logical to say that game design courses must be bad because games today promote violence. That'd be kind of like saying that we shouldn't teach film courses because movies and television are too violent.
Wouldn't it be a good thing to offer game design courses, because that'd provide chances to teach potential designers responsibility and ethics?
Exactly. While it would be nice to be giving the gamers what they want and supporting the game (it's obviously in the best interest of those doing the selling), they are by no written means obligated. These gamers shouldn't be threatening the developers considering the game that they delivered was complete and not riddled with bugs. The multi-player for CoD2 is an afterthought compared to the main campaign which obviously recieved most of the work.
What most people don't realize is that cheaters don't ruin your game, it's that you let cheaters ruin your game. It's the same in real life: you can choose to let some asshole get to you or you can ignore it. I typically play games online only with friends now too, as it tends to make each gaming session that much more rewarding. And when I'm playing on pubs, if I spot a hack I just move servers if I care enough to.
I've been a long time player of CoD, however I've passed up UO. I've been nothing but pleased with CoD2 so far, and I simply cannot stand punkbuster or any other anti-cheat being included with my game. I'm probably the only person on the lonely internet who likes that there's no punkbuster included with CoD2.
I don't know what you're getting on about saying the controls and gameplay are just screaming console. I wasn't really aware that there was going to be an Xbox360 port, and only now have I realized after reading some posts here that there is one. The controls have been the same as they've always been, and I'll agree with the other guy here saying that it plays exactly like CoD, which I was expecting and appreciated. It's been a while since I've played CoD, and CoD2 was just the game I wanted.
Barring that, the game has only been out for a month and it's hardly broken. I ran into no show-stopping bugs or felt that the content was lacking in anyway. Knowing that the game isn't in any form broken, how can anyone feel that threatening the company that produces the game with some stupid plan to shut down a chunk of the servers in order to "get back at them" and get patch notes that they "deserve" when a well supported thread on their home forum would do the trick. It's a finished product, and it's not like you or I were tricked into buying it.
This has to be some of the most retarded shit I've seen in a while. While I assume it would be nice for the developer to add things like Anti-Cheat, and... well as far I can tell that's all this guy wants. And I guess some patch notes. For a patch. That anyone can assume is coming.
While it's obviously in the best interest for the developer to support their game as well as possible past release, but they're by no means obligated to. Honestly the game came out not even a month ago, and these guys are already demanding an integrated anti-cheat. And this is for a game whose multiplayer component was hardly the main focus of the development time. Did they expect the game to ship with punkbuster or something pegged on to it? And would that have really done the job? This seems like an awful lot of wasted effort for a statement on when they might patch. Is it really necessary to attempt to shut down their own player community to make some sort of statement that could be made in a post on their forums?
It just seems like a cut off your nose to spite your face scenario put forth by some impatient gamers.
It was only the comedy option because I was referring to it as filling in the "flyer" part of the parent's class list. In which case medic is the closest thing that would fit the bill. With proper conc jumps you can manuever pretty much anywhere in TFC. Medics were the shit!
In NS however, I think the lerk is more of a support class...
While they don't quite match up exactly, there are definite similarities as to the class structure and roles in the game. NS didn't quite pioneer basic classes in FPS games. What it did do though is provide an incredibly unique RTS/FPS blend (with a firm emphasis on teamwork) to the market that hasn't quite been matched by any other game.
2Mbit really isn't all that slow. For the tasks you'd put the DS to 2Mbit is a lot more than you'll need. Web browsing, Aim, hell even streaming mp3 can all be done at under 2Mbit, for what exactly would you need more?
Is that it took them so long to release this. Well, really I suppose most of the time was revamping all the code to do HDR, considering the level only has 5-10 minutes of content at most. The HDR is a cool effect... unfortunately after a bit of playing it seems to hurt my eyes. I wonder how far in advance the level was planned and done, and how long it took them to get the HDR worked out. DoD seemed to hang on the HDR, and the Lost Coast came out relatively quick after that was relased. What sucks is even that it took forever to release, the Lost Coast still is buggy as hell. Often times it'll forget to spawn the soldiers with AI, among other things.
For what it's worth, I think the coolest feature is the commentary they put in which goes along with the level to describe their thoughts behind the design and code revamp. It gives some insight into their level design process and other things.
I think full length games with an accompanying commentary track could be pretty cool if done well. However, I don't think the floating commentary entities are the way to do it.
Not sure it was worth the 360 meg download, but it is interesting. Valve's HDR solution is really space intensive unfortunately.:( I wonder if in the future we'll find a more viable way of achieving the same effect without taking a thousand gigs to do it...
Funny thing, after trolling the WoW forums for about a year with a character named Goatse, they just yesterday caught on and demanded I change it the next time I log in. Oh well.
All of my characters violate the naming conventions, and this is the first time I've ever been asked to change it. My main character's name describes a rather gross sex fetish, and I've had him all the way to level 60. People complain about it all the time in channel and I'm sure I've been reported multiple times, but to this day, I've never been asked (told) to change it. What gives?
It just sucks that CmdrTaco had to have his name changed especially when there's more glaring infractions of the same stupid rule that are all overlooked. Oh well, he'll get over it I suppose.
Do GM's ever do anything useful? They don't handle social problems well at all, and they can't help you with any ingame problems, bug related or not (I guess they do reset/repop bugged instances/mobs). But besides that what do they do besides hassle the playerbase? I wish GM's would be required to respond to harassment reports by informing the player of the/ignore function. That'd be more consistant with their policy of nonhelp, and actually go a long way improving their image among the people they harass.
I guess it was only a matter of time before bigger artists finally started offering better online distribution options... but for Harvey Danger to offer an entire album on their site - one that's encoded correctly and free to boot - that's almost a dream come true. I hope this experiment of theirs works out, because I'd love to see a lot more artists out there take note.
For those who don't realize why this is a rather big deal, Harvey Danger was a fairly popular rock band from the late nineties. They're most known for Flagpole Sitta', off of the album Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?. That album and Kings James Version are both pretty decent and it's kind of sad the band has fallen to the wayside as of late. Hopefully this publicity will do something for them besides raise their bandwidth costs.
While the whole idea may not be entirely novel, they're still one of the few more popular bands that are offering a full album for download off of their site. Also their site doesn't have any terribly gaudy and annoying flash elements. Kudos for that.
Once again slashdot forgot to link what the article is actually about. While this is a minor annoyance this time since the address is there but not hyperlinked, it's still a dick move. Thanks editors, I clicked both the GS and the IGN before I actually reached the site.
Werd. I don't know what the hell you're on but, sure.
Because the last time they tried that, it was a sales nightmare. Granted the Workboy required custom hardware, which a DS version wouldn't, which in turn totally changes the reasonability of such a device; still, Nintendo does not like to retake failed risks, even when the situation has changed.
I know Nintendo makes lots of stupid decisions, because, well it's Nintendo. But I highly doubt they'd be holding off on a simple application just because the novelty product they launched nearly a decade ago failed miserably. Besides, the DS itself was a huge leap into the unknown for Nintendo. I'm sure they aren't afraid to drop the kind of cash for something that's likely to cost less than an inhouse game.
If they are afraid of not being able to make the money back, then really, I guess Nintendo hasn't changed much over the years. This sort of thing is just a stereotypical Nintendo decision.
I've never understood this belief. All Nintendo does is set a threshhold for acceptable material, and the famous days of taking blood out of Mortal Kombat are long since gone. The DS has games whose goal is to seduce women, if you need evidence of change.
While it was quite obvious I wasn't really referring to their poor choices in censoring, I guess I'll let you in on a secret: I wasn't referring to their poor choices in censoring.
It's no secret that Nintendo's marketing often sways between very conservative and just plain wackey. The fact that things like the Workboy, the Virtualboy, and RoB even existed is proof of their weird side. Not to say that they were bad, but none of them were really appreciated nor successful, and the virtual boy was historically bad. Not to rag on Nintendo, their dedication to keeping gaming fresh is awesome, but they make very bullheaded decisions sometimes. As evidenced in their choice to stay out of the online market. While they obviously aren't doing poorly in terms of their console, I can't help to feel that it hindered them when Sony and Microsoft were both profitting off of online services.
You can set the clock just fine without rebooting the machine. It's just that Metroid doesn't seem to think you'll want to. By the way, there's a good reason that the config menu hard-boots the machine when it's done - it's a security issue, to protect their firmware. If they hadn't done that, we would have had passme a week sooner than we actually did.
I must be doing something wrong because I just set the clock on my DS right now to see if I was crazy, and it's now telling me the system will shut down. That's odd. I guess if I press cancel and then leave the system on and not play any games then I can set the clock without rebooting. So in a way, I guess you're right.
While it's obviously not a huge issue, it's still completely stupid. And as you're suggesting, as a protection scheme, it fails. Why then would you inconvenience the user?
And you're comparing this to American efforts like Sega Channel and Fairchild Channel F? Cough.
I was thinking more along the lines of other terrible Japanese online services, and not specifically the content delivery systems you cited. For a multiplayer service, PlayOnline comes to mind.
But seriously, PlayOnline is a nightmare, and most of Sega's online stuff for DC wasn't good either. PSO included. Granted the internet thing still is new for consoles, but Microsoft, an American company you may of heard of, is the only one who seems to be doing things remotely right. I'm not a fan of Microsoft or Xbox Live (Halo 2 over it was unbearable for me), but there's no arguing that it's the most successful and easiest to use online strategy that has been put out for a console. With Nintendo's reluctance to establish any sort of online presense with the 'cube, then how can we expect the Revolution, much less the DS (which is a mobile wireless device) to have a strong online function.
Where's the DS's most obvious yet most missed PDA software?
I'm not talking anything extremely fancy, but why are they taking so long with launching this sort of software? I understand that Nintendo wants to stay dedicated to gaming, but the lack of regard for their market is incredible. The DS itself is basically a powerful clamshell PDA. While it is a gaming machine, adding support for these features would have been trivial. It's like they went out of their way to make the system as gimp as possible. This I guess should come as no surprise, since it is Nintendo calling the shots.
While I do believe that gaming machines should be use to game with, I think that not including these sort of features is a terrible waste of potential. Imagine the kind of image they could have crafted for their system if they took the time to develop these tools for launch, or at least shortly after.
At least for me, one of the major selling points was the unit's wireless capabilities. The mere possibility that I could potentially have a portable web device that did AIM made me cream myself. The touchscreen for the device gives it a leg up on the PSP for input. However, I was crushed to hear Nintendo's statements of non-interest in any sort of PDA style programs.
I guess I'll be lucky to be getting a PDA-style cart, much less a much needed firmware revision. It would have been too awesome if they could have built all that shit in from the very beginning. It would have been way too cool to have a pocket console that could browse the web, sign onto AIM, and play awesome games.
Of course most of the features rest upon the ability of the user to be in an open wireless network. I've come to realize I'm in the presense of those more often than I'm not these days.
Well I guess I have to be satisfied with built in novelty chat client and an interface that can't even set the clock without rebooting the machine. I just hope that the wireless revolution they're planning on launching is well thought out and not a pile of novelty shit that most Japanese companies produce.
There were plenty of things wrong with Wind Waker, but the graphics weren't one of them. They successfully conveyed the mechanics and story. If you're one of the people who didn't by Wind Waker solely because of the graphics, you're part of the problem. How can game makers focus on good gameplay when financially everybody makes graphics king?
This is exactly how I feel. I originally was confused by the change in graphics, but understood that Cel shading had some potential after playing JSR for a bit. In the right hands, Cel Shaded games have the potential for an incredible amount of style. Nintendo didn't let me down - they made Wind Waker have one of the most animated worlds ever created for a video game. Often times while watching a roommate play it, I'd confuse it straight up for a cartoon. The animation in the game is just so fluid, and the visuals are dead on for the type of story they are used to convey.
Every time I read or hear someone saying they didn't play Wind Waker because of the 'kiddie' Cel Shaded graphics, I want to slap them. What the hell is kiddie about it? Link is still in there, kicking ass, and looking better than he did in all the rest of the games up to it. Especially now after seeing the screen shots for the new games, I'm annoyed that they switched to a more realistic style.
It seems whenever developers opt to make the game as realistic looking as possible, it ends up looking off and lifeless. Morrowind, Everquest 2, and other games come off as looking good in the screenshots, but seeing the game in motion really breaks the experience for me. The characters and backdrops seem dead and bleak. The Soul Calibur series has been the only one I've seen that doesn't seem to suffer this problem, probably since the character's motion plays such a huge part in the game.
At least it is heartening to see that for Twilight Princess they are keeping some of the stylized aesthetics and tying it in with the dry looking realistic stuff. The trailers had some nice footage of a stylish looking wolf running through a black and white castle, controlled by a character that looked partially remeniscient of a Wind Waker character...
Either way I guess it's good to know that at least it will play as good as any other game in the series, that is, it will be yet another Zelda game.
Which American designer personally made the most money last year from computer games he or she designed? Not the most money for a company, mind you, nor for a studio or licensor, but individual, take-home, taxable income. Was it a famous game god? John Carmack, Will Wright, Sid Meier, Warren Spector? Probably not. It was probably some guy you never heard of who wrote some little shareware game you never heard of.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're maybe missing the point of the Gamasutra article.
Video games are a unique medium since they can operate on a spectrum, running between cinema (think mgs4) and toys/tools (think sims or rpg maker or the mtv music tracker). Operating inside of this space, I think what Matsuura is getting at, video games can live as interactive art, and what better way to do that than with music?
Parappa at the time was revolutionary because it was one of the first music games allowing you to not only play in time with music, but to add your own elements of creation with the freestyle mode. Which was pretty sweet, but most music games since then have been just derivatives - press the button at the right time and score points.
This is what makes guitar hero rather boring.
Playing a piece of music is exciting not only because of the skill involved, but what kind of feeling the musician puts into playing the piece. It's a very personal thing. Not to mention how fun jamming with friends is. I think Matsuura wants video games to connect with music on a more deeper level. The latest marching band game lets you direct a band, which is another aspect of music, the concept of tempo. This is something that a lot of people are familiar with, but it will be exciting to have a game where it is immediately accessible to anyone that can hold a wiimote.
I'd love to hear what Matsuura thinks of Elektroplankton. I know there's a big divide in people who play it, since most people don't consider it a game. But if you sit down with it with a pair of headphones and actually think for a moment about what is happening, there's a lot of fun there. At least, I think, for people who like making noises.
I think there's a lot of fun to be had in games that bring music to people in unexpected ways. Games that allow people who don't consider themselves musical or have the time to invest into instruments to be able to enjoy an experience closer to what some musicians enjoy. And in that respect, a game like guitar hero is very primitive since it just records hits and misses and gives you a score - the reward for memorizing a song.
Hey, not to say that orchestral soundtracks and catchy hooks don't have their place. They're fitting and moving in the more traditional game experience. I think just that there's a lot of untapped potential in games that you don't see since everyone is so focused on rehashing tired but marketable concepts.
XBMC is probably one of the most useful programs I've ever set up, and if anyone is considering making a cheap media center pc, it's best just to buy an xbox instead.
XBMC is ridiculously easy to operate (the menus are designed correctly and actually make sense), it plays everything right off the bat (something my PC wouldn't even do), has an amazing amount of useful features (automatic mp3 encoding and tagging from CD, imdb and allmusicguide look up for movies and albums) and even networks flawlessly with no serious set up. I've only had a few minor issues with the key layouts using the standard DVD remote, but it's easy to customize so it's not too big a problem.
As soon as I installed it I realized this is what Microsoft should be selling if it were at all feasible to market without dragging it down with annoying DRM.
...it would be like preventing women from announcing that they're women in an environment in which it is possible or even likely that men would harrass them.
like the internet?
Of course the inclusion of HD in consoles is a good thing. I'll go ahead and state the obvious that HD penetration is also quite low. Sure, including HD as a system feature is a good idea, but touting it as a major selling point and a revolution in gaming is quite stupid.
Personally (and I'm sure a lot of people feel this way) because of the low penetration and the high prices of HDTV's, what real interest am I supposed to have in a feature that I'm not going to be using until maybe 5 or 6 years down the road?
This "more of the same" mentality is (of course) not based upon what the first few months of launch has shown (which obviously has little bearing on predicting the success of the console) but the sort of gaming that consoles has brought us this round. When I've had to pass on the majority of knock offs that have been coming out for PS2, Xbox, and GC in favor of playing the originals on DC, PS, SNES, and N64, something is wrong. It's not like it's some sort of secret, console gaming is stagnating, and the current generation wasn't all that stellar to begin with.
Likewise.
It's going to be a long long time before I go out to replace any of the 10 tv's in this house. I've been playing games at near "HD" quality on my PC for ages now. Sure HL2 looks brilliant at high resolution, but (unfortunately) it doesn't play any better than it does at 640x480.
I'm seriously disinterested with this next line of consoles. The PS3 and the Xbox360 promise high-definition gaming, but what else? I just get the feeling I'm going to be playing this generation's games on the next generation's platform, since developers couldn't be bothered to come up with new ideas.
The only console I'm excited for this round is the Revolution, which is odd because a gimmicky little controller really shouldn't be such an integral selling point for me.
Does it really make sense to say that teaching game design is wrong because most games are violent? Wouldn't it make more sense to base an argument fighting game design courses based upon games' infancy as a medium, and its potential lack of academic value?
It just doesn't seem real logical to say that game design courses must be bad because games today promote violence. That'd be kind of like saying that we shouldn't teach film courses because movies and television are too violent.
Wouldn't it be a good thing to offer game design courses, because that'd provide chances to teach potential designers responsibility and ethics?
Exactly. While it would be nice to be giving the gamers what they want and supporting the game (it's obviously in the best interest of those doing the selling), they are by no written means obligated. These gamers shouldn't be threatening the developers considering the game that they delivered was complete and not riddled with bugs. The multi-player for CoD2 is an afterthought compared to the main campaign which obviously recieved most of the work.
What most people don't realize is that cheaters don't ruin your game, it's that you let cheaters ruin your game. It's the same in real life: you can choose to let some asshole get to you or you can ignore it. I typically play games online only with friends now too, as it tends to make each gaming session that much more rewarding. And when I'm playing on pubs, if I spot a hack I just move servers if I care enough to.
I've been a long time player of CoD, however I've passed up UO. I've been nothing but pleased with CoD2 so far, and I simply cannot stand punkbuster or any other anti-cheat being included with my game. I'm probably the only person on the lonely internet who likes that there's no punkbuster included with CoD2.
I don't know what you're getting on about saying the controls and gameplay are just screaming console. I wasn't really aware that there was going to be an Xbox360 port, and only now have I realized after reading some posts here that there is one. The controls have been the same as they've always been, and I'll agree with the other guy here saying that it plays exactly like CoD, which I was expecting and appreciated. It's been a while since I've played CoD, and CoD2 was just the game I wanted.
Barring that, the game has only been out for a month and it's hardly broken. I ran into no show-stopping bugs or felt that the content was lacking in anyway. Knowing that the game isn't in any form broken, how can anyone feel that threatening the company that produces the game with some stupid plan to shut down a chunk of the servers in order to "get back at them" and get patch notes that they "deserve" when a well supported thread on their home forum would do the trick. It's a finished product, and it's not like you or I were tricked into buying it.
This has to be some of the most retarded shit I've seen in a while. While I assume it would be nice for the developer to add things like Anti-Cheat, and... well as far I can tell that's all this guy wants. And I guess some patch notes. For a patch. That anyone can assume is coming.
While it's obviously in the best interest for the developer to support their game as well as possible past release, but they're by no means obligated to. Honestly the game came out not even a month ago, and these guys are already demanding an integrated anti-cheat. And this is for a game whose multiplayer component was hardly the main focus of the development time. Did they expect the game to ship with punkbuster or something pegged on to it? And would that have really done the job? This seems like an awful lot of wasted effort for a statement on when they might patch. Is it really necessary to attempt to shut down their own player community to make some sort of statement that could be made in a post on their forums?
It just seems like a cut off your nose to spite your face scenario put forth by some impatient gamers.
In short, it's a dickmove.
It was only the comedy option because I was referring to it as filling in the "flyer" part of the parent's class list. In which case medic is the closest thing that would fit the bill. With proper conc jumps you can manuever pretty much anywhere in TFC. Medics were the shit!
In NS however, I think the lerk is more of a support class...
TFC: Scout, Engineer, Medic (lol comedy option!1!), Soldier, HWGuy
RtcW-ET: Covert-ops, Engineer, Field Ops, Medic, Soldier
While they don't quite match up exactly, there are definite similarities as to the class structure and roles in the game. NS didn't quite pioneer basic classes in FPS games. What it did do though is provide an incredibly unique RTS/FPS blend (with a firm emphasis on teamwork) to the market that hasn't quite been matched by any other game.
2Mbit really isn't all that slow. For the tasks you'd put the DS to 2Mbit is a lot more than you'll need. Web browsing, Aim, hell even streaming mp3 can all be done at under 2Mbit, for what exactly would you need more?
Is that it took them so long to release this. Well, really I suppose most of the time was revamping all the code to do HDR, considering the level only has 5-10 minutes of content at most. The HDR is a cool effect... unfortunately after a bit of playing it seems to hurt my eyes. I wonder how far in advance the level was planned and done, and how long it took them to get the HDR worked out. DoD seemed to hang on the HDR, and the Lost Coast came out relatively quick after that was relased. What sucks is even that it took forever to release, the Lost Coast still is buggy as hell. Often times it'll forget to spawn the soldiers with AI, among other things.
:( I wonder if in the future we'll find a more viable way of achieving the same effect without taking a thousand gigs to do it...
For what it's worth, I think the coolest feature is the commentary they put in which goes along with the level to describe their thoughts behind the design and code revamp. It gives some insight into their level design process and other things.
I think full length games with an accompanying commentary track could be pretty cool if done well. However, I don't think the floating commentary entities are the way to do it.
Not sure it was worth the 360 meg download, but it is interesting. Valve's HDR solution is really space intensive unfortunately.
Funny thing, after trolling the WoW forums for about a year with a character named Goatse, they just yesterday caught on and demanded I change it the next time I log in. Oh well.
/ignore function. That'd be more consistant with their policy of nonhelp, and actually go a long way improving their image among the people they harass.
All of my characters violate the naming conventions, and this is the first time I've ever been asked to change it. My main character's name describes a rather gross sex fetish, and I've had him all the way to level 60. People complain about it all the time in channel and I'm sure I've been reported multiple times, but to this day, I've never been asked (told) to change it. What gives?
It just sucks that CmdrTaco had to have his name changed especially when there's more glaring infractions of the same stupid rule that are all overlooked. Oh well, he'll get over it I suppose.
Do GM's ever do anything useful? They don't handle social problems well at all, and they can't help you with any ingame problems, bug related or not (I guess they do reset/repop bugged instances/mobs). But besides that what do they do besides hassle the playerbase? I wish GM's would be required to respond to harassment reports by informing the player of the
Greek computers have the fastest processors. No shit. I read it on slashdot.
I guess it was only a matter of time before bigger artists finally started offering better online distribution options... but for Harvey Danger to offer an entire album on their site - one that's encoded correctly and free to boot - that's almost a dream come true. I hope this experiment of theirs works out, because I'd love to see a lot more artists out there take note.
For those who don't realize why this is a rather big deal, Harvey Danger was a fairly popular rock band from the late nineties. They're most known for Flagpole Sitta', off of the album Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?. That album and Kings James Version are both pretty decent and it's kind of sad the band has fallen to the wayside as of late. Hopefully this publicity will do something for them besides raise their bandwidth costs.
While the whole idea may not be entirely novel, they're still one of the few more popular bands that are offering a full album for download off of their site. Also their site doesn't have any terribly gaudy and annoying flash elements. Kudos for that.
Once again slashdot forgot to link what the article is actually about. While this is a minor annoyance this time since the address is there but not hyperlinked, it's still a dick move. Thanks editors, I clicked both the GS and the IGN before I actually reached the site.
Is this sarcasm? They actually did link the torrent, if you read the article...
Werd. I don't know what the hell you're on but, sure.
Because the last time they tried that, it was a sales nightmare. Granted the Workboy required custom hardware, which a DS version wouldn't, which in turn totally changes the reasonability of such a device; still, Nintendo does not like to retake failed risks, even when the situation has changed.
I know Nintendo makes lots of stupid decisions, because, well it's Nintendo. But I highly doubt they'd be holding off on a simple application just because the novelty product they launched nearly a decade ago failed miserably. Besides, the DS itself was a huge leap into the unknown for Nintendo. I'm sure they aren't afraid to drop the kind of cash for something that's likely to cost less than an inhouse game.
If they are afraid of not being able to make the money back, then really, I guess Nintendo hasn't changed much over the years. This sort of thing is just a stereotypical Nintendo decision.
I've never understood this belief. All Nintendo does is set a threshhold for acceptable material, and the famous days of taking blood out of Mortal Kombat are long since gone. The DS has games whose goal is to seduce women, if you need evidence of change.
While it was quite obvious I wasn't really referring to their poor choices in censoring, I guess I'll let you in on a secret: I wasn't referring to their poor choices in censoring.
It's no secret that Nintendo's marketing often sways between very conservative and just plain wackey. The fact that things like the Workboy, the Virtualboy, and RoB even existed is proof of their weird side. Not to say that they were bad, but none of them were really appreciated nor successful, and the virtual boy was historically bad. Not to rag on Nintendo, their dedication to keeping gaming fresh is awesome, but they make very bullheaded decisions sometimes. As evidenced in their choice to stay out of the online market. While they obviously aren't doing poorly in terms of their console, I can't help to feel that it hindered them when Sony and Microsoft were both profitting off of online services.
You can set the clock just fine without rebooting the machine. It's just that Metroid doesn't seem to think you'll want to. By the way, there's a good reason that the config menu hard-boots the machine when it's done - it's a security issue, to protect their firmware. If they hadn't done that, we would have had passme a week sooner than we actually did.
I must be doing something wrong because I just set the clock on my DS right now to see if I was crazy, and it's now telling me the system will shut down. That's odd. I guess if I press cancel and then leave the system on and not play any games then I can set the clock without rebooting. So in a way, I guess you're right.
While it's obviously not a huge issue, it's still completely stupid. And as you're suggesting, as a protection scheme, it fails. Why then would you inconvenience the user?
And you're comparing this to American efforts like Sega Channel and Fairchild Channel F? Cough.
I was thinking more along the lines of other terrible Japanese online services, and not specifically the content delivery systems you cited. For a multiplayer service, PlayOnline comes to mind.
But seriously, PlayOnline is a nightmare, and most of Sega's online stuff for DC wasn't good either. PSO included. Granted the internet thing still is new for consoles, but Microsoft, an American company you may of heard of, is the only one who seems to be doing things remotely right. I'm not a fan of Microsoft or Xbox Live (Halo 2 over it was unbearable for me), but there's no arguing that it's the most successful and easiest to use online strategy that has been put out for a console. With Nintendo's reluctance to establish any sort of online presense with the 'cube, then how can we expect the Revolution, much less the DS (which is a mobile wireless device) to have a strong online function.
Where's the DS's most obvious yet most missed PDA software?
I'm not talking anything extremely fancy, but why are they taking so long with launching this sort of software? I understand that Nintendo wants to stay dedicated to gaming, but the lack of regard for their market is incredible. The DS itself is basically a powerful clamshell PDA. While it is a gaming machine, adding support for these features would have been trivial. It's like they went out of their way to make the system as gimp as possible. This I guess should come as no surprise, since it is Nintendo calling the shots.
While I do believe that gaming machines should be use to game with, I think that not including these sort of features is a terrible waste of potential. Imagine the kind of image they could have crafted for their system if they took the time to develop these tools for launch, or at least shortly after.
At least for me, one of the major selling points was the unit's wireless capabilities. The mere possibility that I could potentially have a portable web device that did AIM made me cream myself. The touchscreen for the device gives it a leg up on the PSP for input. However, I was crushed to hear Nintendo's statements of non-interest in any sort of PDA style programs.
I guess I'll be lucky to be getting a PDA-style cart, much less a much needed firmware revision. It would have been too awesome if they could have built all that shit in from the very beginning. It would have been way too cool to have a pocket console that could browse the web, sign onto AIM, and play awesome games.
Of course most of the features rest upon the ability of the user to be in an open wireless network. I've come to realize I'm in the presense of those more often than I'm not these days.
Well I guess I have to be satisfied with built in novelty chat client and an interface that can't even set the clock without rebooting the machine. I just hope that the wireless revolution they're planning on launching is well thought out and not a pile of novelty shit that most Japanese companies produce.
There were plenty of things wrong with Wind Waker, but the graphics weren't one of them. They successfully conveyed the mechanics and story. If you're one of the people who didn't by Wind Waker solely because of the graphics, you're part of the problem. How can game makers focus on good gameplay when financially everybody makes graphics king?
This is exactly how I feel. I originally was confused by the change in graphics, but understood that Cel shading had some potential after playing JSR for a bit. In the right hands, Cel Shaded games have the potential for an incredible amount of style. Nintendo didn't let me down - they made Wind Waker have one of the most animated worlds ever created for a video game. Often times while watching a roommate play it, I'd confuse it straight up for a cartoon. The animation in the game is just so fluid, and the visuals are dead on for the type of story they are used to convey.
Every time I read or hear someone saying they didn't play Wind Waker because of the 'kiddie' Cel Shaded graphics, I want to slap them. What the hell is kiddie about it? Link is still in there, kicking ass, and looking better than he did in all the rest of the games up to it. Especially now after seeing the screen shots for the new games, I'm annoyed that they switched to a more realistic style.
It seems whenever developers opt to make the game as realistic looking as possible, it ends up looking off and lifeless. Morrowind, Everquest 2, and other games come off as looking good in the screenshots, but seeing the game in motion really breaks the experience for me. The characters and backdrops seem dead and bleak. The Soul Calibur series has been the only one I've seen that doesn't seem to suffer this problem, probably since the character's motion plays such a huge part in the game.
At least it is heartening to see that for Twilight Princess they are keeping some of the stylized aesthetics and tying it in with the dry looking realistic stuff. The trailers had some nice footage of a stylish looking wolf running through a black and white castle, controlled by a character that looked partially remeniscient of a Wind Waker character...
Either way I guess it's good to know that at least it will play as good as any other game in the series, that is, it will be yet another Zelda game.
Stunning troll, props for that. And I thought mine was good.
Wow that's some seriously deep stuff, man. Where do I subscribe to your xanga/livejournal?
Probably? But who was it really?
You're supposed to take the spoon full of shit that Bungie hands you and eat it.
That's what the rest of the Halo 2 community does.
You should read the article over at Bungie's site trying to justify it, you'll probably laugh about as hard as I did.