I spent twenty years driving without a cell phone. It can wait, really it can. Or, solve it yourself, You're a grown up now, you can do this.
I'll second that. Basically nothing is important enough that it cannot wait until I'm stopped or at my destination. If it actually is literally that important, cars with sirens and flashing blue lights will be coming for me anyway.
SPOILER the torturer even gleefully explains to the tortured that torture for information is worthless, it's all done for the pleasure of the torturer, and sometimes the tortured, although that usually costs money and is consensual SPOILER
Even amidst the violence and crime, there is pertinent and provocative social commentary to be found.
Of the main characters, one is a former bank robber who's having severe family troubles and battles with anger issues because he's terminally bored since he retired. He has a therapist and their scenes are very reminiscent of Robert de Niro in "Analyse This".
The other is a psychopathic redneck meth king who smuggles weapons across the border and lures people to cannibals in the mountains.
In fact, the only white character who uses "street" slang in the game is played as an immature idiot and ridiculed by the other characters.
So a story that's at on par with the best mainstream cinema has to offer is boring? I'm glad you love your indie and French art films, but a lot of us actually like stories that are just a tiny bit accessible.
Also, you can't seriously argue that GTA V is a bad game. It has a 97 out of 100 score on metacritic, which makes it the second-highest rated game ever (GTA IV is #1 at 98 out of 100). The only negative reviews are from users, who complain that it's not as good as Dark Souls or complain that it has too much driving or that the characters are too violent (they're criminals, for Pete's sake!). It is objectively a very good game, it just happens to not be in your particular (very particular) taste.
Ah yes, 1994. I can believe my parents let me buy GTA, I was only 9 years old. I guess it looked arcadey and cartoonish enough that they didn't care about the gang warfare and running people over bits.
I did the same thing, and while I loved SR4 for being a cartoonishly fun superpower romp with plenty of silly humor, I can also say that I'm highly unlikely to replay it again any time soon. There just isn't any real replay value and there's no fun to be had running around the city after the story mode is over.
GTA V on the other hand, is on a whole other level, it's bigger, more ambitious and I can already tell it's got massive replay and exploration value.
Have you even played GTA V before you made up your mind? There's a whole lot more to it than "black gangsta culture". Hell, the one black main character even goes out of his way to repeatedly decry his stereotypical gang-banging "friends".
With GTA V on the 360, the recommendation is to only install the "Install" disc and play using the "Play" disc in the DVD drive, even if it is tempting to install both to the hard drive. The reason for this is the bandwidth required to stream content into the game world and the seek time on the hard drive. With both disc images installed to the same disc, it has to constantly search both these images. With just the "Install" disc installed, the game can load content from the hard drive and the DVD drive simultaneously, giving more effective bandwidth and much less pop-in.
I went one step further and installed the "Install" disc to the hard drive and the "Play" disc to the fastest USB drive I have, so the game can still load from two locations at the same time. That way, the DVD drive isn't roaring constantly and it cuts down on wear and tear of moving parts. There's still the occasional bit of pop-in, but never any geometry, just the rare odd texture here and there.
I can choose my fun just fine, in fact I choose to play GTA V on my console because it's super fun. Perhaps after a couple of hours with GTA V, I'll choose to turn on my PC and play one of the interesting indie games I've supported on kickstarter. Or perhaps I'll choose play that 5-6 year old blockbuster game that I didn't play when it first came out, but now it was on sale. Or perhaps I'll choose to fire up Doom again and play around with some mods.
Does everything really have to be "us vs. them"? I swing all kinds of way, there are way too many great games to limit yourself to just one particular subset. I also deliberately choose not to play the latest greatest PC AAA+ blockbuster games as soon as they're released, because I simply can't be bothered to constantly upgrade my PC any more. It's way too expensive and way too time-consuming. I'd rather spend that time and money on more games, rather than just the implement to play one or two particularly hardware-demanding games.
RE: Dwarf Fortress, I simply cannot see how that game is any fun. Sure, the end results are funny and I enjoy reading playthroughs of it, but playing it feels like hard work and endless grinding. I play games to have fun, not to endlessly slave over the needlessly-hypercomplicated creation creamt up by some crazy autistic borderline-insane aspergers-afflicted programmer. I get enough of that with our applications at work.
What's wrong with a game that's easily-accessible, but contains some depth and focuses on telling a compelling story of crime, redemption and struggle, while giving you an immersive living open world where you can go as hog wild as you like? Who cares if it's "casual" or "for brogrammers"? It's fun, goddammit, that's what counts. If you'd step down from your elitist "PC gaming is best gaming I'm not listening lalalalalala" throne, you'd be able to see that.
GTA V doesn't need to be online to play, you can play it 100% off line, even on a 360 that has never ever been connected to the internet. I don't know about the PS3, but I assume it's the same there.
However, being online does net you certain rewards. There's a stock market that fluctuates based on other players' actions ingame (crash certain brand of car a lot and the stock drops etc.), there are various real-life websites where you can get small bonuses in game, early access to certain guns and so on, there's an iPhone/Android app where you can customize your cars and teach your dog new tricks and of course there are online leaderboards for missions, tennis, golf and everything else in game. Not mandatory at all, but fun.
October 1st, GTA Online launches, which is the full-on multiplayer, cop-dodging, bank-heisting, guns-blazing online GTA semi-persistent experience. Online (and a Rockstar Games Social Club account) is mandatory for obvious reasons.
Try full 720p at 30fps. It looks great, it runs great, the controls are very responsive and the gameplay is excellent.
It's not ~AMAZING PC GAMING OMG GRAFIX XXXTREME!~ snobby PC elitist approved, but the game looks awesome and runs ridiculously well on what is 7-8 year old hardware by now.
What does "locked down" even mean in this context? I buy a game, I put it in the drive, I play the game and I have fun with it. Isn't that what gaming is about? Fun? Is it because it's harder to pirate console games? Is it because it's too easy and not nearly elitist enough? I know I can't play the game on the next generation console (which I'm unlikely to buy, at least until GTA VI comes out), but at that point, I'll probably have upgraded my PC enough that "old" games such as GTA V will run fine on it. So that's my take on it. Consoles for new games, not-top-of-the-line PC for older games that I want to replay. Seems to work fine and it saves me thousands and thousands in endless PC hardware upgrades.
What do I care if a game has dynamic texture vertigon flip-flopping 3000 times/second? All I care is that it's fun, immersive and a nice break from reality. Not how big its framerate theoretically makes my e-penis seem.
8 hours? I've played GTA5 for about 10 hours by now, and according to the game itself, I'm around 16% through with the story missions, never mind all the optional side missions and activities, gun smuggling, races, random events, treasure hunts and collectibles. Or the fact all of the heists can be played through multiple times with different approaches. Or the random dicking around that a GTA game always lends itself so well to, thanks to the wonderfully detailed world and enormous possibilities for outright mayhem they put in your hands.
Some AAA games are linear and more like semi-interactive movies than actual games, true. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. A 100% slick, well-produced, well-told and immersive story has a value of its own, even if it is linear. Do you complain that your movies and books are too linear, as well?
I'm playing on PS3 and the resolution seems higher than GTA4
That's because the resolution is higher. GTA4 ran at 1280x720 on the 360, but 1152x640 on the PS3, because the architectures between the two consoles are completely different and Rockstar had an easier time optimizing for the 360. It's the same with Saints Row 4. For GTA5, Rockstar has had a lot more time to really get to know the PS3, so consequently the game runs at full resolution on both consoles with at most a 1-2fps difference in performance in certain busy scenes (mostly in cutscenes, oddly enough). The 360 version has slightly better shaders, while the PS3 version has slightly sharper textures.
I'm completely amazed at how they achieved this on 7-8 year old hardware.
Climate scientists are not paid to believe in climate change, they're paid to research the climate, regardless of how the climate is and how it changes.
Yeah, in heavy traffic, it's no problem. "Heavy traffic" is actually defined pretty well in the traffic laws of this country as "traffic moving in multiple lanes, with the speed determined by the vehicles in front". I presume there is a similar definition in US traffic laws.
The problem happens when traffic is relatively light, since by being in the left lane, he's technically blocking traffic in both lanes (depending on whether your local traffic laws permit passing on the right. It's illegal here unless to pass a vehicle that's clearly indicating an intention to turn left). Or in medium traffic where most of the vehicles want to take the same left turn. Then cars start bunching up and people get mad about others "cutting in line".
When passing on the right carries a ~$350 fine and the loss of 1 point on my license (out of 3 total, you lose your license if you lose all 3, and you get a lost point back after 3 years have passed since you lost it), damn straight I get annoyed at people hanging out for no reason in the left lane. But it's no excuse to pass them on the right or tailgate.
No, but they do cause more severe ones. Accidents that occur at high speeds are more often fatal, since high-velocity objects collide with greater force. Overwhelmingly, studies show that freeway deaths increase with freeway speed limits."
It's right there, black on white. Higher speeds = more fatal accidents.
Slashdot Mirror
Kensington Slimblade, it's quite good. Not nearly the same form factor as an FX, but finger-controlled and very flickable.
I spent twenty years driving without a cell phone. It can wait, really it can. Or, solve it yourself, You're a grown up now, you can do this.
I'll second that. Basically nothing is important enough that it cannot wait until I'm stopped or at my destination. If it actually is literally that important, cars with sirens and flashing blue lights will be coming for me anyway.
SPOILER the torturer even gleefully explains to the tortured that torture for information is worthless, it's all done for the pleasure of the torturer, and sometimes the tortured, although that usually costs money and is consensual SPOILER
Even amidst the violence and crime, there is pertinent and provocative social commentary to be found.
Well, that's on you and your ignorance, then.
Duly noted and agreed.
Obviously a lot of people want interactive movies rather than open-world games these days.
Haha, what?
Of the main characters, one is a former bank robber who's having severe family troubles and battles with anger issues because he's terminally bored since he retired. He has a therapist and their scenes are very reminiscent of Robert de Niro in "Analyse This".
The other is a psychopathic redneck meth king who smuggles weapons across the border and lures people to cannibals in the mountains.
In fact, the only white character who uses "street" slang in the game is played as an immature idiot and ridiculed by the other characters.
Pretty visuals do help with immersion in video games, though.
So a story that's at on par with the best mainstream cinema has to offer is boring? I'm glad you love your indie and French art films, but a lot of us actually like stories that are just a tiny bit accessible.
Also, you can't seriously argue that GTA V is a bad game. It has a 97 out of 100 score on metacritic, which makes it the second-highest rated game ever (GTA IV is #1 at 98 out of 100). The only negative reviews are from users, who complain that it's not as good as Dark Souls or complain that it has too much driving or that the characters are too violent (they're criminals, for Pete's sake!). It is objectively a very good game, it just happens to not be in your particular (very particular) taste.
Ah yes, 1994. I can believe my parents let me buy GTA, I was only 9 years old. I guess it looked arcadey and cartoonish enough that they didn't care about the gang warfare and running people over bits.
I did the same thing, and while I loved SR4 for being a cartoonishly fun superpower romp with plenty of silly humor, I can also say that I'm highly unlikely to replay it again any time soon. There just isn't any real replay value and there's no fun to be had running around the city after the story mode is over.
GTA V on the other hand, is on a whole other level, it's bigger, more ambitious and I can already tell it's got massive replay and exploration value.
And yet it's the tastiest turd I've ever had.
Have you even played GTA V before you made up your mind? There's a whole lot more to it than "black gangsta culture". Hell, the one black main character even goes out of his way to repeatedly decry his stereotypical gang-banging "friends".
With GTA V on the 360, the recommendation is to only install the "Install" disc and play using the "Play" disc in the DVD drive, even if it is tempting to install both to the hard drive. The reason for this is the bandwidth required to stream content into the game world and the seek time on the hard drive. With both disc images installed to the same disc, it has to constantly search both these images. With just the "Install" disc installed, the game can load content from the hard drive and the DVD drive simultaneously, giving more effective bandwidth and much less pop-in.
I went one step further and installed the "Install" disc to the hard drive and the "Play" disc to the fastest USB drive I have, so the game can still load from two locations at the same time. That way, the DVD drive isn't roaring constantly and it cuts down on wear and tear of moving parts. There's still the occasional bit of pop-in, but never any geometry, just the rare odd texture here and there.
So I take it you've never played a GTA game.
That's fine, just don't jump to conclusions, ok?
And honestly? Most days I choose not to play games at all, because I'd rather ride my motorcycle. Shocking, I know.
I can choose my fun just fine, in fact I choose to play GTA V on my console because it's super fun. Perhaps after a couple of hours with GTA V, I'll choose to turn on my PC and play one of the interesting indie games I've supported on kickstarter. Or perhaps I'll choose play that 5-6 year old blockbuster game that I didn't play when it first came out, but now it was on sale. Or perhaps I'll choose to fire up Doom again and play around with some mods.
Does everything really have to be "us vs. them"? I swing all kinds of way, there are way too many great games to limit yourself to just one particular subset. I also deliberately choose not to play the latest greatest PC AAA+ blockbuster games as soon as they're released, because I simply can't be bothered to constantly upgrade my PC any more. It's way too expensive and way too time-consuming. I'd rather spend that time and money on more games, rather than just the implement to play one or two particularly hardware-demanding games.
RE: Dwarf Fortress, I simply cannot see how that game is any fun. Sure, the end results are funny and I enjoy reading playthroughs of it, but playing it feels like hard work and endless grinding. I play games to have fun, not to endlessly slave over the needlessly-hypercomplicated creation creamt up by some crazy autistic borderline-insane aspergers-afflicted programmer. I get enough of that with our applications at work.
What's wrong with a game that's easily-accessible, but contains some depth and focuses on telling a compelling story of crime, redemption and struggle, while giving you an immersive living open world where you can go as hog wild as you like? Who cares if it's "casual" or "for brogrammers"? It's fun, goddammit, that's what counts. If you'd step down from your elitist "PC gaming is best gaming I'm not listening lalalalalala" throne, you'd be able to see that.
GTA V doesn't need to be online to play, you can play it 100% off line, even on a 360 that has never ever been connected to the internet. I don't know about the PS3, but I assume it's the same there.
However, being online does net you certain rewards. There's a stock market that fluctuates based on other players' actions ingame (crash certain brand of car a lot and the stock drops etc.), there are various real-life websites where you can get small bonuses in game, early access to certain guns and so on, there's an iPhone/Android app where you can customize your cars and teach your dog new tricks and of course there are online leaderboards for missions, tennis, golf and everything else in game. Not mandatory at all, but fun.
October 1st, GTA Online launches, which is the full-on multiplayer, cop-dodging, bank-heisting, guns-blazing online GTA semi-persistent experience. Online (and a Rockstar Games Social Club account) is mandatory for obvious reasons.
Try full 720p at 30fps. It looks great, it runs great, the controls are very responsive and the gameplay is excellent.
It's not ~AMAZING PC GAMING OMG GRAFIX XXXTREME!~ snobby PC elitist approved, but the game looks awesome and runs ridiculously well on what is 7-8 year old hardware by now.
What does "locked down" even mean in this context? I buy a game, I put it in the drive, I play the game and I have fun with it. Isn't that what gaming is about? Fun? Is it because it's harder to pirate console games? Is it because it's too easy and not nearly elitist enough? I know I can't play the game on the next generation console (which I'm unlikely to buy, at least until GTA VI comes out), but at that point, I'll probably have upgraded my PC enough that "old" games such as GTA V will run fine on it. So that's my take on it. Consoles for new games, not-top-of-the-line PC for older games that I want to replay. Seems to work fine and it saves me thousands and thousands in endless PC hardware upgrades.
What do I care if a game has dynamic texture vertigon flip-flopping 3000 times/second? All I care is that it's fun, immersive and a nice break from reality. Not how big its framerate theoretically makes my e-penis seem.
Go to Afghanistan then.
But have you actually played any GTA game, ever?
8 hours? I've played GTA5 for about 10 hours by now, and according to the game itself, I'm around 16% through with the story missions, never mind all the optional side missions and activities, gun smuggling, races, random events, treasure hunts and collectibles. Or the fact all of the heists can be played through multiple times with different approaches. Or the random dicking around that a GTA game always lends itself so well to, thanks to the wonderfully detailed world and enormous possibilities for outright mayhem they put in your hands.
Some AAA games are linear and more like semi-interactive movies than actual games, true. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. A 100% slick, well-produced, well-told and immersive story has a value of its own, even if it is linear. Do you complain that your movies and books are too linear, as well?
Facebook games and free iPhone/Android games are not a valid indicator of the gameplay in a modern open-world AAA game.
I'm playing on PS3 and the resolution seems higher than GTA4
That's because the resolution is higher. GTA4 ran at 1280x720 on the 360, but 1152x640 on the PS3, because the architectures between the two consoles are completely different and Rockstar had an easier time optimizing for the 360. It's the same with Saints Row 4. For GTA5, Rockstar has had a lot more time to really get to know the PS3, so consequently the game runs at full resolution on both consoles with at most a 1-2fps difference in performance in certain busy scenes (mostly in cutscenes, oddly enough). The 360 version has slightly better shaders, while the PS3 version has slightly sharper textures.
I'm completely amazed at how they achieved this on 7-8 year old hardware.
Climate scientists are not paid to believe in climate change, they're paid to research the climate, regardless of how the climate is and how it changes.
Yeah, in heavy traffic, it's no problem. "Heavy traffic" is actually defined pretty well in the traffic laws of this country as "traffic moving in multiple lanes, with the speed determined by the vehicles in front". I presume there is a similar definition in US traffic laws.
The problem happens when traffic is relatively light, since by being in the left lane, he's technically blocking traffic in both lanes (depending on whether your local traffic laws permit passing on the right. It's illegal here unless to pass a vehicle that's clearly indicating an intention to turn left). Or in medium traffic where most of the vehicles want to take the same left turn. Then cars start bunching up and people get mad about others "cutting in line".
When passing on the right carries a ~$350 fine and the loss of 1 point on my license (out of 3 total, you lose your license if you lose all 3, and you get a lost point back after 3 years have passed since you lost it), damn straight I get annoyed at people hanging out for no reason in the left lane. But it's no excuse to pass them on the right or tailgate.
Absolutely.
But "slower traffic keep right" does not mean "get out of my way, slowpokes!".
From your very own link:
"Do higher speed limits cause more car accidents?
No, but they do cause more severe ones. Accidents that occur at high speeds are more often fatal, since high-velocity objects collide with greater force. Overwhelmingly, studies show that freeway deaths increase with freeway speed limits."
It's right there, black on white. Higher speeds = more fatal accidents.
Slow the fuck down.