"Neanderthals practiced infanticide, and used the "run the elk off a cliff" hunting technique. As resources thinned, I imagine that more babies got killed (they couldn't support babies). Then their women got too old to have babies, and the line ended."
What's your point? The Greeks and plenty other homo sapien people did the same throughout the ages. And the "run the elk off a cliff" technique you speak of was common amongst the Native American peoples before the reintroduction of horses to North America.
"Cows have much bigger brains than humans, but are significantly less intelligent. Some whales have brains larger than an entire human, and they're still less intelligent."
To paraphrase the late great Douglas Adams, humans claimed to be more intelligent than other species on the planet because they built things like New York City; the Dolphins claimed they were more intelligent because they did not build things like New York City.
"No, it's not easy to know. That's why researchers have been debating this question since the discovery of the first Neanderthal. The idea that it was the result of murder has the problem that the Neandertals were much stronger than modern humans. I've heard them described as having the musculature of modern bodybuilders (the males, anyway). Neanderthals ate mostly meat, so they obviously had the ability to kill animals. And modern humans at the time didn't have much more advanced weaponry than spears."
I'm tired of the conflicting reports. On one side, some claim the Neanderthals were taller and more muscular than homo sapien sapiens because their diet consisted of over 90% meat. Even in my anthro classes back in the 90s, the materials claimed the Neanderthals were taller than our alleged separate ancestors. And now its all about how squatty the Neanderthals were because Europe was cold in comparison to Africa? The hypothesis that they were less intelligent than homo sapiens is hard to believe (for me) since their brains were larger. If anything, I would hedge bets that homo sapiens invading into Europe were directly influenced by Neanderthal culture and adopted at least some of their religious concepts (like burying their dead, and with objects for the afterlife) before the Neanderthals supposedly disappeared.
It also annoys me to see all this talk about DNA results (especially ones claiming modern humans have no Neanderthal genes). Just how many modern humans have they compared DNA from? Seems like a small sample to me. And for that matter, how many Neanderthal bones (from different remains) did they extract DNA from? Its like comparing statisical results of television viewing by 6,000 Nielsen families versus 2 million TiVo subscribers.
"slider technology and left the planet. Unfortunatly they lost the coordinates for there home earth dimension. Also unfortunate that they became NAZI's."
They were CroMags on "Sliders", not Neanderthals. Nice try, but you do not get to pass go this round.
"This brings me back to when Microsoft decided that search engines were cool and launched their search engine/Google killer. I wonder what ever happened to that Google company after that."
"Alas, I don't think writing will help. This would require someone in the industry to have the vision to uncover the rights-holder, license or buy the rights, then make the game themselves, most likely. Considering that Slime World is woefully unknown in gaming these days, and I'd have to say the chances of that happening are slim unless one of us starts our own company."
Bah. Don't give up. I pestered Atari Corp. each month from 1986 to 1990 about licensing (or acquiring the company) the Atari Games Corp. post-1984 arcade library for their machines since consumers such as myself did not know they were two separate companies and thus expected the arcade titles to appear on the Atari branded consoles. I was a very torqued Atari 7800 owner when I found out they were separate companies...and especially torqued when "Gauntlet" appeared on the NES and not the 7800. Finally, my complaints were finally heard.
Slime World is a gem, but it is obscure. Not many people remember it. But yes, the rights question is troublesome. Here's the Wikipedia entry for Epyx:
"Creative may try to position itself as the player with replaceable battery (hence longer life), has few more quirks (such as allowing you to move files across computers, rather than going the iTunes way), however, iPod still remains the benchmark in usability and style (the USP of iPod)."
Apple is developing iPods right now with replaceable batteries. We might see new models featuring them on September 7th, if not later this year.
"The thought of an old machine filled with 5-6 voodoo 2 cards is scary. I'm sure it would be much more efficient just to use the money you'd spend on electricity to buy a new machine and use the CPU."
Yes, there is the energy efficiency argument, but that logic excuses the energy/environmental costs in acquiring new equipment. If you buy a new videocard (or a new CPU) for this project, you increase demand for it and consequently, more of the videocards (or CPUs) are built. Making processors and related tech requires raw materials, water, and of course, electricity. So when you factor this in, it can be reasonably argued that it is best to use existing equipment to their fullest until they wear out (and then recycle the parts) instead of going out and acquiring new equipment because it crunches numbers faster.
Besides, PCI based videocards are pretty rare. Its not like there are mobos out there up to the task with multiple AGP card slots... There's probably a ton of Voodoo1/Voodoo2/Voodoo3 and TNT/TNT2/GeForce/GeForce2/GeForce3 PCI cards collecting dust.
"Oh yeah, it would be *perfect* for the DS! With download play, you'd only need one cartridge to play the legendary eight-player modes. So... who owns the rights to it now?"
Probably whichever party owns the rights to the Epyx porfolio of games. Atari didn't outright acquire their portfolio because the game was licensed for the Sega Genesis a year or so after the game made its debut splash (pun intended) on the Atari Lynx platform. Shall we write to Nintendo or Sony about acquiring the title?
First off the announcement hinted at the revolutionary nature of the new product by envoking the invites to remember when Apple first put *1000* songs in their pocket. An iTunes based phone is not revolutionary like that, especially when it is limited to between 100-250 songs. Furthermore, the iTunes based phone has been delayed at least three times now. Would Apple book the event and take a chance that Motorola or Cingular delayed it yet again right before the event? Nope.
Likewise, the Samsung agreement to purchase 40% of their flash memory is too soon for Apple to bring out an iPod Mini based upon flash (but will happen by Christmas 2005). And I can't see Apple booking an event like this to announce the iPod Mini receiving a color screen (although that would be a great complimentary announcement but Apple would probably wait until the school promotion of getting a free iPod Mini with an iBook expires on Sept. 30th).
My money is on an iPod Video model. With video blogs becoming popular and the iTune Music Store enabling videos, the time is right. Plus, Apple probably would love to bloody the noses of Archos and Creative a bit more.
My fingers are crossed that there's some sort of agreement for compatibility with TiVo-To-Go, but I'm sure that won't be the case for now.
Then again, I was totally wrong with assuming the rumors of switching to Intel chips were incorrect...:0
"So do I. In fact I keep looking for people to help us develop this.... To no avail.:( Aparently the people who want this most don't have the ability to implement it, and the people who have the ability (assuming they exist) aren't interested."
Interested, but I have no abilities other than a token financial donation and some spare 3dfx videocards...:)
You'd (I mean, I) think the graphics card companies would donate some services to help out with the task...
"I am an incoming Feshman in college and I hang around with all sorts of people. I have met one person that has a PSP (out of a few hundred probably), A few who were tryin to do those online free PSP things, and noone that had a DS. It could just be noone talks about it. But I doubt that, some of my friends sit and chat about news on/., so I don't think they would avoid talking about their fancy new portables."
Yeah, but a lot of that is because both the PSP (especially the PSP) and the DS are relatively new systems. Think back to when the Xbox came out....how many people did you know that had one? Or even today in comparison to how many people who own the PS2.
As much as I hate to admit this - especially given my user name here - there's probably more PSPs in people's hands now than there were Atari Lynxs...
"You missed the most obvious thing: the DS is the first console with a real pointing device and a screen for each player. That means strategy games are finally feasible."
"I loved Gunship - so much so that I used to call up Microprose monthly while Gunship 2000 was in development. My favorites of their simulation line were F19 (the stealth fighter from Lockheed that was in contention with the eventually accepted F117), F15 Strike Eagle II."
My contention is that the alleged F-19 Stealth Fighter is in fact the still underwraps secret plane known to conspiracy theorists as the "Aurora."
Time or Newsweek broke the story on the leak when (who was it, Testor?) the model plane hit the stores and caused controversy, and an air force official didn't even bat an eye when asked about it, only smiling and stating something to the effect of "very clever."
One must remember that the Air Force only publically reveals their secret planes when the replacement model is flying. Look how long the Air Force refused to confirm the SR-71.
But I totally agree with the rest of your post... I'd love to see "Silent Service" resurrected. Others preferred the rival G.A.T.O. at the time.
I wish BOINC could also be designed to use graphics cards - ala the BrookGPU project - to help with the number crunching duties.*
Granted, it would require both Nvidia and ATi to donate with the efforts (especially ATi and their stingy Linux commitment).
I'd love to see some old machines with all their PCI card slots filled up with 3dfx Voodoo cards and the like helping future scientific endeavors.
*Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the BOINC software rendering the SETI@home graphics courtesy of OpenGL, but I think there are more noble tasks the GPU could be harnessed to work on...
"I'm surprised that someone hasn't started releasing modernized versions of the Microprose catalog. That company put out so many great games, and in several genres, that it was ridiculous (and expensive since I bought nearly every game they ever released, sometimes multiple times)."
Well, let's track down who would own those titles today. Microprose (guess they never got around to changing their name despite that lawsuit from MicroPro) sold out to Hasbro Interactive. Hasbro Interactive (and especially its Atari brand) sold out to Infogrames of EuroFrance*. The Infogrames USA division became Atari Inc. So most likely, those titles belong in the States to Atari, and Infogrames in other jurisdictions on the planet. I don't know who owns the rights to distribution on the planets of Gallifrey, Krypton, or Alderaan, but obviously they aren't making much money at it since those planets are galactic rubble now.:)
As for Microprose titles, I would love to see new versions of their flight simulators as well as Gunship. Doubly so to see a new version of "Falcon" (Spectrum Holybrite - which I believe falls under the Atari banner now too) for the consoles, Windows/OS X, or portables...
*Much as their are iMacs, EuroFrance is a rebranding of France to show that it desires to be at the heart of the geopolitical construct of *Europe*. Infogrames, a French based company, views itself as a Pan European company.
"You got me to thinking about Gauntlet 3 for the Lynx. I had that game but I never got a chance to play it multiplayer. Was it 8 player? I know you could pick from ten different characters and I found the list of characters online. Elf, Valkyrie, Wizard, Warrior, Pirate, Gunfighter, Samurai, Android, Nerd and Punkrocker. Gauntlet 8 player would have been pretty cool. I remember the Lynx pushing the more than 2 player multiplayer aspect...it was just that almost no one had a Lynx to play with. Finding 8 people to play with would have been impossible for me at the time. It was also one of those games where you had to actually rotate the lynx to play it. That wasn't very ergonomic at all."
I had the benefit of belonging to an Atari ST platform based user group at the time, so many of the members had Lynx handhelds as well. So it was very easy to find 8 other people with Lynx units to ComLynx it up for multiplayer matches at the monthly meetings (in fact, there were usually 16 Lynx handhelds floating around; some people had a spare too).
I don't remember whether Gauntlet was an 8 player game or not. I think - but the memory might be faulty - it was 4 player, but I'm probably mistaken. It was originally entitled "Time Quests & Treasure Chests" as a Gauntlet themed clone before Atari Corp. got the licensing agreement in place to port Atari Games arcade titles (like Gauntlet, Paperboy, 720, Roadblasters, Xybots, KLAX, Toobin', Hard Drivin', Vindicators, STUN Runner, Pit Fighter, etc.), at the behest of Time Warner corporate.
At the meetings, we'd network up for California Games (4player), Warbirds (8player), SlimeWorld (8player), and to a lesser extent, Gauntlet. The car racing game was also popular at the time. BattleWheels came in late to the scene.
It is a shame that Bob Brodie was unable to convince the game division that handled the Lynx to port MIDI Maze to the platform. But that division didn't tend to listen to the computer division at the time prior to their reorganization before the release of the Jaguar. The title was subsequently licensed to BPS who rebranded it "FaceBall 2000" and ported it to almost all non-Atari game system platforms at the time. Such a shame since it was a huge hit that sold many Atari ST computers just to play that game.
www.atarihistory.org is a pretty good site to catch up on what was and what might have been.
Hope your Lynx still works if you still have it! I tend to think of the PSP as the Lynx of 2005. Hopefully it will have a more successful fate...
*MIDI Maze (aka "Faceball 2000") - the original multiplayer FPS that is still kid-friendly. Perfect for a DS.
*Todd's Adventure in Slimeworld - old multiplayer hit from the Atari Lynx and the Sega Genesis. Obviously, a FPS update would be needed on the PSP, but possibly the sidescrolling method might still be useful on the DS.
*Warbirds - great dogfighting game. Was really addicting playing against 8 other players on the Atari Lynx. Definitely worth updating yet still retaining the title's charm.
*Battlewheels. 'Nuff said.
And finally...
*Duke Nukem Forever - Considering the development at this point is probably so far behind for the current and nextgen consoles, why not sell the title as an exclusivity to either of the handheld platforms? C'mon, 3DRealms, Sony, and Nintendo.
"There are many mp3 players on the market right now that are doing just fine, but don't have a dedicated music distribution system to go with them. I think that you overestimate the importance of such a system, and I think that Archos has a real chance to prevail (especially if they'd come down in price a bit)."
My point is, Archos and the others are irrelevant to what I was suggesting. The only way Archos could help out in getting Doctor Who distributed alternatively here in America would be indirectly, as a device compatible with the TiVo-To-Go-Service. Thus, it would require the suggestion that TiVo agreed to distribute the program, whereas Apple as a distribution system would not need a middleman.
"I never saw GPhoria, but if it was worse than the pointlessly stupid Spike TV awards, holy crap I'm glad I missed it."
At least the SpikeTV videogame awards had David Spade hosting them one year. GPhoria has *celebs* that are lower than Spade on the pecking order in Hollywood...
"Looks like the only person less intelligent than Dvorak is you."
Hey, give Dvorak some credit. He certainly was right about the switch to Intel (on the Macintosh platform). Incredibly. I certainly did not believe the rumors until the news that hit the fan after the Developer's Conference presentation.
Slashdot Mirror
"Some would say they are Basques, now living in France and Spain."
But the Basques would say they came from Atlantis. And not of the Stargate garden variety.
"Neanderthals practiced infanticide, and used the "run the elk off a cliff" hunting technique. As resources thinned, I imagine that more babies got killed (they couldn't support babies). Then their women got too old to have babies, and the line ended."
What's your point? The Greeks and plenty other homo sapien people did the same throughout the ages. And the "run the elk off a cliff" technique you speak of was common amongst the Native American peoples before the reintroduction of horses to North America.
"Cows have much bigger brains than humans, but are significantly less intelligent. Some whales have brains larger than an entire human, and they're still less intelligent."
To paraphrase the late great Douglas Adams, humans claimed to be more intelligent than other species on the planet because they built things like New York City; the Dolphins claimed they were more intelligent because they did not build things like New York City.
Wish I had my copy of Hitchhiker's nearby...
"No, it's not easy to know. That's why researchers have been debating this question since the discovery of the first Neanderthal. The idea that it was the result of murder has the problem that the Neandertals were much stronger than modern humans. I've heard them described as having the musculature of modern bodybuilders (the males, anyway). Neanderthals ate mostly meat, so they obviously had the ability to kill animals. And modern humans at the time didn't have much more advanced weaponry than spears."
I'm tired of the conflicting reports. On one side, some claim the Neanderthals were taller and more muscular than homo sapien sapiens because their diet consisted of over 90% meat. Even in my anthro classes back in the 90s, the materials claimed the Neanderthals were taller than our alleged separate ancestors. And now its all about how squatty the Neanderthals were because Europe was cold in comparison to Africa? The hypothesis that they were less intelligent than homo sapiens is hard to believe (for me) since their brains were larger. If anything, I would hedge bets that homo sapiens invading into Europe were directly influenced by Neanderthal culture and adopted at least some of their religious concepts (like burying their dead, and with objects for the afterlife) before the Neanderthals supposedly disappeared.
It also annoys me to see all this talk about DNA results (especially ones claiming modern humans have no Neanderthal genes). Just how many modern humans have they compared DNA from? Seems like a small sample to me. And for that matter, how many Neanderthal bones (from different remains) did they extract DNA from? Its like comparing statisical results of television viewing by 6,000 Nielsen families versus 2 million TiVo subscribers.
"Well, everyone took a vote, and they got voted off the island."
Or, to New Orleans...
"slider technology and left the planet. Unfortunatly they lost the coordinates for there home earth dimension. Also unfortunate that they became NAZI's."
They were CroMags on "Sliders", not Neanderthals. Nice try, but you do not get to pass go this round.
Can we get an official deathwatch on G4TV to go with it?
Care to wager if Creative has a patent on shipping MP3 players with pre-installed viruses?
"This brings me back to when Microsoft decided that search engines were cool and launched their search engine/Google killer.
I wonder what ever happened to that Google company after that."
Or that AOL Instant Messenger killer.
Or that Sony Playstation2 killer.
Or that TiVo killer.
Or that QuickTime killer.
Or that iTunes killer.
Next?
"Alas, I don't think writing will help. This would require someone in the industry to have the vision to uncover the rights-holder, license or buy the rights, then make the game themselves, most likely. Considering that Slime World is woefully unknown in gaming these days, and I'd have to say the chances of that happening are slim unless one of us starts our own company."
h tm
:)
Bah. Don't give up. I pestered Atari Corp. each month from 1986 to 1990 about licensing (or acquiring the company) the Atari Games Corp. post-1984 arcade library for their machines since consumers such as myself did not know they were two separate companies and thus expected the arcade titles to appear on the Atari branded consoles. I was a very torqued Atari 7800 owner when I found out they were separate companies...and especially torqued when "Gauntlet" appeared on the NES and not the 7800. Finally, my complaints were finally heard.
Slime World is a gem, but it is obscure. Not many people remember it. But yes, the rights question is troublesome. Here's the Wikipedia entry for Epyx:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx
According to this site, most of the Epyx titles are the property of Atari/Hasbro/Atari aka Infogrames:
http://www.geocities.com/conspiracyprime/e2_epyx.
If nothing else, the current "Atari" probably owns the handheld rights to the title.
I'm up for writing a letter to the Atari CEO. Are you?
"Creative may try to position itself as the player with replaceable battery (hence longer life), has few more quirks (such as allowing you to move files across computers, rather than going the iTunes way), however, iPod still remains the benchmark in usability and style (the USP of iPod)."
Apple is developing iPods right now with replaceable batteries. We might see new models featuring them on September 7th, if not later this year.
"The thought of an old machine filled with 5-6 voodoo 2 cards is scary. I'm sure it would be much more efficient just to use the money you'd spend on electricity to buy a new machine and use the CPU."
Yes, there is the energy efficiency argument, but that logic excuses the energy/environmental costs in acquiring new equipment. If you buy a new videocard (or a new CPU) for this project, you increase demand for it and consequently, more of the videocards (or CPUs) are built. Making processors and related tech requires raw materials, water, and of course, electricity. So when you factor this in, it can be reasonably argued that it is best to use existing equipment to their fullest until they wear out (and then recycle the parts) instead of going out and acquiring new equipment because it crunches numbers faster.
Besides, PCI based videocards are pretty rare. Its not like there are mobos out there up to the task with multiple AGP card slots... There's probably a ton of Voodoo1/Voodoo2/Voodoo3 and TNT/TNT2/GeForce/GeForce2/GeForce3 PCI cards collecting dust.
"Oh yeah, it would be *perfect* for the DS! With download play, you'd only need one cartridge to play the legendary eight-player modes. So... who owns the rights to it now?"
Probably whichever party owns the rights to the Epyx porfolio of games. Atari didn't outright acquire their portfolio because the game was licensed for the Sega Genesis a year or so after the game made its debut splash (pun intended) on the Atari Lynx platform. Shall we write to Nintendo or Sony about acquiring the title?
First off the announcement hinted at the revolutionary nature of the new product by envoking the invites to remember when Apple first put *1000* songs in their pocket. An iTunes based phone is not revolutionary like that, especially when it is limited to between 100-250 songs. Furthermore, the iTunes based phone has been delayed at least three times now. Would Apple book the event and take a chance that Motorola or Cingular delayed it yet again right before the event? Nope.
Likewise, the Samsung agreement to purchase 40% of their flash memory is too soon for Apple to bring out an iPod Mini based upon flash (but will happen by Christmas 2005). And I can't see Apple booking an event like this to announce the iPod Mini receiving a color screen (although that would be a great complimentary announcement but Apple would probably wait until the school promotion of getting a free iPod Mini with an iBook expires on Sept. 30th).
My money is on an iPod Video model. With video blogs becoming popular and the iTune Music Store enabling videos, the time is right. Plus, Apple probably would love to bloody the noses of Archos and Creative a bit more.
My fingers are crossed that there's some sort of agreement for compatibility with TiVo-To-Go, but I'm sure that won't be the case for now.
Then again, I was totally wrong with assuming the rumors of switching to Intel chips were incorrect...
"So do I. In fact I keep looking for people to help us develop this.... To no avail. :( Aparently the people who want this most don't have the ability to implement it, and the people who have the ability (assuming they exist) aren't interested."
:)
Interested, but I have no abilities other than a token financial donation and some spare 3dfx videocards...
You'd (I mean, I) think the graphics card companies would donate some services to help out with the task...
"I am an incoming Feshman in college and I hang around with all sorts of people. I have met one person that has a PSP (out of a few hundred probably), A few who were tryin to do those online free PSP things, and noone that had a DS. It could just be noone talks about it. But I doubt that, some of my friends sit and chat about news on /., so I don't think they would avoid talking about their fancy new portables."
Yeah, but a lot of that is because both the PSP (especially the PSP) and the DS are relatively new systems. Think back to when the Xbox came out....how many people did you know that had one? Or even today in comparison to how many people who own the PS2.
As much as I hate to admit this - especially given my user name here - there's probably more PSPs in people's hands now than there were Atari Lynxs...
"You missed the most obvious thing: the DS is the first console with a real pointing device and a screen for each player. That means strategy games are finally feasible."
How about M.U.L.E.?
"I loved Gunship - so much so that I used to call up Microprose monthly while Gunship 2000 was in development. My favorites of their simulation line were F19 (the stealth fighter from Lockheed that was in contention with the eventually accepted F117), F15 Strike Eagle II."
My contention is that the alleged F-19 Stealth Fighter is in fact the still underwraps secret plane known to conspiracy theorists as the "Aurora."
Time or Newsweek broke the story on the leak when (who was it, Testor?) the model plane hit the stores and caused controversy, and an air force official didn't even bat an eye when asked about it, only smiling and stating something to the effect of "very clever."
One must remember that the Air Force only publically reveals their secret planes when the replacement model is flying. Look how long the Air Force refused to confirm the SR-71.
But I totally agree with the rest of your post... I'd love to see "Silent Service" resurrected. Others preferred the rival G.A.T.O. at the time.
I wish BOINC could also be designed to use graphics cards - ala the BrookGPU project - to help with the number crunching duties.*
Granted, it would require both Nvidia and ATi to donate with the efforts (especially ATi and their stingy Linux commitment).
I'd love to see some old machines with all their PCI card slots filled up with 3dfx Voodoo cards and the like helping future scientific endeavors.
*Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the BOINC software rendering the SETI@home graphics courtesy of OpenGL, but I think there are more noble tasks the GPU could be harnessed to work on...
"I'm surprised that someone hasn't started releasing modernized versions of the Microprose catalog. That company put out so many great games, and in several genres, that it was ridiculous (and expensive since I bought nearly every game they ever released, sometimes multiple times)."
:)
Well, let's track down who would own those titles today. Microprose (guess they never got around to changing their name despite that lawsuit from MicroPro) sold out to Hasbro Interactive. Hasbro Interactive (and especially its Atari brand) sold out to Infogrames of EuroFrance*. The Infogrames USA division became Atari Inc. So most likely, those titles belong in the States to Atari, and Infogrames in other jurisdictions on the planet. I don't know who owns the rights to distribution on the planets of Gallifrey, Krypton, or Alderaan, but obviously they aren't making much money at it since those planets are galactic rubble now.
As for Microprose titles, I would love to see new versions of their flight simulators as well as Gunship. Doubly so to see a new version of "Falcon" (Spectrum Holybrite - which I believe falls under the Atari banner now too) for the consoles, Windows/OS X, or portables...
*Much as their are iMacs, EuroFrance is a rebranding of France to show that it desires to be at the heart of the geopolitical construct of *Europe*. Infogrames, a French based company, views itself as a Pan European company.
"You got me to thinking about Gauntlet 3 for the Lynx. I had that game but I never got a chance to play it multiplayer. Was it 8 player? I know you could pick from ten different characters and I found the list of characters online. Elf, Valkyrie, Wizard, Warrior, Pirate, Gunfighter, Samurai, Android, Nerd and Punkrocker. Gauntlet 8 player would have been pretty cool. I remember the Lynx pushing the more than 2 player multiplayer aspect...it was just that almost no one had a Lynx to play with. Finding 8 people to play with would have been impossible for me at the time. It was also one of those games where you had to actually rotate the lynx to play it. That wasn't very ergonomic at all."
I had the benefit of belonging to an Atari ST platform based user group at the time, so many of the members had Lynx handhelds as well. So it was very easy to find 8 other people with Lynx units to ComLynx it up for multiplayer matches at the monthly meetings (in fact, there were usually 16 Lynx handhelds floating around; some people had a spare too).
I don't remember whether Gauntlet was an 8 player game or not. I think - but the memory might be faulty - it was 4 player, but I'm probably mistaken. It was originally entitled "Time Quests & Treasure Chests" as a Gauntlet themed clone before Atari Corp. got the licensing agreement in place to port Atari Games arcade titles (like Gauntlet, Paperboy, 720, Roadblasters, Xybots, KLAX, Toobin', Hard Drivin', Vindicators, STUN Runner, Pit Fighter, etc.), at the behest of Time Warner corporate.
At the meetings, we'd network up for California Games (4player), Warbirds (8player), SlimeWorld (8player), and to a lesser extent, Gauntlet. The car racing game was also popular at the time. BattleWheels came in late to the scene.
It is a shame that Bob Brodie was unable to convince the game division that handled the Lynx to port MIDI Maze to the platform. But that division didn't tend to listen to the computer division at the time prior to their reorganization before the release of the Jaguar. The title was subsequently licensed to BPS who rebranded it "FaceBall 2000" and ported it to almost all non-Atari game system platforms at the time. Such a shame since it was a huge hit that sold many Atari ST computers just to play that game.
www.atarihistory.org is a pretty good site to catch up on what was and what might have been.
Hope your Lynx still works if you still have it! I tend to think of the PSP as the Lynx of 2005. Hopefully it will have a more successful fate...
Multiplayer updates to:
*MIDI Maze (aka "Faceball 2000") - the original multiplayer FPS that is still kid-friendly. Perfect for a DS.
*Todd's Adventure in Slimeworld - old multiplayer hit from the Atari Lynx and the Sega Genesis. Obviously, a FPS update would be needed on the PSP, but possibly the sidescrolling method might still be useful on the DS.
*Warbirds - great dogfighting game. Was really addicting playing against 8 other players on the Atari Lynx. Definitely worth updating yet still retaining the title's charm.
*Battlewheels. 'Nuff said.
And finally...
*Duke Nukem Forever - Considering the development at this point is probably so far behind for the current and nextgen consoles, why not sell the title as an exclusivity to either of the handheld platforms? C'mon, 3DRealms, Sony, and Nintendo.
"There are many mp3 players on the market right now that are doing just fine, but don't have a dedicated music distribution system to go with them. I think that you overestimate the importance of such a system, and I think that Archos has a real chance to prevail (especially if they'd come down in price a bit)."
My point is, Archos and the others are irrelevant to what I was suggesting. The only way Archos could help out in getting Doctor Who distributed alternatively here in America would be indirectly, as a device compatible with the TiVo-To-Go-Service. Thus, it would require the suggestion that TiVo agreed to distribute the program, whereas Apple as a distribution system would not need a middleman.
"I never saw GPhoria, but if it was worse than the pointlessly stupid Spike TV awards, holy crap I'm glad I missed it."
At least the SpikeTV videogame awards had David Spade hosting them one year. GPhoria has *celebs* that are lower than Spade on the pecking order in Hollywood...
"Looks like the only person less intelligent than Dvorak is you."
Hey, give Dvorak some credit. He certainly was right about the switch to Intel (on the Macintosh platform). Incredibly. I certainly did not believe the rumors until the news that hit the fan after the Developer's Conference presentation.