Sounds like someone without a grasp on how to manage resources. A well run store will rarely if ever have these problems. If they do come up then obviously your manager isn't doing his/her job and should be disciplined.
What bothers me most about your post, is that you seem to be saying that it is "ok" to short change employees that are working for you. Are you trying to tell me that if your boss started knocking hours off your check to meet the bottom line you would just smile and say "whats good for the company is good for me"?
Treasure has always been one of my favorite design teams and any company that is even half-heartedly contemplating the production of a 2-d shooter should check out their work. When they shine, they shine like no other:
Gunstar Heros Raidant Silvergun Guardian Heros Bangai-O! Ikaruga Sin and Punishment (import this game! one of the best shooters ever)
I mean, they have had some bombs too (stretch panic anyone?), but who hasn't?
Batman? I thought i was about the only person that remembered and loved that game. Sure, besides having characters from the comic/first movie it had almost nothing to do with the film, but it was fun. And hard as hell.
It looks like a bit of a puzzle game to me. Obviously I am not on the design team so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that the difficulty of the game would hinge on beating time limits or being able to solve puzzles/defeat enemies. The size of the ball is continually growing and things that might hurt or kill you at one size would actually be "food" once you were big enough to absorb it (I could say a Microsoft simulator if I wanted to seize an obvious pun) Its merit would hinge on whether the game play and level design keeps in interesting after the aesthetic appeal of crushing the world under a ball of garbage wears off.
I think it looks like it could be entertaining, it is at least a unique idea for a game, and for as much as a lot of people constantly complain that there are no new ideas in the gaming industry, I have to say that I am surprised how quickly people are ready to try and nab that +1 funny by making some smarmy comment about a game they can't immediately classify and pigeon-hole. Wait a second no I'm not.
You forgot to add: control over what their citizens can read, talk about and/or do. Oh, and if you wanted to speak-out about what your government is doing, don't forget the nice people that take you away in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again, or the tanks that roll up to disperse your demonstration.
You mean like in the Patriot Act? Oh wait I got that switched around you mean in the Socialist nations right? There you went and confused me.
Like one of those mutts that belonged to that fella Pavlov, the bleeps are all they would have to put in a comercial for me, and probably any other adult gamer, to recognize the game.
Why am I now a criminal just because I don't feel like wasting time and money for a new system off of ebay that may or may not work?
Yes you are. But I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me ok?
Nintendo has realized that there is big money in old games. Look at the number of 8-bit NES games they have snuck onto other titles: Animal crossing had a dozen early NES games, There was a zelda bonus disc with both NES Zeldas, Metroid Prime and Zero mission had copies of the NES metroid included. They are trying to protect themselves and keep a lock on their old games.
Does this suck? Yeah, a little but I really doubt that the storm troopers are going to be kicking down the door to my, or anybody elses house because we have Actraiser and Tales of Phantasia ROMS.
I honestly do not give two flying fucks about the gaming experience of the other people on the server, and I'm sure more than a couple feel the same.
Then why play online games? It's a give and take situation Dweomer and if you don't want to play in the neighborhood you are free to stay indoors. Unreal Tournament (original flavor, 2003, 2004 extra crispy et cetera) has excellent bot customization options that could allow any player to create a match that they can have fun with offline and without power gamers intruding. Hell, the bots will even trash talk if you like that kind of thing. There is no reason you need to assume that you have some sort of great judgment or importance that allows you to dictate the rules of a game without the consent of the other people on the server. Should the Detroit Lions be given 5 downs per drive because they lose too much? Should their coach be allowed to call penalties on the other team just because he feels that it isn't fair that he isn't enjoying himself?
The solution, like parent said was to create matchmaking services so that people have the option of playing against people their skill level.
Very good idea, X-box live supposedly does this in select games, as do some on the PC. Use them then.
To try to pigeon hole them all based on no real first-hand experience on your part is foolish.
Now you seem to be trying to hurt my feelings. Thinly veiled insults do not an argument make. How do you know what sort of experience I have hmm? But hey, I can't change your mind so I am not going to bother to try.
But that isn't a reason to cheat is it? How many "casual" gamers do you think cheat? If I had to make up numbers, I would guess that most of the cheaters, hell I would guess a vast majority of them play the game in question as much as the ubber-1337 players do. There is this tendency for people to assume that people that cheat suck or have no skills and that is why they cheat, I think this is just something we tell ourselves when we lose to a cheater ("if he wasn't cheating I would own him!") People that cheat are people that either don't want to lose, or they are doing it just to ruin the game experience of others. I would be very surprised if you could find me a below average player that uses a couple of cheats to level the playing field.
I see what you are saying, but I am not sure that there is really any relevance to the subject at hand here, I mean I don't think its fair that I own a crappy car, but does that mean you could empathize with me if I robbed a bank to buy a better one?
I did not at all care for it (and I was a huge fan of x-wing and tie fighter) I played it when it was released (99 or 98?) so my memory is a bit foggy. I recall that in story mode they forced you into using what ever the millenium falcon was (corrillian corvette? Starwars people be kind, I can't remember) except that it wasn't the Falcon, it flew like a pregnant cow, the gunner was worthless so you had to do all the shooting yourself. And the game just went down hill from there. Most of the missions were the same things you were doing in the previous x-wing/tie fighter games only not as fun or as well scripted. As I said my memory is a bit foggy but I remember it was a pretty bland game, you didn't miss anything.
At the time, a friend of mine said that he hoped Lucasarts would release a patch for the game that would keep the title screen of Alliance, but when you started a mission it would boot up and start a game of Tie-Fighter instead. I think that is the most accurate review I can give.
A pity too, because as I understand it, most of the team involved with the game were the people that did Secret Weapons of the Luftawaffe (spelling?) which to this day is still my favorite flight sim.
Note that your theory is very similar to creationism
I gave no theory; I simply stated that the field of research that the parent was citing, and I have read much of it, is suspect. I am not about to advocate the idea that men and women have no differences, I am just saying that these gender studies should be taken with a grain of salt.
Your thesis needs that the large majority of e.g. cognitive psychologists are idiots
A good number are idiots (but then again a good number of people are idiots in their own little ways) I have met some of them personally attending conferences (Midwestern Psychological Association, American Psychological Association et cetera) while an undergrad and while conducting research. Scientists are no less susceptible to bias than anyone else in the world. Believing in something without question just because some says so sounds a lot like religion to me.
But there are good results supporting statistical variation in e.g. verbal and spatial talent between..
Absolutely, my point is only that one has to be careful because these things are very hard to test accurately, and sometimes despite the best of intentions, researchers bias and misread their data to support what they already think to be true.
Except that most of the gender studies that have been carried out in the past were not built on the soundest foundation and often reported "findings" perfectly inline with what the researchers already believed in. Read some of these studies you are referring to, look at their methodology and their actual results. My experience is that "you can generally say" is synonymous with the expression "they say" which has all the verifiability of a granfaloon and only half of its value.
So good aiming skills are taught to all American youngsters? I had no idea that the NRA had such a robust membership these days.
I think this is just a superstition. CS players think that Germans are better at teamwork and Americans are better with 1337 and sniping so they will naturally assume attribute those traits to players of various nationalities even if they don't demonstrate anymore skill than anyone else. "We got pwned by those Germans, man they stick together" or "Those Americans all talk with numbers and are so interested in our mothers"
Though infinium is a joke, the practice of using legal threats to silence bad press is something that is becoming more and more popular. I for one am glad that someone is playing hardball with them.
I really look forward to watching Infinium go down the toilet, I think when the dirt surfaces its going to be some funny stuff, like Enron, only instead of a gigantic corporation it will be happening to a make-believe company run by elves and faeries. I can already see them circling the drain...
I had it on the PC, and my was that a fun game. Hard as all hell but rewarding because you felt like a god when you actually pulled it off.
The first Maximo has a perfect difficulty level in my book, it seemed impossible but you could definately get good at it once you learned how to utilize the game mechanics to their fullest. The new Maximo is pretty slick too, though I am only a couple hours into it so I can't say for sure if it is harder or easier (no continues and enemies hit harder, but you get to keep power ups after death, healing items seem more plentiful as well)
company is likely to be harsh in the approval process regarding 'shovelware' PS2 conversions.
Um, no offense here, but Sony is the king of Shovelware. Half of the PS2 library falls under that classification and honestly, it is one of the reasons that they lead the console market. People are more likely to buy a system with a bazillion titles no matter if the quality of 6 kajillion of them is akin to single-ply recyled orphanage-grade toliet paper. I think this is one of those cases that the slashdot readership forgets that it is in general a little more tech-savvie than the average Joe/Joanne.
Show me your data, I want to know the sample sizes, I want to know the methodology and I want to know what criteria you used to decide who was fat and mean. Using words like "Fat" and "mean" to describe the conclusions of what is supposed to be a scientifically valid study really undermines the creditability to begin with. There is a documentary that goes along with this research? Sounds like they already had their minds made up what the results should be before they even started the study.
But then again, who cares right? In this day and age the truth isn't all that important, and scaring the moms of the world are what get the evening news ratings right?
Last time I checked, it was still perfectly legal to be "fat and mean".
I really hope they change the shape of the PS3 controller, neither the cube nor the x-box controllers (neither x-box, the canned ham or the smaller one) give me any problems, but the PS2 controllers give me a sore hand. Its those little tails, they dig right into the palm and while it isn't a lot of pressure, I get sore after awhile.
Then again I may be some kind of mutant and could be the only one with this problem, but Sony has had the exact same controller for 2 generations now, would a change not be good?
Not too sure, the only good games I have seen of it are those that I and my friends can pull off; And of course after you beat any given stage, it unlocks some movies of various styles of "perfect" runs from "cautious" to "insane" (I forget what they actually call them) It is even possible to complete the entire game without firing a single shot.
When that game is played well, it is a work of art, I can't reccomend it enough to those that like 2d Shooters.
Seeing that video reminds me of another game that looks truely awesome in the hands of a master: Ikaruga
At first glance the game looks like a blur of bullets and enemies, but it is possible to complete every stage of the game without breaking the chain combo (you get a chain bonus if you kill 3 ships of the same color in a row, the whole bonus is lost if you hit a single ship out of sequence) and still killing every single target. I never got that good, but I could rack up a pretty good combo on the first couple stages.
I may get modded into oblivion here, but I just have to say something.
the Nintendo DS won't have to get delayed because of a lack of games, because Nintendo is all about it's gaming lineup.
Now I like Nintendo as much as the next guy, but lack of library has been cited as one of their biggest downfalls in recent years. The N64 never got the 3rd party support that it needed, it launched late (compared to the PS1) and had a pretty thin library ?)(Mario 64, Pilot Wings, Waverace, and Shadows of the Empire, that was about wasn't it?) At a time that the PS1 had already seen some games destined to be classics (Resident Evil 1 anybody?) Even the cube is having some trouble in the 3rd party game, yeah Nintendo's first party stuff is great, and yeah most of the "port to everything" titles lag pretty far behind exclusive content in terms of quality, but when you are not the big dog on the block, every game that doesn't get ported to your system is going to gain money for the other guy. I didn't shed a tear when Acclaim stopped making cube games but suck as they do, they still sell games and to a person deciding between systems variety and selection are important factors.
The reason main Nintendo is doing as good as they are is because of the games -- not the system specs of their consoles. Catch them if you can Sony, Nintendo can only release more games, downshift, and take off. They have been doing this for years and will continue to do it.
I assume you are speaking of the handheld markets here because Nintendo has only a fraction of the home console market that Sony does. Yes, they have beaten some previous upstarts on their handheld dominance (or rather allowed the competition to beat themselves in some cases) After the SNES, Nintendo looked untouchable and while I love my cube, I am not deluded for a moment as to which of the big 3 is on top right now.
I think one of the funniest things I had happen in one of the games I ran:
It was a group new to the game, and so I played the old "briefing room is 30 feet away down a violet clearance hallway" gags. There were of course heavily armed guards and lots of security cameras so it was impossible to just sprint down it. One of the characters jumped onto the back of another character and started choking him for no particular reason. Another player takes out his laser pistol to shoot the attacker off the back of his friend and scores a critical hit killing both of them. The other players start accusing the shooter of deliberately killing and arguments/pleading ensues. Another player notices that the guards let a Bot pass no questions asked, so he rounds the corner and finds a trash barrel, puts it over his head and starts to walk down the hall. When the guards ask what the hell he thinks he is doing he just replies: "I am a Robot beep beep boop" The guards let him pass. The rest of the group notices by now that the ruse worked so they start running around looking for more trashcans.
When they try to cross the hallway the guards are not fooled this time and ask each one to prove that they are in fact robots and not just troubleshooter scum with trash bins on their heads. The best way to tell if they are robots it's decided, is to make them all dance "the robot" The resulting dance contest forced us to stop the game for 10 minuets before we could stop laughing.
PARANOIA XP will use an updated and simplified version of the rules from PARANOIA's much admired second edition
That is such good news. I still have my old beaten up de-spined stuck in a 3-ring binder copy of the second edition. I had the 3rd, err 5th edition book and while perfect in every way, it was just not as perfect as the 2nd edition book was.
Very different kind of game that TORG, I wouldn't say that comparing it and Paranoia is exactly comparing apples to apples. Torg was more or less serious (in an absurd sci-fi sort of way) where as Paranoia ranges from subtle satire (subtle like a hammer to the junk) to toilet humor (and it always gets there eventually)
I played Torg a few times, it had a similar combat system to Paranoia (healthy, wounded, or dead instead of HP) but players had cards that they could use to change the rules or affect the story. Some types of cards would gain bonus points if played (and the type that gained the bonus would change periodicaly) It was a cool idea really, say the party was stumped with a puzzle or trap or something, one of them might have a card that lets them call on an old friend for help. Or one player may have a card that causes another player to gain a love interest or nemesis, stuff like that. Interesting game, I liked Paranoia better personally.
Slashdot Mirror
Attach a battery and you have your self a deal!
let me keep the trend going:
Sounds like someone without a grasp on how to manage resources. A well run store will rarely if ever have these problems. If they do come up then obviously your manager isn't doing his/her job and should be disciplined.
What bothers me most about your post, is that you seem to be saying that it is "ok" to short change employees that are working for you. Are you trying to tell me that if your boss started knocking hours off your check to meet the bottom line you would just smile and say "whats good for the company is good for me"?
Hyperbole works both ways you know.
Treasure has always been one of my favorite design teams and any company that is even half-heartedly contemplating the production of a 2-d shooter should check out their work. When they shine, they shine like no other:
Gunstar Heros
Raidant Silvergun
Guardian Heros
Bangai-O!
Ikaruga
Sin and Punishment (import this game! one of the best shooters ever)
I mean, they have had some bombs too (stretch panic anyone?), but who hasn't?
Some interesting choices on that list.
Batman? I thought i was about the only person that remembered and loved that game. Sure, besides having characters from the comic/first movie it had almost nothing to do with the film, but it was fun. And hard as hell.
It looks like a bit of a puzzle game to me. Obviously I am not on the design team so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that the difficulty of the game would hinge on beating time limits or being able to solve puzzles/defeat enemies. The size of the ball is continually growing and things that might hurt or kill you at one size would actually be "food" once you were big enough to absorb it (I could say a Microsoft simulator if I wanted to seize an obvious pun) Its merit would hinge on whether the game play and level design keeps in interesting after the aesthetic appeal of crushing the world under a ball of garbage wears off.
I think it looks like it could be entertaining, it is at least a unique idea for a game, and for as much as a lot of people constantly complain that there are no new ideas in the gaming industry, I have to say that I am surprised how quickly people are ready to try and nab that +1 funny by making some smarmy comment about a game they can't immediately classify and pigeon-hole. Wait a second no I'm not.
You forgot to add: control over what their citizens can read, talk about and/or do. Oh, and if you wanted to speak-out about what your government is doing, don't forget the nice people that take you away in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again, or the tanks that roll up to disperse your demonstration.
You mean like in the Patriot Act? Oh wait I got that switched around you mean in the Socialist nations right? There you went and confused me.
Like one of those mutts that belonged to that fella Pavlov, the bleeps are all they would have to put in a comercial for me, and probably any other adult gamer, to recognize the game.
thanks
Why am I now a criminal just because I don't feel like wasting time and money for a new system off of ebay that may or may not work?
Yes you are. But I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me ok?
Nintendo has realized that there is big money in old games. Look at the number of 8-bit NES games they have snuck onto other titles: Animal crossing had a dozen early NES games, There was a zelda bonus disc with both NES Zeldas, Metroid Prime and Zero mission had copies of the NES metroid included. They are trying to protect themselves and keep a lock on their old games.
Does this suck? Yeah, a little but I really doubt that the storm troopers are going to be kicking down the door to my, or anybody elses house because we have Actraiser and Tales of Phantasia ROMS.
I honestly do not give two flying fucks about the gaming experience of the other people on the server, and I'm sure more than a couple feel the same.
Then why play online games? It's a give and take situation Dweomer and if you don't want to play in the neighborhood you are free to stay indoors.
Unreal Tournament (original flavor, 2003, 2004 extra crispy et cetera) has excellent bot customization options that could allow any player to create a match that they can have fun with offline and without power gamers intruding. Hell, the bots will even trash talk if you like that kind of thing. There is no reason you need to assume that you have some sort of great judgment or importance that allows you to dictate the rules of a game without the consent of the other people on the server. Should the Detroit Lions be given 5 downs per drive because they lose too much? Should their coach be allowed to call penalties on the other team just because he feels that it isn't fair that he isn't enjoying himself?
The solution, like parent said was to create matchmaking services so that people have the option of playing against people their skill level.
Very good idea, X-box live supposedly does this in select games, as do some on the PC. Use them then.
To try to pigeon hole them all based on no real first-hand experience on your part is foolish.
Now you seem to be trying to hurt my feelings. Thinly veiled insults do not an argument make. How do you know what sort of experience I have hmm? But hey, I can't change your mind so I am not going to bother to try.
Have a nice day.
But that isn't a reason to cheat is it? How many "casual" gamers do you think cheat? If I had to make up numbers, I would guess that most of the cheaters, hell I would guess a vast majority of them play the game in question as much as the ubber-1337 players do. There is this tendency for people to assume that people that cheat suck or have no skills and that is why they cheat, I think this is just something we tell ourselves when we lose to a cheater ("if he wasn't cheating I would own him!") People that cheat are people that either don't want to lose, or they are doing it just to ruin the game experience of others. I would be very surprised if you could find me a below average player that uses a couple of cheats to level the playing field.
I see what you are saying, but I am not sure that there is really any relevance to the subject at hand here, I mean I don't think its fair that I own a crappy car, but does that mean you could empathize with me if I robbed a bank to buy a better one?
was it any good?
I did not at all care for it (and I was a huge fan of x-wing and tie fighter) I played it when it was released (99 or 98?) so my memory is a bit foggy. I recall that in story mode they forced you into using what ever the millenium falcon was (corrillian corvette? Starwars people be kind, I can't remember) except that it wasn't the Falcon, it flew like a pregnant cow, the gunner was worthless so you had to do all the shooting yourself. And the game just went down hill from there. Most of the missions were the same things you were doing in the previous x-wing/tie fighter games only not as fun or as well scripted. As I said my memory is a bit foggy but I remember it was a pretty bland game, you didn't miss anything.
At the time, a friend of mine said that he hoped Lucasarts would release a patch for the game that would keep the title screen of Alliance, but when you started a mission it would boot up and start a game of Tie-Fighter instead. I think that is the most accurate review I can give.
A pity too, because as I understand it, most of the team involved with the game were the people that did Secret Weapons of the Luftawaffe (spelling?) which to this day is still my favorite flight sim.
we now return this thread to its previous topic
Note that your theory is very similar to creationism
I gave no theory; I simply stated that the field of research that the parent was citing, and I have read much of it, is suspect. I am not about to advocate the idea that men and women have no differences, I am just saying that these gender studies should be taken with a grain of salt.
Your thesis needs that the large majority of e.g. cognitive psychologists are idiots
A good number are idiots (but then again a good number of people are idiots in their own little ways) I have met some of them personally attending conferences (Midwestern Psychological Association, American Psychological Association et cetera) while an undergrad and while conducting research. Scientists are no less susceptible to bias than anyone else in the world. Believing in something without question just because some says so sounds a lot like religion to me.
But there are good results supporting statistical variation in e.g. verbal and spatial talent between..
Absolutely, my point is only that one has to be careful because these things are very hard to test accurately, and sometimes despite the best of intentions, researchers bias and misread their data to support what they already think to be true.
Except that most of the gender studies that have been carried out in the past were not built on the soundest foundation and often reported "findings" perfectly inline with what the researchers already believed in. Read some of these studies you are referring to, look at their methodology and their actual results. My experience is that "you can generally say" is synonymous with the expression "they say" which has all the verifiability of a granfaloon and only half of its value.
So good aiming skills are taught to all American youngsters? I had no idea that the NRA had such a robust membership these days.
I think this is just a superstition. CS players think that Germans are better at teamwork and Americans are better with 1337 and sniping so they will naturally assume attribute those traits to players of various nationalities even if they don't demonstrate anymore skill than anyone else. "We got pwned by those Germans, man they stick together" or "Those Americans all talk with numbers and are so interested in our mothers"
Couldn't have said it better myself really.
Though infinium is a joke, the practice of using legal threats to silence bad press is something that is becoming more and more popular. I for one am glad that someone is playing hardball with them.
I really look forward to watching Infinium go down the toilet, I think when the dirt surfaces its going to be some funny stuff, like Enron, only instead of a gigantic corporation it will be happening to a make-believe company run by elves and faeries. I can already see them circling the drain...
I had it on the PC, and my was that a fun game. Hard as all hell but rewarding because you felt like a god when you actually pulled it off. The first Maximo has a perfect difficulty level in my book, it seemed impossible but you could definately get good at it once you learned how to utilize the game mechanics to their fullest. The new Maximo is pretty slick too, though I am only a couple hours into it so I can't say for sure if it is harder or easier (no continues and enemies hit harder, but you get to keep power ups after death, healing items seem more plentiful as well)
company is likely to be harsh in the approval process regarding 'shovelware' PS2 conversions.
Um, no offense here, but Sony is the king of Shovelware. Half of the PS2 library falls under that classification and honestly, it is one of the reasons that they lead the console market. People are more likely to buy a system with a bazillion titles no matter if the quality of 6 kajillion of them is akin to single-ply recyled orphanage-grade toliet paper. I think this is one of those cases that the slashdot readership forgets that it is in general a little more tech-savvie than the average Joe/Joanne.
I will say the obvious here:
Show me your data, I want to know the sample sizes, I want to know the methodology and I want to know what criteria you used to decide who was fat and mean. Using words like "Fat" and "mean" to describe the conclusions of what is supposed to be a scientifically valid study really undermines the creditability to begin with. There is a documentary that goes along with this research? Sounds like they already had their minds made up what the results should be before they even started the study.
But then again, who cares right? In this day and age the truth isn't all that important, and scaring the moms of the world are what get the evening news ratings right?
Last time I checked, it was still perfectly legal to be "fat and mean".
I really hope they change the shape of the PS3 controller, neither the cube nor the x-box controllers (neither x-box, the canned ham or the smaller one) give me any problems, but the PS2 controllers give me a sore hand. Its those little tails, they dig right into the palm and while it isn't a lot of pressure, I get sore after awhile.
Then again I may be some kind of mutant and could be the only one with this problem, but Sony has had the exact same controller for 2 generations now, would a change not be good?
Not too sure, the only good games I have seen of it are those that I and my friends can pull off; And of course after you beat any given stage, it unlocks some movies of various styles of "perfect" runs from "cautious" to "insane" (I forget what they actually call them) It is even possible to complete the entire game without firing a single shot.
When that game is played well, it is a work of art, I can't reccomend it enough to those that like 2d Shooters.
Seeing that video reminds me of another game that looks truely awesome in the hands of a master: Ikaruga
At first glance the game looks like a blur of bullets and enemies, but it is possible to complete every stage of the game without breaking the chain combo (you get a chain bonus if you kill 3 ships of the same color in a row, the whole bonus is lost if you hit a single ship out of sequence) and still killing every single target. I never got that good, but I could rack up a pretty good combo on the first couple stages.
I may get modded into oblivion here, but I just have to say something.
the Nintendo DS won't have to get delayed because of a lack of games, because Nintendo is all about it's gaming lineup.
Now I like Nintendo as much as the next guy, but lack of library has been cited as one of their biggest downfalls in recent years. The N64 never got the 3rd party support that it needed, it launched late (compared to the PS1) and had a pretty thin library ?)(Mario 64, Pilot Wings, Waverace, and Shadows of the Empire, that was about wasn't it?) At a time that the PS1 had already seen some games destined to be classics (Resident Evil 1 anybody?) Even the cube is having some trouble in the 3rd party game, yeah Nintendo's first party stuff is great, and yeah most of the "port to everything" titles lag pretty far behind exclusive content in terms of quality, but when you are not the big dog on the block, every game that doesn't get ported to your system is going to gain money for the other guy. I didn't shed a tear when Acclaim stopped making cube games but suck as they do, they still sell games and to a person deciding between systems variety and selection are important factors.
The reason main Nintendo is doing as good as they are is because of the games -- not the system specs of their consoles. Catch them if you can Sony, Nintendo can only release more games, downshift, and take off. They have been doing this for years and will continue to do it.
I assume you are speaking of the handheld markets here because Nintendo has only a fraction of the home console market that Sony does. Yes, they have beaten some previous upstarts on their handheld dominance (or rather allowed the competition to beat themselves in some cases) After the SNES, Nintendo looked untouchable and while I love my cube, I am not deluded for a moment as to which of the big 3 is on top right now.
I think one of the funniest things I had happen in one of the games I ran:
It was a group new to the game, and so I played the old "briefing room is 30 feet away down a violet clearance hallway" gags. There were of course heavily armed guards and lots of security cameras so it was impossible to just sprint down it. One of the characters jumped onto the back of another character and started choking him for no particular reason. Another player takes out his laser pistol to shoot the attacker off the back of his friend and scores a critical hit killing both of them. The other players start accusing the shooter of deliberately killing and arguments/pleading ensues. Another player notices that the guards let a Bot pass no questions asked, so he rounds the corner and finds a trash barrel, puts it over his head and starts to walk down the hall. When the guards ask what the hell he thinks he is doing he just replies: "I am a Robot beep beep boop" The guards let him pass. The rest of the group notices by now that the ruse worked so they start running around looking for more trashcans.
When they try to cross the hallway the guards are not fooled this time and ask each one to prove that they are in fact robots and not just troubleshooter scum with trash bins on their heads. The best way to tell if they are robots it's decided, is to make them all dance "the robot" The resulting dance contest forced us to stop the game for 10 minuets before we could stop laughing.
PARANOIA XP will use an updated and simplified version of the rules from PARANOIA's much admired second edition
That is such good news. I still have my old beaten up de-spined stuck in a 3-ring binder copy of the second edition. I had the 3rd, err 5th edition book and while perfect in every way, it was just not as perfect as the 2nd edition book was.
It sounds like the game is in good hands.
Very different kind of game that TORG, I wouldn't say that comparing it and Paranoia is exactly comparing apples to apples. Torg was more or less serious (in an absurd sci-fi sort of way) where as Paranoia ranges from subtle satire (subtle like a hammer to the junk) to toilet humor (and it always gets there eventually)
I played Torg a few times, it had a similar combat system to Paranoia (healthy, wounded, or dead instead of HP) but players had cards that they could use to change the rules or affect the story. Some types of cards would gain bonus points if played (and the type that gained the bonus would change periodicaly) It was a cool idea really, say the party was stumped with a puzzle or trap or something, one of them might have a card that lets them call on an old friend for help. Or one player may have a card that causes another player to gain a love interest or nemesis, stuff like that. Interesting game, I liked Paranoia better personally.