Oh dude, gtfo! Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a better game than any modern era Final Fantasy, and FF6 is the only one of any generation in the same league. The first one was kind of weak in most areas, but again that makes the sequels not just rehashed bullshit.
I haven't played the new one yet, so maybe it's complete crap. But Covenant is one of the best RPGs this generation and I'd go as far as to say ground breaking in a way that Final Fantasy hasn't been since SNES, being that it is both new AND good (Final Fantasy has been both, just not at the same time in any remarkable way). It's got solid voice acting with an incredible script that is HILARIOUS, one of the greatest RPG gimmicks ever (Judgement Ring) tied into one of the best RPG combo systems this side of Grandia, and a healthy dose of bizarre.
I could see the ripoff comment if you've only played the first one, but as a series it's fucking brilliant. More than anything else Covenant justifies playing a pretty lackluster original, which is something I can't say for any other sequel.
CNN and The New York Times aren't that different from fox news. In fact, I'd say they're a whole lot worse since often they put out the same kinds of messages (or even repeat the fox news message) but are somehow afforded a credibility that fox news isn't since fox has wide-spread acceptance that fox is a biased, lying right-wing mouth piece. Which isn't to say that fox news doesn't deserve every bit of the bad reputation that they've got, but these other mega "news" corporations aren't any better and are worse for the lie that they are.
You could probably write an algorithm that selects a number of clichees, makes a story out of it and noone would be able to tell it from a normal jRPG.
The trick is to actually do this and produce content to go along with it, then slap in on a lunch box and sell it. I'm sure you could make ass loads of cash if you had enough to pay off the game reviews sites to give you favorable marks given that a review of the story will be pretty much impossible.
Though this might be easier to do starting with a first-person shooter since historically they're shorter, have less developed stories, and a lot less dialog. But they also have a much narrower set of cliches.
Actually, with office suites it seems to be who can open the most kinds of crazy, incompatible ms office files the closest to ms office. Or at least who can sell the impression of doing that the best.
It's amazing that Lionhead has stuck around as long as they have. Seems to me that there's a serious lack of leadership over there since not one of their games has really felt finished.
Especially Fable, which had a lot of really cool ideas being thrown around early on and somehow shipped without any of them in the final product. Maybe they need to step back from trying to make "amazing world class AAA" games and just work on getting one out the door feature complete.
Here's the realiPod killer for open source geeks. Well, as long as the video playback features aren't important to you since it only does 15fps in some "JetVideo" format, wtf that is.
They've also got a newer model geared toward video that looks pretty sweet, but it also seems to have lost the FLAC support and costs almost twice as much.
Games.net guy fails for using the phrase "In short". He fails twice for using it to sum up ONE sentence. This is one of the most over-used as well as poorly-used cliches in game "journalism" and people should be fired for using it.
Re:competition with PC games, then and now
on
Flashback NES
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· Score: 2, Informative
Why do people keep propogating this myth? Consoles have reached or exceeded "parity" with PCs at just about every generation (maybe all of them, but I'm too lazy to look up sources to back that claim up), only to be surpassed as the PC platform upgrades and moves on and the consoles settle in to their far longer life cycle.
This isn't something new. And neither is claiming that consoles have "finally reach technological parity with PCs." So can we really hang this one up, at least until the next "Next Generation" of consoles?
I'd love to see some more 2D Zeldas. The Gameboy ones have been great.
But for Revolution I think they really need to address the ungracefully aging combat system, which was the biggest gripe I had with Wild Waker. It needs to be more dynamic as the lock-on system feels incredibly canned. Enemies all wait their turn to get beat up (with maybe an occasional jab) once you lock-on to one of their buddies. There are a lot of games doing much more engaging combat systems without being more difficult to control and I don't see why Nintendo can't work that into a Zelda game.
Maybe Twilight Princess is going to address a lot of these problems, but from the video I've seen it really looks like Wind Waker with a different art style, some pretty spotty lighting and textures, and the stiffest walk animation ever seen in a Nintendo game. Which is why I'm a lot more excited about the next handheld Zelda than I am about Twilight Princess.
Even if they don't add Revolution-specific features it's a smart move on Nintendo's part as a lot of people are going to buy Revolution who don't own GameCube. Given that it is one of the "most anticipated games ever" it's a no brainer to release it when there are more people who are able to play it without buying a system that they'll never play another game on.
Though personally I wouldn't be getting too excited about it unless they've made some serious changes since last time they showed it off. So far it looks like more of the same for the ever more tired 3D Zelda formula. I can't wait till the first Revolution Zelda since Miyamoto has promised that Twilight Princess will be the last Zelda in this mold.
I'd make the point that there is no such thing as evil and that morality is a fiction designed for small children who are incapable of understanding the complex realities of the world. But there's a much more important point to make. And that is if you hate the censorship in China so much, why do you keep buying shit from there? If you're really so concerned about it, do something about it. Stop supporting companies (particularly American ones) that are propping up the Chinese government.
Google, Yahoo, and even microsoft (at least not with their search engine) aren't going to change anything in China. If they don't censor their search results the only change will be that they will no longer be able to operate in China, which might not actually be a bad thing. But it's not going to change anything. It also isn't going to get the Chinese people to rise up and do anything about it.
But it's hypocritical (not to mention idiotic) to say it's Google's job to change China. It's the people of China's job to do that, and refusing to support their government by buying goods from their country is a very real way to help them do that. Besides, we'll be better off if we stop selling our country out for cheap crap from China that we don't need anyway.
This of course assumes that the Chinese government is actually bad for the people, which could be debated. Though I personally think that it is in a lot of ways.
Also don't forget that we censor a lot of things in America, often for no better reason than a few wingnut christians decide that they don't like it and put out a few dozen form letters complaining.
Only an apple fanboy would think that getting increased specs without increased cost over time is getting something for "free". Or did they really send you a new CPU?
Completely agree about PS3 pricing though. This is just Sony's "super computer" claim of this generation. And I'll wager we don't see it for more than 400$, at least not for the base system.
I think it is small touches like leaderboards that can keep a certain element coming back for more, and if titles for the 360 implement this, more power to them.
I'm pretty sure microsoft requires games to include achievements before clearing them for release on xbox 360.
Think of it more like an analog joystick than a mouse, where it'll turn as you point toward the edges. Probably with faster rotations the closer you're pointing to the edge and an area toward the middle of the screen where you have a bit of wiggle room for adjusting your aim without looking all over the place.
What isn't the problem with them? Broken keyboard navigation. Broken mouse navigation. Hugely wasteful of screen space while not actually providing anything useful in that space.
It's even more infuriating since the given reasons for doing anything even remotely like what they did are so fucking ridiculous (the basic apple "it's easier for people who have never used a computer before", only more-so) AND it affects applications that have no reasonable alternatives on Linux for the majority of Linux users who a) don't run gnome, and b) don't like how gnome works.
At least you can turn them off. But there isn't ANY way to turn off the idiotic gnome file dialogs, even when running gtk apps in another window manager.
Larger doesn't always mean bloat though. It's kind of a question of how useful and/or necessary the feature is. For instance I think the news reader and email integration in Opera (which I never use) is a lot more bloaty. Torrent support is really more like allowing you to browse an FTP.
Of course the real winner of the next-gen browser war will be the first one to integrate rsync.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
Oh dude, gtfo! Shadow Hearts: Covenant is a better game than any modern era Final Fantasy, and FF6 is the only one of any generation in the same league. The first one was kind of weak in most areas, but again that makes the sequels not just rehashed bullshit.
I haven't played the new one yet, so maybe it's complete crap. But Covenant is one of the best RPGs this generation and I'd go as far as to say ground breaking in a way that Final Fantasy hasn't been since SNES, being that it is both new AND good (Final Fantasy has been both, just not at the same time in any remarkable way). It's got solid voice acting with an incredible script that is HILARIOUS, one of the greatest RPG gimmicks ever (Judgement Ring) tied into one of the best RPG combo systems this side of Grandia, and a healthy dose of bizarre.
I could see the ripoff comment if you've only played the first one, but as a series it's fucking brilliant. More than anything else Covenant justifies playing a pretty lackluster original, which is something I can't say for any other sequel.
CNN and The New York Times aren't that different from fox news. In fact, I'd say they're a whole lot worse since often they put out the same kinds of messages (or even repeat the fox news message) but are somehow afforded a credibility that fox news isn't since fox has wide-spread acceptance that fox is a biased, lying right-wing mouth piece. Which isn't to say that fox news doesn't deserve every bit of the bad reputation that they've got, but these other mega "news" corporations aren't any better and are worse for the lie that they are.
The trick is to actually do this and produce content to go along with it, then slap in on a lunch box and sell it. I'm sure you could make ass loads of cash if you had enough to pay off the game reviews sites to give you favorable marks given that a review of the story will be pretty much impossible.
Though this might be easier to do starting with a first-person shooter since historically they're shorter, have less developed stories, and a lot less dialog. But they also have a much narrower set of cliches.
elf?
Actually, with office suites it seems to be who can open the most kinds of crazy, incompatible ms office files the closest to ms office. Or at least who can sell the impression of doing that the best.
Why don't we just ignore both since neither is news-worthy beyond their fanboi sections?
It's amazing that Lionhead has stuck around as long as they have. Seems to me that there's a serious lack of leadership over there since not one of their games has really felt finished.
Especially Fable, which had a lot of really cool ideas being thrown around early on and somehow shipped without any of them in the final product. Maybe they need to step back from trying to make "amazing world class AAA" games and just work on getting one out the door feature complete.
Or you could not buy vista and save yourself even more money!
They've also got a newer model geared toward video that looks pretty sweet, but it also seems to have lost the FLAC support and costs almost twice as much.
Games.net guy fails for using the phrase "In short". He fails twice for using it to sum up ONE sentence. This is one of the most over-used as well as poorly-used cliches in game "journalism" and people should be fired for using it.
Why do people keep propogating this myth? Consoles have reached or exceeded "parity" with PCs at just about every generation (maybe all of them, but I'm too lazy to look up sources to back that claim up), only to be surpassed as the PC platform upgrades and moves on and the consoles settle in to their far longer life cycle.
This isn't something new. And neither is claiming that consoles have "finally reach technological parity with PCs." So can we really hang this one up, at least until the next "Next Generation" of consoles?
That's because you don't own a Gamecube.
They should ban "rediculous" and help all of us out.
I'd love to see some more 2D Zeldas. The Gameboy ones have been great.
But for Revolution I think they really need to address the ungracefully aging combat system, which was the biggest gripe I had with Wild Waker. It needs to be more dynamic as the lock-on system feels incredibly canned. Enemies all wait their turn to get beat up (with maybe an occasional jab) once you lock-on to one of their buddies. There are a lot of games doing much more engaging combat systems without being more difficult to control and I don't see why Nintendo can't work that into a Zelda game.
Maybe Twilight Princess is going to address a lot of these problems, but from the video I've seen it really looks like Wind Waker with a different art style, some pretty spotty lighting and textures, and the stiffest walk animation ever seen in a Nintendo game. Which is why I'm a lot more excited about the next handheld Zelda than I am about Twilight Princess.
Even if they don't add Revolution-specific features it's a smart move on Nintendo's part as a lot of people are going to buy Revolution who don't own GameCube. Given that it is one of the "most anticipated games ever" it's a no brainer to release it when there are more people who are able to play it without buying a system that they'll never play another game on.
Though personally I wouldn't be getting too excited about it unless they've made some serious changes since last time they showed it off. So far it looks like more of the same for the ever more tired 3D Zelda formula. I can't wait till the first Revolution Zelda since Miyamoto has promised that Twilight Princess will be the last Zelda in this mold.
I'd make the point that there is no such thing as evil and that morality is a fiction designed for small children who are incapable of understanding the complex realities of the world. But there's a much more important point to make. And that is if you hate the censorship in China so much, why do you keep buying shit from there? If you're really so concerned about it, do something about it. Stop supporting companies (particularly American ones) that are propping up the Chinese government.
Google, Yahoo, and even microsoft (at least not with their search engine) aren't going to change anything in China. If they don't censor their search results the only change will be that they will no longer be able to operate in China, which might not actually be a bad thing. But it's not going to change anything. It also isn't going to get the Chinese people to rise up and do anything about it.
But it's hypocritical (not to mention idiotic) to say it's Google's job to change China. It's the people of China's job to do that, and refusing to support their government by buying goods from their country is a very real way to help them do that. Besides, we'll be better off if we stop selling our country out for cheap crap from China that we don't need anyway.
This of course assumes that the Chinese government is actually bad for the people, which could be debated. Though I personally think that it is in a lot of ways.
Also don't forget that we censor a lot of things in America, often for no better reason than a few wingnut christians decide that they don't like it and put out a few dozen form letters complaining.
Completely agree about PS3 pricing though. This is just Sony's "super computer" claim of this generation. And I'll wager we don't see it for more than 400$, at least not for the base system.
I'm pretty sure microsoft requires games to include achievements before clearing them for release on xbox 360.
Here's a little demo by Tim Etler that shows how the Revolution controller would work with a FPS.
You might also take a look at this video.
Think of it more like an analog joystick than a mouse, where it'll turn as you point toward the edges. Probably with faster rotations the closer you're pointing to the edge and an area toward the middle of the screen where you have a bit of wiggle room for adjusting your aim without looking all over the place.
It's even more infuriating since the given reasons for doing anything even remotely like what they did are so fucking ridiculous (the basic apple "it's easier for people who have never used a computer before", only more-so) AND it affects applications that have no reasonable alternatives on Linux for the majority of Linux users who a) don't run gnome, and b) don't like how gnome works.
At least you can turn them off. But there isn't ANY way to turn off the idiotic gnome file dialogs, even when running gtk apps in another window manager.
Inspecting cargo coming into the country would be a good start.
Which one has the parasite in their brain?
Of course the real winner of the next-gen browser war will be the first one to integrate rsync.