GamePro on the other hand goes on and on about how it's better than the SNES version.
That's because it was better than the SNES version. I owned both the SNES and Genesis back in the day, loved both consoles for different games, and rented/played SFIISuperUltraHyperMegaEtcEdition for both consoles. The SNES version looked and sounded better, but ah, yes, as no one seems to understand in these days of graphics masturbating fanboys, that doesn't matter. The Genesis version was smoother and played better, more like the arcade. I was willing to forgive the slightly poorer graphics and the near-terrible sound for a better playing game.
Pity that it seems no one else can do that, even these days.
If you're talking about the Windows site page (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/de fault.mspx), it seems to work just fine on my Linux box using Firefox 2.0a2 (Bon Echo). Something in FF2 that lets it work, maybe?
The difference is that anyone can program a fun game. And games with graphics and sound that requires 3d artists and musicians and a million dollar budget aren't necessarily fun.
Programming on ones own can still produce a fun game even if it has horribly dated graphics and sound. I'll take fun over pretty any day.
The online application, as well as many other online applications I've seen recently, request something I absolutely will not give out online for any reason, even with supposedly secure connections and especially not to some apparent third party (the application site is with unicru.com):
my SSN.
Every single time this information is asked of me, I stop filling out the application and e-mail or otherwise contact the company asking for this information to tell them I refuse to give out my SSN due to privacy concerns.
I know they probably want to do a background check, but I won't submit my SSN over the Internet. Call me paranoid, but I won't do it. Too bad.
Here's what I wonder -- and would love to see -- why doesn't Apple really push their Intel Macs in the face of people on the upgrade treadmill?
Why isn't Apple go out and really doing a huge marketing push for their OS, trying to get people away from Windows (or, really, getting people onto their OS)? Take advantage of the long delay between updates, emphasize Microsoft's below-average security and stability history, promise people bigger and better thangs with an easier and less frustrating user experience with Macs, and get people to switch over?
I doubt it'd happen in huge numbers, since Microsoft has people pretty much locked in at this point, but I look at Apple pretty much taking a soft sell approach to the home PC market and wonder why they don't push their PCs as hard as they are their iPod/iTunes? Average people probably know the Apple name from the iPod but I'd bet they'd say "Really? Apple sells computers?" when asked.
No matter what the RIAA thinks, ripping/encoding your own music that you don't ever share is fair use.
Current reinterpretations of laws are bogus and are only used by corporations that are failing and are trying to save their way of business by scaring customers and by excessive greed. Ignore them and continue doing what is right by classic Fair Use laws. Break the DMCA if you must, for this, too, is an unjust law that hinders classic fair use.
I'm not a lawyer; I don't have to be. Lawyers are going to side with their rich, greedy clients. It's time for individuals to take back their rights in this country, and we have to break these stupid and unjust "laws" to do so.
but I have a Windows install a reboot away for any gaming fix I can't get on Linux. I'm always ||-- this close to just saying "to hell with it" and removing the damn Windows partition for more space.
This new attitude of Microsoft where people need some bloated, overpriced OS or some overpriced me-too console to be worthy of playing Microsoft's games makes me sick, and I'm coming very close to getting rid of my Windows "fix" once and for all.
... with credit card. Oh, no, it's just for "validation". Truth? It's so they can charge someone in an INSTANT for anything that costs money. They're not stupid, they're ready to pounce on any "free" user that even for a moment considers doing something that costs.
I'm sure they gotta make money somehow. Too bad they feel like they need to trap people into spending it rather than doing it honestly.
How can we believe any of this when the same crap has been said of Windows for every single release?
Better! Faster! More stable! More stuff! Fewer bugs!
And every time we get the same thing -- yet another buggy, insecure, unstable OS. You may think this is a troll, but really, you can't deny it. It's true. Truth hurts, but Windows has not improved their OS much since the early days of Windows 95.
The future is in alternative operating systems. OS X. Linux. *BSD. OS X is ready for the home user, and Linux and BSD are there for the power users. There is progress and stability on these platforms, something absent from Windows.
Don't buy in to the same pack of lies Microsoft has been spewing for over ten years.
Go ahead, Troll me. Hide the truth behind Microsoft's pile of money, lies, and deceit. It can't last forever.
Ignore the lawsuit. Passive protest against unfair laws.
Whatever happens, it's better than following the unjust and stupid legal system. We all have to start making our stand against such stupidity. Are we now too afraid to fight back?
Lawyers, here's your fucking slander of the day. To hell with you. You are all greedy, moronic, clueless morons that prey on not only people who dare do what they want to do, but also the companies who gladly pay you wheelbarrows of cash to do it.
"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" isn't good enough anymore. We have to fight the mindset that creates them, to keep them from spawning from the dank corners of places of unholy evil.
Shut up, lawyers. Shut up, companies. We want our freedom back. I'm not gonna take it anymore, and neither should all of you.
I don't know why but all PS2 games seem to have a massive dead zone on the analogue sticks, it's like 50% dead zone, leaving the other 50% for analogue control. And since the sticks have such a small range of movement anyway they're practically digital.
This is exactly what I have experienced with most, if not all, aiming systems for consoles. There are some notable exceptions (SW:Battlefront for PS2 is actually somewhat playable for me, since moving the analog stick just a little in any direction actually moves the aiming cursor slowly, which actually makes sense, unlike other games that seem to require barely touching the stick for slow, and any actual motion in any direction means "take the cursor and whip it to the other side of the screen in 1/60th of a second".
Hey, developers, fix your aiming on console shooters. Thanks.
despite owning both a Gamecube and PS2. Reason? Hopefully will be able to aim with a mouse, rather than the horribly imprecise analog controllers.
I've tried to play RE4 for Gamecube, but ultimately the frustration of trying to use an oversensitive analog stick to do something that requires precision -- aiming -- made me quickly give up the game in frustration, just like most console shooter games. The precision of the mouse for aiming just can't be beat.
And yep, I know bazillions of console fanboys will jump on me and tell me I'm wrong, how aiming with the analog stick is just as good (or better) than the mouse, etc. You do know lying gives you cancer, right? Okay, I'm kidding about the lying giving you cancer. But seriously, I just don't see it. You people must have robot implants that give you superhuman precision or something. Don't think I'm anti-console either, I do own both the Cube and PS2. No games that require your robot-enhanced precision, though.
I (for one) welcome our new robot implant-enhanced overlords.
As I said, if you had actually read what I wrote, difference in HD display and standard TV display. Sure, there are some better hair movement (really, who cares?) and the backgrounds and textures are a bit more defined and alive but again, my point remains valid: *there is not that much difference in the two!* Comparing a low-definition still of a game with a high-def still of another makes you think there are, but there's really not.
Take a screenshot of any PC game running at 640x480@16-bit color, and then compare it with a screenshot of 1600x1200@24/32 bit color. Same game, same capabilities, much different screenshot result. While in this case we have a game on the 360 that is marginally better than the older game, the difference in the screenshots are still a product of their default output.
Well, yeah, SC1 for DC looks very similar to screenshots (quality-wise) of DOA(4? 3? Whatever the latest one is, I can't be bothered to look). Especially when you have the DC hooked up to a monitor and not your TV to combat the HD pictures being thrown around for XB360, which ain't what you're going to get on a plain old TV.
Seems that's the only real difference -- we're looking at next-gen systems attached to HD displays vs. last-gen on plain TVs. Course there's gonna be a bit of difference. Get a PS2, XBox, or even the GC or DC to do HD display and you'll see very similar graphics on both systems. Hook up a 360 to a plain TV, same thing.
Of course there's going to be a little difference in graphics, though. Mostly subtle visual tricks and such, but not the huge technological leap that we expect from next-gen systems. Look at the leap from PS1 to PS2 -- can you honestly tell me that the leap from XBox to XBox360 compares with that?
Falling right into the trap of forced updates. What's wrong with XBox? PS2? Nextgen consoles are not so damn next-gen when a first-gen PS2 game beats a XB360 game not only in quality, but in *visuals*! Pathetic.
The XB360 is truly dead on arrival. Shoot it, go back to developing for an established console that's known to already be in millions of homes (XB, PS2), and let the crappy "next-gen" pile of crap die as it should have way back when some overpaid idiot at MS came up with this piece of garbage.
Mod me down for trolling, but you'd be modding down the damn TRUTH. Funny how people don't like to be shown that the emperor has no clothes these days.
The problem was that there was no way to *anticipate* the camera's movement. Apparently depending on some random variable, and adding in the Evil Bit just for that extra touch of evil, the camera would wildly swing over one direction *just before* you make a critical jump while running along, making it impossible to stop your jump quickly enough, and sending you down to your demise or at least all the way to the bottom of the level.
It's so damn frustrating. The roaming camera is never where you want it to be (and the positioning controls move it in large increments, none of which are the optimal view for what you need) and the Behind Mario's Head cam is way too low and close, so you mostly get to see the back of Mario's head, not where you need to go.
Plus the controls are way too touchy (I cannot figure out for the life of me why developers use only about the first 50-75% of an analog stick's range so that you have to barely touch the controller to get the "slow" speed) and the game is super-repetitive (same level over and over again for stars). I think the attraction of a nice-looking (at the time) 3D Mario game, as most good-looking yet horrible gameplay games do today, make people overlook crap controls and gameplay just to play something pretty.
(Happens with movies, too; how many people go see the latest special effects-filled movie that has a terrible plot and/or acting yet praise the movie afterwards because "stuff blowed up real good", or similar?)
the movie industry can re-re-resell their products to millions of suckers that already own the Beta video, VHS video, laserdisk, DVD, and whatever other formats available.
Seriously, since when have standard DVDs not been good enough? I've seen DVD output on a huge HD television and it looks spectacular. Wouldn't it make sense to put off the update until we really need it?
The greed of companies today drooling over the upgrade treadmill that people have accepted absoultely disgusts me.
Well, personally, I don't care what toolkit is used as long as the app is solid, but yes, I do understand that some can be a bit put off by "clashing" applications. I expect as much from a society that pays more attention to, for example, idiotic beautiful people and dumb movies loaded with special effects than intelligent people and good, intelligent movies.
Slashdot Mirror
GamePro on the other hand goes on and on about how it's better than the SNES version.
That's because it was better than the SNES version. I owned both the SNES and Genesis back in the day, loved both consoles for different games, and rented/played SFIISuperUltraHyperMegaEtcEdition for both consoles. The SNES version looked and sounded better, but ah, yes, as no one seems to understand in these days of graphics masturbating fanboys, that doesn't matter. The Genesis version was smoother and played better, more like the arcade. I was willing to forgive the slightly poorer graphics and the near-terrible sound for a better playing game.
Pity that it seems no one else can do that, even these days.
Warren Spector, go suck it.
AHAHAHAHA. Pompous ass.
If you're talking about the Windows site page (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/de fault.mspx), it seems to work just fine on my Linux box using Firefox 2.0a2 (Bon Echo). Something in FF2 that lets it work, maybe?
So. I'm the only one that wants close buttons on *both* the tabs and the end of the tab bar?
Close button on the tab to close individuals, close at the end to quickly close a stack of pages just opened.
*hunts for extension to let me do exactly that*
Was the researcher's report put in a professional clear plastic binder?
The difference is that anyone can program a fun game. And games with graphics and sound that requires 3d artists and musicians and a million dollar budget aren't necessarily fun.
Programming on ones own can still produce a fun game even if it has horribly dated graphics and sound. I'll take fun over pretty any day.
Civilization will crumble because everyone says "that's just the way things are and there's no point in trying to change."
Thanks a lot.
The online application, as well as many other online applications I've seen recently, request something I absolutely will not give out online for any reason, even with supposedly secure connections and especially not to some apparent third party (the application site is with unicru.com):
my SSN.
Every single time this information is asked of me, I stop filling out the application and e-mail or otherwise contact the company asking for this information to tell them I refuse to give out my SSN due to privacy concerns.
I know they probably want to do a background check, but I won't submit my SSN over the Internet. Call me paranoid, but I won't do it. Too bad.
As a tangent from the discussion of Vista...
Here's what I wonder -- and would love to see -- why doesn't Apple really push their Intel Macs in the face of people on the upgrade treadmill?
Why isn't Apple go out and really doing a huge marketing push for their OS, trying to get people away from Windows (or, really, getting people onto their OS)? Take advantage of the long delay between updates, emphasize Microsoft's below-average security and stability history, promise people bigger and better thangs with an easier and less frustrating user experience with Macs, and get people to switch over?
I doubt it'd happen in huge numbers, since Microsoft has people pretty much locked in at this point, but I look at Apple pretty much taking a soft sell approach to the home PC market and wonder why they don't push their PCs as hard as they are their iPod/iTunes? Average people probably know the Apple name from the iPod but I'd bet they'd say "Really? Apple sells computers?" when asked.
OMG I love pones 2 some1 plzplzPLZ msg me n we will talk abt ponies all nite!!!!1
i LUV the new slashdot!!!!
Water is wet.
The sky is blue.
Politicians are crooks.
How is this news?
No matter what the RIAA thinks, ripping/encoding your own music that you don't ever share is fair use.
Current reinterpretations of laws are bogus and are only used by corporations that are failing and are trying to save their way of business by scaring customers and by excessive greed. Ignore them and continue doing what is right by classic Fair Use laws. Break the DMCA if you must, for this, too, is an unjust law that hinders classic fair use.
I'm not a lawyer; I don't have to be. Lawyers are going to side with their rich, greedy clients. It's time for individuals to take back their rights in this country, and we have to break these stupid and unjust "laws" to do so.
and you can call blogs a "LiveJournal", and it still doesn't change that it's still just a blog filled with yet another silly opinion. :)
but I have a Windows install a reboot away for any gaming fix I can't get on Linux. I'm always ||-- this close to just saying "to hell with it" and removing the damn Windows partition for more space.
This new attitude of Microsoft where people need some bloated, overpriced OS or some overpriced me-too console to be worthy of playing Microsoft's games makes me sick, and I'm coming very close to getting rid of my Windows "fix" once and for all.
... with credit card. Oh, no, it's just for "validation". Truth? It's so they can charge someone in an INSTANT for anything that costs money. They're not stupid, they're ready to pounce on any "free" user that even for a moment considers doing something that costs.
I'm sure they gotta make money somehow. Too bad they feel like they need to trap people into spending it rather than doing it honestly.
How can we believe any of this when the same crap has been said of Windows for every single release?
Better! Faster! More stable! More stuff! Fewer bugs!
And every time we get the same thing -- yet another buggy, insecure, unstable OS. You may think this is a troll, but really, you can't deny it. It's true. Truth hurts, but Windows has not improved their OS much since the early days of Windows 95.
The future is in alternative operating systems. OS X. Linux. *BSD. OS X is ready for the home user, and Linux and BSD are there for the power users. There is progress and stability on these platforms, something absent from Windows.
Don't buy in to the same pack of lies Microsoft has been spewing for over ten years.
Go ahead, Troll me. Hide the truth behind Microsoft's pile of money, lies, and deceit. It can't last forever.
Ignore the lawsuit. Passive protest against unfair laws.
Whatever happens, it's better than following the unjust and stupid legal system. We all have to start making our stand against such stupidity. Are we now too afraid to fight back?
Lawyers, here's your fucking slander of the day. To hell with you. You are all greedy, moronic, clueless morons that prey on not only people who dare do what they want to do, but also the companies who gladly pay you wheelbarrows of cash to do it.
"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" isn't good enough anymore. We have to fight the mindset that creates them, to keep them from spawning from the dank corners of places of unholy evil.
Shut up, lawyers. Shut up, companies. We want our freedom back. I'm not gonna take it anymore, and neither should all of you.
I don't know why but all PS2 games seem to have a massive dead zone on the analogue sticks, it's like 50% dead zone, leaving the other 50% for analogue control. And since the sticks have such a small range of movement anyway they're practically digital.
This is exactly what I have experienced with most, if not all, aiming systems for consoles. There are some notable exceptions (SW:Battlefront for PS2 is actually somewhat playable for me, since moving the analog stick just a little in any direction actually moves the aiming cursor slowly, which actually makes sense, unlike other games that seem to require barely touching the stick for slow, and any actual motion in any direction means "take the cursor and whip it to the other side of the screen in 1/60th of a second".
Hey, developers, fix your aiming on console shooters. Thanks.
despite owning both a Gamecube and PS2. Reason? Hopefully will be able to aim with a mouse, rather than the horribly imprecise analog controllers.
I've tried to play RE4 for Gamecube, but ultimately the frustration of trying to use an oversensitive analog stick to do something that requires precision -- aiming -- made me quickly give up the game in frustration, just like most console shooter games. The precision of the mouse for aiming just can't be beat.
And yep, I know bazillions of console fanboys will jump on me and tell me I'm wrong, how aiming with the analog stick is just as good (or better) than the mouse, etc. You do know lying gives you cancer, right? Okay, I'm kidding about the lying giving you cancer. But seriously, I just don't see it. You people must have robot implants that give you superhuman precision or something. Don't think I'm anti-console either, I do own both the Cube and PS2. No games that require your robot-enhanced precision, though.
I (for one) welcome our new robot implant-enhanced overlords.
As I said, if you had actually read what I wrote, difference in HD display and standard TV display. Sure, there are some better hair movement (really, who cares?) and the backgrounds and textures are a bit more defined and alive but again, my point remains valid: *there is not that much difference in the two!* Comparing a low-definition still of a game with a high-def still of another makes you think there are, but there's really not.
Take a screenshot of any PC game running at 640x480@16-bit color, and then compare it with a screenshot of 1600x1200@24/32 bit color. Same game, same capabilities, much different screenshot result. While in this case we have a game on the 360 that is marginally better than the older game, the difference in the screenshots are still a product of their default output.
Well, yeah, SC1 for DC looks very similar to screenshots (quality-wise) of DOA(4? 3? Whatever the latest one is, I can't be bothered to look). Especially when you have the DC hooked up to a monitor and not your TV to combat the HD pictures being thrown around for XB360, which ain't what you're going to get on a plain old TV.
Seems that's the only real difference -- we're looking at next-gen systems attached to HD displays vs. last-gen on plain TVs. Course there's gonna be a bit of difference. Get a PS2, XBox, or even the GC or DC to do HD display and you'll see very similar graphics on both systems. Hook up a 360 to a plain TV, same thing.
Of course there's going to be a little difference in graphics, though. Mostly subtle visual tricks and such, but not the huge technological leap that we expect from next-gen systems. Look at the leap from PS1 to PS2 -- can you honestly tell me that the leap from XBox to XBox360 compares with that?
Falling right into the trap of forced updates. What's wrong with XBox? PS2? Nextgen consoles are not so damn next-gen when a first-gen PS2 game beats a XB360 game not only in quality, but in *visuals*! Pathetic.
The XB360 is truly dead on arrival. Shoot it, go back to developing for an established console that's known to already be in millions of homes (XB, PS2), and let the crappy "next-gen" pile of crap die as it should have way back when some overpaid idiot at MS came up with this piece of garbage.
Mod me down for trolling, but you'd be modding down the damn TRUTH. Funny how people don't like to be shown that the emperor has no clothes these days.
The problem was that there was no way to *anticipate* the camera's movement. Apparently depending on some random variable, and adding in the Evil Bit just for that extra touch of evil, the camera would wildly swing over one direction *just before* you make a critical jump while running along, making it impossible to stop your jump quickly enough, and sending you down to your demise or at least all the way to the bottom of the level.
It's so damn frustrating. The roaming camera is never where you want it to be (and the positioning controls move it in large increments, none of which are the optimal view for what you need) and the Behind Mario's Head cam is way too low and close, so you mostly get to see the back of Mario's head, not where you need to go.
Plus the controls are way too touchy (I cannot figure out for the life of me why developers use only about the first 50-75% of an analog stick's range so that you have to barely touch the controller to get the "slow" speed) and the game is super-repetitive (same level over and over again for stars). I think the attraction of a nice-looking (at the time) 3D Mario game, as most good-looking yet horrible gameplay games do today, make people overlook crap controls and gameplay just to play something pretty.
(Happens with movies, too; how many people go see the latest special effects-filled movie that has a terrible plot and/or acting yet praise the movie afterwards because "stuff blowed up real good", or similar?)
the movie industry can re-re-resell their products to millions of suckers that already own the Beta video, VHS video, laserdisk, DVD, and whatever other formats available.
Seriously, since when have standard DVDs not been good enough? I've seen DVD output on a huge HD television and it looks spectacular. Wouldn't it make sense to put off the update until we really need it?
The greed of companies today drooling over the upgrade treadmill that people have accepted absoultely disgusts me.
Well, personally, I don't care what toolkit is used as long as the app is solid, but yes, I do understand that some can be a bit put off by "clashing" applications. I expect as much from a society that pays more attention to, for example, idiotic beautiful people and dumb movies loaded with special effects than intelligent people and good, intelligent movies.
Human nature, and all that.